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It all started when I was sixteen. It was Halloween and my friends and

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I had all had a bit too
much fun pushing each other to do something

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dumber and dumber. We'd snatched the
bottle of red from my parents' dash and

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passed it around when one of us
came up with the idea to check out

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the old mall by the freeway.
The place had been closed a few years

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prior, and none of us had
been there more than a couple of times

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as kids, but we figured it
could make for a good story. The

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five of us crammed into a car
and made our way out there, blasting

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music as we went along. God
Smack po d P M five K.

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It was a different time. Rod
was up in the front seat trying to

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smoke something, but the rest of
us kept interrupting him. He had this

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stupid hang up and a joke where
if you reminded him of it, he

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wouldn't stop laughing. We could boil
down to a single word and he'd burst.

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As we got there and poured out
on the concrete, a chill passed

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through me, more so than the
autumn air. The pillars outside reminded me

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of a rib cage, making the
whole place look like a giant concrete corpse.

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In the dark of a Halloween night. Pretty much anything can look terrifying.

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That's just where your mind wonders.
We made our way in through a

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loosely bordered glass door, stepping inside. All the light we had were our

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flip phones and the moon slipping in
through the skylight. I'd been in that

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mall a handful of times over the
years, but what I was seeing there

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and then was something different. Without
the people and the ads and the billboards

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and the stalls, it was just
a husk, something left behind. Still,

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we found a bunch of stuff.
There were still metal racks in one

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of the old clothing stores which we
could climb. There was a counter the

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old sandwich place where we could pretend
to take orders. There were windows to

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break, and these huge empty spaces
where our voices would carry all throughout the

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building. The only place that held
some sort of reverence to us was the

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toy store on the second floor that
had once been the center of our attention.

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We were just sixteen, and most
of us remembered a time when we

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would beg our parents for a trip
there. It had been the biggest toy

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store in our world, and there
was always something new to look at.

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But seeing it then and there,
it was just as dead as the rest

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of the place. Not even the
sign remained. As the others made their

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way inside, I split off to
take a walk, lighting up the hallway

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with my phone. They mocked me
on my way, saying, whoever splits

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off the group is always the first
to die in horror movies. Hilarious.

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I went past what remained of the
old stores, the gift shop, the

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flower boutique, the book store.
I could almost see them, but only

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in my mind. Now it was
all concrete and cheap sandstone tiling. The

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place wasn't even old enough to be
dusty, yet remaining in this sort of

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space between living and dead like a
man on life support. It'd only take

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the flip of the switch and this
whole place would come alive, ready to

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welcome people back. But of course
that wouldn't happen. Then at the end

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of the hall I came to a
full stop. It turns out we weren't

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the first people with the idea to
come here. There was a resting area

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in the far back, a sort
of alcove, benches set around an empty

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space where stalls were supposed to be, all centered around this massive red marble

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column. I called the others over. They had to see this. My

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voice easily carried all the way across
the mall, and the others came running.

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Someone had been here. They'd flipped
all the benches onto their backs and

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placed several pots and planters in a
circle around the column. Hell, they

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even planted something. I could see
little blue sprouts poking up. But the

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freakiest thing was the column itself.
They'd taken the old mall posters and plastered

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the thing with them. These posters
were just the picture of a smiling,

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middle aged woman dressed in a sort
of fifties attire, a generic yellow sun

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dress with little white flowers on it. She also had the most generic stockpholt

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of smile you could imagine. To
a right on every poster was a cartoonist

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speech bubble. They were just old
sayings bordering on cliches, like Mama used

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to make them the more the merrier, happily ever after. For the freaky

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thing was not the posters themselves,
but what had been done to them.

