Betty Lou’s Treasure Trove: Mannequin Horror Summer Series by Jennifer Weigel, Chapter 1
To help fill your summer reading needs, I’m doing another long-form story series like my Feeding Frenzy story from last year. This story is based on my life experience as an art school student, though perhaps with some embellishment. So without further ado…
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Pauline found the Treasure Trove on her way to school one day, set back off the road a bit. She thought it odd that she’d never noticed it before; she’d driven this strip of road every day for almost two and a half years. And yet, there it was. She pulled off the main road into the gravelly weedy overgrowth of the alleyway next to the shop and wandered around to the front.
It was the mannequins that had first caught her eye. Majoring in fashion design, Pauline had always wanted one. She owned a couple of simple dress forms, but they really weren’t the same. There was just something special about a mannequin, a young Fiberglass model smiling gently at the poor, aging passersby who gazed upon the eternal beauty in the department store window.
There were several stationed outside of the small antique store, welcoming would-be customers with their silent smiles and waving at the dirty, exhaust-fuming cars. A rather effeminate Fiberglass man was strapped to a metal pole with a couple of black bungee cords, holding an American flag to attention towards the street. He wore a sequined dress suit from the seventies, a slightly askew black Elvis wig that resembled a road kill lap dog, and a pair of dark rhinestone rimmed sunglasses. A statuesque woman with a long, brown wig in a blue, flower printed dress waved at the passing traffic from behind him while a couple of static children wearing shorts and t-shirts laughed silently with wide frozen smiles from a bench by the door.
Pauline swung open the red door to the antique store and was instantly greeted by loud, operatic music and the clanging of a brass bell tied to the inside handle of the door to warn of incomers. A heavy old metal cash register faced the door from its perch on a large mirrored glass case filled with knickknacks. A voice called out from behind it, “Welcome to Betty Lou’s Treasure Trove.” Pauline poked her head around the register. An exceptionally large woman sat in a worn Papasan chair, her girth spilling over the round nest. Awash in a boldly printed teal and magenta muumuu, she stared into a large oscillating fan as it twirled to face her. A small television sat in abandoned silence beside the fan. The woman turned to Pauline with a wide smile, “Thanks so much for dropping in. I’m Betty Lou. Just let me know if there’s anything I can do for you, hon.”
“Thanks,” Pauline peeped, caught somewhat off-guard by the sheer immensity of the woman hidden behind the glass cabinet. “I’m just looking,” she called as she wandered off along the front window.
The store itself featured a bizarre mix of collectibles and junk. Expensive, hand-painted dishware sat in an open cabinet in a back corner, surrounded by racks of vintage clothing. Old, tattered quilts and bedspreads were folded over collapsing wire hangers on more metal clothing racks, next to a small bookcase heaped with metal tins half-filled with used kitchen spices. Corrugated cardboard boxes and plastic milk crates lined the floor offering old, worn shoes and unkempt wigs like kittens at only three dollars each. A short wooden bookcase housed an unbelievably large number of the same Perry Como record along the bottom shelf, while children’s dolls and toys were piled haphazardly on the top shelf. And there were about a dozen or so mannequins scattered about: next to bookcases, watching over to clothing racks, looming over wig and shoe crates, and otherwise standing at attention in whatever space had been made available.
One particular mannequin caught Pauline’s eye. She was little more than five feet high and balanced on her Fiberglass toes as if wearing heels despite being barefoot. Her subtly made-up face and long, brown eyelashes held a steady, soft gaze to her feet. Her lithe resin body twisted as if caught in a dancer’s pirouette. Her head was crowned in a short auburn wig and she wore a bright green dress, probably from the late 50s, which brought out the subtly painted green highlights in her glass eyes. She seemed alive, ready to complete her graceful turn at any moment.
This was the one – Pauline knew it. There was just something extra special about her that Pauline couldn’t quite place. She simply had to have this mannequin, in all of her youthful grace and beauty, exactly as she stood in the little junk shop. With the same auburn wig and the same bright green dress. Pauline fingered the price tag, biting her lip, two hundred fifty dollars for just the mannequin alone. Add another three dollars for the wig. And yet another twenty for the dress…
“I see you like that one, hon,” a voice cracked through Pauline’s silent reverie. Betty Lou stared at her from the other end of the junk shop, propped between the glass cabinet and a sturdy metal walking cane. “I can cut you a deal on it.”
“Thanks, but I can’t,” Pauline replied. “I’m just a poor college student. And I’m pretty sure financial aid doesn’t offer any scholarships for mannequin purchases…” she hid her discomfort behind a tinny giggle.
