[EternalPen]

Jack got into his car and cranked the engine. He wondered constantly what happened to his father those years ago. Hal had come home one day with the puppet, toyed with the strings that supported the arms, hands, and fingers, and set it on the table where he practiced making them move. When he was good enough, he got the puppet to pick up a pair of scissors.

He had told Jack once that strings were keeping “Samuel” from being a part of his family again. He got the puppet’s arms to pick up the scissors and cut the strings. Once he did, he lost it. He spent every second with that puppet.

He ate with it, tucked it into bed, he did everything. He acted as if the puppet were Jack. Hal did everything with Jack, and some stupid puppet had replaced him. It progressed and got worse and worse until Jack finally had to throw the puppet away.

That was when Hal tried to kill him.

So he visited his father in the jail every Monday to reassure him everything would be fine. Hal never stopped rambling about Samuel being lonely until Jack told him “It’s me, dad. Samuel!”

Hal’s eyes had opened wide and Jack hadn’t seen that much life in them in a long, long time. He reached through the bars and squealed, “You said you would! You said you would become real with enough love! I knew it! It’s why I loved you so much!”

So Hal had heard the puppet speak, and then tried to make it come to life. He belonged in that jail.

Jack was headed home. The only way his father would respond to him was if Jack called himself Samuel, but Jack had enough. He wanted his father back. After six-and-a-half years he was ready for Hal to be healthy again.

Yeah… that was what the doctors called him. Sick. Like it could be cured…

Jack knew it could be, with the right puppet. But Hal would never see that puppet again if it were up to Jack. It had ruined his life enough as it was. Both of their lives. Jack was headed home to deal with the puppet once and for all.

He reached his apartment and found the metal box that he kept the puppet in. He pulled out his key from his back pocket and unlocked the top. He pulled the lip open and reached inside. The puppet came out with a large smile bursting onto his face.

“Shut up.” Jack said.

He turned the puppet right side up and the mouth fell down into a frown.

“Don’t you start that with me.” Jack said quickly. Fear soaked his voice in a crack at the end of his sentence. “You ruined Hal’s life and mine. You don’t need to make it worse.”

He took the puppet outside. He stood next the dumpster outside of the apartment complex and picked up the string-less puppet. He was about to toss it in until he had a better idea. One that would satisfy his anger.

He brought the puppet inside the house and reached into the metal box. He pulled out a handful of the strings that used to be attached to the puppet.

“You will never, ever be a real thing.” Jack spoke solidly to the puppet.

He spent every night for six months reattaching the strings just how they were.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Jack was totally silent on the way to Hal’s old house. After seven years of being a model prisoner, he got out. Jack had picked him up, though the attempted murder was on him, and brought Hal home.

Jack was silent for fear of Hal bringing up the puppet. Jack wanted to have Hal throw the puppet away, because Hal said he knew it was just a puppet and he couldn’t figure out what had come over him.

Jack wanted proof.

They arrived at the house Jack used to live at with his father Hal,
not the puppeteer Hal. The house had good memories, but he could only remember the bad ones right now. He followed Hal into the living room where the puppet lay on the couch.

Hal saw the puppet and froze.

“Hal, you have to throw it away now.” Jack said, anxiety coursing through his veins. How would Hal take this? “You said you knew it was a puppet, and you have to prove it or you go back to jail, okay?”

“The… strings.” Hal said.

“Yes,” Jack said, “The strings are back because it’s just a puppet, dad.”

Hal looked at Jack.

“Dad?” Hal asked.

“Yes.” Jack answered, now more worried than before.

“I’m your son. Don’t you remember? Baseball? Mom? Trying to kill me?” He whispered the last one, but his father’s eyes grew large.

Hal walked straight into his bedroom. He came out moments later with some Dr. Knots Strings and Ropes Inc. products. Five long ropes.

“Jack,” Hal said. “I don’t want to see the puppet.”

Hal walked outside. Jack watched him from the house window. Hal got the ladder from behind the house, where it had been all this time, and used to get near the bottom branch of the tree. He then started tying knots in the ropes.

Jack sighed. He had truly lost it. He had better call the hospital and get someone to come by and pick up his father.

Jack had made the call and walked back outside before he realized what Hal had been doing. Jack ran to the tree as fast as he could, but Hal already had the two ropes around his feet and the two ropes around his hands tied to the tree. The one around his neck was almost done.

“Dad! Stop!” Jack screamed.

Hal finished tying the knot and looked at Jack.

“Stay, son.” He said. “If Samuel is really just a puppet… I will be, too.”

He kicked the ladder away and fell. He jerked to a stop and Jack heard his neck and left wrist break. He hung there from the tree like a puppet. He hung by his neck, but his arms were held up above his head and his feet were pulled back enough to make Jack think he was kneeling in midair.

Jack stopped breathing. He had heard that noise when Hal stopped his fall. There was no saving him. He was gone before he had felt the pop. Jack just backed into the house and called the police. He heard the ambulance driving up.

He knew he would have to explain Hal’s body, but he didn’t care right now. That puppet… Samuel… he had to die. He had brought nothing but pain and grief.

“You stupid, wooden, son-of-a-” Jack tried to say, but something stopped him.

