Don't Stop The Dance

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Behind its flame, she leaned against her forearms, eyes wide open and bright red, having not slept in days. Regardless, she remained fixated on the window. The hills were illuminated by moonlight, scattered with twisting trees. The lights hummed above her head like fruit flies around rotten flesh. Her arms and legs prickled with pins and needles, her neck ached, but she couldn’t turn away. Every time she had, it had caught her. And she couldn’t be caught again.

A stiff floorboard creaked, and she jumped to her feet. The cabin had been empty when she’d arrived, she’d made sure to check every landing, cupboard, bedroom, the shed, the fireplace – as stupid as that was. The floorboards squealed again and her heart hammered in response. The front door began to rattle. Sweat wrung around her neck, she grabbed the gun on the leather sofa, trembling fingers holding it forward. The rattling increased, more frantically, desperately.

Then, it stopped. She waited, index finger over the trigger, until the door crashed open. She heard her name before she had time to shoot, and opening her eyes, she saw the familiar. Blue eyes, blonde hair, preceding with his hands above his head.

She dropped the gun. “Jesus, Harvey. Close the door, close it!”

Harvey obeyed, breathing furiously. He was pink in the face, damp under his arms, but transfixed on her. Her mum always said Harvey would drag her out of a burning building if he had to.

“Where have you been?” He asked, sitting down. It took her a moment to hear him, the way her head thrashed, as if it were being repeatedly hit into a wall. “I went to your house, your mum is going crazy.”

She looked down at her hands, still shaking. She wanted to ask if her mum was alright, unsure, however, at whether she wanted to know if she wasn’t. It had been there last, and it could have done whatever it wanted. If she thought too much about it, she could have screamed. But she couldn't, it would recognise that sound more than any rattling door.

His expression, though an attempt to be solid, was wounded. He can’t have been getting much sleep, either. They’d chosen this cabin together, it had been his idea. It hadn’t been serious, not at first, neither of them had thought so. The cabin was like he said, their just in case. That was before they'd found that their minds could be just as easily compromised as their bodies.

“Is it…” He paused, checked over his shoulder, despite their obvious aloneness. “Is it them, George?”

She didn’t say anything, enough of a response. He began to cry quietly, head in his hands.

-

George and Harvey had met at Wes’ Milkshake Bar at their seventh birthday parties. Harvey later said he’d known they were soulmates because they had both ordered the Sweet ‘n’ Salty Caramel, what he said was Wes’ best flavour. They would meet again in the dance club at their primary school. After the first session, George would beg her mum to let Harvey come over, so they could dance together.

George appreciated in Harvey the things she didn’t have. Optimistic, never quick to anger. Well-prepared, too, letting George copy the homework she forgot or to wear his spare headband whenever she left hers at home. It was their unbalanced natures that kept them together. And, of course, their love of dancing. Every time their parents organised play dates, they packed pyjamas, knowing that dancing for hours would be enough to knock them out during the car ride home. Harvey and George would go on to represent their school nationally, and then the country internationally. Everyone in their small town thought they could be some of the best, until they both stopped, abruptly, only three months ago.

It started after Harvey’s dad had bought a department store in order to sell the family’s homemade clothes. The place had been left abandoned with hundreds of naked mannequins.

Harvey had exclaimed. “They’re massive, creepy as hell, they look just like real people, too. You have to see.”

George rolled her eyes, but she was curious. They snuck into the department store that night, having been banned by Harvey’s parents as the place was undergoing reconstruction. And yes, the whole floor was in the process of being dug out, walls plastered in hospital white and lined with trials of potential colours. The store was boxed by empty shelves, lit by flickering skinny lights. The mannequins stood poised at every corner, strong-limbed and dead-eyed, creepier than Harvey had made them out to be. He danced, waving his hands by their faces, poking and lightly punching them.

“Stop it.” George said, already scared by the dampness in the air and the unwavering faces of the mannequins burning against her cheeks.

He held a mannequin by its arms, and holding it began to sway, dancing with it. George laughed at his ridiculousness. Then, she unlocked her phone and put on some music and held a mannequin in her own hands. The shop was quiet other than their laughter, and the music. She doesn't know how long they stayed there for, until the sun streaked past the windows and the music on her phone died out.

-

Harvey whispered a quiet thanks for his coffee, and held it close to his chest. He was thinking up possibilities of escape, ones that George had given up on. He took a sip of his drink, then looked at her.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

A her, it must be, the mannequin. It was George, or some strain of her pulled thin.

“In Jake’s playground, when I went to pick him up.” She said, remembering the large figure looming at her side, its staggered breathing in her ears. “And then in my living room the night I left.”

He put down his mug. “See, here’s the thing. I haven’t seen mine in weeks, I thought he’d given up. Maybe yours will, too.”

She appreciated this idea, however much she doubted it. Having witnessed the look in its eyes, dead coal now ignited with obsession, she doubted those flames would ever go out.

