Halfhearted Burial

The little girl scout looks up at me from the doorway, with an impish grin. She seems satisfied, but even more than that, amused; amused with my disheveled, angered appearance. I'm breathing fast, hot, heavy, and clutching at the doorframe, making sure not to keel over and vomit.

"What... are... you doing here?" I say, despite already knowing the answer to that, and more. 

Charlotte giggles, and backs up a bit into the darkness of the house.

"Mister, I think you need to take a chill pill. Come on in here, join my tea party!!"

She runs into the shadows. I stand in the doorway. I wanted to chase her, but I couldn't. My legs wouldn't move. They just would not listen.

She calls out to me. "What, are you afraid of the dark, Jamie boy?"

My legs gave out, but it wasn't because of her insult. It was due to a noise I heard from inside of the house. It reminded me of Arnold's final cries. I rushed in without thinking about it, out of pure instinct.

I winced when I immersed myself into the darkness. I was blind without a flashlight, so every few seconds I ran into something. After a couple of minutes of trying to find my way about the house, a sudden flash of orangeish light flares up everything around me. I fall to my knees, with my arms attempting to block the light.

The light dims. I see a figure, and I almost recognize it, before something hits me across my back and I slam to my side in pain. 

I'm rolling about, and then I look up, and in the haze of consciousness, I see her.

The Wooden Girl stands above me, staring down at me with victorious eyes.

"I have you now, James." She says.

I roll around onto my palms, grab at the hidden knife under my sleeve, and try to slit her throat. Unfortunately, I'm hit again across the back, and pushed down to a hard, cold floor.

A man in a hoodie, ripped jeans, and some type of rubber clown mask stands before me. He's completely silent as he stares down at me. He raises his hand torso level, and wags his finger.

The Wooden Girl laughs it up as I lay there, defenseless. The orange light reflects off of the deadly strings feeling the air around her. One of the strings silently touches down on my leg, and slowly digs into it. I feel it slip into something vital and I scream in horrendous, insane pain.

"Oh, I missed that scream! So very much! It's like music to my ears, hun. You have no idea."

She walks around my body, her hips swaying. Her dirty, bloodstained tennis shoes tiptoe around my limbs. She pats the man in the mask on the back.

"Good job for a first timer, old man. I might reward you later if you keep it up."

She looks back down at me.

"Oh, James. It's been a while, hasn't it? How's life been? Has Jack been keeping an eye on you? He's told me a lot about you. We discuss you quite frequently. We always argue over you, too. But we're working out a deal currently, yknow? And I think that we may have finally gotten to a sufficient compromise; which is why you're here now. See, I just couldn't wait for permission! That's how much I love you."

She gets down to her knees, and into my face. Her greasy hair brushes against my cheeks.

"It's time to come home. To me."

The strings started to descend upon me. And that's when I gave up. That's when I was done. I was done running. I just wanted to stop, for once in my life. I was going to accept my fate for what it was.

What more could I do anyways? What could I have done to stop it?

I felt the strings begin to burrow into my skin. But what hurt me the most was when she embraced me. I was crying, but she was giggling. The stench of her body was transforming. At first, it reeked, and I'm still perplexed by how I could have even controlled my stomach. But as the strings ate their way into my nervous system, the smell of her changed into a sweet, loving smell.

Like Holly. Exactly like Holly. So I accepted it.

And I truly thought that was the end.

But that gunshot rang through the dark space, and the man in the clown mask falls down, in a haze of pink mist; brain matter. The Wooden Girl lets go of me, and is greeted by a bullet straight through the side of her head. Chunks of her face fall down upon me, but no blood. Just... some other type of black, darkened substance. And dust. Some bone, I reckon, too.

I was so out of it, that the sight didn't horrify me. No, I was more interested by the man standing before me. The man I had known for years. The man who I probably should have known would never let me go out like this. My boss.

"Get away from him, Woody."

 "Oh, Roger! It's been a long time. I missed you.Why are you here though?" She says, despite half of her mouth being gone. The voice doesn't seem to be halted by the fact though, but if anything it sounded louder.

 Roger doesn't say anything. His eyes say it all. He aims the gun directly at the Wooden Girl.

"...You'd shoot me, Roger? Really?"

"I sure as hell would, and will. I'm not afraid of you."

"Big talk for a small man like yourself."

 "Yeah, well. It's big enough. I'm not here for chit chat anyways. So shut the fuck up."

"...You'd really risk it? Shooting me? You know a bullet, or five, or hell even ten, wouldn't stop my strings."

"Yeah, but it sure as hell would inconvenience you. That body's falling apart. I'm thinking, that maybe you'd rather not have that. I'm thinking, you're having a hard time finding a suitable candidate, aren't you?"

"...Just a bit. Don't you know, girls are so ugly these days?"

"I don't know any ugly girls. I live in South Florida."

"Yeah, well, it's not the outside, it's the inside."

"Such. Bullshit."

It seemed like their bickering would go on forever, but the boss finally started to ignore her, and walked towards me. The Wooden Girl... and I'll never forget this, smiled, despite half of her mouth shredded to bloody bits, and backed off.

I knew that the Wooden Girl was planning something, and I even saw it coming. I tried to warn my boss, but I couldn't move my mouth; the strings were preventing me from speaking.

The boss noticed how strange that was too, and sort of just froze in his tracks. He squinted, as if he was putting all the pieces together. A tiny sliver of light passes over his shoulders, and he turns around.

Only to meet a metallic baseball bat with his face. He's knocked to the ground, and Charlotte stands over him, giggling. The Wooden Girl dances over to her little demon, and laughs as well.

"You like my new body, darling? I certainly do. She's very promising. Probably the best body I've had since..." she looks at me and says, "her."

Boss turns over, to face Charlotte. He was clearly furious, but as soon as he saw her, his face sort of just drained its beet-red coloring.

"She's... she's just a kid. A damn kid!"

"Mhmmm. Ain't she beautiful? She's going to make a fine body, I can already tell."

"What happened to her family? What happened to her?"

"I took everything away from her, including her own mind; her self. It's all mine now, her body is mine now, everything's mine. And I'm not going to stop. Never, ever. Not until I have everything of hers, yours, his, everyone's. And who, exactly, is going to stop me? No one. James is mine."

The strings began to crawl through my skin again, and saw many of the strings writhe and slither towards my boss. I felt the faint hope of escape that glimmered for a few seconds slide away, and rested my head on the floor. I looked over to the boss once more, to catch his eye and say something final, but he wouldn't even look at me. He was busy adjusting his bulletproof vest for some reason.

"...Any final words, Roger?"

Roger doesn't answer again, he was busy shuffling through his vest pockets.

"...Helloooo? Well?"

He gives her one slight glance, and goes back at it.

The Wooden Girl's looks down to the floor, her hair obscuring her face. She holds out her hand, and Charlotte gives her the bat.

Her dead eyes pierce through her hair.

"Answer me."

She holds the bat up, and just as she's swinging it, her back explodes in a shower of dead skin, black liquid, and bone. A tall man with an assault rifle, and dressed in a Lonely Hearts Special Units Officer uniform, stands there.

"Target down, rise is imminent. Recovering targets."

 He picks me up, and another officer runs in and grabs the boss. They takes us out of there. In my final moments of consciousness, while I was being carried out of there, I look back at the Wooden Girl.

She doesn't smile at me, or wink, or anything of a flirtatious nature. Instead, her dead eyes stare into my restless eyes. She holds her left hand towards me, and closes it into a fist.

I'm gone.















I failed. The Lonely Hearts found their bodies buried halfheartedly in the backyard, excepting the father. The father was the man in the mask.