Jeff Strand: A Bad Day for Voodoo

“They didn’t give you any kind of warning?”

“No! It was only supposed to sting! I swear to you what happened wasn’t the plan!” Adam closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

“What if he dies?”

Adam opened his eyes. “He won’t, will he? People don’t die from losing legs, not if the ambulance gets there right away, do they?” “Did you see how much blood he lost?”

“Yes! It was all over the place! That was, like, ten times as much blood as I thought somebody would lose if their leg got cut off. Oh my God!” He was almost crying now. “Do you think they’ll find out we did it?”

“I don’t know. I mean, if you think about it, I don’t see how they could. A CSI team isn’t going to expose a voodoo curse, are they? We just need to get rid of this doll!”

Adam brightened. “We’ll burn it!”

“No, we won’t freaking burn it!”

“Oh yeah, right, right, right. Terrible idea.”

“Can the old lady.. .you know, deactivate it?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. She’d have to be able to, right?” “Maybe that’s something you should have researched before you bought a voodoo doll!”

“You’re the one who stuck the pin in it!”

I did not punch him. Praise me for my restraint.

“Don’t hit me,” he said, noticing my clenched fist. “I’m sorry. It was all my fault!”

“Yes.”

“I’ll make it right. I’ll fix it, I promise.”

“How can you possibly fix it?”

“I mean I’ll fix the doll. The surgeons will fix Mr. Click. They’ve got his leg with them—they’ll just use lasers to put it back on. He’ll be okay. He never wears shorts. Should I call the old lady?”

I shook my head. “If this does come back to us, we don’t want any record of any calls to a voodoo shop.”

“Yeah, yeah, good thinking. I’ll take it back tonight. We’ll be fine. Leg lasered back on, doll deactivated...everything will be awesome.” He reached for my backpack. “Give me the doll.” Put yourself in my position. Your friend, who is looking crazy-eyed and a little scary, wants you to give him a doll with unspeakable powers. This particular friend has demonstrated on numerous occasions that he is prone to very poor judgment. He’s a good pal, and you like hanging out with him; yet you also suspect that if he is left responsible for the doll, he might drop it, lose it, or somehow accidentally cause your history teacher to become a four-limb amputee.

So you tell him, “I’ll hang onto it.”

Adam’s eyes turned crazier and scarier. “Are you going to hand it over to the cops?”

“No!”

“You’re going to turn me in, aren’t you?”

“No! That would be like turning myself in! What’s the matter with you?”

“Why won’t you give me the doll?”

“We’ll take it there together!”

“Give me the doll!”

Adam lunged at me, knocking me to the ground. I got the eagerly awaited opportunity to punch him, though there was no joy or satisfaction in the act, just a hurt fist. Adam, who didn’t get punched very often, howled in pain and crawled off me, hand against his jaw.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I’m flipping out, okay? I admit it! My brain is weak.”

“Well, stop it! You could have wrecked the doll even more! We have nothing to worry about, as long as we don’t act like complete morons!” I picked up my backpack and stood back up. “Can I please have the doll?”

“No.”

“I’d really like the doll.”

“We’re taking it back together, all right? My mom will get home before yours, so when she does, we’ll borrow the car and take the doll back to the voodoo shop.”

“What do we do until then? Twitch?”

“Let’s see what they’re saying on TV.”

We went inside my house, plopped down on the living room couch, and after the usual five-minute hunt for the remote control, I turned on the television.

“—and a strange story becomes even stranger,” said the reporter, standing outside of the hospital, as a caption let us know that this was LIVE. “Mr. Ronald Click, a high school teacher who severed his left leg in a bizarre accident during class, has been pronounced dead.”

“No!” Adam shouted.

“We don’t have all the details, but he reportedly died on the operating table about five minutes ago.. .from a broken neck.” We stared at the television screen for a very long time. The reporter gave more details, and I’m pretty sure Adam said a lot of things, but quite honestly, I didn’t hear any of it.

“I think we killed him,” I finally said.

“Maybe not,” said Adam. “Maybe...maybe the doctors dropped him.”

I’ve never seen a truly insane person, the kind you have to lock in a padded cell, but I thought they probably looked a lot like Adam did at that moment. I honestly didn’t know if he was going to start sobbing or drop to the floor and cackle with maniacal laughter.

I opened my backpack, took out the box, and removed the lid. The doll’s neck was bent backward.

If this weren’t a true story, I’d make up something clever I had said. Something like “Well, this rules out the doctor-drop theory!” but more clever than that. But since this is entirely true, I just stared at it with my mouth hanging open, thinking that now might be a pretty good time for a heart attack.

“You killed him,” Adam said.

“I killed him?”

“You had the doll!”

“It should have been in a better box!”

“Don’t blame the box!”

“Why wasn’t it padded?”

“I don’t know!”

“You attacked me!” I shouted. “If it’s anybody’s fault, it’s—” Adam lunged for the doll, but I shoved him to the floor. He got up quickly, raised his fists, seemed to think better of the idea, and lowered them.

“I’m not gonna let you turn me in,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to!”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen!” Adam turned and ran out of my living room. I heard the door slam as he left the house. I thought about going after him, but no, I needed to let him blow off some steam and calm himself down.

I paced around for a few moments and then decided that I needed the help of somebody much smarter than me. I took out my cell phone to call Kelley.

CHAPTER 4

I had seventeen text messages from sixteen different people. Some samples:

OMG Click is dead!!!!!!!!

Did u hear about Mr. Click? Funny but sad!

Was it ur class when his leg popped off? Did u see it?

I heard it was the grossest thing ever!

Click = dead. Me = :)

Check Google! Mr. Click is DEAD! I never thought I would be sad but I'm crying right now!

I closed out of my text messages and touched Kelley’s name to call her. Then I quickly touched End to disconnect the call. I needed to think about what I was going to say. I couldn’t just blurt out “AAAAHHH!!! I killed him! I killed him! Ahh! Ahh!

Ahh!” I desperately needed her advice, but I had to be cool about the way I asked for it.

Was calling her a bad idea?

Maybe. She was one more person who’d know what I’d done.

But we needed a non-dumb person involved. Left on our own, Adam and I would just bumble our way right into prison. Kelley could help us find the elements of the situation that we’d overlooked, the things that might lead the cops right to my front door.

“Freeze!” they’d shout after kicking the door down. “Drop the voodoo doll! ”

“Never!” I’d scream. “If you coppers want the doll, you’ll have to—”

Ratatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatat!!!

“Ugh!” I’d say as 387 bullets pounded into my chest. Then I’d drop the doll like they’d asked.