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"Shhhhh," Megan hushed as she stepped around some dark brush and bushes surrounding her feet. She motioned forward with the hand that was squeezing the end of an enormous black flashlight that she'd taken from a backpack which rested against her small frame. Her dark eyes were pointed forward but even in the darkness of the woods, there was a brightness to them that he wasn't often used to seeing in their twelve years of friendship.  

Bret stuffed his cold hands into the pockets of his old hooded sweatshirt and breathed out a swirl of white smoke in the chill. The sound of his own boots crunching against the autumn leaves was unnerving.

He considered the evening as having been pretty normal for him... well, most nights that is. He'd driven home from another introverted day at college, he'd eaten rare steak quietly with his family. He'd bowed his head at the table, and he'd drug himself to his room where he spent the better part of an hour sketching out the basics for the new line of mannequins that he'd recently been hired to design.

Upon having seen some of his work at college a young, handsome businessman had asked if he could design for a young, up and coming fashion designer's shop. He'd agreed due to the nice sized check that had been handed to him.

After having sketched out another line up, he'd slowly fallen asleep flipping through the late night horror films.  

Had already commented to Megan that he didn't want to be out here, and that he didn't think it was safe. The fact that it was two thirty and that she'd woken him up from his deep slumber by throwing rocks at his window didn't help either.
"You weren't doing anything important," Megan scoffed with a smirk as she began slightly left of the row of pines that were lined up neatly next to the dark river.

Bret looked out over it as it swirled and glistened, reflecting the night sky, then turning his light eyes towards the sound of a night owl, or some other bird as it made noises and took off. Its silhouette reflecting against the water for a moment. The breech of a bass or salmon in the water also made him look.
"Uh, I was dreaming... peacefully," he yawned scratching the back of his dark hair.

Megan rolled her eyes as she led the way and stopping, she pulled back enough to grab his wrist and force him along. "Peacefully..." she scoffed under her breath.
Bret covered another yawn, "Seriously, Megs, what's so important?"

Megan walked another sixty feet or so, then stopped; her eyes squinting as she gestured with the butt of her flashlight ahead at the ghostly shape of a well known location. It was dark, and haunting in this light, dominating the entire scene a few hundred yards before them.

Tired as he was, if Bret squinted and blinked hard he could make out the shape. His mind immediately began to create the visage of this place in the daytime and it made him shudder a little. He shook his head not wanting to go anywhere near the old mansion.
"It was abandoned years ago," Megan grinned her eyes a light.
"I know, Megs... we all know the stories," Bret shivered, squeezing his shoulders up around his thin neck. A silence passed between them for a moment and he nudged the ground with the tip of his toe making a line. "Look, why are we out here? Are we seriously going to go break into old man Garrison's abandoned house?"

She turned back to the dark image of a rickety old castle against the black sky with wonder and delight. "They say that he hung himself in there," she whispered.
He took a step forward shrugging, "Or shot himself, or took poison, or slit his own throat in a moment of desperation after losing all of his money," his shoulders fell, "What's your point?"
"What if he's still in there?" she made a childish facer and smirked devilishly at him. Their faces were dangerously close and Bret couldn't help but wonder if Megan was asking for a kiss. Two thirty was not a good hour for him neither in life, nor in relational matters.

His last relationship ended at two thirty in the morning, in fact; over the phone. "It's not working out, Bret," Heather had sniffed into the receiver of her pink phone. Then she broke down. He rolled his eyes. She was breaking up with him and she was crying? He popped a Paxil into his mouth and felt pushed to ask, "Why?"
"Because you're not there for me!"
"What the hell are you talking about? I am always here for you! I hardly do anything else with my life except be here for you!"
"Not like how I want!"
"Well, what in the hell do you want, Heather?"
"You're just not..."
"I'm not Luis?" - That was the sticking point. Over the summer, Heather had taken an interest in a soccer player that she'd met at their college. He was tall, and bronze skinned with a strong jawline and all of those things that made girls go weak in the knees. Heather had scoffed and mumbled something about what a loser Bret was before he heard a click and just like that, it was over. A two and a half year relationship had drifted into a distant memory. He had to be honest, he was never entirely sure how it had begun in the first place.

Heather had been that girl that everyone wanted to know, date, or take to bed. She was tall and always seemed like a vibrant flower being carried on a gust of glittery wind. She flittered gracefully from place to place, and person to person gushing and weaving love bands in your hair and... nonsense.

Bret pulled at his recent cut hair, snapping back to the reality of the cold night air and the forest around him, "Ew," he replied decidedly with a nod.
"Oh, come on, Bretty." She pouted at him. "You don't have a sense of adventure?"
He covered another yawn with the back of his wrist, his eyes going over his watch as he did so, it read 2:57. "I have a sense of sleep," he mumbled through the yawn.

