Chapter 1: The Exhibition That Made Me Quit
The museum opened without public warning. Once during the week and only at six o’clock in the evening, no earlier, no later. Any bratty excuse – such as a sluggish private jet – simply did not cut it, only those outside the gate at six o’clock were permitted inside.
No one knew where this giant playground for wealthy men was, not even God. And in this place: there was no God, my Gods were the rich and famous, and they were merciless and cruel.
There was no security here nor staff besides me on opening day; it was a grand lawless building only made for the top one percent of the top one percent. Our reason for lack of employees was the same reason Michael Jackson shut down a supermarket for a day visit in the 2000’s – uninhibited fun without judgmental eyes.
I did the same thing I did every opening day: Adjusted my maroon waistcoat, combed my hair, shined my shoes. At five fifty-nine I came tapping down the marble staircase with a spring in my step. Not from excitement, rather, a jumpiness that came from instilled fear. The museum was about to become their toyshop yet again and me their plaything. This time, I could only pray that they waited until midnight before asking to see our paranormal relic displays. I could only pray they didn’t let her out.
The foyer was huge; towering golden pillars wedged between ivory-flavored marble flooring and a mosaic glass ceiling that let starlight beam through.
With one hand I braced the door that stood three men high, my other hand turning to check my watch. It was six o’clock.
Four pompous men and two posh women smugly marched in. They were dressed in fur coats, alligator skin, diamond jewelry from head to toe - it was quite frankly comical. Not to me though, of course. I had seen it all many times before. However, there was one man at the back who didn’t care to show his wealth; he was dressed in his finest outfit to visit a convenience store – blue scuffed jeans and a green T-shirt. I pondered what he did for a living, but I simply didn’t know. What I did know is that within minutes the look on his face said he wanted me dead for sport.
I announced: “The tour will start immediately – there is a coat rack to your left if you need to leave any belongings. I do not recommend venturing off, I must press you all follow me for the tour; however, it’s completely optional.” It was as if I read off a script.
The route started off like any other. I led the rich brats through the left side of the museum. We walked past the history and war rooms, past the living wall, past the Mariana trench exhibit. We housed creatures from the bottom of the ocean in there that the public hadn’t seen before inside immense pressurized titanium tanks. I liked that exhibit the most, but it wasn’t time.
Hallways were always hauntingly quiet on opening day. The museum’s property outside stretched for miles, too, so no cars nor people provided any consolation for my lonely mind on long nights such as these. It was just me, the rich savages, and the exhibitions.
Walking into a hallway intersection leading left to the paranormal display and to the right the insect room, we had stopped.
Please don’t see it, please don’t see it. I thought.
“This way please,”
Why are you all stopping here?
I knew why. They saw the glass cabinet that towered by the door to the paranormal exhibition hallway, and curiosity beckoned them. It was covered by a dust blanket; only I knew what was underneath, and I knew it was best untouched.
“Can we take a look at this?” A voice said quietly from behind and shattered me like a toppled vase.
My smile had to be kept up, I couldn’t crack at the start of the tour, that would be tragic.
“We will return here after midnight, once we’ve explored the rest of the-“
One of the men sternly interrupted. “We paid good money for this!” He shouted. “Give us a look!”
I pulled hard enough at my hair I’m surprised it didn’t come out of my scalp. Please don’t make me show you. I don’t want to wake her.
“Yeah, give us a look!” More bullies chimed in. I was no rookie to the psychological wedgie, but it was in my contract to not put up a fight.
Swallowing hard, the words escaped slowly and unwillingly: “Yes, sure.”
My hand reached for the fabric reluctantly like it was a hot stove. I pulled the graphite sheet away from the case and flipped the light switch.
Kik-kik-kik-tak-tak
The fluorescent lights popped and ticked as they flickered within the glass oblong that towered above us. The woman inside was ghoulishly tall, at least seven feet so. If she were any bigger, her head would have had to tilt to the side. Sometimes it did.
Her black hair flowed onto her pale shiny shoulders like an ashen willow, her face plasticky and silky smooth – the flesh of a child’s doll. Beneath the glass cube: MARIETTE, 1973-2004.
The fat man’s plump face stared upward, utterly transfixed with the thin, soaring woman. “How..,” He cleared his throat. “How did she die?”
I thought for a while, my face contemplating and changing in the dim lighting. They clicked and blinked once more. Kik-kik-kik.
