Do You Do Voodoo?

Me and Willow (You may remember her from our Hope encounter, this was way before, just a side note) had always loved voodoo, always. We found the little dolls amazing. We never went as far as actually casting and pin-sticking, though. We just loved the look of the dolls.

We would spend hours browsing through the big-city stores, sometimes we even spent hours just looking for places that sold them.

We stumbled across this strange old store, it was smack-bang in the middle of the highstreet, so we knew that it wasn't one of these creepy places that sold dodgy shit.

We walked in, and the entire place was filled with voodoo dolls, all shapes, all sizes, you name it chances are it was there. A young woman stood, she must have been the shop owner. It wasn't a hag, so again, the place seemed non-creepy-cliche material.

She called us over, saying she had something that may interest us. As we approached she opened both of her hands. In each was an identical voodoo dolls, black, little red hearts sewn onto their chest,e ach had one buttoned eye, the other stitched shut.

We were told these two were called 'Death'. I felt a chill run down my spine, but ignored it. I passed it off as excitement. They were on sale. They not only cost money, but for safety and freedom from worry of disease they took 5 years off your lifespan.

We giggled. We didn't believe that sort of thing actually happened, so we bought them in a heartbeat. We walked home, looking over our new found friends. I was topping at Willows that night. We discussed our new find and cracked open our colelctions (which we always had on us at sleepovers). I layed out my fifty plus dolls and Willow layed out hers. We compared and chatted.

It was near 2 am by the time we decided to go to sleep. I curcled up on the airbed and Willow lay down on the sofa. I wa sjust drifting off, when I felt something prod my face. I let out a small groan, and rolled over. It happened again.

I sat up, bleary eyed seeing Willow sat on the end of the airbed, looking slightly panicked.

She told me she had seen something walk across the floor. She said it was pretty small though. I dismisse dit as a spider, until she said it wa son two legs she saw the arms sticking out the sides. We both panicked and opened up our voodoo cases. Hope, Joy, lament, Envy...Death wasn't there.

Neither of our Deaths.

We looked at each other worried then started scouring the house for the two dolls. I found mine laying under the sofa, so i dragged him out. His buttoned eye was missing. I frowned. The stitching was still inrtact, as if no button had been there previously...

Willow shreiked, and knocked into me. I fell face first onto the sofa, Death flying out of my hand. Willow rolled off me and backed up into the sofa. I looked round, only hearing two, tiny feet approaching us.

It hissed somehting along the lines of 'Do you do Voodoo? 5 Years is due.' I look at Willow, then back to where the noise came from.

I felt something tap my shoulder. I didn't turn to look, just grabbed it and threw it forward. My Death flew, setting fire as he landed. The house caught on. My breath caught in my throat. Willow stood and tried to open the back door. Locked.

The key was gone, it had always been the door...it was STUCK in the door! I ran up beside her and dragged her away, just as the doorway caught alight. the fire alarm blazed.

We were here alone...we fell. Right by the front door, My face had hit paper. Willow pulled it out from under me and gasped. She stuffed it back in my face. i flailed my arms before pulling it away and taking a look. The headline was titled 'Two girls die in bus crash'.

I read down and saw our names. But the date was 5 years in the future...how? The newspaper caught alight. I threw it down, over the two Deaths that were waddling towards us. WIllow started kicking at the door.

I joined in.

Kick after kick, there was no budge. Willow shreiked as one of the detahs latched onto her leg. She shook it off, before throwing one more mighty kick at the door. it flew away in splinters. We dove out as fast as we could and ran, looking back.

As the Deaths jumped out they burned up...

We did some research on it later on. Turns out when Death tried to claim you, if you escape the boundaries it sets itself, it has to let you live and die itself for letting you get away.

We never took a bus from then on.

We burned all our voodoo dolls.

ANd that fucking shop. We burned that place, too. Though we did that seven years later after it was run down and we put our money together to buy it.

Every voodoo store we come across we avoid...but can't help but see Death dolls being sold in every window.