Weirdbook 31

by Doug Draa

  Mother had very nearly been incinerated when a buzz bomb exploded and scorched her porcelain-complected doll-flesh and human-like hair during the London blitz. Mother fled England for America. Mother’s scars eventually healed, though it took years.

  Mother said dolls could live forever unless destroyed by fire. In order to remain young and alive, however, dolls needed to feed at least once each week. Dolls had no souls and no life essence of their own, so they depended entirely on stealing the life-force of humans. If dolls didn’t feed, they’d shrivel up and waste away. After seven days without ingesting a fresh soul, dolls became lifeless pieces of clay.

  Mother had kept Lizza well-fed as a child, but now it was time for seven-year-old Lizza to learn to feed herself. As Lizza grew, she needed to devour more life-essence than what mother could comfortably share without starving herself. Someday, Lizza would grow up completely and have to move far away when mother made a new doll-baby to take Lizza’s place. Lizza begged mother to teach her how to craft a doll of her own; mother promised Lizza she would as soon as Lizza was old enough to grasp all the facts of life.

  Today mother had brought Lizza to Victoria’s Secret in the shopping mall where a constant parade of young and beautiful women sauntered by. Lizza could pick and choose. Women with breast augmentation were instantly rejected as being too vain. Mother said dyed hair was okay because practically everyone dyed her hair these days. Tattoos were questionable. Nose jobs were a no-no. Lizza looked into the eyes of dozens of women but none seemed acceptable. They may look beautiful on the outside, but inside they were a mass of seething emotions, a nest of poisonous vipers. Their souls were vile and corrupted with vanity.

  What would happen if Lizza found no suitable donor? Would she shrivel up and die? Lizza didn’t want to die. Lizza had seen how humans shriveled up when mother absorbed their life essences. First their skin wrinkled, then their bones fractured, and finally their blood boiled. Then their mortal shells simply folded in on themselves and faded to dust. Like soda slowly sipped through a plastic straw, their life-force gradually diminished until the container was drained. When the container was completely empty, it imploded.

  Because each time Lizza fed she acquired all the memories, hopes, aspirations, and dreads of the donor, Lizza had to be very selective. “You are what you eat,” mother said, and it was so very true. Lizza became a combination of all of the essences she absorbed.

  If a human donor were truly beautiful inside as well as out, Lizza felt beautiful and strong. Occasionally, when pickings were poor and mother had to settle for less than perfection, Lizza felt consumed with doubt and despair. Why weren’t all women created equal? Why were some women happy and others sad? Why were some women vigorous and others listless? Why did some women seem so full of love and others soiled with jealousy and hate?

  At seven, Lizza found it impossible to understand concepts like love and hate. Lizza supposed she loved her mother because mother provided food and shelter and taught Lizza things. Most of the women Lizza had absorbed loved their own mothers when they were children, but when they grew up they felt ambivalent about their mothers. Sometimes they loved their mothers, and sometimes they hated them. How could anyone hate her own mother?

  Finally, an acceptable female donor looked into Lizza’s eyes. Mother nodded a go-ahead, and Lizza pounced. Lizza’s eyes drilled into the eyes of the donor, entered the donor’s brain, and devoured the pineal gland. Without the pineal, all light in the woman’s eyes went out, human flesh began immediately to shrivel, and everything the woman was—her essence—left her body and entered Lizza’s. It took ten minutes for the transfer to complete.

  Lizza was ecstatic. She had made her first kill, gorged herself on the emotions of the donor, and insured she would live another week. She was proud of her accomplishment, and mother seemed proud, too.

  After mother fed on a donor of her own, mother and daughter returned home. They lived in an expensive third-floor apartment on the near west side of downtown. The woman who rented the apartment—a soul of questionable character—never knew Lizza and mother were there. Lizza and mother slept in a spare bedroom. Sometimes mother borrowed the woman’s clothes because they were the same size. Sometimes mother and Lizza shopped in department stores for clothes of their own. No one saw them walk out with arms full of clothes—dresses and undergarments and even jewelry—nor did their images ever appear on security cameras. No one could see a witch unless the witch wanted to be seen.