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Someone had burned out the eyes,
leaving them covered in scorch marks. With

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the red marble in the back.
My brain sort of short circuited, making

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me think I was looking into her
empty socket, seeing the gore behind the

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eyes. It was unsettling and probably
intentional. They also modified some of the

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crossing out certain words Mama used more
ever after it was unsettling. Some of

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us caught the halloween vibe of it, thinking it fit perfectly with what we

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were up to. Others could sense
it like me, But this wasn't just

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a fun thing someone did for fun. This was deranged. It must have

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taken hours to arrange this sort of
scene, and we couldn't imagine a good

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reason to do it. That's lady
Lockley, said Rod, pointing over the

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posters. I had a crush on
her. Looks like my babysitter. She's

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like fifty, I added, still
got a great rack. The others agreed

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it was funny, but I couldn't
bring myself to laugh. This felt like

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rot in the same way that corpse
decays. This was the way old buildings

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decayed. It made me feel filthy, like I was some kind of bacteria

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infecting this place and breaking it down, corrupting it, died, chesting it.

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I felt sorry for lady Lockley.
She deserved better and happily ever after,

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Once we got bored of wandering around, we made our way back to

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the entrance. On the other side
of the building. One of the guys

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squealed in delight he'd found a ball
pit. Looking at it, it was

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clear that this thing wasn't sanitary.
We could hear something moving in it,

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probably rats. Part of the ceiling
had collapsed, leaving a dead wire hanging

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like an open nerve, and the
whole place was covered in a thin layer

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of concrete dust. Someone's gotta go
in, they said. We ain't leaving

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until someone goes in, not me. I added, no way, and

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that settled it. I was the
first to decline. I had to be

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the first to go in, no
matter if I wanted it or not.

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The others grabbed me and pushed me
into the deep ended face first. Plastic

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balls rattled against my ears. I
was fully prepared to be drenched in rappee

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and bite, but nothing happened.
There was concrete dust covering my scalp and

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forehead, but apart from that,
I was fine. It tickled my nose

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a bit. The pit was deep
enough to reach about half way up my

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body, but I'd sunk into the
bottom. I could feel the rubber flooring

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against my cheek. The others were
lighting me up with their phones. The

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lights coming through the balls made a
sort of kaleidoscope of past our colors,

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stretching the shadows out into long,
distorted shapes. As I struggled to regain

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my balance, I fumbled the realm
with my hands, trying instinctively to grab

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something, but instead something grabbed me. It was only a silhouette, a

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face somewhere in the swirl of colors, the shape of her head, with

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two holes where the eyes were supposed
to be. It gasped excitedly. Even

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from a distance, I could taste
the ammonia on its breath. Its icy

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fingers interlocked with mine, wanting to
bring me closer. I recoiled, shaking

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my head. I think I let
out a scream, but I don't remember

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doing it. My pulls shot through
the roof as I forced myself back to

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my feet, scrambling to get back
to the others. They were laughing their

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asses off, thinking I was just
surprised. As my head breached the surface,

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they were standing in a half circle, shining the lights at me.

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Of course, there was nothing in
the ballpit. I wiped my dusty hair

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and prepared myself to drag one or
two of them down there with me,

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But something in the air changed.
Their faces went from gleeful joy to careful

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curiosity to worry. Turning back towards
the pit, I could see why.

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On the side of every ball in
the pit was an eye, lovingly hand

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painted with a sharp eye. The
others helped me up and tried to diffuse

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the tension with puns and jabs.
It didn't take long for the chill to

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leave our spines, but it took
me the longest. Looking down in my

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hand, I felt cold, like
something had really touched me, something just

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as real as the all and the
people who invaded it. We left shortly

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after, taking the car back to
town, blasting our music again. We

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filled the rest of the night with
more stolen wine, games, dares,

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and laughs. But something in me
had changed. I couldn't let go of

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that image of Lady Lockley and the
red marble in the back of her head.

