Terror Mannequin

by Douglas Hackle

  The Membrane suddenly darted back toward the house.

  “No, ’Brane!” Glont shouted after it. “We’re leaving!”

  But The Membrane kept moving, slid up the porch steps and past the clerk of courts’s headless corpse before entering the house.

  Glont smacked his forehead in frustration.

  A moment later, the thing came back out the front door, an old hardback copy of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible riding its back.

  “Now, that’s the spirit,” Chillington said, still on his knees as The Membrane halted before him. The Chillmaster placed his left hand on the Bible, raised his right hand into the air.

  He stared at Glont. “I Chillington, the Chillmaster of Chillville, do solemnly swear on this Holy Bible that I won’t kill any more people tonight or ever again.”

  Tom Two tugged on Glont’s jacket. Glont looked down at him. Tom Two signed, Well, he must be telling the truth now since he swore on the Holy Bible!

  “I dunno, Double T. I’m not so certain him swearing on a Bible means he’s telling the truth.”

  “Please, my friend,” Chillington said, wringing his hands again. “Just give me one more chance.”

  For his part, Tom Two fell to his knees and signed, Yes, please, Uncle Glont! Let’s give him one more chance. The Membrane also joined in, forming two limbs and two crude hands to wring.

  “Alright, alright,” Glont said, giving in against his better judgement. He jabbed a finger at Chillington. “But this is your last fucking chance, pal. Like, for real!”

  Chapter 24

  “C an I help you?” Sharon Simmons asked in her open doorway. She was the woman whose son had dressed up as Chucky and tried to hit Tom Two in the knee with a stick earlier that night.

  “Yes, you can. I am Chillington, the Chillmaster of Chillville. I’ve come here tonight to help right a wrong…”

  After Chillington finished speaking, the woman, her face stained with tears and runny mascara, opened her screen door and came out onto the porch with her sad-faced son and daughter—now in their pajamas—in tow. They came down to the front walk.

  Sharon looked from Glont to Tom Two to the Membrane. “I…I am truly sorry for the way we’ve treated you and your nephews over the years, Glont. It’s horrible. I’m…I’m so ashamed.”

  Both Chillington and Glont did doubletakes. Head cocked quizzically, Chillington asked, “Did you really just apologize?”

  “Yes. See, after we got back home tonight, I got a call from my sister. Her ten-year-old daughter, my niece, was hit by a car and killed while trick-or-treating tonight. A hit and run. As you might imagine, everybody’s pretty much in shock right now. But when I got off the phone, I had something like an epiphany. I’m ashamed that it took such a horrible tragedy to make me realize it, but I now see that life is far too short for cruelty and heartlessness—that our brief time here in this world is too precious to waste on hate, ignorance, intolerance, and selfishness. So, yes, please accept my heartfelt apology. Glont, I promise to treat you and your nephews with kindness and goodwill from now on. I’ve also decided to teach my children about empathy and the difference between right and wrong. And I vow to never let my six-year-old daughter dress up as a slutty, sledgehammer-lickin’ Miley Cyrus ever again. It’ll be age-appropriate Halloween costumes from here on out! Oh, and Glont—if you don’t have any plans on Sunday, I’d like to invite you and your family—your mother too—over for dinner as a gesture of goodwill and atonement.”

  Everyone in the woman’s small audience was stunned.

  “Well, how about that?” Glont said, smiling and nodding his head as he glanced from Chillington to his nephews. He turned back to Sharon. “Yeah, we’d be glad to come over for dinner on Sunday. I can’t wait to tell Ma Ruth. She’ll be so excited. We’ll bring a dessert. What time do want us to—”

  “Hey, Sharon!” Chillington interrupted, nearly shouting through clenched teeth. “Have you and your kids ever wondered what it would be like to play ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ with your own goddamn, motherfucking circulatory systems?”

  “No, man!” Glont cried, stepping in front of the Chillmaster and grabbing him forcibly by the shoulders. “You promised! You swore on the fucking Bible!”

  “Aw-Yeah!” Chillington said as he grappled with Glont, who tried to cover the Chillmaster’s mouth with his hands.

  Sharon and her children gawked at them while taking a step back, confused.

  Aw-Yeah stepped out from behind a tree just as Chillington tore away from Glont and stumbled backwards.

