The Graveyard Shift

by Brandon Meyers

  When George loosened the old bandage, he grunted. Part of the cloth had dried into the skin around the wound, and he had to tear it free. He eyed the torn forearm for the first time since leaving home. He frowned. Four narrow, but deep, tunnels had been cut through the flesh. Blackish scabs had formed over much of them but raw dermis shined pinkly through the deepest parts. And the entire stretch of road between his wrist and elbow was coated with dried, flaking blood. There was some fresh blood there too, no doubt due to his continued scratching. The wound burned against the open air and George, despite his lack of formal knowledge of bacterial sterility, knew that the factory air was probably not the best for it. He reached for the clean cotton rag, wrapped it over the skin, and tore strips of duct tape with his teeth to bind it in place.

  When that was done, George felt better. He was no longer perspiring. Nor was he nervous. There was a faint throb in his arm, but he knew that too would fade, eventually. Right now, only one thing mattered.

  He leveled his gaze at the headless beauty, concealed beneath her battered sheet, like a museum exhibit begging for her grand introduction. Yes, she would be finished tonight. She would join the others. As his greatest achievement, she would be their queen.

  With the amount of accelerant he had added to the epoxy, Rosa’s head would be finished within an hour. That gave him the perfect amount of time to box up the forearm prototypes for Eddie and walk them to his office. It also provided enough time to break down Rosa’s body and limbs, put her in two more boxes, and carry her out the rear entrance to the nearly empty parking lot. After that, George bought a can of Coke from the vending machine and returned to his station to staple the table curtain back up. Finally, once the clock read almost one thirty in the morning, George allowed himself to heft the mold and prod the epoxy.

  She was ready.

  George gently unscrewed the two halves of the custom mold and snapped the globular object apart like a split walnut. One half of the rough blue casing came completely free, exposing the soft, feminine features of the plastic face beneath. Carefully, with a dental pick and a pair of rubber tongs, George pried Rosa’s exquisitely formed head from the other half. The task took him nearly fifteen minutes, but never once did George rush or hurry. When it came to his art, he was a master of patience.

  When the deed was done, George held the head of his lovely princess in his hands, proffered her toward the sky in admiration. He admired her with tears in his eyes for she was the prettiest thing he had ever created. Unlike the other mannequins, Rosa had a face, not just a blank, anonymous slate. She possessed features of the living: wide, alert eyes and ears drawn back to her head, a little pointed at the ends. There were even skin folds at the corners of her eyes. Her cheekbones were high, but soft, and drew a perfect frame for her narrow, regal nose. Her full lips added perfect balance to a thin, delicate face and the point of her chin was just pronounced enough not to distract from a long, Audrey Hepburn neck. Even with a bald pate, she was gorgeous, a perfect recreation. He thought of how fantastic she would look with the long cascade of chocolate hair that was rightfully hers. The mental image caused his dick to stir in the front of his pants. She would have that hair soon enough.

  Rosa’s topmost layer of bone-white plastic was still a bit tacky to touch, and in need of a final coat of glaze, but George would do all of that far away from this place and its curious eyes. He would complete her at home. For now, he was content to marvel at her under the intrusive factory lights. He turned her this way and that, inspecting what he found to be immaculately shaped lines.

  For a moment, as he held her aloft and the overhead halogens framed her head in halo, it almost seemed as if those eggshell-colored eyes were staring back at him. But not as he wanted them to. No, they seemed to be watching him with disapproval. It was a trick of the light, sure, but George found it nonetheless unsettling. He inspected the rear of her head, giving himself an excuse to turn her accusatory face away from him.

  And then there was a jolt of pain in his finger that was so sudden and excruciating that he nearly dropped the sculpture to the floor, where it would have surely shattered. He cradled it at the last moment, set it upon the table as he lifted his right hand to the light.

  “Son of a bitch,” George spat. He clenched his jaw.

  Blood dribbled from his middle finger, where the tip had been torn open in a ring that circumscribed the digit. It looked as if it had been slammed in a drawer. Or bitten. But that was a ludicrous thought.

