Mr. Heidensberg's Mâché Menagerie

It must have been a dream. It didn’t feel like it had been a noise that jolted me from my sleep. Instead, it was that sensation of pulling yourself up out of a vat of slime, the suction tugging on you, trying to keep you with it. Dreams never seem to want to let go, even once free. It’s as if part of it comes with you and hangs on like a tumor. It lingers and makes you question its existence. Was the dream a dream, or are the feelings so strong because it happened, or will happen? Am I reliving a repressed memory, or am I seeing the future?

I teetered in thought, in the subway station between awake and asleep, as I attempted to urinate without falling on the tracks of slumber’s train. The most profound questions are painted like hasty graffiti on the walls, provoking such revelations that I will assuredly forget were even asked by morning. I might have deduced what a black hole actually was, developed a cure for diabetes, and created a means to speak with animals, all forgotten with the flush of the toilet, lost to the ether, drained from me as instinctually as my bladder.

So, what was this feeling I couldn’t shake? It’s like finding the front door unlocked when you swore you had locked it. Like realizing you were almost home, but couldn’t remember if you had stopped at the four-way or just drove through it absently. Like ordering a fountain drink and receiving someone else’s.

It was like looking out your window, expecting to see the rural streets of various homes and street lamps and mailboxes and stray cats, but instead finding a dense carpeting of fog hiding the ground in all directions. A single, decrepit barn standing alone, a rock’s throw away. Darkness swallowing the night, as if a planet-sized inkwell had tipped over and blotted out the light of stars and space.

I stood, transfixed and dumbstruck, my face nearly smashed against the bathroom window as I felt pulled by the sight. I had to still be sleeping. The pounding in my chest tried to convince me otherwise. I licked my lips, suddenly feeling very parched. My throat was so dry, I couldn’t even call out to Kate. She needed to see this, it would help ground this reality I couldn’t quite grasp yet. If it was real, she would snap me out of it.

Stepping into the bedroom, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Kate was standing right by the door, staring at me. Darkness swarmed her like an aura.

“Come back to bed, darling,” she said. “You look so tired.” Oddly, she looked pale herself. Her skin was flushed like porcelain. She blinked, but one eyelid fluttered instead, twitching. She was looking at me, yet, it was like she didn’t see me at all.

“Kate, you scared the heck out of me. You, you don’t look like yourself either. And...well, nothing seems right, actually,” my head began to pound. My heart was beating so fast that I felt like I was driving over rumble strips on the road. I was completely freaking out.

“You just had a night terror. My dear husband, return to our bed, you just need more rest.” Even though Kate was speaking, I could make out her mouth lines and lips in the dark, and they weren’t moving properly. Like seeing an overdubbed film, or streaming a show that can’t keep up with the sound. It was her, but it wasn’t. Her body also seemed to move as if gravity wasn’t weighing it down. No, that’s not quite it either. It was like her body was moving, but not fluid, organically. It reminded me of seeing a horse costume where one person controlled the rear while the other controlled the front.

“Why are you talking like that? What’s wrong with-,” Kate was suddenly right in my face. I couldn’t feel her breathe. No heat seemed to resonate from her. Her eyes were black holes, no light shining on them, like dull marbles. I choked on my words and stumbled into the doorway behind me.

“Pete, please! Get it out of me! It hurts! Make it stop, ah, ack, glarg! AAAH-HMMM-HMMMM!” Kate was crying and thrashing, reaching for me and yet struggling against something as she began to gurgle and heave and scream. The dark orb that seemed to silhouette her began to expand. Thin veiny tendrils snaked out from its abyss and seemed to unfurl like a tightly wound wire, down her legs, her arms, through her hair and into her open mouth. They pushed into her nostrils and palms, and she began to shake violently, suspended in air, held there by these black liquid barbs. Kate convulsed, no longer able to make noise until she was completely ensnared within a thin cocoon of onyx. It then turned gray and crumbled apart, revealing her once more, a seamless smooth figure, solid as bone.

“Get some rest. Peter.” Her features were practically gone now. As if she were being erased by whatever had just been absorbed into her. Her hair had fallen to the floor. A solid ghost, hovering in a frame of ghastly emptiness. Her voice was flat, monotonous.

I took a gasping breath as I shook in horror, slumped against the door frame. My eyes were swampy with terrified tears and dismay. What was this? Was I really dreaming? I felt like I had only sunken deeper into the muck, the vacuum of goo holding me, crushing me.

“Listen to Kate. Peter. Sleep sweet. Beauty sleep.” Someone else was talking through her. This figure had taken Kate. The voice was a mortar and pestle, grinding stone. Her features were eroding, becoming like glass.

“I...I just want to wake up,” I said, but not to Kate, or whatever she was now. Just aloud, I needed to hear myself, I needed something normal, some kind of ledge to grab and pull myself out.