  For their part, Tom Two and The Membrane raced over to Aw-Yeah, each grabbing onto one of the mannequin’s legs in an attempt to stop its approach. Barely aware of their presence, the mannequin kept moving forward, lifting them both off the ground with each step.

  “Aw-Yeah!” Chillington cried. “Make these fuckers play ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ with their own circulatory systems!”

  “Noooooo!” Glont screamed.

  Sharon Simmons’ entire circulatory system tore free from the rest of her body. Retaining its basic human shape, it looked as if a life-sized diagram of the human circulatory system had just leapt out of the pages of a giant anatomy textbook: connected arteries, veins, and capillaries with a still-beating heart at its center. Before the two horrified, wide-eyed children had a chance to scream, their circulatory systems forsook their bodies in the same horrific manner.

  These three vein-marionettes and their erstwhile bodies formed a circle on the lawn—vein-hands joined with bloody, mangled flesh hands—while Aw-Yeah’s dummy and wax doll worked the invisible puppet strings. Tom Two and The Membrane continued to pull futilely at the mannequin’s legs. As the horrible circle began to turn, the dead mother and her dead children sang the dark nursery rhyme under the telekinetic direction of Aw-Yeah, though their mutilated throats, ruptured vocal cords, and shredded tongues only emitted a sort of wet, wheezy whine accompanied by a guttural croaking.

  Chillington, who sat nearby in the grass clapping along, provided the missing words: “Ring around the rosie. A pocketful of posies. Ashes, Ashes, we all...fall...DOWN! Haha!”

  The circle collapsed to the ground, the mother and her children’s disembodied hearts beating four or five more weak beats before going permanently still.

  “And we shall drink from the skulls of our enemies!” Chillington cried in a crazed voice as he shook a fist in the air. He crawled over to the circle. “And we shall eat of their flesh!” Reaching the bodies, he grabbed one of the hearts and bit into the thing like an apple. After chewing the warm heart-meat for a moment, he glanced back at Glont and his nephews. Yet again, he appeared to have forgotten they were there. Lips besmeared with crimson gore, the Chillmaster went back to looking guilty. Staring at the Lamonts, the heart fell from his trembling hand.

  “Oh, dear,” he said. “What have I done? I…I went too far again, didn’t I? I…I’m so sorry. I promise I won’t kill anyone else! And I swear I’ll never tell another lie! I’ll swear on the Torah! And the Koran too!”

  “You’re out of control, man. We’re done with you. So long, Chillington.”

  Glont grabbed Tom Two by the hand, started jogging back to the sidewalk with The Membrane trailing closely behind them in the grass.

  Still prostrate on the lawn, Chillington reached a hand up after them. “Please, just give me one more fucking chance! Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  Chapter 25

  T hey hurried back to the house, cutting through backyards to shorten the distance. On the way, Glont glanced over his shoulder a few times to see if Chillington was following them, but if the Chillmaster had decided to give chase, they’d lost him.

  Just as they turned up their driveway, Glont’s cell phone vibrated as a new text arrived: the first of the night. He halted, fished his phone out of his jacket’s inside pocket. The text was from Amanda. It read: Hi Glont. Hey can u come pick me up from the party and drive me home? Lance k
ept trying to get me to go up to his bedroom with him, but I wouldn’t go. He called me a slut, fired me from Fun 4-Life, and kicked me out of his house. What an asshole!!

  Glont rapidly typed a reply and sent it: Hi Amanda. Whoa, sorry to hear u got fired. Yeah I can come get u. I’ll be there in about 15 min.

  Amanda texted back a moment later: Great! I’ll be waiting out front.

  Glont slipped his phone back into the inside pocket of his jacket. “Hey, you guys go inside. I have to go pick up Amanda at Lance’s party.”

  Tom Two yawned wide, stretched his arms back before signing at him: Are you coming back for our Halloween party?

  “Ya know what, guys? It’s gettin’ late. It’s already a quarter to two in the morning. You’re about to pass out, Double T. Let’s have our party tomorrow night instead. We’ll get an early start on it. And we’ll watch two scary movies instead of one. How’s that sound?”

  Tom Two pulled a sour face, crossed his arms over his chest. But I want to come to Lance’s party with you, he signed.

