The Wondrous Mr. Jack

"The Wondrous Mr. Jack" is what the rough, sturdy oak sign read on either side of Jack's medicine cart. The cart was old and made out of various different types of wood, it was painted a powder blue color that was peeling heavily off the sides like large flakes of snow in the crisp, cool winter. Mr. Jack was a short, slightly rotund man with a cheap, black, flannel top hat that was extremely rough to the touch. He smelled slightly of cinnamon and sugar, firewood, but also of something that seemed quite off. His face, much like his head, was clean of any hair. One could tell just by looking at ol' Jack that he was very trust worthy. His jolly attitude, black pants and white shirt that were slightly too large for him, and his large rosy cheeks were the things that made him so endearing. People from miles around who had never met the fellow would trust him with even the youngest of their children. The problem was, Mr. Jack truly was not a good man. He had a dark secret in his long and jovial life.
    Late one bright and sunny afternoon early in Mr. Jack's life, he was travelling to a new town when on the side of the road he spotted a beautiful powder blue cart. The cart was just sitting there on the side of the dirt road, and Mr. Jack was so exhausted he decided to take a break to pop his head inside and have a look around. Inside the cart were various types of glass vials of all different shapes and sizes with liquids of deep seas blues, vibrant sunny yellows, thick blood reds, and many more. Each vial had a different label with carefully written words in shaky handwriting that Mr. Jack was greatly intrigued by. The vial that really grabbed his interest was a vial that read "STOP DEATH" on a piece of wrinkled parchment paper. Mr. Jack picked up the vial and looked at the blood red liquid sloshing around inside. He flipped over the bottle and on the back, was a long list of warnings and instructions. Mr. Jack could not help himself, he knew he was intruding into someone else's property, but his curiosity got the best of him. As he read the instructions and warnings on the back he realized that the potion was infact fake. The instructions were claiming to have the answer to living eternally. What the instructions exactly read was this, "USE WITH CARE.
STEP ONE: Give one drop to any living person or thing.
STEP TWO: Wait a few hours.
STEP THREE: Collect doll.
WARNING: Do not let anything happen to the dolls you collect, as they are your new life span. You have now collected the years that person or thing have and would have endured if they would have lived out the rest of their days alive. Guard your new trinkets with your life, for they are your life."
Ol' Jack was no simpleton, and knew it obviously was some sort of ploy to get money off of the desperate and foolish. He set down the vial onto the shelf and began to walk out of the cart, when something else caught his eye. Among the hundreds, maybe thousands, of vials and bottles Jack noticed something that did not quite fit. A set beautiful porcelain dolls all sat with care on a shelf, hidden behind a few boxes of empty glass vials. There was a total of four dolls, three girl dolls and one boy. The girls all had long curled hair, a dress fit for a princess, and shoes that glittered like jewels. The boy doll had short jet black hair, a ragged shirt with what looked to be blood on the front of the right sleeve, and brown leather shoes that looked two sizes too small for his feet. Jack was very confused as to why any child would want such an ugly doll, and as to why each doll was so carefully taken care of and why this one was so battered it looked like it had been mugged. Jack now remembered what the vial had said, "Collect doll." He chuckled to himself, there was no way that silly thing was actually the key to stopping death.
Jack walked out of the cart and realized the sky had grown dark blue and twinkling diamonds had made their way into the sky. No one was around the cart and no one had claimed ownership of it while he'd been around it so he decided he would take refuge in it just for the night. It wouldn't hurt anyone. The next morning Mr. Jack woke up to bright yellow sunlight warming his face and body. Nobody seemed to be around yet again, so Jack decided to take the cart with on his journey into town, somebody there would surely know to whom this strange thing belonged to.
When Mr. Jack made it into town there was quite a crowd in the town square. Many people were bustling about, all seemingly looking for someone or something.
Everybody kept going about their business, when a young girl with a short pink dress and blonde pigtails yelled in a small voice, "Look everybody, it's the medicine man! He's finally here for the medicine show!" The girl's mother rushed to her to hush her up, but stopped scolding her child when she noticed Jack.
"It is the medicine man!" The mother yelled to the crowd around her.
Mr. Jack grew and enormous smile and said, "Not the medicine man, miss. The Wondrous Mr. Jack."
They wanted a medicine man, and he gave the people what they asked for. He learned very quickly the people would pay bounteously for just one small vial of the violet liquid, which these imbeciles believed would cure blindness. Jack was cheating these people out of their money for silly potions that would never work. He would be long gone before anyone noticed anything. As he began to run out, he decided to take the large vial of the blood red potion that "stopped death" and pour it into some other vials and sell them as the cure to death itself.
"No one will die an unnatural or painful death if you drink this. You will live long, healthily, and happily." Mr. Jack's voice bellowed out into the noisy crowd around him. He noticed it seemed almost every person in town was now in the mass of people around his little powder blue cart. Everyone in the crowd bought his amazing death stopper, and he even still had half of his bottle left. Once the day had finally come to an end, Jack smiled smugly to himself and rolled his cart off into a quiet area of town. He was going to make a killing off of the stupidity of others. He got into his cart and fell to sleep quickly.
Jack awoke the next morning to grey skies and a deep feeling of guilt. So many people had been tricked into thinking they were going to cure so many different diseases, and even live forever. His love of money took over the feeling of guilt and he set out to pack up his things and leave quickly. As Mr. Jack was packing up his things he noticed a silence that boomed through the square. There was no one there to be seen or heard. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as he noticed a doll that looked young and had a short pink dress and blonde pigtails. Next to that doll, was another that looked much older, almost motherly, with it's hand on the other doll's shoulder. As Jack looked around the town square he noticed more and more porcelain dolls strewn about.
"What have I done?" Jack asked loudly to the deafening silence that encased him.
"Why yes," a deep crackling voice spoke from behind him, "What have you done? Well, let's start with stealing my cart, selling my potions, and turning an entire town of people into time-dolls." Jack whipped around to see a mangled old man seated behind him on the steps of the cart.
"Wh... who are you?" Jack asked slowly.
"Who, me?" the old man chuckled, "I am the Great Doctor Osteo." Doctor Osteo was most likely a once tall man, but age had given him quite the hunchback. His few teeth were all yellowed, one of which stuck neatly out of his mouth and over his bottom lip. The odor that emitted from him was the smell of putrid onions mixed with animal dung. He wore a long black cloak that his toes stuck out of at the bottom. Doctor Osteo wore absolutely nothing on his feet and it showed on the dirt crusted toenails and in the few broken toes on each foot.
Jack looked the man up and down for a moment, "Great?" He asked
"Ah yes, my appearance may be deceiving but I assure you, I created every single one of those potions in the cart. Along with the one you gave to this entire town. Now Jack, you must help me collect all of the dolls of the people you have changed. They are stuck like this forever." Doctor Osteo chuckled evilly.
Jack said nothing as guilt set deep in his gut. He spent the entire day going through empty houses, shops, the school, and many other places in the small town looking for the dolls of the people he had turned. As the day came to an end, he grew extremely thirsty and exhausted.
"Doctor Osteo," Jack asked timidly, "Do you have any water?"
The Doctor grinned maniacally at Jack, "Of course I do. Just give me a moment, young man." He walked into the cart. Jack smiled tiredly and nodded.
Doctor Osteo walked out of the cart with a glass of cool, crisp water, ready for Jack to chug as fast as he could. The Doctor handed the water to Jack and Jack quickly downed the entire glass. As soon as he finished it, he fell very sleepy.
After that day, Jack forever sat as the fifth doll on Doctor Osteo's shelf of dolls. Turning Jack had made the Doctor young again and the Doctor had taken a new name: The Wondrous Mr. Jack.