What's Left

The boss said she died in her sleep, although it was by unknown means. She was a mute; apparently some accident had taken her voice a few years back. She had died all alone in the upstairs master bedroom. The poor woman, although rumor had it she had made quite an enormous fortune—one of those classic old and rich widows. Needless to say I bet her family was happily sad she was dead and their inheritance was heading their way.

We were movers, my partner and I. The boss had sent us to move out some of the last things from her place before the family came. Apparently they wanted her stuff put directly into storage—everything; no exceptions. It was strange, I mean you’d think they would want her stuff to be untouched when they inherited the house—at least some of her things anyway. Yet that definitely wasn’t the e case here, they seemed very forth on their decision. It was almost like they were repulsed with the woman’s stuff, hell they seemed to want to get rid of it like it was the plague. Regardless we just wanted to get to the house and begin moving that shit immediately.

Day One:

We figured this would be a two day project. It was a very large house, and she had furniture up the ass. We planned on hitting the bottom floor first; most of the furniture was there anyway. On the second floor there were about three rooms to attack. After all the shit from the enormous first floor we would finish up the second one tomorrow. At least this was the initial plan. So we got in the truck and headed over.

It was a long dirt road to get to even the driveway, kind of one of those obscure houses that you wonder why in the hell the owner would go out of such lengths to hide their place. We all love privacy I guess—anyway the house quickly popped up to our left and we took the driveway and came to a stop. The house was, well huge—not that we expected anything less. One of those really old houses from the twenties, barely standing on the weak foundation it has. It literally loomed over us, but it wasn’t menacing, just a bit intimidating. We got out and headed in, getting a greeting of creeks and groans from the porch as we stepped onto it. It looked like it was going to start raining any minute, great—we’ll have to deal with moving with that shit.

Upon stepping inside we were hit with a wall of stagnant air, I was put under a co

ughing spell and became the target for my partner’s mockery for the time being. My partner’s name was Micah, which was somewhat funny considering my name was Michael. He was an odd one, but relatively easy to get along with—and to work with. He was pretty content with this project, considering his love for the paranormal and that psychic shit. I’ll admit this house definitely seemed like one of those haunted houses you see on those awful shows on the Scifi channel, but it wasn’t scary so I wasn’t too worried. Anyway he said we should get out before night fall, he was scared of some evil spirits—or that old ladies ghost coming out to haunt us. I though he was joking but it became obvious fairly quickly he wasn’t, I humored him and said “Alright, let’s get to work then.”

We started with the living room; which was immediately to our right upon walking in. It had a large couch, a rocking chair, and a few small tables. Within about an hour we had packaged and moved out everything, although there was still a lot of little knick knacks here and there we still had to get. We’d get those later though, for now we wanted to get all the big manual stuff done before the rain came pouring down outside. The kitchen was right next to the living room, no furniture but plenty more little knick knacks to package. I sighed, I really hated that shit. It became apparent how clean the lady liked her place; there wasn’t a film of dust on anything. The countertops as well as tabletops were all spotless—hell you could probably eat off of the damn floor.

The dining room was next, the whole bottom floor wrapped around the stairs in the center of the entrance hall. While the kitchen and living room made up the right wing, the dining room was enormous—making up the entire left wing. I began planning out which part of the table I wanted to move first when I heard something upstairs. Micah froze, chair in hand. “You heard that too?” I said, looking up. Silence again, perhaps we were hearing things? A small thud again, “Alright, lets head up—I know we’re hearing something.” Micah said, setting down the chair. It was very soft; whatever was making the sound, probably a small animal.

The stairs were just as creaky as the porch; it was a symphony of wooden moans as we bolted up the stairs. There was a hall at the top, on the left there was one door and on the right there was the other two. The sound was directly above the dining room so we headed into the left door. It was a large master bedroom, a beautiful and framed bed sat in the center of the opposite wall. There was a large dresser to the right of the bed, a very ornate mirror hung off of its back. Micah and I walked up to it, simultaneously planning out which parts we were going to move tomorrow as well as looking for the cause of the sound. There was no one here, in not even an animal, “Well what the hell?” Micah said, turning to me bewildered. I stayed quiet, and stared into the mirror. The roomed seemed darker somehow, almost like it was another more sinister room. I froze, in the corner—on the left of the bed, there was a figure.

“M-Micah, the corner next to the bed…” I said, slowly turning to him. His eyes widened, he turned to the figure in the corner. Then they squinted, almost immediately his face lightened up. He began laughing softly. “What?” I said, turning around. “It’s a doll, a mannequin!” Micah replied. Finally it hit me to turn on the light. The room seemed to jump to life; the thing in the corner however wasn’t so bright.

