Dark Museum

Blair | September 25, 2020 | Westchester, NY

"He could at least take me to a place in the city."

"It'll be fine, Blair. You've blown this guy off twice and it's gonna look bad for me — for my business — if you don't go. It's dinner. Drinks. Maybe you'll get lucky and mellow the fuck out."

"Fuck you, David. I've got my own problems."

Blair kept her eyes on the monitors, phone shouldered to her ear, watching the security videos flip from room to room. The activity was isolated to the lobby. They — her statues — had broken through the main outside door. Only two of them were left inside hovering around the exit and David wanted her to be sexy on her stuffy lawyer date.

"Problems, yeah," David said. "All you've done in the past month is moon over your special project. Your work is suffering because of it—"

"My work is just fine!"

The girl, Sophia, approached the exit now, and Kieron was letting her do it. All this time and Kieron was still letting her down.

"Not your real work. Your paralegal work. Blair, you gotta let this art stuff go. It was thirty years ago and you failed—"

"I'm having a crisis right now. I'll go on your fucking date if you'll leave me the hell alone."

"Is that any way to speak to your boss?" His voice was suddenly serious and deadly calm.

Blair hung up.

2

It had been three in the morning when the first statue had toppled over and woke up. She'd seen statues topple and smash to pieces; never wake.

Blair had been in the basement with her half-eaten dinner, just like every night for the past decade. The screens had become a constant flicker: a night light of nostalgia to goad her while she worked on her newest project. Her basement made an excellent studio.

While reaching for a pair of scissors beside the monitor, a man's movement arrested her attention.

Kieron.

She'd posed him to be crouched on a fountain, where he'd been trapped in his last living moment ever since. But he'd fallen over and Kieron stumbled around the room checking himself for injury.

She thought she was hallucinating.

Nothing else the cameras picked up looked out of order, so she zeroed in on him, studying his face (definitely him), the fountain (dry), the audio ("Hello? What the fuck?").

By the time she'd checked the rest of the rooms, all five statues were moving.

Sophia and that singer.

Demetri.

The Bollywood guy panicking at his painted-on blood.

For two weeks they worked out where they were, ate the food she'd left behind, dismantled her exhibits, wore her clothes. They made a home of the museum, poked around every door and passageway, had sex with each other.

Blair had barricaded the outside of the building, thinking only of people trying to break in, never a breakout.

It took three days for her to find the phone numbers for the people she needed. The only people she trusted to help her were the ones with something to lose.

Erica had witnessed Blair taking Sophia and Josh to the parking garage; she had also left incriminating "ransom notes" around the theater suggesting something nefarious would happen to Josh. When Josh disappeared, the police hounded the members of the singing troupe Erica belonged to — especially Erica, since she and Josh had apparently had an altercation before his performance. Blair collected the ransom notes in a baggie to preserve the fingerprints and told Erica she'd hide the evidence in exchange for a favor later.