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Through every chuckle and every smile,
that feeling held me back. Something

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had changed forever. That night,
As I slept on rod couch, I

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watched the moonlight cast a shadow on
the opposite wall. The cross of the

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window shaped the light into four perfect
squares. As I lay there, half

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drunken, half asleep, I imagined
them as little television screens, each showing

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whatever came to mind, old memories, dreams, hopes. But every made

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up show I imagined always ended the
same way, with the mental image of

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a middle aged nineteen fifties housewife,
her dead smile, a southern drawl,

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and the red infected cavity in a
skull her eyes ought to be. The

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next day, it all felt like
a bad dream. Some of the guys

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were hung over, and most of
us just made our way back home to

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sleep it off. I didn't want
to go home. My parents were so

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focused that my older brother the time
that they didn't care what I did.

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He was the one with the problems. I could get away with pretty much

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anything. Being gone for a day
was nothing compared to a heroin addiction.

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Still, I had to get back
home, much like expected. My parents

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weren't around. They left a note
to say there were some leftovers in the

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fridge and that I could call them
if I needed something, but that was

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it. I'd never once called them
on that number. Making my way up

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to my room, I stopped.
We have these two windows at the top

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of the staircase with two knobs in
the middle. For a moment, I

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imagine those two knobs as little eyes. I could imagine them blinking all throughout

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the day and the next this would
become a repeating pattern. Two coins in

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the count I could send a shiver
up my spine. The rings of a

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scissor grip would make me think of
those gaping eye sockets. Two soda cans

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with their pull taps standing at attention
brought me the same image. Every combination

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of two circles, spheres, or
rings, it all forced that image back

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into my head, that joyless smile
of Ladied Lockley and her icy fingers interlocking

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with mine, bringing me closer.
It came to a point where people started

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to notice. For example, when
I had dinner with my parents, they

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had a beer each. The bottles
were placed next to one another, and

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the top of the bottles formed those
two holes. It took me a while

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to notice, but when I did, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

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It physically made me itch and I
had this intense need to separate them once

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I did, the two of them
just looked me, not a word spoken.

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I tried to ignore it. I
reorganized my space to make sure there

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was nothing around to remind me.
But every now and then there'd be something.

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It could be something as little as
two people passing on the street and

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their heads reminding me of floating eyeballs. But it got worse once, as

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I stepped out of the shower,
I spotted myself in the mirror. Even

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seeing my own eyes looking back at
me sent me into this spiraling anxiety.

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I could imagine myself eyreless, with
that infected red cavity in the back of

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my skull. I could see it
to the point where I convinced myself that

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it was true that I had no
eyes to begin with. My eyes would

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close and I couldn't bring myself to
open them. I would try to bry

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them open with my fingers, kneeling
on the cold bathroom tiles, but it

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wouldn't work. Nothing would come on. I'd cry, come on, but

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it just wouldn't work. It was
so infuriating that it tickled the back of

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my brain into a joyless smile.
No one else was suffering from this.

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I had no one to talk to, and no one would understand why I

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was feeling that way. It was
impossible to describe, and to a group

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of guys who mostly talked about women
and games, there wouldn't be much interest

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in mental health. So I decided
to do something about it myself. Much

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like exposure therapy, I had to
go back. I was going to tear

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down every poster, set fire to
the damn ball pit, and proved to

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myself that there was nothing to fear. I was going to destroy it,

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Lady Lockley. I was going to
break those icy fingers and stare into an

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eyeless face, unflinching. I had
this crappy moped that I'd saved up for

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one summer. Enough time had passed
for the first Minnesota snow to fall,

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so I had to be careful not
to slip and slide. I loaded up

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a backpack with all kinds of destructive
tools. I didn't even bother to read

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the note left on the kitchen counter. This time, no one else was

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going to fix me, so I
had to do it myself. I kept

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the wheel steady, feeling the snow
slush stained my cheap jeans, cold water

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soaking into my second hand shoes.
By the time I got there, I

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was shivering. A cold wind had
picked up from the overcast, and there

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was no moonlight to guide me this
time. Still I'd prepared. I had

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a great flashlight with plenty of spare
batteries packed away. My dad had this

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battery box in the garage, full
of whatever kind he might possibly need.

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I brought the whole thing. I
made my way inside through the loosely bordered

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updoors. The place felt warmer,
but maybe it was just me being angry.

