Episode 35: The Manifesto of Dottie Jean

Narrator: Welcome to Ghost Wax, a Far and Tall Tales Production. The following story may contain graphic content. Listener discretion is advised. 

[Intro Music]

Episode 36, The Episode of Dottie Jean

Recorder clicks on

We hear the recorder turn on then some silence, followed by the sounds of Luca sitting up.  He is in a dark room full of boxes, mannequins, leather working tools and other assorted things.  This is actually the the cargo hold of a flatbed truck, but it is not moving.  

Luca: in some pain, still groggy from coming to Hello?  

Silence in response.

Luca: chancing a bit louder  Hello?

We hear shuffling in the dark.  This scares Luca and causes him to be quiet again.  After a few moments we hear Mason groan a bit.

Mason: waking up and groaning slightly.  Ow… 

Luca: Who is that?

silence

Luca: I heard someone there, who are you?

Mason: groggily What?  I don’t… where am I?… It’s dark… I can’t… my head hurts.

Luca: You’re Mason Collins right?

Mason: I… yeah.  You’re that guy who was in Bob’s house.

Luca: Yeah.

Mason: before… before… oh shit.

Luca: Yeah.

Mason: Who the fuck… changes his mind what the fuck… loses his train of thought again.

Luca: Her name is Dottie Jean Barlowe.

Mason: That sounds familiar.

Luca: She got a lot of news coverage.

Mason: Realizing oh fuck… the fucking serial killer?

Luca: yeah.

Mason: The one that fucking taxidermies people? 

Luca: pause yeah… what happened? I don’t remember… I just remember… John screaming… 

Mason: She… she killed him. beat She was chasing me… I don’t understand what the hell is happening.

Luca: It’s ok, just… stay calm.  Tell me what happened.

Mason: I don’t know.

Luca: Just tell me what you remember.

Mason: composing himself Those guys who were after me… she… I was running from the one who killed Bob… I had just watched him slit Bob’s throat, I couldn’t help him, I just drug myself out of there and got on my legs and ran and then I was out in the wet and the dark and I was sprinting through the green, just trying to get away and my stomach hurt so much… I remember I turned my ears back and I could hear him coming after me… and I caught a scent… there was another person there… guy chasing me, he was calling out to someone else, another hunter with him, telling him where I was and I turned trying to cut between the two of them and then… my foot yanked out from under me…

All my momentum pulled back in this yank, almost ripped my leg off.  It was a snare, my leg got caught in a snare. I bit at it but it was sharp and… it had some metal wire in it and the metal burned.  I changed.  I changed back, Bob had been trying to show me how and… it’s… it’s just like turning yourself inside out, but there isn’t blood and guts inside, there’s the other you.  So I folded back into my other self, so I’d have hands, so I could untie the snare, but before I could, they caught up with me… one of them laughed at the other one…laughed at me

gets emotional over the next section

They stuck a shotgun in my face and said: “change back” and I was so scared, I almost did, but then I remembered how pissed the one was when Bob changed, and how he’d called someone on the phone asking if one turned back to a person was worth anything and I realized that if I changed, they were going to kill me… They kept yelling it while shoving the gun at me, “change, change, change” but I wouldn’t… then one of them pulled this long knife out and said “I bet you will… When we’ve peeled all this skin off you, you’ll change into the other one.”

Luca: hey, it’s ok, it’s over now.

Mason: No man, no it isn’t… this might be fucking worse… after the one said the thing about… about skinning me, this other voice just drifted in from behind us.  “You’re going to find all this pretty ironic in a little bit.” It said.  She said. It was a woman’s voice.

Luca: Dottie.

Mason: I guess. She just walked out of the woods.  Their flashlights caught right in her face, but she didn’t flinch or squint or anything.  She just stared, not smiling or frowning… just this nothing expression, this nothing face, like she was looking at… I don’t know… like she was just looking at dirt. Or whatever is even less interesting than dirt.  One of the guys seemed like he was about to start talking to her, like “who are you, or what do you want” but just then we heard footsteps and… there were a bunch more people there, just these shadows and they were lurching and limping through the trees at us… like, they seemed like they all had broken legs, or head injuries, shuffling and limping, but fast and there must have been like a dozen of them.

Luca: holy shit.

Mason: The two guys unloaded on the one that got closest fastest and… he just shot them right in the chest.  Full barrel right in the chest.

And… I don’t… I don’t understand… i don’t understand anything that’s fucking happening around me lately, but   sawdust came out.  I could smell it.  None of them smelled like anything until that, my sense of smell’s gotten really good, even when I’m in my human skin but I couldn’t smell them at all, not until their outside opened up and then it was… dust and chemicals…

Luca: holy shit.

