The Darkness in Dominion Mall

Chapter 12

The mannequin screamed happily and maniacally as it chased Layne down the aisles’. He didn’t know how far back it was since his eyes were focused in front of him, but Layne knew his pursuer was close enough that the light from its wired pole helped him navigate in and out of the various aisles. It felt like no matter how fast he would run or try and evade it, the mannequin would always stay on him and gradually inch closer with each and every step. It was all a big game to the laughing monstrosity.

“Just a little closer my pretty!” The mannequin guffawed.

‘f**k, I GOTTA DO SOMETHING!’ Layne thought to himself as he was approaching the back of the store.

He spotted a shelf at the end of the aisle that was stocked with televisions and dozens of VHS tapes. He knew if he timed it right, he could pull the shelf down and onto the mannequin. It wouldn’t kill it, but it would slow it down enough for him to possibly hide or get away. Anything was better than running until it would eventually catch up to him.

As he rounded the corner, Layne grabbed onto the edge of the shelf and, using the momentum he had built up, as well as using his full weight, pulled the rack down onto the mannequin. The televisions’ smashed into the creature and sent it crashing into the ground. Not wanting to stick around and see if it was permanent, Layne ran down the adjacent aisle and headed towards the front of the store.

Layne ran for what felt like hours. He didn’t quit, even when his lungs and legs told him to. Although he was practically running blind, he didn’t stop. Stopping meant certain doom; and if he were to die there, the whole point of going after the walkie talkies would have been in vain.

Layne quit running, however, as his leg got snagged on something that rested on the floor. He didn’t know what he tripped over, but it was enough to send him off course, crash into a shelf, and fall onto his back on the ground. With heavy and exhausted breathes, he was forced to stay on the ground by his body’s lack of energy.

He wasn’t not an active or fit person. Layne, however, would always pick a laid-back hobby or activity over an active one. Hours of playing videogames and watching movies were coming back to bite him as he felt exhausted and lacked enough energy to continue running.

A loud zap from the back of the store brought him back up as he looked down the aisle. In the ocean of darkness, Layne could see the mannequin standing up and holding the pole up high above its head, like a torch. He knew it was searching for him.

Layne tried to get up but felt an immense pain in his heel. As the pain shot up his leg, it caused him to go down into a kneeling position and grasp the area with his hands’. The pain was small enough for him to hold his scream in, but big enough for him to not be able to run with.

‘f**k. I’m so screwed. What do I do!?’

He quickly looked around him and searched for a place to hide with the small amount of light that was being given off. Next to him were two refrigerators’, one green one with a broken handle and a blue one without a handle at all, that appeared to be spaced apart enough for him to squeeze through.

‘It’ll hurt, but I’ve got no other choice.’

As the mannequin was getting progressively closer, to the point that Layne could make out its angered facial expressions and determined look, he slid in between the fridges’. Pain shot up his leg each time he was forced to put weight on his heel. He wanted to scream his lungs out but knew he couldn’t.

Soon, the aisle was illuminated as the mannequin was no more than ten feet away. The crackles of electricity echoed like gunshots in Laynes ears as it appeared to be walking by but stopped right next to the refrigerators. Right next to the space in between the fridges’. Right next to Layne.

It squinted its eyes as it scanned the area in front of it. As it breathed heavily through its mouth, Layne could see the monsters skinny and filed teeth. The teeth were numerous and small, as if needles were used in place of normal human teeth.

Even though his lungs were on fire and felt like they were about to explode, Layne continued to hold his breath in and not move any part of his body. Not even the tiniest of inches. He prayed for the creature to move on as he stared at it.

To his luck, the mannequin lost interest and continued on down the aisle. He waited a few seconds before exhaling and breathing in. The air washed down his blazing lungs and provided him a moment of relief. It was a moment he would have to treasure for the next few minutes, because it might be his last.

As the crackling got more and more faint, Layne slowly stuck his head out to see where the creature was.

It stood in the center of an intersection of aisles’ so eerily still, that Layne thought for a moment that it was a regular mannequin that had been given the pole. The electrical pole was raised like a torch above its head, helping it scan the area. Even with its back to him, Layne could feel his stomach churning as he realized something about the monster.

