Outta This World

Sci-fi stories and Twilight Zone-esque situations

Precious Little Thing

It was almost that time again; homecoming week. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. In the previous three years, I kinda' just endured it: while all my other peers had fun dressing up and being silly, I just came to school, did my work, and left. Day in and day out was the same for me. However, this was my senior year so things had to change. This year I was actually going to participate. That wasn't even my decision by the way. 

"What is taking you so long?!" 

Yup, it was hers. That girl who was standing outside the boys' bathroom entryway, yelling at me at the moment. I sighed.

Now don't get me wrong, being friends with a girl had its perks, including but certainly not limited to: she's nice to look at, she's a bit kinder to me than my other male friends and she smells a whole lot better, too. But the nagging and the bossiness and the constant talking; that I could do without. 

It wasn't as if I didn't know what I was getting into in being friends with her, we've lived next door since childhood and have been saddled together ever since. And to make matters worse, my girlfriend is one of her closest friends now. I don't know how that works seeing as how said significant other lives two towns over, goes to a private school, and has only spoken to my friend via telephone and internet, but they get along great and I suppose that's better than the negative alternative. 

"Whatcha' thinking about?" My friend asked as I left the bathroom. 

"Nothing much," I replied.

I shifted my mesh backpack straps over my shoulders, more an act of habit than anything, and glanced at her. She looked the same as ever, not a multi-hued hair out of place on her head. She definitely had the 'best-dressed' slot in the yearbook down pat. I mean, besides the glaringly obvious inconsistency of her hair being seven different colors, she could fit right into the 'preppy' category easily, what with her always-ironed khaki skirt, neat blue shirt and sweater combination. With bright eyes and an off-beat sense of humor and a level of optimism I couldn't fathom being able to maintain, she was one of those few people that loved school and everything about it. 

"So you excited for next week?" She buzzed with a grin.

I quirked a brow. "Should I be?" 

Wrong answer.

"Of course!" She immediately cried, "It's homecoming week!" 

"Oh. Right." I smiled faintly, already knowing this. "And I'm participating, ne?" 

"That's correct." She said with a curt nod and prim smile. 

"Why is this so important, anyway?" I neglected to hold in. 

That was a mistake because now I'd gotten her started. She stopped, her hands flying to her hips and her chin raising an inch. It was all dramatics with this girl.

"Don't you remember the class cup?" She chided, 

"That piece of plastic?" I mused.

"It's not just plastic," The girl insisted, "It's the coveted artifact that some of us have been striving towards for three whole years" 

I rolled my eyes. "When you come back from Mordor ranting about 'your precious cup', I'll be in the car." 

That got her moving again. The girl and I rounded a corner, trying to get to the side of the building where the parking lot was. Most everyone was already gone, and I wasn't surprised. It was Friday, after all. I was just glad I had a car, er, my mother's car to drive around for the weekend. She was out of town and had entrusted me with it.

"Hurry, hurry!" My friend urged, "we don't wanna' catch traffic." 

"No, you don't wanna' catch traffic," I amended with a wry smile. 

I didn't mind it like some people, but it put my friend in the worst mood. She laughed, she had heard me, and punched my shoulder.

"You got that right, so let's go!" 

_________________________________________________________________

"Ugh, why did we come here?" 

"Let me give you a hint: you. You. You, you, you-" 

"Alright, already!" 

I chuckled when my friend snapped at me. Here we were, in the packed mall downtown, sitting in the food court being miserable. Well, she was miserable. I was pretty content. I had a corn dog in my stomach and was working on the second. All she had was a paper bag with two gourmet cookies. It was her idea to come here directly after school and I'd let her talk me into it. She had plans of finding the perfect outfit for each themed day of the week but had yet to buy one scrap of clothing. It was all too, to quote her, 'foppish and un-unique'. She wanted something that would stand out. 

"Why don't you narrow your search?" I suggested.

She blinked and asked, "What do you mean?" 

"Instead of all five outfits, why don't you just look for one?" I elucidated. 

We had at least three days to get this done so I don't know why she was rushing. In fact, I don't know why we're even here. The point to homecoming, or at least what I thought the point was, had to do with finding things in your house that you had already. It seems like it'd be a bit more creative that way. But I already said my friend is quite bossy and when she's made up her mind, there's no changing it. 