It was indeed a mannequin, about my size—six foot five. It was wearing what looked like a white mini-dress, directly contrasting its grey skin. It looked fairly human, although there was one feature that ate at me. Simply the fact that it was eyeless, large hollow holes took the place of potential eyeballs. I cringed, approaching it to get a better look at it. The rest of the face was fairly normal, save for the semi opened mouth. It looked as if it was letting out a long sigh. “Well alright then let’s get back to work; I wanna get the fuck out of here.” Micah said. I nodded and we turned and headed back downstairs.

The living room took less time than we thought; within another 2 hours we were done with it. We went out and grabbed some large boxes from the truck, running through the now pouring rain. “Alright I’ll take the living room, you take the kitchen. If we haul ass we can just book it through the dining room together.” Micah said. I nodded and headed to the kitchen—I couldn’t stop thinking about that mannequin. It was morbidly fascinating, why did the old lady have it in her room?

It was getting late and we were almost done. I had an army of large boxes behind me and was just finishing up sorting and packaging up the kitchen items. The last item was a picture of the lady, she was wearing what looked almost like a funeral attire like outfit. It was a depressing photo; I tossed it in the final box and walked into the dining room. “Ready? Let’s finish this shit up.” Micah said, laying out another box. Before we could even begin we heard another thud. “Okay, this is getting ridiculous.” I said. Micah face went very serious, “I don’t like this Mike, what if that mannequin is walking around?” I laughed, “You’re joking right? Save that paranormal shit for someone else Micah.” I said, turning back to the box. There was another thud. “Let’s go.” I said, turning to the stairs. We booked it up, this time expecting something in the room. I kept trying to figure out what it could be, it’s an old house, it could be anything.

I grabbed the master bedroom’s doorknob, “Ready…set…GO!” I yelled busting open the door. Nothing, just another empty room, were we making this shit up? I looked over at the mannequin; it was still there—still waiting. It looked different, but I didn’t know why. I walked up to it again. “I-I don’t like that thing man.” Micah said, walking up behind me. I kept trying to look for differences, but nothing seemed wrong with it. It just stood there, empty and hollow. What was making the sounds? It must’ve been the house, it couldn’t be anything else. I stared at the doll for a little while longer, waiting for it to move. Nothing—we must’ve been imagining this.

We headed downstairs and with a mission: to get the hell out of the house. I stuffed the knick knacks in the box as fast as I could, I didn’t know what was going on but I didn’t really want to stay. Within about thirty minutes we had the bottom floor emptied, “Let’s get the fuck outta here.” Micah said heading to the door. We loaded the boxes onto the truck and I headed back to the house to lock up. The door only had an inch left as I closed it before I heard a crash come from upstairs. I froze, the mannequin was the first thing I thought about. I waited for something else, I really just wanted to go. “Mike what’s up!?” Micah called out, already in the truck. It was pitch black up there, night had already begun falling. I turned to him, “N-Nothin…I’m comin.” I said closing the door. Fuck it, I’m ready to go home.

Day two:

I met up with Micah at work. He looked at me with a glum expression—we were both dreading today. That mannequin, I was kind of nervous of working next to that thing, and so was Micah. We got in the truck and made a silent voyage to the house. Micah grabbed all the big boxes we had, his head completely invisible behind them, “Let’s get in, and get out.” He said. I laughed, I couldn’t agree more. We got in and walked straight up the stairs, we both seemed to silently agree to save the Mannequin’s room for last. In and out, no wasting time, I sighed and braced myself for a quick job. We both split to the two rooms on the right and got to work. There was no furniture in my room, and coincidentally there was none in Micah’s room. This obviously greatly pleased us as we stuffed the pictures on the walls in the boxes. In about ten minutes the rooms were done. We put the boxes away in the truck and braced ourselves for the final room. This one had furniture, “Let’s grab the bed and dresser first. Fuck why don’t we just leave the mannequin here?” Micah said, semi -serious. “We can’t do that, we need to grab it too, the lady—hell the boss too was clear we needed to grab everything.” I replied, although I wish I didn’t have to say such a thing.

Micah was silent as we headed up the stairs; again we heard another thud from the room. “That’s it, this place is fucked up.” Micah said behind me. “Let’s just go in and dismantle the bed, take the pieces down, then grab the dresser, knick knacks, then the mannequin—quick and easy.” I replied. I turned the knob and opened the door. I froze, “Holy shit…” Micah said, backing away. The mannequin was in front of the window. Had it moved? “S-Someone must be fucking with us.” I said, trying to force a fake laugh. “What!? Who the fuck else has come in here but us!?” Micah said, visibly agitated, I suppose I couldn’t blame him. “Look, let’s just get to work, ignore the fucking thing.” I said, I wanted to finish this shit and get the fuck out immediately. Micah was silent, “Fine.” He murmured. Ten minutes; the bed was dissembled and halfway in the truck. Another ten minutes it was all in the truck, the dresser was next. Thing was fuckin heavy, but we got it down. It was nice and easy work when we ignored that god damn mannequin.

