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angrenwen · 3 days ago

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About two weeks ago, a third mannequin showed up – a cute curly-haired brunette in a maid’s uniform. I’d see her posed with a vacuum cleaner, or a duster, or ‘talking’ to the Mom mannequin. I was starting to wonder if this guy was having a nervous breakdown or something, but I was invested in the plotline at this point, so I kept looking.

Then three days ago, when I was walking past on my way home from work, I looked in the windows as usual. It was late afternoon, the sun shining right in those front windows, so I got a good view. Maid mannequin was dusting in an upstairs room that I think was a bedroom. Kid mannequin was sitting on the sofa holding a book. And Mom mannequin was standing in the window of the dining room, one hand on the curtain, and for once her head wasn’t turned away. She was looking out into the street.

Just for a moment, I could have sworn we made eye contact. You can’t make eye contact with a mannequin or a mask, not really. You can tell there’s nothing looking back. But for a second, I got that feeling of looking someone in the eye. It creeped me out in a way I couldn’t explain.

On my way to work the next morning, I looked in the windows. I wasn’t expecting anything that early – bakers go to work before dawn – but Mom mannequin was standing in an upstairs window. And she was holding up a sign. “Help me” it said, in strange, awkward letters that looked exactly like a mannequin hand might have written them.

What the fuck? That’s what I was thinking, when I stood up and stared at her, when I realized I was about to miss my bus and had to run, when I got to the bakery and started work..

Miriam is my partner, both in the bakery and romantically, and the third time she caught me staring into space instead of kneading dough she grabbed my ear and tugged gently. “Hey. Ellie. What’s going on? Someone throw holy water on you again?”

“Huh?” It took me a second, then I grinned. “Oh, come on, it’s been ages since anyone around here even gave a crap. No, it’s the guy with the mannequins at Number 56. Shit’s getting weird, Miri.”

“Weirder than staging fifties family dioramas with mannequins? What, did you see him making out with Mombot?”

“Weirder than that, even.” I put down the roll I’d been shaping. “I swear Mom mannequin made eye contact with me yesterday. And this morning she was in the window upstairs, which she never is this early, and she was holding up a sign saying ‘help me’. I nearly had a heart attack. I mean, metaphorically.”

Miri thought about that, frowning. “… yeah, that’s a long way past weird. I’ll check the windows when I go home and text you if I see anything else creepy.” She starts at the bakery at about three, and goes home to rest at about nine. She’s never liked being awake during the day, which was why we started the bakery. She’s good at artisanal breads, and this way she can work the hours she likes.

When she got home, I got a text saying ‘Mom and the maid are “talking” in the dining room. The kid is in the bedroom. Swear the little creeper was watching me. No signs.’

But when I went home in the late afternoon, Mom was in the dining room, holding up a sign. It said ‘PLEASE’.

I stood there a while, wondering whether to just kick the door down or sneak over later, but it was still daylight. I didn’t want to get seen. And while I was still thinking, the guy’s car pulled into the driveway. And when I looked back at the window, all three mannequins were gone. Just gone. Like they’d never been there.

I got moving fast enough that, I hoped, he didn’t notice me. When I got home, I woke Miri up. “There was another sign. And she’s trying to get my attention, specifically. I guess because I always look at them. And the guy came home and when I looked at the windows, they were all gone.”

Miri sat up, rubbing her eyes. “That is SO creepy. Should we go over tonight?”

“I don’t think we should go while he’s there.” I shook my head slowly. “I say we go over when he goes to work. I put up a sign at the bakery that we’d be closed tomorrow. I don’t feel good about this.”

“Neither do I.” Miri yawned, and lay back down. “If I have to be awake in daytime tomorrow, I’m going to sleep now. Can you pick up dinner?”

“Sure thing. We’ll go in ready.”

We waited until the car had been gone for ten minutes before we sneaked in the back way, cutting through from the apartment-block next door. The door was locked, but Miri’s always had a knack with locks. It wasn’t hard to get in.

The house smelled bad. Most people wouldn’t have noticed it, but I know the smell of something decaying, however well it’s buried under layers of air-deodorizers and disinfectant. “There’s something dead in this house,” I whispered.

“I know.” Miri whispered back. “Come on.”

All three mannequins were standing in the hall, when we left the kitchen. Standing in a row near the front door, as if they’d… ugh… been doing the fifties-TV style Have A Good Day At Work Dear farewell.

I didn’t yelp when all three heads turned to look at us, but Miri did, and I admit I took a step back. “Please,” Mom said in a dry, scraping voice. “Help us.”

They didn’t know how the man had done what he’d done, but they knew where he’d done it. Miri went around closing all the curtains, and I pulled back the rug in the living room. It was cleverly done. The carpet was pristine, and the upper side of the rug was too, but between the carpet and the rug there was a layer of clear plastic, with a full necromantic circle with signs and sigils painted onto it. At least half of them had to be in human blood to work, but sandwiched between the plastic and the rug, he wouldn’t leave a trace behind him when he moved. “This is so fucked up,” I whispered, looking at it, then up at the mannequins. I’d been hoping for transformation. Transformation is so much easier to handle. But they weren’t people who’d been turned into mannequins. “He killed you, didn’t he?” I said quietly. “All three of you. And he put your souls into the mannequins.”

