Unlocking things that are meant to stay locked has always fascinated me. When I was a kid I would go around the entire house getting my little digits on anything that was behind a closed door. Even at one point getting caught by my parents emptying their sock drawer just because I felt like it. It was annoying to my mom but my dad found it hilarious and by the time I started middle school, my dad bought me my first lock-picking set behind my mom’s back. Our little hobby we could enjoy with each other.
I quickly gained infamy in middle and high school as the girl who could pick any lock that needed unlocking. I got into lockers, locked doors, and cabinets like nothing. And got in trouble plenty of times because of it. It was to the point that I was one more lock away from expulsion in my junior year. So with the threat of my murder at the hands of my mother if I was expelled, I quit lock picking for the rest of my school career. Not cold turkey, of course, I continued to practice at home and outside of school to my heart’s content.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t using this to break into people’s houses to rob them. That wasn’t my style at the time. But I did use it to get into places I wasn’t supposed to. Abandoned houses, off-limit areas, even just those random padlocks on the sides of bridges. Somehow I managed to stay out of trouble and graduate from high school. And it seemed that my life began to go downhill the very moment that diploma was given to me.
A few months after graduation my dad lost his job. My city was a large industrial zone and it was heavily affected by the recession. The plant that my dad worked at had employed a good chunk of the town. And with its closure, plenty of people were now in danger of losing their homes. My dad was one of those people. Despite everything he tried to keep an outward appearance of calm, but I could tell how badly he was affected by the mounting bills.
At the same time, I was unable to find work right out of high school as with the plant’s closure the job opportunities dried up faster than a sponge on a stove. College had never been something I had wanted to do so I had banked on finding a job to maintain myself but with so few opportunities now available to me I decided to do something that until then I had sworn I’d never do. I started using my lock-picking skills to break into abandoned stores and take items to sell to others. If the store wasn’t going to sell them I sure as hell was.
I eventually roped a few of my friends into a little team of robbers to help me. I think I did this mostly to try and justify my choices. Since with other people with me, I could unlock the door and allow them to rob the place. It wasn’t much better, but offered me some dissociation from the crime.
On this day, my three other friends, Jess, Tom, and Jeff, were out late at night and hitting our third and final store. Kneeling before the door I was in the zone as I tried to get the tumblers to cooperate with me. But something about this lock differed from the thousands of others I had opened before. Every bit of progress I made was just as quickly undone.
“Mace, hurry up man. Someone is going to see us!” Jess said in her usual tone of apprehension whenever we did this. Mace was my preferred nickname since saying Macedonia out loud was certainly a mouthful to most people. I quickly waved her away as I suddenly started making more progress. My eyes grew wide as I felt the lock ready to give.
“What even was this store?” I asked no one in particular, far too focused on the progress I was making on the strange lock. Jess wasn’t much help as she continued looking up and down the street to see if anyone would notice us. Even though this entire section of town was completely abandoned by businesses and especially by cops.
“A voodoo shop,” Tom said as he tried to peer into the windows of the shop to try and see if anything could be seen. But on top of the fact that the sun was setting, the windows of the shop were completely caked in dust from the inside making it completely impossible to figure out what was inside the store.
“By the look of things this shit hole was abandoned even before everything went tits up.” Jeff sighed as he blew a cloud of smoke from his mouth. Along with Jess, he was serving as a lookout, though at that moment he was more concerned with finishing his cigarette. “My grandma told me about this place, and that it was cursed or whatever.”
“The fact it’s a voodoo shop probably aids in that assumption,” Tom said as he pulled his face away from the window and looked over at me. I had my tongue out as I fished around for the final tumbler. And finally, with one last satisfying click, I quickly grabbed the door handle and yanked it down. The old wooden door opened and a small rusty bell jingled our arrival to the empty shop.
“Alright kids, do your thing,” I told my friends as I pulled my hook tool out of the keyhole and stood aside for them to enter the shop. Robbing wasn’t my style, I got my thrill from unlocking the doors not from stealing shit. Jeff and Tom were quick to enter the store but Jess hesitated at the entrance.
“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this Mace,” she told me as I carefully packaged my tools and placed them into my jacket pocket. Jess was always the scardey cat in our group and acted sort of like our moral compass. Honestly, if things weren’t so bad in the city then she wouldn’t be doing something like this at all.
“It’s gonna be okay, Jess. Just quick in and out like always.” I smiled and patted her on the back. That didn’t do much to reassure her but it was enough to get her to enter the store. I leaned against the store wall and acted as the new lookout. If all went well we could usually clear out an area as quickly as 15 minutes. Sure that wasn’t exactly enough time to get most of the valuables but it was enough time to get a decent enough haul.