"Hm," She hummed, mulling over my words. "Which day, though?" 

"Monday." I offered, "It's the soonest day coming up so I would assume you'd choose that one first." 

Her mouth curved up in a semblance of a pout and she said, "Yeah, duh, I knew that." 

"Sure." I smirked. 

She was in a better mood now and was smiling so that was all that mattered, I didn't mind her hitting me on the arm, having been affronted by my tone and implications. I walked with her to dump my tray and then we headed towards, well, nowhere in particular.

"What's Monday's theme?" I asked her. 

"Baby Day," She chirped off the top of her head, "I think this one is the hardest, that's why I was saving it for last." 

"You should've mentioned it earlier," I said, "There's a costume place that opened up here." 

"Really?" She piped, "Where at?" 

I shrugged. Now that I didn't know. I just heard about it. To find that out, we headed towards the glowing white post that mapped out the entire mall. Sure enough, there was a change in the layout of the third floor. The new store in question had been added on to the very end of the strip. 

"Cool!" My friend beamed once she saw it, "Let's go check it out!" 

I nodded. I just couldn't match her enthusiasm, not even after eating. But I could still appreciate it. Positive people were always great to be around, her energy comforted me. 

We hadn't got very far when we were impeded: some people from school who neither of us associated with approached us. They were always making rude or condescending comments on the slide about me and my friend. I didn't give them the time of day but my friend was a different story; she most always rose to the bait. 

"What are you guys doing here?" One of the girls asked, and then guessed, "Homecoming week?" 

I just nodded and wanted to leave it at that. These people didn't say two words to us in school and now they were trying to act all friendly. It was fake. They were all fake. 

One of the dudes asked, "Which day you looking for? Celebrity day?" 

I frowned because I could just sense something coming.

His friend said, "You oughta' dress as Bruce Lee. I mean, you look just like him!" 

And there it was. 

My friend cut in with, "You two should dress as 'Dumb and Dumber'; I mean, you act just like them." 

A moment of silence after that burn. It was all sneers and nasty looks as that group of know-nothings left us alone. I glanced at my friend and smiled, then snickered, then laughed outright. She joined me. 

Two flights of escalators later, we were on the third floor scouring the shops in search of that new store. It was true, the thing was the very last one. There were two closed shops to the left and right of it, and four across from it. The third floor of the mall was really no-man's land. Most of the new stores landed here but they hardly ever lasted. 

In light of this fact I said, "We better get something before this place closes, too." 

"I know, right?" She murmured. 

Her voice was lowered, not out of reverence or anything, but just because it was like a ghost town up here compared to the first two floors. There wasn't much to see, so no one really came around. I was eager to go back down because the vibe was seriously weirding me out. 

Not to mention the store.

It had a striped black and orange awning, which clearly screamed 'Halloween', but that was the end of its subtlety. There was a black display box in the window with ornate gold carving and a vintage fortune-teller doll inside it. The thing must've been animatronic because its pale black lips were moving but no sound was coming out. Couple that with its garish painted eyes and it was the picture of creepiness. 

"Come on," My friend encouraged, a bit meekly now. 

I asked, "You sure you wanna' go in there?" 

Because I, for one, didn't. 

She shrugged and said, "It's just a store." 

On the window, above that strange puppet box, there were five challenging words painted in rickety amber font: You Can't Handle What's Inside, it proclaimed. I raised both brows and took a step back. This seemed like an underground pet-project of Marilyn Manson's protege. It was all dark and there was colored smoke wafting around. Other than the soft sound of those machines running, it was dead silent. Still, my friend trekked bravely inside and so I did, too. Reluctantly. 

Very reluctantly.

"Hey, it's not so bad," She told me, "Just look at all this stuff!" 

"What stuff?" I frowned, "I can't even see." 

"Then open your eyes," She joked. "There's, like, every costume known to man and woman in here." 

Now that she was back to her usual chatty self, I relaxed a little. She began walking around and so did I. As I roamed, I heard her sneakers as she walked and that was the only way I could tell I wasn't alone in this place. There were barely any lights at all and the ones that were present only burned at half-capacity, it seemed. And the temperature was warm and humid. I had to take off the green jacket that had previously warded off the chilliness of the other two floors of the mall. 

"Whoa." I heard my friend exclaim, "You have got to be kidding me." 

"What?" I called out. 

