The Collector

by Z Hanny

  “I woke up on the bottom level and that creature that we heard attacked me,” Jared explained. “A stairway appeared, allowing me to escape, but I came into a room full of mannequins and found some sort of furnace contraption. The stairs had vanished, but thankfully the elevator turned on.”

  “We’ve been having trouble with disappearing stairs as well,” Blaine said.

  They both told Jared their stories. He became a little more distraught after hearing about the security guard.

  “So he realized that we were stuck....and he just left us here?”

  “That’s what I said!” Blaine agreed. “He has to know something, right? We were a pain in the ass yesterday morning, but that’s not a good enough reason for him to leave us locked up here.”

  “Jared, does your phone still work?” Jennifer asked hopefully. He nodded but showed her that he had no reception or internet connection. He had already checked in the elevator. “What are we supposed to do now then?”

  “Wait here until morning,” Jared said and took a seat on the edge of a bed. He checked the time on his phone. “We still have like seven or eight hours until the store opens.”

  “Nothing strange has happened to us on this level,” Blaine said. “We can just stay here the whole time to wait.”

  “On top of nearly being eaten by a fish-mouthed monster in the basement,” Jared said with a hysterical chuckle, “is that I can’t record anymore. Coming here has been in vain. No one’s going to believe what we’ve experienced.”

  “We still have some footage,” Jennifer argued, “but I don’t even care, I just want out of this place. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “Let’s wait,” Jared said. “We don’t have to move from this spot. I wish I hadn’t lost the knife I found in the basement.”

  “Did you do any damage to the creature?” Blaine asked.

  “Fish Face? Yeah. I stabbed it while it was taking a chunk out of my shoulder. I’m not sure where, but it was deep enough that I couldn’t get the knife back out. I just really hope that it stays down in the basement with all the other junk.”

  They all climbed onto one bed, wanting to stay close. Jared suggested that two sleep at a time and one keep watch, but they all quickly agreed that they wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. Jared refrained from using the phone light to save battery power and they all placed their glowsticks to get the most possible light from them.

  Jared told a few stories about how he started filming as a ghost hunter, since he’d been the first of the group to start the channel, and they all realized that this wasn’t something they should be meddling in.

  “What if we found some sort of connection to hell?” Blaine asked. “This is something way beyond us.”

  “Please don’t say stuff like that,” Jennifer said, wincing. “It would be terrible if this was an afterlife that you repeated and couldn’t leave. That would be the worst, to be stuck here forever.”

  “We’re still alive and we are going to stay that way,” Jared said. “Let’s try to talk about something else, we don’t want to draw attention from this place.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lights On

  Sitting in the dark made all three teens uneasy. The glowsticks dimmed more and more as time went on. They began to stare into the shadows, imaging the things that they knew existed were lurking just beyond where they could see. Jared once or twice turned on the phone to peer out at nothing because he thought he heard a noise.

  “Maybe the security guard actually went to get some help,” Jennifer said and looked to the snow-shrouded entrance.

  “I think they would’ve been here by now,” Blaine said. “That dick won’t be back for us.”

  A groan came from out in the distance and Jared shined the light in the direction of the sound. A stairway leading down next to the elevator appeared where there hadn’t been one before. The groan came again, echoing up from the basement.

  “Okay, let’s go up another floor and find a safe place,” Jared said. “I don’t want to see Fish Face again.”

  “I don’t want to see the mannequins again,” Jennifer argued, pulling the comforter in closer.

  “Nor do I feel like going through the toy level again or seeing that mangled old man,” Blaine added.

  “Why don’t we try turning on all the lights to the place,” Jared said. “It may keep some of the creeps hiding in the shadows and it might draw attention from someone outside.”

  “With our luck, it won’t work,” Blaine said, and the groan echoed up once more.

  “Let’s just try. We can fend off a few plastic figurines,” Jared said, “but Fish Face is different. It has teeth, and I have a feeling its hungry.”

  Jennifer glanced at Blaine, then nodded. They all stood and made their way toward the elevator and the stairways. As they started going up, the groan came again, sounding closer. The group shuddered and moved quickly.

  They passed the kitchen floor and ascended without even glancing into the darkness. They slowed at the sight of the mannequins in their usual spots, still looking towards them. Blaine took the lead, holding the bat ready to strike.

  On the electronics level, they turned but met only wall where the stairs should’ve been.

  “Not again,” Blaine groaned. He turned to face the others.

  “Has anything strange happened on this level since I saw myself in the virtual reality game?” Jared asked, and Blaine shook his head in response. “Well, let’s wait here until the stairs return.”

  Jennifer looked out into the dimly lit floor at the televisions with static on them. They seemed to move oddly, then they went to flat white screens. She tugged on the boys’ shoulders so they’d both turn to see for themselves.

  They watched for a moment and the screens changed and started playing videos. Each of the working televisions showed different videos from their YouTube channel. They watched momentarily before they looked at one another.