The puppet threw its hands over its eyes and began to cry. Real sobbing. Tears streamed out its eyes and its body convulsed with every one. Each sob sounded as if someone had knocked their fist against his wooden body. It moved its hands and looked up at Jack.

“Jack,” It said. Its voice was rough and hoarse from speaking through wood, but its voice also carried the tone of lamentations. “I didn’t mean to harm your father. I just heard him talk about his wife, your mother, and I wanted him to be happy. I knew her once… I spoke to her as I spoke to him and as I speak to you, now.”

“No, no, no, no.” Jack moaned in true horror, tears forming in his eyes. “No, no, NO!”

“Yes, Jack.” Samuel said. “Yes, yes, yes! You aren’t crazy, you know. I loved your mother like she was my own. But my father was he who made me. Your father wasn’t as important, but I still wanted to make him happy. For her.”

Jack began to sob.

“You aren’t talking.” He said through his strained voice.

“But, Jack!” The puppet said, a smile bursting onto his face. “I am! See!”

Jack sobbed harder.

“Jack…” Samuel began, his smile fading and remorse replacing the paint in his eyes. “For what it’s worth… I am sorry about Hal.”

“Why did you tell you would be real?!” Jack screamed.

“Because, Jack,” Samuel said. “I wanted him to have goals again!”

“He had me.” Jack said, breaking into his sobbing again on his last word.

“But Jack… you weren’t enough. He wasn’t happy. I saw that when he first met me.”

“Why are you talking to me?!” Jack screamed again.

“So you can have goals, too!” Samuel said, clapping his wooden hands together.

“I have my own.” Jack replied, no longer sobbing.

“But I have better ones! And I know just the one to start with! The way I work is strange, but if you show me enough love, I’ll become-”

“Real?” Jack asked. “That’s what you told Hal, and it never worked.”

“But I’m almost there! I can feel it! I just a little tiny, bit! Even just a tiny little touch, just touch me!”

“No!”

“If not you, someone else! You know you love me!”

“NO!”

“Just a touch! You know you love me for getting rid of your crazy father!”

“NO!” Jack screamed in defiance. But in truth... he did.

“Just one bit of love!” Samuel continued in his onslaught.

“Hal already DID!”

“Hal didn’t love me enough!”

“Neither do I!”

Jack picked up the flailing puppet and raised him over his head. He prepared to slam it into the ground with a mighty throw. He could see the fingers spilling on the floor, the toes rolling out of the little shoes, the arms cracking, and the head rolling around. He imagined sap would pour out of every crack and break.

His fingers held onto real flesh, though. He lowered the puppet to look at it.

“Thanks, Jack.” Samuel said.

Samuel set Jack down on the couch. Jack tried to speak, but found his wooden lips could not move. He couldn’t shift his eyes or move at all. He was stuck staring ahead at Samuel. The Samuel who was now a real person, a real person wearing Jack’s clothes and skin.

Samuel bent down to face Jack and spoke.

“I’ll take you back to my master’s house.” He said. “You can stay with all the other puppet-people. When you realize how much of a living hell it is to be wooden, you’ll understand why I did this to you. Why we all did it to others.”

Jack tried to scream, to yell, to curse, but he was a prisoner in a wooden cage.

“It’s alright, Jack.” Samuel said. “You practice trying to move, okay? When someone comes around and finds you…” Samuel stood up and spread his arms to show Jack his new body. “Maybe you can return the favor?”

Love is said to be all powerful,
But in the wrong hands it becomes black…
Like anything in the world around you,
Hand it to evil for a hole in your back.

[Peppy]

That's madness. The way he died, it waas creepy. It was very descriptive. Anywho, I guess I know why you put this up in this section, it was kind of sloppy and rushed. A little polishing and shortened, I think the piece could be creepier. Oh yeah, the dialogue problems are the same for this.

I forgot to mention this, I liked the short poetry verses at the end of each part. I don't know, it seemed to give it a melancholy vibe to thisstory. Well done.

Well, good work EP. Write when you feel like writing, don't write because someone tells you too, or else it will become a chore.

He stood next the dumpster outside of the apartment complex...

to

“You will never, ever be a real thing.”

the

They arrived at the house Jack used to live at with his father Hal,
not the puppeteer Hal. The house had good memories, but he could only remember the bad ones right now. He followed Hal into the living room where the puppet lay on the couch.

But my father was (t)he who made me.

“Why did you tell (him) you would be real?!” Jack screamed.

[RENA HANDS]

You have a spacing error here in this paragraph...They arrived at the house Jack use to live at with his father Hal,

Why did you tell you would be real? Did you mean, Why did you tell him you would be real? Or something similar. The original sentence/idea to me is confusing.

Wouldn’t Master’s (master’s) in this case be capitalized?

That was WICKEDLY EVIL! I am CREEPY! A rating of 5/5!

[timtornado3721]

Ouch! That was quite a story. Yet another example as to why puppets are evil and why the origional Pinnochio should have been burned as soon as he was real enough to talk.

There was some odd sentences in there like this one:

Jack was headed home.

You repeat this sentence later in the paragraph but this one is off.