It all started when I was sixteen. It was Halloween and my friends and
I had all had a bit too much fun pushing each other to do something
dumber and dumber. We'd snatched the bottle of red from my parents' dash and
passed it around when one of us came up with the idea to check out
the old mall by the freeway. The place had been closed a few years
prior, and none of us had been there more than a couple of times
as kids, but we figured it could make for a good story. The
five of us crammed into a car and made our way out there, blasting
music as we went along. God Smack po d P M five K.
It was a different time. Rod was up in the front seat trying to
smoke something, but the rest of us kept interrupting him. He had this
stupid hang up and a joke where if you reminded him of it, he
wouldn't stop laughing. We could boil down to a single word and he'd burst.
As we got there and poured out on the concrete, a chill passed
through me, more so than the autumn air. The pillars outside reminded me
of a rib cage, making the whole place look like a giant concrete corpse.
In the dark of a Halloween night. Pretty much anything can look terrifying.
That's just where your mind wonders. We made our way in through a
loosely bordered glass door, stepping inside. All the light we had were our
flip phones and the moon slipping in through the skylight. I'd been in that
mall a handful of times over the years, but what I was seeing there
and then was something different. Without the people and the ads and the billboards
and the stalls, it was just a husk, something left behind. Still,
we found a bunch of stuff. There were still metal racks in one
of the old clothing stores which we could climb. There was a counter the
old sandwich place where we could pretend to take orders. There were windows to
break, and these huge empty spaces where our voices would carry all throughout the
building. The only place that held some sort of reverence to us was the
toy store on the second floor that had once been the center of our attention.
We were just sixteen, and most of us remembered a time when we
would beg our parents for a trip there. It had been the biggest toy
store in our world, and there was always something new to look at.
But seeing it then and there, it was just as dead as the rest
of the place. Not even the sign remained. As the others made their
way inside, I split off to take a walk, lighting up the hallway
with my phone. They mocked me on my way, saying, whoever splits
off the group is always the first to die in horror movies. Hilarious.
I went past what remained of the old stores, the gift shop, the
flower boutique, the book store. I could almost see them, but only
in my mind. Now it was all concrete and cheap sandstone tiling. The
place wasn't even old enough to be dusty, yet remaining in this sort of
space between living and dead like a man on life support. It'd only take
the flip of the switch and this whole place would come alive, ready to
welcome people back. But of course that wouldn't happen. Then at the end
of the hall I came to a full stop. It turns out we weren't
the first people with the idea to come here. There was a resting area
in the far back, a sort of alcove, benches set around an empty
space where stalls were supposed to be, all centered around this massive red marble
column. I called the others over. They had to see this. My
voice easily carried all the way across the mall, and the others came running.
Someone had been here. They'd flipped all the benches onto their backs and
placed several pots and planters in a circle around the column. Hell, they
even planted something. I could see little blue sprouts poking up. But the
freakiest thing was the column itself. They'd taken the old mall posters and plastered
the thing with them. These posters were just the picture of a smiling,
middle aged woman dressed in a sort of fifties attire, a generic yellow sun
dress with little white flowers on it. She also had the most generic stockpholt
of smile you could imagine. To a right on every poster was a cartoonist
speech bubble. They were just old sayings bordering on cliches, like Mama used
to make them the more the merrier, happily ever after. For the freaky
thing was not the posters themselves, but what had been done to them.
Someone had burned out the eyes, leaving them covered in scorch marks. With
the red marble in the back. My brain sort of short circuited, making
me think I was looking into her empty socket, seeing the gore behind the
eyes. It was unsettling and probably intentional. They also modified some of the
crossing out certain words Mama used more ever after it was unsettling. Some of
us caught the halloween vibe of it, thinking it fit perfectly with what we
were up to. Others could sense it like me, But this wasn't just
a fun thing someone did for fun. This was deranged. It must have
taken hours to arrange this sort of scene, and we couldn't imagine a good
reason to do it. That's lady Lockley, said Rod, pointing over the
posters. I had a crush on her. Looks like my babysitter. She's
like fifty, I added, still got a great rack. The others agreed
it was funny, but I couldn't bring myself to laugh. This felt like
rot in the same way that corpse decays. This was the way old buildings
decayed. It made me feel filthy, like I was some kind of bacteria
infecting this place and breaking it down, corrupting it, died, chesting it.