  George stuck the finger of his left hand in his mouth, washing his tongue in the warm, coppery taste. He eyed Rosa’s head, resting on its ear. He must have caught a sharp edge when he was handling it. Sometimes, before sanding, there were blade-like edges left on the fiberglass and George knew that in his excitement, he had carelessly forgotten the fact. He double checked the head for smeared blood, and found none.

  From the toolbox George retrieved another clean cloth, tore a strip off, and taped it around his finger. He shook his head, berating himself silently. There was a brief flare of itchiness in his forearm but he forced himself to ignore it, at least physically. Mentally, he knew there would be retribution for the wound when he returned home. But it would be swift.

  Because now, the true Rosa was complete. And, unlike the one of flesh and blood, she would not hurt him.

  It was time to go home.

  2

  It was nearly three in the morning when George unlocked his front door. The world was silent at that hour, even in the Five Points neighborhood of Denver, whose gradual gentrification had almost completely done away with the rowdy nightclubs and bars. George cast one last look behind him, saw nothing but the quiet windows of his neighbor’s painted brick homes in the streetlight, and maneuvered Rosa’s boxes across the threshold into his home.

  Just as it was at work, George’s life at home was the antithesis of cleanliness. It was dark in the interior of the house—and would remain that way as he shuffled around—but even that fact did not mask the squalor of his existence. The air was thick with the smell of garbage that has overstayed its welcome. As he made his way into the living room, pillars of haphazardly stacked boxes cast looming shadows on the floor, wherever it was visible. A narrow path of hardwood had been left between the walls of boxes, just wide enough for George’s body to pass through. On the other side of those walls, hidden by the shadows, waited pile upon pile of goods pilfered over the years from various alleyways and dumpsters, a veritable horde of hoarded goods waiting to storm the man-made walls of cardboard.

  And although the path through the living room (and indeed the rest of the house) was calamitously narrow, George navigated it with almost no effort at all. He made his way into the kitchen first, where he placed the boxes on the linoleum so that he could open the refrigerator.

  The Tuberculitic Frigidaire belched sickly yellow light into the depths of the kitchen, casting George’s shadow across a table piled high with newspapers and various collected gewgaws. As he peered inside, George saw that the lone occupants of the fridge were a jar each of Dijon mustard and pickles. He plucked them out, wedged them into Rosa’s boxes, and shut the door. He then turned to another door beside the refrigerator, fumbled in his pocket for the key, and unlocked both pad locks in the darkness. Once the door swung free he hoisted the boxes again and carefully descended the narrow wooden staircase into the basement.

  One, two, three steps. He paused to reach up, find the chain with his fingers, and tug it downward. Pathetic light radiated from the fifteen watt bulb. It was one of those energy friendly jobs, which meant it would cast shitty light dependably for well over a decade. Once the light was on, a cement wall appeared on George’s right side, the crumbling foundation of his home, which was pocked and cracked and falling out in places. To the left was the two-by-four wooden banister, whose rickety presence was more obligatory than it was functional. He did not lean against it as he continued his descent.

  After the eighth step, George’s foot hit
solid, dusty concrete. He smiled. The air was rich with the dank smell of concrete rot and condensation. It smelled like home. He flicked the wall switch and two more bulbs sparked to life. The basement was a stark contrast to the upstairs of the house. Where the upper level resembled a moderately organized landfill, the downstairs was completely empty, save for a few living amenities. The main room was approximately twenty feet by twenty feet and its only furnishings were a bare twin mattress on a box spring in the corner and a TV tray next to it. On the TV tray sat a Radio Shack alarm clock with indigo digital numbers. The floors were concrete, but a century of unswept dirt and dust covered it like a lumpy, filthy blanket.

  George crossed the room and sat on the bed. He rested the boxes on the floor in front of him. The food jars were the first to be extracted. George popped the top on the pickle jar and slid a salty dill between his teeth. It was crunchy and delicious. To wash it down he took a sip of the jar’s briny juice. It made him pucker. He finished the pickle, followed that up with two fingerfuls of mayonnaise, and then took another hit of brine.

