After Closing

The mannequins were breathing. Nolan Wexler noticed it at 12:17am, 47 minutes after the last security guard left Harrowgate Mall outside Baltimore, Maryland and approximately 30 seconds after he decided he was too fucking old to spend another night dismantling dead department stores. He stood outside what had once been Bellamy’s, holding a cordless drill in one hand and a warm Mountain Dew in the other.

               The mannequin stood behind the glass. Woman. Blonde. Red dress. Hands positioned elegantly at her hips. Nothing remarkable except that Nolan had walked past the store 20 minutes earlier and the window had been empty. Then her chest moved. Nolan stopped drinking. “No.” He stepped closer. The woman remained perfectly still. Her eyes stared toward the darkened food court. Nolan tapped the glass. Nothing. “Hello?”

               Her eyes moved. Only her eyes. They found him. Nolan dropped the Mountain Dew. “Jesus fucking Christ.” The woman’s mouth opened. Her lips moved. No sound penetrated the glass. Nolan grabbed the locked storefront door and pulled. “Hold on.” The woman began shaking her head. “Hold on. I’ll get you out.” She shook harder.

               Then the lights came on. Not just inside Bellamy’s. Everywhere. One storefront after another illuminated down the corridor. Harrowgate Mall awakened. Music crackled from ceiling speakers. An instrumental version of some eighties pop song Nolan vaguely recognized. The escalators groaned into motion. The fountain in the center court sputtered, coughed brown water, then began flowing. Nolan stepped backward.

               The mall had been mostly dead for six years. Tomorrow morning, demolition crews would begin stripping the interior. By Thanksgiving, Harrowgate would be rubble. Tonight was supposed to be simple. Remove anything the redevelopment company had marked for salvage. Fixtures. Copper. Architectural pieces. Thirty-eight dollars an hour. He looked back at Bellamy’s. The woman was gone.

               Nolan called his supervisor. No signal. He tried 911. Nothing. “Perfect.” He walked toward the security office. The music followed him. At the former sporting-goods store, another display had appeared. A man in running shorts stood on a treadmill. Nolan almost kept walking. Then he noticed the man’s feet. They were not resting on the treadmill. They were attached to it. Metal rods disappeared through both heels. Nolan approached the glass. The man blinked.

               “Fuck.”

               The runner’s arms were fixed at 90-degree angles. Nolan initially assumed braces held them there. Then he saw the scars. The elbows had been surgically fused. The man’s mouth opened. His tongue moved. Nolan could not hear him. “Who did this?” The runner looked toward the second floor. Nolan followed his gaze. A sign hung above a corridor he remembered from childhood.

               HARROWGATE MEDICAL SUITES

               Nolan had forgotten those existed. Dentist. Optometrist. Dermatologist. Plastic surgeon. His stomach tightened. Something about that last one felt familiar. He continued toward security. At Little Sprouts, three children stood behind the glass. Nolan stopped. “No.” One was perhaps eight. Another 12. The smallest might have been six. They wore matching pajamas. All three were smiling. Not naturally. Their lips had been pulled backward and anchored near their ears. The youngest child blinked. Nolan punched the glass.

               Once.

               Twice.

               The third strike cracked it. He grabbed a metal bench from the corridor and swung. Glass exploded inward. The children did not move. Nolan climbed through. “It’s okay.” The smallest child began whimpering. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Nolan reached toward her. Her body shifted. Something tugged beneath her pajama shirt. He lifted the fabric. A feeding tube disappeared through her abdomen and into the platform. Another tube exited lower.

               Nolan looked behind the display. All three children were connected to machinery hidden inside the fake wall. His stomach rolled. “How long?” The oldest child moved one finger. Nolan leaned closer. She pointed toward a yellowed poster mounted behind them.

               CHRISTMAS AT HARROWGATE — 1998

               Nolan stared. “No.” The girl nodded. “That’s impossible.” She began crying. The smile never changed.

               The security office was empty. Every monitor showed static except one. Camera 14. Second floor. A man stood beneath the camera. White surgical coat. He looked directly upward. Then raised one hand. Waved. Nolan found a hammer.

               The second-floor medical corridor smelled different from the rest of the mall. Bleach. Alcohol. Something faintly sweet underneath. Rot. The old directory remained mounted beside the entrance. Suite 204.

               GIDEON CROWHURST, MD

               Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Nolan knew the name. He did not know why. He approached 204. The door opened before he touched it.

               “Mr. Wexler.” The voice came from inside. Nolan tightened his grip on the hammer. “Come in.”

               “Fuck you.”

               A chuckle. “You sound like your father.”

               Nolan stopped breathing. The corridor suddenly seemed very narrow. “How do you know my father?”

               “Come inside.”

               Nolan entered. The clinic was pristine. No dust. No decay. A reception desk stood beneath framed photographs of smiling patients. Beyond it, an elderly man sat in a wheelchair. He was extraordinarily thin. White hair. Clouded eyes. Hands twisted by arthritis. Dr. Gideon Crowhurst smiled. “You have her eyes.”