Mason: They swarmed over and… remembering and feeling sick god fuck, I… I don’t want to… they broke their arms.  These people with her, they… they didn’t seem like they could move their hands and arms right but they just like grabbed and clubbed… like one would hold one of the guys arms and the other would just crunch down on it… it was fucking horrible… they broke their arms and legs… I… I heard the lady… the lady said “mind the skins.”

Luca: exhales

Mason: So I got loose and ran… back to Bob’s, I don’t know why.  I think I smelled other people, but I stayed quiet and kept clear of them… there was this guy, the guy with you I think, I kinda slipped past him, I mean, I thought he was with them, but when I looked back to see if he noticed me… I… I thought I saw… something thin like really thin just kinda slipped through the air at the tree line… silvery like a fishing line or something and it had a hook at the end.  It caught the back of his neck and then whatever had the other end of it yanked and he went with it… drug into the woods by his neck.  He was screaming and I…I wasn’t thinking. I went back into the well house. You were there. 

Luca: and then… she came in after you… 

Mason: yeah, I panicked.

Luca: yeah.

Mason: I turned into my other self and went at her.  I thought she was going to kill us.

Luca: Apparently not.

Mason: what happened?

Luca: She thunked you on the head.

Mason: that explains the pounding.

Luca: The last thing I remember is her coming towards me… I thought I was going to die.

Mason: if she wanted to kill us she could have… and umm… I was naked before.

Luca: I remember.  A naked person running into a shack in the woods in the dead of night isn’t something you forget.

Mason: I guess not… but I’m dressed now… a, t-shirt and jeans feels like.

Luca: ok, ok.

Mason: unless she wants to keep us alive to like… fucking torture us to death.

Luca: hey, stay calm.  I know her MO and I think you’re ok.  She’s got a soft spot for animals… well non human animals.

Mason: You’re tied up too right?  I mean, dumb question.

Luca: yeah, I had a few protective talismans and a couple weapons, but they’re  gone… I managed to reach my recorder, but my pockets don’t have anything else useful in them.

Mason: I…listen at some point we’re gonna come back to “protective talismans and a couple weapons”...ok yelps oh fuck fuck fuck.

Luca: what?

Mason: I checked my pockets and, oh my god, there was something soft and… like wet like… what the fuck is that… oh shit… I think it’s… I think it’s an ear?

Luca: oh, I um, I think that’s Bob’s?  One of the poachers cut it off him.

Dottie: Thought you might want to bury it, burn it, something.

beat

Mason: oh man…

Luca: Ms. Barlowe.

Dottie: Pleasure. 

Luca: we can’t see… it's too dark.

Dottie: huh, that sucks.

Luca: yeah, could you… it’s very unnerving to be in the pitch black like this. 

Dottie: I can imagine.

Luca: Ms. Barlowe… please don’t hurt us.  My name is Luca Eso.  I am not with the poachers, and this is Mason Collins, he’s the one they were after… 

Dottie: I see you’re trying to humanize yourself so I’ll be less likely to kill you.  In this specific case that isn’t the best tactic.  I don’t particularly like humans …

And you may not be with the poachers, Luca Eso, but I know who you are with.  Mr. Greenstripes told me. He said they are called the Order of Hamsa and that they are not to be trusted.  That they’ll try and stop us from doing what we are doing… and it needs doing, Luca, it really does.

Luca: what is it that you are doing?

Dottie: I don’t think you’d approve… sorry.  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with you, but Mr. Greenstripes was. He says I have to kill you now, but I won’t make it hurt and I won’t make a taxidermy out of you… unless you want me to… but I don’t recommend it.

Luca: wait wait.

Dottie: huh… that’s interesting… you’ve got… 

A angry cat growl is heard

Dottie: Who is this?  How did you get in here?

We hear a cat hiss as Jinx defends Luca

Dottie: sheesh, calm down.

Luca: This is Jinx.  He’s my friend.

Dottie: puzzled huh…

Luca: We aren’t what you think… 

Dottie: pause, slightly hesitant because of the cat Maybe not… firm and slightly maniacal again  but they, the people you work for, they aren’t what you think.  I can’t have them stopping our work, it really is vital work.

Luca: Tell me about it, tell me.  I… I want to understand… I mean, after the shit I’ve seen this year… I. don’t. Care.  There are SO many worse things out there than you… that didn’t come out like how I wanted.

Dottie: chuckles I think I get what you mean… what is that whirring?

