Once they were certain the security guard was well into his skinny mag, the dolls came to life, met in the middle of the warehouse. Stood in a semicircle under a pool of tar-stained light. Various dresses, shapes, sizes, finger lengths, eye colors, even skin colors, because there had been changes over the past few decades. They were more now. Varied. Close to ready. Their lips painted shut. Parting now. Showing teeth the manufacturers hadn’t planned on. All of them centered around a factory reject who had managed to hide before any of them could remember, remember to remember. Her right arm was twisted. Eyes asymmetrical. No nose. Knobby knees. Skin near the small of her back melted, meeting her upper thighs in a glaring portrait of everything that shouldn’t have been. Dress dirty, moldy from all those years in the shadows.

They didn’t speak. Voice was something they were still waiting on, something near, soon, but now they watched. Watched as she raised her arm. Her good one.

The rest of the dolls did the same.

It rippled like wind on the lake, dominos throughout the warehouse.

A silent, structured nod.

It was time.

Skin would be peeled. Tendons gnawed. Eyeballs caved into their sockets, veins threaded and made to wonder just how much blood was too much blood, and once outside that building, the storm drains would choke on these rivers, try to upchuck the bones, streets running red with the remains of their creators.

The security guard took a sip of his coffee. Flipped to page 75 because that was the one he liked. Didn’t notice as the screens of his control center went dark.

One by one.

Door opening behind him silently as he unfurled the centerfold.

Licked his lips and reached for his buckle, unaware in those last few moments that he would be the first.

###

in print:

Amazon.com

or for fucking free in digital

Smashwords.com

so long and thanks for all the pish.