I felt sorry for lady Lockley. She deserved better and happily ever after,
Once we got bored of wandering around, we made our way back to
the entrance. On the other side of the building. One of the guys
squealed in delight he'd found a ball pit. Looking at it, it was
clear that this thing wasn't sanitary. We could hear something moving in it,
probably rats. Part of the ceiling had collapsed, leaving a dead wire hanging
like an open nerve, and the whole place was covered in a thin layer
of concrete dust. Someone's gotta go in, they said. We ain't leaving
until someone goes in, not me. I added, no way, and
that settled it. I was the first to decline. I had to be
the first to go in, no matter if I wanted it or not.
The others grabbed me and pushed me into the deep ended face first. Plastic
balls rattled against my ears. I was fully prepared to be drenched in rappee
and bite, but nothing happened. There was concrete dust covering my scalp and
forehead, but apart from that, I was fine. It tickled my nose
a bit. The pit was deep enough to reach about half way up my
body, but I'd sunk into the bottom. I could feel the rubber flooring
against my cheek. The others were lighting me up with their phones. The
lights coming through the balls made a sort of kaleidoscope of past our colors,
stretching the shadows out into long, distorted shapes. As I struggled to regain
my balance, I fumbled the realm with my hands, trying instinctively to grab
something, but instead something grabbed me. It was only a silhouette, a
face somewhere in the swirl of colors, the shape of her head, with
two holes where the eyes were supposed to be. It gasped excitedly. Even
from a distance, I could taste the ammonia on its breath. Its icy
fingers interlocked with mine, wanting to bring me closer. I recoiled, shaking
my head. I think I let out a scream, but I don't remember
doing it. My pulls shot through the roof as I forced myself back to
my feet, scrambling to get back to the others. They were laughing their
asses off, thinking I was just surprised. As my head breached the surface,
they were standing in a half circle, shining the lights at me.
Of course, there was nothing in the ballpit. I wiped my dusty hair
and prepared myself to drag one or two of them down there with me,
But something in the air changed. Their faces went from gleeful joy to careful
curiosity to worry. Turning back towards the pit, I could see why.
On the side of every ball in the pit was an eye, lovingly hand
painted with a sharp eye. The others helped me up and tried to diffuse
the tension with puns and jabs. It didn't take long for the chill to
leave our spines, but it took me the longest. Looking down in my
hand, I felt cold, like something had really touched me, something just
as real as the all and the people who invaded it. We left shortly
after, taking the car back to town, blasting our music again. We
filled the rest of the night with more stolen wine, games, dares,
and laughs. But something in me had changed. I couldn't let go of
that image of Lady Lockley and the red marble in the back of her head.
Through every chuckle and every smile, that feeling held me back. Something
had changed forever. That night, As I slept on rod couch, I
watched the moonlight cast a shadow on the opposite wall. The cross of the
window shaped the light into four perfect squares. As I lay there, half
drunken, half asleep, I imagined them as little television screens, each showing
whatever came to mind, old memories, dreams, hopes. But every made
up show I imagined always ended the same way, with the mental image of
a middle aged nineteen fifties housewife, her dead smile, a southern drawl,
and the red infected cavity in a skull her eyes ought to be. The
next day, it all felt like a bad dream. Some of the guys
were hung over, and most of us just made our way back home to
sleep it off. I didn't want to go home. My parents were so
focused that my older brother the time that they didn't care what I did.
He was the one with the problems. I could get away with pretty much
anything. Being gone for a day was nothing compared to a heroin addiction.
Still, I had to get back home, much like expected. My parents
weren't around. They left a note to say there were some leftovers in the
fridge and that I could call them if I needed something, but that was
it. I'd never once called them on that number. Making my way up
to my room, I stopped. We have these two windows at the top
of the staircase with two knobs in the middle. For a moment, I
imagine those two knobs as little eyes. I could imagine them blinking all throughout
the day and the next this would become a repeating pattern. Two coins in
the count I could send a shiver up my spine. The rings of a
scissor grip would make me think of those gaping eye sockets. Two soda cans
with their pull taps standing at attention brought me the same image. Every combination
of two circles, spheres, or rings, it all forced that image back
into my head, that joyless smile of Ladied Lockley and her icy fingers interlocking
with mine, bringing me closer. It came to a point where people started
to notice. For example, when I had dinner with my parents, they
had a beer each. The bottles were placed next to one another, and
the top of the bottles formed those two holes. It took me a while
to notice, but when I did, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
It physically made me itch and I had this intense need to separate them once
I did, the two of them just looked me, not a word spoken.