“Alright, let’s get the rest.” Micah said, heading in with a box. I stopped and looked at the house, the mannequin was technically it’s last keeper. I’d like to burn the thing…maybe I would, the family wouldn’t miss it. I laughed, only to be cut off by a sharp scream. “Wh-what?” I said, running to the door. Micah almost ran into me, bolting out the door. “It-It moved again! Fuck this man I’m done in there! I’m fuckin done!” Micah said, he was practically in hysterics. He must’ve been joking, “What, what the hell are you talking about?” He turned to me, his face was beat red; it looked genuinely frightened. “It—fucking—moved. It was in front of the door this time. I’m done, done man. I am not going back in there with that thing.” He said, panting. No—surely he was kidding. I walked back to the front door. The walk up the stairs was the longest walk of my life. Micah sat in the front yard—he was genuinely serious. I reached the door—the mannequin was back by the window again. “Micah, are you kidding me? This shit is gone too far.” I yelled. Now I was angry, fuck this suspense shit. I headed in the room and stopped halfway—I heard something again; this time, directly from the mannequin’s direction.

My heart almost stopped, the mannequin began turning towards me. “N-N-No way.” I said, stumbling back and falling down. It turned and looked straight at me, cocking its head—almost giving me a curious expression with those empty eyes. “F-Fuck, this isn’t real.” I said, struggling to get up, the door seemed a million miles away. Its joints were squeaking as it began to struggle to take a step towards me. Before it landed its first step towards me its arm fell; making a sharp thud on the floor. I couldn’t speak anymore—this was unreal. “Mike! What is it!? Is it still there!?” Micah said, getting to his feet. It leaned over, trying to pick up its arm. I jumped as it lost its balance and fell forward; it was only a foot away from me now. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t move. It smiled a strange grin at me and reattached its arm, reaching towards my feet. I could hear I strange and soft crying sound coming from it, it was trying really hard. I began taking a few steps back. It stopped for a moment, then it lunged. I yelled as it grabbed my waist and began trying to—climb me essentially. I was hysterical now; I couldn’t believe this was happening. Micah ran in to see me struggling with the doll. “Fuck! Fuck! No, fuck off!” Micah said, kicking it off of me. Its body broke into pieces as it shot down the hall, limbs bouncing everywhere.

We booked it, I ran—almost falling down the stairs to get to the door. Micah was already halfway to the truck; I turned around to see it at the top of the stairs. I froze again, something about it paralyzed me. It had already reattached all its limbs and began trying to descend the stairs. It still had that god damn smile on its face, but the eyes—the eyes instilled a fear in me I had never felt. “Mike! Mike! Let’s fucking go!” Micah yelled from the truck. I couldn’t move, my fear held me solid. My feet somewhat staggered backwards, but the doll seemed to be getting down the stairs quicker then I could imagine. It was unnatural, how it hobbled and staggered down the steps. It locked eyes with me the whole time, waiting to get close enough to—I couldn’t imagine what it was going to do to me. “Mike! Godammit Mike run!” Micah screamed, getting out of the truck.

It finally made it to the bottom step, smiling a wider smile just for me. The hollow eyes beckoned me into them, like they would consume me. Suddenly it lunged at me again, this time I was prepared—it leaped at me and I leapt back, grabbing the door and—well, attempted to slam it in the doll’s face. It only made it about half way, half of its arm made it out the door and grabbed my face. I felt an incredibly horrible pain in my right eye as I pulled the hand off of me. Just then Micah made it to the porch and swung one of our axes straight into the thing’s face. I fell back as the doll collapsed into pieces—again. “Come on!” Micah said, helping me up. We booked it to the truck, my hand against my face—blood was everywhere. I was still unsure about the extent of my injury. Micah started the truck and in a flash we were already flying down the road to get out of there.

It tore my eye out—it literally tore my eye straight out of its socket. I didn’t realize the horror of the situation until we made it to the hospital. The doctors, as well as my boss were obviously desperate to know what the hell had happened. Micah and I didn’t know what to say, what could we say? What would they believe? We ended up telling them that I lost control of one of the tools. None of them visibly believed me—but I didn’t care, there is no way in hell I was going to tell them that doll did it. A week has passed, the boss ended up sending another pair of movers to the place. They finished up my job—but they found something fucked up. My boss called me today and asked me what the hell happened over there. He was audibly angry, apparently he thought someone was playing a fucked up joke. When I asked him what the hell he was talking about he said they found a bloody mannequin in the upstairs master bedroom. It had an axe lodged in its head. I almost dropped the phone, surely he wasn’t serious. He said that wasn’t all, “Michael, they said there was a human eye in one of its eye sockets, a decaying human eye.”