Betty Lou hobbled slowly over, balancing on the cane with small trying steps. She swayed back and forth as she moved, her body rippling into place with every footfall under its teal and magenta tent like a large, overfull sack of rice. Pauline couldn’t help but stare as the large woman approached cooing, “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse…”
Betty Lou circled over to where Pauline stood beside the bookcase of Perry Como records. She gently slapped Pauline on the back. Her immense hand barely even touched the girl, and her round fingers had the subtle feel of newly baked breadsticks. “Why don’t you work it off, then?” Betty Lou proposed. “I’ll give you fifteen dollars an hour towards that mannequin if you’ll help me get my shop in order. That’s less than twenty hours for everything you see there. You can drop by whenever you want.”
“Really?” Pauline asked, exasperated. She didn’t exactly relish the idea of making that many return visits to this backwash Treasure Trove antique junk store, but there was no other way she could even dream about purchasing a mannequin. Especially not such a nice one as this one was.
“Sure thing, hon,” Betty Lou smiled an unnervingly wide, toothy grin. “She was my first. I just couldn’t help myself. Now I’ve got a whole warehouse full of hundreds of them. I’d rather this little gal went to a good home.”
“Wow, thanks so much. But I couldn’t…” Pauline replied. She gazed back at the mannequin’s graceful form, bright lifelike eyes, and subtle smile. “I’ll drop by every Tuesday and Thursday after class – those are my light days. I can do four or five hours at a time, depending on my classes…” she stared longingly at the mannequin, “I can’t wait to take her home.”
I thought about featuring some sort of Father Nature bit for Father’s Day, but having already explored Perilous Parenting I decided to focus on more creepy insects instead. Because we love creepy insects here at Haunted MTL. Thus, I present Assassin Fashion, featuring the Assassin Bug…
Fashion Plates
Now I don’t know about you, but my first thought after snagging my prey and slurping out their dissolved innards is that I totally want to wear the dried up husk of their now lifeless body. Like that necklace made of nothing but shrunken heads. That is some first-rate fashion right there, and no one would dare to say otherwise lest they want to become a part of the dead-flesh coat… And this is exactly what the Assassin Bug does. Like a spider, it stabs its unsuspecting prey, turns it into a giant protein shake inside of its insectoid shell-glass, sips it out, and then attaches the corpse’s carapace to its ever growing collection atop its back.
Aside from being totally badass, these nightmarish embellishments serve a number of additional functions. They help the Assassin Bug blend in among its prey, masking its own odor and helping it to appear as a mass of insects that belong in or near the nest (especially among those more social networking creepy crawlies like ants and termites). In fact, it may even draw the attention of those clean up crews seeking to bury their dead, luring them in to become part of the body snatched horde. And the horrifying additions also act as a sort of armor and potential decoy for other predators like lizards and birds, who can end up with a mouth full of dead bug bodies rather than a bite of juicy Assassin Bug.
Kissing Sucks
And Assassin Bugs don’t just carry around one or two dead bodies, they may totally pile them up, as well as use other insects’ and plants’ secretions to their own advantage. Here’s a cool video from Deep Look that shows a partnership some Assassin Bugs have with Tarweed, keeping moth caterpillars from eating all of its flowers so that it can itself reproduce and spread.
Fortunately humans are too big to be susceptible… Or are we? There are also parasitic Assassin Bugs known as Kissing Bugs or Vampire Bugs that feed on mammal’s blood at night; they even act as a vector for other parasites that can cause disease years after feeding, which are associated with Chagas disease and are transmitted to mammalian hosts when the Assassin Bug poops while feeding and the host animal smears the poop into the bite when itching it.
So here’s a pencil drawing I did of a dead bug I found (I had a whole series of these back in the day). I hadn’t at the time known what it was, but it turns out to be an Assassin Bug. I wonder what its fashion sense was like…
So remember, if you want to be at the forefront of creepy horrific fashion, just look to the Assassin Bug for inspiration. If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
This time on Nightmarish Nature we will again explore some of the more fetid fungi and plants, this time focusing on those that imitate rotten flesh in order to attract flies. Among the best known of these are the Stinkhorn and the Corpse Lily or Corpse Flower. The Language of Flowers be damned, literally…
Fungi
Many of the fungi in the Stinkhorn family erupt in mushrooms that reek of rotten flesh and sprout from a white sort of egg sac in various forms, the common type being a phallus like structure with a white body and olive head. The Beefsteak fungus resembles, well, a cut of beef oozing blood. And some mushroom bodies of the Clathrus genus bloom in elaborate lattice structures or devil’s tooth and devil’s fingers that resemble terrifying alien beings. These odoriferous fetid fungi grow in decaying wood material and use their stinky attributes to attract flies and other insects which will then spread the spores from their fruiting bodies. They truly look like something out of an outer space or aquatic nightmare.