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I had this frustration pent up in
me, forcing me forward. I

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went past all the hollow shops,
the broken benches, the empty planters,

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and the dry fountain. I climbed
up the dead escalator and followed the familiar

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shops towards the resting area. I
could see the red marble column from Afar

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sticking out like a sore nerve,
the posters plastered to it like a band

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aid to an open wound. My
footsteps echoed as I made my way closer,

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clutching the flashlight harder. There were
little sprouts in the pots and plans

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now, some with a little blue
bud, others had barely poked through the

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dirt. One had grown quite tall. There were more posters now. Some

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had been stuck to the walls,
others lay strewn about on the floor.

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Someone had been there recently. I
could tell a few chairs from one of

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00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:27,039
the downstairs restaurants had been dragged up
there and smashed, forming a kind of

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plastic half circle across the floor.
It didn't matter to me, this was

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all going to burn either way.
I put down my backpack and brought out

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a bottle of gasoline. My dad
always kept a spare can in the garage,

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but I didn't want to bring the
whole thing, so I just filled

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00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:53,079
up three plastic bottles instead. I
unscrewed the top and just started chocking it

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at the column, tainting the posters. They were made with some kind of

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plastic that did react well to gasoline, making part of the ink melt a

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little, making Lady Lockley smile into
a frown and then a garbled mess.

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I went all around the column using
two of my three bottles. It was

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00:20:17,359 --> 00:20:21,440
messy, and I got a whole
lot of it on my clothes. I'd

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00:20:21,440 --> 00:20:25,319
have to wash it when I get
back. My parents didn't ask a lot

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00:20:25,319 --> 00:20:29,799
of questions, but if I were
to come back home drenched in gasoline,

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00:20:30,559 --> 00:20:36,119
they might have something to say.
As I finished, I put down my

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00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:40,559
bag and got a hold of a
lighter, one of those with a long

220
00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:45,599
neck for lighting fancy candles. I
tried to wipe the gasoline off my hands,

221
00:20:45,160 --> 00:20:49,279
but doubt was getting to me.
I didn't want to set myself on

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fire. Then again, this place
had to die. For a brief moment,

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I got stuck staring at the posters. Even with the ink melting off,

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the holes remained dozens of empty eye
sockets staring at me, some with

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a barely human face attached. Some
were relatively unscathed, still carrying the various

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00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:23,440
slogans and sayings of Lady Lockley.
There was even a fully intact happily ever

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00:21:23,559 --> 00:21:30,319
after poster, smiling back at me. I put away my flashlight, letting

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00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:34,799
the darkness of the place overwhelm me. The overcast was doing me no favors.

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00:21:37,079 --> 00:21:44,240
I held the lighter up inched closer
and clicked it a single light in

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00:21:44,319 --> 00:21:52,039
the dark, but something was wrong. A chill worked its way across my

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00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:57,759
right cheek, making me squint.
Then a breath of air, the light

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00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:04,759
disappeared, and my nostrils were assaulted
by the sudden smell of ammonia, and

233
00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:15,079
right behind me, grazing my cheek
was something cold, something I was gently

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00:22:15,079 --> 00:22:21,400
placing his fingers on my left shoulder, inching up towards my neck. I

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bent down, snatched up my flashlight
and turned around. The cone of light

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00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:33,000
swayed back and forth, finding nothing. As I backed away, my feet

237
00:22:33,079 --> 00:22:37,240
were stepping on their own, seemingly
out of my control. My lungs felt

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00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:41,559
stiff, like I couldn't push any
air into them. There were puffs of

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00:22:41,599 --> 00:22:49,880
smoke with every little, forced panting
breath. I wasn't alone. I didn't

240
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:55,400
even think about how far I backed
up until my back hid the red marble

241
00:22:55,480 --> 00:23:02,599
pillar. I just stood there,
frozen. I could feel the eyeless holes

242
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:10,319
turning towards me, waiting for me
to turn around. Something was running down

