Back in the summer of 2017 I would have done anything for a Nintendo Switch. But no matter how hard I tried I could never get my hands on one. To make matters worse one of my friends managed to get one, and I was suffering from major FOMO. My friend would constantly send me texts about how awesome the system was, and how Breath of the Wild was the best game he’d ever played. I became desperate to get one. It got to the point where I would just spend hours refreshing tracking sites to see if any stores near me had restocked.
Then one night, just when I was beginning to lose all hope, I refreshed the tracking site one last time - and got a hit. There was a Walmart in Janesville, Wisconsin that had just restocked. I called the store immediately and asked if they could hold onto one of the consoles for me. The employee on the other end told me he couldn’t and that it was a first come first serve kind of deal. He also told me that they had restocked with only two consoles and there was a chance they’d be gone before the store closes at 11PM. Janesville was an hour and half from where I lived. At the time of the call it was 9:05 PM. I could wait until tomorrow to call again, and if they were still stocked, I would drive over. Or I could drive over tonight, get there just before they close, and pray that the console was still there. I made up my mind almost immediately.
“I’ll be there tonight,” I said. Then I hung up and ran to my car.
-——
About a half hour into the drive I noticed something that almost made me lose control of the wheel. My phone was nearly dead and I hadn’t brought a cord to charge it. In my rush to get to the Walmart, it never even occurred to me to check my phone’s battery. I had never driven to Janesville before and was using my phone’s GPS for directions. Two minutes later, my phone was dead. As I watched it’s screen go black, my heart sank. I had no idea how to get to Janesville.
I stopped at the nearest gas station and ran inside, hoping that the attendant there could give me directions. The employee at the counter was an elderly man with a name-tag that read: Hi My Name Is George.
I asked George for directions to Janesville. He smiled, revealing a dark mouth with few teeth and began to scribble down directions onto a notepad. As he was writing, his tongue would constantly jab out of the side his mouth, licking the corner of his lips.
“Just follow this,” George said in a high and reedy voice. “It will get you to where you need to be. Exactly where you need to be.”
“Thank you so much,” I said grabbing the piece of paper like a beggar reaching for change. “You’re a big help.”
“Sure,” George said giving me another toothless smile. The fluorescent light above his head began to flicker. I started to feel uneasy and remembered that the store closes at 11. I gave George a wave and ran out of the gas station.
-—–
I got back onto the road and started following the directions that George had given me. After driving for a few minutes I started to feel that something was wrong, because George’s directions had taken me off the highway, and onto secluded back roads. But because these were the directions he had given me and having never been to Janesville, I figured that maybe this is exactly where my GPS would have taken me anyways.
I continued on and followed George’s directions to a T. My car’s clock said it was 10:37 when I reached the place that should have been Janesville(at least according to George’s directions). Plenty of time to get to the Walmart. But when I was passing by the town sign, my heart sank for a second time. The sign didn’t say: Welcome To Janesville, Wisconsin.
It said: Welcome To Kangaroo, Wisconsin.
I checked George’s notes again, wondering if I had made some mistake. I was suppose to be in Janesville. I had followed the directions perfectly. I had never even heard of Kangaroo, Wisconsin before. My cheeks began to burn red as I thought that George had played some kind of trick on me. And it was most likely I would not make it to Janesville in time now. I slammed my fist onto my steering wheel, causing my car horn to blast. I considered turning back, but decided to drive around, hoping desperately that maybe Kangaroo had it’s own Walmart and maybe by some stroke of luck I could get a Switch there. Or maybe Kangaroo was a village right outside Janesville and I was closer than I thought.
The first thing I noticed about the town of Kangaroo is how damn quiet it was. I was from Madison - not a huge city compared to other places in the U.S. - but big enough that you got use to hearing sounds at all hours of the night. There was nothing like that in Kangaroo. No married couples shouting at each other. No doors slamming shut. Not even any dogs barking or crickets chirping. It was dead quiet.