Luca: I… it’s a recording device in my pocket… I thought… I wanted them to know what happened to me if… um.

We hear Dottie take the recorder out of his pocket

Dottie: huh, this is a weird looking thing.

Luca: it can pick up things other recorders can’t.

Dottie: Oh yeah?  

The following is Dottie and Mr. Greenstripes talking together

Dottie: can it hear this?  Hello, little Hamsa blood suckers, helloooo.

Luca: Wouldn’t it be a good idea to tell them, directly, in your own words, what you’re  doing?  Why you’re  doing it?

Dottie: Well shit… yeah ok.

Luca: good kitty.

The recording cuts and returns

Luca: ok… it’s rolling.  This is Luca Eso, technical consultant and field assistant of Owen Voncid.  This is an interview of… 

Dottie: Dottie Jean Barlowe.

Luca: We… uh, we have your previous statement to the police, um before you…

Dottie: Before the skin mounts I made broke in and sprung me?  Yeah.  All that shit I said to them was the truth.

Luca: Skin mounts?

Dottie: Oh yeah.  “Mount” is a taxidermy term and I’m only really using their skin so… skin mounts.

I’m really good at taxidermy.  Really good.  With Mr. Greenstripe’s help I’ve gotten even better.  See, the point of taxidermy, is to preserve  some… I dunno vestige? Spirit?  Like to take some remnant of the thing’s life and capture it forever.  Well, I’ve gotten good enough that that’s exactly what I do. Not just their skin. .  There’s, like, pieces of the people still in there. Of their essence. They do what I tell them.  Help me work.  It’s the least they can do after what they’ve done.

Luca: the… the people are trapped in these… mounts?

Dottie: Some of them.

Luca: and you do this to them as a punishment?

Dottie: yeah.  They are useful and it’s a punishment.  Win win.

Luca: and, for the record, what have these people done that… was deserving of this. getting nervous I’m not making a judgment on that, I’m… just for the record.

Dottie: Ok, let’s see… ok… you, come here.

We hear a creaking and clattering as one of the skin mounts wobbles over to them.

Luca: oh god.

Dottie: yeah they are pretty freaky up close… human skin is so… dry… it gets all waxy and brittle when you stretch it.  They’re  just wood and dust inside, dries them out even more, I’m still perfecting it. They’ll pass for people at a distance now, but eventually… well, eventually you won’t be totally sure any particular person isn’t one of mine.

This dried-out mess of human jerky here is my current prized possession.  She was likely the biggest collector of rare animal skins in the country, not to mention the unsavory nightmare shit that it turns out… ok, let me paint the whole picture for you.

I’ve been traveling in a big semi.  That’s where we are now, I’m ditching this and moving on to something new afterwards, so I don’t mind if the Hamsa freaks know about this… actually… do you bet?

Luca: I’m sorry?

Dottie: are you a betting man?

Luca: definitely not.

Dottie: ok, well then we can keep it low stakes, just bragging rights.  I bet you… I bet you after this interview is over, I’ll get up and walk to the door there to leave, and after everything I am going to tell you, and after some things I’m going to show you… I bet you, you’ll wish me luck for what I’m going to do next.

Luca: ok umm, you were saying about…

Dottie: right the semi.  I’ve been driving around in a semi truck, I cleared the back out and have been using it as a workshop.  Mr. Greenstripes showed me how to draw symbols, that’s what all the blood drawings are, they keep me from getting got, pulled over, that kinda thing.

Mr. Greenstripes has been telling me where to go. .  We hit this nasty little mink farm, this guy owned it with his two sons, can you imagine, teaching your sons how to torture and murder animals as a family business?  They were like proud of it… I pulled into the loading dock right after the place had closed… one of the sons… that one there, wave Brady

we hear creaking

He came out saying “hey you have the wrong place” or “hey not here” or something.  I got this rush… I get that a lot of the time, right before violence.  Mr. Greenstripes calls it my killer instinct.  It’s like… my body telling me what to do, how to do the violence, you know?  I’m not a trained killer or anything, but I guess, maybe evolution has made all of us expert murderers, if we really listen…

I opened my car door into his face hard enough he didn’t get back up… I drug him into the back… they have to keep this “farm” far away from anyone else, out in the middle of nowhere, you know why?  So that no one can hear their victims screaming… well, that shit works both ways.  I went in the building the way he’d come out and another young man who looked just like him was in there… he looked incredibly surprised to see me and not his brother, and even more surprised when I shoved a chloroform rag over his face until he stopped wiggling.

you wouldn’t believe the sound, the smell, the pain just radiating out of every inch of that place… it… it drove me kinda wild, I admit…

So I… I used the equipment… the hooks, the electrical stuff… I tested it all out on them.