  “What do you want with us?” Jennifer shouted into the darkness.

  They walked to the televisions and began turning them off. Jared stopped at the final one and watched the video on the screen. It was the footage from them recording inside the department store earlier in the day.

  “You two,” Jared said, “come here and watch this. How could this be on here? We didn’t upload this...”

  “I don’t know how anything in this place works,” Blaine said. “This is when we were hiding inside of the cabinet.”

  “Look, what’s that?” Jennifer said and pointed to something in the corner of the recording.

  It was a form shrouded by darkness, but there seemed to be an outline. The outline of a person. The mangled man that Jennifer and Blaine had encountered earlier.

  “I knew that there was someone inside that cabinet with us,” Jennifer said. “I felt it and I heard him.”

  All three watched the footage and kept their eyes on the outline of the ghastly man who seemed unmoving in the dark. Suddenly, the man’s head jerked and made eye contact with the group, as if he knew they were there.

  Jared flicked the television off and turned his phone on as their eyes adjusted to the lighting. They all glanced back at the screen and noticed that even though it was off, the outline of the ghost remained in the same place, staring at them from the corner.

  Blaine smashed the screen with the bat, sending shards of the television all over the floor. He shrugged at the looks on Jared and Jen’s faces. Jared smiled, but Jen just shook his shoulder and pointed to the other televisions.

  In the corner of every single screen on the floor, a dimly lit outline of the ghastly man stared at the children. He now appeared angry and pointed at them while opening his mouth in a silent scream. Jared pulled the other two along and led them up the stairs that had returned.

  The top floor slowed them, but Jared used his phone to direct them to the breakers. He flipped everything to off then began turning the smaller ones on. Blaine and Jennifer waited as Jared put his
hands on the final breakers to turn on the main power.

  He flipped each of them and the lights turned on. All three jumped and cheered, then slumped down exhausted to the floor.

  Jen had tears in her eyes again, but they were tears of relief. She grinned sloppily at the other two. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of this earlier.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lights Out

  Jared slid his phone into his pocket once he noticed that it was only at 5% battery power. Blaine whipped his glowstick out across the floor, but Jen tucked hers away in her back pocket.

  “Now what should we do?” she asked. “I don’t want to wait up here. I don’t like the feeling of not being able to go up or out, and this place still gives me really bad vibes.”

  “After being stuck in the basement,” Jared said, “this doesn’t seem too bad to me.”

  “I agree with Jennifer,” Blaine said.

  “Really?” Jared asked. “You guys want to try going downstairs now after we made it this far? We don’t even know if the lights theory is real or not. Fish Mouth didn’t have eyes, so it wouldn’t care whether the lights are on or not.”

  “Then what was the point of turning on the lights?” Blaine asked.

  “So that we can see around us,” Jared said. “And honestly, it just makes me feel better. Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” Blaine said. “This place is just starting to get to me. I’m ready to get out.”

  Jared’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he checked it to see that internet service was available. He found a way to call emergency services without draining the rest of the battery.

  “What are you doing?” Jennifer asked, leaning closer to get a look at his screen.

  “I’m trying to get ahold of the police or fire station,” Jared said.

  He held the phone up to his ear as it began to ring.

  “911, what is your-” a woman’s voice began to say, but then the phone cut off to a busy tone.

  Jared tried again, but this time he didn’t even get the woman. Just straight to dial tone. He switched the phone over to be able to send a message and typed out a quick address and small message for help to emergency services. After hitting the send button, the screen froze before going black. Then it lit up again, showing an incoming call.

  The number was from 911 and Jared answered.

  “Hello,” said a polite but gravelly voice, “I’m just calling to inform you that I don’t like the lights on.”

  All the lights flashed and flickered off, Jen’s scream ringing out as they were robbed of vision momentarily. Jared blinked rapidly and realized that his phone had died along with them. Jared and Blaine stood to look at the breakers, but none of them had been flipped to the off position. They tried flipping them back and forth a few times, but the power wouldn’t respond.

  The only thing that seemed to be receiving any power was the elevator, which displayed that it was rising from a lower level.

  The three teens were momentarily frozen on realizing what that might mean. Something was coming up to them.

  “Let’s get moving,” Jared said, scrambling to stand and dragging Jen up with him. Blaine reached for the bat.

  They scurried to the stairs and when they reached the top, the elevator pinged, and the doors opened. Several mannequins stepped out. Their heads turned abruptly on their necks toward the group; Jen, Jared and Blaine took the steps two at a time.

  The mannequins chased after them, so Blaine turned and swung the bat at the nearest one. The hit successfully caved in the plastic face, but the next swing was caught by the hands of one of the mannequins. It yanked the bat from his grasp and threw it back into the upper level to be last among machines and cleaning supplies.

  The mannequin reached out and grabbed a handful of Blaine’s shirt. Jared threw several game and movie boxes at it. The distraction was enough for Blaine to slip out of its grasp and join Jared at pelting the creatures with the heaviest objects they could find. It only slowed them briefly, so they ran and followed Jennifer onto the next level.