  After belching, George rubbed his hands on his pants, letting the denim soak up any residual food gunk. Now that his grumbling stomach had been taken care of, he could hardly contain his excitement. He tore into the boxes, pulling out limb after limb, arranging them carefully on his bed. As he had in the factory, he assembled the torso first, attaching the arms. Then came the legs, those long, muscular stems, snapped into place so that he could stand Rosa to her full height. Only when she was standing before him, elbows cocked and hands against her hips, did George finally lift the head upon her barren shoulders.

  George had never been so happy in all his life. Not even on his wedding day when he and Carmelita had finally been united. No, not even then had he been so happy, so satisfied. Because Rosa was perfect. She was complete in every way that Carmelita had not been. The mannequin stared back at him, an equal in height, in all her frosty white nakedness. Her thighs were ripe and full. And her breasts were a perfect recreation, barely larger than a single hand could manage and upturned at the nipples.

  George licked his lips as he stared at her. He reached his hand into the front of his jeans and then pulled back with a yelp. His cut finger was bleeding again. He stuck the duct-taped digit into his mouth and eyed Rosa’s head again for sharp edges in need of sanding. Her head still needed at least one layer of lacquer, which he planned on doing later. But right now, what she needed most, more than a glossy shine, was her hair. Then she would be perfect. He cast a glance into the corner of the room, where a lone wooden door stood. Like the one at the top of the stairs, it too was padlocked.

  George pulled the finger out of his mouth, clenched the hand into a fist, and took a deep breath. It was best if he just got it over with. Using the same key as for the kitchen door lock, he snapped the Master padlock open to free the hinge. He turned the knob.

  The second room was colder than the first, and much smaller. With the light switched on, cinderblock walls snapped into view, along with the bodies.

  “Hello, my lovelies,” George said.

  A dozen pearlescent mannequins stood arranged in a semicircle against one wall of the room. They welcomed George in their frozen stances, as they always did, awaiting his arrival with supplicant, upturned arms. Their bodies were arranged in a spectrum of artistic progress. Starting from Carmelita on the left, to Nina on the far right, they each depicted an increasingly greater amount of skill in George’s ability. Where Carmelita and Luna had rudimentary facial structures, Nina possessed fine detail, like eyelids and human musculature. But, none of them were as fine as Rosa.

  However, all of them had something that Rosa currently did not. Each and every one, from the least to the greatest, had magnificent hair.

  George let his eyes wander again to another doorway. This one was devoid of a door. It led to the third and final room of the basement. He scratched at his forearm, acutely aware that it had begun to itch once again. It was a subtle reminder of what remained to be done, of what he yet had to deal with. She was waiting in there for him. This was always the hardest part. But he steeled himself for the task, as he had a dozen times before. For if his Rosa was to live forever, the other one must not.

  He slipped his good hand into his pocket and withdrew a folding tactical knife. George walked to the adjoining room, closed his eyes, and turned on the light.

  Rosa was crumpled in the corner, exactly where he had left her. Her red dress was torn and dirt-streaked. Her wrists were handcuffed around the copper supply line to the water heater, against which her head rested. George could tell immediately that she was dead. A small part of him was relieved for that. Another part, however, was still angry about what she’d done to his forearm earlier that evening and was enraged at the thought of missed retribution. From the look of it, the furious kick he’d given her head had done more damage than he’d intended. Her body was cold. The stench of her emptied bowels filled the whole room. Beside her, the grimy waste bucket sat empty.

  “Hello, Rosa,” George said, eyes lowering to the scuffed tips of his tennis shoes. “I’m so very sorry we didn’t say goodbye. I’m also sorry about all of this. But, you see, now you will live forever. With me. And with the others.”

