I don’t think I will ever wake up.
Forty-Three
At least another week passes.
I know because Lola comes with food on a paper plate and water in a bottle every three days, and she has come twice. The sight of the bread makes my stomach twist. I physically don’t think I’m able to chew.
He said I was going to starve, but he hasn’t held to that promise. Though I think I am close.
The pain of my torture has been unbearable. The slightest movement sends me into uncontrollable spasms.
I look up at Lola. Even this simple act of rolling my eyes hurts.
She is gussied up. Blush, eyeshadow, blood-red lipstick. Her hair is pinned back by a butterfly barrette. She’s still wearing the ring on her hand that was in the letter that brought me here.
As she looks over my body, I see the horror ripple through her features. She is looking at a monster.
So am I.
“P-please,” I say. A raspy wheeze. “Please help.”
“He’s in one of his moods again,” Lola says. “He’s locked in his room. He won’t talk to me. But when he comes out, he is going to hurt you, Mel. He is going to hurt you like you’ve never been hurt before. I’ve tried to talk him out of it, but he won’t listen.”
I watch her with glazed eyes.
“Under the bread, okay? Our little secret. Next time I come down here, I’ll knock on the hatch twice before I open it. If you don’t hear the knocks, then you take what’s under the bread. You take them all. It’s all I have left. Please, just do it. I can’t hear you scream anymore,” she says, setting the plate and water at my feet. She leans over me. My left arm twitches as my brain tells me to choke her, to hit her, but I don’t have the strength.
Her soft lips kiss the stubble atop my head.
“I’m sorry,” she says, then she’s gone.
And I am in darkness again.
It’s only when I hear squeaking that I open my eyes.
A legion of yellow orbs float nearby in the dark. Two pairs are closer than all the others.
My strength has suddenly come back; the rest has done me well. I kick out weakly, the chains rattling, and the squeaking turns shrill. I hear claws scrabbling on the stone.
The rats. They are trying to get my bread.
With the same foot I used to kick the rat, I bring the plate toward me.
Lola’s visit feels like a fever dream because she was nice, because she kissed me with her red lips, and because I still felt that familiar tingling the first time we kissed.
But it wasn’t a dream.
The plate is heavy. There’s bread on it.
Something under the bread, she said. Take it, she said.
I lift the bread up. It feels like each slice weighs as much as a brick. Underneath are four pills. Stamped on the pills is VICODIN.
Warmth radiates throughout the entirety of my body. Vicodin. Pain pills. I can’t help myself; I stick one into my mouth, no easy task, and chew it up. My mother always said that pills work themselves quicker into the bloodstream that way.
She’s not wrong.
In about five minutes, I hardly feel the aches and pains in my limbs. Whenever I breathe, it doesn’t feel like my broken ribs are grinding against one another. I actually manage to sit up, and then to stand. As I’m up, I begin the agonizing process of popping my shoulders back into place, using the chains.
Except…it’s not agonizing. Not really. When I feel the pop, the relief that makes my knees weak is a welcome sign.
Three more pills left.
Take them, I’m telling myself. Take them and get out of here.
But that’s impossible. That’s the medicine speaking. I won’t be able to break the chains, and even if I could, the hatch is locked and probably weighted down. I don’t know the schematics of whatever’s up there. It could lead into the Mannequin Man’s house. He could be sleeping right next to it, I don’t know. Too big of a risk.
So I settle back down, my spine tingling pleasantly, and I eat my bread, this time toasted, and I drink my water.
I feel better than I have in days.
Forty-Four
I’m half awake, coming down from the buzz of the Vicodin, when I hear the hatch start opening.
No knocks.
At least I don’t think there was.
Better safe than sorry. I could get used to the high, anyway.
If you don’t hear the knocks, then you take what’s under the bread. You take them all. It’s all I have left, Lola said.