I looked down at my wristwatch and watched the second hand tick away. It was eerily quiet and it started getting on my nerves the longer it went on. There wasn’t even any wind, not even a small distant break of glass. It was dead silent and I suddenly started feeling like how Jess usually did. I stared back down at my watch and I felt vomit build up in my throat. Somehow in that short moment of panic, an entire half hour had passed.
“Shit,” I mumbled out as I looked back at the store. Not a sound came from inside, not any talking or even the sound of things getting moved around. It was like I was in a bubble of silence that let no sound whatsoever through. I stared at the entrance to the store and hoped that suddenly they would come bursting out of the store with the things they’d stolen. I started panicking the longer that it was taking them to exit. Finally, after a few more minutes I reached out and opened the door to the shop, the sad rusty bell jingled and announced my arrival.
The inside of the shop was completely covered in dust and cobwebs. Jeff had been right in thinking that this place had been abandoned much longer than the other buildings we’d broken into. And yet the entire store was completely stocked with items for sale. Potions and charms lined the shelves and by the cash register, there was an entire wall of voodoo dolls. Each of them was different and wearing clothes with black button eyes that seemed to follow me the more I walked around the store.
“Guys?” I called out, wondering where the hell they even were. That eerie silence continued to follow me and it was as if I could hear every single squeak of the floorboards and every breath I let out. There wasn’t a single sign of my friends at all. I was about to leave and try to call them but suddenly the ring of a bell pulled my attention over to the register.
There, standing behind the register was Jess. But she looked off, very off. She had a giant smile on her face and her eyes were almost as large as her smile was. She slowly turned her head to look at me in a very janky way. Her eyes moved in a couple of directions before they focused on me.
“We shouldn’t have come here, Macedonia,” she told me in a chipper voice that instantly put me in a fight or flight mode. In the five years I’d known Jess she’d never once called me by my full name. And it immediately creeped me out.
“Jess, what’s wrong with you?” I asked her as I started backing up towards the entrance to the store. Her eyes followed me as she stayed still at the register. “Where are Tom and Jeff?” I asked her she tilted her head at me and slowly narrowed her eyes at me, the smile never leaving her face.
“They’re dead,” she said with a laugh I’d never heard her make. My heart started beating so fast that it felt like it was going to burst right out of my chest and I quickly turned around to leave. Running to the door and grabbing the lever, I was shocked to discover that somehow it had locked itself from the other side.
“What the fuck is going on?!” I screamed, pounding my fists on the door before turning back around to look at Jess staring at me at the counter, her laughs turning into cackles as I noticed that something was sticking out of her back and forcing her to sway side to side as she laughed. Noticing that my eyes were focused on the foreign object sticking out of her back, the smile on her face somehow grew wider.
“I think she noticed, sir,” she said through her cackles. I watched as her eyes rolled up inside of her head and someone began to stand up from underneath the register. The person was giant and gaunt, with a freshly pressed and clean suit that somehow fit him perfectly despite his frail appearance. His black hair was a mess of curls and knots, a stitched-up mouth curled up into a horrible smile, and his skin was whiter than chalk was, with buttons for eyes and more stitches that appeared to be keeping his head attached to his shoulders.
“Shame on you, for not introducing us, Jessica,” he said with a hoarse Southern accent. With his other arm, he reached below the register again and produced a top hat to complete his ridiculously horrifying look. Jess’s eyes suddenly rolled back down and her head quickly jerked to look at the monster that was nonchalantly having an arm on her back.
“But you already know who she is, sir!” She giggled at him before her eyes again rolled back into her head and he pulled his arm out of her back with a sick wet pop. Jess suddenly went limp and slammed her face into the counter, revealing that her entire backside had been ripped open and everything scooped out of her.
“My, my, Miss Macedonia! Ain’t your daddy ever teach you not to break into stores?” the monster said with a yellow toothy grin so giant he was about to rip the stitches right off of his face. I frantically looked around the store for anything to defend myself with as my eyes again settled on the lifeless body of Jess left on the register. I could only imagine what this sick fuck had done with Jeff and Tom.
“Who the fuck, are you?” I demanded to know from him, reaching into my pocket and trying to find anything that might protect me. But in the brief second that I looked down when I pulled out my mini pocket knife he had somehow appeared before me sending me into a screaming fit. He stood there for a moment as I began to cry and damn near piss myself.
“Y’all are breaking into my store and don’t even have the common courtesy to read the sign?” He tsked in disappointment and pointed a blood-stained glove above my head. I thought he was about to finish me off right then and there, but instead, he was pointing above me. I spared a glance and looked at the wooden sign hung up over the door. ‘Ol’ King Creole’s Half Priced Voodoo Store’.
