Of course I can.
I am strong.
“Now!” he yells so loud that his voice catches me off guard. In a nearby tree, birds take flight at the sound of his voice.
The door rolls up all the way.
And there he is. He is skinnier, too. Gaunt. His hair is longer, and dark stubble covers his face. He wears a striped shirt under a green army jacket—not the type of jacket people actually in the military wear, but the kind you’d expect to see on starving runway models.
Rustling to my left, near the bushes. My blood pressure spikes so hard and fast that I nearly faint.
A figure rushes toward me. In their hands they hold something metal, a wrench or a hammer, winking in the sun as they raise it above their heads. I fumble for the butcher’s blade, but I’m not fast enough. A sharp pain burns my right hand as I miss the handle, and the steel slices my palm.
Then that metal object is coming at me. I try to move out of the way.
Again, I’m not fast enough.
It’s a wrench. I see it now. It connects with my temple. The world around me dissolves like it did earlier, when I found the letter, and I suddenly no longer have control of my body. The strength in my knees goes out. I collapse to the driveway, elbows clashing against the asphalt.
Dazed, I look up. I hear the Mannequin Man’s laughter in my head—or is it for real?
And then above me, I see a familiar face.
No. No. It can’t be.
I’m imagining it. I have to be.
Before my mind can make sense of what I think I’m seeing, a sea of blackness takes me under.
Thirty-Four
The pain in my head is what wakes me up. Throbbing, sharp. It’s as if someone is hitting my temple over and over again with a hammer.
But who hit me? That’s the question on my mind. I try putting a face to the blur that emerged from the bushes, but I can’t. The only face in my head is Lola’s.
That doesn’t make sense.
She’s here. He kidnapped her, the Mannequin Man, and it’s all my fault.
I hear grunting in the distance.
Lola?
I open my eyes. Not easy at all. My body’s telling me I need to keep them closed, I need to rest. I probably have a concussion. Or a crack in my skull. The pain is beyond immense, and I can hardly think straight.
But I blink sluggishly.
The world takes a moment to come into focus.
In the background a white shape moves, rises and falls, rises and falls.
I try moving my right arm, but nothing happens. Something holds me back. The room still spinning, I look at my wrist. It’s shackled. So is my other wrist. So are my ankles. I sit against a gray stone wall on a dirty floor.
I am wearing no clothes except my bra and underwear. The room is cold. Freezing. I want to cover myself, but I can’t. My arms can only move so far. I feel violated.
So I scream. I scream at the top of my lungs, until my throat hurts, until it burns and my vocal cords feel as if they are tearing apart. I scream until my vision blurs again. My head throbs. Warm blood runs down from my temple, trailing along my jawline like red tears.
The white shape in the distance stops moving. Hangs.
I focus on it.
It’s the Mannequin Man. His legs are wrapped around a metal bar wedged into a doorway, some kind of workout equipment. He’s hanging there like a resting bat. He is shirtless, as pale as a corpse, as white as spider eggs. On his pants are sweats made of what looks like velvet. Some overpriced name brand.
In one smooth motion, he flips and lands on his feet. He moves across the floor without shoes, and he moves with grace. His soles slap-slap-slap. His body glistens with sweat. He runs a hand through his hair, which has come disheveled from being upside-down. A forearm swipes the sweat from his brow.
“You’re up. Goody,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you. For us to really, you know, hash this out.”
“Let us go,” I say. “Where’s Lola?”
A smile. “Now, you know I can’t let you go, Mel. You’re my little experiment.”
“I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch.”
He fakes like he’s offended, open mouth, hand covering the capital O his lips have formed. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, Melanie! No need to bring my mother into this. Though,” he rolls his eyes, “she was kind of a bitch. You’re right.”
“Where is Lola?”
“She sometimes touched me, Melanie. Did you know? My own mother. Almost every weekend, after she had a few drinks. She’d touch my privates.” His eyes are bugging out. “Can you believe that?”
“I don’t care. Where’s Lola? Lola! Lola!” I scream.
