The Changing Room                by: Vanessa Singer

 

Larry Finley’s dreams had been very pleasant that night. He’d dreamt of Anita, his girlfriend and the games that they’d play when she returned from Seattle. The loving, slightly kinky little sex games that they shared after dark. Just as he kissed her in a very naughty place, a shrill ringing abruptly interrupted his dreams. His eyes slowly slid open and a hand appeared from beneath the covers, grabbing the blue see-thru wireless phone from the nightstand. On the other end, Jackie Harrison was speaking before he got the earpiece to his head.

"Mr. Finley. You’d better get down here." Larry hung up the phone, somehow knowing what had happened. He had been dreading a phone call like this for years.

Finley quickly threw on some clothes and, with a quick shot of coffee, made his way down to Handley’s Department Store. It was a ten-mile trip, as the crow flies, from his apartment to Handley’s, but he covered the distance in less than seven minutes. Parking in one of the handicapped spots, he nearly decapitated himself as he hopped out of the car without disengaging the seat belt. Jackie Harrison, the store’s senior security guard, stood at the door, waiting for him. He was visibly shaken and sweating, despite the crisp November air.

"Ok, what happened?" Larry said, walking past Jackie and entering the huge store. The nighttime lights were on, giving the entire store an eerie surreal appearance as they walked through the lingerie section. Jackie trailed him, wiping his brow and recounting the evening’s events to his superior as best as he understood them.

It had started as most evenings started with the cleaning and nighttime security crews coming in at 11:00 PM. Security wasn’t very tight, thanks to budget cuts, and was composed of Jackie Harrison, William Reynolds and Terry Allison. Jackie was in charge, since he was the oldest and most experiences, while William and Terry were both just out of high school. Reynolds had been a running back at State College before blowing out his knee, and had to take the extra night job to maintain his tuition payments. Terry was what was commonly called a slacker, with no ambition and few skills. He was working there as a favor to his father, who had been senior salesman in the men’s section for fifteen years.

"I guess Jorge got that flu that’s going around, ‘cause there was this new guy on the crew." Jackie said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Larry sighed, passing the long rows of packaged stockings before reaching the far wall of brassieres.

"Where’s the rest of the crew?" Larry asked bluntly.

"They went home. They’re scared, Mr. Harrison." Larry nodded, understanding all too well the way they felt. He’d been there when it happened the first time. Back in 1982, when he was just a clerk. And, even now, it still gave him nightmares to think about it. What frightened him wasn’t what he knew, but what he didn’t know.

"Ok, Jackie." Larry said as he stopped outside of a brightly painted pink doorframe. On the wall above him, a sign announced for all to see that behind this entrance were the changing rooms. A feeling of revulsion passed through Larry as he crossed the threshold, and his memories flipped back to any earlier time, when he and his best friend Patrick "Patty" O’Shea, had gotten jobs at Handley’s during the summer of ‘82.

He and Patty had intended to have a carefree summer of fun and frolics, not working at some old dump of a department store. The huge building that housed Handley’s looked like a massive stone box, and had looked exactly as unappealing since it was built is 1882. Through some miracle, though, the store seemed to prosper and even flourish throughout its long history. Even during the thirties, when everything around it failed, Handley’s continued to grow.

It happened on the evening of July 16^th. It was just after closing, Larry remembered, since he was finishing up counting his receipts. For some reason, Handley’s hadn’t been quick to start taking credit cards, and most of the accounting, even in the early eighties, was done by hand. Patty was lounging about, waiting for his friend and trying on some ties. He was getting ready for a big day with Patti Anne, his long-time girlfriend. When she was around, the painfully similar names made complicated things, so Patty became ‘Pat.’

"What do you think," he asked, holding up two ties. "The blue one or the black pin-stripe?" He looked them over with interest as Larry glanced up.

"I don’t know, man. The black one, I guess." Patty nodded, and tossed the blue one back onto the tree. Larry had counted his money a few more minutes when a knock came to the large glass doors leading to the West parking lot. Patty disappeared for a moment with his keys in hand, and returned with his best girl in his arms. And, from the looks of things, she was ready for a hot night. She was clad in a nearly-see-through cotton dress and sandals.

