The Weeping Mannequin

In the sweltering summer of 2006, I had just graduated from high school and moved into a sprawling, forgotten department store on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. My cousin, Derek, had convinced me to help him convert the old building into a studio space for his art projects. The store had been closed for years, but the owners, a reclusive couple, were desperate for anyone to watch over the property and keep it from falling into complete ruin. They paid us a small stipend, and we had the place to ourselves.

The main floor was a maze of dusty shelves, overturned display cases, and abandoned mannequins. Their cracked plastic faces stared at us from every corner, frozen in mid-pose. Derek loved the eerie atmosphere; he saw it as inspiration. I saw it as a problem, especially when the air conditioning broke and the heat made the place feel like a sauna. We spent most nights on a single mattress in the old manager’s office, the only room with a working fan.

The first sign of trouble came on a Tuesday. I was in the stockroom, trying to salvage some old electronics, when I heard a faint sobbing. It echoed through the empty corridors, a high-pitched, broken sound. I called out for Derek, thinking he was playing a prank, but the crying continued. I followed the sound to a row of mannequins, all female, all draped in decaying wedding dresses. The sobbing stopped when I reached them. I shrugged it off, blaming the wind or my imagination.

Derek, however, was obsessed. He spent his days photographing every nook and cranny, capturing the decay. He grew increasingly obsessed with a single mannequin he called ‘Alice.’ She was in the bridal section, her painted face slightly chipped, one hand raised as if in greeting. Derek positioned her near his workspace, talking to her as he painted. I joked that he had a crush on a piece of plastic, but his laughter felt hollow.

The fights started soon after. Derek and I, who had never argued in our lives, began snapping at each other over trivial things—who forgot to buy milk, who left a light on. Then our other friends started visiting, and they too fell into the same pattern. One friend, a girl named Maria, claimed she saw a woman in a white dress standing in the center of the main floor, weeping. We thought she was joking, but her face was pale, her hands shaking.

A week later, I woke up to find Derek standing by the window, staring at the sunset. He said, ‘She doesn’t want us to leave.’ I didn’t ask who. He hadn’t been sleeping; dark circles had carved trenches under his eyes. That night, I discovered a journal by Derek’s easel. The pages were filled with frantic, cramped writing, describing a woman named Beatrice who had worked in the store’s bridal department in the 1970s. According to the journal, she had been left at the altar by a man who promised to marry her but never showed. She died of a broken heart on the very spot where the mannequin now stood. Derek believed her spirit had attached itself to the mannequin, seeking revenge on all happy couples.

I tried to reason with him. I told him it was just stress, maybe heatstroke. But Derek was beyond reason. He started setting up a small altar near Alice, complete with candles and a photograph of a bride he had found in a stored box. He claimed she was speaking to him, telling him the story of her lost love.

On the night of the summer solstice, the air grew thick and heavy. We had a few friends over, a small gathering to take a break from the tension. As the clock struck midnight, the lights flickered and died. We were plunged into darkness. Then, from the direction of the bridal section, we heard a wailing that grew louder, a sound that seemed to come from all around us. The mannequins seemed to move, their arms shifting, their heads tilting, as if they were watching us.

I grabbed a flashlight and ran toward the sound. In the beam of light, I saw Alice, her painted smile gleaming, her hand now pointed toward the exit. But it wasn’t her that made me freeze. It was the figure behind her—a tall, gaunt woman in a tattered white dress, her face hidden by a veil. She was crying, but her sobs were like static, a relentless buzzing in my ears. She reached out a decaying hand, and I felt a cold grip on my shoulder.

I turned to see Derek, but his eyes were glassy, his voice a monotone. ‘She is not alone,’ he said. ‘There are many.’ Just then, the other mannequins in the row began to move, their joints cracking as they stepped forward, their painted eyes locked onto us. We ran, stumbling over debris, as the wailing grew to a deafening crescendo. We barely made it out the back door before the entire store collapsed into a silent, dusty heap.

We stood in the parking lot, breathing hard, watching the building settle. Derek was crying, not from relief, but from loss. ‘She’s still in there,’ he whispered. ‘Her story is still unfinished.’

I never went back. I moved to a small apartment in Tucson, but that night haunts me. A few months later, I received a package with no return address. Inside was a photograph—a wedding photo of a woman in a white dress, her face obscured by a veil. On the back, it read: ‘Until you do right by me, I will never rest.’

I still have that photograph. I can’t bring myself to throw it away, because in the corner, barely visible, is a mannequin’s hand, pointing at me, as if to say, ‘You’re next.’

And sometimes, when it’s quiet, I hear the faint sound of weeping, echoing not from the past, but from the future, waiting for me.