If you see a new story from Samuel Singer pop up here, you might suspect that all is not well in Habitsville.
And you would be right.
It started with good news. The stories that I’ve written for the Habitsville Gazette have actually gained a bit of popularity about town, and because of this, I’ve been invited to speak on our local TV station, WHVTV.
I know it may seem insignificant—being a guest on your own hometown’s tiny station when you already write for the newspaper doesn’t look like a big step up. But I’ve been through some tough stuff, as you’ve no doubt read, and I am unabashedly excited about this. Let me have this one thing.
Although it might be a bit vain, I wanted to look good on the big screen. So, I’d gotten myself a new outfit—pants, shirt, jacket, even a new pair of shoes, though I wasn’t sure they’d actually show my feet on the program.
The problem was, not everything fit perfectly.
There’s a tailor’s shop in Habitsville, and since I’ve never been given a reason to go, it was completely uncharted territory for me. But this was my big break, and I wasn’t going to spare any expense. So a few days ago, I made my way to Fit and Trim Tailor’s, in downtown Habitsville.
It was a modest building, nestled between two other shops: a Butcher and, oddly enough, a children’s Day Care. When I walked inside, garment bag draped over my arm, I was immediately greeted by a very excited man.
“Welcome!” he said, in a bright, too-loud voice. “My name is Mr. Chatter. How can we at Fit and Trim Tailor’s help you today?” It took me a moment to answer, not because I didn’t know what I needed, but because I was too distracted staring at the strange figure in front of me.
First of all, he was of an indecipherable age. He had shoulder length, slicked back gray hair, but his face was perfectly smooth. Perhaps a view of his eyes would have given me a clue, had I been able to see them. He wore eyeglasses that reflected so brightly, it was impossible to see what lie beneath, and any attempt at eye contact merely reflected the image of the shop back to me.
He was garishly dressed in a lavender suit and green striped tie. I offhandedly considered that perhaps I shouldn’t trust this man with my clothes. But, like I said, this was the only tailor’s in town.
“Hi, I’m Sam. I wanted to get fitted for these,” I said nervously, motioning to the garment bag. I was unsure of how the entire procedure was meant to go, but Mr. Chatter clasped his hands together in delight. Although he was a rather slim man, his hands were strangely thick and meaty.
“Perfect, right this way—“ he started, leading me towards a curtained fitting room. But, before we got there, another man entered from the back.
While Mr. Chatter was fashionable, animated, and ageless, the man that entered the room was the opposite. He was sort of hunched and short, with a large unkempt mustache that seemed to take up the entire bottom half of his face. He wore some sort of loose fitting gray tunic that hung all the way to the floor, and was stained with a variety of different materials I couldn’t place. His eyes, like Mr. Chatter’s, were invisible, shielded by small round-lensed spectacles of the same reflective surface. Pinned to his tunic was a small rectangular nametag, surprisingly shiny, that clearly read the name ‘Nestor’.
“Ah, yes, Nestor. Take it next door, quick as you can,” Mr. Chatter said, before continuing towards the curtained room. But, my feet refused to follow him, and it wasn’t because I was stricken by Nestor’s strange appearance.
No, it was what he was holding that gave me pause.
It was a metal bucket, slightly rusted. It looked well-used. Inside was a substance that seemed oddly familiar, although I was unable to immediately place it.
It was thick and gelatinous, and there was a lot of it. It was a bit translucent, but I could see that it’s true color when gathered together was a sick yellow. I could tell by the sheen off its surface in the light of the shop that there was moisture to it. It hit the two-thirds mark on the bucket, full enough to make my stomach turn.
And then, Nestor took it away, towards the front of the shop and then out the door. I tried to watch where he took it, but before I could, Mr. Chatter had taken my hand and was dragging me towards the fitting room.
“Go ahead and change into the garments you’ve brought, and we’ll get started.” I stepped inside the enclosed space, but before I drew the curtain, a new shape appeared.
“Alright, I’m ready!” A curtain drew back, and from the fitting room next to mine, a young man emerged. Unlike myself, he looked like he actually should be on television. He was handsome, with the glowing confidence of someone who was used to having attention turned on him.
“Wonderful, Derek. Go ahead and step onto the platform in front of the mirrors.” Mr. Chatter watched the young man do as he was told, before turning back to me. “See you soon, Sam,” he said, the glass over his eyes glinting along with his teeth. Then, he pulled my curtain shut.
By this point, I didn’t have a great feeling about this place, although it was hard to say exactly why. It was like I was getting bits and pieces of something unsettling, without being able to see it as a whole.
And then, I pulled back my curtain a bit, just enough to peek out at the events unfolding in the main store, without Derek or Mr. Chatter spying me.
Derek had stepped onto the platform, and was admiring himself in the three trifold mirrors that stood in front of him. His outfit of choice was far fancier than mine. It was a jet black tuxedo, and as far as I could tell, it fit perfectly.
As he flexed for himself, Mr. Chatter circled him, measuring tape in hand. After a few minutes of measuring, Mr. Chatter rolled the tape up, and smiled. “I think I see where we can make a few changes. Too tight in the torso, and too long in the leg, yes?”
Derek, still admiring himself, nodded. “Yeah, I think you’re right. I mean, I look good already. But I just want to look perfect, you know? It’s not every day you get married.”
Mr. Chatter smiled wider. “Absolutely, sir.”
He set the measuring tape down with his thick hands, but then, he did something strange. I expected him to reach for pins, to make the adjustments to the clothes and then sew them later. But instead, he walked over the cash register. He bent down, reaching his arm back, somewhere I couldn’t see behind the desk.
