by Paul Sating
They stepped out into the main floor, lit only by a few security lights scattered across the thousands of square feet, separated by the cabinets that looked like nothing more than dark boxes in this poor light. Rudolph didn’t see Jennica anywhere, only expensive clothes and the parallel rows of mannequins that lined the main aisle, dressed in the rich garments. Yet they weren’t. Not any longer. Something had changed. The effete light soiled their refined nature. The clothes sparkled less, looking suddenly ragged and aged, and the exposed skin of the mannequins took on a phantasmal sheen.
“Wh—where’s Jennica?”
“So it’s hardly fair to fault us for seeking that which we are designed to desire,” Neville continued, either avoiding or not hearing Rudolph’s question. “Take Jennica for example. She knows that you’re married yet she willfully fornicates with you, even though she’s disgusted by your actions. Why? Because it brings her things like this, the spoiling that you do to her. She’s never been treated so well by anyone. It helps her escape the banality of daily life. It would be difficult to fault anyone for desiring that.”
Rudolph couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was this old fucker judging him? Is that what the pair of them had been doing the entire time he was sleeping? The old man prying into their most personal details while trying to sell that stupid bitch outfits she didn’t need? Rudolph yanked his hand away.
But couldn’t.
Neville’s grip remained firm. He didn’t shift an inch. Not a single one of those pathetic strands of white hair moved.
Rudolph pulled again, but Neville didn’t budge.
“And you,” Neville sneered, all pretenses now erased from his expression, “the married man, with an adoring wife sitting alone in the condominium she owns with you. Probably wondering where you are at this very moment, having no clue that you spent today fucking a woman ten years her younger. The woman whose silence you buy with trips to Central America and these clothes that will surely rot as your morality has.”
“Fuck you.” Rudolph yanked, sure his relative youth and strength would overpower this obnoxious vendor.
But, for the third time, Neville’s grip remained intact. How is this man so powerful? Years sitting behind a desk, handling deals worth tens of millions of dollars instead of the gym equipment, had softened Rudolph. He knew that. But he wasn’t fragile, he worked out enough to attract whores like Jennica, after all. Yet …
Off in the darkness, a door creaked open. Neville glanced in that direction but Rudolph didn’t dare turn. Didn’t dare look. Without understanding why he knew he didn’t want to face what moved in the murky shadows.
“The world is a dark place, wouldn’t you agree?” Neville stated. The elderly man wasn’t seeking his insight; this was a game to Neville, a plodding, supercilious exploration of ego. And Rudolph wasn’t going to play along. “It’s full of egocentric, dare I say masochistic, creatures. Seeking pain and pleasure in equal measure, cognizant of neither, not fully.”
“What do you want?” Rudolph imagined it sounded sterner to Neville than it did in his own ears.
Shuffling feet, light and uncoordinated, announced the arrival of a witness to the conversation.
“I have want for very little at this point my life,” Neville admitted. He squared up to Rudolph now. The older man’s chest rose and fell, his shoulders lifting with exertion. It was a sad sigh, and expression built by a lifetime of pain. “And what I want is so readily available, yet so difficult to obtain. I often wonder if it’s worth pursuing at all anymore. Of course—“ Neville loosed a rough bark of a laugh “— I cannot deny my own rudimentary needs and desires. I guess you’d say that makes me a bit of a hypocrite.”
The dragging feet drew nearer. Rudolph heard a moan. It sounded like Jennica, but different, like those moments when you swore you recognized a voice on the other end of the phone but couldn’t place it. Whatever approached him wasn’t the woman he’d walked into the store with.
There were other sounds, too, farther behind him. Towards the front door.
Rescue?
“I’ll deal with that in time,” Neville contemplated, oblivious to all that moved in the darkness. “In my time. I’ve got plenty of it. It’s both a blessing and a curse. The more time you have to think, to reflect, the more things about yourself you uncover. None of us are perfect, not even myself. But I’m working on it, improving where I can. You’re going to help me with that.”
