retirement 

The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on Carl. The whole reason he was in this mess was because he hadn’t been watching the factory closely enough – and now here he was, abandoning his post. He knew, though, that there wouldn’t be another batch coming through for about an hour, and that gave him a solid time frame in which to investigate.

The hallways leading to the Nursery were the same as any of the others – dull, white, featureless. There was the occasional sign letting him know that he was going the right way, but no other defining quality. The fluorescent lights above his head made his skin take an unnatural yellow hue, their dissonant buzzing sounding like a swarm of microscopic wasps caged in his skull. 

How had he worked here for so long? He felt madness creeping up on him just as he made his way through this one hallway. How many times had he walked through these halls without a care in the world, focusing on anything but the task onhand? Was he being hyper-sensitive, or was there something else at play, something distracting him from the questions that were now flooding his mind? 

The sudden appearance of the door marked ‘Nursery’ in front of him seemed almost to be an answer.  The metal entryway was, unsurprisingly, white, but with a few additions that made it hard to stomach. The word ‘Nursery’ was written in a cursive pink font, with an ornate pink bow stuck just below it. The door bore images of balloons and smiling clowns, painted with care onto the blank surface; which almost made it worse. Someone had gone out of their way to make a taunting shrine to the ‘children’ of the factory. Carl must have passed this exact door a thousand times, yet the disgust was only now brewing in his stomach. 

The engineer put a hand on the door handle and paused. He didn’t know what he was expecting, or even what he hoped he’d see. A part of him certainly did want to see that the dolls were being well looked after; but another, bigger part, wanted his stomach-churning fears confirmed. He wanted to see exactly what it was he was contributing to. 

            He removed the key card from his pocket, and swiped it along the necessary slot in the door, situated next to a small, silver panel. Instead of the usual flash of green, though, the light went orange, and a beam of blue light shone into his eyes. 

            “Please enter ID number,” came the automated voice, buzzing from inside the panel.  Carl was taken aback, but typed in his number, glancing at the silver box apprehensively. 

            There was a moment, and then another blue light appeared from the box, this time scanning from the top of his forehead to his chin, and back again. 

            “Welcome, 1048,” the box said again, this time, followed by the resounding click of the door unlocking. 

            Carl was tempted to take the extra security measures as a sign that he shouldn’t investigate further but he pushed past the urge, stepping into the Nursery before he could convince himself not to. 

 

The room was the same uniform white as the rest of the building, from ceiling to floor. There were no beds, nothing soft for the Dolls to rest on – in fact, there was no furniture at all, save for a metal examining table identical to the one in the morgue. The only thing in the room that matched the ‘Nursery’ aesthetic suggested by the door, was the faint tone of a child’s lullaby present in the room. Another attempt at mockery, Carl assumed – though it could have just been left on as an oversight.

The engineer’s eyes were focused on the floor. He’d had a glimpse of the Dolls when he’d entered the room, but he had no desire to look again, even though he knew he had to. Someone had to know. 

He raised his head and held his breath as he allowed himself to take in the full impact of what was happening. 

There were several Dolls in the room, most of which were in the usual Amora packaging – tall pink boxes, around seven feet in height, with clear plastic screens. The dolls were dressed and groomed, and appeared to be sleeping standing up. That part was to be expected, and didn’t give him any pause. 

The rest of the Dolls, though, were a different story entirely. 

He recognized a few from earlier when he’d walked past the belts and seen them suspended in the air. Now, though, they were fully assembled, which made their situation even more unbearable. The Dolls were encased in vacuum-packed plastic, hung up on a long rack by hooks pierced through the top of the bags. The packaging was entirely see-through and clung tightly to their naked bodies, leaving not an inch untouched. 

The worst part, though – the part that made Carl have to swallow down the nausea that rose in his stomach – was that the Dolls were awake. They stared up at the ceiling with blank expressions, occasionally blinking. When Carl moved closer to one of the Dolls, her eyes flickered to him. He knew they weren’t suffocating – they couldn’t breathe, after all – but the sight of her skin being pulled back by the tight plastic was too much for him to bear. Carl had read about the Uncanny Valley before, but that was nothing compared to this. The soft music in the air, paired with the plastic-swathed forms hung like meat in a butcher’s window was nauseating, like a scene from a horror movie come to life. Carl’s skin crawled as more of the robotic eyes flickered to him, watching him from within their transparent prisons. He tried to remind himself that they knew nothing, felt nothing, but he couldn’t shake the terror that had lodged itself beneath his ribs. 

            “I…I’m s-sorry. Wrong room,” he stammered as he took a step back, grabbing the handle of the door. One of the Dolls seemed to be speaking, but the words were muffled, distorted into a moan of distress. 

It was with a pang of guilt and a wave of pure terror that Carl stumbled back out of the Nursery, slamming the door behind him in his haste to escape.
          

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