13 Tales To Give You Night Terrors (9 page)

The chaos of this atmosphere, the
clambering and the screaming and the heat, is so great that few
notice the developing horrors. Few notice the doors are now locked
and a figure beckons from the door, as you have. Even fewer smell
the smoke, or taste the bitter salt on the air, and register that
something is far wrong with this picture.

The lights dim almost imperceptibly
and flicker like candlelight in the chill breeze of eve. A rush of
wind, its source impossible to fix, rushes through the floor
chilling all who notice it to the bone. Teeth clatter and fingers
lose grip, children sink back slowly into the busy crowds,
grappling for their mother’s skirts. Breaths become bated, shallow,
vaguely strangled in the close, maddening, air.

By the side of the till there is a
large black sack, not unlike a suit carrier, which must be hauled
up to the Manager’s office as a greasy note dictates. As it is
dragged across the floor it leaves an angry red smear on the cream
tiles that no one—save a beady eyed brat—seems to notice. The
Assistant reaches the lift just in time. As she steps onto the
grubby corrugated floor of the rusted elevator, the floor almost
claims her shoe.

Back at the cash desk a spectacled
banshee shakes fistfuls of crumpled notes at a young worker,
glaring wildly as her legs are enveloped by the floor. The Cashier
instantly begins an accident evaluation sheet, because if these
things aren’t done properly, Trading Standards could have them all
liquidated. Before the woman’s mouth disappears she throws the
notes in the air and complains venomously and, with that, her face
vanishes beneath the tile leaving only a tangle of brown hair to
sit, like a toupee, on the now-solid floor.

Most of the customers on the ground
floor suffer such a fate. A few are left to run screaming to and
fro in this macabre garden, amongst the tangled limbs of their
fellow patrons and the cool breeze of the now functioning air
conditioning. Few notice, as you now must, that the front doors
have unlocked and slowly creak open as fresh customers shuffle into
the store marvelling at the avant-garde displays.

● ● ●

IT
is typical that a delivery like this, the ominous black sack
heaped in the corner of the rusted elevator, should appear on the
busiest day of the week. The Assistant should have been finished at
twelve o’clock, but it must have been, at least, half past that. It
was hot and the place took on an unwelcome reek: it stank like Hell
and worse. She couldn’t pinpoint the exact smell and breathed a
sigh of relief when the doors slid open.

First Floor, Ladies’ Suiting, is
relatively calm. Patrons have not yet caught wind of the screams
echoing up the stairs. The first mists of confusion are only
setting in. The enormous pictures on the walls have only just begun
to change. Fine silhouettes, an army of sharply dressed models,
once frozen in uncomfortable stances, now stagger from their
positions. Some stretch out maniacally, barking silent laughter,
whilst others crawl into dark corners and weep, covering their ears
and mouths.

When this catches on, there is
suitable panic. Wide eyes and clenched fists, hands on mouths,
hands in mouths, shuddering heads and bombastic movements, the
realization of something leaving; the air sucked from the room.
Everyone gasps. The pictures keep moving, playing host to storms
and scenes of a foreboding nature.

Still the Assistant launches herself
forward with fervour, muttering apologies wherever she can and
barking at any shoppers unlucky enough to get in her way. Some
hapless bystanders slip in the smears left by the black sack, only
to rise shaking and stuttering at the gooey consistency smeared
over their persons.

All the shiny white and polished wood
seems somewhat grubby, tarnished and vaguely foul like furniture
left in the street. Only when she reaches the other side of the
floor does she stop to consider that she has absolutely no reason
to be there, and races back to the lift as things get
ugly.

● ● ●

FLOOR
Two, Men’s and Sportswear, is silent and pitch black. The
Assistant shuffles out of the lift, letting the black sack slump
over the doorway as she staggers to catch her breath. The air is
damp and impossibly warm. The place has the uneasy stillness of a
hospital corridor in the night. There is a soft droning but not of
machinery.