  George surveyed the scene, knew it was going to take him most of the night to clean up this mess. On top of that, he needed to drag her to her awaiting hole in the back yard. It was a nearly depressing thought that he should have so much work to do tonight when all he really wanted to do was sit and marvel at the newest addition to his collection.

  He sat on his haunches, frowning at the smell, but admiring Rosa’s thick black pool of hair. He took it in his fingers, sighed, and flicked the knife open.

  *

  When George left the room he was disgusted with himself. But at the same time his heart hummed with excitement. Because in his hand he held the final remaining piece of the mannequin’s necessary anatomy: her hair. With it, he knew, she would be the most beautiful thing that anyone had ever dared to behold with their eyes.

  As he walked through the secondary room, he cast a sidelong glance to the row of lovelies watching him cross. He could not bring himself to look directly at their faces, not yet anyhow, with evidence of the deed he’d just done dangling from his bloodstained fingertips. He could almost hear them whispering, wondering what was to become of the poor girl in the next room. Or how he had managed to let her die there alone, trapped in a pool of her own refuse. George tried to swallow the notion down but found his throat uncomfortably dry.

  “It had to be done,” he said hoarsely as he looked away and reached for the doorknob. “You wait and see. It had to be done.”

  Once he was out of the mannequin room, George breathed a little easier. The sea of accusatory eyes was safely shut behind the door at his back. He rested his head against it and took a few deep breaths. His shirt was uncomfortably damp with sweat so he unbuttoned the top two buttons. Both his fingertip and his forearm ached.

  When George opened his eyes, he furrowed his brow. Something about the scene was amiss. Rosa—his Rosa—was no longer standing next to the bed. Instead, she stood facing the opposite wall, beside the stairs. Her hands still rested on her hips, and her frame was still and lifeless, but she was in an entirely different spot than the one in which George had left her. Wasn’t she? George squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head, and opened them afresh. Had he moved her before going into the back room to deal with her human doppelganger? Yes, that must have been the case. The stress of ridding himself of the living Rosa had made him forget what he was doing. He looked down to the bloody wad in his hand, felt his stomach churn, and knew it to be true.

  Rationality served to calm his nerves and for that George was thankful. The first order of business, he knew, was to wash the hair (and the scalp), so that Rosa could be united with her rightful locks. And it must be done tonight. Too many wrenches had been thrown at Rosa’s construction along the way for him to delay satisfac
tion any longer.

  The mannequin remained motionless, just as it should have, as George walked across the length of the room and approached the stairs. George kept his eyes trained on it the whole way, feeling incredibly foolish for doing so. But he could not help himself. Because once an unsettling thought took hold of the imagination—no matter how unlikely—it was often hard to shake.

  The bald, shining Rosa stared at the wall.

  When George was within five feet of her, an inexplicable chill ran through him, starting at his chest and burrowing down into his stomach and fingertips. As illogical as it may have been, he thought he could feel her presence in the air, just as one could sense the physical being of another person in the room. And, moreover, even though Rosa’s silky, pale back was pointed toward him, George felt that he was being watched.

  The sculptor snorted, tried to laugh at himself, but it came out lamely forced.

  He lifted the wet scalp to his chest and gripped it tighter. It left bright crimson tattoos on the front of his shirt.

  George blinked a few times, took a slow breath through his nose, and began to climb the stairs. He spent the next ten minutes scrubbing, shampooing, and carefully combing the disembodied pelt of hair. He treated it with gentle care, there in the dismal bathroom attached to the kitchen. The room contained only a toilet, lidless and coated with decades worth of shit and urine, and a chipped porcelain sink ringed by expensive salon hair care products.

  Twice as he worked in the dim light George paused to cock an ear at what his imagination told him were whispers, but were really just soft soughs of wind against the eaves of the house. Still he cast a glance over his shoulder into the darkened kitchen behind him, finding nothing. He shook his head, picked up the electric hair dryer with the diffuser attachment, and began blowing water from the sopping mane. When finished, not only was Rosa’s hair lush and lovely, but it looked alive. It looked just as appealing as the day he’d finally met her in the parking lot of her gym.