I got a job right out of college and had to find a new place
at short notice. Using my socials, I got in contact with the landlord
through a mutual contact. They had a spare apartment that was just made available.
The previous tenant had been evicted a couple of weeks prior because of unpaid
rent, so the apartment hadn't even been advertised yet. The apartment was nice
enough, but all my attention was on my new job. I pretty much
just brought a bed and a desktop computer, leaving two of my three rooms
empty for the time being. I wasn't certain if I was going to stay
there long term or not, but I figured time would decide. I ended
up staying there several years. I settled into my job, furnished the place
up, and made it into a proper home. Those first few stress weeks
became nothing but a distant memory. About three years after moving in, I
had to stash some furniture. I contacted my landlord to see if there was
some storage space I could use. He reminded me that there was storage on
the bottom floor that I hadn't used. I didn't even know it was there.
Not that surprising, seeing as I was really stressed out when I first
moved in. Apparently the space had been used by the previous tenant, who
might have left some items there. I hadn't had any use for such a
space before, so I hadn't thought about asking. So imagine my surprise when
I get to the storage only to see a crash test dummy. Using a
key I got from the landlord, I unlocked the padlock and got a close
lock. It was a white, a life sized crash test dummy with a
hastily scribbled mister Mayhem written on the back of its head with a black sharpie.
The dummy was scoffed and worn, but still had a plastic smile on
his face. Its eyes with these little painted black dots, it looked like
it had been through hell and a half. I asked the landlord about it.
Turns out the previous tenant and used it as a sort of mascot.
They brought it out for fun for parties, pranks, that kind of thing,
the sort of music that Cheeta carpool Lane once and landlord shared it was
just this funny thing he'd gotten from his job. When they upgraded to newer
dummies. It was probably more than forty years old. I cleaned out the
storage and stashed away my furniture. I thought about what to do with mister
Mayhem, then figured it'd be a fun piece for my upcoming Halloween party.
Dress it up and something and keep it by the entrance. It'll be the
talk of the town. Still, there was something unnerving about it, the
way its joints creaked and cracked, had frozen painted on grin, the sloppy
joints rattling haphazardly with every little movement. My early Halloween party, it is
nothing extravagant. I get a couple of friends together and we dress up.
Then we hit one of the local clubs for a costume party. It's like
a pre party, only with about eighteen people or so. I dressed up
mister Mayhem in a cheap pirate costume and had his stand by the door with
a tray of snacks. I went as the Penguin, but everyone mistook me
for the Monopoly man. People came around at around seven. Mister Mayhem was
a big hits, just something about dummies and dolls that rub people the wrong
way. It's the Uncanny Valley thing of it. I guess it was the
centerpiece for a lot of selfies that night. As the punch bowl got emptier
and the night got darker, we all left for the club, leaving mister
Mayhem by the door. I had a lot of fun, a few drinks
too many. There was a bit of drama with two friends of mine having
an argument, but all in all it was a good night. An acquaintance
of mine won the costume contest with a sort of bioluminescent fish thing. It
was insane. If you got a costume that you got a charge batches for,
you've taken it to another level. In the moment, I couldn't tell
anything was wrong, but if I'd listened a little closer, I would have
heard a thing or two. Cracking creaking heard from the alley out back,
and something moved a bound to mention the guy dressed as a crash test ummy
a dark silhouette just outside the frosted glass of the bathroom window. By the
end of the night, I made my way home and slid the keys into
my door, only to notice that it was already unlocked. I could a
sworn I locked it, but figured I must have missed it in all the
commotion. I did a drunken half check around the apartment to see that nothing
was stolen. There wasn't. I didn't even think about checking for miss Mayhem.
If I had, I would have noticed there was nothing standing by the
door waiting for me with snacks. I would have noticed the bowl having rolled
off to the side, spilling wrapped toffees and butted caramels across the carpet.
Oh my face planted into my bed and waited for another day. It wasn't
until the next morning that I noticed it was missing. I sent a couple
of texts to the others of the party asking if they did something to it.
All I got was a resounding no in response. If anything, they
just thought it had been a fun prop. I checked all over the apartment
and the storage. I even asked my next door neighbor if they'd seen anything.