“Are you ready man?” Derek asked, leaning back on the podium to see what the tailor was doing. “Let’s get this party started.”
Then, something strange happened.
There was a loud click like a switch being flipped. In that moment, the three mirrors in front of Derek all flashed, one simultaneous bright light. I saw another flash in my peripheral vision, but I couldn’t tell what emitted the light. I had to blink a few times after it was done in order for my eyes to readjust, but when they did, I saw an odd sight.
Derek had stopped posing, and now was standing completely and utterly still. Not as if he was trying to hold still for the work the tailor was going to do. It was as though he was no longer a human being, and instead was a mannequin.
There was a sound of a door opening, and through my gap in the curtain, I saw Nestor joining Mr. Chatter in front of the statuesque Derek. “Is the bucket empty?” Mr. Chatter asked, to which Nestor silently slid the metal container over to him.
Mr. Chatter made a small tsk of disappointment. “Well this is no good at all,” he said, stepping once again around Derek. “There’s just hardly any meat on these bones. Not much to work with.” He sighed heavily. “We’ve got another one in the dressing room. His mirror should have stalled him too.”
I anxiously turned to look at the mirror against the wall of my dressing room. That must have been the flash in the corner of my eye, but since I was watching Mr. Chatter, I didn’t get whatever treatment poor Derek was currently under the spell of.
“We better get going,” Mr. Chatter said.
Then, he pulled out a pair of small, delicate scissors.
Nestor silently stepped onto the podium with Derek, and he did something odd—he removed the man’s jacket, shirt, and pants. The young man didn’t so much as blink as the stranger gathered up his tuxedo and carried them over to a clothing rack in the back of the shop.
Then, Mr. Chatter stepped onto the podium. He held the scissors aloft, the cold point of the metal pressed against the warm=blooded skin of the being before him. “Nestor. The bucket.”
The little man scuttled back over, picked up his rusty bucket, and held it up to the tailor.
Then, Mr. Chatter began to cut.
I saw it again. The substance I had seen when I first arrived, that filled Nestor’s bucket up to nearly two-thirds its capacity. And, although there was much less than there had been before, and it was mixed with something tougher, stringier, and redder, there it was.
Piling up in Nestor’s bucket was a collection of human fat.
The sick feeling in my stomach gave a sudden lurch, and I feared I was going to get sick and give away my voyeurism. I pushed what rose up back down, and willed myself to keep watching.
It was strange—even though Derek had to be amassing huge wounds, there wasn’t any blood. It was as though whatever frozen state he was in stopped his blood too, making it impossible to spill.
Mr. Chatter didn’t stay on Derek’s torso for very long, but then again, his shirt and jacket hadn’t been that tight. He left bits of skin hanging lose and open, Derek’s ribcage and thumping heart exposed like a vivisected frog in high school biology.
Mr. Chatter moved onto the next problem. The legs.
“Do you have the samples?” Mr. Chatter asked, and Nestor nodded. He set down his bucket, and reached somewhere within his cloak. He pulled out what looked like odd little red and tan disks. “Are those the two’s or the two and a halfs?” Mr. Chatter asked. “Derek needs twos.”
Nestor nodded, putting the disks back into the folds of his garment. He brought out his hands again, this time with two slightly smaller circles. “Thank you,” Mr. Chatter said. Then, he did something so horrible, it’s difficult for me to even write.
He took his scissors, and cut clean through Derek’s leg, right below the knee.
“A little help,” he said, and with Nestor’s help, the two tilted Derek’s top half back, creating a small space between his body and his newly severed leg. Then, Nestor gingerly placed one of his flesh disks into that space, and the two heaved the man back upon the modified limb.
They clumsily did the same for the other side, and there it was—
Derek was two inches taller.
It didn’t take long for Mr. Chatter to whip stitch the young man back together. He had a large sewing needle, and a long piece of thread that I heavily suspected was made out of... organic materials. Mr. Chatter moved about Derek’s body quickly and expertly, until he became still.
He snipped the end of his thread.
Mr. Chatter looked to Nestor, who was holding his bucket. “We didn’t get much, did we?” Nestor remained silent, but he shook his head solemnly. Mr. Chatter sighed again. “They aren’t going to be too happy about that.” He looked over Derek for a moment, as though admiring his handiwork. “No matter. You may redress him.”
I wondered who ‘they’ was, but my main suspect only made me feel sicker. As I watched, Nestor put Derek’s tuxedo back on him. I could see it—the way his shirt and jacket fit his body perfectly, and his pants hit right at the heel. The modifications had worked.
And there was no way in hell it was happening to me.
I counted to three, and then burst out of my dressing room. I left my garment bag behind, and sprinted straight for the door, not daring to steal one more glance for what bits of Derek remained piled in the bucket.
Thankfully, I was too fast for them to stop me. I ran all the way across the street, my heart pounding into my throat, until I burst into a little café.
And yet, I strangely couldn’t go home. There was something that I was curious about, something that bothered me immensely.
I sat at a table near the front window, and watched. Only a few minutes after I left, I saw Derek leave the shop, smiling and carrying his tuxedo over his arm. I wondered if he would ever begin to understand what strange things happened to him at Fit and Trim Tailor’s. I wondered if I ever would.
And then, I saw it—the small hunched figure of Nestor, emerging from the front door of the shop. In his hand, swinging on its rusty handle, was the bucket full of human fat and flesh.
He walked out of the shop and then entered the establishment directly next to the tailor’s.
But, it wasn’t the Butcher’s, as I suspected.
Nestor walked through the front door of the Day Care.
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