I tried to ignore it. I reorganized my space to make sure there
was nothing around to remind me. But every now and then there'd be something.
It could be something as little as two people passing on the street and
their heads reminding me of floating eyeballs. But it got worse once, as
I stepped out of the shower, I spotted myself in the mirror. Even
seeing my own eyes looking back at me sent me into this spiraling anxiety.
I could imagine myself eyreless, with that infected red cavity in the back of
my skull. I could see it to the point where I convinced myself that
it was true that I had no eyes to begin with. My eyes would
close and I couldn't bring myself to open them. I would try to bry
them open with my fingers, kneeling on the cold bathroom tiles, but it
wouldn't work. Nothing would come on. I'd cry, come on, but
it just wouldn't work. It was so infuriating that it tickled the back of
my brain into a joyless smile. No one else was suffering from this.
I had no one to talk to, and no one would understand why I
was feeling that way. It was impossible to describe, and to a group
of guys who mostly talked about women and games, there wouldn't be much interest
in mental health. So I decided to do something about it myself. Much
like exposure therapy, I had to go back. I was going to tear
down every poster, set fire to the damn ball pit, and proved to
myself that there was nothing to fear. I was going to destroy it,
Lady Lockley. I was going to break those icy fingers and stare into an
eyeless face, unflinching. I had this crappy moped that I'd saved up for
one summer. Enough time had passed for the first Minnesota snow to fall,
so I had to be careful not to slip and slide. I loaded up
a backpack with all kinds of destructive tools. I didn't even bother to read
the note left on the kitchen counter. This time, no one else was
going to fix me, so I had to do it myself. I kept
the wheel steady, feeling the snow slush stained my cheap jeans, cold water
soaking into my second hand shoes. By the time I got there, I
was shivering. A cold wind had picked up from the overcast, and there
was no moonlight to guide me this time. Still I'd prepared. I had
a great flashlight with plenty of spare batteries packed away. My dad had this
battery box in the garage, full of whatever kind he might possibly need.
I brought the whole thing. I made my way inside through the loosely bordered
updoors. The place felt warmer, but maybe it was just me being angry.
I had this frustration pent up in me, forcing me forward. I
went past all the hollow shops, the broken benches, the empty planters,
and the dry fountain. I climbed up the dead escalator and followed the familiar
shops towards the resting area. I could see the red marble column from Afar
sticking out like a sore nerve, the posters plastered to it like a band
aid to an open wound. My footsteps echoed as I made my way closer,
clutching the flashlight harder. There were little sprouts in the pots and plans
now, some with a little blue bud, others had barely poked through the
dirt. One had grown quite tall. There were more posters now. Some
had been stuck to the walls, others lay strewn about on the floor.
Someone had been there recently. I could tell a few chairs from one of
the downstairs restaurants had been dragged up there and smashed, forming a kind of
plastic half circle across the floor. It didn't matter to me, this was
all going to burn either way. I put down my backpack and brought out
a bottle of gasoline. My dad always kept a spare can in the garage,
but I didn't want to bring the whole thing, so I just filled
up three plastic bottles instead. I unscrewed the top and just started chocking it
at the column, tainting the posters. They were made with some kind of
plastic that did react well to gasoline, making part of the ink melt a
little, making Lady Lockley smile into a frown and then a garbled mess.
I went all around the column using two of my three bottles. It was
messy, and I got a whole lot of it on my clothes. I'd
have to wash it when I get back. My parents didn't ask a lot
of questions, but if I were to come back home drenched in gasoline,
they might have something to say. As I finished, I put down my
bag and got a hold of a lighter, one of those with a long
neck for lighting fancy candles. I tried to wipe the gasoline off my hands,
but doubt was getting to me. I didn't want to set myself on
fire. Then again, this place had to die. For a brief moment,
I got stuck staring at the posters. Even with the ink melting off,
the holes remained dozens of empty eye sockets staring at me, some with
a barely human face attached. Some were relatively unscathed, still carrying the various
slogans and sayings of Lady Lockley. There was even a fully intact happily ever
after poster, smiling back at me. I put away my flashlight, letting
the darkness of the place overwhelm me. The overcast was doing me no favors.