  Before the week was up, Lizza had to hunt again. This time mother chose a public park that provided a playground for kids. Lizza watched other children play on the teeter-totter and monkey bars and go up and down the big metal slide. Lizza thought it looked like fun and wished she could join them, but she knew playing with children was impossible. Dolls didn’t play well with others.

  Once, when Lizza was only four or five and mother was otherwise preoccupied, Lizza had revealed herself to a group of children in hopes of making friends. Somehow the children had instantly recognized Lizza as an outsider—someone not exactly like them and potentially dangerous—and they had called her hateful names. Some of the boys and even one of the girls had picked up stones and hurled them at Lizza, chasing her away. Lizza learned a painful lesson that day, and she never again revealed herself to children.

  Lizza wanted desperately to understand why she had been rejected. She had delved into the memories of donors and searched for reasons, but none of the reasons she discovered made sense to her. Mother explained that the life essence of a child was decidedly different than an adult’s. Children were not acceptable donors because children didn’t yet know how to give. Giving was learned behavior, and children had much to learn before their souls matured. Immature souls were as poisonous as dead souls.

  Men, too, made unacceptable donors. The life essence of a male was seldom nourishing and ofttimes destructive. Mother warned Lizza to stay away from men.

  Life essence was a mystery. Lizza knew that humans were born with souls that possessed life essence. Witches and dolls had no souls and possessed no life essence of their own. So witches and dolls fed on the pineal gland—the seat of the human soul—to consume the life essences of donors. Memories, hopes, aspirations, and fears were part of the life essence and transferred. But the donor’s soul itself did not transfer. A doll had no soul of her own and could never hope to acquire one.

  What happened to the human soul when a doll stole the human’s life essence away? Did the soul shrivel and die like the flesh?

  Lizza had never wondered about such things before today. She had always accepted things exactly as they were. It was a given that humans existed, witches existed, dolls existed. It was a given that humans had souls and dolls did not. It was a given that witches and dolls could see humans, but humans could not see witches nor their dolls unless either the witch or doll willed it. That was the way the world worked.

  It was also a given that witches and dolls fed on the life essences of humans as humans fed on the life essences of cattle, sheep, and pigs. All living things had to feed on other living things to stay alive. Lizza had never questioned why. It was simply the way things were. Mother had told her so, and Lizza never doubted mother.

  Did cows and pigs have souls? They had life essence. Why would cows and pigs have souls when dolls didn’t? And what was a soul anyway?

  Lizza knew from her own experience that no two souls were exactly alike because each human soul had affected its life essence differently. Some souls were beautiful, and some not so beautiful. Lizza and mother remained beautiful because they fed off the life-essence of the most beautiful souls they could find.

  Lizza looked at each of the young mothers who had brought their kids to this playground. Lizza knew to instantly reject women who talked to other women or talked on the telephone instead of watching their children. What Lizza wanted was a woman who demonstrated she loved her children more than she
loved herself. Surely, there must be at least one.

  Morning turned to afternoon, and dozens of women came and went. A few of the women came close, but they weren’t perfect. Mother left to hunt for her own donor elsewhere, leaving Lizza entirely on her own for the first time ever.

  Suddenly, Lizza was scared. What if she didn’t find a suitable donor? Mother had waited until the week was nearly up to hunt. Lizza could feel her own skin already wrinkling. Or was that merely her imagination? How long before the last of the life energy she had absorbed a week ago ran out? Did she have hours or only minutes left?

  There was so much Lizza didn’t know and mother never told her. Or, perhaps, mother had told her but Lizza hadn’t listened. It didn’t seem so life-and-death important before when mother did all the hunting. Mother had always shared donations generously, giving Lizza as much as, if not more than, mother kept for herself. Mother was a good mother, not like the women Lizza saw today in the park.

