Lights Out in the Mannequin Room

I watched Lonnie stroll into the store three hours late for his evening shift, grinning ear to ear, pulling off his ball cap, and heading straight for the clearance rack. He picked out some slacks and a dress shirt, got dressed in the restroom, and, again, beamed that big, toothy grin.

“I sold all my stuff, today,” he said.

Lacey, behind the service desk, didn’t say anything.

Lonnie continued, “Yep. Starting fresh. I’m going to be George Washington.”

Sal Sanford, the assistant manager, popped around the corner, “Hey, bud,” he said. “Let me talk at ya for a sec.”

They went upstairs.

It was a weeknight, in the summer, a Tuesday, so the store was pretty much empty. Scheinman’s--it was an older building in an older mall, freshly repurposed, as the new trend went. The angle was mid-brand clothing at reduced prices, some knockoffs and a few mis-cut factory seconds all mixed with auction-acquired odd lots.

I got on board while hating a stock room job at the other end of the mall. I saw them interviewing from the food court. I ran home, slapped on my tie, and thirty minutes later sat in front of Sal Sanford for the most official job interview I had ever had up to that point in my young life.

We spent three weeks cleaning and clearing out the space. The floor was a mess, so we shifted boxes and racks from one corner to another while workmen flensed scabs of old rug from mottled concrete. Other times, Sal would send us into the backrooms and overhead to salvage things left over from the previous store.

That’s when we ganged up on Lonnie and threw him into the mannequin room, flipped off the light, slammed the door, and ran like hell.

Apparently, that’s where Lonnie found his new friend.

We don’t know when he stole it. We don’t even know how he got it out of the building.

But now, while Sal had Lonnie upstairs, we could see it sitting stiffly in the passenger seat of Lonnie’s pick-up truck halfway across the empty parking lot. It had one hand up, like waving. The lights lit the side of its face enough to see a carved-in smile.

Lonnie jumped down the stairs two at a time. “You guys been real good to me. Sayonara.” He finished unbuttoning his borrowed shirt and threw it at me on his way out the door.

Sal Sanford kept his hand on the door bar, watching Lonnie’s truck leave the parking lot. “Who’s that with him?” Sal asked. Nobody spoke.

An hour later, two big guys, twins really, walked up to the service desk. Lacey and I were there, small and smaller compared to the hulks in front of us. They wore stretched out tank tops, and they carried the slime and smell of a recent workout. The one on the left had a sagging gauze bandage taped across his shoulder. The one on the right gingerly placed his hand on the counter: “Where’s Lonnie at?”

Me: “…”

Lacey: “Left about 6:30.”

The one on the left took the hand of the one on the right and led him out the door. Expressionless, silent, they moved like jaguars.

Because of the slow shopping night, we had our areas zoned and ready for inspection right on time at 9 o’clock. Sal came sweeping through, giving us the thumbs up. When we punched out and grabbed our stuff, we found Sal at the front door, hand on the bar again.

“Hold up,” Sal said. “Lonnie’s back.” Sal stepped outside, pulled the big key ring from his belt, locked the door, and rattled it back and forth a few times to make sure we were securely inside.

Sure enough, there was Lonnie’s pickup, back in the lot, pulled in diagonally beside a lamp post. Lonnie and his mannequin both on the tailgate, neither of them seemed to be wearing clothes.

Sal approached. Lonnie shouted about something that required him to make big gestures in the air. He swung a fist at Sal, then threw his head back in a moon-howl laugh. Then his knees buckled, and he fell onto Sal’s shoulder, apparently crying.

It’s hard to say exactly what I saw within the commotion. Lonnie was definitely naked. But his crotch, where there was supposed to be a, you know, and maybe some hair—when not in shadow—there was nothing, just smooth skin. Again, though, I was far away. It was night. Things went down very quickly.

Lonnie shoved a striped box into Sal’s hands and went back to the tailgate where the mannequin kept grinning its crooked smile.

Sal came back with a fried chicken box and blood stains on his shirt. “Did he bite you?” we asked. There were pink smudges and light-red crescent marks all over Sal’s shoulder.

“No…he couldn’t bite me” Sal said. He shook the chicken box. It rattled like a baby’s toy. “Lonnie yanked out all his teeth.” Sal eased the box onto the countertop. We all backed away from it. “Lacey, call the police.”

“The twins!” I said. Nobody knew what I was talking about, but they all crowded up to the glass to watch the two big guys walk across the parking lot, bounding really, wide-strides, clenched fists, yelling. It started to rain.

Lonnie grabbed his mannequin and ran. We watched as far as the flat glass of the storefront would allow us to see. We assumed he disappeared into the woods beside the building. The police showed up shortly and made us all go home.

Lonnie died that night, struck and dragged beneath an eighteen-wheeler going too fast in a heavy downpour. The driver insisted she hit two people, but the scattered and sloughed remains of only one were found. The body had to be identified by dental records after the chicken box teeth were repositioned within the severed jaw.

Sal Sanford locked the mannequin room and never opened it again.

©2021 J. Brian Reed