As I drove deeper into the town, I eventually came across a diner. Seeing the diner made my cheeks go red again. The place was called “George’s Diner.”T A coincidence, I tried to tell myself. There was a red neon sign hanging outside the diner that read: OPEN 24 HOURS. The neon sign flickered as if it was going to go out at any second. Through the diner windows I could see a waitress at the counter and a man sitting in one of the booths. It was now 10:48 PM. I decided to go in and to see if anyone in the diner could tell me how far Janesville was.
When I walked through the diner doors, the bell above the door gave a short dull ring. I rubbed my eyes as I stared into the diner, because I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. I could feel a yell building up in my throat, but I suppressed it with a nervous cough.
There was a man and woman in the diner, only there really wasn’t.
They were both mannequins. Like the kind you see at a department store. From outside I hadn’t been able to tell through the foggy diner windows; they had looked like real people. But there was no mistaking it when inside. They were just mannequins posing. The one at the counter was wearing a blue waitress outfit and the one in the booth was wearing a trucker jacket and faded jeans.
“Hello!” I called into the diner. Yelling past the mannequins. “Is anyone here?”
There came no response. I walked over to the mannequin sitting in the booth and to my astonishment, I saw that he had real coffee. It was still hot as there was steam rising out of the cup. The mannequin sat there silently, staring across table, one frozen hand resting on the coffee cup, as if he were about to take a sip before I rudely interrupted.
“Hello!” I said, turning back towards the kitchen. “Seriously, is anyone here? I’m kind of lost! Hello!”
I considered going into the kitchen, when I heard a sound. I turned towards the counter where the waitress mannequin was. At first everything seemed be exactly as it had been, but then I noticed something.
And this time, I did yell.
When I had walked into the diner, the waitress mannequin had been staring in front of her. Almost as if she had been chatting with the trucker mannequin in the booth. Or at least posed to look that way.
But now her head was turned.
Turned towards me.
I heard another noise and quickly turned towards the trucker mannequin who was still sitting in the booth, but his head was now facing my direction.
“No fucking way,” I croaked in a breathless voice.
When I looked back at the waitress mannequin she was even closer to me now. As if she had been walking towards me, but stopped right in her tracks when I put my eyes on her. The mannequins were moving. Actually moving. Just not when I looked at them. I heard the sound of leather squeaking. The unmistakable sound of someone getting out of a booth and knew it was the trucker mannequin. And sure enough when I turned to look, he was standing now. Right outside his booth, holding the coffee cup in one hand. The arm holding the cup was bent back in a strange position. The way a pitcher looks just before throwing a fast ball. A sound came from behind the counter. And I thought I heard something coming from the kitchen as well. I didn’t turn to look. Instead I ran from the diner. As I did I heard what sounded like a coffee cup smashing as it hit the door behind me.
Halfway to my car I turned back to look. Both the waitress and the trucker were standing frozen at the diner door. The waitress had her hand outstretched as if she were calling to me. Their frozen white mannequin faces were expressionless. The flickering neon sign covered them both in red light.
I turned away, getting into my car and when I looked up, the two mannequins were no longer at the door. I could see them through the foggy diner windows. The trucker was back at his booth and the waitress was back behind the counter. Only now she was holding a phone to her ear, her vacant eyes staring out the window. Her frozen mouth never moved.
I put the car in ignition and drove.
-—————
I tried to backtrack my way out of the town, but the more I drove the more confused I become. It was like driving through a maze. Even worse was that the town was still dead silent, but as I drove past homes and buildings I noticed faces in the windows. Frozen white mannequin faces. I turned a corner and fear struck me. There were two mannequins standing on the corner of the street, right under the street light. One was wearing a red shirt, the other wearing blue. Neither was facing me. They looked like two men just catching up.
“Keep your eyes on them. Just keep your eyes on them,” I said to myself. Not daring to look away. But then I heard what sounded like footsteps.
Footsteps rushing towards my car.
I turned to lookout the driver window and there was a mannequin there. It’s arm raised, holding a hammer as if to smash my window. It stood there frozen. If I had been a second late, it would have broken the window. Then I heard more footsteps, coming from where the mannequins under the streetlight had been standing. I floored the car and not daring to take my eyes off the mannequin with the hammer. I heard the sound of thudding as I hit something and then I peeled around the street corner and took off. When I looked back through the rear view mirror, I saw something that truly sent a chill down my spine. The mannequin in the blue shirt was splayed on the road. The one holding the hammer and the one in the red shirt stood over him, staring at me driving away. But they weren’t alone.