“It pains me to say this, but she was once the tour guide for this museum.” My hand met the cold glass. “Sadly, after a few years she had a mental breakdown and passed away.”
There were a couple gasps from the rich folk.
“Passed away?” A woman’s voice from the crowd.
“She,” My jaw tightened. “She injected herself to death with plasticizing agents. In fact, that is one of the loopholes as to why we can keep her body here on display. Her body is more plastic than flesh and bone.”
Kik-kik-kik
The lights went out. “They’ll be back any second.” I soothed, reassuringly.
“That story is absurd.” A man boomed.
“Unfortunate, sure, but woefully true.” I rebutted. “The other loophole being her will. She wanted to give herself to the museum just as…” I paused. “The museum had given itself to her.”
The lights inside the case came back on. My heart sank into my stomach.
Clicking noises had not been coming from the lamps after all.
Creaking had come from her plastic joints twisting and contorting, old plastic grinding against itself like a cursed figurine. Now visible, her head had been creaked to one side; she stared unblinkingly at me with glass eyes.
Dampening the sheet with my sweaty palm I narrowly managed to quickly toss the fabric, covering the glass before anyone noticed that she had readjusted her head when it had been dark.
“Is that it?” Someone said.
“Can we touch her? I wanna feel her rubbery, plasticky skin. Sends chills up my spine.” Another one said.
I couldn’t say no, as per my contract. Hell, these wealthy scumbags could kill me for fun and get away with it if they didn’t get what they wanted, and nobody would hear me scream. I had to think quickly.
“We shall be moving on,” I extended an open hand to the hallway. “This way, please.”
For some exhibits, I held onto the harrowing details. To feed them specifics would be like planting seeds of trickling intrigue in their minds, and intrigue led to an unsated curiosity. Curiosity always killed the cat, no matter the feline a rich breed or a stray tom. I didn’t tell the wealthy people that the doll hated her glass prison. I didn’t tell them that we closed her eyelids so she could sleep.
Things were going smoothly for a few hours. I let them hold and handle the child-sized beetles we had imported from Madagascar; they were beautiful and fluorescent like sunlight through crystal. I got so caught up in my presentations, I had almost forgot about Mariette’s snapping, plastic head.
Mr. Jones, the rich guy dressed for a convenience store, clicked his tongue as he spoke. “Hey, uh… guide,” He threw one thumb behind his shoulder, pointing backward. “We’re gonna’ go back this way to have a look at something else.”
I nodded reluctantly. Shoddy sneakers tapped away at the marble floors as both he and a woman disappeared down the hall.
For a short time, things truly were going great. I even let one woman into the space where we held the glass butterflies. They were gorgeous insects, almost invisible to the naked eye; translucent yet poisonous.
The remaining billionaires were silently yawning – deep down I knew what they wanted to see. My chest tightened. At that moment I thought that I was beginning to hate my job.
From the hallway came a loud crashing of broken glass.
Curiosity had killed the cat.
“Please excuse me.” I muttered and sprinted into the dim alley of the museum towards the paranormal wing.
Moments after I had started running, I realized I left the doors open to the butterflies. Behind me, the sounds of shouting and pitter pattering as the tourists sprinted the opposite direction. They were running from the floating creatures, running for their lives, running from deadly venom. It was too late, I had to keep going. My heart sank, I already guessed what I was about to find ahead. The evening was no longer going swimmingly.
Around the bend, I found one woman crouched against the wall by a window. She was a ball of tears, clasping her head with two hands.
“What the hell happened?” I yelled.
“She…” Her throat was glaringly tight, her words struggled to escape her. “I didn’t… I didn’t do anything, they… they…”
I looked up; glass lined the ground and edges of the walls like rain had come and left the devil’s hail. A few steps away the graphite dust-blanket half covered a gaping, sharp hole in the cabinet. Lights flickered from its mouth, mocking me.
Glaring at my watch, my stomach knotted. It wasn’t midnight yet. It wasn’t midnight and somebody broke Mariette’s display, and she was gone. Just like the woman crying beside me, I think my throat became tight, too.
“Come with me.” I said, holding out one hand.
We got up and we ran. We ran until we caught our breath outside the ocean exhibition and the living wall.
“What is this… thing?” She said, staring at the peach wall.
“Don’t touch it, please.”
