“Work for you?” I asked the top hat-wearing man who was playing the piano before me. The last thing I wanted to do was work for anyone associated with Sinclair and his group of friends. But then again I wanted nothing more than to quit this hellhole of a job. But then again how much better would working for him over Sinclair be?
“Yes, work for me!” King Creole told me excitedly as he finished his piano melody and leaped out of his seat. The amount of energy he had just from this simple action already made me exhausted. “I mean you’ve wanted to quit for such a long time haven’t ya?” he asked as he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me over to him. Apparently Creole doesn’t have a concept of personal space.
“How did you know I’ve wanted to q…q…” Again the word ‘quit’ was impossible to spit out from my mouth and Creole stared at me struggling with a broad smile on his face as I continued to try and spit the word out.
“Let me check you out, son.” He told me, grabbing my face and forcefully pulling my gaze to meet his button eyes. “Don’t let me stop you, Ted, my boy. What is it you’ve been wanting to do?” he asked as he kept an unflinching stare into my very soul. I again tried to tell him I wanted to quit, though with the same success rate as previous attempts.
“I’d recognize that soft glow in your eye anywhere. You’ve met the good Dr. Harrison haven’t ya?” His smile grew wider and a laugh came erupting out of his throat as he shoved me away from him. Dumbfounded I simply nodded and rubbed my jaw from where he had been gripping me.
“What would Dr. Harrison have to do with me not being able to q…” Again I fell into the trap of not being able to spit out the word. And this got a good laugh out of Creole as he watched me struggle for a few more seconds.
“Don’t tell me ya haven’t noticed that lovely glow in his pretty ol’ eyes?” He tapped his own buttons to emphasize the point. I nodded, it was impossible to miss those beautiful shimmering eyes that he possessed. “Well them pretty emeralds have a spell on em,” he said again with a yellow toothy smile. “Guess you can say the doc has a sorta, hypnotic spell in his eyes. A gift from me of course,” he said again with another laugh.
I stared at him for a moment, going over this information in my head, and it began to make sense. My inability to quit, or think any other thoughts toward Harrison. I’d been hypnotized and I hadn’t even noticed. Well, I doubt it’s obvious to yourself when you’ve been hypnotized, but regardless it all made sense.
My little moment of clarity was shattered when loud screams burst into the lobby. My memory was jogged to the fact that a giant four-legged monster was loose on the race track. Turning toward the entrance to the horse race I was met by a stream of blood-covered patrons running for their lives. Followed quickly by Monsieur LeBlanc chasing them and screeching after his escaping meal.
“Seems like he’s having his fun,” Creole said without a care in the world. “Monsieur!” He called out toward LeBlanc, causing me to quickly feel like the end was in fact near. That this is where I was gonna bite the dust and never be heard from again. LeBlanc snapped his head over toward Creole and stopped his pursuit of the fleeing patrons. He instead slowly began to crawl over toward us.
“Roi Creole,” he wheezed out of his agape mouth. LeBlanc’s voice is very monotone. He adds no inflections to his voice, so it sounds almost like text to speech but without any jank. It’s just more to add to the feeling of the uncanny valley that LeBlanc gives off. Almost human and yet far enough away to raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
Once LeBlanc was in front of us, Creole began to converse with him in fluent French. I stood awkwardly by while they talked for a few minutes. Creole must have some charm to him for he got what I think was a laugh out of LeBlanc, a long series of wheezing chirps and hisses. At last, LeBlanc nodded to the both of us, before turning around and chasing after the patrons that had run away from him.
“Well, that should buy us some time and keep Constantine busy,” Creole said with a dry laugh, turning back to me and again wrapping his arm around me. Standing next to him made me feel incredibly insecure about my height. Now I’m by no means short, I’m 5’11, but standing next to Creole made me short for the first time since I was in elementary school. “So now, Ted my boy, let’s lift that silly hypnotism over you.”
