Plastic Girls Read online

  And that’s why it was so scary.

  “Bitch!” he wheezed, and that knife came down. I moved to the right with all the force I could muster. If I hadn’t, I don’t think I’d be alive today. Instead of skewering my throat, the blade raked down my shoulder, cutting through the jacket and the hoodie I wore beneath, ripping skin. Later, at the hospital, after all the stitches and antibacterial medicine, I would find out he had cut me to the bone. I will bear that scar for the rest of my life, a terrible reminder of what I saw, what I went through.

  I screamed, cried out in pain, shock, horror. I hoped someone would hear me, but this is a sleepy town on the weekends, practically dead on the weekdays, and this was a Tuesday night, late enough for the few traffic lights to be blinking yellow and red.

  As he raised the knife again, I was sure he would end me once and for all this time, no matter how messy it would get—and at this point the wound on my shoulder was already spouting a sickening amount of gore.

  But I bucked upward.

  The movement allowed enough freedom for me to slither out from beneath his weight.

  As quick as I could, I got on my knees, slipping in my own blood, and went for the door.

  He started laughing. I’ll never forget that laugh for as long as I live. It was pure evil.

  The door seemed miles away. I suffered from that clichéd scene common in movies: a character turns and looks down a hallway, and we the audience see the hall stretch endlessly, narrow, darken, but this was no movie for me. I really saw it.

  Still, I had to keep going. I couldn’t let up. Letting up meant that I was dead. At nineteen, I had thought myself invincible. At twenty-four, I know that is the furthest thing from the truth.

  As he was laughing, I heard him rise, but I didn’t look back. My mom has always said not to look back, leave the bad things behind.

  I stood up into a crouch.

  “Run, run, run, kitten,” he said. “Run as fast as you can!”

  I had seen the red square on the wall. It wasn’t covered by anything, no glass, and that was my goal. One step at a time, I kept telling myself.

  Don’t look back don’t look back don’t look back.

  “Normally I wouldn’t go for a girl like you. But you are pretty, aren’t you? And you’ve seen my face. Imagine the uproar you’d cause if you pointed your skinny finger at me. Tsk, tsk, tsk. We can’t have that.”

  I was screaming, crying, the words were barely registering in my mind. I didn’t care. The red box. That was all that mattered.

  The red box.

  Three feet away now. My left arm, butchered and bleeding, was useless. I reached out with my right, gripped the handle, and pulled it down as I fell.

  The fire alarm rang raucously loud.

  I turned to face him.

  He had stopped following me. He was parallel with the checkout counter, still holding the knife dripping with my blood. His mask was still up, too. I looked right into his eyes. It was not easy. For a long second, we just stared at each other, then his lips pulled up in a snarl, and I thought I was dead. I thought my life would flash before my eyes.

  I made sure to get a good look at this bastard. I made sure to sear his likeness into my brain.

  His nostrils flared once before he turned and fled out the back door.

  He left behind the face stapled to the mannequin. Nothing else. The face belonged to one Brandy Hartfield. She was twenty-one, a third-year student at Kent State University. She was studying biology.

  She was his eighth confirmed victim.

  I could’ve been the ninth.

  I wasn’t.

  I survived.

  The fire alarm had notified the fire department, and the police tagged along because there was no other action going down that night. Soon the street was alight with red, white, and blue, three months after the Fourth of July.

  They found me there against the wall, just below the red box. I don’t remember much after that. The worst part was over, and that was all that mattered.

  A couple EMTs took me out of the store. They cleaned me up, worked on the cut on my arm, draped me with one of those blankets you always see on the heroes at the end of an action movie, and took me to the hospital.

  I had to answer a lot of questions. My mom and dad came to the hospital, a few classmates, my roommate Carmen.

  The local news had already picked up the story, the national news would soon follow. The media had been calling him the Mannequin Man since his second victim in the early 2000s. I found out he had been doing this for a long time in the Midwest, almost twenty years, but the name meant nothing until he was on top of me with a knife raised above his head.