She grabbed his wrist again, jerking it from his mouth and pulled him along, "We're just going to take a little look," she grinned.
"Okay, seriously Megs, what is this about?" He made a full body stop and narrowed his eyes at her. "The last time you drug me out of bed at like three in the morning we were like... eleven."
She smiled softly on the corner of her full mouth, "to see Scream," she nodded, the memory at the forefront of her mind. He looked down and took a step towards her. "Okay, there's something that I want you to see. I think you'll like it," she said in a serious tone realizing that he wasn't in the mood for her secrecy anymore. "I found it and it just... really seemed like you," she added. "Trust me?"
He kicked the ground once, "Sure," he replied and at that, the two of them began to make their way to the large metal gate at the front of the intimidating, leering black house.

As Bret lowered himself under the length of chain that gave just enough for there to be a space to squeeze through, he kept his eyes on the house the whole time. It looked like it would eat him if he got any closer. As if the top floor was built falling forward and at any moment, it was going to come crashing down upon him and her.

This was when she turned on her flashlight and waved it over the cobblestone driveway first right, then left. The quick splashes of light made the enormous windows in the house appear as blinking, shifting eyes; some of them with their glass; knocked out from kids who'd thrown rocks.

Megan led the way up to a three tiered set of steps and to the front door. "Is it just like... open?" Bret asked narrowing his eyes.
"Not quite," Megan smirked and from her pocket, she produced a small black key.
"Where did you get that?"
"I found it," she shrugged a shoulder as she forced it into the keyhole, and turned the lock hearing it click in a way that echoed on the other side.

Bret felt his skin tighten and the hair on his arms stand up as she opened the door three times the size of her with a massive creak and thud as it swung against the doorframe. The echo was outstanding.

Upon peering in, at first all that Bret could see was darkness and a few obvious scrawls of graffiti in vibrant yellows, greens and dough letters. Then he spotted the marble floor in front of them and the line of people standing on both sides of the massive foyer leading to a set of stairs in the near distance.

He stumbled back not expecting to see bodies, but when his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that they were not bodies at all. He also realized that Megan had already gone in and was walking between the rows.

He followed her, passing an opulent library and living room on the right, catching up with her as she walked slowly along.

His eyes fell on the glorious forms of the statues. Each one appeared to be carved from alabaster as they were perfectly white, and smooth. Bret reached his hand out and touched the first in a row of six; a young women with a robe on one side, breast on the other, carrying a bowl of grapes on her head. The woman across from her was in a dramatic pose as if dancing, and she was nude. His eyes scanned the rest of them, his pupils dilating in excitement. They were all flawless and glowing in the dim light from the flashlight. Their faces were hallow in expression, their faces eerie as if they were all looking out into eternity. They were beautiful and unique in pose and body, each and every one.
"They're amazing," he breathed caressing the lower leg of the woman that he was admiring.
Megan nodded, "Yeah."  
"Why do you think he has so many of them?" He took a few steps down the center of them and towards the grand staircase, his heart racing.
She shrugged a shoulder, "It was his collection," she replied pausing.

They exchanged looks and he smiled at her. Her innocence reached into him and touched a profound area. She'd always been a good, close friend who seemed to understand him unlike so many others in his life. He loved that about her. No matter how old they got, she was always there at his side never giving up on him, never changing in friendship, never stalling. She was a constant.

Then she raised a sly eyebrow, "But, this isn't what I wanted to show you."
He narrowed his eyes at her. She was already skipping up the grand staircase and he instinctively followed her even though he was blind in the darkness and only knew where she was going by the splashing light cast by her flashlight.

They were running down a hall before he knew it and he was calling after her, confused and unsure of what was going on. "Megs!" he cried. His eyes occasionally catching glimpses of paintings on the wall or occasionally, more statues.

Shrieking back, he came into contact with a giant portrait of the man who once lived in this terribly large dwelling. He was gruesome looking, sinewy and drenched in black. His eyes were bulbous and desperately fierce. He looked like the house did from the outside, as if it would eat him up if he got any closer to the picture. The painting was gazing down at him accusingly, there was little light, but he could still see the man's horrible bulging eyes.

Staggering back he turned, realizing that his moment of pause left him behind Megan and he couldn't see her anymore. The house had very few light sources and he felt himself grow cold as everything in him tensed.
"Megan?"

Suddenly, she jumped from somewhere at him scaring him nearly out of his skin. He jerked, and yelled; his heart pounding as if it would come clean out of his chest. He bent over, holding it. "It wasn't funny," he growled over her hysterical laughter.
"It was pretty funny," she insisted. Then she flashed her light down the hall and made it dance over a doorknob, "There," she said with a nod.
"Okay, Scare Tactics, you've had your fun... now what?" he shook his head at her as he stood straight and walked forward. He couldn't help but feel as if the portrait was watching him move away down the hall.
"You'll see," she giggled.