“Ah, you got me. You’re so bright. That was a lie. My mother never touched my parts. Daddy, either—at least not like that. He wasn’t around much. Sure, he’d have a little too much beer and use me as a punching bag sometimes, but that only lasted until I was about twelve. By then I was as big as he was.” He snarls. “Once I hit back, that stopped pretty quick.”
“Lola! Lola! Someone! Help me! Help!” My voice is weak, rasping.
The Mannequin Man crouches down so he’s at eye level. He reeks of sweat and body odor and dirt.
“You see, Melanie,” he says, “they always want a reason. Why do apples go bad? Why do seemingly perfectly normal men rape and beat and kill?” He shrugs. “Well, sometimes, Mel, there isn’t a reason. Sometimes people are just fuckin’ batshit insane!” He laughs so hard that he falls back and takes a seat. His stomach muscles ripple beneath his pale flesh. His ribs stand out like rungs on a ladder.
“Lola! LOLA, I’m here! LOLA!”
“Scream all you want, you dense bitch. No one’s going to hear you. They all scream. All the pretty girls. The fat girls. I like the screaming. I do. Don’t get me wrong. All that screaming burns calories. I mean, it has to, right? But I love it.” He watches me for a reaction. I don’t give him one. “You don’t believe me?” He springs up from the floor. “Look at this.” He’s pointing to his crotch. An erection pokes out from his sweatpants. They’re Giorgio Armani. He grabs his penis, squeezes so hard his knuckles go as white as the rest of his body. “Oh, I love it. I absolutely love it.”
“You’re sick. You’re nothing but a sick, twisted bastard,” I say. My head is turned. I won’t give him the satisfaction of looking at what he wants me to look at. If he puts it anywhere near my face, I will bite it off. I will watch him bleed out right in front of me. No one will hear his screams, either. Then we can both die in here together.
“I know that, Mel. Gosh, I didn’t think you’d be so…boring. Maybe it’s time to show you my collection. We need a little spice in this relationship. What do ya say?”
The room we’re in is not very big. Bare, except for a sewing table and standing mirror next to it in the far left corner. Surrounding the table are objects covered with blankets. They are oddly shaped, lumpy. I can’t think of what’s beneath those covers. My mind won’t let me. A line has been drawn.
Doesn’t matter. He’ll show me whether I like it or not.
Don’t be Lola don’t be Lola don’t be Lola please don’t be Lola—
He goes to one now, swaying his hips when he walks. That’s how it is with him: everything’s a show. All he wants is the attention. It’s not about the kill. It’s about the attention.
“I wanted to wait a while until I let you meet the others, my little family. But you’re gonna be one soon enough…so hey, what the hell, right?”
One of what? Please don’t be Lola please don’t be Lola please please please—
With a snap of his wrist, he pulls a sheet off one of the covered objects. And before I can help it, I’m screaming again.
Thirty-Five
At first I don’t know what I’m looking at, but I know it’s nothing good.
“Do you like?” the man asks.
There’s four of them. Torsos. They sit on display platforms, like mannequins in a boutique.
>
“This one is my favorite, purely for sentimental reasons. Victim #1. Suzanna Allen. Nailing the process down has taken me a few tries, as you can see, but you know what they say, practice makes perfect.” He points to one on the lowest platform. No head, no arms, half a neck. Just the torso. The skin has rotted to the point of looking like paper mâché. One touch and it’ll crumble; a strong gust of wind and the flesh will peel away, leaving nothing but yellow bones. One breast is completely gone, the other is crooked, the nipple off-center, as if hastily stitched on.
He continues: “My best work so far—well, I like to think my best work has yet to come—is this one. The most recent. Alicia Rodriguez, Victim #9. To the media, at least.”
The body he points to is the one in the middle, on the highest pedestal. The skin is milky-white, shiny. It seems as if he’s painted it with something, lacquer or clear nail polish.
My eyes are wide, my stomach tightens. I might vomit. There’s a smell coming my way, a putrid stench of death and rot.
“Please,” I say. “Please.”
“Please what?”
“Just please.”