“King Creole?” I whimpered as I looked back at his pale face. He nodded and took off his hat doing a dramatic bow before me. “P-please sir, w-we thought this place was-” He quickly held up a finger to my face and softly shushed me. Standing straight again he slowly brought his finger to his mouth to continue shushing me.
“Your friends already gave me the same spiel. That don’t automatically make you in the right I’m afraid,” he said with a chuckle as he switched from shushing me to tapping his long fingers against his face in thought. “Now what am I going to do with you?” He was practically giddy with excitement over what he was going to do to me.
“P-please, I-I’ll do anything just please don’t hurt me!” I screamed at him, feebly holding the knife in front of me. Something about what I said pulled him out of his giddy imagination. But the smile remained on his face as he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved his entire face into mine.
“Aaaaaanything?” He hissed with excitement. I half expected his breath to be horrendous but oddly enough, it didn’t smell like anything at all. That along with his sudden interest in me quickly got me to nod in agreement. “Wonderful! Then how about this, Macedonia my dear.” He let go of me and quickly ordered me to follow him as he practically skipped his way past the register.
“M-Mace,” I mumbled at him but he was already too far away to have heard me. I sheepishly followed after him as I wiped my face of tears and boogers and placed the pocket knife back in its home. I quickly ran past Jess’s dead body and just did my best to avoid eye contact with anything, following after King Creole as he took me into the back room and into his office.
“In exchange for your life, Mace.” That caught me off guard since he somehow had heard my nickname. “You’ll do five jobs for me. Should be simple with a woman of your skills of lockpicking. In exchange for that, I shall promise that nothing will happen to you,” he said with a smile and he looked around his desk for something. It seemed too good to be true, and there was definitely going to be something attached to this but at the same time, I couldn’t really argue with him. If anything these jobs would ensure that I kept on living at least a little longer.
“What kind of jobs?” I asked him after some hesitation. He quickly spun around on his heels and produced a drawing for me. I looked down at it and was greeted by a flannel-wearing voodoo doll with a beard and a little axe to go with. “What am I supposed to do?” I asked him with some confusion. He chuckled and sat in his chair staring at me with his button eyes and creeping me out to no end.
“Break into that address and bring back that doll to me. Seems one of my store clerks sold him without telling me. And I’d rather have him back here safely in the store than out and about.” I was about to ask what address but it suddenly began to appear on the paper in front of me above the doll.
“That’s one job.” He held up a finger to me and wagged it back and forth. “Complete this job and then I’ll contact you for another one at a later date. Understand?” he asked with a smile. I stared at the paper and tried to work out the address in my head. It was local and was maybe a half-hour walk from our current location.
“Okay,” I told him, folding the drawing and stuffing it into my pocket. I stood there awkwardly before I started turning around to go and do the job. Before he grabbed my shoulder from behind and draped a necklace out in front of my face.
“Almost forgot. You might need this.” He chuckled as I held my hand out for the necklace and he dropped it into my hand. It was a simple rope necklace with a strange talisman attached to it. “If that lil’ fellow is causing you issues, just show him that. Should clear everything up.” He patted my shoulder and finally let me out of his office.
I could feel his gaze on me as I slowly and shakily made my way back out onto the shop floor and made my way to the door. Even when I was sure we had broken the line of sight it felt like he was still staring deep into my soul. As I reached out to open the door it opened for me and I quickly exited the shop. Despite that, it still felt as if he was watching me from somewhere.
I panted softly as my knees gave out and I collapsed to the sidewalk and threw up into the street. As I wiped the bile from my mouth, I stared down at my watch and felt another drop kick to my stomach. According to my watch that entire ordeal had lasted only a full minute. Terrified by the power that King Creole possessed, I quickly got up from the floor and went about heading towards my destination.
The walk there was uneventful but if you had seen me walking down the sidewalk you would’ve thought that I was paranoid, which I most certainly fucking was. At every noise that was made near me, I looked back expecting to see that tall bastard following after me. Every five steps I felt the need to look behind me or next to me or even fucking above me in the sky. My heart had calmed down a bit but it was now again pounding as I neared my destination.
It was one of the last nice suburbs left in the city, and the address pointed to it being a house in the neighborhood. I wasn’t exactly new to breaking into houses but this would be the first time that I would ever break into one that wasn’t abandoned or condemned. The sense of paranoia that King Creole was following me suddenly turned into paranoia of someone from one of the other houses seeing me breaking in.
I arrived at the house to find it completely dark. I swallowed a rising lump of bile and anxiety in my throat and dug into my pocket. Taking out the note I double-checked to be sure that this was the place and then pulled out my tools. I was fortunate enough that the family living here had several plants on their porch which served to keep me hidden from view. If you were to look at me and know I was there it was obvious, but a passing person wouldn’t be able to see me.