"Hey there, Larry." She grinned, giving Pat a big hug and the longest French kiss that Larry had ever seen. "How’s business, lover?" She asked as Pat grinned, grabbing her ass and smiling.

"Damn, you’re a frisky one tonight." He said, as she kissed him again.

"I got some great news today, baby." She said and whispered something into his ear with a giggle. Larry knew what it was, even if he wasn’t supposed to. Patti Anne had been late for the past week, and that had scared them both to their cores. Larry thought that the sudden interest in more sophisticated men’s wear by Pat might have been because he needed a suitable outfit to get married in. Pat picked up Patti Anne in his arms and spun her around happily.

"Oh yeah! Tell you what, baby. I’ve gotta run over to lingerie to pick up some shipping orders, but while I’m over there, you can …" He moved closer, grinning and whispering lecherously into her ear. She giggled and nodded.

"Be back in about a half-hour, man. We’re gonna celebrate." Pat grinned, taking Patti Anne by the hand and almost dragging her toward the far side of the store. Larry remembered just smiling, not realizing those would be the last words he heard from his childhood pal. The last thing he heard before the scream.

It wasn’t a half hour, like Pat had said. It was only six minutes after they’d vanished into the racks of dapper suit coats that a blood-curdling scream ripped through the empty store. Without the ambience of the day, any noise was amplified in the cavernous walls of the store, and Patti Anne’s scream cut through him like a knife.

Larry raced back, wondering what the hell just happened.

Outside of the newly added dressing area attached to the lingerie section, Patti Anne was standing, shaking as if it were winter at the Arctic Circle. She was topless, wearing only her sandals and a pair of white cotton panties that were slightly askew.

"Patti, what happened?" Larry said, stopping himself by pushing against the cash register.

"He . . . He vanished. He was there, and then he wasn’t. He just disappeared." She said, not looking at Larry, but blankly down at the floor. Larry started toward the door, but Patty grabbed his arm and nearly pulled it out of it’s socket.

"No!" She yelled. "Don’t go back there."

"Patti, he couldn’t just disappear." She shook her head, still staring down at the floor. She slowly began to tell him how she and Pat had gone back into the dressing room to get some additional privacy. To his surprise, all of the doors to the various dressing cubicles were closed except for one. On the left side, second to the back.

Patti Anne was almost naked by the time they entered the stall, closing the door behind them. Pat was all over her, telling her how much he loved her and how much he’d been thinking about their futures. How he could see them growing old together. He was dry-humping her through his pants when he backed away, holding his head.

She wasn’t sure what to think when he stopped. But her confusion turned to horror as her boyfriend and the star tennis player of Brookington High began to fade from view like unfixed film. He looked up, reaching out for her as he vanished, his phantom arms passing through her shoulders with a chill. An echoing moan, growing higher as he disappeared, met her ears until he was all gone. Even his shirt, which he’d tossed on the floor, had vanished.

"He disappeared, dammit!" Patti Anne cried as Larry walked back into the dressing area. The whole area was so new that it still smelled of fresh paint. He moved slowly past the closed doors, half-expecting Pat to leap and yell "Boo!" But, no one was hiding and the only thing he could hear was the sobs of the seventeen-year-old girl sitting outside.

Larry slowed as he reached the cubicle in question and stared inside. It looked completely ordinary. Through the door, he could see a pair of silver hooks hanging from the walls, as well as a large mirror and a small wooden bench. But, touching the door, he felt something oddly sinister about this particular booth. It wasn’t anything he could quantify, but he could feel the hairs on his arms standing up as the door creaked a bit. Suddenly he knew, not in his mind, but his heart, that Patti Anne was telling the truth and that he should leave right now.

"Well? What did you see?" Patti Anne asked as Larry walked out, rubbing his arms. She wished with all her heart that Larry would have good news, but knew better.