I looked at him as he again grabbed my face and raised his gloved fingers to my eyes. Chanting in some language I’d never heard before he slowly pushed his fingers into my eyes. My panic began to build as I was prepared for the pain. But the pain never happened as Creole continued to chant and soon pulled his fingers back with what looked like a green sparkling worm wriggling around in his fingers.
“Go ahead, Ted my boy. Try saying what you want to say,” Creole said with a smile as he allowed the worm to wriggle around in his gloved hands. I was so grossed out that I could barely understand his request of me. But after he thankfully crushed the worm in his fingers and it turned into sparkling green dust I nodded and took a deep breath.
“I want to quit.” Those four simple words were enough to get me to shout out a cheer. It was like finally being able to curse to your heart’s content when your parents are away. Creole watched with amusement as I shouted out the word quit over a hundred times or more. Finally, I stared back at him when the word quit began to feel like it wasn’t even a real word anymore.
“What kind of job are you offering me anyway?” My inquiry got a big toothy grin from Creole as he stared at me with his large button eyes. He motioned for me to follow him, a cane suddenly appearing in his hand as we began to walk through the pool of blood that was slowly filling the lobby from the hallway that led to the race track.
“My current store clerk is getting a bit…long in the tooth shall we say. I’m exploring some options to replace him.” Creole told me as we approached the front door to St. Mihel. My shoulders slumped the moment he said that.
“Sir, you’re asking me to leave this job. For a retail job? No offense sir, but I think I would’ve rather stayed hypnotized.” That got a good loud laugh out of Creole. So much so that I noticed one of the stitches over his mouth had ripped and was dangling from his lip.
“Oh Ted, you’ve got quite the sense of humor!” Creole said after a good 30 seconds of laughter, stopping for a moment to fix the broken stitch over his mouth. He led me over to the front door, opening and holding it open for me. I walked past him and expected to see the familiar parking lot of St. Mihel, but instead, I was suddenly met with a completely foreign environment. A dusty wooden shop filled to the brim with voodoo dolls, potions, knick-knacks, you name it.
“Theodore, welcome to my Half Priced Voodoo Store!” Creole told me with excitement as he once again wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into his chest. I took a look around the shop. It looked abandoned more than anything. As my eyes scanned the room they inevitably landed on the front desk where I met the shock of my life. Standing at the counter was what looked like a life-sized human ventriloquist doll. Complete with the red painted cheeks, button eyes, and a dumb suit, but this one looked like he was suspended from puppet strings.
“Welcome back, King Creole, sir!” the puppet spoke suddenly, scaring the absolute shit out of me. Looking up at the ceiling where the puppet strings came from I half expected some horrible creature to be puppeteering the life-sized creature but I was met by nothing but the ceiling.
“Travis my boy!” King Creole said excitedly as we both approached the front counter. Though he was pretty much just dragging me over towards it. I wanted nothing more than to be away from him more than anything. “Meet Theodore Fairfax! I was hoping to get him to replace you.” Creole told him bluntly. A little harsh if you ask me. He’s literally showing his old clerk his own replacement.
“Oh that sounds like a wonderful idea, King Creole sir!” His clerk told us as he maintained that same annoying chipper tone you get from an employee who is trying way too hard to be friendly. I’d never met someone so happy as to be replaced.
“Sir, um, why do you need to replace him? He doesn’t exactly look like someone who wants to be replaced.” I asked Creole. He rubbed his chin in thought for a moment. It took him a few thought-driven noises before he turned to me with his answer.
“I just feel like having a new one,” he said with a smile. I have to admit, that’s a first for me. Never heard of a boss firing you just because he was bored of you. That’s probably against some kinda of labor law. Then again I didn’t even know if Travis was even fully human.
There was an awkward air of silence once King Creole dropped that bombshell. Which was quickly broken when the shrill sounds of a phone ringing broke out. Every eye in the room turned toward the source. An open door over to the right of the store counter had a sign that said office hanging off of it.
“It appears you have a phone call, sir!” Travis told us. To which Creole sighed and took off his top hat. Revealing just how messy and tangled his black hair was as he ran a gloved finger through it.