  I stayed in the hospital for a day, mostly due to shock, and when I got out, I went to the station and sat down with a sketch artist. The picture the woman put together was nearly identical to the man whose image was seared into my brain.

  Greta had security cameras at the boutique, but the killer knew what he was doing. He had spray-painted over them. Thank God he didn’t think to cut the power to the fire alarm.

  Otherwise, I’d be dead.

  Three

  I’m holding the phone. My fingers are poised over the keyboard. I don’t know what the hell I’ll type.

  Thanks?

  Oh man, that sucks?

  No. None of those are good responses. So I click out of the messages and go back to the internet app to read the article. I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t, but I also know I don’t have much of a choice.

  The article isn’t long. Not much information is known about the murder at this time. There’s a bold statement at the top of the the page.

  Story is being updated.

  He had laid low for the past five years. No killings, no arrests, and as far as I know, no suspects.

  As it turned out, the composite sketch the artist and I came up with didn’t do much good. They found nothing usable at Cocoa’s, either—no DNA, no dropped wallet. Nothing. The guy is supremely careful and meticulous.

  But he has to slip up sometime, doesn’t he?

  I’m shaking almost vehemently as I read. One hand on the steaming mug of coffee, the other on my phone as the article tells me the victim was twenty-year-old Alicia Rodriguez, an Ohio State University student. She was majoring in nursing.

  My stomach lurches sickeningly. I push the coffee away. At my feet, Chester meows. I need to refill his food bowl, but I can hardly breathe, let alone stand. I’ll have to call off work, I can’t help it. They’ll understand, I think—if not now, then later.

  I pick up my phone again, swipe away from the article, and open my contacts, looking for the number called NEW BOSS. I’ve been working there for two months and haven’t changed it.

  As I’m doing this, my screen goes black and a number appears. I’m getting a phone call.

  Detective Klonowski.

  I press the green button. “Hello?”

  “Are you okay?” Klonowski’s voice is soothing. He’s a big guy, bald, gym rat, the type of man you’d never expect to have a soft side. “You didn’t text back. I was worried.”

  It’s good to hear his voice.

  “I’m okay,” I say. “That poor girl.”

  “I know. I’m sorry for calling this early, texting, too…”

  I try to swallow. It’s not easy. “But…” I reply, anticipating the worst, though I’m not sure it can get much worse than this.

  “But I thought you might need someone to talk to,” he says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Not over the phone. We could meet up for coffee or something.”

  He’s not asking me on a date. Klonowski’s married. He thinks of me as his own daughter. Ever since that night at Cocoa’s, he’s been protective. If I agreed to it, I think he’d post an armed guard at my apartment twenty-four hours a day.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’d like that.”

  Four

  The Denny’s bustles with moving bodies. Waitresses in uniform,
older men and women here for the early bird special.

  I approach the hostess and tell the woman I’m meeting someone.

  Detective Klonowski waves from across the dining room.

  The hostess points that way. She’s cute. She has a devious smile that makes me think her and I could get into some trouble together. I smile back at her and go to the table.

  “Good coffee,” Klonowski says. He waves the waiter over, a young guy probably still in college.

  I order some coffee, too, and some toast.

  Klonowski looks at me and shakes his head. “You’re too thin, Melanie. You need to eat.”

  “Not too hungry,” I say.

  After I pulled the fire alarm and left the hospital, Klonowski was one of the first detectives to interview me. He was nothing but nice and polite, understanding, and I’m forever grateful to him for being that way. After seeing what I’d seen at Cocoa’s, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to talk again, but Klonowski made it okay. He made it seem…normal.

  Now Klonowski offers a weak smile. I don’t know what he thinks of me besides what everyone thinks of me already: Melanie Padgett is a victim.

  His phone chimes. He pulls it out and looks at the screen. His face pales.