"There’s nothing back there. There’s nothing in the room, Patti." He said softly, staring back at it as the white door continued to creak open, moving out into the narrow hallway. It was like it was beckoning him, or warning him to stay away. Like a rattlesnake giving you a warning before it strikes.

Larry took Patti outside, as far from the changing room as they could get, and tried to comfort her as best he could. But, what could you do to help someone who has witnessed the impossible. Larry wanted to tell the management, but he knew what would happen if he did. He’d be accused of taking drugs or worse. He and Patti Anne were smart, sensible people and, in the twilight hours, concocted a story. One where Patrick O’Shea, overwhelmed by his responsibility and the potential pressures of being a teenage father, simply disappeared into the night. It wasn’t really a lie, since he had disappeared and they had no idea where he’d gone.

The next day came and went without incident. The store opened and closed without any more spontaneous vanishings, and as days turned to weeks and weeks into months and years, Larry began to think that the whole strange nightmare might have been just that. Maybe Patty O’Shea really had run away, scared of being a father. Maybe the changing room hadn’t gotten him and whisked him away to somewhere far away. He believed that as gospel until 1986.

The man’s name was Philip Carey and he’d been working in lingerie for only six days when, during a cool afternoon in September, he disappeared without a trace. Larry, who had continued to work at the store after Pat’s departure, was now a sales rep and only heard about the disappearance from some co-workers, since it was assumed that Philip had taken off at lunch and simply never returned. One woman had heard him saying something about fetching some clothes out of the changing room after lunch. He apparently entered the room and just never came out. That was when Larry’s illusions about his friend shattered.

 

Up to this evening, Larry knew of six unexplained disappearances from the lingerie changing room, starting with Patty O’Shea and ending tonight with the poor unfortunate janitor who had walked into the changing room. It happened randomly, at neither a predetermined time nor to any predicable person. There had been two young boys, seven years apart, whose mothers had taken them into the booth with them and had ‘walked away.’ The police had investigated, but neither of them nor the other four victims had even been found.

"Mr. Finley?" Jackie said to his silent boss, bringing him back to the present. "What should I do?"

"Find out who this man was. I mean, who he is, and let me know." Larry said calmly. Jackie nodded and walked away, leaving Larry back at the door surrounded by an air of determination. He walked away briskly, visiting another section of the store before returning to the scene of the crime.

Outside of the cubicle, Larry tore open a pair of boxes. One contained one of the latest in video cameras, and the other contained a tripod. Setting up the gear and feeding it a tape, he opened the side-panel screen and pointed it toward the room. The lens whirred softly, focusing on the far wall and bringing it into sharp focus. Leaning over to find the tiny microphone mounted on the camera, Larry shivered as he spoke.

"When you find this tape, you must close this section of the store. I don’t know what this place is, or what truly happens inside that room, but inside there are Patty O’Shea, Philip Carey, Michael Dolan, Jerry Weston, Brandon Marks and the janitor from tonight. I know that you won’t believe that without proof, so that’s what I’m going to give you. Please tell Anita that I’m sorry, and that I love her."

Carefully moving around the cramped space, Larry took a deep breath and stepped into the room. He expected something to happen as he passed through, but he didn’t feel anything. No sinister hand reaching out of the ether to pluck him away, or anything like that. He stood there for almost a minute without anything happening. Maybe it only worked sometimes. Maybe it didn’t want him.

Turning around to face the mirror, he heard the sickening creaking of the door beginning to close. He lunged for it, trying to keep it from sealing, but it moved abnormally fast. As it locked behind him, thoroughly blocking the camera’s view, he felt the strange light-headedness that Patty O’Shea must have felt in his last seconds on this earth.

Larry turned toward the mirror to see himself fading away. His image wavered slightly in the mirror as the white door appeared behind him, through his blue button-down shirt and dark-blue trousers. He tried to scream, but the air slipped out of his lungs as his body grew hazier. His resolve failed in the last few seconds and he tried to run, but his immaterial feet couldn’t grip the carpet. He simply ran in place like Wile E. Coyote, speeding away into oblivion.

