Finally, he threw her.
She hit the ground and broke apart on impact, her arm clattering away from her body, one leg broken free beneath the knee. Her head rolled across the pavement like a ball, the jaws still opening and closing.
Her hand was still clenching his forearm.
Even divorced of her body, the fingers were still moving, squeezing and kneading his arm. He screamed again and tore it free, leaving four bleeding ruts in his flesh. Not only that, but a single white finger that still trembled like a dying insect.
He was out of it by then.
He was drenched with a cold/hot sweat, shaking and hysterical, making shrill moaning sounds in his throat. When Ramona tried to reach out for him, he knocked her aside, sent her sprawling to the pavement with his animal fury.
Then he ran in a wild, blind flight.
Because the pieces of the mannequin woman were not as dead as they should have been… they were still moving. And he was almost sure her decapitated head was calling his name.
7
When she hit the ground, Ramona was knocked unconscious.
She was out of it no more than two or three minutes, but when she opened her eyes and looked around, Chazz was nowhere to be seen. A voice in the back of her head, the same one that had warned her away from him in the first place, said to her, he cold-cocked you. He knocked you on your ass so he could make his getaway. That’s the kind of person he is. I hope you’re really fucking happy with your choice in men.
But she wasn’t.
She never had been.
Ever since she was fourteen, unfortunately, she seemed to choose the same type again and again, fulfilling some puerile fantasy of the perfect guy with the perfect body and the perfect face. But if there was one thing she’d learned again and again the hard way, it was that the better something looked on the outside, the less there was on the inside.
This all passed through her mind upon waking, upon realizing that she had been abandoned.
Get your ass moving, Ramona! You’re in danger!
And oh yes, she was, she certainly was at that. It didn’t take her long to remember why. She got up, sitting there on her ass, a throbbing in the back of her head. Her fingers brushed over a knob of flesh that had risen almost cartoon-like under her long dark hair, which was matted with blood.
I swear to God, Chazz, you’re going to regret this. One way or another, you’re really going to regret this, you asshole.
And it was as that passed through her mind that reality inserted itself and she realized exactly why she was in terrible danger. The broken man. He had been after her… but she saw no sign of him now. But there was more than just him to contend with.
The mannequin woman.
She had still been alive, been animate, whatever you wanted to call it, after Chazz had knocked her to the ground in pieces.
Very alert suddenly, Ramona looked around.
Yes, the woman’s parts were still scattered, but they weren’t moving.
Her torso was about ten feet away, her leg off to the side, her arm off near her head, which lay there dead and sightless on the ground, jaws sprung. Her hand was over near the curb.
Breathing hard, Ramona crouched there on all fours looking at the remains.
A very rational sort of voice in her head told her that the very idea of this doll-like thing actually being alive, actually moving after it was broken apart, was ludicrous. It wasn’t a person. It was some sort of machine and now it was broken. Just like the man, it was broken.
Oh, what kind of fucked-up nightmare is this anyway?
And why the hell weren’t the police here by now? What the hell were they doing for godsake? Didn’t they realize this was a fucking emergency?
She stood up, feeling dizzy and disoriented.
She dug in the pocket of her leather coat and pulled out a pack of Marlboros and a lighter. The cigarette tasted good. Besides, Chazz wasn’t here to chide her about smoking and when she saw that piece of shit again, she was going to flick her ash at him and butt her cigarette right in his fucking eye.
Where the hell were the others?
Christ, the idea of being alone in this place was just too much.
She stepped away from the shadow of the van and got up on the sidewalk. She took out her iPhone and called 911 again. It took her precious seconds to get through and all the while, she felt nervous. She had the most awful feeling she was not alone.
“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on but I called for an ambulance, for the police, over here in Stokes, and nobody has shown up. Yes, I know you don’t know where it is. Can’t you track my signal or something?”
“Ma’am,” the operator said. “We’re having trouble with our equipment.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“You’re sure you haven’t made a mistake?”
“Yes, I’m sure! C’mon, get somebody here!”
There was silence for a moment or two. “Ma’am, could you give me your exact whereabouts again?”
Un-fucking-believable. “Stokes. S-T-O-K-E-S. I’m not from here and I don’t see any street signs. I’m just inside the town, just off Highway 8. If they come in on Highway 8, they’ll be right on top of me.”
More silence. “Ma’am, there must be some kind of mistake.”
“There’s no mistake! I can see the highway from where I’m standing and—”
What the fuck?
The highway was not there.
She knew they had come in on it. They had just entered the outskirts of Stokes when Chazz hit that guy or whatever the hell he was. There was no doubt of that. She had seen the highway leading out when she was backing away from the broken man.
But now there was no highway.
The road led off to a dead end, two streets intersecting it. She saw nothing but a solid wall of houses down there. It was impossible. Her knees felt weak and her heart skipped in her chest. This couldn’t be happening. It just wasn’t possible. The van was still there. She could see the skid marks. Everything was the same except the highway had disappeared.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?” the operator was saying over the line.
“Please… please hurry,” Ramona said. “I’m in Stokes and I’m in danger, I’m in terrible danger.”
“Ma’am, please listen to me, okay? The only Stokes on Highway 8 burned to the ground back in the 1960s, I’m told,” the operator said with a curious dread beneath her words. “So you must be mistaken.”
Ramona found that she could barely breathe. “Please… please just come after me. Oh, dear God… I know I’m in danger.”
And she was. This was a nightmare. The highway brought them in, now it was gone. Mannequins walked. Reality was turned upside down and inside out. It would have been extremely easy to have a nervous breakdown and give up. Far too easy.
She heard a clattering sound behind her.
Her skin went cold, a needling fear spreading in waves from her belly to her chest. She turned around, breathless with terror.
The mannequin woman… or her parts… were moving.
The torso stood up, hovering there in midair, swinging back and forth as if it was connected to fine invisible wires high overhead. It balanced on one leg. As Ramona watched, the rest of it began to come together. The broken hand crawled over to the torso. The other leg followed suit, inching its way along as did the arm. The head rolled like a ball. And when they were near, they were drawn in place, again, as if unseen wires manipulated them.