  You are what you eat. And if you don’t eat, you die. That was a given. Life essence got used up and had to be replaced. Lizza knew she was almost out of time. She had to choose a donor while she still had the strength.

  Lizza revealed herself to the nearest woman, a barely acceptable-looking frumpy thirty-year old, with uncombed hair who entered the park with a rambunctious three year-old son in tow and a colicky infant she pushed ahead of her in an old beat-up stroller, what Lizza’s mother called a “pram” or a “baby buggy.” Lizza had to work harder than ever to capture the woman’s attention. The boy was being absolutely impossible, screaming and yelling. He tore free of his mother’s hand, ran to a swing, and demanded his mother come push him. His mother tried hard to ignore him. The woman looked totally drained. When Lizza made eye contact, she saw the empty stare of a dead soul. Lizza reacted as if burned. She immediately pulled back and faded from sight.

  Was there time to find another donor? The park was nearly empty except for five older boys who had stopped by the park on their way home from school to climb the monkey bars. Long sinister shadows had crept across the playground as afternoon faded to evening. It was getting late and mother hadn’t returned yet. Mother had been gone a long time. Wasn’t mother ever coming back?

  Lizza began to cry. She didn’t want to die.

  “Oh, shut up!” the woman told her. Emotions depleted what little remained of week-old life force Lizza had left and made Lizza visible to human perception. How could Lizza have been so stupid to let her emotions run wild?

  In desperation, Lizza fed on the fetid life force of the dead soul. Negative emotions instantly flooded Lizza from head to foot, filling her with fear and hate, shame and anger. Not only did Lizza now hate all humans, she hated life itself. She wanted to end all life, including her own and her children’s lives. She had absorbed, Lizza realized too late, the thoughts and feelings of the hateful woman whose life-essence Lizza had just consumed.

  Horrid thoughts occupied Lizza’s mind. Lizza felt a need to strangle the obnoxious boy who was screaming even louder now that he could no longer see his mother anywhere in the park. Killing humans by stealing their life essences to prolong one’s own life was necessary, but killing them simply to shut them up was something else entirely. Lizza was appalled by what happened next, but she couldn’t stop herself. It was as if someone else’s mind had taken complete control of Lizza’s body, and Lizza no longer had a say in the matter.

  Did those tiny seven-year-old fingers that tightened around the screaming boy’s bony neck belong to a stranger? What about the two petite hands that pressed a pink blanket tightly against the infant’s mouth and nose to stifle her incessant whimpers?

  Lizza was careful not to allow others to see as her hands next picked up a sharp rock. She approached a group of five older boys on the monkey bars—she recognized them as the same neighborhood boys she had once revealed herself to and who had chased her away with rocks—and pounded each of them about the head and face until their heads split open like ripe melons. Four of the boys never knew what hit them. They were dead before they fell to the ground. The fifth boy—although he could see neither Lizza nor the rock she held in both hands—realized something was terribly wrong when each of his four companions fell, one at a time, to the ground, blood gushing from their faces and jagged-edged cracks in their skulls exposing their brains. The fifth boy tried to run. Lizza pounced and smashed his pudgy face in with the rock. She didn’t stop pounding his face and head until his facial features turned into what looked like a pile of regurgitated lasagna.

  Lizza felt she could do whatever she wanted, because no one saw a witch or her doll unless the witch or doll willed it. For the first time in her life—both her own life and the life of whomever was now inside of her—she felt powerful. And she found she liked the feeling.

  Lizza was covered in blood, her cute pink dress ruined, but it didn’t matter. Lizza knew where to find new dresses that were hers for the taking. She could walk into any store in town and walk out with whatever she wanted and no one would ever know.

