The Mannequin

The Mannequin

“There’s nothing there. Just go in,” Turnip said, smirking.

“No way, you go in-- since there’s nothing there,” Pickle replied, in a voice tinged with derision.

She stood, feet shoulder width apart, hand shaking toward the doorknob. This was going to be the fifth, maybe the eighth, door they tried. Time didn’t seem to matter here.

The door groaned open, straining with effort…

Hours earlier, they had stumbled upon the building they were now lost in by chance, by mistake. It loomed in the distance as they crawled over the bleak landscape that had been their home since their escape from their village. Armored only with nonsense names that bored officials had chosen for them before The Incident, they had scampered off in search of answers to questions they could not even fathom to ask.

The building was a giant domed slab of marbled concrete. It was Turnip’s idea to go inside in the first place (“what if there’s food?”), Turnip’s cocky sense of direction that led them to the cacophony of peeling, rusty doors (“come on, this way!”), and Turnip’s insistence of going forward (“any progress is still progress!”).

Upon entering, they found themselves in a circular hall that exploded into countless stories above them. The balconies led to a row of exposed elevators in the very center. One quick glance revealed the rusted frames that were held in place as though by a precarious string. The steel that surrounded the interior structure was stained deeply turquoise, and shards of metal and glass formed jagged rows of stalagmites along the floor.

“Where… are we?” Pickle said, mouth agape. Her voice was barely above a whispered breath, but the echo that it left behind dragged for what seemed like minutes. It crept up their necks and seemed to stir the very dust in the air.

Turnip, waved her arm to silence her companion, barely listening, and plodded on. She was consumed in her search of something she could eat, use, or fidget with.

…The room, both wall and floor, was the same brilliant turquoise that permeated every inch of the building, gleaming in the darkness, and extended for what seemed like miles. This room held a feeling of death and debris, but it also looked like it was abandoned in a hurry, much like every other room they checked. Its once smooth walls had texture, something they couldn’t quite make out. Scribbles? Fingernail scrapings? Pickle felt her skin erupt into goosebumps. She stepped inside, leaving footprints in the inch-thick dust lining the linoleum floor. Running a finger against the crumbling wall, she looked around. In front of a broken screen that took up most of a wall, was a panel of buttons and knobs. Next to those were barrels, vats, and large glass tubes. It made no sense to Pickle. What do farmers know of science?

Shapes began to grow around her, covered loosely with white sheets. KRRRRRRRRRK. A sharp crack made Pickle jump so hard she fell to the floor. Something had toppled over near the piles of fabric.

Ignoring Turnip’s muffled laughter, Pickle crawled toward the lump but stopped. A burning pair of eyes stared at her through a rip in the fabric. Biting back a scream, she covered her eyes, willing herself to be anywhere but here.

Turnip’s laughter stopped. Peeking through the spaces in her fingers, Pickle motioned over to the curtain and the eyes. The former rolled her own pair, and, striding toward the pile, whipped off the curtain with a flourish. The burning eyes belonged to an old mannequin, its straw hair piled in uneven clumps, the mouth turned up in a wretched grin. But the skin was too textured, the hair too soft, for it to be anything but once alive. Its hands were balled into fists. A chain peeked out of one of them.

“You’re so stupid. It’s a doll. See?”

“N-no,” Pickle whispered, her voice cracking. “Look at the eyes. The eyes are.... the eyes are...”

“What? They’re what?” Turnip said, stomping her foot.

Pickle crawled closer. “They’re real. And fresh.” Her voice shook. “I don’t know what they’re building in here, but people… people…” She stopped. She sounded ridiculous. People disappeared from the village often, but any inquiries were met with the butt end of a gun. Other shapes began to form out of the darkness, and Pickle knew, without ever touching another sheet, that more eyeballs would stare out at her. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.

As if in response, a dark line trickled from the socket, and the mouth seemed to grin even harder. Its fist opened, and a chain glittered there. Unbidden, Pickle’s fumbling hands reached toward it, and felt her palms burn. She did not notice its other missing arm.

“Okay. Okay. Okayokayokay. Let’s get out of here,” Turnip whispered, the smile she had worn seconds earlier fading into a thin line. She grabbed Pickle and ran out of the room, both panting. She slammed the door and they both fell in a heap on the floor and held each other.

Time stood still.

Minutes, weeks, or days passed.

“How about we try another door?” Pickle said.

Turnip untangled herself from the hug, in shock. “Are you crazy? Let’s get out of here. I wasn’t before, but now I’m afraid. Really afraid. Please.”

Pickle stared, unblinking, at a single point in the wall ahead of her. With a giggle that didn’t belong to her, in a voice that wasn’t her own, she got up from the floor in one quick fluid motion. “No. Let’s keep going.” The chain now sparkled in her hand, and when she opened it, she found herself staring at a heart shaped locket. It looked so out of place, Pickle laughed again, this time in her voice. It cracked open, revealing a thin trickle of evil smelling liquid. Bitter. Foul. It burned the backs of their throats, and Pickle began to gasp.

Turnip’s scalp gathered moisture, and she felt beads of sweat escape her hair at the base of her neck. Pickle herself seemed to glow. The stench of a familiar chemical burst forth from Turnip’s memory. It was all that was left after people went missing back in the village. The Incident that no one wanted to speak of, least of all what was left of their families, was no longer something they could remember. The further away they ran, the more unattached they felt to what they left behind. They had only each other to cling onto in this life.

“What’s… happening…?” Pickle said. She ran her hands through her hair and began to sob. Clumps of hair were falling onto the floor, and her skin began to dry out, turning it to leather. There was a long, unbroken scream, as her right arm shriveled and in one fluid motion, formed into a slick gun barrel that almost reached the floor. Her eyes were piercing glass as she dropped the locket. It shattered, its pieces glittering under their feet.

“Please no. No. I am so… so sorry,” Turnip began to weep. She now knew what the bodies in the blue room were.

The remains of a piss-poor attempt at control.

The beginnings of war.

“We require utter subservience,” Pickle said in a metallic voice. “No further action is required.” The barrel stretched out to her one and only companion, and a final, anguished whisper rang out in the dim hall.