He runs a finger down Alicia Rodriguez’s torso. “I needed their faces, but their bodies…I couldn’t just ditch them somewhere like a plain old Jane. I have all this room here, and I’m not wasteful. Everyone contains useful parts, no matter how useless they were in life.”
Tears fall down my cheek, hit my lips. They’re cracked and dry. The saltiness stings the sores.
“Yes, I just needed their faces. All of these girls were fat, chubby. I watched them. They didn’t know it, but I watched for a long time before I took them. I saw the looks people gave them. Women sneering behind their backs. Men not bothering to admire them. A waiter laughing with a coworker after one of the women put in an order for a burger and fries and a milkshake.”
“I don’t care,” I say. “Just let me out.” I jerk forward. An explosion of pain ripples through my head, where I was hit. But I can’t remember with what. A hammer? A rock? It feels like it was a freight train. Thinking of it and moving makes me lightheaded. I probably have a concussion. I am going to die here.
“Don’t struggle, little kitten. You’re not going anywhere. We have a long road ahead of us,” he says calmly as he brushes the hard skin of the mannequins. Then he turns around. “If you interrupt me again, however, I will hurt you.” He laughs. “You don’t want to get hurt more than you have to. Trust me, Mel.”
“Lola! Lola!”
Is she dead? Has he already started turning her into a mannequin? Is her faceless corpse somewhere here, in plain sight, right in front of me?
“So, like I was saying…” he continues, “what’s more perfect than a mannequin? Slender arms and legs, flawless white skin, the perfect jawline, the perfect breasts. But what is a mannequin missing?” His eyebrow arches. He wants an answer. I look away. I’m searching for something I can use, anything. The chains around my limbs allow me to move about two feet.
But there’s nothing except for the stone.
“What are mannequins missing, Melanie?” His voice is laced with venom. He leans forward, face inches from mine. It’s blotchy with coverup. Eyeliner, faint, circles his eyes, his dead eyes. “Answer me!”
“A face,” I say. “Mannequins don’t have faces.”
Nor blood or internal organs or a number of other essential things, but this guy is crazy.
He offers a sickening smile. “Correct. A face. So what do I do about that? What could possibly be a win-win situation for those poor girls and those poor mannequins? I will tell you, but I’m sure you know already. The whole country knows. Maybe they don’t know why I do it, but I can tell you. I take them. I bring them here. I put them right where you are, shackled, chained. Then I cut and slash and stab them. Ooh-la-la! But never in the face. Never. I’ve tried doing it while they’re alive, but it’s too hard. They struggle so much. Even after I tell them how perfect they will be, how the whole world will soon look at them and admire their bodies.
“When they’re dead, when they finally quit squirming and screaming, I take a scalpel—not what I did at first, as I’m sure you would know, had you seen my initial attempt at this project of perfection—and I cut their pretty little faces off as carefully as I can. Like a doctor performing surgery.”
Trembling, he sits down in front of me again. Pupils enlarged, cheeks slightly redder. He’s excited. Just talking about it almost seems like enough.
“It’s not easy,” he continues, “but my hands have grown steadier over the years. Yes, they have. Now the girls are pretty, now the girls are perfect, and I know they’re looking down from Heaven and smiling. I know they’re grateful to me for finally making them beautiful.”
In one quick motion, he rolls backward so he’s on his stomach. He starts doing pushups. Fast. Little bursts of breath escape his mouth. Counting: one, two, three, four, five—until he does thirty.
He says, “See, I’m only helping, Melanie. That’s all.”
My insides are frozen. The feeling of death looms just above my shoulder and those skeletal hands creep up my spine, wrap their fingers softly around my throat. But I can’t let him see that anymore. I’ve shed my tears, I’ve done my screaming. I won’t beg. I’ll play his little game, sick and twisted as it is.
“What are you going to do with me?” I ask. “I’m not fat.” Not in my eyes, at least.
Sure, I’m no starving runway model, but I’m not obese. The last time I’d been to the doctor’s, about a year ago, he said I was actually slightly underweight. Stress, he said, was likely the culprit.