The lights have failed,
plunging all into darkness. Except not total darkness since there
are small candles radiating out in web-like precision down the
pathways. Step by step, inching forward
slowly
and
silently
, the Assistant begins to
feel the first pangs of fear.

As she moves closer to the back walls,
she notices the ground change. Where it was gleaming white and new,
see it now, stained with hundreds of filthy footprints. Smell the
foul effluence, hear the cacophony in the velvet darkness.
Feel—

Feel the icy hand of
it
, wet, soft and hungry,
clench around your arm as you kick out one of the candles in panic.
Feel a weight of rank meat tumble on your body, slathering it with
juices foul beyond the grave. The Assistant flails and races back
into the light, slowing only when nothing emerges from the shadows
to give chase.

When her heart rate has slowed and the
dull ebbing of her pulse has retreated from her ears, she hears the
sounds. All around her, in the pitch darkness, a lament of sobs and
whispers drifts around the room. Squinting, the Assistant can see
forms, just barely.

Groups of men cling to the
walls tightly, holding hands and shaking. Every so often the thing
in the shadows lets out a long mournful sigh, and the men snort in
fear, shuddering against the walls. There is a
flump
of weight hitting the floor,
the clambering of the thing, and the soft slapping of wet bodies.
It begins to feast on the unlucky soul who fainted in the
heat.

The Assistant races down
one of the well-lit pathways, and hanging a sharp right into the
equipment department, she slams a key code into the door and slides
through to the relative safety of the Menswear staff area. It is
well lit back here and there are few shadows to hide in. So she
rests, slipping onto the musty sofa, whilst forgetting about
everything
.

● ● ●

HERE
and there the other staff members perch, no two standing too
close together or too far apart. The air is thick with accusation
and morbid curiosity. The overall effect is somewhat jarring to the
Assistant who awakens, with severely mixed feelings, to a room full
of bloodied silent people staring at her.

She makes her way to the table and
takes a seat, one of the new girls picks up her scarlet coat and
swings it on, wandering to the door.

“
You’re seriously going out
in that?”

The girl turns, confused and distant,
a constant question on her brow. The Assistant takes out a rusted
blade and slides it across the table—you might as well stick that
in your heart right now. The girl picks up the knife in a daze,
turns, and leaves for the ladies toilet. The sobs stop and start,
then dissipates to nothing. The door remains locked.

As she reaches over the table for a
glass of water, the room shudders violently and the pitcher quivers
over the edge of the surface to smash loudly on the laminate floor.
Everyone gasps and prepares to flee, but the action fades as
quickly as it started.

“
It’s the rain,” someone
says, “the rain, it’s falling too hard. It’ll wake the Old
Ones.”

Everyone frowns and turns away, waving
arms and making sharp sounds of dismissal.

“
You’ll see,” the Assistant
says.

Over by the phone, a young man has the
handset to his mouth and is whispering something into the receiver.
The Assistant wanders over to whisper in his ear, “Where can I get
the Manager’s office key?” The man seems to start awake then turns
to her.

“
The Manager should have
them.”

“
Last I heard she was in
the basement.”

“
Basement’s flooded, so…I
hope not.”

“
Ok, so I’ll make my way
up—”

“
Have you
noticed—”

“
You guys stay here, enjoy
your break.”

“
You probably
shouldn’t—”

“
See you.”

He turns back to the receiver and
carries on whispering. She steps out onto the floor and stops to
listen. Over the Tannoy, comes a strained whisper, “Prowl…prowl…I
wanted help on the desk but no one came there was a body but it
disappeared after a while in the basement then the blood but it
wasn’t blood it was pus from the boiler it’s all gone off…” It goes
on and on. The Assistant makes it back to the lift just as the
candles puff out in her wake and something slides towards her in
the dark. She drags the black sack in and the door slams shut.
Something reeking of flowery perfume slams into the
door.