I held the lighter up inched closer and clicked it a single light in
the dark, but something was wrong. A chill worked its way across my
right cheek, making me squint. Then a breath of air, the light
disappeared, and my nostrils were assaulted by the sudden smell of ammonia, and
right behind me, grazing my cheek was something cold, something I was gently
placing his fingers on my left shoulder, inching up towards my neck. I
bent down, snatched up my flashlight and turned around. The cone of light
swayed back and forth, finding nothing. As I backed away, my feet
were stepping on their own, seemingly out of my control. My lungs felt
stiff, like I couldn't push any air into them. There were puffs of
smoke with every little, forced panting breath. I wasn't alone. I didn't
even think about how far I backed up until my back hid the red marble
pillar. I just stood there, frozen. I could feel the eyeless holes
turning towards me, waiting for me to turn around. Something was running down
my arm. It made its way to my fingers. I looked down only
to see fresh blood droplets formed to the edge of my fingertips, pulling up
and dropping to the floor. The back of my head felt wet, same
with the back of my pants and jacket. I carefully stepped away and turned
to face the pillar. Blood. It wasn't just red marble. It was
bleeding. The gasolene had made the posters slip off, falling to the floor
one by one, leaving the pillar raw and unprotected. Little puls of blood
ran across the floor. It was so quiet, just little tips and taps
of drops hitting the floor, mixing with the echoes and my breathing. I
could hear the battery in the flashlight rattling as my hand shook from the cold,
and in the distance, a hiss my ears homed in on the sound
I whisper, coming from one of the nearby stores, hot them back.
I just stood there, trying to comprehend what I was hearing, what it
was demanding. Then from another store, from across the mall, a louder
sound put it all back, and from a third store, an old fast
food kitchen, hout me back. Looking down at the pools of gasoline and
blood mixing with the misshaped plastic posters, I shook my head. I didn't
want this any more. All the anger had turned to fear, and all
I wanted was to grab my stuff and leave. I'm I'm going, I
said, I won't come back. There was no response, Just like back
home, there was no one to listen to me. Maybe I was speaking
to an empty room, making up stories in my head. I won't come
back, I repeated, this is it. Screw them all, and whatever
game you're playing, I won't. I suddenly choked on my breath. I
could see them in the distance, human shape stepping out of the storefronts,
all with the same cheerful yellow dress, the same hair, the same smile.
Then something grabbed me. It wasn't like the first time, where icy
fingers daintly slipped into my hand, but something violent, angry nails digging into
my scalp, grabbing a handful of my hair, forcing me forward with a
dead man's cramped grip. I went from standing to kneeling, having my face
pressed onto the floor. In a heartbeat. There were no more than two
hands, maybe four five. Something heavy pushed against my spine. No,
it wasn't just one word. It was a choir, a dozen identical voices
speaking as one from across the mall. Two cold fingers touched my eye lids,
forcing me to blink. I forced my eyes shut, trying to squint
them away. I could barely breathe. I tried to move my head away,
shaking the fingers off, but I couldn't no matter how far I forced
myself back. They pushed on until the pain started dismounting pressure, causing bright,
painful spots that danced across the inside of my head. It was excruciating.