So I take them, but not all. I only put two on my tongue and dry swallow. One made me feel great; two will make me feel like Wonder Woman. The leftover pill, I scramble to hide in a small crack in the floor.
The light clicks on, blinding me.
“It smells terrible down here,” the Mannequin Man says. He looks different. Haunted—and that’s saying something. He wears little to no makeup on his face. Pockmarks riddle his cheeks, scars of adolescent acne. His eyebrows are as wild as his sunken eyes look. I haven’t seen him since the last time he put me on the stretching table. That seems like a lifetime ago. He flashes me a glaring look.
My stomach drops. Do I look noticeably better? Can he tell I’m stoned?
“Get up,” he says. “We have work to do.”
“In the pursuit of perfection,” I say, surprised at how easily the words roll from my tongue. It’s amazing what some Vicodin, toast, and water can do for someone trapped in a psychopath’s basement against their will.
That’s the drugs talking again.
Calm down, Mel. Calm down. Play the wounded animal, just play the part.
“Up, now!”
He turns away.
I stand, but I make it seem like I’m struggling more than I actually am.
From his desk, he opens drawer after drawer. Slams something on the table. It’s a power drill. Then from another drawer he pulls out metal rods. They are about a foot long, as wide as a microphone stand.
“What are you doing?” I ask. The Vicodin’s now betraying me, making me talk too much when I shouldn’t be able to physically move my lips or have my tongue sound out the syllables.
“Punishment number three,” he says. He turns and comes over to the wheel. “You try anything like you did last week, I’ll go to your house and rape your mother, understood?”
I nod slightly.
Hands on the wheel, he turns it until the chains tighten and I’m pressed against the cold stone, arms out to the side. I imagine myself as Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
In my head I’m urging the Vicodin to work all its magic. Make me go numb, make me go numb. Because the very sight of that power drill fills me with a cold dread, like snakes in the pit of my stomach.
The Mannequin Man digs under his shirt collar. On a chain hangs a pair of reading glasses. He puts them on the end of his nose. It makes him look much older. I’d guess he’s about forty or forty-five, maybe fifty, but in his present state, without the makeup, without all the gloss, he looks like he’s pushing sixty.
“You have to be posable, right?” he says. “Mannequins have points of articulation. Dead bodies don’t. They just flop around and start rotting. I can prolong the rotting…usually.” He laughs. “Graveyards and death are funny, don’t you think? Have you been to one, a cemetery?”
I don’t answer. I just blink sluggishly. The Vicodin is kicking in. Fasten your seatbelts, we’re going for a ride. In the background, the rats’ eyes begin floating. Brighter. Dimmer. Brighter.
“Have you?”
I nod, forgetting what the question was.
Graveyard. Right. Yes, I’ve been to one. Who hasn’t? People are always dying.
“Sometimes I go,” he says, “and I listen to the voices.”
“What?”
“The voices,” he says matter-of-factly. “We don’t really die when we die. Our bodies go, but our souls and minds stay right where they are.” He taps his head. “Right in there. They’re always cha
ttering.” On cue, he turns to the corner, where the torsos of the dead-girl-mannequins stand, and says, “You shut your slut mouths!” He turns back to me. “Sorry. Sorry. I hear them, too. They’re not nice. They’re mad. I hope you won’t be mad, Mel. I like you. I really do. That’s why I’ve watched you for so long. That’s why I made Lola give you happiness and Cooper turn himself in. Good ol’ Cooper. We go way back. I saved his life a long time ago. He loves the attention, trust me. And you’ve never been happier, have you?” A wide, shark-like smile. “And neither have I, Melanie Padgett. Neither have I.”
My heart thunders in my chest. Thumpthumpthumpthump—
He runs a shaky finger down my jawline. I feel slight pain there, like pressing on bruises. The pills have dulled it. Thank God.