“Thought I would have more time. It’s probably Sinclair. Travis, do be a dear and keep Ted company while I deal with this.” Creole told his store clerk. His cheery tone disappeared and was replaced with one that was filled with anger and spite. He walked over to his office and slammed the door behind him. Leaving me alone with Travis.
“So…how much do you get paid to be here?” I asked him, looking around at the empty shop. How did this place make any money? It seemed like it was abandoned both inside and from my quick glance over to the front windows, outside as well.
“I’m going to slit you open.” Came the response from Travis. Caught completely off guard by the remark I turned back to look at Travis. Instead of being met by the cheery store clerk, I was greeted by the crazed stare of Travis looking back at me. He slowly reached down below the counter and pulled out a long kitchen knife.
“W-why?’ I questioned, suddenly painfully aware of the fact I was unarmed. “I thought you were cool with me taking your job?! Wait…I don’t even want your job!!” I told him, raising my arms up in a defensive pose.
“I can’t have you taking King Creole away from me,” he said with a manic smile as he started climbing over the counter. “He’s the only thing I have left! So I won’t let you take him away from me!” he screamed. Jumping over the counter tackling me to the floor and raising the knife over his head to plunge it down into me.
Thinking quickly as he plunged the knife down, I grabbed it by the blade and kept it from plunging into my chest. This seemed to catch Travis off guard and that was enough for me to flip him over and we ended up tumbling and rolling around on the floor together, wrestling for control of the knife while my hands were cut to shit from holding the blade.
“I don’t want your job you fucking psycho!” I shouted at Travis as we battled for the knife. He did nothing but laugh at me as we tried to yank the knife away from each other. I balled my mangled hand into a fist and began punching his face over and over to get him to let go of the knife. As I brought my fist down on his face again he reached out and bit me.
Shouting out in pain, Travis used this opportunity to pull himself away from me, with his knife still in his hands he was now more ready to kill me. Panting I stood up and stared down at my mangled hands. But I wasn’t about to let some psycho store clerk take me down.
“What’s going on here?!” Creole shouted suddenly. Pulling our attention away from each other and over toward him. “Travis, are you revealing brand secrets?!” Creole shouted at his store clerk, walking over to him and grabbing him by the collar. Travis dropped the knife he had so ardently clung to.
“N-no, sir! I would never! I’m simply trying to kill him! So that you don’t replace me!” Travis quickly told King Creole. Creole looked over at me and stared down at my mangled hands. He nodded and suddenly smiled at Travis.
“I see. You don’t wanna be replaced, huh?” He patted Travis on the head softly. Travis had a look like he had once again been reunited with a long-lost love. Before Creole grabbed him by the face and shoved him to the floor and used his cane to beat the absolute shit out of Travis. This was a savage fucking beating, the kinda shit you see on LiveLeak.
“You fucking attacked my guest?!” He screamed as he beat Travis with his cane. Soon he switched to his feet and kicked him as well. After a beating that would’ve killed any normal person, Creole looked over at me and offered me a smile with blood covering his chalk-white skin. “I’m so sorry about that Ted my boy. Here, come into my office, I’ll fix up your hands.” He told me, stepping over Travis and heading over to his office.
I let my hands go limp as I followed after him. As I walked past Travis he reached a hand out and grabbed my ankle. I looked down at him expecting him to be trying to kill me again despite the beating he had just taken, but instead, his buttoned eyes appeared to be pleading with me.
“Don’t…work here…” He told me as he let his arm fall to the floor and went limp. I looked down at him and over to the counter he had manned before attacking me. I walked over to it and checked behind it, wanting to make sure that nothing else was going to attack me.
“Come on Ted. Unless you wanna bleed out of course.” Creole told me with a chuckle. I turned to follow him, keeping what I had seen in the back of my mind; a missing poster for Travis. I sat in silence as Creole bandaged up my hands with gauze and poured some sort of potion over them. It stung like fucking hell and literal steam came out of my fucking hands, but when it was done he unwrapped the bandages to reveal my hands were perfectly fine.