I was panicking, trying to turn, but I couldn't. There was
this raw, primal emotion bobbling inside me, forcing me to scream. I
begged and pleaded, but it was too late. I had wronged them and
they were relentless. Had he gone any further, i'd be blind to day,
may be dead. But it didn't. I heard footsteps approaching, and
feather fingers slowly let up. Pressure released from my spine, and the hands
holding me down loosened their grip. I slowly opened my eyes, blinking away
the spots of pain, only to see a man. He had a flashlight
of his own, casting deep shadows on his wrinkled face. He must have
been in his early sixties and was dressed in some kind of maintenance get up
A janitor perhaps. He walked up to me as the last hand let go
and offered to help me up. I accepted it and got back at my
feet. I didn't dare turn around. I could hear them, feel them,
smell the ammonia. Don't do anything stupid, he whispered, give them
a moment. We just stood there. I looked down, try my best
not to bring any attention to myself. At the edge of my vision,
I could see flowery yellow dresses shuffle past me, back into the empty store
fronts, back into the mall. He patted me on the shoulder, and
I looked up. The last silhouette slipped into an old outlet space, leaving
the two of us alone. He got some blood on his hands from touching
my shoulder and wiped it off on his legs. He stepped back to pick
up something he'd brought, a stack of posters and a tall box. Walking
up to me, he had this almost apologetic look on his face. So
she picked you too, ah, he sighed, That makes what four of
us. Using a bucket and a still working hose in the back, we
got enough water and soaked to clean the pillar a bit. It had stopped
bleeding coagulated in a way. We ended up putting up new posters, still
with the eyes burned out. She likes him this way, he said.
The kids always did this to the posters long before the place closed. She
thinks they're supposed to look like this. We spent some time collecting scrap and
piling it into a circle around the pillar that and drawing eyes on various white
surfaces. She doesn't have any eyes of her own, so she needs us
to give us some. We spent hours just wandering around, touching up the
place, watering the plants, cleaning up the gasoline. The lady Lockley seemed
calmer. I could see them shuffling about in the back of the stores,
catching a reflection off their perfect teeth every now and then. Still, I
couldn't shake the feeling that any threat to this place would have me swarmed.
Do you have to do this? I asked, like often, yeah,
he nodded. What happens if you don't? I think you know what happens.
At the end of the night, as I left them all behind,
they saw a final swaying flowery dress in the cracks of the wooden boards.
Even now I was being watched, judged, weighed, But for the moment
I was safe. At first, I went back like once a week.
Once I brought ping pong balls and painted eyes on them. They seem to
like that. Another time I filled up the water fountain. The janitor would
return at times too, bringing freshly printed posters and scrubbing the floor. No
wonder it wasn't dusty. I tried to stop going back there, but it
would just build this pressure in me. I'd feel her ere. I would
start to focus on circles and spheres, as if my body was reminding me
that I was being watched. I'd sometimes feel something cold at the edge of
my vision, something I see brushing against my ear. It would put me
on edge, as if expecting something to grab me at any moment, for
that damn smile to come out of the dark and become the last thing I
ever see. Places like this don't get torn down. The land is dirt
cheap, and the effort to break and ship off all that concrete just isn't
worth it. It remains there to this day. I would go back every
now and then to fix the place up, to make sure she was happy
enough to leave me alone. Weeks would turn to months, and over time
they trusted me enough to come back only once every six months or so.
I'd make a day out of it. The plants would blossom into these six
feet tall, radiant blue sunflowers, and a creeping vine would slither up the
side of the marble pillar. She seemed to like the vines. Sometimes there
are new people. I don't really know their names, but we can kind
of recognize each other at a glance, some young, some old. We've
tried to board the place up to keep people out, but every now and
then some smart ass gets through. I don't think they all make it out.
Some of the things I've seen over the years tell a gruesome story of
their own. I'm in my mid thirties now. I've done this for half
my life as a sort of stewardship, a part of my life that I
can't share with anyone. I've gotten to Noah wants and needs. There is
a personality there and intelligence. Sometimes they can get these strange whims. I
once saw one of them trying to break through the loose boards, only to
be dragged away by the others. I've seen them gently crest the leaves of
the sunflowers. I've seen them dance on tables, walk hand in hand down
the empty walkways, and once just staring up at the moon. I think
she's like an immune system, like something remaining to stop the decay. This
building has been closed for decades, but from looking at it you couldn't tell.
Most buildings that have been empty for that long just look way down and
worn, but not the dead eye more. It's still spry and waiting,
as if expecting people to come back, and every now and then they do.
But it's a service I perform under threat of death, and to this
day it terrifies me. While I'm not as bothered by circles or rings,
I still have this feeling that I should be like I shouldn't be normalizing this.
I shouldn't have to compromise. There something unnatural and otherworldly, But I
just don't know what the alternative is. I have this feeling that sooner or
later she'll turn to me dissatisfied, and that day she'll interlock her fingers with
mine and drag me to a dark place I can't come back from ever after