It didn’t show a single ounce of fear. Even though its back was completely open for some kind of attack, its body posture was still relaxed. The more Layne thought about it, the more it made sense to him. These mannequins’, whatever they were, were the apex of apex predators.

‘What can a gnat really do to fight back against a wolf?’ He thought to himself.

It was suddenly dark again. The light from the staff went dark as the mannequin quietly stopped it. There wasn’t the tiniest light to help Layne out. Nothing to at least help him get his bearings. With the darkness also came the dead silence as the electric crackles disappeared as well.

Layne struggled to see and hear anything. He couldn’t see anything and could only hear his breathes and heart beating rhythmically.

‘Does it know I’m here?’

Just as the thought entered his mind, Layne was startled by the loud concoction of hundreds of electronic devices’ turning on. He pulled his head back in between the fridges’. He stood still for a second, even closing his eyes, before checking out the aisle again.

It seemed as if every television, radio, recorder, and dim bulb was turned on. Anything that gave off some sort of light. The only thing Layne wasn’t sure about was where the mannequin was at.

The intersection was completely void of anything and he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

‘I can’t stay here.’ He said as he looked at the walkie talkies that hung from his belt. ‘My friends’ need me.’

Gathering up all of his remaining courage and energy, Layne limped out from between the refrigerators’ and into the aisle. After taking a good look around him, he slowly limped on towards the entrance.

He couldn’t see Jill, Reggie, Renae, or Billies lights’. Although, it was hard for him to be sure if what he was looking at was light from a flashlight or a television set. Now that he was out in the open and looking at the situation, he knew what the logic behind the electronics were.

The televisions were laid about on the shelves and angled to light the aisle as much as possible. There were at least two TVs on each aisle to get the desired effect that the mannequin wanted. Every other device that had a less than desired brightness to it, was placed out in the more darker spots. The darker spots reminded him of seeing the stars surrounded by the darkness of space.

‘If that thing can only see things in direct lighting, then it might be using the radios and things to at least help see if something moves in front of it. Got to be careful around those spots.’

Making sure to stay as far away from the television light rays’ and moving as quickly as he could through the darker spot, Layne limped through countless aisles’. There were some that he couldn’t go through since they were lit up too much to safely go down. So, he would have to walk down the intersections until he found an aisle that he felt comfortable going down. Even though he couldn’t see it, every aisle he passed by or went down felt like he was inching closer to the mannequin.

He noticed that most, if not all, of the electronics required some sort of power source to be plugged into to operate. It was strange since all of them had their plugs tied up or laid out into the aisle like roots of a tree. Even if they could run off of a different source, like batteries, most of the devices were heavily damaged to the point of not working under normal means. He knew it was impossible to try and figure out they worked, but he gave up on trying to rationalize things ages’ ago.

Layne was three aisles’ away from the front of the store when a small footstep made him stop in his tracks. The footsteps were on the opposite aisle to his right and they were moving closer to him. He stopped in place and looked through a small opening in the junk to see what was moving.

A figure soon came into his view as it slowly walked down the aisle, keeping an eye around it. It was distracted while looking around and kicked something on accident.

“s**t!” It whispered to itself. The voice was familiar to Layne. Too familiar.

“Reggie!?” Layne whispered loudly.

The figure was startled momentarily before speaking up.

“Layne!?” Reggie whispered back as he found the opening, kneeled down, and looked through the opening in the merchandise. “Are you alright dude!?”

“Barely. I tripped over something and messed up my heel pretty bad.”

“Is it broken? Can you run on it?”

“I dunno. I can only keep my weight on it for a second. It might be a sprain, or a fracture, but I don’t think it’s broken.” Layne looked around Reggie. “Where’s everyone else at?”

“Waiting for us at the front of the store. They were arguin’ about whether or not to go inside to get you or do what you said wait outside. I said, ‘f**k it’ and ran in without ‘em. I think they’re still waitin’ on us.”

“You think?”