“But you have been a naughty, naughty girl. Naughty girls need to be punished. Five years watching you, biding my time for the right moment, for the right plan. That is a long time. I bet you thought you were safe.” Fingers run down my arms, my legs. My skin turns to leather. He repulses me. This close, I can smell his breath. It stinks like rotten food. I can smell his greasy hair, the body odor clinging beneath his armpits.
He continues: “Oh, how wrong you were about that. Then one day, Lola said how cute she thought you were and pop! The idea of her stealing your heart pretty much worked itself out. She’s a smart gal. Certainly smarter than she looks. Do you know what she told me? She told me that the stretching doesn’t seem to be working. She says I have to wait until you’re dead because your body is healing itself. Much easier to stretch something without resistance, wouldn’t you say? Your current measurements will just have to do, I guess. So no more of that, you lucky ducky. That punishment is over.”
From his pocket, he pulls a black Sharpie out and peers down the end of his reading glasses. His fingers grip my right arm. He makes a dot on the underside of my bicep, close to the elbow, and another dot on my forearm.
“W-what are you doing?” I ask shakily.
Another grin. “I could say ‘You’ll see,’ but I guess I’ll divulge my secret to you. More fun that way.” He puts the cap back on the Sharpie, deposits it into his pocket, and then he grabs the metal rod as if to show me.
I can’t turn my head all the way to the side because of the pain—even the Vicodins aren’t perfect—but I can see where he’s lining the rod up. Along the dots.
“Points of articulation,” he says. “Like a Barbie doll. Mannequins, the truly versatile ones anyway, possess these same features. You can bend and pose them. What better way to showcase the latest fashion? I say the more lifelike, the better.”
“You can’t do that,” I say. “It’ll get infected and rot. Then you’ll have a mannequin without an arm.” The fear is closing my throat. Pretty soon, I don’t think I’ll be able to talk. “I’m your masterpiece, remember? I won’t be if one of my arms falls off.”
“I can sew it back on. I’m good at that.” There’s doubt in his eyes.
“By then it’ll be a different color and not proportionate with the rest of my body. You can’t do this while I’m alive. It’ll ruin me.”
I think if I could get on my knees, if the chains weren’t so tight, I would, and I would beg for him not to do this. The punching and kicking and stretching, I can put up with. It’s not that bad. The bruises go away, and my muscles snap back after a few days, but metal rods in my arms and legs? I can’t. I’ve never been good with anything going into my skin—shots, needles, or when they prick your finger at the doctor’s office. The very thought of a tattoo brings on an uncontrollable bout of nausea. My mother said that once, when I was very small, a nurse had to give me a shot and I freaked out, kicked her, and then threw up all over the floor. Not my finest moment.
“No. You’ll be beautiful, Mel. You won’t rot. I won’t let you. Here, I’ll make you a deal. We’ll try it today. Just one instead of the four I planned: two in the arms, two near the knees—of course, when you’re dead, I’ll have to put one in your spine and your neck, too, but we’ll worry about that for another time. After I put the one in today, we’ll wait it out and see what happens. If it’s really bad, I’ll kill you soon. No more pain. Deal?”
I close my eyes, swallow. The taste of the Vicodin hangs around the back of my throat; so does bile and fear.
“Yeah,” he says, leaning closer. “I like that deal.” Then he kisses me on the cheek. I try to pull away but can’t. “You are, after all, my masterpiece, Melanie. So let’s get started.”
He pockets the metal rod, grabs the power drill, and squeezes the trigger.
It whirs, and I scream.
Forty-Five
I must’ve passed out.
I wake up and I’m alone.
It was all a dream, I’m thinking…until I try moving my right arm. It doesn’t listen to my brain, and the pain alone almost sends me spiraling into unconsciousness.
Now things are starting to come back.
The whir of the power drill. The spray of blood—my blood—dotting the Mannequin Man’s reading glasses. The smell of burning skin and bone, the same smell as when a dentist drills into your teeth. Almost the same sound, too.
