Jeff Strand - A Bad Day for Voodoo

I still felt horrible.

A few minutes later, a car pulled into my driveway, and I met Kelley at the door. Her eyes were puffy, and she wiped her nose with a tissue as we sat down on the couch in my living room. I had the box with the doll on my lap.

“For now, we’ll pretend that I believe you,” she said.

“Do you?”

“No. I don’t think you’re purposely lying, but I’m not ready to believe in voodoo dolls quite yet. Show it to me.”

I opened the lid.

“It doesn’t look anything like him,” she said.

“I guess it doesn’t need to.”

“So you broke its neck?”

“Yeah.”

“Then the damage is done, right? As far as the doll is concerned, there’s nothing else that can happen.”

“Well.I mean.I’m not sure. I guess that if more stuff happened to the doll, more stuff would happen to Mr. Click’s body. His corpse could just start mangling itself on the autopsy table.” “Okay, so—again, pretending that I believe in the doll—there is more stuff that can go wrong. A self-mutilating cadaver will raise too many questions. We have to make sure that absolutely nothing else happens to the doll. Bury it.”

“Bury it? Do you think that could.I don’t know, bury his soul or something?”

“Bury his soul?”

“I’m not sure what I meant by that,” I admitted.

“By that line of thinking, you carried his soul around in your backpack all day. His soul is fine. You could buy a safe, but then your parents would want to know why you have a safe in your room. I guess hiding the doll under your bed might be good enough. We only need to protect it for a few days; once he’s buried or cremated, it won’t matter.” She frowned. “You know what? If we bury him, a dog might dig him up. We don’t want a bite to come out of his arm in front of the mortician.” “Definitely not.”

“So we hide the doll under your bed. If for some bizarre reason the police search your house, the most they’ll find is a doll that doesn’t look anything like Mr. Click. On to Adam: What do you think he’s doing?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“Think like Adam.”

“That’s too scary.”

“I’m serious, Tyler. You can pretty much get out of this mess by doing nothing. It won’t help your conscience, but as far as avoiding going to prison, all you have to do is not screw things up worse. Do you think Adam could be doing something at this very moment that’s screwing things up worse?”

Aw, crap.

“Yes!” I said. “Of course he could. He could be ruining everything. I don’t even want to think about how much damage he could be doing. Crap!”

“And you’ve called?”

“Yes.”

“And left messages?”

“Yes.”

“Messages that could get you in trouble if somebody besides Adam heard them?”

Damn! A trick question! I thought for a split second, then answered honestly, “No, I only said we needed to talk.”

“Did you text him?”

“No. He’s scared of texts.”

“What?”

“It’s a long story.”

“How did I not know that?”

“I thought I mentioned it that one time.”

“No, that’s something I would have remembered. How can you be scared of texts?”

“Right before his grandfather died, he looked up at Adam, took his hand, and said.. .You know what, we’re getting distracted.” Kelley nodded. “Yeah, sorry. Maybe you should lie to him.” “Like how?”

“Tell him that if he comes back, you’ll give him the doll. But don’t say ‘doll’ on the voice mail. Be vague.”

“What happens when he comes back?”

“You don’t give him the doll.”

I called Adam again. At the tone, I said, “Adam, it’s me. I really need to talk to you. I’ll give it back to you, okay? We can work this out.” I hung up, secretly proud of myself for not messing up and saying “doll.” You’ve got to savor the small victories. I looked at Kelley. “So now what?”

“TV?”

“Sure.”

And so, after shoving the box with the doll in it under my bed, Kelley and I watched TV. I really, really, really hope you don’t think of me as a role model, but if you do, you may be disappointed to learn that instead of taking further action to solve my problem, I watched some episodes of South Park that I’d seen a few times already. I apologize for letting you down, but if even Kelley thought there was nothing more we could do, I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to shout, “Eureka!”

Adam didn’t call me back.

My mom came home around six and asked how my day went.

I told her, leaving out the voodoo but leaving in Mr. Click’s leg and death.

Of the next six minutes, one minute and fifty-two seconds were spent convincing her that I wasn’t playing some mean- spirited joke, forty-eight seconds were spent being hugged while she cried, two minutes and one second were spent explaining why I didn’t immediately call her (official answer: I was handling it fine, no really, I was fine, seriously, I was fine, I didn’t want to disturb her at work, I was fine, really, I was fine), and one minute and nineteen seconds were spent insisting that, yes, I did love her, and if anything like this ever happened again, I would call her so she could mother me.

Then she started on Kelley. This lasted only three minutes and twenty seconds.

Admittedly, I felt pretty bad about this. Despite my preoccupation with the voodoo situation, I should have called my mom and dad. That said, my guilt over causing the death of a human being was a little more intense, so my mom-guilt would have to stay shoved near the back of my brain for the time being.

My dad came home shortly after that, though he was more interested in the technical aspects of how a teacher’s leg could just pop off than my fragile emotional state.

My cell phone rang. Adam. Finally!

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Meet me in Trollen Park in fifteen minutes,” he said, speaking slowly and carefully. I think he was trying to sound like a supervillain. Then he hung up.

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” I said, speaking into the dead line.

“Let me ask my parents.” I lowered the phone. “Is it okay if I give Adam a quick ride? He forgot to get a birthday card for his mom.”

Had I thought about this for an extra half second, I would have picked an excuse that couldn’t be verified as a lie with a quick visit to Facebook. (For example, “He needed a ride to the post office” would have worked just as well.) But it was too late now.

“Of course,” my mom said.

“Thanks.” I pretended to hang up and slipped the phone back into my pocket.

Adam hadn’t said to bring the doll. Should I bring it? Leave it at home? “Bring the doll” might have been implied, but he didn’t actually say it, so I decided to leave the doll safely under my bed.

Fifteen minutes later, with Kelley in the passenger seat, I parked my mom’s car outside of Trollen Park, a small playground where I spent long hours as a little kid, though pretty much nobody ever went there anymore. Adam was seated on the bottom of the slide. Another symbol-covered box rested on his lap.

CHAPTER 6

“Uh, hi,” I said as we walked toward the slide.

Adam glared at Kelley. “What’s she doing here?”

“She knows about the doll, but it’s okay, because she doesn’t believe us. What’s in the box?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“Come closer.”

“Okay, Adam, you’re totally creeping me out,” I said. “I understand why you’re mad, but that doesn’t mean you have to turn evil.” “I’m not evil.”