A Prop-er Date

Edgar and Millicent wheeled down the hall. After hours, the warehouse was a little spooky. All of the finished Halloween decorations sat in their boxes. The ones that were unboxed were in the showroom.

That was one of the rooms they had to pass through in order to get to the workroom.

A giant clown holding a fake chainsaw watched the two pass. "Hey, if you're going there," he said to the two appliances. "You're gonna need the password."

Edgar hopped towards the animatronic. "They changed it?"

The clown nodded. "Every two weeks, they change it." He looked around at the other props. "Does anyone remember the new password?"

A roomful of creepy dolls, ghosts, mummies, and other assorted creatures looked at each other. A cracked porcelain doll raised one hand.

"Yes, uh, I forgot what your name is?" the clown said.

The doll stepped off her pedestal and looked at the tag below it. "I'm... Hostile Hazel?"

"Yes, Hazel, what's the password?" the clown asked.

Hazel blinked. "1031? Exactly."

Edgar and Millicent approached the door.

Chuckles, the clown, paused. "That's where they keep the custom-made props."

"The commission closet?" A spooky teddy bear asked.

"Yes. They're due to be sent out to a local amusement park," Chuckles explained.

Edgar climbed on top of Millicent's canister and typed in the passcode.

The "commission closet" was relatively neat. Several boxes and packing material sat on the floor. A few boxes had already been packed.

"Lights, please?" Edgar asked.

The hanging lamp of the commissions closet turned on. "Thank you for coming to the workroom." She said. "One of our recent commissions may be a little active. She will be packed tomorrow. If you meet her, please, be nice."

Millicent paused to clean up some dust. "I don't my sisters ever got to clean this room." She swept under a rug and bumped into something... upright vacuum-shaped. "Excuse me, but can you help me?"

The vacuum slowly turned around. Her eyes were pure white.

"Hello, what brings you to the workshop?" she said. Her voice was just as eerie as she was.

Millicent nearly knocked over a set of tools.

"What are you?" Millicent said.

The faux-vacuum laughed. "I'm a custom-made prop. Supposed to be used in an attraction for Shadyside Amusement park's new maze "Plug In"." Millicent paused to look at a few photos on the desk. "And those? The people commissioning me took photos of a lovely Kirby vacuum made in the 80s. I was inspired by that."

Millicent looked at the photos. "The one with roses stitched into the bag?" she said.

She glanced at the "vacuum". Her bag was black with skeletons embroidered into it. She paused at the boxes.

The hanging light dropped down. "This is... Vera."

Kim moved her plug on the mouse. Lenore had the Plug In maze blueprints up. "Now, I shouldn't be showing these to anyone, but we're machines. We won't tell humans that we looked."

Several yellow squares dotted the map. "And those are?"

"The places where Mr. Schultz's custom-made props are going," Lenore said. "The first part has shipped. The... smaller ones."