Jeff Strand - A Bad Day for Voodoo

“Aztecs!” said Franklin.

“Nobody asked you,” Glenn told him. “Although it’s been a while since we got any use out of the sacrificial chamber. The new dagger we bought has just been lying on the air hockey table.”

“I’m not sure I want to cut out anybody’s heart tonight,” Mildred admitted.

“I’ll do the heart,” said Glenn.

“Actually, it’s not so much the cutting out of the heart,” said Mildred. “It’s more about what he said about the cannibalism thing.” “You mean you think we’ll look like hypocrites if we take a bite out of the heart?” Glenn asked. “That’s okay. I don’t mind looking like a hypocrite.”

“No, it’s just that I’m not sure I’ll fit into the sacrificial gown. I have put on weight since then. I know I should exercise more, but it’s hard with everything that’s going on right now. I know, I know, excuses, excuses.”

“If you want to treat them with kindness, that’s okay with me,” said Glenn. “Although we could also store them in the freezer until you’re feeling more up to it.”

“We still have all of that ham in the freezer. Let’s just be nice.” Franklin frowned and looked as if he were going to throw a temper tantrum like a three-year-old.

Glenn looked at Kelley and me. “Good news. Looks like our religious experience for tonight is going to be to treat you with respect and dignity. Would you like some ice cream? We have chocolate mint, french vanilla, and Neapolitan.”

I really wasn’t sure how to react to this, so I said, “Sure. Chocolate mint.”

And then my right ear exploded.

CHAPTER 19

Mildred, Glenn, and Franklin all gasped and stepped back.

Kelley screamed.

I wasn’t immediately sure what had happened, except that it felt and sounded like a water balloon filled with warm water popped next to my ear.

And then pain. Lots of it.

I clutched my ear. It wasn’t completely gone, but the entire earlobe was missing along with half of the cartilage above it. What remained was a wet, sticky, mangled mess.

Most of my earlobe was on my shoulder.

Back in Donna’s room, Adam screamed again, though I assume it was unrelated to my ear explosion.

I tried to stifle my own scream and accidentally bit down on my tongue so hard that I screamed.

“Did you shoot?” Glenn asked Mildred, his voice frantic. “Did you shoot him?”

“I didn’t shoot anybody!”

“Then what happened to his ear?”

“I don’t know! It just burst!”

“Somebody shot him!”

“I have the only gun, and I didn’t shoot it! Did you hear it go off? Did you? Do you see any smoke?”

I pulled my hand away from my ear. I was hyperventilating in a big way. More than half of my ear was gone. What if my entire head was next?

The inside part of my right ear was ringing, but I could still hear with it. So I was mutilated but not deaf.

I tried to speak but couldn’t catch my breath.

Kelley had bits of ear on her shirt.

“People’s ears don’t do that for no reason!” said Glenn.

Franklin clutched at his heart. “It was the Aztecs!”

Then he dropped to the floor in a dead faint. I didn’t blame him. I was pretty close to fainting myself, but I successfully forced myself to remain conscious and unsuccessfully tried to force myself to remain calm.

Oh God, it hurt. Though I’d never had my ear pierced, I think the pain was like having your ear pierced a million times in a row, all over, with a dull, ear-piercing device.

Blood ran down my neck.

I had to focus. Had to at least get enough control over myself to blurt out a sentence. That cabdriver could be holding the tip of a pin right between the doll’s eyes.

“You have to let me make a call,” I said.

Mildred shook her head.

“I won’t call the cops!” I promised. “I know who did this! I have to speak with him!”

“Satan?”

“No, not Satan.” I reached into my pocket and dug out the cabdriver’s business card. Zeke Geiler. “Please call this number and let me talk to him.”

Mildred looked like she wanted to question the reason we would call a taxi service about an exploding ear, but instead, she walked out of the living room and returned a moment later with a phone. She dialed the number on the card and then handed the phone to me.

“Try anything sneaky, and I’ll shoot your other ear off,” she said.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I have to do this. I can’t have these on me,” said Kelley, her voice a full octave higher than usual, as she picked my ear bits off of her shirt and flicked them onto the floor. She’d been strong and brave through this whole ordeal, but cartilage on your clothes is a bit much for anyone.

On the other end, the phone rang once, twice, three times.

Please answer before the crazy lady decides to shoot me, I thought.

“Hello?” asked a familiar voice on the other end of the line. A voice that sounded much more evil and villainous than it had earlier this evening.

“It’s me,” I said.

“I was wondering when you’d call,” said Zeke. “How’s your ear?”

“My ear’s totally fine,” I said. “Why?”

My thought process while saying that: “If he thinks the voodoo doll doesn’t really work, I’ll have much more leverage.”

My thought process immediately after saying that: “He’s going to poke the doll again to make it work! Retract statement! Retract statement!”

“Okay, I lied,” I told him. “I barely have any ear left. Are you happy?”

“Send me a phone picture of your missing ear. Right now. If I don’t have it in sixty seconds, the doll gets hurt again.”

Zeke hung up. Ack!

“This phone has a camera, right?” I asked Mildred.

“Why would my phone have a camera? I didn’t buy a camera. I bought a phone.”

“Every phone made since 1974 has a frickin’ camera!” I said. But this one didn’t even have a touch-screen display, and I didn’t see a camera lens anywhere. “Listen to me! I need a camera in the next few seconds, or I am going to splatter !”

“We have a Polaroid in the attic,” said Glenn.

“What’s a Polaroid?” I asked, not that it mattered. Franklin probably had a better phone, but he was still unconscious. Unless I could somehow stop time, there was no way I could meet the driver’s deadline!

Could I stop time?

No. I couldn’t stop time.

What part of me was going to explode next? My eyeball? My eyebrow? My chin? My uvula? The knuckle of my left ring finger? One of my thighs? My torso? Several inches of my lower intestine? My teeth? What if my teeth exploded in my mouth? I couldn’t even stand having the dentist drill a tiny little spot for a filling, and now there was a very real chance that my teeth could explode all over my mouth!

I frantically hit redial and called him back.

While it rang, I gave Kelley a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

It probably would have been more reassuring if the hand doing the patting wasn’t covered with blood.

Adam hadn’t screamed in a while.

“Where’s the picture?” asked Zeke.

“I don’t have a camera,” I said. “But I swear to you I’m not lying. If I hold the phone up to what’s left of my ear, you can probably still hear it oozing.”

“I think I should pierce the doll again just to be sure.”

“No! Listen to me. The doll is way more powerful than you think! It’s.. .it’s.. .it’s like the Red Bull version of voodoo.” “Prove it with a picture.”

“I said I don’t have a camera! Why are you asking me to prove to you that you have the upper hand? You’ve won! You’ve got me! What do you want?”