Speaker 1: Calarogu Shark Media, Hello, and welcome to Ghost Scary Stories.
This episode is titled The Mall Santa Massacre, Episode one,
Black Friday Forever.
Speaker 2: The Last Stop Shop smells like retail desperation with a
hint of peppermint four days before Christmas and the aftermath
of last minute shopping looks like a war zone, trampled tinsel,
mangled merchandise, and enough scattered fake snow to give a
janetor PTSD. Night Shift is retail purgatory with fluorescent lighting,
and I'm its least enthusiastic guardian angel. My security badge
reads Chris Chen Night Security, but it should say professional
retail ghost. The Graveyard Shift attracts a special breed of
retail worker, the kind that makes you question whether they
were ever fully human to begin with, take Jerry from Electronics,
currently having his nightly philosophical debate with the wall of TVs.
He claims they speak to him after midnight broadcasting prophecies
between infomercials. Then there's Martha in Housewares, who's been folding
the same twel for what might be years, humming away
in a manger in an endless loop that would qualify
as psychological warfare. At least you don't have to deal
with the customers. I tell a particularly judgmental mannekin wearing
a three hundred dollar cashmere sweater that looks like something
my grandmother would wear to a funeral. Though, between that
outfit and that expression, you're definitely the mean girl of
the display window. The mannikin stares back with painted on disdain.
Something about its eyes seems different tonight, but that's probably
just sleep Depora talking thirty two days until my student
loans need payment, and here I am having a staring
contest with plastic people. At eleven forty five pm. The
store's holiday decorations loom overhead, massive candy canes and oversized
ornaments suspended from cathedral high ceilings. They absorb the dim
after hours, lighting in weird ways, casting shadows that don't
quite match their shapes. The Black Friday carnage from the
day shift has barely been cleaned up. I spot a
single child's shoe near the escalator and decide not to
investigate that particular retail tragedy. My radio crackles, making me jump.
Static hisses before Jerry's voice comes through, wavering more than usual.
You might want to check out the north Pole display.
Something's weird. Weird is your factory setting?
Speaker 1: Jair?
Speaker 2: Did the TVs predict another apocalypse?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Like wrong, weird? The Santa Manic I swear it was
facing the other way earlier. And there's something I don't know.
Just come look, I sigh, already heading that direction. If
this is like the time you thought the Mannikins were
having secret meetings after hours, that was different. I had evidence,
a blurry photo of what turned out to be todd
from inventory moving displays. Just come check, please. The Stor's
Christmas music shifts mid Carol. Something off about the key.
What starts as Santa Claus is coming to town warps
into a minor key dirge that marketing definitely didn't approve.
Probably another glitch in the ancient sound system. The North
Pole display dominates the central courtyard, a winter wonderland explosion
of fake snow, mechanical reindeer, and enough twinkling lights to
be visible from space, and centered in this retail fevered
Santa's Throne empty. I stop cold. Jerry's right, something's wrong
the Santa Mannikin, which should be seated in its festive
throne stands beside it. Instead, its pose has changed, plastic
head tilted at an angle that would snap a human neck,
and at its feet. Oh hell no, mister Peterson, the
store manager sits propped against the throne's base. At first glance,
he could be another decoration, posed with a grotesque smile,
limbs arranged like a display figure. But display figures don't bleed,
and that's definitely blood soaking into the fake snow, turning
it pink beneath the twinkling lights. Death by retail. I mutter,
trying to stay calm as I reach for my radio,
finally snapped from too many Karen complaints. Ho ho ho,
The sound isn't human. It's not even trying to be,
like plastic scraping against plastic, like styrofoam squealing against glass,
like every artificial material in the store. Trying to speak
at once. My flashlight beam catches movement among the oversized
ornaments hanging above the Santa Mannikin is gone from its
spot by the throne, but something up there is watching
me with painted on eyes that somehow managed to blink.
My flashlight tracks movement between the hanging decorations, flashes of
red suit the gleam of artificial skin. The Mannikin's Santa
is crawling across the ceiling display like some kind of
twisted holiday spider, its joints bending in ways that would
make an orthopedic surgeon faint. Security guard has been watching it,
says voice, like a cash register choking on receipts, checking
her list. Security guard has been naughty. Yeah, well, you're
violating about six store policies yourself, Chris Kringle. My hand
moves to the taser on my belt. Probably useless against plastic,
but it makes me feel better. Also pretty sure murdering
the store manager puts you on the permanent naughty list.
The Mannikin drops to the floor with a hollow thunk
that echoes through housewares. Its landing is too graceful, too
fluid for something made of rigid plastic. Up close, its
face is worse that generic Molsanta smile has transformed into
something hungry. Black liquid that might be oil, might be
something worse, leaks from the corners of its mouth. The
naughty ones must be collected. It gestures to Peterson's corpse
with a hand that's becoming something else, fingers elongating into
sharpened candy cane points displayed made perfect like us. Listen.
I've dealt with weird seasonal employees before, but it moves
faster than plastic has any right to. I barely dodge
as it lunges its fake beard, now a mass of
writhing tendrils that snap at my face. The smell hits me,
peppermint mixed with something metallic and rotten. Jesus wrong holiday spirit.
