A/N: It's that time of year again. And as the Jack-O-Lanterns are carved and costumes and candy bought, I begin work on this year's anti-Gaz based Halloween story, while bemoaning how long it's been since I last updated GA. I'm not going to waste time promising deadlines I know I won't meet on that, so let's ignore it for now and focus on the story you're actually reading.
This particular story is loosely based on an episode of some cheap Twilight Zone knockoff I saw on cable a couple of years back whose name I can't recall. But I liked the basic concept of the episode, so I decided to eventually incorporate it into a story, and here it is.
I'd also like to offer a special thanks to my good friend ngrey651 for helping me iron out this story from the original concept and coming up with something much more karmic than my original plan. So, thanks again, Nick!
With all that out of the way, read on!
Disclaimer: I do not own Invader Zim and all related characters. They are the property of Jhonen Vasquez.
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Night of the Mannequins
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It was the usual scene at the Membrane house that late autumn afternoon. The Professor was at his labs working on a new major breakthrough (or a new type of toast; with him, you could never tell), Dib was up in his room spying on Zim through his latest installed spy bugs, and Gaz was in the living room playing her Game Slave 2.
An empty pizza box sat on the coffee table as the television blared some mindless programming that Gaz had only put on for background noise to help her concentrate. She was currently using one hand to stuff the last slice of pizza in her mouth as the other pounded away on the buttons on her gaming device, commanding her character as he slashed away through hordes of vampire piggies.
The fourteen-year-old grinned to herself as a trumpet sound emerged from the Game Slave's speakers, signaling that she had succeeded in slaying the Archduke Demon Hog boss. The grin faded, however, at the unwelcome sound of someone opening the refrigerator in the kitchen. Pausing her game, she got up and walked to the kitchen doorway, glaring at her brother as he looked through the opened fridge. Noticing her glare, Dib backed away slowly with his hands raised defensively.
"I was getting a juice, not a soda, I swear!" he said, sweating slightly under her glare.
"Oh, you better be," she said icily, before adding with a nasty smirk, "I've made some upgrades to my dolls, and I'd be more than willing to demonstrate them to you."
"No, no, that's not necessary," Dib said, shuddering slightly at the thought of Gaz's security "toys", "Like I said, I'm just getting a juice."
"Good," Gaz snapped. As Dib grabbed a grape juice and quickly downed it to calm his nerves, Gaz asked, "Why are you even home? Shouldn't you be stalking Zim or something?"
Dib actually looked indignant at that.
"Hey, it's not stalking, it's monitoring an alien threat to us all!"
"Uh huh," Gaz said, not sounding convinced. Or even really interested, for that matter.
"And anyway, he's not on the planet right now. His leaders apparently asked him to do some reconnaissance on another planet in a nearby system. Something about exploding heads, I think."
"Whatever," Gaz said, going back to the living room, "Why don't you go break into his house while he's gone and get fried by his security again. That should be fun."
"How is that fun?" Dib asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I meant fun for me," Gaz replied. Dib frowned, but before he could reply, he jumped into the air at the sound of the unnecessarily loud commercial that had started playing on the television.
"HEY KIDS!" the obnoxious voice shouted, "STEREOTYPICALLY NAMED GAME COMPANY IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE RELEASE OF THE NEW GAME SLAVE 3!"
Gaz's eyes widened as she turned her rapt attention to the TV set.
"THE GRAPHICS, SOUND SYSTEM, AND COMPACT SIZE ARE SO ADVANCED THEY MAKE THE GAME SLAVE 2 LOOK LIKE AN ANTIQUE PIECE OF JUNK! WHY ARE YOU STILL PLAYING IT? ! HUH? ! ARE YOU BRAINDEAD? !"
Dib rolled his eyes and muttered something about a waste of money. Gaz, without even looking, tossed her Game Slave 2 at him; the device hit him square in the head and shattered, the game spirits released by the action swarming Dib and knocking him to the ground to shriek in panic. Gaz, meanwhile, never took her eyes off the TV.