               Nolan crossed the room and pressed the hammer against Crowhurst’s forehead. “My father?”

               “Your sister.”

               Everything inside Nolan went cold. “What did you say?”

               “Celeste.”

               Nolan hit him. The hammer struck Crowhurst’s mouth. Teeth scattered across the floor. The old man toppled from the wheelchair. Nolan stood over him. “Where is she?”

               Crowhurst spat blood. “Still impulsive.”

               Nolan raised the hammer. “WHERE IS SHE?!?!?!”

               “Bellamy’s.”

               Nolan froze. The blonde woman. Red dress. “No.”

               Crowhurst smiled through broken teeth. “She recognized you immediately.”

               Celeste Wexler disappeared on December 19, 1987. She was 16. Nolan was 12. Their mother had given Celeste $40 to buy Nolan a Christmas present without him seeing it. Nolan followed her anyway. He remembered her laughing when she caught him. Remembered her telling him to wait at the arcade. Remembered playing Double Dragon. Remembered waiting.

               And waiting.

               Their parents died never knowing what happened to her. Nolan had spent 39 years not knowing. He dragged Crowhurst toward the elevator. “You’re taking me to her.”

               “You already found her.”

               “The woman in the window?”

               “Yes.”

               “She was 16.”

               “She was.”

               Nolan looked at Crowhurst. “What did you do?”

               Crowhurst smiled. “Maintained her.”

               Nolan kicked him in the ribs.

               Celeste was back inside Bellamy’s. The red dress concealed most of the damage. Nolan saw it once Crowhurst showed him the access panel behind the display. Tubes. Wires. Catheters. A pump circulating something through Celeste’s abdomen. Nolan touched the glass. Her eyes found him. He unlocked the display. “Celeste?” She stared. “It’s Nolan.”

               Her face changed. Barely. But he saw his sister. She tried to speak. Nothing emerged except air. Nolan looked at Crowhurst. “Why can’t she talk?”

               “Vocal cords removed in 1991.”

               “Why?”

               “She screamed.” Nolan hit him again. Crowhurst laughed from the floor. “You keep damaging the only physician who understands her maintenance.”

               Nolan wanted to crush his skull. Instead, he knelt beside Celeste. “Can you move?” She shook her head. “Can you feel?” A pause. Then she nodded. Nolan closed his eyes. That answer was worse.

               Crowhurst pulled himself upright against the display. “She has been remarkably successful.”

               “Successful?”

               “Look at her.”

               Nolan did. Her face was 55. Her body was not. Her shoulders looked younger. Her hands younger still. Her legs…

               Nolan lifted the dress. And staggered backward. They did not match. The left leg was pale. The right darker. Scars circled both thighs. Crowhurst spoke almost proudly. “Replacement is superior to repair.”

               “You cut pieces off people and put them on her.”

               “Among others.”

               “Why?”

               “Because she was beautiful.” Nolan stared at him. Crowhurst gestured toward the mall. “Do you know what this place sold, Mr. Wexler?”

               “Shit people didn’t need.”

               “Precisely.” Crowhurst smiled. “Improvement.” He pointed toward the old cosmetics store. “Better skin.” The clothing store. “Better appearance.” The gym. “Better bodies.” Then toward his clinic upstairs. “Better selves.”

               “You’re insane.”

               “No. I simply stopped pretending medicine was different.”

               Crowhurst began in 1982. At first, everything was consensual. Experimental cosmetic procedures. Extreme reconstruction. Wealthy clients paid extraordinary amounts. Then he discovered customers would pay even more for tissue. Young skin. Cartilage. Bone. Hair-bearing scalp. Fat. Grafts. The mall provided something hospitals could not. People nobody watched carefully. Runaways. Homeless men. Employees leaving after midnight. Teenagers separated from their parents. Celeste.

               “What happened when the mall found out?” Nolan asked.

               Crowhurst laughed. “They expanded my lease.”

               Nolan stared. “You’re lying.”

               “Am I?” Crowhurst nodded toward the displays. “Christmas 1998 increased foot traffic 14%.”

               Nolan thought of the children. “They knew?”

               “Management adored them.”

               “They knew those were fucking people?”

               “Customers stayed longer near displays containing actual human faces. We conducted studies.”

               Nolan felt something inside him break. “How many?”

               Crowhurst shrugged. “Over 44 years?”

               “How many?”

               “Three hundred and twelve.” Nolan swung the hammer. This time he stopped an inch from Crowhurst’s skull. The old man did not flinch. “Kill me.” Nolan lowered it. Crowhurst smiled. “That is what I thought.”

               Nolan spent the next hour opening displays. The horror became worse each time. A woman in the lingerie store had undergone dozens of rib resections until her waist was impossibly narrow. Her organs had been partially relocated. The runner had no functional knee joints. A jewelry-store model had lost both arms because Crowhurst thought necklaces displayed better without visual competition from hands.