“Now there we are. All better! How do ya feel?” he asked me as he began to put the items he had acquired back into his bag. I bent my fingers and balled them up into fists. Rolling my hands around and nodding.
“Yea. Thank you, sir.” I told him flatly. Thinking over Travis’ warning and the missing poster for him that had been kept behind the counter out of sight. “I’m sorry sir, but I don’t think I can work here.” I told him as he was putting things away.
“Really? Ah well, that’s a damn shame, Ted.” He told me as he continued to put items in his bag. “I guess Travis got to your head, eh?” he asked with a smile as he finished putting everything away.
“I’m sorry, sir. But I’m just not comfortable.” I told him, standing up and heading toward his office door. Trying to turn the doorknob I found that it was locked. Trying again to turn it, I was met with the same response.
“That’s too bad, Ted. I would’ve enjoyed having you work here. But if you’re not up to it, that’s fine as well.” Creole told me with some mischievous giggles as he rummaged around in his desk. I turned to look at him and was startled to be met with him holding up a voodoo doll of me.
“W-when did you make that?” I asked him as I pressed my back against the door.
“The day I met you. See, it’s not so much you, I want. It’s more so to piss off Sinclair more than anything.” He patted the voodoo doll on the head softly with his thumb as he stared at me with his button eyes. “See, he has a habit of holding something over lil’ ol’ me. So I take great joy in getting small jabs against him,” he said, lifting the voodoo doll and lifting its left arm up, which in turn caused me to lift my own up.
“W-why would Sinclair give a shit about me?!” I frantically asked him as I desperately tried to pull my arm back down. Creole let out another excited giggle as he pulled the doll’s arm in a direction that I couldn’t possibly bend. And with the sound of a sickening crunch my left arm matched to doll’s pose perfectly. I screamed out in absolute pain as it did so.
“He has some fascination over you. Not that I care too much to find out about it. I’d much rather just take you away from him,” Creole said with sinister glee. He took my arm and twisted it around like he was rinsing a dish towel. Which raised another agonizing scream from me as he did so.
“Please just let me go! Please!” I screamed in pain as he took my other arm and began to twist it around as well. I thought for sure this was where I was going to meet my horrible demise. All twisted and mangled by a sadistic voodoo man. That was until something grabbed me from behind and began to pull me into the wall itself.
Looking back I was horrified to see that the wall I had been leaning against had been coated in some black sludge and was seemingly melting before my very eyes. And then I noticed the piercing white eyes that usually accompanied Sinclair’s shadow.
“I thought I told you to keep your fucking hands off my employees, Creole you bastard,” Sinclair’s angry voice said as he now stuck his own head out from within the wall. Looking over at Creole I could tell he was both surprised and completely pissed off that he had been interrupted.
“You asshole,” he hissed, dropping the voodoo doll of me to the floor and throwing his hands up in surrender. “Fine. Take him, whatever.” He sighed as he admitted defeat. I looked over to Sinclair as he rubbed his tired and bag-riddled eyes. Pulling me back into the very wall itself and suddenly placing me down in a chair with a sigh.
We were back in the St. Mihel office, and for once in my life I was so happy to be there. I took one look at my arm however and realized that it was in worse shape than I thought it would be. Simply due to the fact that it wasn’t there anymore. It was just a stump below the elbow. Frantically staring back at Sinclair he pointed to the wall behind him as his shadow appeared from the wall with a white smile and my arm in its clutches.
“Payment for saving you. Not like you had much use for it anyway.” Sinclair told me as he took a cigar out of his pocket and placed it in his mouth. “Now then. I need to tell you something, Theodore.” I audibly gulped as I stared back at him. He was probably furious over how I handled LeBlanc. So I was making peace with myself before I was to be fed to his shadow.
“I want you to be the manager full-time here.” He told me.
“Huh?” Was the only response that came out of my mouth.