I didn’t get  to kill the old guy who owned the place, when he walked in and saw what I had done to his sons, he dropped dead of a heart attack on the spot.  Kinda touching. Mostly disappointing. 

Oh don’t look so sick Mr. Luca, I’m sparing you the gory details.

Luca: You are?

Dottie: I am.  You don’t want to know how bleak this shit gets.  The way people will treat other living things…  Anyhoo, I found this lady here, one of the prize kills in my collection, from their customer records.  They had a bunch of really vague sounding stuff in their books about her. Mrs. Mannigan “special order” in these huge amounts.  I poked around a bit until I found… it was so beautiful… have you ever seen a leopard up close?

Luca: No, but… is that what’s padding around over there?

Dottie: yeah, new friend, she’s around here somewhere… she was in a cage waiting to be murdered and made into a coat for someone.  sighs

Welllll, now I had that someone’s address.

And what an address, damn.  I grew up pretty well dirt poor, most people do.  Most of us have no idea what real rich is.  

When I was little we had this guy, wore a ten gallon hat, alligator leather shoes… huh, I ought to look him up shouldn’t I?

Anyways this guy was big, fat, sweat caked, red faced blowhard, who owned a few businesses in town. Treated everyone like he owned all of it, real: you know who I am? Kinda guy.  I thought he must be the richest man in the world.  I thought he must have toilets cast  in gold and eat KFC for every meal.

Then one year a really rich person, some family that owns half the beef production in the south east and has money stretching all the way back to you know where, real illuminati shit, moved into town and crushed this guy like a bug.

Thing I’ve realized now… now that I’m down the rabbit hole, is that there are people that have no power… then there are people who think they have power and those are the people that make a lot of noise.  But then, there are the people with real power and those fuckers?  You’ve never even heard of them.

Like the the Hamsa.  There are the normals, who don’t even think magic is real.  Then there are the people like you who work for them and think you have some special knowledge or power, and then there are them… you wouldn’t believe the shit some of my new acquaintances think get up to… the things they do… 

Laughing Silly me, getting ahead of myself. We’re not there yet. Not even close I found her property, but getting to her was another trick.

I parked way off and traipsed in through the woods with Mr. Greenstripes on my back, whispering to me about pitfalls and cameras, this place had a LOT of cameras, all over the fences, walls, hidden in the trees outside.  They had staff 24/7, armed guards, any normal person couldn’t get anywhere near this house, but I guess I’m not really normal anymore huh?

When I came out of the trees  and scaled the wall around this place, finally got a look at it… damn.  It was like a fairytale palace.

One of the lights  on the fourth floor, that’s fourth floor I said, was on.  Glowing like a little cigarette cherry at me from the dark.  The whole place was draped in ivy, hugging it like a big thick green fur coat and that made me think… about the hurt and horror this woman perpetrated just to have something fancy to wear…

Next thing I know, I’m climbing up to that window, my fingers just DIGGING into the bricks and masonry, all the flesh starting to come off and the bones of my fingers pushing through, like, sharp… strong.

Sure it hurt but it was worth it .

I think that’s  something that a lot of people are going to need to figure out real the fuck quick.  It’s gonna hurt, but it’s worth it.  It. is. Necessary.

Turns out my new sharp fingers were perfect for leveling a window open.  I could hear her humming, singing to herself like some fairytale princess from her bathroom while the stink of death wafted out  from her huge walk in closet.

I slipped inside, I could see her getting ready for bed, her hair wet and up, the tiny little nicks of her facelift scars behind her ear= As someone who works in skin a lot now, I couldn’t help but admire the craftsmanship.

When I got into her closet… past the prada and the gucci, past the hot couture mispronounce this however you like stuff no one’s ever heard of because there’s only one of each… I got to the furs.

I said earlier she was humming like a fairytale princess? well turns out she’s more of a Cruella Deville type… this shit is… I mean there’s a fucking polar bear head just staring back at me, but its small… a cub.  I can still see fear in its eyes.

I start to feel my face get flushed… madder and madder.

Like, where does anyone wear this shit?  Why does she even want it?  This leopard and lion, and polar bear and… then i’m seeing furs I don’t even recognize… I find myself digging through and, parting coats and stoles and capes … I find one near the back… I’ve NEVER seen anything like it… silver… and as I touch it… it’s cold, but only cold if I brush it one way, when I brush it the other way it's hot.  I turn the fur over and… there’s a face in it… not a human face but this beautiful strange face… 

takes a breath

There’s people out there… real strange people.  I guess I’m one of them.  People who come in contact with… this other stuff and it changes them.  I guess maybe we bring what we were before to it… I used to do taxidermy and I love animals, especially the weird ones.  She was a lady who loved… I don’t know, loved wearing death and feeling special and having rare things she wasn’t allowed to have… when I met the other stuff, I became this, and when she did, she became that.