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00:23:10,319 --> 00:23:15,359
my arm. It made its way
to my fingers. I looked down only

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00:23:15,440 --> 00:23:22,160
to see fresh blood droplets formed to
the edge of my fingertips, pulling up

245
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:26,920
and dropping to the floor. The
back of my head felt wet, same

246
00:23:26,000 --> 00:23:32,839
with the back of my pants and
jacket. I carefully stepped away and turned

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00:23:32,839 --> 00:23:41,160
to face the pillar. Blood.
It wasn't just red marble. It was

248
00:23:41,319 --> 00:23:47,319
bleeding. The gasolene had made the
posters slip off, falling to the floor

249
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:52,599
one by one, leaving the pillar
raw and unprotected. Little puls of blood

250
00:23:52,680 --> 00:23:57,920
ran across the floor. It was
so quiet, just little tips and taps

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00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:03,440
of drops hitting the floor, mixing
with the echoes and my breathing. I

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00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:07,799
could hear the battery in the flashlight
rattling as my hand shook from the cold,

253
00:24:10,319 --> 00:24:18,519
and in the distance, a hiss
my ears homed in on the sound

254
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:27,440
I whisper, coming from one of
the nearby stores, hot them back.

255
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:36,039
I just stood there, trying to
comprehend what I was hearing, what it

256
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:41,559
was demanding. Then from another store, from across the mall, a louder

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00:24:41,599 --> 00:24:48,279
sound put it all back, and
from a third store, an old fast

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00:24:48,279 --> 00:24:56,400
food kitchen, hout me back.
Looking down at the pools of gasoline and

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00:24:56,440 --> 00:25:02,960
blood mixing with the misshaped plastic posters, I shook my head. I didn't

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00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:07,559
want this any more. All the
anger had turned to fear, and all

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00:25:07,599 --> 00:25:12,440
I wanted was to grab my stuff
and leave. I'm I'm going, I

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00:25:12,519 --> 00:25:19,240
said, I won't come back.
There was no response, Just like back

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00:25:19,279 --> 00:25:25,200
home, there was no one to
listen to me. Maybe I was speaking

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to an empty room, making up
stories in my head. I won't come

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back, I repeated, this is
it. Screw them all, and whatever

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00:25:33,079 --> 00:25:40,359
game you're playing, I won't.
I suddenly choked on my breath. I

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00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:45,200
could see them in the distance,
human shape stepping out of the storefronts,

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all with the same cheerful yellow dress, the same hair, the same smile.

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Then something grabbed me. It wasn't
like the first time, where icy

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fingers daintly slipped into my hand,
but something violent, angry nails digging into

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00:26:07,039 --> 00:26:11,039
my scalp, grabbing a handful of
my hair, forcing me forward with a

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00:26:11,079 --> 00:26:17,440
dead man's cramped grip. I went
from standing to kneeling, having my face

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00:26:17,559 --> 00:26:22,559
pressed onto the floor. In a
heartbeat. There were no more than two

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hands, maybe four five. Something
heavy pushed against my spine. No,

275
00:26:33,519 --> 00:26:40,359
it wasn't just one word. It
was a choir, a dozen identical voices

276
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:45,880
speaking as one from across the mall. Two cold fingers touched my eye lids,

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forcing me to blink. I forced
my eyes shut, trying to squint

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00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:56,680
them away. I could barely breathe. I tried to move my head away,

279
00:26:56,039 --> 00:27:02,039
shaking the fingers off, but I
couldn't no matter how far I forced

280
00:27:02,039 --> 00:27:08,119
myself back. They pushed on until
the pain started dismounting pressure, causing bright,

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00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:15,720
painful spots that danced across the inside
of my head. It was excruciating.

