Death's Puppeteer

1905

Enoch quietly removed his boots as he returned to his room, returning the key to his father's workshop that he still couldn't remember taking for himself. Keeping his coat on he sat cross legged on the floor beside his bed and withdrew the dead rat from within his coat, laying it on the floor in front of him. From his other pocket Enoch drew a scalpel he'd swiped from the workshop before leaving. It was a strange type of curiosity, the sudden desire to dissect a dead rat, and not one that he imagined most boys did in their spare time.
He turned the thin instrument over in his fingers and looked at it with a strange fascination. He could feel in his fingers the same tingling that had been in his feet just minutes ago, as if they were guided by something out of his complete control. Some unseen force was pulling his hand towards the rat that lay dead on his bedroom floor and the closer it came, the stronger the feeling grew until in one neat swipe, he had carefully sliced a line right down the rat's stomach.

His heart thundered against his ribs as the twelve year old dropped the scalpel like it had burned him, his finger hovering right over the tiny lifeless body in front of him. He stayed perfectly still, frozen in position, and then he felt it. The same sharp jerk he had felt in his hand as it stretched out over the dead man downstairs. It was as though something was trying to leap right out of the rat towards him. After a moment he did something he couldn't have explained if he tried. Enoch plunged his fingers inside the rat, twisting and pulling at something within until he drew from it a tiny, motionless heart between his thumb and forefinger.
He held it up to his eye, his mouth slightly agape as he examined the gory sight while blood dripped down his hand. Perhaps there was something wrong with him, normal boys didn't do this did they? Not that he had ever considered himself the same as the boys who played sport and tossed things at each other in school. Even as he thought it, a tremor which he couldn't supress started in his own chest and ran through his arm, his hand, his fingers and into the organ between them. It was as though the wind had been knocked out of him and he groaned suddenly. He was cut short by sudden movement in his fingers. The rat's heart, that had been still and lifeless a moment ago, was pulsing ever so slightly.

Momentarily forgetting the need to be quiet, Enoch suddenly kicked aside his bed and all but pounced on the floor to claw up the loose floorboard. In a few moments he had retrieved the doll and the lump of clay, still holding the heart in his right hand. The clay had hardened again but with some effort, Enoch was able to pry off a small piece which, acting on an instinct he never knew he had, he wrapped around the heart gingerly and pressed to the wooden block that was the body of the doll.

Nothing happened. What had he expected to happen? That the doll would magically turn into some animal and start breathing or walking around? It was a hunk of chipped wood and clay with a painted face, inanimate and uninteresting. And yet...the heart had started beating at his touch hadn't it? Enoch scoffed and threw the toy to the floor with a dull thud, turning his attention to the blood on his hands and the dead rat on the floor. He thought for a moment before picking it up by its tail and carrying it over to his window which he opened with an elbow and tossed the rodent to the muddy ground below. He had just closed his window again when a soft knock from behind him made him turn around. The boy swallowed and stared, turning his head a little quizzically as the wooden toy jerked on the floor, its clay leg rising and falling and one arm waving in its joint.

Enoch closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, trying to convince himself that everything that night had really been a dream. But as his blue eyes focused again on the toy he was sure he could see the lump of clay hiding the heart moving on its little wooden chest. Somewhat hesitantly he knelt down beside it and reached out to pick up the doll. Immediately its legs started to kick in the air and its wooden head began to turn bizarrely until its painted face was staring right back at Enoch whose jaw had dropped.
"What are you?" He muttered, as if he actually expected the painted mouth to open and speak. Slowly he set it down on its very unpronounced feet. The figure swayed and started to totter on unsteady, uneven legs around Enoch's bed as the owner of which fell backwards onto the floor in shock.