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"What are your plans for the weekend?"
Justin, Peacock and I tramped side-by-side across the broad asphalt wastes of one of the DFW metroplex's many, many parking lots. Justin shrugged.
"Well, my prof said he might call and have us all take a raft down the river to camp down near Austin, so that's one idea - but we're not sure yet."
"That'll be cool," said Peacock. "I used to live on Liberty Island right near there. Here we are!"
We stopped in front of an imposing, abandoned brick structure. "This is the place the photo guy said to go for my assignment," said Justin.
"Oh yeah, I know this place - it's where they used to keep the bodies!"
Peacock said it as if it were utterly normal; I followed the boys in a few paces behind, pondering the idea before venturing a guess at an explanation: "Like the Mutter Museum?"
No. Not like the Mutter Museum at all.
The building, though abandoned, was full of fluorescent light, a great ancient dusty warehouse space in which a recreation of a nineteenth-century girls' school was set up with plaster dummies. The boys tramped ahead of me; I was creeped out already, because I've always been nervous about mannequins.
"Hey, that one's missing its head!" said Justin excitededly, screwing a different lens onto his camera, and he and Peacock disappeared through the back door of the building into the courtyard.
A voice behind me said "Not only - "
- and as I turned to leave, music began to play, the room began to fill with voices, the dummies began to *move* - not saying or doing anything intrinsically horrible, but it was all *wrong*; the dummies all seemed to be missing heads or hands, and the voice and music - which I'd immediately filed as part of the "museum" this place seemed to be - was repeatedly mentioning our surname.
I ran, and as I reached the front door a mannequin reached out for me with intent.
A blur, then, of trying to find the others, Peacock grabbing me and trying to calm me down, being unable to find Justin; running away across the parking lot as fast as we could, but moving at a snail's pace; trying to take refuge with some women eating outside a McDonald's at the far end of the parking lot, and being told "this happens every year" and subsequently ignored.
Finally seeing Justin's Crown Victoria pull out from behind the "museum," but not seeing him at the wheel -
Waking up.
Justin, Peacock and I tramped side-by-side across the broad asphalt wastes of one of the DFW metroplex's many, many parking lots. Justin shrugged.
"Well, my prof said he might call and have us all take a raft down the river to camp down near Austin, so that's one idea - but we're not sure yet."
"That'll be cool," said Peacock. "I used to live on Liberty Island right near there. Here we are!"
We stopped in front of an imposing, abandoned brick structure. "This is the place the photo guy said to go for my assignment," said Justin.
"Oh yeah, I know this place - it's where they used to keep the bodies!"
Peacock said it as if it were utterly normal; I followed the boys in a few paces behind, pondering the idea before venturing a guess at an explanation: "Like the Mutter Museum?"
No. Not like the Mutter Museum at all.
The building, though abandoned, was full of fluorescent light, a great ancient dusty warehouse space in which a recreation of a nineteenth-century girls' school was set up with plaster dummies. The boys tramped ahead of me; I was creeped out already, because I've always been nervous about mannequins.
"Hey, that one's missing its head!" said Justin excitededly, screwing a different lens onto his camera, and he and Peacock disappeared through the back door of the building into the courtyard.
A voice behind me said "Not only - "
- and as I turned to leave, music began to play, the room began to fill with voices, the dummies began to *move* - not saying or doing anything intrinsically horrible, but it was all *wrong*; the dummies all seemed to be missing heads or hands, and the voice and music - which I'd immediately filed as part of the "museum" this place seemed to be - was repeatedly mentioning our surname.
I ran, and as I reached the front door a mannequin reached out for me with intent.
A blur, then, of trying to find the others, Peacock grabbing me and trying to calm me down, being unable to find Justin; running away across the parking lot as fast as we could, but moving at a snail's pace; trying to take refuge with some women eating outside a McDonald's at the far end of the parking lot, and being told "this happens every year" and subsequently ignored.
Finally seeing Justin's Crown Victoria pull out from behind the "museum," but not seeing him at the wheel -
Waking up.