Nothing. Mister Mayhem was just gone. It wasn't a big loss or
anything, but I didn't like the idea of someone being in my apartment for
no good reason. Things just don't disappear for nothing. If someone wanted a
crash test dummy, I could have sold it for a quick hundred or so.
Instead, I found myself running back back and forth, growing increasingly anxious
about someone being in my space. I even called the landlord about having the
locks changed. The following Monday, mister Mayhem was still missing. While I
was still on my mind, I had a hundred more pressing matters at hand.
It had started raining, and absent mindedly wandered across the parking lot.
I was almost at the front door, and something in the back of my
mind asked me to stop, like a sudden feeling of unease. It's hard
to explain the challenge. To look a little closer, so I did.
Turning around and looking up, I could see mister Mayhem, who was on
the roof of my apartment building with his head a line straight forward. Someone
must have dragged it up there as a joke. It looked like someone about
to jump off a building. I was going to have to bring it down.
I didn't want anyone to be accidentally traumatized. I headed straight for the
door to the stairwell, covering my head with a file folder. The rain
was relentless. Something smashed into the pavement right in front of me, loud
plastic bang. As mister Mayhem hit the ground A couple of feet further and
i'd have been crushed. I just stood there for a moment, hearing the
rain tapping against my file folder on my head. Mister Mayhem was intact,
but the body was just mangled. Every single extremity bent at an unnatural angle.
But that didn't hamper that eerie painted on smile. I was a bit
hesitant to touch it was raising. That thing was heavy, and it had
fallen far enough to do some serious damage had it hit me, which it
almost did. I dragged it back down into the basement storage. I had
to shuffle around some furniture, and they ended up tossing it on top of
an old sofa. I locked the storage to the padlock, turned off the
lights, and closed the door behind me, and I'd get rid of that
thing soon enough. I went to bed early that night. I kept getting
shakes and twitches, as if my body was still recoiling from having mister Mayhem
crashed into the pavement right in front of me. I felt twitchy, as
if I hadn't slowed down yet. I was stuck in high gear, and
it carried over into the next morning. I stress cleaned my kitchen and bedroom
before I even got breakfast, as I was cleaning in and around the fridge.
I scooped out what looked like an old, fainted note. I posed
it that must have been stuck to the fridge by the previous tenant. Don't
let it out. I stood there staring at the note for a good few
minutes, letting my paranoia run rampant. I tried to explain it away,
with every thought came circling back around to one point. There must have been
a reason for mister Mayhem being left behind and what happened to the previous tenant.
Over the next few days, I considered how to get rid of it.
I thought about just driving it to the garbage dump and dropping it off
somewhere, but I didn't like the idea of it being let out. I
could burn it, but I had to get a good space to do it.
I could just of course, that didn't feel responsible either. I was
running out of patience and ideas, so I finally decided on sawing it up
and dropping it into the river. I prepped it backpack with a saw,
duct tape, a hammer, and garbage bags. The following night I got
to work, I dragged mister Mayhem out to my car and stuffed it into
the trunk. I didn't want to do it in the daylight, as the
thing still looked like a person, and I didn't want to have to explain
myself. I was going to drive down to a clear spot near the river
and get to work. It wasn't far, but I had to cross the
highway. It was a short drive, but it was tense. It felt
like I was doing something wrong, like mister Mayhem was a person rather than
a dummy. As I closed the trunk and got behind the wheel, I
steeled myself. The moment I put the keys in, I got this strange
impulse that I should have duct taped its hands and feet. Then again,
why should I It was just a dummy. I got stuck waiting at two
separate left turns. Each time I just sat there, listening to the hum
of the engine, expecting to hear a thumping or smacking something coming from the
trunk. I was expecting the thing to do something. It was an irrational
thing to listen for, but I couldn't help it, and yet nothing came.
