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eBook Category: Horror
eBook Description: A man finds himself trapped in a mannikin, a prisoner in the big window of a department store. Alone, until Missy appears--a woman also trapped in a mannikin. Why are they there? Is there any escape?

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Eldritch Tales No. 29, ed. Crispin Burnham, 1993
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2002

34 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [64 KB], eReader (PDB) [27 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [14 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [13 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [66 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [85 KB], hiebook (KML) [64 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [44 KB], iSilo (PDB) [12 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [15 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [43 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [24 KB]
Words: 4064
Reading time: 11-16 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

A curtain of heavy, thick mist. The car slows, stops ... And, then, like a great apparition, the bridge appears suddenly, surrounding the car; the thick suspension cables rising up, up, up disappearing into the white fog.... The color: not the fabled golden, but burnt orange, only a shade more subdued than a gaudy psychedelic.... The sound of the car door opening and closing is muffled in the mist.... Then the railing: a brief, but chilling touch of clammy metal ... Then the wind roaring, screaming, blotting out all other sound, stealing the breath.... And the dreamlike sensation of soaring.... A jarring blackness....

I awake in a strange place, disoriented, questions bombarding my numb brain: Where am I? What happened? When? Why?

After a few moments I regain some mental composure, and I concentrate, attempting to reconstruct the immediate past. But despite my best efforts, everything remains vague like the highlights from a child's dream: fog, a bridge, rushing wind--The images are unsettling. Finally I withdraw from the fruitless attempt at recollection. I try to sigh, then swallow, then blink, and finally to shift position, only to discover that I can't move! Although I'm standing upright, able to think, to see, and hear, I'm completely paralyzed!

The reality of my predicament sinks in slowly as the initial shock dulls: I've no memory and I'm paralyzed...

But I must be someplace?

Four feet from where I stand is a window. An enormous, undivided expanse of clear glass that stretches to the blurred borders of my sight. A big window. And there's something familiar about the big window. Of course! Its function. The big window encloses a storefront. And I'm inside, unable to move, able to only gaze out at sidewalk pedestrians, street traffic, and a row of grimy buildings.

Above the gray buildings the sky is streaked orange and pink, daylight fading.

My attention is drawn from the sky by signs beginning to blink on, identifying the gloomy buildings:

H

O

T

E

L

PARKING--DINER--BAR

24 hour--good fo...--

Part of the neon on the DINER sign is burnt out. A lie?

A streetlamp, out of my view to my left, comes on, casting its pale illumination across the big window. Far more intense and impressive is the luminous stream in the street--cars, cabs, buses, one-eyed motorcycles.

I listen as the sounds gradually change character: the blend of the daytime noises--voices, footsteps, mechanical

purring--diminishes and fades, replaced by sharper, clearer night sounds--cries, roars, squeals, a dronelike hum. With pinched, worried faces, the last of the daytime pedestrians hurry along, their pace quickened by the nerve-grating, high-pitched scream of a siren. It is night.

The people on my side of the street are gone--the sidewalk littered with debris. Curiously, near the entrance to the HOTEL and the front of the DINER several people stand idly and smoke, apparently oblivious to the deepening darkness and threatening night sounds. After awhile, a pair of the night people drift casually to a spot underneath the flashing red BAR sign, perhaps attracted by the loud music blaring out the open door.

Suddenly glaring light strikes my eyes.

Unable to blink, I'm momentarily blinded. Then, for a time, I see only a shimmering red haze. Eventually my vision clears, and I'm able to locate the source of my discomfort--four spotlights near the corners of the big window. And, strange though it seems, the spots are directed at me, as if I were a performer on a stage. A paralyzed performer? Seems ridiculous.

Gradually my eyes adjust to the direct glare, and I again peer out the big window.

An old man shuffles into view. He stops for a moment to drink from a filthy, wrinkled bag. His face and ill-fitting clothes match the grimy condition of his brown bag. Carefully, he tilts the bag up, and I watch his Adam's apple bob in the dim outside light. Finished, he wipes his mouth with the scabby back of his hand. I'm swept by a feeling of revulsion--

Unexpectedly two boys appear and jostle the old man about in a rough, but playful, manner. The bag slips from the old man's hand and hits with a muffled splatter, a dark, wet stain coloring the sidewalk. As if struck down by an invisible blow, the old man sags to his knees, a cry of pure anguish racking his body. Their mischief complete, the boys run away. The old man glances unseeing in my direction, tears streaking his dirty, pained face. I'm embarrassed.

Finally the old derelict rises and shuffles away.

A few stars, bright enough to overcome the city glare--for I assume that I'm in a city--glitter above the buildings. Clean fragments of sparkling blue ice to decorate the fall of night.

My attention shifts to the inside of the big window, for I suddenly realize that it's like a mirror.

I'm able to make out a faint reflection. My hair's a dark brown, cut short and neatly combed in the old style. My face is beardless. China blue eyes stare at me, unblinking, unmoving. Inwardly, I shiver. The eyes seem lifeless, like the eyes of a marionette. My chest is bare and hairless, the skin a healthy tan ... but unnatural like a doll's. No, not rubbery ... harder, more like plastic. I shift focus. I'm quite tall, but naked. I glance at the reflection of my groin and gasp silently with disbelief--I have no genitals! A smooth, hairless nothingness--

The full recognition explodes in my mind like a delayed time bomb. It can't be true. But the proof is there in the big window. How could it happen? I recall the bridge; then a strange word pops into my head: metempsychosis, the passing of the soul at death into another body. Death--?

No! But I'm not sure. My memory is so vague.

My thoughts are a random swirl like smoke in a gust of wind.

Time passes.

Finally I recover partially from the stunned daze. For now, I accept the fact that I'm a prisoner. How or why isn't as important as a solution, a method of escape. I must find a way to communicate my existence. I shift my attention.

It's still dark, early morning. The stream of light in the street has broken, only an occasional vehicle passes by. The music from the BAR is loud and clear: twangy lyrics of thwarted love. Sad, full of despair.

A man and a woman come out of the BAR, the woman guiding the man by the arm. They move up the street past PARKING and closed DINER, and into the HOTEL.

A short time later, the woman returns, pausing to examine her reflection in the window under the BAR sign. She's dressed lightly for this time of night, perhaps warmed by the sunny colors: her slacks match her orange hair, her thin yellow blouse about the color of her high heels. She makes a few swipes at her face with something from her small purse. Satisfied, the woman re-enters the BAR.

Meanwhile, up the street, the man emerges from the HOTEL, and moves in the opposite direction of the BAR. He stops and glances back as the words of the song follow him up the street: "How the heart approaches what it yearns..."

In the dim light I catch a fleeting glimpse of his face. There is no joy, his face etched with sadness, remorse. He disappears out of sight.

Too weary to think anymore, I doze off.