"Full-body sheep costume," She replied, "Totally realistic and totally...gross. Ugh." 

I shook my head because that wasn't the oddest thing in here. For instance, what I thought was a prop to add ambience or something was actually a costume; an oak tree complete with real wood and leaf appendages. 

"Well this place is authentic, I'll give 'em that," I muttered to myself. 

There were tons of shelves with accessories and racks with like items. It was a roomy store and once you got past the heat and the darkness, it wasn't that bad. I would never shop here, but it was an okay store, I guess.

"Found something!" My friend sang out. 

She came striding over to me and I blinked. She really had found something, something actually relevant to Monday's theme: a powder-pink onesie, complete with the fold-over cap sleeves and metal buttons near the seat. 

This store really does have it all, I thought, it might last a while. 

"I'm gonna' go look for some accessories," She spoke, heading over to one of the many shelves.

I followed hesitantly. The thought of her in that 'outfit' was giving me bad mental images. The things this girl did in the name of school pride sometimes crossed the line. Like that time she painted her entire body red and her hair, including her eyebrows, gold in lieu of our school's colors: she looked like some flaming harpy from Hell that day. 

"Okay, this is too good to be true," She stated. 

I saw why; in her hands was an adult-sized diaper and a pair of old-style baby bloomers. I didn't know whether to cringe or laugh. She did both, then put the bloomers down.

"You're going to wear that?" I asked incredulously. 

She said, "Yup. You need to figure out what you'll be wearing." 

"A polo and some khakis," I told her, "Kids wear uniforms, too, don't they?" 

"It's baby day," She corrected.

"So?" 

"So think of the class cup," She said, picking up a pacifier. "Think of me, your best friend. And think of your girlfriend: she would want you to make the most of next week, I'm sure." 

"I'm sure she'd dump me if she found out I wore something like that," I interjected. 

"You're impossible sometimes," The girl sighed. "Here, hold my cookies please. I'm gonna' go try this stuff on." 

"You saw a dressing room?" I asked. 

She said, "No, but it's a costume store: there's gotta be one around somewhere." 

I took the paper bag from her and continued to peruse the racks in her absence. The more I saw, the more I realized I was 110% done with all things Halloween. Not that I ever celebrated it in the first place, being raised in a Christian home. But my friend and everyone else on our street have gone all out for years. I remember being the sole house on the block without skeletons in the windows and carved pumpkins on the porch steps. While other kids were out trick-or-treating, I was inside watching Cartoon Network and eating the consolation-candy my mother would buy for me. My friend would drop by after making her rounds with her older sister and we'd eat more sweets until we fell asleep on our stomachs in front of the tv. 

Good times. 

When five or six minutes had passed, I decided to go looking for this dressing room. I didn't pass not a single customer service representative or sales associate or first-day-on-the-job retail agent who could help me out. This store was empty. What in the world was that about? How were we going to check out? There was a register near the front of the store, but no one manned it. I scratched the side of my head.

I'm sure there's someone here, I reasoned, maybe the employees are at lunch or in the break room or something. It wouldn't be just empty...unless it's closed and they forgot to lock up. 

In any case, I figured the best thing to do would be to meet up with my friend and work through this together. It wouldn't do to have us both getting lost. Only finding the dressing room and, by default, her was much easier thought than done. It took me a good six minutes of walking in a path obstructed by nonsensical costumes and displays before I got to the opposite end of the store, and I'd still yet to see either of my intended targets of interest. Now I was getting a bit anxious. 

I walked a little faster and looked a little harder. It wasn't getting any cooler either, so the back of my neck was coated in sweat. At long last, though, I saw the row of rooms on the very back wall of the black store. There was a handle and a note on each door, and I was so relieved to see the words, Fitting Rooms: Make your Transformation Here, that I didn't bother to speculate on its unusual subtitle. 

This was a weird store. That much has been established. 

I called, "You in here?" 

"Second one," came my friend's immediate reply. 

I relaxed and then chuckled at myself for getting so worked up. She was right. It was just a store. One like I've never seen or been in before, but it was a store nonetheless. I wish now that I had a smartphone so I could take photos or videos of this place in all its creepy glory, but alas I wasn't so fortunate. 

It's not like the footage would come out visibly anyway, what with all the darkness and smoke, I predicted. 