I crossed the highway, made my way down the river and found a
spot by a clearing where I wouldn't bother any one. I parked my car,
got out and held my breath as I opened the trunk frist the second
I could imagine someone lying there, a living person, screaming, pleading for
help. I blinked it away as the trunk revealed mister Mayhem in awe his
inanimate splendor. There was nothing here to fear. Still, just chopping up
something with the shape of a person was going to be uncomfortable. I dragged
it out to the bank of the river, laid out my tools, and
took a good look at it. I reached for the hammer first, to
break the joints that would make it easier to saw. The thing was made
to withstand serious punishment. Breaking it wouldn't be easy. I started with the
left hand. There's a sort of test run. I whacked out the joints
and brought out the saw, but I got this sick feeling in my stomach
with every crack. I never heard bone breaking, but I imagine that was
it. I felt like a butcher. And those eyes, those plain looking
painted on eyes, just little dots, but I felt them boring into my
mind. The cheap human imitation, but human nonetheless. I skipped ahead a
few steps and named the hammer directly at its face. I brought the hammer
down smack after smack after smack, until the dummy cracked. The nose buckled
inwards, and the cheeks split into butterfly shaped shards. I picked out pieces
with my nails. I shuddered. There was some sort of padding on the
inside that just made my skin crawl. There was something about the textture.
I paused. There was a small white growth the tooth. I stepped back,
looking down at the broken dummy. Just beneath the crack surface. Embedded
inside was a dead man, mummified and dried within the confines of the plastic
shell. I couldn't breathe. It had been there all along, hidden in
plain sight. There were so many things to do that I couldn't begin to
form a coherent thought. Who do I call? What do I do?
Could I possibly be liable for some kind of damage? Who was the person
inside? Were they missing? I stepped back, dropping the hammer. I
covered my mouth and took these little microbreaths, repeating Oh my God to myself
over and over, as if the rocking motion would somehow dislodge a good idea
from the back of my mind. I decided I'd get back to my car
and call the police. I hurried back, got into the driver's seat,
and closed the door. I took at my cellphone, darled the emergency services,
and then heard a click. I looked to the left. Something fast
moved my way, and then the world turned upside down. In a sudden
shock of pain, I drifted in and out of consciousness. Our sun were
dark and cramped. It must have taken me at least ten minutes just to
realize I was in the trunk of my car and the car was moving.
I could hear the radio, albeit turned down. I had a swelling over
my nose and my left eye, and I could feel my sense of balance
being shaky at best. I reached for my cell phone, but it was
still in the passenger seat. I never managed to call the emergency surfaces.
At some point the car came to a stop. I heard the door on
the driver's side open and close, and the sound of some one walking away.
There was a slight echo to it, suggesting we were parked somewhere inside,
possibly a large space. I didn't waste any time. Instead of trying
to open the trunk, I wriggled and crawled my way into the back seat.
From there, I contorted myself into the driver's seat, lopped the doors,
and fumbled around for my cell phone. Looking up intermittently, I could
see that I was in some kind of storage facility. He was hard to
tell the lights were off. As soon as I felt the cold metal of
the phone, I picked it up, unlocked it, and dialed the emergency
surfaces. He didn't take long for a voice to come in on the other
end. I've I've been kidnapped, I stuttered. I don't know where I
am. But if I hadn't talked so loud, I might have heard the
footsteps coming back. If I'd been more attentive, I could have seen it
in the rear view mirror. But I was both loud and inattentive, and
it came at a great cost, because as the operator asked me about my
name and location, the driver's side window was shattered into a thousand pieces.
Something grabbed me by the neck and shoulder. The second later, I was
flung through the window and out on to the cold pavement about eight feet or
so. The cell phone tumbled to the ground as a white plastic foot crushed
it. Looking up, I saw it in full view mister Mayhem, now
revealing a death's head grin. I ran, I got to my feet and
just took off. I could hear thumping plastic noises behind me as mister Mayhem
followed. I ran straight through an abandoned workshop and a lunch room. Finally,
I slammed the door open to an unmarked space, hoping against hope it
would be something useful. A small room packed to the brim with crash test
dummies, at least fifty standing shoulder to shoulder, all those painted smiles and
dart like eyes or walking my way. I didn't have time to see if
they were like mister Mayhem or not, So instead of turning back, which
would be a certain end, I pressed forward. I pushed my way past
plastic arms, hands, and torsos. Most were just empty shells ready to
be filled and used. Others were fully functional. I could have sworn a
couple of heads turned my way, but I didn't stop to check. I
could hear the footsteps that followed me slow, and as I turned around,
I realized I had no idea where it had went, just the sea of
white, featureless creatures, and one of them it was something else I was
afraid to move. I could be brushing up against that thing without even knowing.