  Nor would anyone know that Lizza was no longer beautiful and no longer a child. No human would see the wrinkled and rotting flesh, the jagged nails, the broken teeth, the stringy grey hair that fell out in great clumps. “You are what you eat,” mother had said, and Lizza now knew what devouring a dead soul really meant.

  But Lizza didn’t care. If consuming the life essence of a dead soul meant a living death and consuming the essence of a live soul meant new life, Lizza would simply hunt until she found a beautiful soul. Just as mother had healed from her burns, Lizza felt if she consumed the life essence of a beautiful soul she would surely heal. You are what you eat, and Lizza could be beautiful again practically overnight. All she had to do was look for a woman who was beautiful both inside and out. It would be so easy.

  Except Lizza discovered she had no control over her wretched body. Instead of searching for a beautiful soul to devour its life essence, Lizza found herself leaving the park in search of more victims. After all, reasoned something else inside of her, now that she knew killing was so easy and so much fun, why shouldn’t she use her new-found power to take revenge?

  Like Lizza, the woman Lizza had consumed had felt invisible most of her life. She had been ignored by unloving and uncaring parents, bullied by siblings, and forced to marry a man he didn’t love. She had no talents and no skills and she hadn’t been able to get a job that paid more than the minimum wage after her parents kicked her out of their house the same day she turned eighteen. So she tricked a man, not unlike the way her mother had tricked her father, into marrying her because she was pregnant. And she, also not unlike her mother, had allowed the man she married to beat her and make her feel even more worthless than she already felt. It was one way, perhaps the only way, to keep a roof over her head and food on the table. Perhaps, if she hadn’t had children, she might have escaped by slitting her wrists with a razor blade. It wasn’t that she loved her children and wanted to stay around to provide for them and to protect them. It was that she hated her husband so much, she wanted to stay around to make life as miserable for him and his two children as he had made life for her. She knew if she died, her husband would rejoice. He’d find another woman—someone younger and prettier—to fill her place. So she stuck around to nag him and yell at the kids and take the beatings she deserved because it was the closest thing to love she knew.

  But now all that had changed. She was so driven by anger and hatred that she intended to kill anyone in her way. The woman’s dominant adult personality, submerged for an entire lifetime, shoved seven-year-old Lizza aside. Lizza could still see, hear, and feel. But Lizza herself could control nothing.

  Bert, the woman’s husband, arrived home from work every day at 6:30, half-drunk from happy hour with factory co-workers at a favorite bar. Now the woman hurried to arrive home before her husband did. She wanted to be waiting, invisible, when Bert walked in the door and d
emanded supper.

  She planned to follow Bert around the house as he looked for her and the children in the empty living room, the empty bedrooms, the empty bathroom, and even the empty basement. He would curse her aloud and threaten to beat her bloody unless she came out from wherever she and the children were hiding. Bert knew she was too mousy to leave him, too timid to not be home with supper waiting when he strode through that front door like a king returned to his own kingdom and castle after fighting in some far-away Crusade. She wanted to see the look on Bert’s face when he discovered the children were truly gone and the stovetop was empty and cold and his wife was nowhere to be seen.

  And then she would swing the big butcher knife she kept in the drawer to the left of the stove straight at his crotch, and she would cut off his manhood and make him eat it instead of the supper he expected. She was the invisible woman, and both she and the knife would remain invisible until she finished cutting.

  Once she was sure her husband was dead, she would visit her parents and her older brothers. She would treat her father and brothers the same way she had treated her husband, and then she would think up something special for her mother. Never once, in all the years she had lived with her parents, had her mother even tried to defend her against father and brothers. She could never forgive her mother for that.

  Lizza knew of no way to stop the woman from killing her entire family. The woman had already killed both children, and the husband was next.

  What didn’t make sense to seven-year-old Lizza, at least at first, was the woman’s burning hate for her own mother. The woman, whose name Lizza now knew to be Dorothy, hated her mother, whose name was Miranda, more than she hated any of the men.