It was 57 years ago that my misery really began; the day I lost the love of my life while she was bringing our first and only son into the world. A spark in my soul flickered out that day, never to reignite. However, a fresh flame did come to life that cold November day. My boy, Petruchio, a name Oletta chose from her favorite Shakespearean play, became the new light of my life. Whereas the torch that burned for my bride had been reckless and daring, passionate and confident, the one which lit thoughts of my child was cautious and wary, protective and stable. Both flames, however, consumed my every thought while I had them.
Fifty years ago, again on a frosted November day; I still so vividly recall the schoolmaster and Signore Vargo from down the street laying my child out on the sofa. His tiny seven year old body mangled from the heavy wheels of the milk wagon which had accidentally run him down. A blue ball, it was said, was the culprit. Petruchio had raced into the street to retrieve it. Afterward, no such toy had been found. Lately I’ve come to the conclusion that it was her, even all those years ago, preparing for the events that have recently unfolded.
My life passed in a fog since that second and most cruel loss. For a great while I neither ate nor slept. Friends and family feared for my life, but I paid them such little mind that they eventually became friends and family in name only. I saw no one and no one saw me for a long time. Then, one day my appetites for life and the rituals of the living returned, if one could really call it that. I ate again. I slept again. I went back to work. But, there was no spirit involved and the world was a shadow that moved on around me.
I had been a doll maker in my youth, a profession that was in demand a lifetime before such toys were brought into the world pressed from a plastic mold. My work had been one of the reasons Oletta had married me. We both adored and desired children and would spend hours in the workshop together, she designing forms as if creating children made of our love and I making those plans alive in wood, cloth, and porcelain.
After Petruchio the last thing I wanted to see was a little boy or little girl, even one not made of flesh and bone; especially not one made of wood by my own hand. However, when the life, such as it was, retuned to me, so too did my craft. I reopened my shop which was also the house I lived in and earned the most meager of living until old age gnarled my body and poverty wore its way down into my guts.
That was when it happened. I still can’t recall if it was she who brought me to the block of wood or the lumber which called her back into my life, but what does it really matter? For there she was with that blue hair of hers that glowed with a magical tinge. There too was the wood that spoke to me. Did it speak out loud or in my head? Or was it the evil blue haired witch’s voice all along? Whoever or indeed whatever talked me into working that wood, the deed was done with remarkable speed. Never have I constructed a body so quickly. Never have I crafted a face so decidedly human in appearance. The clothes were styled in the exact fashion that young boys wore fifty some odd years ago down to the cap and mittens. Some might say the doll bore a striking resemblance to a cross between me and my deceased wife. At the beginning I saw it as such too.
And the lady with the turquoise hair turned her gaze upon me, the beauty of her features disguising the horror encased within, “Speak, old man”, she demanded. “Say the words and this piece of timber can be as your long lost son.”
“As” my long lost son, but not him. Twas the “as” that my ears didn’t pick up. Perhaps they didn't want to hear it. Still bound in the spell of creation with the grief of my dear lost ones suddenly returned to pump like a fount of seawater from the blowhole of a whale, I spoke words of an insectile ancient tongue that I had no idea I had ever heard or knew. They could have only been fed to me by the witch though she neither moved her lips nor breathed as the dialogue erupted off my tongue in a spasmodic gush that left me exhausted on the ground, one of my lungs collapsed. As I crawled painfully to a phone to dial emergency assistance my back was turned on the woman who lifted the puppet from my workbench, cradled it in her arms much as I used to cradle Petruchio, and carried it out the back door without a sound.
I was only a short while in the hospital, even less then need be as I was destitute and without any form of insurance. Still, when I arrived back home I felt healthy enough. There was no sign of the doll. In fact, even every last scrap and shaving from the block I’d used to make it was vanished without a trace. No matter, I thought, it almost seemed as if the whole affair had been but a dream. Yet, there was a peculiar mound of earth on the ground behind my shop; freshly churned dirt which gave off the foulest stench.
