In the larger-than-normal toy store, that being Gordon's Toy Emporium, which was approximately 9 miles in the next town, Val Higgins, stared down at the cellphone in her hand for a few minutes after the man she had called, hung up. She never knew Jack Collingwood, at least never well enough to have an automatic facial expression to the name, like what people usually could do. But from the other former employees, she learned that Jack was a completely practical person. And practicality was usually associated with kindness, even if it was thinly-veiled. But from the call that she just made, she was either having doubts or completely proven wrong.
She was still on the edge of choosing between the two, when the afternoon came, and she was beginning to open up the store to begin the hauling away of the excessive junk that the owner had mindlessly let stash away in there. Val was up to six boxes, a sack, and a variety of containers, when a blue, worn out pick-up truck came parking outside. A man in his mid-30's came out the vehicle, and while Val had the time to think how dreary the man looked, he was undeniably attractive in every standard she could think of. But, even as he stood several feet away, he was obviously xxxxxx.
Just as he'd mentally decided on, Jack went to Sister Princesses to deliver the dresses that he had just finished that very morning. SP was just the next few blocks downtown from Jack's home. So it really was no big deal to do the whole delivery thing himself. But the fact that he had to drive all the way to the next town for a significant count of miles, really rattled Jack's nerves. It was as the same humdrum of a miracle of his coming to Kellie and Chris' home, that Jack managed to even drive the whole xxxx way out to the next town, just to salvage some junk from his old workplace.
"Hi!" Val greeted then, having snapped out of her sudden arousal of infatuation by the new arrival.
"I'm assuming you're Mr. Collingwood.. I'm Val." She said in extension.
"Yeah, I know." Jack uttered quietly. "I saw you take over the property when Gordon went..." Jack articulated, shaking his fingers over his head while rolling his eyes. Val nodded.
"Yes. I heard about that. How is he?" Val asked.
"Haven't heard from him since he got admitted to the nut house. And I'm not waiting to." He replied bluntly. He could see Val's face falling a bit from this.
Jack surveyed the pile of littered junk all around the pavement outside the store.
"If you were hauling already, then why did you bother calling me?" Jack inquired.
"Huh? Oh! No! These are the literal junk. All crushed and totally wrecked. Just thought that I'd throw it out to make it easier to tell from the good junk and the bad junk." Val said, making Jack nod to himself.
"Yeah. Well, if you ask me, all junk is bad junk." He said, beginning to make his way to the store.
"I'm gonna check it out now." He said, as he got through the door.
"Sure thing." Val called out to him and went back to her work.
Immediately upon entering, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia took over Jack, even though he didn't want it to. Gordon's Toy Emporium was the place where Jack practically grew up in. At least, more there than his house. It was the place where Jack learned his first stitches. Where he first learned how to make a dress. It was almost like a home to him. But that was until the owner suddenly started going nuts.
Like all toy stores Jack has ever known, Gordon's had toy dolls. Barbie dolls, ceramics dolls, dummies, hell, even life-sized ones. The ones that Jack usually worked on making clothes for. Rumor has it, that one day, the employees started seeing Gordon taking the dolls and hiding them somewhere. No one knew where exactly, but they knew it was Gordon who was taking them. And the reason for knowing this, was because, they often saw Gordon speaking to the dolls. In a very disturbing manner. To top it off, one of the female workers found Gordon undressing one of them and lecherously rubbing his hands on the body.
Because the employees were well-paid, and maybe because of some innate respect for the man, none of them had bothered seeking professional help for Gordon. But then, a certain day came. Gordon came to work as per usual, everything was normal. Then in the afternoon, when it was closing time, where usually Gordon went home alongside everyone, he came out late from his office.
He was horribly agitated and disheveled. When everyone in the store saw him, they knew that something had happened to him. They just didn't know what. Then without warning, he started screaming his xxxxxxx head off. He was babbling complete nonsense to himself. Saying: 'they'll come for us, they'll come for us! We must lock them all up. We must keep them all away!!! Away!!' He was ripping up and tearing apart the dolls.
Basically, that had been the turning point for everyone to call in the police to the scene. When they took him to a medical examiner, it was proven that Gordon had several mental disorders that he had been keeping from the employees. It was a huge blow to everyone who worked there, most especially Jack, who worked very close (as much as he would like to deny it) with Gordon, before the whole place went to complete and utter xxxx. With these memories of the place, Jack decided to hurry on to get the whole thing over with and get back home as soon as possible.
From one look around, Jack took in the damage the entire store had gone through. It was a pretty big store, had always been ever since it was opened. Fact was, it was even bigger than the Sister Princess, which pretty much spelled the reasons why so many had been employed for it. But, the place barely looked like it used to. The paint had dried, and moss and mold had accumulated on many parts of it. The ceiling was practically falling apart, with some electric wires (or was it cobwebs?) falling out the dark, square holes. Shelves, threatening to fall from their domino-ed position lined in opposite aisles, most of them empty, others with old, dusted toys stacked in them. Very quickly, Jack found absolutely nothing he liked. But seeing that he still had some time, he decided to walk around through it some more.
On his 4th survey, Jack noticed one shelf lying against the wall. Old and broken wind-up toys were lying in a mess on the shelves. Curiously, Jack walked over to it from the side. Close inspection of it, lessened his interest, and he was just about to turn around to leave, when something else caught his eye. Behind the shelf, the wall where it lay against, the paint was as faded as the rest of the store walls. But the paint here, was faintly revealing a line on the wall. Jack ran his finger on it, and when he reached up he felt the shape and coldness of what he knew to be a hinge.
"A door." He said.
Very quickly, Jack grabbed hold the sides of the shelf. It was easy pushing it off from the wall since it barely had anything stocked in it. He pushed it aside, rather than pull it away, since he didn't want to have to alert Val from outside by a loud crash and interrupt whatever it was he was doing. As he pushed it all out of the way, there was indeed a door on the wall, one which plaster and paint, was slowly fading and splitting away from.
"Why the hell would anyone plaster up a door?" Jack asked himself.
The door was hanging ajar, and seeing that he saw nothing in the store that interested him, Jack slowly went in.
YOU ARE READING
Strings
Horror(WARNING: CONTAINS VERY MATURE CONTENT. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.) Jack Collingwood was just another one of those unfortunate people. And by unfortunate, getting a divorce from his wife, after their new-born daughter had gone missing on her 1st b...