She sat against the sofa, paying close attention to the whistle of the wind against the window, the cool swaying of the trees like drunken teenagers. She noticed the music of it all, the slow drawl of sounds, the dance. She closed her eyes now that Harvey was here, giving in to the pull of her eyelids and the drag of her muscles. She dreamed of dancing in the tall grass, the sunlight beaming against her skin, a giggle in her throat, and the wind howled. She was dreaming, then she was awake. The music had stopped. An unfathomable silence strangled the air like gas.

Harvey blinked. He’d been asleep, too. “What is it?”

George stood up and went towards the windows. The air between her fingers became palpable. The trees and the hedges bristled; the sky sunk. That’s when she saw it, by the trees, its face obscured but body distinct, in clothes stolen from her wardrobe. A stance that could be given away instantly as abnormal, rigid and inhuman. She caught black eyes and dropped to the ground against the wall.

Harvey shot up. “Is it her?”

She nodded, wanting to cry out. “Get the lights.”

-

The knock on the door was certainly Harvey’s, because George’s mother never knocked, nor did she let anyone else in the house post-eleven at night. And sure enough, he entered, flushed from the cold, holding three large black bin bags.

George glanced up from her book, irritated. “What are those?”

He sighed, put the bags down and crashed onto her bed, beside her, asking softly. “He still hasn’t called?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” she said, putting the book away, the only worthy distraction she’d found from her phone from the past three hours. “What’s in the bags? Is this where you kill me?”

“Very funny.” He replied, jumped off the bed, giddy like a child on too much sugar. “Thought it might cheer you up. Figured we could give them a makeover.”

He yanked out first a plastic torso, then some legs and arms, and finally some heads. In the other bags, there were wigs, makeup and some of his old dance clothes.

George took a head, held it up, frowning. “Did you steal these?”

“Well, yes, but my dad didn’t need them, they were going to a landfill.” He held out a torso. “I do you, and you do me?”

They sat back-to-back for almost two hours in complete silence. She couldn’t believe the resemblance to Harvey once she’d finished. The same waves in its blonde hair and blue eyes, refined cheekbones and thick eyebrows. Even his smile, which she couldn’t alter much, resembled him so much a part of her faltered, half in fear. Harvey took her out of it, though, laughing so much he was certain to wake up George’s parents. He danced around with it, flapping its arms and legs, then turned to her.

“Do you want to meet your new dance partner?”

She giggled and held out her hands. And she did the same, sending the both of them into hysterics. Her mum even banged on the door to silence them. Harvey, ever in her good books, apologised lowly. Before he left, he wheeled his creation around, and she was left speechless. If her portrayal of Harvey was accurate, his was lifelike. He’d gotten everything right, from her freckles and beauty spots to the shape of her body.

Harvey grinned. “Creepy, huh?”

She felt nausea bubble in her stomach. “Yeah.”

“I’ll take them to my dad’s garage and dump them in the morning, looks like it’s going to rain tonight.” He packed them away, and they said goodnight. He turned earnest for a moment. “Don’t worry. He’ll call.”

George went to bed uneasy, if not for her father’s negligence or the storm outside her window, but for the look of her own mannequin staring back into the eyes of its creator.

-

George could feel it, undoubtedly.

Harvey did as he was told and ducked to the ground. She covered her mouth to stop the sound and smell of her breathing, as it had been drawn to it in the past. She shut her eyes, out of habit, as if she could make it disappear if she tried hard enough.

Outside, footsteps brushed the earth, but George could hear them thundering. It stopped, then started to move again. She opened her eyes. Silence, again.

Until the window shattered above, decorating their bodies with glass. Harvey screamed, but George hadn’t the time, with its hands already reaching inside towards her. She could hear its high-pitched strangling. Somewhere among that noise it was repeating her name, over and over. Its hands, hard and plastic and cold, grasped for her and she screamed, batting them away with her own, kicking her legs up and down. It found her neck, and began to squeeze, lifting her out from behind the shattered window. She choked on her sobs. It clenched harder, she couldn’t breathe; furiously, she wrangled, but it would always best her in strength.

Harvey grabbed the gun and shakily, pointed it in their direction. He’d never used it before, he would surely miss, but she didn’t care, happier dying by his hands than these artificial ones. Her eyes urged him, and he fired. She was dropped into blackness, but she could breathe. With some difficulty, she could breathe. Pain echoed around her neck. Behind the window, she heard it wailing, thrashing.

Harvey shouted in her ear amid the pounding of the gunshot. She snapped awake and followed him out the door, jellied legs somehow pushing her into a sprint. She could hear it behind them and forced herself faster, guided only by Harvey’s trembling figure. Cold air smacked the tears against her face, her lungs rattled in her chest. They ran, without stopping, until George spotted something in the distance. It was incomprehensible at first, then gaining, limping. She slid against the leaves.