There were dozens of mannequins on the road now. Some were frozen in positions that looked as if they had been sprinting after my car. And there were others standing frozen stepping out of the shadows of the trees that surrounded the street. As if they had been hiding there all along, waiting.
Waiting to ambush me.
I drove on.
-—–
There is no such place as Kangaroo, Wisconsin. That’s what I learned when I finally made it out of that town. That accursed maze. I had driven for what felt like hours, dodging mannequins left and right, before I made it back onto the road and eventually back onto the highway. Kangaroo, Wisconsin doesn’t yield any search results and no one I talk to has ever heard of it. But I was there. I know it exists. I no longer have the directions that George had given me as I threw them away shortly after getting back. George was the only person I knew of who had to know what Kangaroo was. A couple of days after my experience, I finally gained the courage to go talk to him.
When I walked into the gas station, this time during the day, George wasn’t at the counter. Instead there was a young woman with a tag that read: Hi My Name Is Sally. There was a middle aged man behind the counter as well, he wore a straight forward name-tag that read: Mark.
“Hi, can I help you?” Sally asked as I approached the counter.
“Hey,” I said. Trying to sound as normal as possible. I used the back of my hand to wipe sweat from my brow. Even just being back in the gas station made me anxious. “Is there a George that works here?”
“George?” Sally said bemused. “Uhh, not that I know of. Umm, Mark?”
“Nope.” Mark said, not taking his eyes off a sheet he was tallying. He looked like he was taking inventory.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “He’s an older guy. Kind of has a high pitched voice?”
Mark took his eyes off his sheet and gave me an expression that told me he thought I was the most annoying person in the world.
“Buddy, I’m the manager here. I do all the hires. And I’ve never hired any old man named George.”
“I was here a couple days ago. Sometime after 9. And I spoke to -“
Both Sally and Mark gave out short barks of laughter.
“What?” I asked.
“Now I know you’re messing with us,” Sally said, beaming. As if she had just caught some naughty prankster. “We close at 8:30 PM. No one would be here after 9.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stood there shocked. In my head I saw George, standing under that flickering fluorescent light, licking the side of his mouth. I know I had spoken to him.
“Nice try buddy,” Mark said. “Now, if you’re not buying anything, could you hit the road? I have work to do and don’t have time for jokes.”
Sally gave me a shrug as if to say Sorry. Nice try though.
I turned to walk away, when Mark said, “Wait. Hold on. There is one George I know of.”
“Mark come on,” Sally said laughing. “That’s not who he’s talking about.”
“Well maybe it is!” Mark said, passing a glance to Sally as if they were sharing the funniest inside joke in the world.
“Come this way,” Mark said and he led me to the back of the gas station. He took out a key and unlocked a door that went into a storage room. There were crates of soda and snack food and other items. He lead me to the back of the room.
“There he is!” Mark said pointing to the back of the room. “There’s our George!”
Standing in the back of the storage room was a mannequin, wearing an old gas station attendant uniform. He wore a tag that said: Hi My Name Is George. The mannequin’s face was frozen in an expressionless glare, just as the other mannequins had been, only on this mannequin - George that is - there was a blotch on the corner of it’s mouth. As if someone had been scratching or…licking there and it had caused the plastic to fade.
“This the guy you’re looking for?” Mark said laughing and putting an arm around the mannequin. Behind me I could hear Sally laughing at the counter.
“Mark stop!” Sally called from behind. “You’re being mean!”
“Good one,” I said flatly. Not taking my eyes off the mannequin. It’s face was turned to the side, as if it had noticed something particularly interesting in the corner of the room. When Mark saw I wasn’t laughing, his own smile dropped slightly. He took his arm off the mannequin.
“Yeah, well I really do have work to do,” Mark said walking past me. “So get lost.”
I made my way out of the storage room. I turned back only once. Just before Mark shut the door. The mannequin - George that is - was no longer staring at the corner of the room. He was staring straight ahead.
At me.