Once he came to the room, he tried the handle and it opened, giving way and leading into an enormous bedroom.

Everything was dark expensive wood and forest green. In the right hand side of the room, there was a lonely looking high backed velvet chair facing a giant arch shaoed window with velvet curtains which were open to reveal just enough moonlight to showcase the chair,. He went directly to the window, desiring light in this dark room.

He pulled the curtains back, and looked down into a courtyard of some kind. He spotted a porcelain fountain, no longer running, flower beds, and more of those incredible statues. He hummed and looked over the forest near by from where he and Megan had come.

It was then that he heard something odd. It sounded like a wounded animal. He narrowed his eyes at the window at first believing it to have come from outside. Then he heard it again, louder and there was no mistaking this time that the noise had come from inside the room and that it was muffled as if by sheets.

His eyes went to the bed where to his shock, and horror, he spotted Heather. She was in a white dress with a flower print, pale and in tears, struggling against restraints.
She had been hog tied, and gagged. Her mascara was running clear down to her chin, her blue eyes were pleading him.

He stumbled back and fell, his butt hitting the floorboards as he looked up at Megan who didn't seem at all shocked by this. In fact, she looked as if she knew!

This! This was what she had brought him here for!
"Megs...What... what have you d-?" He began scooting back.
Megan shook her head, "Silly boy. Stop pretending," she said in a deadly serious, low tone.
He shook, "Megs," he breathed raggedly.
"You can't be serious," she grinned.
He was fumbling backwards for the door, "What - why?"
"Bret," she grinned at him, "It's me. I've known you for what... twelve years now? Thirteen?" His eyes were becoming increasingly more horrified, "The games? The movies? The obsession with inanimate objects? The overly religious household? The trauma in your past? The introversion?" Megan smirked. She'd been studying psychology and criminology for years now, "They all point to one very clear thing."
He was pushing backwards, hardly moving, "Yeah... what's that?" he growled, his eyes still wide with horror.
"You know already," she smirked. His face scrunched up, slowly becoming more and more terrified. Eventually, he hit the wall, and used it to force himself to a near standing position. "This won't even be your first one..."
"O-one?" he stuttered, his heart racing wildly.
"Seriously, Bret, it's me," she smiled. Heather jerked and cried through her gag. "Did you honestly think that you could keep this from me?" Bret clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, "Did you think that I wouldn't find out?" He shook his head again. "I did this for you," she pointed back at the blonde whimpering on the bed. "Shut up!" she cried, Heather quieted a little. Then Megan looked back at Bret and scoffed, rolling her eyes impatiently. "I know you."
"Why did you do this?" He asked terror in his eyes.
"Because I love you. I always have."
"You need to go to the police..." he pointed at her and he began to shakily make his way out the door with his hand on the door frame.
"Bret... aren't they like dolls?" he paused in the door frame, shaking.
"D-dolls?"
"Yeah... aren't they like... mannequins?"
Suddenly, Bret stopped shaking and became completely still, standing fully. When he spoke, the shaking and high pitched, shocked sound fell away. "How did yo-"
Megan bit her bottom lip, "Let's just say that I've figured you out." She smirked. She slid her backpack off and unzipped it, taking out a long handled butcher knife. She leaned close to him, nearing his ear, "I thought that it could be the start of our collection," she smirked.

Slowly, Bret sighed and began to turn to Megan, a new fiendish light in his eyes, glowing in the dim moonlight, his act falling away. He smirked evilly, she'd caught him. He grabbed hold of her cheeks and drew her into a deep, sensual kiss before pulling back, her cheeks still in his hands. "Thank you," he breathed, his entire demeanor confident, and impassioned.
She stared into his eyes adoringly. "What are friends for?"
 
He looked down between them and smiling, and ignoring the increasing cries from Heather, he reached for the knife. - LKJSlain
Comments5
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Ninefiftin's avatar
I appreciated reading this piece, it has a great potential ! I think you chose concrete details over abstract words and the whole story is truly "visible", which is a very good point. The "horror" kind of atmosphere is also quite well depicted. However it needed some proofreading. Concerning the plot, it's consistent until the end - but I'm not sure that the plot twist perfectly works, nothing in Bret's behavior lets imagine he would end up reacting this way... The fact that he's a mannequin designer and his first amazed reactions in front of the statues are not enough to explain the "you found out I have a twisted mind" realization that happens in the very end. Sorry for the long comment but it seems that you put a lot of effort in it and it deserves more than just "I liked it" :)