My left arm is able to move. It’s not easy, but I can’t fight the curiosity. I need to know if this really was a terrible nightmare. Did the Mannequin Man actually insert a metal rod into my flesh and bone? I just—
My outstretched finger touches gauze on my right arm. It’s wrapped tightly around the elbow. But there’s something else…
Something jutting from my skin on both ends.
And it’s not my bone.
It’s cold and smooth, and even in the dark, I’m able to see the muted color of the metal.
It’s a rod.
He did it, he really did it.
I feel sick.
I lean over and vomit. It’s nothing but water and acid, liquid fire up my esophagus. The tears come next, first leaking from the corner of my eyes, but then I’m sobbing and it hurts the entirety of my body. And I need to stop before I go into shock or have a heart attack, but this goes on for I don’t know how long.
I just want to be with my mother and my father and my cat. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be in pain anymore.
If God is kind, He’ll let me die right now. Put me out of my misery.
Except He doesn’t.
I pass out again, partly from the pain, but mostly from the shock.
I awake to the sound of squeaking. Little sharp pinpricks biting into my arm, crawling like bugs.
I look down, and two pairs of golden eyes are looking back.
This jolts me from my weariness. I throw the shoulder of my right arm inward, feel a rip, and the rats go skittering away into the shadows, their little paws padding.
I sob again because there is a massive amount of pain where the rod pokes out. I have felt something tear, and I think the metal has come slightly loose.
I put this to the back of my mind.
At the forefront: the rats. There is no toast. They were trying to eat me, undoubtedly brought on by the smell of my blood.
I can no longer close my eyes. I can no longer sleep. And if I can’t sleep, the chances of ever recovering from this are zero.
Forty-Six
I’m fighting exhaustion when the hatch opens and the light comes on. Brightness that almost blinds me.
Lola.
She has food and water, and wears a smile on her face. Genuine, I think, until she sees the mess that is my right arm.
I have not seen it in the light, either. This is the first time. The gauze is soaked through with blood. The smell of disinfectant faded a long time ago, and the wounds are now thick with the smell of infection.
And the metal rod…
Knowing it’s there is one thing, but seeing it…
I feel a dizzy spell coming on again. I fight it.
The rod sticks out about five inches through the top of my arm.
“Jesus,” Lola says. Now she looks like s
he’s about to cry. “I told him. I told him!”
“Please,” I say. “Do something, Lola. Please. I’m going to die. If you get me out of here now, you won’t get in trouble. I’ll say nothing. I’ll say you were down here with me. Please.” My speech is clearer than ever before, but I’m on the edge of unconsciousness again.
Lola sets the paper plate and water bottle on the floor. The rats squeak, having caught the scent.
“I need to go to the hospital. Please, Lola. Please. Don’t let him do this to me. I can’t take it. He’s a monster. You’re not. I’ve seen the real you and I know the feelings we felt between us were real, too.”
“I can’t. He’s my brother,” Lola says. She edges closer to my right side, looking at the wound in my arm, the congealed blood, the mutilation. Her hand covers her nose as she leans in.
“Lola, please! You can change this. You can fix it all.” I begin to sob. “I just want to see my little cat again. And my family. I want things to be normal. Please, Lola, please.”
She steps away. The tears I thought were coming earlier have now spilled from the corners of her eyes.
She turns. Her back is to me. She’s leaving.
I lean forward, ignoring the pain in my legs. I’m on my knees. If that’s what it takes, I’ll beg and beg. I’m not prideful anymore, not when there’s a ten-inch rod sticking out of my arm, not when rodents are trying to eat me anytime I close my eyes.
“Please, Lola. Please.”
But she turns the light out and climbs the ladder.
I am alone again—except for the rats.
Forty-Seven
“It’s not bad, not bad at all,” the Mannequin Man says. He holds my arm in both of his hands. Just this small amount of pressure fills me with anguish. “I think I’ll start making preparations for the next arm.”
“No. Please, don’t. Let me go. Just let me go,” I wheeze.
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