Lababu: The Doll That Shouldn’t Exist

When Amara’s grandmother died, she left behind only one item: a doll named Lababu.

It came in a wooden box, wrapped in yellowing lace and smelling faintly of smoke and roses. The note attached read:

“Never speak to it. Never let it sleep in your bed. Never leave it alone with children.”

Amara laughed at first, thinking it was one of her grandmother’s old superstitions. She’d grown up hearing tales of village spirits and cursed objects. But those were stories from Sierra Leone, far from the quiet suburbs of Maryland where Amara now lived.

Still, there was something unsettling about Lababu.

Its eyes were too lifelike. Green, glassy, and always slightly wet. The stitching around its mouth was uneven, as if someone had tried to reseal it after it had already been opened. Its dress was faded crimson, the color of dried blood, with one sleeve torn and singed.

Amara placed the doll on a high shelf in her home office. She didn't think about it again until two nights later when she heard a noise in the middle of the night.

“Tck, tck, tck…”

A soft tapping, like fingers drumming against wood.

She sat up, heart pounding. The sound came again—closer now, like it was just outside her bedroom door. She opened it slowly.

Nothing.

But when she returned to bed, the doll was on her pillow.

Amara froze. She hadn’t moved it. She was sure of that.

The next day, she packed Lababu in a shoebox and shoved it in the back of her closet. But that night, she found it in the kitchen. Sitting on the table. Holding one of her spoons.

Amara turned to the internet, typing in keywords she never thought she’d seriously research: “Lababu doll curse,” “African haunted dolls,” “how to destroy possessed objects.”

She found almost nothing—except a half-translated forum post from someone in Freetown who warned:

“Lababu no be toy. She be mouth for something older than bush. If she dey with you, no turn your back too long.”

A mouth for something older.

Amara started to remember things her grandmother used to say when she was little. About “bush spirits” that lived between the world of the living and the dead. Ones that needed vessels.

The Lababu doll wasn’t a toy. It was a container.

The final straw came when Amara's niece came to visit.

Little Ava was five and fearless—until she saw the doll.

She wouldn’t go near it. Screamed when she saw it on the couch. Said it talked to her.

“What did it say?” Amara asked gently.

Ava wouldn’t answer. She only whispered, “It wants to wear your skin.”

Amara didn’t sleep that night.

She didn’t dream either.

She woke up at 3:33 AM with a splitting headache and blood under her fingernails. The doll was lying on her chest.

Its stitched mouth was open.

She tried burning it the next morning.

It didn’t burn.

The flames curled around it like a shield. The fire alarm went off. Her curtains caught fire. But Lababu just sat in the middle of the blaze, untouched.

Finally, Amara called the only person who might understand: her mother.

Her mother didn’t hesitate when Amara explained.

“You have to bury it. In salt. In a grave meant for a body. Not a toy. And never speak its name again.”

Amara did exactly that.

She drove three hours to an abandoned cemetery in the hills. Dug a deep hole. Poured in an entire bag of kosher salt. Dropped Lababu in and filled it with dirt. She didn’t say goodbye. She didn’t even look at it.

For a few weeks, everything was quiet.

Until one morning she found a single stitch of red thread on her pillow.

Epilogue:

There’s a legend now, passed quietly between immigrant families who remember the old stories.

If you find a doll named Lababu, don’t keep it. Don’t sell it. Don’t even say its name out loud.

Because Lababu isn’t a doll.

She’s just the first face of what’s still coming.

And she’s always looking for a new one to wear.