"THE GAME SLAVE 3 WILL BE RELEASED AT ALL GAME STORES TOMORROW MORNING STARTING AT 7 A.M.! GETS YOURS FAST, OR THEY'LL SELL OUT AND YOU'LL HAVE TO SUFFER WITH YOUR PIECE OF JUNK OF GS2 LIKE A LOSER!"
That was all Gaz needed to hear. She quickly turned the TV off and started walking towards her room. Dib, who had managed to wave off the spirits and was groggily getting to his feet, blinked in confusion as he watched her go.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"Where do you think, genius?" she snapped, "The Mall. I'm going to be first in line."
"But it doesn't come out until tomorrow!"
"Exactly," Gaz snorted, "Hence 'first in line' – I'll go tonight and camp out in front of the store. Last thing I need is someone like Iggins stealing the Game Slave that's rightfully mine."
"Gaz, they don't let people camp out in the Mall," Dib protested as he followed her.
"So? I'll just hide out somewhere until the Mall closes. You make it sound like it's difficult."
"It's dangerous is what it is. Don't you know that tonight's the Harvest Moon?"
Gaz stopped and stared at her brother as if he'd grown a second head (which would probably be just as huge as his original one).
"What mumbo-jumbo are you on about now?" she asked.
"The Harvest Moon, the night when the moon's closest to the Earth. All sorts of weird phenomenon happen on these nights; I really don't think you should spend it alone, locked in an empty building. It really doesn't seem safe."
Gaz sighed and shook her head in annoyance.
"And you wonder why people think you're crazy? Look, Dib, I'm going, and you can't stop me. If you know what's good for you, you'll drop it and shut up."
"But-"
"Security!" Gaz suddenly yelled, smirking as Dib paled at the sound of her dolls moving on the floor above them.
"You might want to run," she said.
Dib obliged, running towards the door to their father's basement lab and shutting it behind him as the dolls appeared at the top of the stairs, red eyes aglow. Gaz smirked at this, before climbing the stairs to her room to grab some supplies for her camp out, unaware of what she was about to go through this night.
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A few years ago, the city Mall's security was handled by an ex-Marine named Slab Rankle, who was fanatical at executing his job, going so far as to hold any rule breakers prisoner and transforming them into zombies to use as an additional security force. When the Mall's owners had discovered this, they had been infuriated – not so much at the unlawful detention or the ungodly transformation of humans into undead, but more for the fact that said zombies were a waste of money, being literally unable to catch anyone. So, they had Rankle arrested, and the zombies disappeared without a trace (though rumor had it they now worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles).
The point of this story was that Rankle was replaced by a security team that didn't waste funding, but was grossly inefficient, either sleeping during their shifts or not bothering to show up at all. Because of this, Gaz was easily able to enter the Mall near closing time and hide in a bathroom – with her baseball bat (just in case), a backpack of snacks, and a sleeping bag to spend the night in – emerging after she was sure the Mall was closed, without worry of being caught.
Gaz smirked as she laid out her sleeping bag right next to the locked doors of the Game Shack, thus ensuring her place first in line the following morning. Putting down her backpack and bat, she sat down, and then turned to open the backpack and take out a bag of chips. She was starting to regret smashing her GS2 so soon, as it left her without a way to really pass the time, but she'd more than make up for that once she got her GS3.
Munching on some chips, Gaz took a moment to take in her surroundings, and noticed that she was sitting across from a Burning Topic store, the mannequins in the window displays showing off the latest fashions. Not that Gaz really cared about stuff like that; she usually just grabbed stuff that fit and looked good to her own fashion sense (which is to say, was black). Still, she supposed she could check it out in the morning once she had her GS3.
Little did she know, she would be getting a very good look at those mannequins very shortly.