282
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,599
I was panicking, trying to turn, but I couldn't. There was

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00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:26,319
this raw, primal emotion bobbling inside
me, forcing me to scream. I

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00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:32,799
begged and pleaded, but it was
too late. I had wronged them and

285
00:27:32,839 --> 00:27:37,480
they were relentless. Had he gone
any further, i'd be blind to day,

286
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:45,720
may be dead. But it didn't. I heard footsteps approaching, and

287
00:27:45,799 --> 00:27:52,480
feather fingers slowly let up. Pressure
released from my spine, and the hands

288
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:57,440
holding me down loosened their grip.
I slowly opened my eyes, blinking away

289
00:27:57,480 --> 00:28:04,119
the spots of pain, only to
see a man. He had a flashlight

290
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:10,119
of his own, casting deep shadows
on his wrinkled face. He must have

291
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:14,359
been in his early sixties and was
dressed in some kind of maintenance get up

292
00:28:15,279 --> 00:28:19,400
A janitor perhaps. He walked up
to me as the last hand let go

293
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:25,039
and offered to help me up.
I accepted it and got back at my

294
00:28:25,079 --> 00:28:30,480
feet. I didn't dare turn around. I could hear them, feel them,

295
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:38,559
smell the ammonia. Don't do anything
stupid, he whispered, give them

296
00:28:38,599 --> 00:28:45,079
a moment. We just stood there. I looked down, try my best

297
00:28:45,119 --> 00:28:49,720
not to bring any attention to myself. At the edge of my vision,

298
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:56,839
I could see flowery yellow dresses shuffle
past me, back into the empty store

299
00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:03,000
fronts, back into the mall.
He patted me on the shoulder, and

300
00:29:03,039 --> 00:29:08,039
I looked up. The last silhouette
slipped into an old outlet space, leaving

301
00:29:08,079 --> 00:29:12,799
the two of us alone. He
got some blood on his hands from touching

302
00:29:12,799 --> 00:29:18,640
my shoulder and wiped it off on
his legs. He stepped back to pick

303
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:25,480
up something he'd brought, a stack
of posters and a tall box. Walking

304
00:29:25,599 --> 00:29:30,319
up to me, he had this
almost apologetic look on his face. So

305
00:29:32,279 --> 00:29:37,920
she picked you too, ah,
he sighed, That makes what four of

306
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:42,680
us. Using a bucket and a
still working hose in the back, we

307
00:29:42,759 --> 00:29:48,200
got enough water and soaked to clean
the pillar a bit. It had stopped

308
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:55,440
bleeding coagulated in a way. We
ended up putting up new posters, still

309
00:29:55,640 --> 00:30:00,119
with the eyes burned out. She
likes him this way, he said.

310
00:30:00,759 --> 00:30:06,839
The kids always did this to the
posters long before the place closed. She

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00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:12,359
thinks they're supposed to look like this. We spent some time collecting scrap and

312
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:18,279
piling it into a circle around the
pillar that and drawing eyes on various white

313
00:30:18,279 --> 00:30:25,359
surfaces. She doesn't have any eyes
of her own, so she needs us

314
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:30,559
to give us some. We spent
hours just wandering around, touching up the

315
00:30:30,599 --> 00:30:37,839
place, watering the plants, cleaning
up the gasoline. The lady Lockley seemed

316
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:42,720
calmer. I could see them shuffling
about in the back of the stores,

317
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:48,559
catching a reflection off their perfect teeth
every now and then. Still, I

318
00:30:48,599 --> 00:30:52,640
couldn't shake the feeling that any threat
to this place would have me swarmed.

319
00:30:55,319 --> 00:31:00,359
Do you have to do this?
I asked, like often, yeah,

320
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:07,839
he nodded. What happens if you
don't? I think you know what happens.

321
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,240
At the end of the night,
as I left them all behind,

322
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:18,720
they saw a final swaying flowery dress
in the cracks of the wooden boards.

323
00:31:19,279 --> 00:31:27,160
Even now I was being watched,
judged, weighed, But for the moment

324
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:36,599
I was safe. At first,
I went back like once a week.

