The Arcade Mannequin

The summer of 2012 in Bakersfield, California, was a scorcher. I was nineteen, working the night shift at a laundromat, and desperate for anything to break the monotony. That’s when I met Vince. He was a wiry guy with a tattoo of a moth on his neck, and he claimed to be a collector of ‘unwanted things.’ He told me about an abandoned arcade on the outskirts of town, a place called ‘Funland Arcade’ that had been shut down for decades. He said it was full of old machines, forgotten prizes, and a strange energy he couldn’t explain. I was a sucker for a story, and the idea of exploring a dead amusement palace beat folding towels.

We drove out past the city limits, past the last strip mall, down a cracked, weed-choked road. The building sat alone in a vast, dusty lot, its once-bright sign faded to a ghost of pink and yellow. The windows were boarded up, but a side door was ajar, swaying slightly in the hot wind. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of dust and rust. Faded carnival music, warped and screechy, echoed from somewhere in the back. The place was a graveyard of childhood joys: ticket booths with glass shattered, cabinets of games with cracked screens, and a carousel with half its horses missing. But what caught my eye was in the corner, under a collapsed banner that read ‘PRIZES! PRIZES! PRIZES!’ – a mannequin. Not a store mannequin, but one of those ventriloquist dummies, dressed in a dusty clown suit, its painted grin frozen in a rictus of glee. Its glass eyes seemed to follow me.

Vince laughed at my nervousness. ‘Don’t worry, he’s harmless. I’ve been here a few times. The real treasure is in the back.’ He led me through a maze of broken stools and fallen posters, deeper into the building. The music grew louder, then stopped abruptly. In the silence, I heard a faint, rhythmic click. It came from the dummy, a sound like a tongue against teeth. I turned to look, and the dummy’s head was tilted, as if listening. I told myself it was just my imagination.

We reached a door marked ‘MANAGER’ and Vince pried it open. Inside were shelves of dusty trophies, a roll-top desk with a fading map of the arcade, and a stack of faded photographs. Vince picked one up, wiping the dust off. It showed a family standing outside the arcade on opening day, a man in a suit, a woman in a flowered dress, and a young boy holding a stuffed bear. ‘The owners,’ Vince said. ‘Their kid disappeared a year before it closed. They sold the place and left.’

I felt a chill despite the heat. I wanted to leave, but Vince was already pocketing the photos. ‘Come on, help me look for something valuable in the storage.’ We went down a corridor lined with lockers, their doors hanging open. At the end was a heavy steel door. It was locked with a padlock, but Vince pulled out a crowbar and forced it open. Beyond was a small, windowless room, lit only by the beam from my phone. In the center, on a pedestal, was another dummy. This one was not a clown, but a girl, with a porcelain face and cracked lips. She wore a tattered dress that might have once been red. And she was sitting in a child’s chair, hands folded in her lap, as if waiting.

My skin prickled. ‘We should go,’ I said.

Vince ignored me. He walked up to the dummy, circling it. ‘She’s beautiful,’ he breathed. ‘I could sell this for a fortune.’

He reached out to touch her face. As his fingers brushed her cheek, the dummy’s head snapped forward, and her glass eyes – which I had assumed were painted – blinked. A sound came from her mouth, a low, guttural click that seemed to vibrate in my chest. The music started again, but it was different – not the tinny carnival jingle, but a lullaby, played on a music box. The clown dummy from the entrance appeared in the doorway, its head rotating 180 degrees to face us.

Vince was frozen, his hand still on her face. I grabbed his arm, pulling him away. The girl dummy rose from her chair, her joints creaking, and took a step. The clown’s mouth began to move, a voice like gravel scraping glass. ‘You should not have come.’

We bolted. We crashed through the maze, the lullaby echoing behind us, the dummy’s footsteps thumping on the floor. We reached the side door, but it slammed shut, and the boards on the windows moved, sealing themselves. The clown was right behind us, and its eyes were black pits. I looked at Vince, and in the dim light, I saw that his arm was twisted, bent at an unnatural angle. The clown spoke again. ‘She wants a playmate.’

I screamed as the girl dummy emerged from the shadows, her face now contorted in a hungry grin. She reached out with fingers like knives. I remember nothing after that, except waking up in my car, parked outside the laundromat, the sun rising. I had scratches on my arms, and my keys were in the ignition, worn smooth as if they’d been used for a thousand years. The arcade is gone now, bulldozed to make way for a shopping center. But sometimes, late at night, I hear that music box lullaby playing on the wind, and I feel a phantom presence in the driver’s seat, a slight weight on the passenger side. I never saw Vince again. Sometimes I wonder if he’s still there, sitting on that rusty carousel, waiting for the next curious soul to come and play.