My Story

By Trent Coners

The electronic bell buzzed as Chris entered the large
toys and collectables store on the corner of down
town’s main street. Chris gave a few nods to the
regulars as he headed to the large selection of action
figures on the wall of the recently renovated store.
The display was filled with figures from films and
television: Matrix, horror films, GI joe, and mostly
star wars, of course. The selection was good, much
better than it had been in the past before the store
came under new management of a man who was supposedly
an avid toy collector as Chris was, although he had
not yet been introduced to him. In fact, more than
just the merchandise selection, the entire store
seemed new and up scale, with new arcade machines in
the corner and a large plasma screen showing anime on
another end of the store. The new manager certainly
invested a large amount of capital in all the repairs.
Today was new merchandise day, and Chris was there
trying to get first dibbs on any good finds before his
classes started. Toy collecting had been a hobby for
him since his childhood, and now as a 22 year-old
college student, was still something he enjoyed in
between school and his commitment to the college water
polo team.

Picking up a small box containing a figure of princess
Leia in a rebel outfit and examining the condition and
price, a voice from over his shoulder caught his
attention.

“May I help you find anything?” Asked a tall man in
his early 30’s. Chris replied,

“Oh, no thanks, I’m just checking out the new stock
before I head out to class.”

“You come in here often don’t you? You seem to be a
pretty devoted collector.”

“Yeah, thanks, I actually used to shop in here all the
time back when Ted owned the place. I can’t believe
what you’ve done here,” said Chris, motioning to the
rest of the store. “The place looks amazing, you must
have spent a fortune on all the new stuff, and as much
as I liked the store Ted ran, there seems to be a much
better selection than before.”

“Well I’m glad you like the store…?” Raising his
eyebrows, the man seemed to hang on an un-asked
question.

“Oh, sorry, I’m Chris, pleased to meet you.” Chris
exchanged the figure he was still holding between
hands and held out his right hand to the man.

“Paul Lockwood.,” the man replied, shaking Chris’
hand. “And I appreciate your feedback. So how long
have you been a collector?”

“Oh, since I was a kid. I never seemed to grow out of
the darn things,” said Chris, chuckling. “Mostly I
collect star wars figures. Yeah, I know, how strange
is that? Ha ha. I’ve got a pretty good collection of
horror film figures as well. McFarlane always seems
to deliver some pretty quality figures.”

“McFarlane toys have always been a big seller. So
tell me, do you invest in any high priced figures?
Specialty figures?” Asked Paul.
“Well, Some of my older figures are worth something on
the collector’s market, but I don’t think I’ve ever
paid large amounts up front. For me the fun has
always been in bargain hunting, you know? But why do
you ask?”

“Well,” replied Paul, “I specialize in a selection of
exclusive figures. They’re amazingly lifelike and
designed, custom, based on popular characters. Would
you be interested?”

“I dunno, I might be. Mind if I take a look at them?”


“Well, I’m afraid not at first. I have artistic and
intellectual property I have to protect, and all of my
private customers have to sign a few agreements and
pass some requirements of mine.”

“Requirements? You have requirements for your toys?”

“Basically I need to make sure my customers don’t have
a problem with what it is that I’m selling. I’m happy
to say though, once shown my figures, I’ve never had a
customer refuse to sign any of my non disclosure
agreements. Not to boast, but quite frankly they’re
that amazing. A perfect addition for any serious
collector.” The man had begun to smile with pride.

By this point, Chris had become genuinely intrigued in
what the store owner was selling. How could anyone
have a problem with a toy? While it sounded strange,
Chris just had to know what it was that made these
toys so special. “Well in that case, when can I start
signing these papers of yours? How much do these
things cost?”

“Pricing is usually based on a per item basis. If
what you want is not in stock, it might take me some
time to find the right….model. I also usually
consider who it is I’m selling to. You’ve been a long
time supporter of the store, and since you’re local..”

“You sell these on the internet or something?”

“Oh of course, I’ve customers world wide. But as I
was saying, since you’re also a local, I’m sure I can
give you a bargain.” The man gave the smile of a
salesman who felt he was about to close a deal. “I
can probably start you at around five thousand,
depending on the model of course.”

Chris did a double take.

“Five thousand?! Oh….I had no idea. When you said
they were expensive I thought you had meant in the
hundreds range, maybe 5 hundred at most. There’s no
way I can afford to spend that kind of money on a
toy.”

The store owner chuckled. “Believe me when I say that
these are unlike any “toy” you have ever seen.”

“Look man, I’m sure they’re great, but I’m barely
getting by with tuition and my rent.” The store
owner’s smile began to fade leaving behind an
awkwardness that made Chris feel uneasy.

“Pardon me, I may have confused you with someone with
a higher…..spending limit.”

“You thought I was rich? What, do you only bother
giving out your sales pitches to wealthy people?”
Chris had been insulted by the man’s rude remark and
sudden lack of interest in him.

“Look, kid…”

Chris angrily interrupted, “I’m 22.” The man just
chuckled and lowered his head in frustration.