The lift stops on Three but the doors
won’t slide open so she presses the button for Four and the problem
repeats. This time the inadequacy of the institute sets a fuse in
her belly, and she screams every terrible word she knows. She
considers calling someone but the janitors are zombies so the
engineers have probably met similar fate.

She fits her fingers into the groove
between the doors carefully, nails first, and wrenches with all her
strength. Nothing. Not even a slight give. She pulls her lanyard
from her neck and bashes the plastic fob into place, pushing the
door millimetres apart. Her fingertips fit in and she splits a nail
in her haste, the pain makes her hands tremble and, accompanied by
the stench of the sack, she feels nauseous. Only whilst the doors
slowly creak apart does she remember this usually happens when
something leans against the doors.

It is somewhat jarring to find one of
the fine porcelain-coloured store mannequins leaning haphazardly
against the metal doors of the lift, its hand frozen in mid-air,
where the door was only a second ago. More jarring, perhaps, is the
fact the mannequin looks like it has been testing cosmetics; its
face plastered with thick stodgy clumps of cheap mascara and bitter
blue lipstick.

The rest of the floor is in a similar
state. Mannequins stand here and there perusing the wares of the
glass cabinets and many make-up counters. Most of them are in some
way dolled-up. Their hair is matted with childish scads of
foundation, their rigid fingers clumsily adorned with rings and
bangles not sized for the inanimate shopper. Customers stroll
around taking no notice of the garish display, even plucking items
they desire from the fiendish looking dummies. It looks perfectly
safe.

The Assistant lodges the black sack in
the lift doorway. Stepping back, she notices how strange the lift
looks now, with its rusted doorway and tattered metal insides,
bizarrely decrepit against the cream walls of the Accessories and
Cosmetics department. Still, there’s the bag to be taken care off
so she walks over to the cash desk to find a manager. Behind the
desk one of her colleagues stands over two bodies. Both corpses
heaped clumsily in the walk-space in a mess of blood. The girl
looks round but her eyes are black. The Assistant frowns
dubiously.

“
What’s going
on?”

“
I was blind but now I can
see.
”

“
And the
bodies?”

“
I found them. Out there.
Something tried to cut them in half.” She steps back and points to
the corpses. “I didn’t want to scare the customers, so I carried
them here. You should join us.”

“
Ok, good job. And no. Have
you seen a manager? I need a key to the Manager’s Office.” The
Assistant points to the black bag.

“
I was blind but now I can
see. There are no managers left. One died in the basement, the
others fell before the store, or soon will. Join us.”

“
Thanks. And
no.”

Nobody is being helpful, everything is
wrong. This is a nightmare and she only wants to go home, she was
due out hours ago. The Assistant pulls up her shirt sleeve but her
watch is smashed and all the numbers are zero. All she has to do is
take the bag upstairs and she can leave, and then she will be
safe.

She very nearly believes it before the
searing pain and the blood in her eyes. Right before the knife
slides across her forehead and an impossibly strong hand yanks at
her hair, pulling the gash wider and wider. The Assistant is
blessed by low pain tolerance so she collapses to her knees after a
spasm of utter agony. The convulsion shakes her attacker’s hand
loose, as the fall puts her away from the knife. All of a sudden a
wave of near-celebratory violence washes over the
department.

The glass cabinets on either side of
the Assistant explode with the weight of shoppers. Everywhere
mannequins slide into view, garish visages painted in chunks, and
begin to decimate the population of the floor. Lifted into the air,
slammed onto counters and cabinets, wrestled to the tiles, bashed
off pillars, shoppers kick and scream for their lives. An old
woman, hoisted high, looks crooked and ridiculous, her sprawling
figure inspires no sympathy from tormented fellow-patrons, not even
when the mannequin scalps her can anyone help. The action has
become vogue, and now all the mannequins are doing it. The
Assistant leaps into the lift holding her hair in place,
then—blindly—she drags the sack into the rusted box and jabs at the
buttons. She escapes with her life, barely, but she does not escape
the sounds of the madness beneath.