“Bed. NOW.” A furnace of crackling coal spoke from the billowing hole of forever, beyond the neon shadow that Kate’s body had become, like a negative photo. The chiseled white statue that was Kate leaned down to grab me. I was about to lose any means to escape. I needed to get out of here.

With a quick spin to the left, I sprung to my feet and bolted for the hallway. Like a tornado siren winding up, a wailing noise grew behind me, quickly filling the home and shaking the walls. Pictures fell, lamps danced off of side tables, glass shattered in the kitchen, windows cracked and the floorboards seemed to bow and ripple. A panel snapped up and caught my foot and I felt something tear into me as I went head over heels and careened through the front door with a crash. I didn’t have time to figure out what had happened, but the acidic burn now surging through my foot made me not want to look anyway.

I had to keep going.

Not that there was anywhere to go. I had forgotten my town had been enveloped in a hollow dark, just the barn ahead. Lights flickered from within. It was the only place to go. I limped across the short gap through the opaque, dense fog and fell against the flimsy barn door.

“What the..” I couldn’t find any more words. My heart gave out. Hope drained from me. I fell to my knees as the sight before me took my strength. The barn was entirely full of mannequins. All types and sizes, dressed in apparel from all eras and cultures and poses. There had to be hundreds. These all used to be people, like Kate.

“You. Needed. Rest. But…you will do,” the voice was pure horror; a trash compactor mixed with Kate’s voice. I was broken, there was nothing left.

The slimy black veins found me, and I felt the cold, the tightening of muscle and blood, the hardening of flesh. The ink filled my eyes and I blinked but saw nothing. The coldness locked my lungs and sleep pressed onto my mind. Everything became pain then, but I was filled, full, taken. I couldn’t speak, or scream, or move. Dark agony. Darkness. Nothing.

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“So Mr. Heidensberg, are you ready to debut with the Golden Sun Gazette?” the reporter asked, scribbling notes onto his pad without looking up.

“Indeed. Please, take your time,” Mr. Heidensberg smiled jovially as he pulled the doors wide for the reporter to see. Still scribbling notes, he showed his disinterest by taking his time, especially since the option was offered. It wasn’t exactly the most captivating scoop of the century, let alone the week. Cats in trees at least have some level of uncertainty to them.

“Okay sir. Let’s take a gander,” the reporter finally exclaimed. Despite the drawn-out moment, Mr. Heidensberg didn’t seem to mind one bit. His smile remained, long piano teeth brightly filling his massive grin.

The reporter stopped dramatically as he took in the display before him, adjusting his glasses and tipping the brim of his hat back from his brow as his jaw dropped. The barn was packed tight from top to bottom with row after row of mannequins, life-like in a way he had never seen. Shoulder to shoulder like soldiers, except their dress was both timely and out of place.

“Um, so, you say you made all of these? Attire and all?” The reporter couldn’t write quickly enough. Each mannequin had distinctly subtle differences in height, age, feature, gender, and stature. It told him that each face was sculpted individually, and with care and finesse.

“I created each and every one you see here, yes. It felt like lifetimes to assemble this many, truly.” Mr. Heidensberg had a way about speaking while maintaining his fierce smile. He looked around the barn with an adoration that seemed as out of place as most of the outfits the mannequins wore.

“How, um, yes I’m sorry, how did you come up with the sets they wear? I can identify a few, but many of these styles and colors seem like another world. Did you travel? Adopt ideas from cultures and countries abroad?” The reporter was floored. Beyond the simple button ups, suits, and sundresses that were freshly popular this year, there were some that he recalled from history books too, but they seemed too freshly made. Others didn’t seem to be possible; the designs and pictures on them didn’t appear stitched, so how were they sticking to the clothing? His questions only grew the more he saw.

“Indeed sir, with each creation came an inspiration. I want to share them with the world. The new face of fashion. The most beautiful mannequins for the best stores only,” Mr. Heidensberg’s pride swelled with gusto as he took a slight bow.

“Quite immaculate, I must say,” the reporter admitted. “Nearly perfect.”

“Excuse me, nearly?” Mr. Heidensberg’s demeanor evaporated into intense concern.

“Well, just that, nothing really, but here, this one here in the nightclothes. His foot? Quite a thing to be missing one’s big toe. Perhaps some slippers will do to cover that up?” The reporter offered, not expecting such a passionate reaction.

Mr. Heidensberg relaxed and replaced his smile once more.

“Good eye, sir. Excellent suggestion. This one just didn’t get quite enough rest, I suspect.” The reporter acknowledged Mr. Heidensberg with a nod, a tip of the hat, and a flip of the notepad shut, ‘March 1910’ scribbled on its front.

“Watch for your article in tomorrow’s paper!” The reporter stated as he made his way, quite quickly, back to his vehicle and down the road. He shuddered, blaming the chill in the fog rolling in as the barn shrank away behind him. He couldn’t shake the thought, it was impossible, but he could have sworn he saw blood coming from that mannequin’s foot.