“My mistake, but what I was getting to is that I was
not trying to insult you, it’s just that my figures
are a premium line. Large amounts of time, effort,
and….risk, are involved in making them, so naturally I
sell them for very large amounts. I’m sorry if I made
a misjudgment in my sales pitch, but apparently
they’re just not for you. I’m sure you’ll continue to
enjoy the rest of my store. It was nice meeting you.”
The man began to walk away towards a door labeled
“Private.”

“Wait..” Chris called out, “can’t I just take a look
at them? I mean…maybe I’ll like what I see and we can
work out some sort of payment plan?” Chris had no
intention of ever spending that much money on a toy,
but by thus point he was genuinely intrigued and would
say anything to get a glimpse of these “amazing”
figures.

“Sorry, but as I said, the selection is only viewable
to customers who have met certain requirements. Have
a nice day.” The man disappeared behind the door.
Chris was left frustrated by the encounter and filled
with a strong curiosity. He simply had to see what
was behind that door. He figured he would wait around
a while until the owner had left for his lunch and
then try to sneak in for a quick peek. Maybe he would
get caught and be banned from the store, but he really
didn’t care. There were other toy stores in town.
Standing in the other half of the store, looking
occupied with comics, Chris waited for just over an
hour until the owner to emerge from the back room with
a box marked “Fragile.” Chris wondered if it may have
been one of his figures. The man walked to the front
of the store and told one of his employees he’d be
going down a couple blocks to mail something. It
wasn’t as long as a lunch break would take, but Chris
figured he better take the opportunity. Waiting for
the man to leave the store, Chris moved as
nonchalantly as he could to the private door, and
making sure that the other employees were preoccupied,
he quickly stepped in, not noticing the small red
light that began to blink on the inside of the doorway
as he entered the room.

Inside was what seemed like a work room with various
pieces of high tech equipment. Tables covered in
precision tools and paints, pieces of cloth and half
finished props and molds, lined the walls. Behind a
large glass window was another room with some sort of
large apparatus pointing to an circular area on the
ground marked off with black and yellow stripes;
equipment lining the walls covered with voltage
warning signs described that whatever the thing was it
probably used huge amounts of power. Bizarre, thought
Chris. Everything looked sterile and in its place,
but where were the toys? Chris noticed another large
glass window separating this room from another, only
the other room was dark. On the wall Chris noticed a
panel of switches, one of which was labeled “showroom
lights.” He flipped the switch and looked through the
window at the now illuminated room. It looked like
what you might figure a showroom to look like, nice
carpeting, artwork and designs framed on the walls,
shelves and display cases featuring what seemed to be
busts and figures, and then on the far wall, a large
display, seemingly the room’s main attraction, that
was covered with boxed figures. Something about them
looked strange. As the lights came on, the items in
the boxes seemed to almost react to the sudden
brightness. Chris entered through a door next to the
window to go in for a closer look. As he walked up to
the display, he became more an more positive that the
figures were in fact moving, not a lot, but they were
moving. It wasn’t any sort of robotic movement, not
the kind of movement that a figure with built in
servos in it’s arms would make, it was the kind of
organic movement that only a small animal could make,
in fact it almost looked like struggling. Chris’ mind
was filled with amazement as he reached the display.
What he was seeing couldn’t be possible, how had the
man done this? He reached out and grabbed what looked
like a spiderman figure from the display. The figure
was about 4 inches tall, dressed in a spiderman outfit
without the mask, which was placed in a separate part
of the box. The figure struggled in it’s box with its
arms and legs pinned down by zip ties to the
cardboard. Through the tightness of the spiderman
outfit, the body seemed almost too real, even down to
certain anatomically correct details that the skin
tight outfit made visible.

Chris then looked in to examine the face, and whatever
feeling of amazement he had was replaced with a
feeling of horror. At first he had written off the
struggling as a programmed movement, made possible by
some sort of incredible animatronics the store owner
had perfected. The face however, was not the face of
Peter Parker, it was a face filled with fear and
desperation in it’s tiny eyes. Most importantly,
however, it was the face Chad Gherke, a basketball
player from his college who had supposedly made a trip
to Northern California and hadn’t returned. Chris was
about to call Chad’s name, but noticed upon closer
inspection that his mouth was covered with a small
piece of flesh colored tape. Chris, his face painted
with shock and confusion, looked at the other figured
on the display: Luke Skywalker, Superman, Neo, each in
a custom box, each various sizes between 4 and about 7
inches, and each looking at Chris with fear in their
eyes. It was about that time that Chris was to grab
the spiderman figure, or rather he should say, Chad,
and perhaps whoever else he could manage to hold, and
make a run for it, to the police, the FBI, whoever it
took, when he felt a sharp pain in his butt as
something stuck him. He turned around, almost
dropping Chad to the ground, to see Paul, the store
owner looking at him with an evil grin. Chris pulled
the feathered dart out of his ass and held it up to
his face to see what he had been hit with, and then
almost instantly, felt his strength leave him as he
collapsed to the ground on his butt. Paul walked up
to him and pulled Chad out of his hands and placed him
back on the display case.