325
00:31:37,839 --> 00:31:41,720
Once I brought ping pong balls and
painted eyes on them. They seem to

326
00:31:41,839 --> 00:31:48,200
like that. Another time I filled
up the water fountain. The janitor would

327
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:55,400
return at times too, bringing freshly
printed posters and scrubbing the floor. No

328
00:31:55,519 --> 00:32:00,240
wonder it wasn't dusty. I tried
to stop going back there, but it

329
00:32:00,279 --> 00:32:07,599
would just build this pressure in me. I'd feel her ere. I would

330
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:13,000
start to focus on circles and spheres, as if my body was reminding me

331
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:17,039
that I was being watched. I'd
sometimes feel something cold at the edge of

332
00:32:17,039 --> 00:32:22,599
my vision, something I see brushing
against my ear. It would put me

333
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:29,240
on edge, as if expecting something
to grab me at any moment, for

334
00:32:29,319 --> 00:32:32,400
that damn smile to come out of
the dark and become the last thing I

335
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:40,000
ever see. Places like this don't
get torn down. The land is dirt

336
00:32:40,079 --> 00:32:45,400
cheap, and the effort to break
and ship off all that concrete just isn't

337
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:51,359
worth it. It remains there to
this day. I would go back every

338
00:32:51,359 --> 00:32:54,720
now and then to fix the place
up, to make sure she was happy

339
00:32:54,839 --> 00:33:00,640
enough to leave me alone. Weeks
would turn to months, and over time

340
00:33:01,039 --> 00:33:05,920
they trusted me enough to come back
only once every six months or so.

341
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,839
I'd make a day out of it. The plants would blossom into these six

342
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:15,359
feet tall, radiant blue sunflowers,
and a creeping vine would slither up the

343
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:22,119
side of the marble pillar. She
seemed to like the vines. Sometimes there

344
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:28,400
are new people. I don't really
know their names, but we can kind

345
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:34,119
of recognize each other at a glance, some young, some old. We've

346
00:33:34,119 --> 00:33:37,599
tried to board the place up to
keep people out, but every now and

347
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:44,160
then some smart ass gets through.
I don't think they all make it out.

348
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,240
Some of the things I've seen over
the years tell a gruesome story of

349
00:33:49,319 --> 00:33:54,720
their own. I'm in my mid
thirties now. I've done this for half

350
00:33:54,799 --> 00:34:00,680
my life as a sort of stewardship, a part of my life that I

351
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:06,799
can't share with anyone. I've gotten
to Noah wants and needs. There is

352
00:34:06,839 --> 00:34:14,320
a personality there and intelligence. Sometimes
they can get these strange whims. I

353
00:34:14,360 --> 00:34:16,920
once saw one of them trying to
break through the loose boards, only to

354
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:22,519
be dragged away by the others.
I've seen them gently crest the leaves of

355
00:34:22,599 --> 00:34:27,440
the sunflowers. I've seen them dance
on tables, walk hand in hand down

356
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:35,800
the empty walkways, and once just
staring up at the moon. I think

357
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:42,679
she's like an immune system, like
something remaining to stop the decay. This

358
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:47,559
building has been closed for decades,
but from looking at it you couldn't tell.

359
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:53,199
Most buildings that have been empty for
that long just look way down and

360
00:34:53,280 --> 00:35:00,199
worn, but not the dead eye
more. It's still spry and waiting,

361
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:06,480
as if expecting people to come back, and every now and then they do.

362
00:35:07,599 --> 00:35:13,519
But it's a service I perform under
threat of death, and to this

363
00:35:13,679 --> 00:35:20,719
day it terrifies me. While I'm
not as bothered by circles or rings,

364
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:25,760
I still have this feeling that I
should be like I shouldn't be normalizing this.

365
00:35:28,000 --> 00:35:32,840
I shouldn't have to compromise. There
something unnatural and otherworldly, But I

366
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:40,239
just don't know what the alternative is. I have this feeling that sooner or

367
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:47,960
later she'll turn to me dissatisfied,
and that day she'll interlock her fingers with

368
00:35:49,079 --> 00:35:57,159
mine and drag me to a dark
place I can't come back from ever after