But, he didn’t go into oblivion or heaven or hell. The only way he could describe it was nothing. Everything grew dark around him as his eyes ceased to exist, but Larry Finley could still feel things around him. In some way, he still survived in a place that was not the changing room. He floated, an ethereal soul alone in the nothingness, for no time at all, before a tiny pinhole of light suddenly appeared before him. Instinctively, he wished himself closer. If he could move, he would have run or flown toward it, but something was dragging him there anyway.

The pinhole grew larger until he reached the edge of a massive sphere, spraying bright white light in all directions. Larry Finley fell into the sphere, and was assaulted by a dizzying sense of motion. He remembered from science class that nothing moves faster than light, but he felt like he was now. Then, in a single crushing moment, he stopped.

He looked around and found himself back in the changing room. It was exactly as he remembered it, except louder. The sound of people moving around in the other rooms filled his little booth as he looked around. Hanging from the silver hook, a short black skirt hung on a plastic hangar, as well as a pretty white blouse.

"What the…?" Larry said as he twisted around. His body felt strangely different, and when he caught sight of the large mirror next to him, he understood why.

Staring back at him with shock in her eyes was a willowy brunette with curly black hair and piercing brown eyes. She was wearing very little, much to Larry’s chagrin. Her legs were covered in a pair of silk stockings, and she stood on a pair of black stiletto heels. Her abundant breasts were hidden behind a sheer black bra and across her sex were a pair of black panties. She also wore a garter, with only one stocking currently attached.

"Oh my god!" Larry said, nearly falling as he tried to balance on the high heels. What the hell was happening to him? He reached out to steady himself, his left hand grabbing the white blouse. As the blouse touched his soft new skin, something resembling electricity cracked between them and Larry’s mind was flooded with new sensations, memories and feelings.

"How clumsy of me!" Trisha Pavloveia righted herself, straightening her brand-new silk blouse and fixing her left stocking, which had fallen loose. She turned toward the mirror, sucking in her barely-perceptible belly and rubbing below her breasts. She looked very good, she thought. The hard work she’d put into that diet was really paying off.

Slipping on her skirt and blouse, the young beauty checked her make-up in the mirror, making sure her pretty Ukrainian features were as attractive as they could be. Pulling a gold lipstick out of her tiny black purse, she adjusted the pigment a bit before leaving the changing room. She sauntered past the other ladies changing their clothes and made her way to the cashier.

"May I help you, miss?" A pleasant teenage salesgirl asked. Trisha smiled, giving her the price tags from the lingerie and asking if she could just wear them out. The girl smiled, telling Trisha that she looked quite sexy in the new lingerie, since the black bra was clearly visible beneath her sheer white blouse. As Trisha walked away, slipping the receipt into her purse, the young salesgirl looked back at the changing room, wondering how that woman got into the dressing room without her being aware of it.

Walking out of the front door toward her sporty new car, Tricia smiled and took a deep breath of crisp autumn air. While it was a lovely day, she had a lot of work to do. First, she had a meeting downtown for a photo shoot that might, if she was lucky, lead to a layout in Playboy. She’d shed ten pounds and been working out hard to get her body as sexy and toned as possible, and it showed.

As she drove away, an unmarked police cruiser pulled up to the front of the store. A pair of plain-clothed officers stepped out, sent by headquarters to follow up on a missing persons report. They didn’t know much, but apparently three people; Juan Gonzalez, Lawrence Finley and James Harrison, had disappeared from the store two nights before, seemingly without a trace. The only clue was a videotape that showed Finley entering a small room and never leaving. The tape ran for twenty more minutes before Harrison appeared, opening the empty booth and walking inside, looking for his boss. The white door creaked closed and he too never returned.

Detectives James Wilkinson and Mike Harker were sure that it was some sort of prank, but headquarters thought they should check the room for clues, just in case. It was just procedure, though, since they knew that they’d find nothing in there.

 

 

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