Days passed until the full moon hung huge on the horizon one sweltering summer night when I happened to glance out the kitchen window in the rear of the house and spotted her. She stood behind the mound staring back at me. Though afraid, I went out back to face her.
“Your son is under there”, she nodded at the earth which still looked freshly dug after a few weeks and stank with a wicked rot that had grown worse every day.
“Not my son”, I muttered, terrified to meet her gaze.
“Oh yes”, she countered, “And if you wish it so what is under there shall be alive.”
And gods help me, but the thought of Petruchio alive again and in my arms almost drove me mad with yearning. I made a wish; Just as a shooting star streaked across the coal black sky.
The ground began to rumble and the stinking dirt peaked as a volcano might just before eruption; only instead of molten lava pushing its way to the surface a small gloved hand emerged from the earth. Slender wooden limbs followed and soon the doll I had carved was standing in front of me, clumps of soil specking it clothes and skin.
In the darkness it was hard to see the dowels, hinges, and other parts that distinguished it from a real boy. In the murk I whispered, “Petruchio?” with fearful hope.
It made no motion of recognition until the witch spoke another name to it; a strange bastardization of my son’s name that I’d never heard before. Immediately its head whipped toward her and it bounded off in the witches direction. It was easy to see in its movements that the thing was indeed a puppet cut from a tree.
When it reached the blue haired woman she enfolded it in her arms just as I used to do with Petruchio all those years ago when he would enter the house after school and come down to my workshop in the basement to say hello. She bent down, looked him dead in his painted eyes, and spoke, “To become flesh and blood you must prove yourself brave and true. You must be able to know right from wrong.”
But what was right from wrong to a creature like that? I would soon discover as the beautiful, awful woman further described the lifestyle the animated doll must live to accomplish its goal. I was forced to turn away in revulsion, but not before she explained that it was friend to the bugs and beasts of the foul earth which had given it its half life. To demonstrate, she reached out toward the insects that squirmed along its body and a bluish glow engulfed them. I watched as one amongst their number, a cricket I do believe it was, grew larger upon the puppets breast. In a hideous inhuman voice I heard that bug call the wooden boy master and pledge its undying devotion. But, by then I had slammed the door behind me as I ran back to the safety of my house as quickly as my aged legs could carry me. I was prepared to run straight through the house and out the front door, away from the horror behind me, but I tripped and fell sprawling, knocking my skull on the foot of the sofa and putting myself unconscious for many an hour.
It stood over me when I awoke; smiling. Then I noticed the blood. At first I was certain I had cut something during my fall and the stain was my own. It didn’t take too long of an inspection to put that notion to rest. I dared not touch the creature, yet if it had indeed become flesh and blood as the witch declared it could and the thing was hurt and bleeding I felt it my duty to help. I lifted it from its feet and turned it over and over in my hands. It gave me no resistance. I immediately felt that it was still made of lumber; and lumber did not bleed. There was the slightest tinge of red around its lips and I guessed that perhaps the paint had smeared from its time underground. Whatever it was it couldn’t have been what caused the mess before me.
I put the doll down and followed the bloody trail which led into the kitchen.
There in the middle of the floor lay the remains of a child; a real child. I was unable to tell the gender for it had been mauled pretty fiercely. The head had been opened and much of what it had contained was missing.
I looked down at the puppet that had followed me into the kitchen.
“What have you done”, I asked it.
“I was hungry”, it responded innocently.
“Who is that?” I had to know that I might tell the authorities.
“She’s a girl, father. I met her at school today.”
I was horrified, aghast. The creature had gone to school? The monster had brought a little girl to my house and murdered her? The foul thing had eaten the poor child? It… It… It had called me father!
I didn’t know what to do, but I knew who could help. I went to see Stromboli.
The fat gypsy was a friend from old. And his people had relations with the seedier sides of magic, which I was now positive was what I was up against. If anyone knew a way to deal with this, he would.
I visited him at the circus he ran. The fact that he was even in town was my one piece of luck. My story came out in a gush while Stromboli sat quietly, his fat hands folded atop his ample belly, leaning back precariously in an office chair, face veiled in the darkness of the room.
