All Sugared Up

“Block the door!” yelled a security guard.  “ Don’t let it escape!”

Three guards jumped in front of the mall exit door.

The naked thing lowered its head and slammed them like a battering ram.  The impact was so tremendous, the guards died instantly.  The steel exit door behind them flew into the parking garage.     

A SWAT team fired automatic weapons at the thing.  Unfazed, it rushed toward them. Grabbing the nearest cop, it hurled him a hundred feet.  When a burst of machine gun fire blew the thing’s neck to smithereens, its head fell off.  The headless body lurched  forward several feet, then fell to the ground.

“Hold your fire,” a police captain yelled.   “It’s dead.”

“It was never alive,” said a sergeant, as he walked toward the thing.

“It had to be.  Look at the freakin’ damage.  It knocked that steel door off its hinges like it was made of paper.”

“What’s that bubbly blue stuff coming from its neck?” somebody asked.

“Look’s like some kind of foam,” the captain said.  “Hey, Charlie, collect some of it in test tubes.  Homeland Security would be very interested in this.  And probably the FBI, CIA and National Institute of Health.”

Some curious  shoppers came through the doorway.

“Get those people back in the mall.  Seal the place.  Get them to announce nobody leaves the mall.”

“Hey, something’s inside its mouth,” yelled a cop checking the severed head. 

“What is it?”

“Looks like a bunch of half-chewed jelly beans.  Maybe it got all sugared-up and went nuts.”

“Unless they really ain’t jelly beans,” said the captain. “Sergeant, have somebody check the candy store.  See if this thing stole some jelly beans.”

“I don’t get it,” the sergeant said.  “Since when does a mannequin come to life, steal candy, and go berserk?”

“Weird stuff happens,” the lieutenant said.   “Like when it rains frogs.  Or when they find a whale dying in the middle of the Sahara Desert.  In the end, there’s always a logical explanation.”

“Don’t let the press know it was a dummy,” the captain said.  “Tell them a nude guy went berserk after taking a designer drug.  If this ever gets out, wackos will firebomb malls all over the country.   They’ll buy jelly beans and run through malls yelling, ‘I’m a crazed mannequin.’”

“Hey, Harris and Smith,” the lieutenant said.   “Check out all the mannequins in the mall.”

“What do you want us to look for?”  Smith asked.

“See if any of them have been chewing jelly beans.”

“You gotta be kidding, Lieutenant.” 

“I wish I was.  But the way things are anymore, you gotta check every little thing to make damn sure.   This could be a terrorist plot”

“What should I do if I find one with jelly beans in its mouth?”

“Arrest the damn thing.  Don’t forget to read its rights.  I don’t want some civil rights lawyer getting a mannequin released over a stupid technicality.”

Seventy-six mannequins in the mall’s department stores had jellybeans in their mouths.  Some had wads consisting of several flavors.  Others were found chewing only a single flavor.  Nobody knew what to make of it.   

The FBI went into action and checked every mannequin in the nation.  100,000 were found chewing jelly beans.  All were jailed and interrogated. The FBI’s worst suspicions were confirmed:  this was a terrorist plot of monstrous proportions.   The Terrorist Alert was raised two notches around the globe.   

Information about potential mannequin attacks was rushed to intelligence agencies of friendly nations.  Meanwhile, the 100,000 jailed mannequin prisoners were crated and loaded onto merchant ships.  A hundred pounds of jelly beans were included within each crate. The crates were marked:  A GIFT FROM THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.

Countries hostile to the United States marveled at the generosity of Americans when they received shiploads of jelly beans and mannequins they’d never ordered.