It was a sharp noise, and there's what sounded like broken glass being
shoveled around on the floor, one clear sound of a shard being lifted.
I tried to make my way to the back of the room so I could
circle back. Every now and then i'd look at the dummies, only to
notice more of them with scribbles on the back of the head Miss Waters,
mister Callown, all made with hasty scribbles. A stray thought crossed my mind.
Maybe it wasn't mister Mayhem, but mister Mayhew. It had been kind
of hard to tell. I had yet to run into it. As it
began. Circling the dark corners of the room, making my way back the
way I came, I heard the sound of glass scraping against plastic as something
was coming closer. I had to keep myself from panicking. There was no
telling what would happen if I were to stumble in there. Instead, I
kept a steady pace, trying to count my breaths one two. Brushing off
against another dummy, I stopped. Something was strange. It didn't have a
left hand. It slowly turned my way, revealing a dead man's face.
Mister Mayhem and impromptu glass shanks sliced at me, scraping the edge of my
jacket and shattering against the wall. A handless left arm reached for me,
but I pushed it aside. I bowled over the lifeless dummies and headed straight
for the door, reaching it and leaving the dummies behind me, I slammed
the door shut. I hastily looked to see if there was a lock,
but there wasn't. Before I could make a plan, the door came off
its hinges and tumbled to the ground like a cracked bowling pin. Mayhem twitched
forward, every movement sudden and painful. Making my way back to the workshop,
I realized that there was no way I could outrun it. Mister Mayhem
was both faster and more resilient. I was grasping at straws. There had
to be something, anything. My daughter's chain coming down from the ceiling and
kept going towards the back. Only the stop that chain, I could use
it. It was connected to a winch in the middle of the factory floor,
probably used to hoist and move equipment. It would have to do the
timing had to be perfect. If I went too soon or too late,
I'd be done for. I saw mister Mayhem approaching, step by step,
blinking painted eyes replaced with hollow sockets. Then I pulled at the winch as
hard as I could, hoping against hope the effect was immediate. I hadn't
seen the hook at the end and shot straight up and paling mister Mayhem's lower
jaw. The chain was still slack, and it was getting closer, but
it couldn't quite get to me anymore. Instead, I kept pulling and pulling
and pulling every rattle on the chain, bringing it higher and higher into the
air, like hoisting a flag. As the chain cliaked into a lock,
mister Mayhem was dangling fifteen feet or so in the air. It stopped moving,
even though it couldn't move its face. I could feel it looking at
me. This wasn't going to be the end of it. I made my
way back to the car, calling the emergency surfaces as I wiped the broken
glass from the driver's seat. As I was asked for a location, I
noticed something on the fire walls, A series of overalls hanging at the edge
of the door. Three to be exact one for Patty Waters and another for
John Callown, and the finer one for Samson Mayhew. Eventually the police came.
I'd gone outside and collapsed against the wall, crushing a handful of overgrown
wildflowers on my way down. I just sat there, picking the petals of
a blue sunflower. When the officers came around to ask me questions. I
tried to explain that been kidnapped and assaulted, but there was no way for
me to tell them that the crash test stummy had done it. Instead,
I had a lie for my teeth. I had to say that my mystery
attacker had hoisted that dommy up into the air, and it didn't take long
for the police to find not one with three bodies, three workers at the
abandoned factory, all presumed dead and missing, stuffed within the framing of the
crash test dummies they themselves had made decades ago. This was about two years
ago, somewhere in that ballpark. I haven't seen or heard anything about those
dummies since. I think they cleared out the storage, and I think they
had some kind of forensic specialist on site, but there was no public announcement
or accusation I was only called in once to make a basic statement, but
there was no follow up. I've been imagining those three dummies sitting locked up
in some storage, just biding their time, their dead face waiting to look
my way again. Now the reason why I write this is because of something
I read the other month. There was an article about a break in at
the County evidenced locker, resulting in one wounded officer and a handful of pieces
of evidence going missing. These sailants were described as two men and a woman.
They were described as bald and wearing plain white clothes. If I was
a betting man, I'd say there isn't much time before we start seeing more
than three of these misters and misses. I hadn't gotten out of there.
I'm pretty sure there was an empty casing there would in time have my name
on it, and maybe there still is