Minutes passed with me and my thoughts going back and forth and I thought this odd. Thus, I called out to my friend again, asking her if she was done. This time I got no reply. I knocked on the door and still got no answer, and then I frowned.

"Are you finished?" 

"..." 

Another frown on my end as I said, "Is that a yes or a no?" 

"..."  

Now she was confusing me. I knocked again and glanced at the row of rooms. She did say the second one and there were only three rooms, so the second would be the middle no matter how you looked at it. I guess she isn't finished, otherwise she would answer me. 

Here's the true test, I thought as I twisted the door handle. If she was still dressing in there, I was about to get an earful. I didn't open the door, just rattled the handle a bit. 

No response. 

"Are you alright in there?" I asked, not caring about the twinge of worry that had wormed its way into my tone. 

I still got no answer. That was when I made up my mind. This silence wasn't normal for my motor-mouth friend, something was wrong. Something had to be wrong. My mind began shooting off about ten different scenarios as I moved to open the door: had she passed out? Had she slipped and hit her head and then passed out? Had she gotten the fabric of that onesie caught around her neck and-

Okay imagination, let's call it a day. 

When I opened the door, I saw many things, but none of them were what I was expecting. For one, the bundle of her clothes was thrown unkempt on the carpet floor. So unlike her. Another thing was that the costume and its accessories, the diaper and pacifier, were nowhere to be seen. What was to be seen unnerved me, because it was making me draw all kinds of unwanted conclusions: there was a baby. 

On the floor. 

In a powder-pink onesie.

With a pink pacifier in its mouth. 

Perhaps the most jarring part of this image was the light-colored, sea-green eyes or the multi-hued hair, half of it up and half down with a bang curved over a plump cheek. Those blonde brows didn't lie; this was her. This was my friend. Only, not really. Because last time I checked, she was a little bit older, like seventeen years older. 

My heart started pounding and I could feel the blood rushing through my system, heating up my body in the already hot dressing room. I knew I was shaking, I was in a state of shock because there was a little child where my friend should be and I didn't want to put together pieces that were too insane to fit. 

Now the rooms weren't built like stalls; there was no gap in between the three walls and the floor. Plus, she hadn't opened that door since she spoke to me. The only way for her to leave would be if she somehow managed to scale the ten-odd foot wall and climbed over the top of it. But I should like to think I would've heard something if she'd done that, particularly the sound of her falling back down on her behind and then hissing out cuss words. 

"What is going on?" I breathed, feeling faint. 

I glanced back down at the baby, who eyed me innocuously in return. A beautiful little girl and uncannily similar to the infant pictures my friend used to decorate her family tree project back in tenth grade. I swallowed hard.

The baby must've found that paper in her tiny hands more interesting than me, gaping like a fish out of water, because she bowed her head and started playing with it once more. I reached a trembling hand forward, bent down on knees that threatened to give out on me, and took the paper from her. The result? 

She stared at me as if I were the cruelest person on earth. Her barely-there brows knitted and she started to cry. The pacifier fell from her mouth and onto the black floor. I ignored the baby in favor of reading that paper. It was the very same from the one on the dressing room door. 

Enter with Caution and Choose your Garments Wisely, it warned in bold white letters on black parchment. That's right, parchment, not the 8 by 11 stuff I was used to. Now I was even more perplexed. 

I gazed down at the wailing child and dropped the letter. She reached for me with tears in her eyes and I picked her up, settled her on my hip. I gathered my friend's clothing and tucked them under my arm, then started checking the store again.

My breath was ragged and it felt like my nerves were dancing, just dancing under my skin. I was sure I'd go hoarse from calling her name over and over again, and then go crazy from hearing the disembodied echos bouncing back at me. When the baby in my arms started to cough and swat her arms at the smoke, I realized I was presented with another problem. 

That's when I left the darkness and the emptiness and the confusion that was this store all behind and shivered in the stark coolness of the mall. The expanse of waxed tile floor and bright lights seemed so vast all of a sudden and I was struck psychologically with a feeling of immense loneliness.

Again I studied the baby in my arms. Her tears had dried but I felt like shedding a few of my own because the implications of what had happened were too much. It was too much to handle. I wasn't dreaming and I wasn't hallucinating, this was reality. Stunning reality. 

I slid my phone from my pocket and flipped it open, dialing three numbers with no small amount of trepidation. 

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"...I'm not sure..."