  Me too, The Membrane signed.

  “Time for bed, Tom Two. I’m only going there to pick up Amanda, then I’m driving her home. I don’t need you guys cramping my style, if ya know what I mean.”

  I don’t know what you mean, Tom Two signed.

  He means he’s gonna try to play hide the salami with her, The Membrane signed.

  Glont smirked, giving The Membrane the side-eye. “Well, I don’t know about all that, but we’ll see what happens.”

  Why would you want to hide a salami with her, Uncle Glont? Tom Two signed, a look of innocence pasted across his ghastly face.

  He means he’s gonna try to make the beast with the two backs with her, The Membrane signed.

  Tom Two cocked his head to the side, now even more nonplussed. Why would you want to make a beast with two backs, Uncle Glont? he signed. That sounds kinda scary.

  Come on, man! The Membrane signed, getting frustrated at Two Two’s naiveté. He means he wants to dunk his dolphin with her!

  What? Tom Two gestured, now frustrated himself. Uncle Glont doesn’t have a dolphin, you idiot!

  “Hey, don’t worry about it, Tom Two. Regardless of what I do tonight, it’s time for you to get to bed. Plus, I don’t want you seeing any more horrible shit tonight. You’re probably already gonna have nightmares for weeks about exploding heads, skeletons ripping out of their bodies, and friggin’ vein-marionettes. Now get your little butt inside. You too, ’Brane!”

  Chapter 26

  A fter his nephews grudgingly went inside the house, Glont walked back to the detached garage to see if Ma Ruth’s scooter was there.

  It wasn’t.

  Man, I hope she’s not getting into too much trouble with Old Crub, he thought as he glanced at her empty side of the garage. An extremely disturbing image of the filthy old man mounting his eighty-year-old, Freddy Krueger-looking mother formed in his mind’s eye, and he rapidly shook his head to dispel it. He got into his Honda Disaccord, started it up, and backed out of the driveway.

  As it was nearly 2:00 AM, darkness and quiet embraced the streets of Selohssa, with most of the town’s lights having been turned off, the doors locked for the night. After he drove across the train tracks into the north side of town, Glont saw what at first appeared to be Freddy Krueger himself in the middle of the oncoming intersection, driving a motorcycle around in wild figure eights.

  “Is that who I think it is?” he asked aloud.

  A moment later, he saw it was indeed Ma Ruth on her scooter with what appeared to be a woman with long blonde hair riding in the red wagon hitched to the back. What looked like two small children sat on the woman’s lap. When Glont stopped at a traffic light, he saw the blonde woman was actually a bearded old man wearing a wig and a cheap, skin-tight, low-cut miniskirt. His lips had been painted messily with garish cherry-red lipstick.

  Old Crub.

  Glont also noticed that what he’d first thought were children were actually inflatable life-sized dolls: a girl doll and a boy doll.

  He threw the car in park, got out quickly. “Ma, what the hell are you doing?” he shouted through cupped hands to get her attention.

  “Oh, hey, boy,” Ma Ruth said, slurring her words. “Whuh’s it look like were doin’? We’re joyridin’, ya big dummeh! Hee-hee-hee!” Then, she barely missed crashing into a utility pole.

  Glont ran up alongside the scooter like a cowboy taming a wild horse. He grabbed the steering bar and pulled his mother’s hand away from the throttle, causing the scooter to roll to a stop and bump into the curb. The woman’s breath reeked of cheap booze, bubonic plague, and something else that might have been Old Crub jizz.

  “You’re drunk, Ma! You shouldn’t be driving this thing. You guys could’ve gotten yourselves hurt.”

  “Aww, fughh you, dummeh!” She flipped him the bird with her middle-fingered Freddy blade.

  “Hey, Old Crub, ya scumbag! Why are you letting my mom drive around like this?”

  “Oh, he’s drunker ’n me,” Ma Ruth said. “Heh!”

  For his part, Old Crub responded, “Aaaa-ghaarrrr-blarrrrghhhhhhhhhhh-gahhhhhhr!”

  “Shit,” Glont said, trying to think of what to do. A moment later, he said, “You two are coming with me. After we get Amanda, I’ll take you both home.”