Plants
Some plants also utilize pungent putrid odors to attract flies and other insects, in part to aid in the pollination and dissemination but also to attract insect matter for their own needs, to absorb the insects for valuable nutrients that they cannot otherwise obtain. The largest flowers in the world bear many of these characteristics, also being among the stinkiest. And some pitcher plants mimic rotten flesh to attract flies upon which they “feed”.
The Titan Arum of Sumatra and Indonesia is a plant that over time produces a huge flower somewhat resembling a calla lily but larger as the plant body stores enough energy to do so. While Calla Lilies are often used to symbolize rebirth and resurrection and can be associated with death, often in a funerary setting, the huge Titan Arum does more than that, strongly mimicking decaying flesh in order to attract flies. These flowers can grow to almost 8-feet tall and bloom for only about three days before wilting; they are a huge draw at botanic gardens when flowering because of the rare nature of the event and the remarkable presence that the flower has, in both size and smell. The US. Botanic Gardens has a page devoted to this plant here, where you can even track previous blooms.
Another noteworthy flowering plant is Rafflesia, a parasitic flower native to Indonesia and Malaysia that feeds on the liana vine and grows from a sprouting body bud into a huge flower over the course of five years. Its flowers, once finally formed, can grow to almost a meter across and resembles something out of a horror film. These too smell of death and decay to attract flies in order to cross-pollinate. You can learn more about these unusual plants on this video from Real Science here.
If you’ve enjoyed this segment of Nightmarish Nature, feel free to check out some previous here:
So, as you may have noticed, we have a special fondness for spiders here on Nightmarish Nature. Well, they are kind of the spokes-critters for horrifying animalia, perhaps because they are so freakishly different from us. Or maybe it’s because I find them a little disconcerting for all that I try to take the “you mind your business, I’ll mind mine” approach, at least if they stay outdoors. Or just because I really like to draw spiders for all that I prefer not to find them sharing my home (though I’ll gladly take spiders over other bugs or mice or larger critters who didn’t get an invite).
Anyway, this segment is devoted to the largest Giants Among Spiders, as if you didn’t have enough to worry about already. And the top place is contested based upon body mass or leg length. Most of these are tarantulas, which globally take top place among the large arachnids.
Goliath Birdeater Tarantula
The Goliath Birdeater Tarantula of South America is the biggest brute of spiderdom, weighing in at over 6 ounces. They build funnel burrows and are known to eat birds (although rarely), mice, lizards, frogs, and snakes, but largely any big insects including other species of spiders. They have urticating barbed hairs that they fling at would-be attackers as an irritant to escape. And people even eat them after they singe the bristles off. Here’s a National Geographic video showing this spider in action, in case you wanted to see a giant spider take out a mouse.
Giant Huntsman Spider
And with the longest legs, we have the Giant Huntsman Spider of Laos, with a leg-span of 12 inches. Their legs have twisted joints and they move in a crab-like manner, which furthers their impressive appearance. ‘Cause they’ve got legs, and know how to use ’em. They prefer to live in underbrush and cave entrances. These are like the big relatives of their Australian cousins, which we’ve all seen online and developed a healthy aversion to.
Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater & Brazilian Giant Tawny Red Tarantulas
Next we have two more South American species: the Brazilian Salmon Pink Birdeater, which boasts one-inch fangs, and the Brazilian Giant Tawny Red, believed to be the longest-lived spider with a lifespan of up to thirty years. Both are in the tarantula family and have urticating hairs, a word you probably never read much before today unless you are in the hobby. So apparently South America is not the best travel destination for you if you struggle with arachnophobia, though I suspect you’d figured that out already. (I wouldn’t recommend Australia or Southeast Asia either.)
Face Size Tarantula
And finally the Face Size Tarantula, which has a very terror-inducing name reminiscent of the Face Huggers of Alien-glory. Anyway, these spiders have an 8-inch leg-span and live in India and Sri Lanka. They look kind of like big hairy wolf spiders with stripey legs, sometimes with pink and daffodil coloring.
If you enjoyed this eight-legged segment of Nightmarish Nature on Giants Among Spiders and their larger than life kin, please check out past segments:
