Samantha is easily the sweetest and most genuinely happy girl most have ever encountered. As she puts it, she loves life, and has the attitude to prove it. For an eighteen year old girl ready to face the world with the best attitude possible, she might not be ready for what dark corners of that world she is going to face on one particularly bad day.
After an encouraging conversation with her closest neighbor, Mr. Hank, Samantha is happily heading to her car to go and visit a new shop that opened not too far away from their rural home.
Curious Curiosities is a place that just from the name has Samantha quite fittingly curious. She's always been a carefree girl, sweet to all ages but especially kind to the older generation. Perhaps that's the reason she loves antiques and oddities, knick knacks and conversation pieces. She knows as soon as she has walked through the door that this is definitely the place for her.
Even if the old man operating the register is kinda rude and seemingly more interested in reading his magazine than greeting his redheaded new customer, Samantha is never one to judge. She's just enjoying the crowded and stacked items, the dusty old antiques, the many remnants of the past this place offers.
She's there to shop for a gift to surprise her mom when she returns from out of town, but until Samantha spots the old looking puppet in the corner, she never imagined she'd stumble upon something so perfect.
The only label on the dusty old puppet is a single word partially faded on his chin, the word FLICK, but whether it's a maker's mark or a name, Samantha doesn't care. This is the gift she has to get, even if the old man seems somewhat shocked that she wants it.
He's nervous and constantly trying to talk her out of it, but offering no reasons why, and only when Samantha begs to buy it, explaining why she wanted it, does the man relent. He'll sell it, as it is for sale, everything is, but she must promise to never look too long into the puppet's eyes.
Thinking more about the old man's warning, Samantha can't help but disagree that anything is bad about this puppet. He looks nice, and with the little word FLICK on his chin, she decides to call him, Mr. Flick Puppet.
Staring into Mr. Flick Puppet's eyes, she realizes just how suddenly tired she must have become from the morning's activities, and before she knows it, Samantha is nodding off flat on her bed, face to face with the supposedly sinister puppet.
Samantha discovers that something else is now quite literally pulling her own strings. With the invisible sensation of literal strings lifting the girl up from her bed, walking her over to the mirror, Samantha takes a long look at herself.
Before she even has a chance to realize how wrong her smile seems, Samantha is feeling the manipulation of not just her body's movements but her words as clearly Mr. Flick Puppet has decided to pull her strings and make her do very very bad things.
If what she says about herself isn't bad enough, things definitely will get worse when she is forced to change into skimpy clothing and head outside only to greet Mr. Hank on his afternoon jog with the vision of a sweet carefree neighbor girl who is suddenly up for some very nasty fun.
Find out just how far a girl's strings can be pulled in the tale that reminds readers to always read a word several times before assuming it simply says FLICK.