The Character Who Isn’t on Payroll

Posted to r/nosleep

I work at Disneyland. I won’t say my department, but I’m close enough to characters that I see schedules, handoffs, rotations—the boring, logistical side of “magic.” Which is why this has been driving me insane.

About a month ago, coworkers started asking about him.

“Hey, who’s playing the tall Mickey lately?”

“Did they bring back an old suit for an anniversary thing?”

“That guy creeps me out. Do you know him?” I didn’t.

There was no tall Mickey on the schedule.

Not the modern one. Not a meet-and-greet variant. Not even a specialty appearance. But people kept seeing him—walking Main Street, posing for photos, waving slowly with white-gloved hands.

They described the same details every time:

Pristine suit, no scuffs, and no wear.

Old-fashioned design. Bigger head. Longer limbs. Perfectly clean. Like it had never been used. I figured it was a contractor. Or a test. Or some corporate thing no one bothered to loop us into.

Then I saw him myself.

It was late evening, right before close. I was cutting through backstage when he stepped out from behind a building and crossed the path ahead of me. He moved… wrong. Not broken. Not clumsy. Too smooth. Like his joints weren’t mechanical at all.

The suit looked incredible up close. The fabric didn’t wrinkle. The seams—well, I thought there were seams, but I couldn’t actually see them. The face was expressive in a way costumes usually aren’t. The eyes followed people without turning the head.

He stopped at the edge of the guest area, turned, and waved. Slow. Intentional. I realized I was holding my breath.

That night, I checked the character logs myself.

No entry, no badge scans, and no clock-ins. I asked a coordinator the next day. She smiled—tight, rehearsed. “Oh, he’s… legacy,” I asked what that meant. She said, “Some characters don’t need scheduling.”

That’s when I decided to follow him.

It happened after closing. The park emptied. Lights dimmed. Music softened into that unsettling after-hours loop. I spotted him heading backstage near a restricted corridor. He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. I followed at a distance, heart pounding, until he slipped into an old costume storage building—one that supposedly hasn’t been used in years.

Inside, it smelled… warm. Not musty. Not dusty. Alive.

The lights flickered on automatically as I stepped in. Racks of costumes lined the walls—plastic-wrapped, labeled, dated. I scanned them desperately, looking for his suit. It wasn’t there. Then I heard breathing.

Deep... slow... controlled breathing. I turned. Mickey was standing in the center of the room.

Up close, I noticed what was missing. No zipper, no Velcro, no seams, and no mesh in the eyes.

The “fabric” had texture. Pores. Fine lines. Subtle movement when it smiled. I took a step back.

“So curious,” it said. The voice didn’t echo as it should inside a helmet. It came from everywhere at once. I stared at the face as it leaned closer, and that’s when I realized the worst part.

The suit wasn’t being worn. It was wrapped. Something inside shifted—pressed outward—like a body breathing beneath skin that didn’t belong to it.

“You keep better care of us now,” it continued gently. “But you forget who built the smile.”

I ran. I didn’t report it. I didn’t quit. I didn’t tell anyone, because the next morning, there was a new memo posted backstage:

REMINDER:

All cast members should treat legacy characters with respect.

Do not interfere with unscheduled appearances.

And when I walked through the park later that day, I saw him again. Standing very still. Watching me. This time, when he waved—

I swear I saw something else wave back from inside the smile.

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