I couldn’t think clearly. She was out there somewhere. Clicking her ghoulish joints, towering in the halls, searching, searching for more plastic, more plastic so she could become the perfect ventriloquist’s doll. The doll she had become so fixated with working here. She would be a doll, and we would play with her. Just like she would play with us.
“It looks… alive.” The woman reached a hand to the slimy, greasy wall.
I felt lost - I couldn’t breathe, it was too much. The butterflies, Mariette, the sick rich people breaking things for fun with no repercussion.
Fingerlike blobs from the wall reached back out at the woman – thick apricot worms searching for warmth.
I slapped her hand away. “You mustn’t touch that!” I yelled.
She gasped, and I realized my mistake. My contract was broken, and my head shall be on a spike.
“Don’t you dare touch me!” She spat back at me, large angry veins sticking out of her neck.
I raised my hand to calm her. “I apologize ma’am. This strange thing is made of living cells,” Without knowing, I was back on tour guide script, despite the trauma. “The very thing you’re trying to poke at could eat yo-“
“I don’t want to hear it, thank you.”
We stood there a while, both unable to think nor speak. I stared at the wall unblinkingly like watching a hot fire, its flesh molding, changing. Peach goo flowed in waves across its surface, inviting me to look closer. Underneath on a golden placard: THE LIVING WALL. I shook out of it.
Richard Jones had made it back to us. His green T-shirt was torn at the neck, his eyes sunken and traumatized. “The door is locked, guide. We need your key.”
I nodded. “Right away.” I started jogging towards the direction of the foyer.
He wasn’t following.
“Mr. Jones?” I turned to him.
Richard Jones was still standing next to the woman who had been crying in a ball minutes prior. He didn’t speak, only glared back at me in the dim starlight that flowed through the window.
When he placed his hand on the woman’s back and smiled, I knew it was too late.
He shoved her with force. The woman shrieked and went tumbling headfirst into the gooey, peach wall.
Her bones snapped and buckled as blobby fingers wrapped themselves around her spine, her neck. It flowed into her mouth with ease, slowing only to pull at her teeth like it was eating meat off a rough bone. She screamed and screamed until she gurgled vile slime.
The wall ate her whole; fleshy goo displaying her features and flesh wide on its waving surface. Bits of arm and mouth suspended upon a hungry blanket.
Richard laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed. For him, money did buy happiness. Horrifying, horrifying happiness.
I felt sick, I was going to throw up.
The wall’s voice was deep and hard to make out at first. A woman’s voice, deep in its slimy crevices.
“Richie…” It moaned.
I turned to run, but I had seen he had disappeared, and I was safe. He had got the kicks he was looking for and made off with them.
“Ri...ch…ie…”
It was hard to block out the voice before it all stopped. I lay crouched beneath the window, blocking my ears and rocking in a ball. My heart was out of my chest, my stomach a knot. I didn’t want to be a tour guide any longer.
Sprinting and sprinting, I never looked back. I climbed the stairs swift enough that my thighs felt like they were going to give out.
Much time passed that night in the museum.
Hours.
Opening nights were long and terrible, nothing like this was ever worth the money. I found myself hiding in a janitor’s closet on the second floor, occasionally peering through the cracks into the horror beyond.
After some time, and when the vile people finished exploring the museum, I heard Jones crack a joke about the woman and the wall. He and the rest of the rich people laughed. They laughed and laughed and laughed all the way back home on their private jets to their estates.
When it was midnight, Mariette was asleep, and I shut her plastic eyelids for her. I had glass to sweep, cabinets to repair.
I had learned time and time again that nightmares were not in our walls. The horrors were within the people that visited, in their sick pursuit of amusement and the games they would play, and I was their plaything. I’m sorry they played with you too, dear Mariette.
The exhibition that made me quit was the sickening consequence of true human freedom, and it was only for me to see, once a week.
Mariette still walks the halls at night without her glass prison.
Maybe I couldn’t quit, I needed to repair it to make things right.
She has such a slow, slow walk. Glassy eyes darting left and right, rolling loose like marbles. Her head pivoting left and right aimlessly looking for more plastic; needing more plastic to please the museum. To be the perfect exhibition.
Kik, kik, kik
Before shutting the gate, I pensively peered around the grand foyer. The museum was large and harrowing. For a moment I wore a grimace on my face, remembering a time when all I needed to satisfy our guests was to show them insects. I had been here a long time; tales dripped from the walls like an endless flowing tap of horror. There would be more wealthy visitors. I think I might have more stories to tell.
Comments