This was it, this was him... locking her in.
ALL GOOD THINGS...
Hayley never felt a thing as Max cut into her stomach and fitted her feeding tube. She knew everything he was doing but, thankfully, there was no pain. He had spent the past week or so, creating individual stands for each of the women. The stands were designed to hold them in position once they were put on display. He was taking the time to get things right now. No more loose ends. Perfection was his goal.
Hayley was glad she couldn't feel anything, for what she hadn't allowed herself to think about previously, the one thought that she purposefully pushed from her mind each time it manifested, had now been witnessed.
Max would enter the room, drunk, walk up and down as if deciding what meal to have, and choose a girl from the paralyzed line up. He would uncuff her, ankles first, then hands, and lay her on the cot like bed pushed against the far side wall.
He would start by brushing her hair and talking to her about his day. General chit chat, then his eyes would glaze over and his gentle approach would suddenly turn to active aggression. Most would have their flimsy nighties ripped from their bodies at which point he would undress himself. He would pounce on their lifeless bodies sucking, clawing, licking. Hayley wished she could close her eyes as he thrust deep and hard into whichever unlucky girl took his fancy that night, but she physically couldn't look away. None of them could. When he was finished he would cuff them back up and leave them dripping with his disgusting juices. A few hours after, he would return, wash them down and apologize for his previous depravity.
Hayley had lost track of how long she had been there. Every day she was put on display in the shop. Her particular place was in a glass case beside the counter. After all, she was his special one.
An eternity seemed to pass and each day, generally around feeding time, she felt like a piece of her died. She was remembering her family and friends and all the goals she had set for herself. She looked at the girls opposite and wondered who they were? Did they have families? Children? That's when she felt it...
A single, solitary, tear.
Hayley's mind started racing with thoughts of what ifs and maybe's. She had to try. Her heart rate picked up and she blinked her eyes.
'Oh my God' she thought. What was happening? Was his cocktail of drugs wearing off? Had he made a mistake in the dosage?
She blinked again...and again...and again!
As the key turned in the lock Hayley tried to remain calm. The last thing she wanted was for Max to notice whatever had just happened. She focused her stare on the young blonde opposite.
Over the next few days, when they were left for the night, Hayley would force small movements. She started with her eyes, then a wiggle of her nose, a lick of her lips until finally she was able to move her head. She turned to look at the cannula attached to her hand and as her eyes followed the tube to the bag of fluid hanging from a hook in the wall, she noticed it.
A drip of fluid plopped onto the floor below.
The bag was leaking. She wasn't getting her full dose.
Hayley toyed with the thought of screaming...screaming for her life, but she suddenly remembered the voice she had heard when they first arrived in the truck. "You're on your own here, so it should be nice and peaceful for you". She changed her mind and decided to risk biding her time.
It didn't take long, a few days if that.
Max had staggered through the door, drunk as usual, and proceeded to walk the line, eyeing up each girl. Deciding.
He stopped in front of her "Ah sweet Hayley" he slurred "My special one". Max took another swig from the bottle of Jack Daniels he was holding in his hand and threw it on the floor beside the bed. The bottle burst as it hit the metal leg and Whiskey spilled onto the floor. "Shit" Max whispered.
He returned his attention to Hayley and unhooked her cannula from the drip tube. He uncuffed her feet, followed swiftly by her hands. Hayley knew the drill so found it easy to act as if nothing had changed. He shuffled her across the floor and laid her face down on the bed. Hayley stared at the broken bottle of JD as Max undressed.
"Turn me over you sick fuck!" she screamed in her head "Turn me over!"
As if he had heard every word, Max turned Hayley over and positioned himself between her legs. She stared blankly at the ceiling, as his eyes glazed over and his demeanor changed. Almost immediately he buried his face between her breasts, grunting and clawing at her with his hands. Hayley lowered her right arm slowly, inch by inch, until she felt the cold glass against her fingertips...
MONDAY MORNING
Monday morning arrived and a crowd had gathered outside the window. One woman was vomiting off to the side of the road and the rest had their hands over their mouths in shock.
The window display was different this morning.
There was a red voile hanging behind with various bags of meat hooked to it. Each bag had a label, on which Max had written the girls name, the date he had killed her and what body part the meat was from.
More bags were placed around the base of the window.
In the center was a pedestal, knee high and with a glass case over the top.
Beneath the case was a mannequin. It had a cannula inserted into its left hand, which was attached to a drip that was in turn, attached to a bag of fluid taped to the back of the case.
A feeding tube protruded out of a hole in its stomach.
Half a bottle of Jack Daniels had been forcibly inserted deep into the area around Max's left eye. His eyeball, now sat snug, in the neck of the bottle, staring directly at the crowd gathered in front of him. His grotesque, naked body had been posed for all the world to see. He wished he could run and hide but he was...
...locked in!
DID YOU HONESTLY THINK THAT WAS IT?
For months after, the papers, news programs, topical TV were filled with coverage of the Mannequin Maniac and the mystery of how he ended up in his own shop window with the bodies of six dead women found in the accommodation above?
There were countless theories circulating including a missing accomplice, an unknown hero and even attempted suicide! But nobody found the real answer.
Five years passed and people had finally given up trying to find the answers to all of these questions when, in a small town on the outskirts of London, a new shop was opening its shutters for the very first time.
The mannequins in the windows where absolutely stunning. A small crowd, gathered outside, was chatting excitedly about the way the male models in the window looked so realistic.
The door opened and Hayley greeted her customers with a friendly smile and a cheeky wink as they made their way into her shop...
LOCKED IN Page 3