  “What is it?” I ask, leaning forward.

  The waiter comes with my coffee and a few creams.

  “Nothing,” Klonowski says, waving me off.

  “I can tell you’re lying.”

  He lets out a breath.

  “The photos from the crime scene. They found the mannequin last night. I asked them to forward them my way. I’m supposed to meet with a detective in Green later.”

  “Can I see?”

  I don’t know why I want to see. It’s the last thing I should want. But I do.

  “Melanie, you shouldn’t—” he begins, but I cut him off.

  “I can help, maybe. I saw him firsthand. I could offer insight…I don’t know.”

  Klonowski is a no-bullshit kind of guy. He slides his phone across the table.

  I look down. As soon as my eyes settle on the photograph, I turn away and clutch my midsection as if I have a terrible stomachache.

  The photo is almost exactly like the scene I’d stumbled upon in Cocoa’s five years ago. There’s a mannequin. It’s streaked with blood. On the mannequin’s head is the distorted face of the victim, Alicia Rodriguez. The picture that had accompanied the article Klonowski sent me showed a pretty girl with a bright future, but this picture now shows me a girl who has met her doom. Her skin is stretched, the edges jagged as if hastily cut. He’s slipping up, he’s nervous. I can glean that much from the photo. I imagine the detectives on the case can glean much more. Or at least, I hope they can.

  I push the phone away, back toward Klonowski, and close my eyes. I raise my hand and press my fingers upon my brow.

  “Well? Do you have any insight?” Klonowski asks me.

  I swallow. It hurts. Then I shake my head.

  “Look again.”

  I’m hesitant, but I take the phone back with two fingers. I’m not a detective. I’m not Sherlock Holmes. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, if I’m looking for anything at all. All I see is gore. Blood. A face removed from the body and stapled to an inanimate object by a sick and demented human being—

  This is when something in the photo jumps off the screen. It’s like a 3-D movie. It’s so obvious that I feel foolish for missing it.

  Oh God, I think. My stomach lurches again.

  The mannequin. The clothes.

  It’s wearing the exact outfit I spent too long looking for this morning, my favorite outfit, the pencil skirt and the peacock-styled blouse.

  The world feels like it has stopped spinning, like I’m falling off, drifting into an endless void.

  But I take a deep breath and pass the phone back to Klonowski, telling myself it can’t be, that it’s impossible. Embarrassment burns my cheeks. I could tell Klonowski what I think I see, but it’s impossible…right? I just want this to be over. I want the killer to forget about me.

  “Nothing,” I say, trying to hold back tears.

  “I told you,” he says. “I shouldn’t have shown you that.”

  “I’m okay.”

  But all I can think about is that outfit. My outfit.

  He’s coming. The Mannequin Man has marked me as his next target.

  Five

  I don’t want to go home, but it’s too early to go anywhere else. I toy with the idea of heading into work. My boss was okay with me calling off. He knows what I’ve been through. I try not to talk about it, but I was featured in the papers and on the local news for a while after that night at Cocoa’s. People know.

  So I do go home. The daylight gives me courage. When the sun is shining, you don’t think about monsters. It’s as simple as that. Surprisingly, I’m tired, and my own bed sounds good, with Chester sleeping and purring away on my chest.

  The hallway is deserted. The pale pink carpet running the length stretches on endlessly. It’s bright in here, almost too bright, but again, I like that. I smell eggs and bacon from one of the adjacent apartments. I’m not hungry. Anytime I think of food, Alicia Rodriguez’s mutilated face flashes in my mind. Stretched over the mannequin’s head, stapled and oozing. That, and my peacock blouse.

  Outside my door, I take another deep breath. My therapist told me that was the thing to do to help with the anxiety. But I think this has graduated from anxiety to something else. What? I don’t know. It’s not good, though.

  I take my key and push it into the lock. My heart is hammering, pounding in my ears.