               At the old Christmas store, Nolan discovered two adults physically connected beneath a dinner table. Crowhurst had called the display Together Forever. Nolan vomited. Then kept going. Some begged him to disconnect them. Others panicked when he approached their machinery. There was no rescuing most of them. That was the cruelty of it. Opening the doors did not make them free. It only exposed what the windows had hidden.

               Nolan returned to Celeste. “Can you survive if I disconnect you?” She shook her head. “Can I take you to a hospital?” Another shake. “Is there anything they can do?”

               No.

               Nolan sat beside her. For several minutes neither moved. Then Celeste lifted one finger. She pointed at him. Then herself. Then formed a crude pistol with two fingers against her temple. “No.” She repeated it. “No.” Again. “Celeste, no.”

               Her eyes hardened. For one moment she was 16 again, ordering her little brother to stop following her around the fucking mall. Nolan began crying. “I just found you.” Her expression softened. “I fucking found you.” She moved her finger toward her temple again.

               Crowhurst watched from across the room. “Eventually,” he said, “everybody becomes a surgeon.”

               Nolan turned. “Shut the fuck up.”

               “You believe medicine is healing. Sometimes medicine is choosing which suffering ends.”

               Nolan walked over and kicked Crowhurst hard enough to roll him onto his back. Then he returned to Celeste. He held her hand. “Do you remember Double Dragon?” Her eyes changed. A tiny nod. “You told me to stay there.” Nod. “I should’ve listened.” She squeezed his finger. Barely. Nolan leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry.”

               Celeste shook her head.

               Once.

               Nolan found the controls. He switched off the pump. The alarms began immediately. Celeste closed her eyes. Nolan held her hand. Her breathing changed.

               Slowed.

               Stopped.

               Thirty-nine years after Celeste Wexler disappeared inside Harrowgate Mall, her brother finally took her home as far as she could go.

               Crowhurst was crawling toward the elevator when Nolan found him. “Where are you going?”

               Crowhurst stopped. Nolan dragged him backward by one ankle. “No.” For the first time, Crowhurst sounded afraid.

               Nolan smiled. “Eventually everybody becomes a surgeon, right?”

               Crowhurst began kicking. Nolan dragged him into the clinic.

               The notebooks were meticulous. Forty-four years of procedures. Names. Dates. Techniques. Failures. Nolan read them while Crowhurst lay strapped to his own operating table. “No anesthetic?” Crowhurst asked.

               Nolan looked up. “Funny you should ask.” He opened another notebook.

               AESTHETIC RECONSTRUCTION THROUGH COMPOSITE TISSUE REPLACEMENT.

               “You wrote here that anesthesia interferes with evaluation of nerve function.”

               Crowhurst pulled against the restraints. “Nolan.”

               “Mr. Wexler.”

               “What?”

               “You called me Mr. Wexler all night.” Nolan selected a scalpel. “Let’s keep this professional.”

               The first incision went from Crowhurst’s ear to the corner of his mouth. The old man screamed. Nolan stopped. “Too much?” Crowhurst stared at him. Nolan turned another page. “Oh. Here it is.” He read aloud.

               “Patient discomfort should not supersede aesthetic objectives.”

               Crowhurst began begging. Nolan continued reading. He worked slowly. Not because he enjoyed it. Because Crowhurst had. That distinction mattered to Nolan. At first. By the third procedure, it mattered less.

               At 6:42am, Nolan wheeled the final display into Bellamy’s front window. Crowhurst was conscious. Nolan had made sure of that. The surgeon sat upright in a tailored black suit. His arms had been repositioned. His hands were folded neatly in his lap. His face had been altered into the same impossible smile he had given the children in 1998. Nolan stepped back. Something was missing. He found cardboard. A marker. He wrote carefully. Then hung the sign around Crowhurst’s neck.

               FINAL CLEARANCE

               EVERYTHING MUST GO

               Crowhurst’s eyes followed him. Nolan approached the glass. “You were right about one thing.” Crowhurst blinked. “People do stop longer when the mannequin looks real.” Nolan turned off the lights.

               The demolition crew arrived at 7:00am. Foreman Curtis Bledsoe found the front doors unlocked. He called Nolan’s name. No answer. The mall was dark. Empty. Mostly. Curtis walked past Bellamy’s and stopped. “Jesus.” Someone had left an old mannequin in the window. He pulled out his phone and photographed it. The thing looked incredibly realistic. Especially the eyes. Curtis moved closer. There was a sign around its neck.

               FINAL CLEARANCE

               EVERYTHING MUST GO

               Below that, written much smaller:

               GIDEON CROWHURST, MD

               PLASTIC AND RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY

               1982–2026

               Curtis stared at it. The mannequin stared back. Then its eyes moved. Curtis stumbled away from the glass. Inside the display, Gideon Crowhurst began screaming through a mouth permanently shaped into a smile. No sound came out. The demolition excavator started outside. Crowhurst heard it. For the first time in 44 years, Harrowgate Mall was finally closing.