  “Alrighty,” Ma Ruth said, fanning the knives of her makeshift Freddy Krueger glove. “Ya can drop us off at Old Crub’s place.”

  “Old Crub’s place is the goddamn sewer system, Ma. I’ll drop Old Crub off at the sewer, but I’m taking you home!”

  “Now, don’t you sass me, boy! Aah’m a grown woma’. And if I wants to go home with a feller fer the night, ya best be sure that’s a-what Aah’m a-gonna do, ya moron! Harrumph!”

  Glont shook his head in exasperation. “Alright, Ma. I’m too tired to argue with you. I’ll take you both to the sewers if that’s what you fuckin’ want.”

  First, he helped his mother out of her seat, then he went back to the wagon, gagging and wincing as he grabbed Old Crumb under his armpits and hefted him out of the wagon to his feet. He smelled like a toxic cocktail of rotten garbage and raw sewage.

  The two drunken, nuthouse-bugshit insane seniors waited as Glont drove the scooter up onto the sidewalk, parking it there and taking the key with him.

  “Alright, let’s go,” Glont said when he returned, taking Ma Ruth by the arm. “You two can ride in the backseat.” He glanced over at Old Crub, gave the dude a once-over. He noticed that the two inflatable child dolls were actually attached to the front of his hot pink miniskirt, apparently as part of some Halloween get-up.

  Although he was afraid to ask, Glont said, “So what the fuck are you supposed to be?”

  Ma Ruth answered for him: “Ya know how lots of women’s Halloween costumes these days are just sexy versions of, well, pretty much anything ya can think of? Sexy nurses and sexy policewomen and sexy nuns and sexy corn-on-the-cobs and whathaveyou?

  “Yeah,” Glont said.

  “Well, Old Crub is Sexy Sophie’s Choice. Hee-hee-hee.”

  The old man smiled wide, his drooling mouth a black hole rimmed with three or four cracked piss-yellow teeth.

  Glont shook his head in moral disgust. “That’s fucked.”

  Chapter 27

  G lont killed the headlights when he pulled into Lance’s car-filled driveway. Apparently, the party was still in full swing. If possible, he wanted to avoid any further run-ins with Lance. He parked where the driveway divided into a circle. Amanda was waiting by herself under the portico, looking hawt in her Sexy Little Red Riding Hood costume.

  “You two wait here,” Glont said. He glanced in the rearview mirror to witness the disturbing sight of Freddy Krueger sloppily making out with Sexy Sophie’s Choice.

  “Gross!” Glont muttered as he got out of the car. He walked briskly up to the house, and Amanda came down the steps when she saw him, meeting him in the driveway.

  “Your poor lip!” she said
, placing a hand on his cheek and leaning in to get a better look. “How long do you have to keep the stitches in?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Didn’t the doctor tell you?”

  “I didn’t go to a doctor. It’s kind of a long story. I’ll tell you about it later if you want.” He took her by the forearm. “C’mon. Let’s get outta here.”

  As they started to walk back to his car, the muted sound of the party surged in volume when the front door of the house opened behind them.

  “Well, well, well,” Lance said. “Look who’s back. If it isn’t My Tiny Little Weak Bitch, the prodigal shithead returned.”

  Glont halted, turned around. Lance’s crown, scepter, and robe were gone. His thick hair was disheveled, and lipstick stains dappled his neck and chin. Barely holding onto the neck of a half-full bottle of beer in one hand, a drunken glaze in his eyes, he waddled down the front steps. A stream of equally wasted party guests followed him out of the house. Guests continued to pour out of the front door onto the veranda even after Lance stopped at the bottom of the steps. Among them were many of Glont’s coworkers, including Sam the bouncing clown, who was now dressed in an offensive, culturally appropriated Sexy Indian Seductress costume, complete with redface and a headdress. Glont’s big baby of a floor manager, Marty, was there, too, dressed as an offensive, culturally appropriated Chinaman, complete with yellowface, a wide Asian rice hat, and chopsticks.

  “So I guess there’s no TERROR MANNEQUIN hiding out at Fallingwater after all, huh?” Lance asked.

  Glont didn’t answer.

  “Still, that was a pretty rad idea to set you guys up so you had to go reverse trick-or-treating out there tonight—whosever idea it was. But as it turns out, I’m glad you didn’t die out there. You know why?”