“You realize you’re trespassing on my property, right?
That door is clearly marked private. No one is
allowed down here without my escort. You could have
damaged one of my figures, or worse, some of my
equipment.” Chris tried to reply through his panting.

“What is…….you can’t……what…” Chris tried in vain to
pull his strength together as he fell fully on to his
back.

“Well it looks like I’ll be making a profit off you
after all,” said Paul. “I really hate to do this to
one of my customers and especially a fellow collector,
but you shouldn’t have let your curiosity get the
better of you.” Paul walked over to the large machine
two rooms away and began hitting a series of switches,
and then walked back over to Chris and began to grab
him by the legs and drag him across the room. The
last thing he heard before blacking out was a Paul
saying something about orders that had to be placed,
and the sound of the large machine in the other room
warming up.

Chris awoke with a small pain in his head. Something
didn’t seem right. The last thing he remembered was
wanting to go down to the toys and hobby store before
practice to check out the new stock. Had he
overslept? He was lying on his back, his head to the
side, and as his vision cleared he saw his clothes
about 20 feet across slick white surface. They looked
torn and cut up, in pieces. It felt like he was
wearing something thick and heavy. It also felt like
he was wearing a jock strap, but he never wore those.
He tried to get up but his hands and waist were being
held down by……a giant zip tie? Suddenly it all came
back to him, the store, the back room, the expensive
toys that were actually people, being hit with a
tranquilizer. He looked down and saw that he was
dressed in army clothes, boots and camouflage. His
legs weren’t tied down and he seemed to be resting on
a piece of colorful cardboard. His mind kept asking a
question that he was too afraid to find out the answer
to. How big was he? The answer, whether he liked it
or not, came to him as the face of Paul, the store
owner, gigantic, filled his vision.

Chris screamed.

Paul sighed with a sense of annoyance, and as if he’d
done it a thousand times before, squeezed the top and
bottom Chris’ head gently between two fingers, pushing
his mouth firmly shut with his giant thumb, and using
his other hand, applied a square of the flash colored
tape that Chris had seen on the other “figures” over
his own mouth.

“Stop screaming.” Said Chris as he pulled his hand
back. Chris’ mind was overloading with panic. Paul
reached down and pulled two more small zip ties from a
drawer.

“Whether you like it or not, you’re now a permanent
addition to my line of exclusive figures. Get used to
it,” Paul said harshly. “I was fresh out of GI Joe
characters, and luckily you’re in great shape. You
said earlier you were in some kind of sport? I’ve
still got an order for a He-Man figure, but you can’t
imagine how hard it is to find a white body builder
who’s disappearance would be easily explainable. Stop
squirming.” Paul grabbed one of Chris feet, pulled
his leg downward, and used the zip tie to attach it to
part of the board, and then did the same with the
other.

“Really, you might consider thanking me. My process
has basically given you eternal youth. It just
wouldn’t do for me to be selling things like Spiderman
figures if you’re friend over there, or you for that
matter, are just going to eventually age and fall out
of shape. You’ll remain in your current physical
state until you die.”

Chris renewed his struggling.

“Can’t really say how that might be, as I’ve not fully
tested whether or not the process of putting your
physical state in to stasis also results in eternal
life, and of course, I can’t really guarantee that
nothing bad will ever happen to you. My warranties
don’t cover earthquakes, fires, floods, acts of God or
War,” Paul said with a chuckle. Chris tried to scream
through the tape but it just came through as a muffled
yell. Paul was busy attaching other things to the
cardboard base, a small detailed knife, a machine gun,
and other toy accessories.

“Well, you’re just about finished. I have some
prospective customers coming in later, and GI Joe
figures are always a big seller, so you might not find
yourself in my showroom for too long. Most of my
customers are toy collectors, but I have to be
perfectly honest, I think some of them end up buying
my figures for other reasons, if you know what I
mean.” Paul gave Chris a smirk and poked him in his
groin with his giant finger. Chris squirmed tried to
yell something again.

“You’ve got something to say?” Paul reached down and
removed the tape from Chris’ mouth.

“Please…please don’t do this!” Chris pleaded through
tears. “I have a life…I…I’m not a toy that you can
sell!” Paul simply shrugged.

“Meh, you are now.” Chris started screaming for help
but was cut off as Paul’s fingers grabbed his head a
second time to hold his mouth closed while he applied
another piece of tape. Paul then took up a piece of
clear plastic and after carefully applying some epoxy
to the edges of it, pressed it down over Chris,
fastening it to the cardboard. The suddenly Chris
felt has weight shift from his back to his hanging
limbs and midsection as Paul picked up the box and
carried it over to the display case. When Chris felt
the box come to a rest, he looked over to his side to
see Chad, still in his spiderman outfit, with his head
hanging down in hopelessness. He looked, from Chris’
perspective, to be about the same size as himself,
putting him at about 4 inches. Chris watched as Paul
exited the room, closing the door behind him. Paul
gave Chris one last look before the lights went out.
Hanging there in the darkness, Chris began to sob.

End