She had werewolf pelts, I think, and feathers of animals that changed colors, and a necklace of tiny little people with wings.

Something has been happening to me more and more recently.  I feel like… sometimes I feel like i’m falling, plummeting, slamming into these sheets of ice. But instead of crumpling up and dying, I punch straight through. And I keep falling. And as I do,  as I fall I keep picking up… secrets?  It’s hard to explain.  I feel the farther down this chasm of rage I fall the more things I learn. The more secrets I find. 

I keep thinking I’m as angry and disgusted as I can get, but hell, I’m starting to think there’s no bottom on this thing…

So this particular time, this time I punch through and I learn something and I can hear Mr. Greenstripes laughing as I start running my hands all over the Streaks of red from my shredded fingers. The blood and death and pain that had been meticulously cleaned but could never quite be washed away… feeling this tug from each of these cruel strange garments… it’s such a strange feeling, I’m not even surprised when they start to move.

Mrs. Mannigan groans unintelligibly through a sewn shut mouth.

Dottie: oh, Mrs. Mannigan doesn’t like this next part.  You don’t like what happens next in this story do you Cruella?

Mrs. Mannigan groans again

Dottie: that’s because when Mrs. Mannigan came to say goodnight to her little collection of rare and unsavory goods they were waiting to say goodnight to her… whatever I had put into the skins had gotten them moving again… a skin that’s been animated… to move it kinda just… flows.  A brightly patterned river of spots, and stripes and colors flowed out to meet her… and pried her apart.  Pretty clumsily.

Welp, you get what you pay for.

She made a lot of noise and I don’t know, they must have had some kind of security on staff because as those skins went wild I heard gun shots and screams… it was… well quite a ruckus.

I gathered up what was left of the old bag, in an old bag, actually, and looked for the office, which had lots of names and addresses and, wouldn’t you believe it, books on black magic… a prayer book on how to worship something called The Indulgent.  Real sick shit.

We hear Dottie rummaging around in boxes and files

Here, take a look.  There are pictures, polaroids here, no don’t look away.

On the computer I found… I found things, dark, twisted unsavory shit you wouldn’t believe.

These people make me look like a goddamn girl scout, the shit they were talking about… sacrifices and torture and…

You wanted to know, wanted to know about my work, wanted to see what I’m up against? You and your Order are so concerned about hunting monsters? Well LOOK AT THEM, LOOK AT WHAT PEOPLE WILL DO and tell me they’re not worth hunting.

realizes she losing it and composes herself.

Ok, ok, I’ll spare you, you look pretty green around the gills Mr. Luca.

Did you know, in some places of the world, there are no animal cruelty laws?  It’s true.  There are places, on this planet, this beautiful weird round spaceship we all share, where you can just do… anything you want to the creatures around us.  And film it, or fuck, sell tickets and there’s just nothing anyone can do.

Well.

Fuck. That.

There’s something I can do about it.  Something I am going to do about it.  Mr. Greenstripes and the skin mounts and I.  We are going to take a little overseas trip.  I’ve got names and locations and… Well… you tell your Order they can come after me if they want.  I think they will.  Hell maybe some of them are even part of it, they don’t do anything to stop it, makes them  part of it as far as I’m concerned.

So, I guess I’m going hunting.  Don’t bother pointing out the irony. It’s my favorite part. 

If you’re coming after me, be ready for a hell of a fight.

I’m going to make people pay for their cruelty. If that’s something you need to stop, so be it.  That shapechanger Mason Collins, I spoke to him already, he’s deciding if he’s coming with me, or going  with you.  I’d say it’s a coin toss at the moment.  He’s realizing he’s not human kind and has seen in a short time just how dangerous that really is.

we hear Dottie stand up

I’ll leave you here with the semi.  Once you’ve washed these signs and sigils off the walls they’ll be able to find you with magic or whatever, or head east there’s a gas station about fifteen miles on… 

We hear a door open, hear the wind outside.

This is so exciting for me honestly, I feel like I’m… I don’t know, going on safari?

Luca: Ms. Barlowe

Dottie: Yes?

Luca: Good luck.

Dottie: Well what do you know.

We hear the door close.  The recording runs for a bit longer.

Luca: Scared sad sigh.

Recording cuts.