Chet Burks (Spook Central clerk): I’ve been picking up after Spook Central customers for the last 11 Halloweens since graduating with a BA in Philosophy. Half-opened boxes of Hellraiser party lights, tossed aside sexy actuary costumes, severed whatever dog chew toys…
Percy Stevenson (animatronics designer): Spook Central fans get stoked over the annual unveiling of a new line of animatronics. They expect increasingly despicably outrageous characters that do increasingly despicably outrageous things. I doubt they truly appreciate the craftsmanship and sacrifice it takes to design and ultimately construct a lineup of functional yet consumer-priced and homeowner-practical Chuck E. Cheeses hellbots year after year after year.
Chet Burks: This year Spook Central opened on the Fourth of July in the old Sears store, formally Ames. Last year, when Maestro Marty happened, it was in a closed Best Buy, formally Adult Toy Galaxy, formally Christian Light Gifts, formally a frog pond PETA tried to save from development. My first year it was under a tent in the old Gander Mountain parking lot. The tent was formally a Ringling Bros. tent.
Burt Hinkley (Tuckersfield mayor, 2017-present): Tuckersfield Microbursts state runner-up AA high school football and the only Spook Central for 25 miles in any direction. Nearby Preston’s football team sucks, and all they have is a second-rate Halloween Town, formally a soup kitchen. Mircobursts rule, Belugas drool.
Linda Connor (Tuckersfield resident and Spookamatroniac): I HEART Spook Central animatronics. Scooping them up at 85% off the MSRP on November 1st is my passion. I got Bubonic Betsy and Major Hemorrhage. There’s Auntie Gertrud, “Let your auntie give you a peck on the cheek.” Then she face-gouges you with crochet hooks. And Die-amese Twins, the two-headed steampunk lava-ghoul who literally scoops up children and takes-off on motorized wheels. Remember when one whisked a 3-year-old from the former Bed, Bath & Beyond and wheeled down the street until it crashed into the old K-Mart?
No animatronic was as dope as Maestro Marty.
Percy Stevenson: I remember the morning my inbox blew up with rave reviews for Maestro Marty. I thought: Who is Maestro Marty?
Chet Burks: I discovered Maestro Marty when I opened-up one morning. He was standing on a bunch of hay bales between Sister Mary Bonesaw and Pappy Pus Guts. Figured the night crew got drunk and assembled him. Marty just looked like a regular dude wearing a tuxedo with tails, and holding a conductor’s wand. Wore bifocals too. At his feet was a sign written in Sharpie: Maestro Marty the De-Composer.
Linda Connor: I thought Maestro Marty was super lame at first. He wasn’t scary. Looked kinda’ like my Uncle Daryl. I waved my hands in front of his face hoping he’d lunge at me to pierce my skull with his conductor’s wand, or say “Time to hit the die note.” He didn’t do anything! I wrote a sternly-worded letter to the Spook Central animatronics department.
Percy Stevenson: The letter? “I hope Lil’ Suzy Stabs-A-Lot fillets Maestro Marty while Necrotizing Ned watches in front of the abandoned Pier 1 Imports.” Seriously, who is Maestro Marty?
Susan Kelper (Spook Central clerk): I was a registered nurse at Tuckersfield Hospital. Good salary and a pension, until the hospital shuttered. Now I’m stocking fucking spongey brain hats for $7.35 an hour. Fuck this.
Linda Connor: A few visits later I noticed the funk. It grew stronger closer to Marty. And Marty’s skin was darker blue. Meh. Days later, the scent of death was righteous. Marty’s skin was gross and wrinkled. His eyes started to sink. Marty was decomposing in real time. Fucking dope!
Percy Stevenson: WHO THE WTF IS MAESTRO MARTY?!
Linda Connor: Marty the De-Composer was coming to life.
Chet Burks: At first we thought another rat died under the pallet of Freddy Krueger baby shower decorations. We checked about the Bewitched limited-edition patio furniture collections. We rifled through the officially-licensed Friday the 13th part VII Black & Decker power tools. Nothing. The odor overwhelmed the store. Customers gagged. A kid barfed on the rack of Michael Myers adult jumpsuit plush footie-pajamas. Maestro Marty began to physically transform too. Remember the scene at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when the bad guy drinks from the Holy Grail? Like that but over the course of four weeks.
I picked his jaw off his loafers on a Wednesday afternoon.
Larry Smith (roofer): Tarred the Spook Central roof. Tarred ‘er back in ‘87 too. Was a Toys “R” Us back then. Tarred ‘er but good.
Chet Burks: We literally sell 99% of our animatronics November 1st. I showed up early that morning to prep. When I pulled-in the parking lot a cop was stringing yellow tape around the 25-foot 85%-off inflatable Donald Gump troll who guards the automatic doors. I asked what happened.
Oh. My. God.
Percy Stevenson: Oh. My. God.
Linda Connor: Bitchin!
Burt Hinkley: Maestro Marty the De-Composer is formally Martin W. Schumacher II. He was the Bentleyville High School marching band director from 1999-2018. The kids loved him, from what I hear. Lost his gig when Bentleyville High closed forever, and consolidated with Preston. How were we supposed to know a dead guy from our former rival high school was moonlighting as an animatronic in our Spook Central?
Rachel Brown (manager of Tuckersfield Spook Central, formally manager of Tuckersfield JC Penny): I figured something was amiss after an inventory review showed zero stock of a “Maestro Marty.” The whole decomposing thing was so real. So very real. But some mysteries are best left unsolved, amiright?
Chet Burks: I figured Marty was almost definitely a real carcass. I have a college degree.
Frederick Brinkley: (Spook Central CEO) The Tuckersfield, OH store’s profits were through the goddamn roof, bloated rotting corpse in aisle 11 be damned.
Blake King: (Kappa Delta Rho pledge master, class of ’96) Fuckin’ Mr. Holland, man. That was Martin’s pledge name. The brothers always gave ‘em shit because his boyhood dream was to conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Silly, huh? But Mr. Holland was always crazy fun, right. Like one time we got Mr. Holland hammered and convinced him to teabag the piranha tank at the aquarium. Jesus man that was stupid! He quit pledging shortly after that.
Linda Connor: A bunch of Spookamatroniacs stood outside the store on November 1st and watched as the medical examiners hauled our favorite animatronic to the morgue for an autopsy. We sobbed together. Days later I found out the real Marty died alone. That’s sad too.
Blake King: Dude sure got his audience in death. Hey, I guess you could say Mr. Holland finally composed his opus.
Percy Stevenson: I learned who Maestro Marty was when I clicked on “Best Halloween Pranks: Number 7 Will Blow Your Damn Mind” while shopping online for moccasins. He was number 7.
Larry Smith: Just kept tarrin’ the roof during the whole investigation. Slept up there. Larry tars ‘til the jobs done.
Percy Stevenson: Some poor sap who couldn’t take it anymore props himself up amongst three dozen original animatronics in the now former Spook Central, and then gradually decays for damn near a month in front of Spookamatroniacs who waltz by ‘Ol Nanny Bowelslinger as though she wasn’t catapulting bloody innards at them…
Take a bow, Martin W. Schumacher II.
Scott Beale
https://tinyurl.com/p7mmo9f
