Ade due...Damballa….
"What...where?"
Osborne Wilkes awakened, his limbs feeling like stone and unmoveable. He strained a bit before breathing out a tired sigh. It soon became evident that he wasn't lying down, not in the slightest. He was standing in a limbo like fashion. The place he found himself in could also be described as such. A room of nothingness, blank white everywhere. Where his vision would have to stretch, all that he saw was blurriness. It was strange, Ozzy could've sworn he heard a voice saying something or other.
Ade due Damballa there it was again. The sound didn't seem to come from anywhere around Ozzy, rather somewhere in the back of his skull.
"Ah!" Ozzy quickly turned around and jumped, startled a bit at the sight of the man that now stood before him.
A old looking man, dark skinned with a fatigued voice of pitiful charm. He had a snake coiled around his neck, its head rested on his shoulder while the end of its tail rested on his other. His eyes lacked pupils and irises, just plain and dead looking. The man slowly began to levitate so that he may look down on Ozzy. He seemed to faze slowly in and out of existence as if made of TV static.
"Osborne Wilkes," he spoke stretching a hand towards him. Ozzy took a step back, nothing else he could do but let the stranger speak.
"My name is Jon…" the stranger's mouth never moved when he spoke, rather it was done by the snake, which coiled tighter and tighter around his neck, "I know who you are….you bare the eye! You are chosen….you….wait…." the stranger's head turned slightly away and the snake hissed and raised its own head.
"Uh….what?" Ozzy was stupefied at this point. The stranger or Jon's blank eyes widened and his mouth opened in a silent scream where it could remain frozen.
"I am too late!" the snake on Jon's shoulder shouted, "It's already happening! They found you! It's….." Jon's eyes began to rain a waterfall of bright scarlet blood as the snake became more and more sporadic in its movement, thrusting its head around, "I can't….I can't be here much longer!" The puppet Jon and the snake began to flicker like a dying bulb. What sounded like a roar of wind seemed to be building up above them. It began in small claps before amping up to loud baritone whistles.
"Woah! Woah!" Ozzy held his hands out, "I'm the what!? What is starting!?"
"Acolyte!" the snake cried out, "Barer of the eye….beware the sinister Deacon…" the thunder sound was so loud it was only this much that Ozzy was able to hear; "Run….death of everyone….the funeral of time….rise of the serpent….sinister Deacon….lost soul….broken heart….acolyte!" The stranger finally did make a sound, one that wasn't emitted by the snake on his shoulder, but from his now blood caked mouth. It was the shrill shriek of a woman, sounding too real in comparison to anything that's been happening. The stranger continued to scream as the snake hissed its final message. Ozzy covered his ears as the screaming and what sounded like grenades exploding inches from his eardrums assaulted him with their demented symphony. Even through his covered ears, he could hear the muffled cry of the snake's phantom like voice.
"Friends….till the end…." it seemed to whisper.
The sound of thundering wind ceased as Ozzy felt himself free fall, but the woman's screaming continued. Long past the point where he felt the weight of his bed comforter and sheets on his body.
Ozzy shot up in his bed. The pillows that covered his head were flung off the side, hitting the apartment walls with pitiful impact.
"Wha...holy fuck…." Ozzy placed his forehead in an open palm as he swung his legs to his bedside where he sat. He steadied his breathing. For some reason, he could feel his head aching as if his skull was closing in tightly around his brain inside.
Ozzy clicked his tongue, mentally unpacking every little detail about what he had just seen or rather dreamt. Unconsciously, he picked up his phone. '3:15 am' the time read, a self inflicted pinch on the bridge of his nose soon followed.
Friends till the end….Acolyte Ozzy could vaguely remember some of the words almost as if they were key. And the woman's scream….one that seemed to sound a whole lot like Mrs. Marsh's, at least to him.
Suddenly, there was a metallic rattle in the next room. All Ozzy could see from where he sat was the doorway of his bedroom with complete darkness inside like a portal to the void. The rattle was unmistakable, the sound of silverware being rummaged through.
"Yo!" Ozzy called out, "Get the Hell out! If you want silverware try the dumpster outside! I threw away a couple of spoons the other day!" Again, the advantage of living in a borderline section eight, prowlers breaking in. Usually harmless, the last thing they want is a murder charge.
There was no answer, but the rattling stopped and all was silent….that is until Lottie spoke up from within the darkness.
"I didn't mean to. Hahaha." the doll giggled, her voice in all its childish glory. Ok...well, that was just fucking terrifying….
Ozzy was creeped out to say the least. He slowly rose from his bed and peaked out his bedroom's doorway into the darkness. His eyes slowly adjusted and he was able to make out shapes and shadows within the room. Seeing how it was empty, he pressed on.