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Several hours later, the Harvest Moon hung heavily in the air, its yellow-orange glow casting an eerie hue over the city. Anyone who bothered to watch would have been surprised to see a sudden wave of energy pulse off the nightly orb, followed by several more before stopping just as suddenly as it started.
One of these pulses washed over the Mall, whose interior was lit up by sparking arcs of energy, which went unnoticed by the one lone security passed out in the security room, and Gaz, who had nodded off in her sleeping bag. If she had been awake, she would have seen the mannequins she'd been looking earlier begin glowing with the same eerie glow as the energy, which quickly subsided.
For a moment, everything stopped and seemed to have returned to normal… then there was a creaking of plastic, as the mannequins' heads, which had all been pointing in different directions, turned to look at the teenager sitting across the hall from them. And while their faces were frozen in place, they seemed to almost grin evil at her.
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Gaz snorted as she suddenly woke up; she hadn't meant to fall asleep quite yet, and the sudden shift back to consciousness surprised her. Had something woken her up?
Looking around, she didn't see anything, but she had the weirdest feeling of being watched. Though really, the only thing she could see looking at her were the mannequins from the Burning Topic, which were all facing her direction.
'Huh? Weren't they all looking in different directions before?' she thought, 'And come to think of it, didn't there used to be more of them?'
The rational part of her mind clamped down, and she shook her head to clear it.
"Stupid Dib, putting stupid paranoid thoughts in my head," she muttered, getting up and stretching. As long as she was awake, she figured she might as well use the bathroom. She began to walk towards the one she'd hid in earlier, then paused, before walking back and grabbing her bat. Not that she was scared or anything, but if she'd brought it with her, she might as well keep it on her.
Five minutes later, Gaz returned, feeling back to her normal self – she'd be sure to pound Dib's big head in for planting those stupid ideas about weird stuff happening tonight in her head.
However, all thoughts about hurting her brother were derailed as she came back to the Game Shack, and found all her stuff missing.
"What the hell? !" she shouted, lifting her bat, prepared to strike whoever had taken her stuff. However, looking around, all she found was a mannequin she was certain hadn't been there before standing in the middle of the hall. One arm was lifted, seemingly pointing down a side hallway.
"Is this someone's idea of a joke?" she asked. When no one answered, she growled and shouted, "Whoever you are, I hope you're ready to enter a nightmare world without an exit!"
She stalked down the hallway the mannequin was pointing to, until she found another mannequin pointing down another hallway. This repeated several times until she found a mannequin pointing at a closed door marked "Employees Only". Adjusting her grip on her bat, she pulled the unsurprisingly unlocked door open. Greeted with darkness, she fumbled a hand along the wall until she found a light switch and flipped it on.
Considering everything else that had happened tonight, she was unsurprised to see she was in a storage room filled with mannequins – some clothed, some not, some even missing pieces. And sitting in the middle of the floor was her backpack and sleeping bag, seemingly dropped randomly.
Glancing around carefully, Gaz walked forward and crouched, putting down her bat to pick up her bags. As she did, she froze as she heard the distinct sound of someone walking up behind her. Tensing, she dropped her bags, grabbed her bat and spun around… knocking over the mannequin that hadn't been behind her a minute ago.
"The hell?" Gaz asked. However, she didn't have time to process this before she felt someone touch her shoulder. Surprised, she spun around and knocked over the mannequin behind her, breaking off its outstretched arm in the process.
Breathing heavily from the sudden adrenaline rush, Gaz looked around. All the mannequins were moving, shuffling as fast as their plastic joints would allow them. And they were slowly encircling her.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Gaz growled. She instinctively stepped back to better defend herself, and felt something grab her leg. Startled, she looked down to see one of the mannequins she had knocked over had reached up and grabbed her ankle. Swinging the bat down, she took its head off and pulled her foot free. Looking around again, she saw she was mostly surrounded. Leaving her stuff where it was for now, she turned to move to a more open area where it'd be easier to defend herself – not running away, she never ran from anything, this was just being smart.