Neville reached out and snagged Rudolph’s other hand by the wrist. His grip was unyielding. Rudolph leaned back, trying to pull away, but Neville’s grip refused to slip. He looked for anything that might help, but he was surrounded by racks of anachronistic clothes. Ancient. There was nothing near he could use to free himself from this maniacal store keep. Even the mannequins—
Oh my God, the mannequins.
In the dead light, Rudolph saw them for what they were. Instead of a mixture of synthetic plastics melted to replicate the human body, Rudolph now saw the true nature of the mannequins.
The true monstrosities they were.
Each mannequin, one like the other, had shed their clothes under the dead light, mourning their display in naked revelry. Their faces painted with the sorrowful gaze of unfulfilled destiny. Each one of them, in turn, stripped of that which made them human. Only hours ago, they were immaculate, perfect in their manufactured presentation. One looked at him, her eye socket empty, bleeding as if she’d just suffered the extraction. Another, a man, his entire chest stripped of the skin that made it full and attractive for the women he once pursued in his living life. Yet another fell from its pedestal, having no legs to stand on, and pulled itself along the smooth floor toward Rudolph by its burly arms.
“What the fuck?” Rudolph yanked. He pulled. He tried to shove Neville away. None of it worked. None of it brought him his release.
“It’s futile my good man,” Neville said. “Your struggle. Seeking that which you will never gain again. Your fight isn’t worth fighting anymore. You have given the world all you will ever give it. Now is your time to give it all that you have left.”
“Leave me alone,” Rudolph screamed. “Let go!”
For a moment Neville looked remorseful, almost as if he was about to entertain Rudolph’s command. In that split moment between hope and reality, Rudolph saw his future clearly. It was easy because the future was also his past, the lie of a life he’d been living for years. A future devoid of frivolities with Jennica. A future filled with faithful servitude to Rhonda. It was a future without enticement or excitement. The endless work weeks. The pretentious parties with equally empty people. Money only replaced so much misery. Booze too, booze solved a lot of his problems. How long had it been since he’d been sober? Life was a daily exercise in drowning in a bottle. Why else was he fucking around with that needy bitch? It was a future he didn’t want to realize.
That wasn’t the life he’d worked for, running around the city, secreting to side streets and alternate paths to avoid being discovered by his wife or one of her friends. He was a grown man acting like a teenage boy who didn’t want to get caught exploring life’s alternatives. Didn’t that explain the alcohol use? The experiments with harder stuff? The lack of intimacy between him and Rhonda? If this was what fate scripted for him, then this was what it would be. The options were his no longer, if they were ever.
Even before he capitulated, Neville nodded. “It’ll be better this way. You’ll see.” The promise sounded empty. But it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did.
The scraping shuffle was close now. Close enough to hear Jennica, or what remained of her, slobbering as if she couldn’t control her own swallowing.
“I’ll give you a prominent display, of course,” Neville promised. “The customers will absolutely adore you. I haven’t had a new male mannequin in quite a while. One can only view the female form, no matter how stunning, for so long before growing bored with it. Yes, yes. You’ll be a favorite among the city’s elite. Quite a favorite.�
�
Those strong, soft hands held him. “What do you want from me?”
Neville lifted their arms together as if they were one, solid piece. “Well, I don’t very well need your hands, as you can clearly see. These I gathered from Jennica. Such wonderful skin. Such fullness, wouldn’t you say?” Neville paused to admire his new hands, the previously protruding bones hidden underneath a full layering of youthful skin. He seemed lost for second before responding, but when he did his eyes looked past Rudolph. “I can’t very well do anything with your face. You have scarred that through the years with your alcohol abuse. Those red cheeks and nose won’t do. But don’t worry. Once I transform you with the dead light you will look as pristine as the others.”