Sure enough, as he had expected with the sudden draft and noises, the window was open. Ozzy exhaled, the intruder (assuming there was one) must've slipped out the window when he yelled out, typical.
Ozzy shut the window before going over the tiny kitchen area, by which I mean the part of the room with the stove, microwave oven, and a cabinet of pathetic proportions. The little wooden doors creaked as he pulled them open and examined what was lost in the possible robbery. In their pullout drawers, the spoons and forks were thrown around; lying at different angles and entangled in each other. Someone had truly been going through them, but it didn't look like any of them were missing. The same couldn't be said for the knives though….one was indeed missing….the biggest and sharpest one he had.
A frog was in Ozzy's throat. What if the intruder had taken the….and he never really left….and he was still….
"NO!" Ozzy turned around frantically, expecting someone or something to pounce on him….but there was nothing.
In the darkness, he could make out the doll, Lottie, still sitting where he had left her. Her head was in his direction and her eyes locked onto him or so it seemed in the blackness.
"I didn't mean to. Hahaha," Lottie repeated, no different than the first time.
"Lottie?" Ozzy suddenly finding himself speaking the doll's name. For no particular reason or assurance that he wasn't truly alone in the dark.
Then Ozzy suddenly felt the leathery grip of gloved digits wrap around the back of his neck. Fingers dug into his skin as he cried out. He then was flung to the floor, face first onto the hardwood before the couch. Ozzy covered his now bleeding nose and turned over, breathing heavily.
"Osborne Wilkes," someone spoke, more or less spoke, more of a low growl sounding barely human, "The Order of the Serpent demands your soul."
From the darkness emerged a figure. Ozzy could make him out as he loomed over him. A man, dressed in all black; long coat, trousers, boots, gloves, everything cameoed in the unlighted room. He wore a ski mask, eyeholes in the appropriate areas covered by tinted goggles. The figure than outstretched a gloved hand towards him, balanced on the palm was the silver gleam of a knife blade. Ozzy originally expected it to be the one from his kitchen, but it wasn't. The blade was semi curved with a squiggly white line running across the dark silver. The handle was fashioned the the shape of a snake with an open maw, the blade acting as its tongue. The whole thing looked….ritualistic.
Ozzy screamed. He couldn't stand or move. He just lay on his back with the blood from his nostrils beginning to ooze through his fingers.
"No! No!" he cried, "Stay away from me!" He held his hand over his face. The black clad man's eyes narrowed at the birthmark on his wrist in clear view.
"Yes," he purred darkly, "You are the one." He stomped on one of Ozzy's legs on the floor. Ozzy screamed as he felt something crack, not a bone but maybe a muscle. He threw his head back, hitting the couch behind him; the apparently empty couch. Wait….where's Lottie?
"NO! STOP!" Ozzy screamed as he saw the tip of the ritual like dagger approaching his chest. The figure raised the blade, Ozzy's eyes never left it. It seemed like years before it could come down and puncture his lungs, stomach, or maybe heart.
"AHHHHH!" the man in black suddenly roared, not a cry in attack but one in pain.
He dropped down to one knee and gripped his calf, which was now bleeding apparently. Ozzy could only continue laying where he was in fear and with new found confusion. The man in black screamed out again, feeling a sharp pain now in his lower back. He carelessly dropped his dagger beside him and his arms flailed about. Among his screams of agony, there was child like laughing. Not gleeful laughing but that of someone who knew they were inflicting pain, someone who knew they now held the life of that man in their hands and they was going to take it slowly.
When the man fell onto his back, something was on his chest. Something that appeared as a blotch within the darkness before its shape came into view. It was then Ozzy finally snapped out of whatever final reflections of his life he was in. Now reasonably thinking, he drove his hand into his pocket, yanked out his phone, and switched on the flashlight.
It was at this moment, when the line between reality and fantasy was broken. Ozzy's heart briefly skyrocketed and the frog in his throat exploded in a breathless gasp.
Lottie stood on the man in black's chest as he struggled beneath her. The doll held a knife, the knife from the kitchen, in one hand and the snake dagger that the man in black once wielded in her other. Her head slowly turned towards Ozzy, eyes narrowing at him before turning back to the man at her mercy.
"You…." the man growled, coughing and bleeding.
"Me…." Lottie mocked, impressively. Her voice no longer childlike and bubbly, but monotonous and cold.
"I know you….you serve the….disgraced one." the man said. Lottie got down on her knees on his chest, the knife tips were inches away from his heart.
"No, no. I don't 'serve' anyone….well, maybe I do at least until I turn eighteen."