  Their glowsticks returned to their hands as the only source of light. Jared pointed out the largest television set up on the wall directly opposite them. They both ran to it and began lifting it from its stand.

  The mannequins neared just as they managed to pull it over. The television fell on top of the plastic figures, smashing them and breaking the screen in half. Blaine and Jared panted as Jennifer scanned the area for signs of anything else lurking in the dark.

  Blaine was enthusiastically smashing the remaining limbs when a television behind the group turned on. They turned to see a view of one of the clothing floors. It appeared to be a live feed, but Jared knew there were no security cameras around the building.

  Tons of mannequins stood up against the wall and stared blankly at it whatever was recording.

  “That’s where the stairs should be,” Jared said, pointing to the area on the screen to the right of the elevator. “Those things are going to come up here once the stairs reappear.”

  “We need to do something about it,” Blaine said. “If we could get up to the toy level then we can find more baseball bats.”

  “I wish we’d of grabbed some tools from the first floor,” Jared said. “If we make it down there again, then we need to grab a few. We should set up something to block them from coming up the stairs. Let’s move a bunch of TVs, they won’t be strong enough to move them.”

  The boys moved fast in finding the largest television sets and leaning them against the wall where the stairs usually were. Then they waited. They checked the television a few times, but it still showed the same image of the mannequins facing the wall. As Jennifer glanced at it once again, the television shut off and boys shouted out to her that the stairs had returned.

  They heard the mannequins run into the blockade of televisions as they rushed up the stairs. Behind them, the stairs turned to solid wall once more and they observed the darkness of the destruction Blaine had caused amongst the toys.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Children

  Jared found a bat with ease and handed it to Blaine while making a joke about the fact that he’d already demonstrated the damage he could do with it. Soon, all three of them were equipped with the hefty weapons. Jen seemed calmer with something in her hand, and practiced swinging it in the aisle.

  They stayed close together as they walked amongst the scattered toys, but Jennifer wandered off when she noticed a small light. A toy set up was on the floor - it was three dolls, two boys and a girl, each with nooses fashioned from jump ropes around their slender necks.

  “You two should come over here,” Jennifer called as she looked up for the others. They eyed her suspiciously. “Come on, scaredy cats, it's not that bad over here.”

  As they walked up to her and Blaine noticed the toys she was looking at, he said, “That’s pretty bad. This place is really trying to kill us.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” Jen said and pat him on the back. She hefted the bat in her hand. “But with these, we’ll be fine. Nothing in this store can stop us.”

  “Where do we go from here?” Blaine asked as he kicked the dolls over.

  “Well,” Jared replied as scanned the level, “nothing on this floor has acted out of place since we got here. Maybe, we’re safe up here for a while? If we go down the stairs, then we might run into the mannequins, and if we take the elevator then we run the risk of encountering Fish Face.”

  The three of them looked at one another, then at the wall where the stairs should be.

  “Do you hear that?” Jen whispered. They stood silently, but the boys heard nothing. “It’s that whining,” Jen insisted, but Jared was shaking his head.

  “You’re imagining it. They got in your head - there’s no sound.”

  Jennifer stood listening for a few more moments before her shoulders dropped. “What if we go up to the top level?” she asked. “It’s the only floor that we haven’t encountere
d anything extremely terrifying on.”

  “That’s because we haven’t spent a lot of time up there,” Jared said. “I’ve gotten a bad vibe every time we’ve been up there. So, I vote against it.”

  Blaine looked to Jennifer, who widened her eyes at him. He sighed. “We might as well. But let’s block off the stairs on this floor and that floor as well. That way it takes a long time for the mannequins to reach us and we have a better chance of making it to morning.”

  “We’re going to regret this,” Jared muttered as they started to look for blockades.

  Blaine opened his mouth to speak, but a voice giggled from the other side of the floor. They froze. Jared stepped in the direction of the sound first with his bat raised high. The other two trailed right behind him.

  Blaine shouted out, “Who’s there?”

  No response came back. No answer and no laughter. Jared groaned as he looked back at the wall. The stairs still weren’t there.

  “We still have time to block it off, but we can’t let this distract us,” Jared said as he started pushing a bookshelf in the direction of the wall.

  Blaine assisted him as Jennifer walked beside them to provide defense, scanning in all directions for any sign of movement in the darkness. It took them a while to push the bookshelf to the wall, and it seemed to get heavier the closer they got, but once it was against the wall, they resumed the search for other things to make it sturdy.

  Jen pointed out another empty bookshelf against the far wall. Jared and Blaine started to pull it and Jennifer pushed, but a few steps in and Jared fell to the ground.

  More laughter from the darkness. Jared stood stared at the ground. He’d tripped over a pile of books that he was sure hadn’t been there before. He kicked at them until they were out of the way.

  “Those books weren’t here when we walked over,” Blaine said, helping Jared dust himself off.