“No, you’re not. And you’re so beautiful.” His hand reaches forward, touches my jaw, gritty fingers dancing down the line of bone. Cold. “No, Melanie. You’re different than all the rest. You don’t need my help. You’ve had a good life. I bet you had to beat the boys with a stick to keep them away in high school, and those years in college, hmm? I’ve seen the way people look at you. They love you. They appreciate you.”
“Then what is this about?” I ask.
“Revenge,” he answers. “Revenge for what you put me through. Pulling that fire alarm right when I was about to kill you…that was a clever move.” He looks at the scar on my shoulder. Eyes run down its length, like Lola’s finger did the first night we made love.
I say, “It’s because I gave the police your description? Because of the sketch?”
He laughs, shrill, maniacal. “No, no, no. I don’t care about that. Not really. Anyone in that position would be forced to do it. You were just doing what you were supposed to be doing for the community. I can respect that.”
“Then what?”
“You ruined the ritual. One of my pretty girls didn’t get her moment. Brandy was her name. She talks to me sometimes, you know. She’s sad. She tells me that all she wanted was her moment in the spotlight. All she wanted was to be pretty.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry. I forgot my phone charger—”
“SHUT UP!”
I do. His eyes, his usually dead eyes, have taken on a fiery life. It frightens me more than anything.
“I left her face half-hanging there on the mannequin. I left the mannequin in the back of the room, away from the display windows. All that suffering, she says, for nothing.”
“I’m sorry. Tell Brandy I’m sorry.”
“She can’t hear me anymore. She’s gone. Brandy is gone!” He laughs again. I can’t stand the sound. Then he snaps into some semblance of normality, like he’s just hit a switch from PSYCHO to HUMAN. “Hmm, Melanie, so this is my collection, my pretty girls. I had to trim some of the fat away, had to rearrange some parts, but what do you think?”
I don’t answer. I’m looking past him at the torsos on their pedestals, all ranging from decrepit to in the process of rotting.
“What. Do. You. Think?”
“They’re disgusting,” I say.
He smiles. I think he’s going to laugh again, but he doesn�
��t. Instead, as he’s smiling, he raises his arm and slaps me across the face. The pain is immense. He hits the spot where the hammer or rock or whatever knocked me cold. I bite down a scream.
“I like them,” I say before he can hit me again. He raises his hand once more, so I have to change my response. “I love them. I love them.”
“Good. I’m glad you do. And you, Melanie, are going to be my masterpiece. A girl of your caliber…oh boy, I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about you on one of these pedestals!”
I close my eyes, trying to hold back the tears. There’s nothing I want more in my life than to see my mother again, my father, Lola.
“Don’t worry. Don’t worry, Mel. It’ll all be okay. You’ll be a fine mannequin. One of the best, if not the best.”
He stares at me for a long moment. I don’t meet his eyes. I can’t meet his eyes. Then he raises a finger.
“Oh, I have one more surprise for you, Mel. You’ll really like this one. It’ll throw you for quite a loop. Because you don’t remember, do you? You don’t remember exactly how you got here. Otherwise, you would be screaming a different name. Like BITCH or WHORE!”
I need to escape. I need to get out. Whatever he’s going to tell me, I can’t bear to hear.
But the shackles are too tight, and I’m going nowhere.
Part of me just wishes I’ll have a massive stroke or a heart attack, that I’ll die before he can do whatever twisted things he wants to do to me.
Another part, the part that inherited my mother’s tenacity, tells me to stay strong, that there’s hope yet. I can get out of this. Somehow. I’m smart. I’m resourceful. He is nothing but a crazy bastard.
“Ohhhhhhhh, my sweet sister! Come on down, please!” he shouts. “There’s someone who’s been asking for you.”
In the far left corner, barely lit by a weak bulb, is a ladder leading to a hatch. The hatch opens. It screeches loudly. Sunlight streams in. I must be underground somewhere. Where? At the old, abandoned Wymer house? No. That doesn’t make sense. The Mannequin Man must know that anyone capable of using Google could find the address, and if anyone could do that, the cops and FBI could do it, too. So where the hell am I?
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