"You are a child, a brat! You have no idea what game you're playing, little one!" The man in black tried to get up but Lottie quickly buried one of the knives in his lower gut. Her cried out as he fell back. Blood began to pool up at his side.
"Games, huh?" Lottie humored, "I know a lot of games. Personally, I'm a whiz at Candyland. But you know what I really kill at? Operation. In fact, I think I'm going to play right now." She steadied the knife over his heart, then his lungs, then finally his throat.
"Hmmmm….the broken heart, wishbone, or adam's apple….what do you think?"
The man in black spat in her face, his blood filled spit wad hit her under the eye. Lottie didn't snap, she didn't even flinch. She just exhaled slowly and wiped the liquid from her face with a single finger and nonchalantly flicked it aside.
"Adam's apple it is then," she slammed the knife directly into mid section of the man in black's neck. His head thrusted around as blood erupted from his mouth accompanied by disgusting gurgles. Lottie remained entirely neutral as she twisted the knife this way and that, the sound of tearing flesh and muscle music to her ears.
"HOLY FUCK!" Ozzy was now pushing back against the wall. His phone's flashlight danced around like a strobe light on the gruesome scene.
When Lottie finished and the man in black's once sporadic movements were reduced to little finger twitches, she slowly rose from where she knelt. A gaping hole was left in the man's neck, the thick blood bubbled within it like a morbid hot tub. Lottie then reached in and yanked out his scarlet soaked larynx, the finger twitches of the man in black stopped shortly after. The doll kneaded the organ in her hand like putty.
"I got the Adam's apple….but I lost the patient….pity that." Lottie tossed the larynx aside, it made a disgusting squish as it hit the wall. She glared at Ozzy, whose trembling hands managed to steady the light on here, barely anyway.
"N-no….no, no," was all Ozzy could say, shivering. He had hoped he was having a nightmare, but he had already slapped himself. This is was real. Lottie slowly began approaching him when he suddenly flashed the light in her eyes. She held a little forearm over her face.
"Hey, stop," she scolded, "Jeez, do you have a real light in here?" Lottie looked about the room, "Wait, you do. I got it." She casually hustled over the light switch on the wall. The doll leaped up a few times only to fall short of the wall mounted switch each time.
"One second," she told Ozzy, again totally casual. She then took an unsuspecting chair around the room and pushed it up to the wall. From there was able to stand on it and reach the switch and the apartment lit up.
Ozzy could now see her for what she was. A little girl doll, with a dull pink dress and cutesy shoes to match. A chubby doll like face full of malice, coldness, and maturity. There was something so….human about Lottie, now that she shown her true colors.
"That's better," she nodded, climbing down from the chair. She then approached Ozzy, two knives drawn at her side.
"DON'T COME NEAR ME!" Ozzy screamed, hands covering his head. Lottie continued advancing. She then seemed to stand over him, like she had before with the man in black. How could something so small make you feel even smaller?
"STOP!" Lottie was now only inches away from him, standing there ominously. She then tossed the kitchen knife aside and that now empty hand was extended down to him.
"Come with me if you want live," she said.
"W-wha-" Ozzy removed his hands from his head, easing up a bit but not letting his guard totally down.
"Hahahahahaha," Lottie's straight face then broke down and so did her serious demeanor, but only for that second, "I always wanted to say that."
"What are you?" Ozzy jumped right into the question on his mind.
"You know this," Lottie spoke in her doll voice, again full childish innocence and giggles, "I'm Lottie and I'm here to give you lots of love!'
"Yeah….I know, but you're…."
"A doll?" Lottie reverted back to her own voice, "Well, yeah, physically I'm a doll, but in truth, I'm just like you. Beneath this plastic lies flesh and blood and the mind of a genius. Well, a sociopathic psycho genius if I do say so myself." Ok...the doll is alive….I'll leave it at that.
"You….you killed that man," Ozzy pointed the body of the man in black.
"Obviously," retorted Lottie, "I certainly didn't lull him to sleep. Look, we need to-" she reached out to Ozzy's arm. He cried out and swung his arm out at her. Lottie managed to duck under it, preferring not to go flying across the room like a ragdoll.
"DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE! LEAVE ME ALONE YOU FREAK!" he shouted.
"Hey!" Lottie rose her voice, but only a little, "This 'freak' just saved you! That man was going to subject you to a fate worse than a slow death! If anything, a 'thank you' is in order!"
"You mean….you're going to let me…." Ozzy calmed a bit.
"For now, at least," Lottie answered, "Osborne Wilkes, right?"
"I really wish not….yes," sighed Ozzy.
"Can I see your wrist?" Lottie asked, holding out her hand expecting cooperation. Ozzy simply showed her it, he knew which one she was talking about.
