The Hollow Mannequin

The first thing that struck me about the house was the smell—a damp, sour odor that clung to the curtains and seeped from the floorboards. We’d been told it would be a ‘quaint seaside cottage,’ but in the fading evening light of the Irish coast, it looked more like a collapsed lung. My cousin Jamie, six years old, pressed his nose to the window and said, ‘It looks like a dead person’s house.’ My mother laughed it off, but she was already searching her bag for the key with a frown. I was fourteen, too old for the kids’ club, too young for the adult bar. At least my brother Paul, sixteen, would be around to carve out some fun—or so I thought.

That first night, the floorboards creaked like hull timbers. I had to share a tiny room with Jamie and my little brother David, while my aunt Kate took the one next door. My parents and Paul were in the annex across the yard. The beds were iron frames with sunken mattresses. As I tried to sleep, the wind through the window wasn’t the only sound. Something in the wall, just behind the headboard, made a dry scraping noise—like a match being struck, but muffled. I told myself it was rats. But rats don’t sound like they’re trying to write a message.

The second night, we reluctantly attended the children’s show in the main hall. Jamie and David wandered off to the puppet show, while I sat with my parents at the bar, sipping a lukewarm orange soda. Aunt Kate was talking to my dad about the ‘unusual atmosphere’ of the place, but she was interrupted by the show’s narrator, a man in a moth-eaten suit, announcing a special puppet performance: ‘The Hollow Mannequin.’ I didn’t watch it. A few minutes later, Jamie tugged at my sleeve. ‘The puppet,’ he said, holding up a crudely made figure—a pinched face, a stitched mouth that seemed too wide. ‘It told me to keep it.’ I tried to take it, but he clutched it to his chest and ran off to find David. My mother laughed. ‘Boys and their toys.’

That night, Jamie and David both had nightmares. They insisted that a man in a gray suit was standing at the foot of the bed, silent, motionless. I comforted them, but I’d felt a draft. In the morning, the puppet was gone from Jamie’s hand, though he hadn’t let go all night. When I asked where it was, he pointed to the wall. There was a crack in the plaster that had not been there before, a thin, jagged line running from floor to ceiling. I put my palm against it, and the wall felt colder than the air around us. My aunt Kate came in and complained about the odd noises at night—’scratching, always scratching.’

By day three, we’d had enough. My mother demanded a different house, but the front desk insisted the cottage was ‘one of our best,’ and offered, with a slight smirk, that maybe ‘the little ones were imagining things.’ That evening, Paul finally had enough of looking after the kids. ‘It’s my turn to go out,’ he said, pulling on his jacket. ‘You’ve had them all day.’ He left for the dance hall with a group of older teens. My mother told me to take David and Jamie back to the cottage and put on a movie. The walk was short but cloudy, and the kids’ hands felt cold in mine. As we reached the gate, I noticed a man on the road, hunched over, wearing a gray suit that looked familiar. He was far away, but I could have sworn he was standing perfectly still, staring at me. I called to him, but he didn’t respond. When I turned away for a moment, he was gone.

Inside, I put on a DVD—an old animated film—to calm them down. Jamie lay on the sofa, his eyes half-lidded. Within minutes, both were asleep. I was alone with the hum of the TV and the ticking of a wall clock that had no battery. Then I heard it: the scratching from the room. It was louder now, more insistent, as if something was trying to dig its way out. I walked slowly to the door and put my ear against it. The scratching stopped. A silence fell, so thick I could hear my own blood. Then a voice, like dry leaves rubbing together, whispered through the keyhole: ‘Let me out.’ I stepped back and slammed the door shut, my heart thudding. I shouted for them to wake up, but they were dead to the world. For what felt like an hour, I sat on the sofa, staring at the door, until my parents returned and found me pale and trembling. ‘It’s just the wind,’ my father said, but his hand shook as he lit a cigarette.

The next morning, things got worse. Jamie had carved something into the wall above his bed with a wooden stick: ‘HE SEES US.’ My mother, horrified, cleaned it off but found it reappeared by midday, scratched in the same place with a nail. She called the office again, but they said repairs would come ‘within a week.’ Jamie refused to sleep in the room. For two days, we all slept in the living room, huddled on cushions. The scratching never stopped. On the third night, David woke up screaming, pointing at the corner. ‘He’s there,’ he cried. ‘Gray suit. No face.’ That’s when I saw it—a tall, gray shape, slightly darker than shadow, with a head that seemed to have no features, just a smooth void. I blinked, and it was gone.

Then, on the fourth night, Paul came back late. He looked pale, smelling of cheap cider. He didn’t want to talk, just said, ‘That place is wrong.’ He went straight to his room. I saw him stop in the doorway, and he couldn’t move. I rushed over and saw it too—the puppet from the show, lying on the floor. Its button eyes had been sewn shut, black threads crisscrossing in a grid. Paul picked it up and said, ‘Where did this come from?’ My mother, hearing the commotion, came in and tried to laugh it off. ‘Children and their games.’ But Paul’s face was gray. ‘It wasn’t there when I left,’ he said.

That night, I had a dream of the wall, the crack. I dreamed I was pulling at the crack, and the plaster crumbled, revealing layers of rough, dark earth. Then I heard a whisper, in a voice that was not my own, ‘I am what is left.’ I woke up screaming. The room was dark, but I could see Jamie and David asleep, their faces peaceful. The puppet was gone. On the wall beside their bed, carved in raw, red scratches, was a new message: ‘NO ONE.’ I pressed my alarm until the sun rose.

We left two days early. My mother argued with the manager, who refunded our money with a pale face, saying, ‘The cottage was cleaned, I promise you.’ As we drove away, I looked back at the building. In the upper window of our room, I saw a figure—gray, faceless—standing perfectly still, its head tilted. Then it raised a hand, and though it had no eyes, I felt it looking at me. I didn’t mention it.

Years have passed. I’m 24 now, and I still can’t sleep with a crack in the wall. The truth is, I still have the puppet—I found it in my bag when we got home. I hid it in a box in my closet, but every few months, I hear scratching from that box. And sometimes, in the corner of my eye, a gray suit. I’ve learned to live with it. But if you ever see a crack in your bedroom wall, do not touch it. Because I believe that mannequin was only the beginning. There are things in the walls that have been waiting a long time. And they learn your name. They always do.