The shuffle came closer. Right behind him. Something slobbered on his neck. Neville finally released one of his hands. Just one. Even now, partially free, Rudolph didn’t attempt to pull away. He couldn’t. And where would he go? Why would he go? Neville’s free hand ran up the side of Rudolph’s cheeks, tainted by telangiectasia, and into his full, thick hair. The hair Jennica used to yank and pull whenever he buried himself deep in her.
“No, I’ve been meaning to do something about this horrendous hairline for the longest time,” Neville laughed. “It would shock and disappoint you to learn that women can be incredibly superficial, even in their older age. Always wanting a man with a full-bodied hair. I’ll finally have that now.”
Rudolph began to cry. “Will it hurt?”
Deep lines undercut Neville’s eyes. He looked sad. “Only for a short while, my man. Only for a short while.”
Two stumps landed on each side of Rudolph’s head, pressing against his neck. It was like a slow vice, squeezing, cutting off his ability to breathe. The bloody stumps at his neck dripped gore and tiny chunks of pink meat down the front of his button-up shirt. Rudolph had the crazy thought that the stain might not come out in time for him to be put on display.
But the thought didn’t last long. Jennica continued squeezing. The world darkened little by little as the mannequin zombies closed in around him. The zombie army he would soon join. The zombie army that would become his eternal family.
He wondered if he would black out before the pain came. He soon found out.
Jennica’s death grip tightened. She choked on her slobber, exerting enough force to crush his spine. There was a distinct, sharp crack, sending sizzles of pain racing throughout his entire body in a single instant. His spine seized in paralyzing pain and he was unable to breathe until it was all over.
Then he never breathed again.
***
Renee Dykstra held her husband’s hand as they walked down Fifth Avenue. He almost knocked her over when she stopped in front of a store window display. “You would look hot in that,” she exclaimed.
Cary, her husband, shook his head. The suit in the window was decent enough, though he wasn’t a fan of anything fitting tightly around his cylindrical chest. He hated feeling confined. But it fit the shaved head mannequin perfectly, showing off his broad shoulders and tapered legs. It even covered the mannequin’s protruding gut. Since when did they make fat mannequins? “I guess,” Cary admitted, examining the suit. “I don’t know if it’s my-”
He stopped when he looked into the plastic eyes of the mannequin. He swore they were wet as if it were— no, that was nonsense.
“Come on,” Renee tugged at his arm, racing to the door. “Let’s go in and see if we can find you something.”
Before he could object, the doorman pulled the door open for Renee and she disappeared into the upscale store. Cary shook his head, taking one more sideways glance at that odd mannequin before following the love of his life into the store. By the time he stepped inside Cary still hadn’t convinced himself that it wasn’t crying.
END
Satan Claws
Did I leave the warmth and sun of Florida for this shit? Adam thought.
But he smiled to meet his families’ expectations, lifting a toast to his dickhead brother, Jon. The brandy warmed his throat. It was cheap shit, the kind you could buy anywhere in Hannibal, like convenience stores and gas stations. The typical swill of family gatherings, even for the Christmas holiday. If he’d quit on life, like his father, Adam would drink enough to dull his senses long enough to get through the next couple days.
The men sat in a small side room his father reserved for drinking and reminiscing about glories of seasons past. Over the years it had become a retreat for the men in the family and any company they had over. That was the way Ted, his father, liked it. That was the way most men in Central New York preferred it, from what Adam remembered. This small town community allowed them to place the blame of misfortune at the feet of fate. How else could they deal with their inability to get ahead?
“If only we got preferential treatment,” Ted said when the frustrations of the world got to him. “You know?”
All too well. Ted raised his sons to be compliant, little robots. Jon fell in line like a lemming, Adam never had. He always questioned, always challenged. That’s why he earned this ‘second son’ status. Where Jon’s meager accomplishments were bragged about at neighborhood picnics, Adam’s seemed to only get mentioned in passing. Where his parents somehow found the money to support a number of Jon’s whims, like the time he had to have a dirt bike so that he could train to become a professional racer, Adam struggled to feed himself through college. The theme had been repeated over and over, throughout the years.