It was a moot point, however, for as she turned back to the door, she found that the mannequin that had pointed her into this room in the first place was now standing in the doorway with an arm on the door. She had just enough time to realize what was about to happen before the mannequin slammed the door shut.
Growling in frustration and a bit of growing panic, Gaz slammed her shoulder into the door. It didn't budge, however, and she pulled back with a throbbing shoulder. Turning her back to the door, she saw that the dozens of mannequins were still making their way towards her. Worse, the ones she had already knocked over were getting back up, the pieces knocked loose reattaching themselves. All together, they formed almost a solid wall.
Once again pulling up the bat into a defensive position, her eyes sweeped around the room, desperately searching for another exit. Finally, just as the crowd of mannequins got within two feet of her, she spotted a window in the back of the room. It was small, but just big enough for her to get through.
Grinning with determination, she swung widely as the first row of mannequins reached her, knocking them over. She then ran forward, swinging the bat widely with each step, knocking over mannequin after mannequin, clearing a path to the back wall. As the mannequins slowly turned around to pursue her, she reached the wall. Looking around, she quickly found a big box that she was able to knock on its side; climbing on top of it to reach just below the window, she smashed the glass with the bat, quickly sweeping the remaining shards away before grabbing the windowsill and starting to pull herself up.
"Heh, no stupid hunks of plastic are stopping me from getting out of here," Gaz muttered to herself. However, as she was halfway up on the windowsill, a thought suddenly hit her – her Game Slave 3. It was the entire reason she'd come here and gone through all this crap tonight, and now she was just going to run off and leave it, making this whole thing pointless?
'I could probably double back, break back in, and find a place to hide from these things until morning,' she thought, so focused on her apparent problem that she forgot about her real problem. As she hung halfway up to the window, one of the mannequins reached up over the edge of the box and grabbed her leg, tugging back sharply. Caught off guard, Gaz lost her grip and fell back onto the box hard, the bat falling from her hand and rolling out of reach and onto the floor.
Gaz's head swam from the impact, which cost her even more valuable time. By the time her head cleared, several more mannequins had grabbed her legs and were starting to pull her off the box. Gaz desperately grabbed at the box's lid while attempting to kick herself loose, but the mannequins' grips were too tight, and they were surprisingly strong.
"Let go, damn it!" she shouted. But she was ignored, as more mannequins came forward and grabbed her arms. She managed to struggle for several more minutes, before they managed to immobilize her completely, only her head still able to move, as she twisted it back and worth to glare at her captors.
"Let me go, or I'll- I'll-" she tried to threaten them, but she honestly had no idea how to threaten something that wasn't even alive.
Gaz continued to struggle for several minutes, before the mannequins threw her to the ground. She flipped herself over, to try and get up or protect herself, but she never had the chance – the mass of mannequins collapsed on her, burying her in a pile of plastic.
Then all she saw was darkness.
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The next morning, the Mall was filled with the sound of talking and excited squealing, as kids, teenagers, and young adults with no social lives lined up outside the Game Shack, eager to get their hands on the Game Slave 3. So of course, they weren't paying attention the Burning Topic across the hall, let alone to the purple-haired mannequin in the black dress positioned in one of the window displays.
If anyone had bothered to actually take a good look at this mannequin, they would noticed that rather than the usual neutral look most mannequins had, this one looked almost scared, its eyes staring straight ahead at the Game Shack across the hall, locked on the hundreds of people passing in and out, each one walking out with a GS3 in hand.
But it was just a mannequin, after all. It couldn't help but look ahead like that, anymore than it could leave that window display without an employee moving it into the storeroom.
Or until the next Harvest Moon. Whichever came first.
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The End
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A/N: Okay, so not my best work, but hey, it's something different, right?
Sorry for the late posting; I really wanted to get this up sooner this year, but I got hit by pretty bad writer's block on it.
Oh, and I might put up an alternate ending later on; keep an eye out.
Anyway, read and review, and Happy Halloween!