My hands trembled uncontrollably as I attempted to pick the lock to the home. It was a simple lock and yet my hand just wouldn’t cooperate with me. I had the necklace that King Creole gave me tied up in my hand like it was some crucifix and I was about to go fight some vampires, and this strange talisman thing was shaking around as my hands tried to do the thing that I had done countless times before.
“Common, just, fucking.” I was getting pissed at myself for not only not being able to pick a lock, but also for getting myself into this whole situation. But soon the rhythm began to return to my movements as I fished with my hook tool and was finally able to get the tumblers to cooperate and open the door for me. I let out a relieved sigh and quickly entered the house. I was glad to see that this family didn’t have an alarm system and this would hopefully be a quick job.
The house was dark and illuminated only by the setting sun. But I was still too scared to turn the lights on so I made do with the limited amount of sun that I had to work with. I quickly made my way into the living room and frantically began searching for the voodoo doll. It was when I was looking under the couch for it that I heard a rhythmic slapping sound. Like someone hitting a wet mop against a hard surface. At first, I thought it was someone coming down the stairs but after a few seconds, it continued.
I tried to ignore it and continue my search for the doll. But it was soon obvious that it wasn’t in the living room. I looked over at the family pictures and saw that they had a kid. Which made me even more ashamed of what I was doing. But it also showed me that the doll was mostly likely upstairs in their son’s room. As I made my way over to the staircase, that sound grew louder and louder. On instinct, I pulled out my knife again and started slowly making my way up the staircase. As I did so the sound grew louder but was also coupled with a cracking sound. As I made it to the top of the stairs the carpet on the stairs suddenly became very soggy. In the dim light, I thought that maybe their bathtub had flooded. But as I leaned down to touch the carpet I was horrified to see that it wasn’t water. It was blood.
The puddle of blood was coming from the room just to the left of the stairs and against my better judgment I took a peek inside. I was horrified to see a man in a flannel swinging an axe down over two horribly mangled corpses. That’s where that sound had been coming from. I was able to put two and two together to realize that this guy had been the voodoo doll. But I had no idea how I was going to get him back to King Creole, but that wasn’t going to matter if I was about to end up like the family here.
I started back down the stairs but I hadn’t noticed how far the blood had traveled, and my first step resulted in my falling down the stairs and landing flat on my ass. I sat there stinging in pain all over before I was suddenly horribly reminded about what I had just seen. I quickly looked back up the stairs and had to cover my mouth before I screamed. The axeman was staring down at me with a crazed look on his face and smacking the blunt part of his axe against his palm.
“First day of freedom and I already get to kill someone else.” His husky voice chuckled as he started walking down the stairs towards me. He cackled as he slapped the axe against his palm with each step he took toward me. I quickly looked around for anything that could help me and suddenly remembered the necklace.
“S-stay back!” I screamed out as I held up my hand with the talisman wrapped around my hand. He reached the end of the stairs and kept coming toward me as I frantically backed up. I held it up toward him and prayed that it would do something. He lifted the axe over his head and was about to bring it down on me when a sudden flash of bright light enveloped the two of us. The axe fell right between my legs and got me to scream out in fear.
But as I blinked away the last of the blinding light’s effects I saw that the axeman had disappeared. Replaced with the voodoo doll of him. I sat there for a few seconds before I let out a few pained laughs. As I picked up the doll from the floor I suddenly started hearing crying coming from upstairs. I looked up and saw the son staring down at me and crying. It was certainly some consolation that he hadn’t been killed but now there was the issue that he had seen me.
“H-hey sweetie,” I told him. He must’ve been no older than seven or eight. “I-it’s okay, I took care of the bad man. You just call 911 okay? Can you do that for me?” I asked him. He sniffled and quickly nodded before walking over to another room, which I assumed was one with a phone. I quickly stuffed the voodoo doll into my pocket and left the house as quickly as I could. Not even bothering to lock the door since the cops would most likely be not too far behind.
When I returned to the voodoo shop Creole was simply ecstatic to see me. And when I produced the voodoo doll I thought he was going to die from happiness. I watched as he took the doll from me and pinned it back to the wall of voodoo dolls. There were so many of them and I got the sudden and horrible realization that they were all people turned into dolls.
“You did a wonderful job, Mace!” he told me with a hard slap to the back, that’s one down and four to go,” he said with a happy chuckle. I felt my knees wobble at the thought of what he was possibly going to make me do now. It wasn’t like I would be able to tell him no.
I didn’t want to end up like my friends, or like the people turned into voodoo dolls on his wall. Or even worse if I were to tell him no. So for the time being, I’m in his debt until I can pay it off.
Fuck my life.