  I’ll open the door and there he’ll be, the Mannequin Man, that sickening smile on his face, covered in Alicia’s Rodriguez’s blood, his eyes blank, dead. It’s the face that has haunted me for years, and the one I know will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  However much longer that happens to be.

  Chester greets me with a meow. He rubs up against my pant legs. I smile. The little cat never ceases to at least somewhat brighten my day up.

  “I just fed you, fatty,” I say playfully. The clock on the wall says it’s just past 8:30. I haven’t been gone long. Klonowski tried to comfort me. Didn’t. When my toast came, I barely nibbled at it, and then I left.

  Chester meows again.

  I’m useless to resist. I trek across the small living room and into the kitchenette. It still smells like my morning coffee. The cans of food are in the cupboard. I used to keep them on top of the refrigerator, until I came home one evening and found Chester had knocked them all down and had even chewed at the tin. I thought something might’ve been wrong with him, worms, cancer, but it turns out that he’s just loves his chicken and tuna.

  I open the can, thump it into his bowl. With the lid, I chop it up so he can chew it easier, though he’s been known to shove his whole face in it from time to time.

  He meows a thank you, and I give him a long stroke.

  It’s this stroke that brings the Mannequin Man back to the forefront of my mind. Had he done the same thing to Chester the day he broke into my apartment and took my clothes?

  It wasn’t your outfit, I tell myself. It would be pretty ballsy to break in all for scare tactics.

  I should’ve told Klonowski.

  He could have his men check out the security footage at the apartment complex. I don’t know; something.

  But I couldn’t. There are no cameras in the halls here anyway.

  The Mannequin Man is careful, meticulous. He hasn’t, as far as I know, slipped up. And he wouldn’t now.

  I’m too big of a risk to him.

  Right?

  Regardless, I go into my room and rip it apart, searching for my favorite blouse and skirt.

  Six

  I find the peacock-styled blouse behind the dresser, the pencil skirt entangled with a sheet I’d just brought up from the dryer.

  The wave of relief that hits me is too much to put into words. This means he didn’t b
reak into my apartment. Hell, he probably doesn’t even know where I live.

  I’m safe.

  I think.

  I hope.

  Instead of my bed, I doze off on the couch.

  My nap is a blur.

  I wake up and it’s eleven a.m. The news is on. As a rule, I try to avoid the news as much as I can. There’s nothing good on it: rapes, murders, politics, and war.

  I pick up the remote, which is hidden beneath Chester, and I’m about to turn it off when I see the words across the bottom.

  Victim #9 Confirmed in the Mannequin Slayings

  A black woman in a tan jacket, tied at the waist, stands in front of a small boutique much like Cocoa’s called Simply Elegant in Green, Ohio. The sign is written in cursive. One of the two display windows, no doubt where Alicia Rodriguez’s face was stapled to a mannequin, is boarded up. The yellow police tape seems to wrap around the whole building.

  I turn the volume high instead of clicking the power button. My fingers are shaking.

  “Twenty-one-year-old Alicia Rodriguez was a junior at Ohio State University, visiting her old hometown for the weekend. She is believed to be one of many victims of the serial killer known as the Mannequin Man. Miss Rodriguez marks the second victim in the last five years. Dating back to February of 1999, a suspected nine people, all females in their late teens to mid-twenties, have been gruesomely murdered within a three-hundred-mile radius of the Midwest.”

  A map of the area appears on the screen. It’s covered in nine red dots, each accompanied by a date of discovery.

  The reporter goes on.

  “Police released this sketch of a suspect, but not much else.” The sketch put together by my account replaces the reporter. I fear they’ll bring my name up as the one that got away.

  The reporter doesn’t.

  Her feed cuts to the Green Police Chief. He says, “This is clearly the work of a sick and deranged individual.”

  No shit.

  The same reporter asks, “Does there seem to be any patterns among the victims?”