"Yes," she said, inspecting the birthmark, "It checks out. You're the one."
"The one?"
"Yeah, the one who is coming with me right now. We can't stay here." Lottie motioned to the door, "You have a car? Let's go."
"Where?" asked Ozzy.
"To my dad," said Lottie, "He's gonna know what to do. People are looking for you, Osborne. They have been for a long time."
"Who?" Ozzy glanced over the corpse of the man in black, still leaking out on the floor, "People like him? Why? What do they want? What did I do?"
"Jesus, do you ever say something that isn't a question?" scowled Lottie, "Now, let's go."
"I'm not going anywhere," Ozzy said, firmly, "You're just gonna kill me….like you killed him ."
"You better come with me. If it isn't already obvious, I'm trying to keep you alive. Staying here is just going to get you killed faster. There's a whole more where our 'mystery man' here came from. They know where you live now, Osborne. Coming with me is your best bet. And also because-"
It happened too fast. Within seconds Lottie was upon him. Standing on his stomach, clutching his scalp with the blade of the snake dagger against his throat.
"I'm not giving you a choice." Lottie challenged him. Ozzy gasped lightly, feeling the cold press of the dagger. He steadied his breathing once more and glared at Lottie.
"Where do we need to go?"
"Glad you were able to listen to reason, Osborne," smirked Lottie, she climbed onto his side and kept the knife pressed against the back of his neck. "Grab anything you might need and let's get out of here."
Ozzy, Lottie now on his back, rushed into his bedroom. He grabbed his messenger bag from his closet and stuffed inside his sketchbook and a couple of utensils. He then reached under his bed and yanked out a lockbox. Inside, what did you expect, bags upon bags of cannabis complete with rolling papers, a grinder, and filters. All this was also shoved into his bag.
"Wow, really?" Lottie huffed.
"Hey, I might not make it through this," argued Ozzy, "I'm not going out sober!"
"Whatever you say, buffalo soldier."
The keys were the last to go as Ozzy pocketed them on his way out the door, slamming it on the way out. The man in black still lay on the floor. His bleeding had soon stopped and a pool of blood surrounded the corpse. An ocean of red and an island made from a dead body. It soon began to soak through the carpet and seep through the floor into the room below.
"L.A," Lottie said, removing herself from Ozzy's back as he climbed into the driver's seat, she sat herself on the middle console of his car and kept the knife closeby, "We need to go to L.A. I'm bringing you to my family, my dad wants to see you."
"Is he the guy who's gonna tell me what the fuck is going on?" asked Ozzy, beginning to see how crazy this was and the potential on how much more crazier it could become.
"Without a doubt," said Lottie, "He knows more than I do. He's the one who told me who you were and where to find you. He's been watching you too, you know."
"Who's your dad?" Ozzy asked while at the sametime whether it was possible for a doll to even have a dad. Lottie had to pause in thought a bit before answering.
"Thing is, my dad can't really be described to anyone. They honestly have to see him for themselves…." not the answer Ozzy was looking for.
"Is he like you? A doll?"
"Yes." Ozzy gulped.
"Is he going to….kill me?"
"No….not at the moment," Lottie was painfully honest with this one, "He wants you alive. How long it stays like that, depends entirely on his mood." Ozzy started the car.
"What does he want from me?"
"You're a person of interest to us," explained Lottie, "You're what they call the 'Acolyte'..."
Acolyte. There was that word again. One of the words that Ozzy could easily recall from his dream. What the stranger with the snake told him. They did mean something after all. It was a lot for Ozzy to take in given the current moment. People knew who he was and they wanted him dead….for something. But it soon occurred to him that whoever the man in black was or Lottie were, they didn't want him died for something he did. They wanted him dead for something he was.
The moment he was out of the parking spot outside the apartments, Ozzy sped away. Down the street lighted road, past the city limits, and onto the highway toward Los Angeles.
The blood of the man in black had fully bled through Ozzy's apartment floor. The neighbor below was awakened by first appeared to be a leak through his ceiling dripping on his face. However, the coppery taste and thickness revealed that it wasn't water. The neighbor called the police and they were over within fifteen minutes. As they entered the lobby, a gruesome exhibit awaited them in Mrs. Marsh's office. The woman had been mangled, her head sat neatly on her desk while her headless body lie on the floor. Her head had been completely scalped and her teeth and eyes removed. Her tongue was sliced into a two prong fork, seen dangling out of her open mouth, much like that of a snake's. Neighbors and residents claimed that heard her screaming in the dead of night. Some reported to have heard it between the hours of 3:00 and 3:15, right after she had refused entry to a rather suspicious looking man dressed in black.