“Harvey…” She called to him, and he swerved, eyes darting wild.

“What? What!”

She gasped, the figure in the distance had disappeared, only to burst from the shadows and grab onto Harvey. George staggered back. It had Harvey’s blonde hair and one of his old dance outfits on. His, it warned George, dead and burning in the eyes.

It reached for Harvey’s neck, much stronger than George’s. As Harvey was stronger than George was, throwing her up in the air and carrying her on his back; his shoulders and his hands. She could hear the music in its squeal, in Harvey’s cries. It was too late to reach for the gun. It snapped Harvey’s neck, killing him instantly. It did not let him drop, however, but caught and cradled his limp body.

George felt hot tears ignite from her brain. It held Harvey as a mother holds the child she has just given birth to, in violent tenderness, stroking his hair and hushing him. It breathed ruggedly, laughing or crying, or both. It didn’t even look at her, hollow eyes focused on Harvey's body. It didn’t want her, it had gotten who it wanted. It didn’t even notice when she started to run again.

George couldn’t stop, even when she was sure she wasn’t being followed. She ran until her legs gave out, chest straining, and collapsed onto the dirt.

They’d been together, just as she and Harvey had been together.

She screamed into the night.

-

This storm reminded George of the one before. Thunder and lightning in harmony, in a dance of darkness. The storm where their creations had disappeared into the night. Their thought had been that Harvey’s dad had thrown them away as he’d initially intended, and they settled on this one, unsure as to any other explanation. It assuaged them, too, until Harvey swore he’d seen his mannequin on the way home from school, and even less, when George said the same thing, hers entering Wes’ Milkshake Bar just as she’d been thinking to go there herself.

Rain soaked her clothes. She dropped her head onto her knees, crying quietly. She imagined it finding her now, hunched and terrified, how easy it would be. Seeing what had happened to Harvey, she knew what would come next. It would find her, like it always did. It had been waiting at the bus stop she took back from school so she started to walk, it frequented her dance studio so she decided to quit, it was having tea with her mum and playing with her younger brother in their living room, when she knew she had to leave. The more she saw it, the more human it looked, a baby growing into its genetics.

Despite the rain striking her like knives, she heard a distant thumping sound. She stood up, as if the sounds were the lighthouse to her stranded ship. Her skin and hair held sweat mixed with rain and blood, her own, from the glass. She wondered if it bled as she did, if it felt her pain. She thought back to Harvey, his body a rag doll in its arms.

She moved towards the sounds, a house party by the nearby lake, it seemed. She went inside, nobody paying much attention to her, despite her appearance. Lights strobed and throbbed, house music pumped around them, the blood of the veins in the air. The living room was big, sofas dragged to the side and valuables in the cupboard. George made her own space on the wooden floor. Her limbs cried out, her head thrashed. But she began to dance, throwing herself all over the floor, and she didn’t stop, eyes wide open, waiting.

-

It loved to dance, especially with her.

She’d been dancing in her room when it appeared, from the street. She saw it through the window. At first, it watched her, then, it started to copy her every move, dancing as she did. She carried on with only a brief hitch of her breath. It could move as she did, becoming less robotic as it copied, swerving its hips and raising its arms in a way her dance teacher would have found perfect.

It was only when heir eyes locked, and it smiled, cracking its cheeks, that she scrambled, shutting the curtains.

Harvey calmed her down, albeit she would never get the image of their dance out of her head. The dance that would never end.

-

George saw it come in. It found her with instinct, eyes catching hers above a crowd that didn’t acknowledge its presence. Surprising, as its movements were still as mechanical, expression as monotone. It smiled, ghastly, sending prickles along George’s skin. Uninjured, so Harvey had missed, after all. Some of his blood on its hands.

They were face-to-face, emulating each other once again. The songs slowed, and they moved closer together, never once breaking eye contact. Its grunting and hollow breathing overtook hers completely. She couldn’t hear herself anymore. It was resembling her more by the second, the more it watched her. She closed her eyes. People cackled and shouted amongst them and the music stung her ears. She thought about Harvey and tears barred her vision, they were both simply swaying now, the debris of a current. When she opened her eyes her heart stopped. Its eyes were wide, its hand twisting inside of her, blood running down her t-shirt to her trousers.

She choked, shrieked in pain, then fell to the ground as it yanked its arm out, decorating the dance floor with crimson. Nobody noticed her fall, and if they did, nobody stopped dancing. Even as George bled out, footprints of blood dotted around her body, and her murderer carried on dancing, in glee.

George would still go home that night, embrace her tearful mother, sit with her younger brother as he watched cartoons, one arm around his shoulders. Still go to bed at the hour she normally did, admiring the photos of her with her best friend, smelling her fresh bedsheets, reading her favourite book before bed.

And she would sleep, perfectly dreamless.