Besides DNA, Ted contributed very little to the man Adam was. Growing up, Adam was always sensitive to how other fathers encouraged their children. Ted criticized. During sports, other fathers worried when their sons were injured. Ted yelled at Adam the few times he went down in a game, including the time he dislocated his elbow. The community never saw Ted as an abuser because Adam and Jon, and their mother, never bore observable scars of Ted’s anger. But they were there, tucked away in the folds of gray matter. Permanent.
Counseling was never paid for. “They’re all quacks,” Ted swore.
Family self-help wasn’t entertained. People didn’t need to talk about their feelings because that’s was what ‘pussies and pansies’ did, Ted reminded his sons.
In Ted’s world ‘men’ simply ‘manned-up’ and moved on. Adam never saw Ted admit he might have gone a little overboard in his criticisms, nor did he ever acknowledge anything that might serve as evidence of a shortcoming.
So in the absence of therapy, Adam did the only thing he knew would help him; he moved. Florida’s heat was oppressive, and the air stank of wet salt most of the time, but it sure as hell beat New York winters and her people. Especially when those people included family.
I don’t want to be here, he thought as he watched his father and brother laugh about yet another story of local origin that was insanely uninteresting. To them, their stories were the epicenter of all that was culture and humor in this obscure world. Hannibal did that to people, made small people feel big. And it didn’t only happen to the likes of Ted and Jon, it happened to almost everyone he knew here. Maybe it was the polluted waterways that were still recovering from decades of environmental crimes by the dead industrial base. Whatever the real cause, this snow land’s people took a stubborn pride in their hometown and its stories. Adam imagined that was natural when there was nothing else going right for the populace.
“You should have seen it, Adam,” Jon laughed, slapping Ted on the back. “I mean, it was sick. He takes the throttle and just cranks it.” Jon embellished his story with the appropriately annoying hand gesture of a sideways fist revving an imaginary throttle. “And then he just hits the jump.”
“Went flying over those handlebars too,” Ted piped in, almost choking on his mouthful of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
“A’right?” Jon slapped Ted on the back again. “Take it easy, old man. You’re going to keel over if you keep that up.”
If we were only so lucky, Adam thought.
“Listen, man, you’ve got
to come back up next time the festival happens,” Jon turned to Adam once he was sure their father was not actually choking to death on canned beer. “You sure you can’t hang out a few weeks until it starts again? It’s going to be awesome.”
“Got to work,” Adam hid his groan. Was it that hard to understand that responsible people couldn’t take weeks at a time away from work? It was hard enough getting away to come back for this funeral because almost everyone was out for the holidays. Most of the world understood that, but not Jon. He struggled with what it meant to be an adult. “Plus, I haven’t been on a snowmobile since …”
When? 17?
Ted tipped the gold-colored beer can lid at him. “You don’t forget once you’ve done it. Stop being such a pussy. Stick around. You might have some fun. Then your mother will stop bitching about you never being here.”
At the mention of her title, Adam’s mother defended herself. “Don’t bring me into this,” Jennie said from the kitchen where she spent most of her time.
Some things never changed.
“Just saying the kid could stop worrying only about himself and come around more often,” Ted yelled over his shoulder at her. “Don’t need to wait for bad stuff like this to happen for him to get his ass up here. Plus, coming back would get him right again.”
‘The kid.’ Adam was thirty, possessor of a career and home. He was anything but a kid. For that, Ted only needed to look to his eldest son. Five years older, with a history of unemployment that would make the Great Depression blush, Jon was a failure in every sense of the word. Except to Ted. Everyone knew Jon had a marijuana habit too, one he hid from the family priest they would be seeing later tonight. Father McElroy was a watcher, connected throughout the town, and seemed to know the ‘sinful’ comings and goings of everyone for well over twenty years. If there was any ‘kid’ in the family, it was Jon.
“Leave him alone,” Jennie chided. “Flying isn’t cheap. Maybe he doesn’t have the money for it?”