Stromboli had great sympathy for my plight, but there was a strange gleam in the Romani’s eye that I should have understood. He sketched out a plan that would rid me of my malady. It turned out to be simple and effective. Stromboli sent me home armed with his two pets and a silver whistle. He rubbed a spicy scented unction into the coats of his dog and cat as he spelled out what I must do. The lotion, he insisted, would draw the evil doll to it like a fly to honey. These animals were trained to obey the whistle. Once the puppet got a whiff I was to give the whistle a sharp blow for a few seconds. This would send the animals straight back to the circus and Stromboli with my little problem in tow.
The plan worked to perfection despite the fact that Gideon the cat wanted nothing to do with my small wooden boy. The dog, who looked rather fox-like and had been dubbed with the queer appellation of John Worthington Foulfellow had no such qualms as he licked the puppets knobby knees the moment he saw them and wagged his tail happily all the while. I didn’t wait long after introductions were made before sounding the whistle. The pets promptly turned tail and Petruchio’s foul shade trailed them down the road and out of sight.
I was free at last and went about cleaning up the remains of the dead girl in my kitchen debating on a plan of action for that mess. I was surprised, true, but hardly shocked to find a second mutilated and half eaten corpse near the first one; this one underneath the table where I ate my own meals. With a shudder I chose to call the police.
It was many days before they finally left my house and the repeated questions dried up somewhat. Even now I think they still believe me guilty of those heinous acts. However, since they could prove nothing, I was never charged and for a short while my soul was relieved; until I awoke one morning to see those unblinking painted puppet eyes staring down at me. They were accompanied by another dead child in my kitchen.
“What have you done?” I questioned angrily.
“Why, nothing father”, it replied. Was it a trick of the light or had the beasts nose extended out slightly toward me. I shuddered and nearly broke down then and there. Instead, I paid Stromboli a second visit.
The Gypsy was in a bad way. He wouldn’t even see me at first and when he did the tale he told was almost as unbelievable as the one I was living through. His face was a map with continents of bruises and long rivers of cuts. One arm was in a sling and there were heavy bandages about his chest.
“The witch! That blue haired fairy!” he raved. “She did this to me. She and that terrible bug of his!”
I remembered the cricket and the impure oath it had taken.
He was supposed to have destroyed the monster, but instead Stromboli had sensed a rare opportunity to turn a profit. So, he captured the doll in a cage and attempted to force it to do his bidding. He was successful for a short while; A very short while. Until the cricket managed to track down the witch and bring her back.
Stromboli neither could nor would help me any longer. He did, however, give me a contact who he was certain could eliminate the murderous fiend and its cohorts.
That very day I travelled to the inaptly named Pleasure Island which I reached after a short row in my decrepit old skiff to speak to the Englishman known only as “The Coachman”. Our conversation was much like the one I’d originally had with Stromboli; me relating my accounts and he assuring me that he could assuage the situation.
There were no pets sent home with me, but a small boy named Lampwick who was dispatched to remove the puppet from my home. He used the same ploy by rubbing the spicy scented lotion on his hands. The smell caused the marionette to follow the real little boy straight out the front door.
This time I cleaned the remains of the newest victim and buried them myself in the back yard, cursing the entire time. I cursed myself for the deception I was perpetrating as well as the monster and his awful entourage for coming into my life.
It was four days later when the letter arrived. It read:
Signore,
The truth I had feared from your story has been realized.
You and the blue haired witch whom you spoke have together
created ZOMBIUS. This is the most unholiest of creatures
that, as you’ve seen, feeds off of human flesh; especially
brains. Fortunately, the creature is not fully formed yet
and there is still a chance to stop it. Since Lampwick
delivered it into my hands I’ve been attempting to destroy
it with no success thus far and I fear my activities will
remain fruitless. The beast is fighting me at every turn
and it is only a matter of time before his insect familiar,
which has escaped me, returns with the witch and frees the
Zombius. Therefore, you must help me. As quickly as humanly
possible you must dig up the shavings; the extra wood from
the block of which you originally fashioned the monster.