Mom nodded jerkily. The kid had to struggle to move while being seen, and the maid couldn’t seem to do it at all, but Mom had had this body for a while and she’d been working on getting more and more control of it. “He can make us… seem more real. When he wants to,” she got out. When I made a disgusted face, because I had no doubt why he was doing that, she nodded again. Ugh.

“I can’t undo this,” I told her, honestly. “I’m not a sorcerer, and necromancy is… it’s major. I know some people who probably know some people, but it’s going to take some time for me to track down – “

Miri came through the door, backwards, writhing in the grip of what looked like a rope of purple light. I’m fast, but not so fast that he didn’t get me the same way in the next moment, even as I jumped to my feet. I went down again hard, grunting as the impact pushed the air out of me. “Wards, huh?”

“I was prepared for intruders.” He grinned down at me, with the intense, smug arrogance of all necromancers. The ones who just try to bring back a dead loved one and stop there, maybe not, but anyone who kills for it is a special kind of bad guy. Everyone hates those guys, even the dead. Maybe especially the dead. “So unfortunate for you. What you thought you were doing, I don’t know, but you won’t be leaving this house.”

Miri had gotten some air back into her. “These are Synsele’s Restraints, right?” she gritted out. “Well-done, too.”

“Ah, you recognise them! Yes, it’s a very useful spell. Not everyone can cast it.” He looked smugger than ever.

“All the best… wizards use them,” I managed. The tight bonds were making getting enough air to speak pretty difficult. “Effective on… magic-users as well as ordinary people. Even lycanthropes. Didn’t realize you… were this powerful.”

“Most people don’t, until it’s too late. And really, why did you have to come and intrude? My little family and I aren’t bothering anyone. We just want to be happy, don’t we?”

“Yes,” all three mannequins said in unison, but the looks on their faces made me want to vomit, if I was still capable of it. Even if I hadn’t had a certain fellow-feeling for them, I’d have wanted to help.

“There’s a major problem with Synsele’s Restraints, though,” Miri said, looking up at the ceiling thoughtfully. He was fast. We’d have to move together on this one, which was why we were talking to him first. We’d been together a long time, we knew how to signal each other without the mark knowing about it.

“Indeed? And what might that be?” he said, clearly sceptical as he looked down at us, at his feet and at his mercy.

We looked at each other, and grinned with all our teeth. Showtime.

“They only work on the living,” I spat, and Miri and I leaped on him, fangs out.

We’d fed well last night. But a vampire can always eat.

Miri got a little too into it, though, and I pulled her off. “Don’t kill him.”

“Why not? If anyone ever deserved – “

“Yeah, but… them. Killing him might trap them.” I gestured the mannequins. “You know how chancy it is killing the spellcaster.”

“Fuck. Yeah, you’re right.” She wiped her mouth, putting away the fangs and the glowing eyes and other accoutrements of the feeding vampire. “So what’ll we do with him?”

I looked around, pulled my sleeve down to cover my hand, picked up a sturdy-looking lamp, and hit him over the head with it. He’d already been unconscious, but this was a good excuse for it. “You get those three back out of here. I’m going to be a good neighbour and call the cops.”

Miri looked at the mannequins, then back at me, and grinned. “And they’re gonna look around?”

“I’ll make sure.”

“Our bodies,” Mom managed. “He kept them.”

“Yeah, we smelled it as soon as we got here. That’ll be you, right?” I made eye-contact with Maid Mannequin, who nodded very slightly. Mom said she couldn’t talk yet, or move much without orders. Mom had been the one posing her, and the kid before her, trying to draw someone’s attention. Maid was… fresh. “I’m guessing basement. I’ll make sure the door’s open.”

We’ve done this before, too. I opened the front door, when I was sure there was no-one watching, then made the call. A neighbour goes past, sees the front door open, comes in and finds a head injury, immediately calls ambulance and police. It was a plausible story, and no-one would have seen anything. They probably wouldn’t have even if I’d kicked the door down. And when I pointed out the bad smell, and one of them went down into the basement, they lost all interest in me. I just gave my statement, left my number and address, and went home to tell my poor, worried girlfriend that I was okay. One of the cops even walked me back, all friendly, like she really was making sure I got home okay and not checking my address.

Vampires don’t do magic, as a rule. But we know people who do. We’ll get the mannequins to the right people. They’re sisters, of a sort – murdered by a disgusting man who wanted to keep them like pets, just like we were. If they can be freed, we’ll make sure it happens. If they can’t… well, we’ll figure something out. There’s a transmutationist a couple of blocks over who owes us for all the free bread we give him, and some lycanthropes who might know the kind of person who’s so shitty that removing their soul from their body and replacing it with the soul of a wronged innocent is practically justice.

See, it’s like I said.

Around here, weird doesn’t get noticed much.

When the necromancer settled here, he should have given more thought to whether he was the only freak who’d thought of that."

Everyday walking home you see a mannequin staring down at you from a house window. One day it’s holding a sign that says ‘help me’ and the next day PLEASE. The owner of the home drives up and you look up to see the mannequin gone. You decide to investigate.

#It's Story Time #Nighthowlers and Quarterlings

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