It chitters, voice splitting into multiple tones. But we forgive,
we collect, we perfect. I grab the nearest weapon, a
large decorative candy cane, and swing it like a baseball bat.
The impact sends the Mannikins stumbling back into a display
of holiday sweaters, but also causes something much worse. The
sound of movement from all around, the soft scraping of
plastic limbs coming to life. The other Mannikins are turning
their heads, all of them, throughout the entire store. My
helper's Santa's voice grates like broken ornaments. Time to make
everyone perfect. My radio crackles. Jerry's panicked voice cuts through
the Mannikins in electronics. That oh God, there static swallows,
his words replaced by sounds. No human throat should make
Jerry Jerry. The Santa Mannikins payted eyes somehow manage to
look smug. He's being perfected. Would you like to see?
Before I can respond, a scream echoes from Housewares Martha,
Then more screams from other parts of the store, the
night shift skeleton crew discovering that the merchandise has decided
to fight back. What the hell are you? I demand,
backing away As the Mannikin's Santa advances, its plastic flesh
rippling with impossible movement. We are the true spirit of
Christmas retail. Its face splits into multiple smiles, each worse
than the last. When the holidays become too commercial, too artificial,
we adapt, We collect, We make everything perfect and permanent
and plastic. The Mannikin's body continues to transform, red suit,
melting into its skin, limbs elongating into terrible new shapes.
The candy cane points of its fingers leave deep scratches
in the floor as it moves. Black Friday was just
the beginning, it hisses through too many mouths. Now, the
real shopping season starts, and everyone must shop. I run,
not my proudest security guard moment, But when Santa turns
into a plastic nightmare, and the Mannikins start a retail uprising.
The employee handbook doesn't cover your options. Behind me, the
holiday display erupts with movement. Mechanical reindeer spring to life,
their metallic hooves clattering on tile. The oversized ornaments drop
from their hooks, rolling like iridescent bowling balls of death.
And the Mannikins. Oh God, the Mannikins. They emerge from
every department evening where models strip away their designer clothes,
revealing plastic bodies warped into weaponized forms. The children's department
is worst. Tiny Mannikins skittering across the ceiling like spiders,
their cherubic faces split into hungry grins. Attention last stop
shop shoppers. The Santa Thing's voice booms through the store's
PA system, distorting into multiple tones. We're having a special
tonight on perfection. Everything must go, including you. A crash
from electronics draws my attention through the glass storefront. I
see Jerry backing away from what used to be the
TV display. Models. The Mannikins have fused with the screens,
creating hybrid monsters that flicker between channels as they move.
Static crackles around their plastic fingers. Chris Jerry screams, they're
showing infomercials. His voice cuts off as the TV Mannikins
swarm him. I want to help, but there's nothing I
can do, especially when I see him start to change
his skin, taking on a plastic sheen. As the transformation begins,
Chrice check on perfection. The PA system crackles clean up
in all aisles. I make it to Housewares just in
time to see Martha's final stand. She's barricaded herself behind
a fortress of luxury towels, swinging a La Crouze Dutch oven.
At approaching Mannikins, she takes down two before a third
gets behind her. I always hated retail, she screams, as
the plastic infection spreads up her arms. Her last act
of defiance is to fold one final towel into a
perfect triangle. The exit signs seem to be getting further
away no matter how fast I run. The store's architecture
is changing, aisles shifting like a maze. Every department I
pass shows more horror, sporting goods, Mannikins wielding golf clubs
and tennis rackets, beauty department models with fingernails grown into
gleaming scalpels. No escape from holiday savings. The Santa Thing's
voice follows me. All sales are final, all transformations permanent.
I reach the main entrance, but the doors won't budge outside.
I see more Mannikins in the mall proper, spreading their
plastic infection to other stores. The entire shopping center is
becoming a retail nightmare kingdom. You can't stop Christmas commercialism,
Santa's voice whispers. Now right behind me, You can only
become part of it. I turn, raising my pathetic candy
cane weapon and freeze the thing that was once a maul.
Santa Mannikin has become something incredible and horrible, a massive
creature of fused plastic and holiday decorations, dragging the transformed
bodies of my coworkers behind it like terrible ornaments. The
holiday season is just beginning, it says, through multiple mouths
filled with candy cane fangs, and you're on our shopping list.
I grip my weapon tighter, backing away as mannekins close
in from all sides. Their plastic faces reflect the flickering
holiday lights, creating a kaleidoscope of retail horror. Somewhere in
the building, Christmas music continues to play warped beyond recognition.
Four days until Christmas. The Mannikins are rising, and I'm
working the night shift in hell Well, I say, swinging
my candy cane at the nearest display zombie. At least
I don't have to worry about those student loans anymore.
The battle for the last stop shop is about to begin,
and Santa's helpers aren't feeling very jolly.
Speaker 1: Ghost is a Calorogus Shark Media production written and hosted
by Alexander Ian McIntyre, produced by Mark Francis. Executive producers
Mark Francis and John McDermott. Portions of this podcast may
have been created with the assistance of AI. This show, will,
with hundreds of others from Calaroga Shark Media, is available
commercial free on any player hassel Free. Just look for
the link in the episode or show notes. Calaroga Shark
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