These will be in the fetid mound of earth which it was buried
and arose from. Retrieve every last bit and store them in a
glass jar. It must be GLASS. This is IMPORTANT. Take the
jar to the old man GUILLIANO on Perrilious Island. This is
the small strip of land about 20 leagues beyond my own
Pleasure Island. Give Guilliano the jar of shavings and
this note. He will know what to do. Only then will we be
rid of this darkest cloud that now hangs over us all. For if
the puppet completes its transformation it is not only you
and I who are doomed, but the entire world!
GOD BE WITH YOU,
The Coachman
What could I do if not exactly what was instructed of me by this letter? With shovel in hand I went out back to dig. The ground smelled even worse then I remembered, though strangely enough the scent vanished completely a scant few feet from the spot. I had no sooner begun when I was interrupted by the police come to question me about the latest child to disappear. They searched my house and were so intrigued by the foul scented plot of upturned soil in my yard that they did most of my work for me; shoveling out the dirt they were certain would lead to the evidence that would imprison me for the rest of my life. Despite the stench that supposedly confirmed their suspicions, they found nothing and so long did they spend on the area they were too tired and frustrated to look under the rosebushes a few yards away that actually held the body of the dead child.
After they departed I sifted the soil the officers had left piled in my garden in search of the clippings. I worked all through the night with an oil lamp lighting my way and when I was certain I’d gotten every last bit I sifted the entire heap again just to make sure. Finally, I had a mason jar almost half full of trimmings. I transported them carefully to my rowboat and by dawn had rowed halfway to Pleasure Island and hopefully the end of this madness.
The Coachman’s Isle was in sight when the sea became rough. As I rowed around the West edge of the land I thought I heard a strange choked braying that had I been canine would have certainly raised hackles on my neck. My eyes shifted to the mason jar to make sure it was safe. Then, I lowered my head and stroked harder. The swells made for difficult rowing and I found my little skiff being pushed closer and closer to the rocky side of the island where it would surely be destroyed. With the last of my strength I surged away and out into open seas again.
Then a queer sensation struck my belly; like when you are pushed high in a swing. It felt as if only the water below my boat was rising while the rest of it stayed low. And indeed, when I stopped rowing and looked about, that was exactly what had occurred. Suddenly, something enormous and grey rose upward from the sea in a circle around my vessel and closed over the top of me like a huge dome.
All was dark as I lost the sun and the world with it. My craft was tossed about rudely upon a series of rapids. I lay on the floor of my boat clinging to the jar of shavings.
At last I felt the ship come to rest upon some sort of land. It took many an hour for my eyes to adjust and when they did my sight was still limited. I was on a tiny island in a vast cave. It was swelteringly warm and I could not tell from which direction I had arrived due to the stillness of the water.
I did not know what to do. I had not expected my voyage to last very long and so I had brought no provisions whatsoever. No food. No water. No tools to neither make light nor catch fish. I had no illusions of my ability to row back through those rapids and could only hope that going forward (if I could even figure out which direction forward was) might lead me to safety.
There was really only one thing an old man like me could do in such a desperate situation; I prayed. And when that grew tiring, I cried. Eventually, the tears led to the utter oblivion of sleep.
I’m not sure how long I’d been passed out, but I awoke to a bright light near my face. A fire! I backed away quickly to the other side of the boat and glanced about.
There stood the monster holding a lantern. It had been touching my body. I shivered.
“Father”, it said, “What are you doing in the belly of a whale?”
Is that where I am, I wondered. That’s when I noticed that the doll had the long hairy ears and tail of a donkey. “What happened to you?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“That man”, said my creation, “That mean man. He did this to me and much worse. But, I took care of him and escaped. The blue fairy told me about what had happened to you and so I’ve come to your rescue.”
Such a weird thing happened then. The puppet’s nose appeared to lengthen somewhat. Was it a trick of the light? I could not tell, but I was reminded of having seen this occur before in my kitchen when it had lied to me about the third murder.
“Let me help you father”, it continued. “I have a plan. I’ll use the lantern to burn your boat. The smoke and fire will cause the whale to expel us through his blowhole right above us.” He raised the light and I could just make out the hole in the ceiling easily at least fifty feet away.
There was a flaw I saw in this plan immediately and I spelled it out. “Without a boat I’ll surely drown.”
“No, father. I am made of wood. You may float home upon me.”
Could it be? The doll would truly save my life? Did it have some good in it after all? It did look so much like my boy that I truly wanted to trust him. I almost couldn’t believe my luck.
“Just give me the jar with the shavings that I may rebury them and I’ll bring you to safety.”
The little button nose that was an exact duplicate of Petruchio’s pushed out even further. It now no longer appeared in the least bit similar. It broke the illusion that it was my Petruchio come to save me and reinforced the idea that I could tell when the creature lied to me. And if it was lying to me now…
A second light appeared in the whale’s belly. It was soft and eerily blue and accompanied by a low raspy chirping that was nearly a growl. The cricket and the witch had arrived.
She stared deep into my eyes and I realized I was more terrified then I’d ever been in my life.
“You have done well, child”, she cooed. With a snap of her fingers the donkey ears and tail became human in appearance and wooden once more. “And now the time has finally come.”
With those words the cricket made a mighty leap up, up, up into the gloomy heights of the whale’s stomach. We all watched it rise in silence, our heads tilted up as one. I almost lost hold of my mason jar. The doll did drop the lantern to the floor of the boat with a thud. The cricket’s descent arced straight toward the beasts upturned face and right in its mouth. I listened queasily to the crunches and swallows that ensued.
“No more bargaining”, sneered the witch, “Hand me that jar and I’ll make sure your death is quick. Refuse and I’ll give your flesh to your little child here, which will ensure you a long and torturous undead life as a zombius slave.”
Then I watched in amazement as the little wooden puppet changed before my eyes to what appeared as flesh and bone. He was now the spitting image of my long lost child.
“Oh Petruchio”, I whispered sadly, not even fully understanding the horror that would be unleashed on the world under the guise of my innocent boy.
But the monster screamed at me from the other end of the boat in a voice that was nothing like my son's, “My name is Pinocchio. Pinocchio! PINOCCHIO!!! And I will eat your brains!”
I’m not sure if it was the threat or hearing that bastardized pronunciation of my real son’s name, but my reaction was instant and angry. I grabbed the oil lamp and flung it hard on the side of my rowboat between he and I while leaping out of the craft and away from the others. I landed hard on my hip and heard a cruel snap as the skiff burst into flames.
Both the boy, for it was clearly no longer a doll, and the woman howled, though whether in pain or fury or both I could not distinguish. I rolled painfully onto my back and watched the fire engulf not only the boat, but cause a wall of flame to separate myself from my enemies.
I was inching on my elbows back toward the murky waters when I felt a rumble and glanced over my shoulder to see a giant swell coming at me from the bowels of the whale.
My first thought was a curse that the water would put out the fire that protected me, but it was immediately replaced by fear for my life and the sensations of being lifted straight upward at fabulous speed. I was certain I’d be crushed upon whatever ceiling of bone and flesh awaited me up there; however this was not to be. Suddenly a bright light burst before my eyes, blinding me. Then I was falling, falling, falling only to splash painfully into the sea.
I forced myself to the surface, arms flailing, legs kicking despite the sheer agony of my broken hip. Of the witch and the zombius, I had no inkling. I was alone in calm water with no idea if I might be able to find land. Miraculously, the mason jar of wood clippings was clutched to my chest.
My strength is failing, but onward I swim. I can see land ahead, though I’m not sure if it’s island or mainland or if I’ll drown before reaching it. Still, I fight on for I know that getting my cargo to Guilliano that he may destroy it must be done and that only I, Geppetto the doll-maker can assure that the world might avoid the horrible plague that is Pinocchio.
If you enjoyed this story PLEASE subscribe to my blog.
Comments are also MOST WELCOME