“Well, I didn’t exactly wait and see who’d go with me. So…” Reggie shrugged his shoulders’.

“Alright. Is Jill okay?”

“Yeah, but she’s worried about you man. Billie’s doing his best to hold her back, but I don’t know if he can hold her for long.”

“She’s a fighter.” Layne looked around him nervously as he tried to locate the mannequin. “Have you seen it?”

“What? The mannequin?”

“Yeah, have you seen it?”

“Nah, I just left to look for you a minute ago when all this s**t turned on.”

“Okay. Okay.” Layne looked around him again, unable to shake the feeling that they were being watched. “Let’s get going before it hears u-”

“FOURTEEEEEN.” A voice hissed out from seemingly everywhere.

It was the red eyed creature, Layne just knew it had to be. What he didn’t know was how it saw him or how he would give away his position. Both Reggie and he were in relative darkness.

“Fourteen?” Reggie whispered. “What the hell does that mean?!”

“I don’t know. Maybe it….” Layne stopped himself as he saw a small paper sign on the ground that told him everything he needed to know. It was a question he wished he never gotten the answer for.

“What? What is it Layne?”

“…. Aisle. Aisle fourteen. That’s what it meant!” He said through heavy breathes.

Suddenly a television turned on directly in front of Layne. He didn’t know what scared him the most; The fact that it wasn’t there before and seemed to materialize out of nowhere, or the fact that he was now lit up like he was in the middle of a spotlight.

This television was different from the others. While every other set was full of static and had a very low hum or hiss to them, the one in front of Layne was playing a movie, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, at full volume. It was in the middle of the tunnel scene about halfway through the movies runtime. It was a disturbing scene to Layne because of how out of place it is, given the feel of entire movie before and after it happens. He was always terrified of that scene as a child. Now, he was watching it in the worst place possible.

His attention was drawn to the electric crackles and blue light that were now back. The mannequin stood hunched over at the end of the aisle and staring intently into Laynes eyes. Even from where it stood, Layne could tell its pupils were dilated and large like an owls.

Reggie yelled at Layne, but between the movie blaring in front of him and the mannequin inching its way towards him, all he could hear were muffled pleas. He was frozen with a fear that he hadn’t felt the entire time he was in the mall. He was petrified.

“There’s no earthly way of knowiiiing, which direction we are goiiiing.” Wonka sang on the television. The mannequin mouthed the singing beat for beat, even taking on Wonka’s mannerisms, as it dragged the pole closer to Layne. “There’s no knowing where we’re rowing, or which way the rivers flowiiiing. Is it raaainiiiing, is it snowiiiing? Is a hurricane a blowing? MUH!” The mannequin let out a raspy yell and spoke the lines, word for word, rhythm for rhythm. “Not a speck of light is showing, so the danger must be growing. Are the fires of Hell-a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? YES!” The mannequin quickened its pace and the electrical crackles increased as well. “THE DANGER MUST BE GROWING FOR THE ROWERS KEEP ON ROWING! AND THEYRE CERTAINLY NOT SHOWING, ANY SIIIIGNS THAT THEY ARE SLOOOOWIIIIING!” The mannequin yelled at the top of its lungs.

It broke out into a sprint with the end of the pole pointed at Layne face. It screamed an ecstatic and droned out screech that almost deafened him more than the television.

‘This is it.’ Layne thought to himself.

Before it could reach him, however, one of the large metallic shelves collapsed on top of the mannequin about ten feet from Layne. The electronics and junk that once occupied the shelf were now doing a fairly good job at keeping the mannequin down.

“Oh f**k, oh fuck.” Reggie groaned in pain as he climbed through the opening into Laynes aisle. He did his best to keep his legs as far away from the creature as he could. “RUN YOU BASTARD, RUN!”

Reggie helped pick Layne up, which helped him out immensely to jump start his running. His heel made him significantly slower than Reggie by a few miles. It wasn’t hard for him to keep at a steady and fast pace though since death not too far behind him. Perhaps his adrenaline finally kicked in when he needed it the most.

A crash from behind him made Layne turn around momentarily. He saw the mannequin rise out from the merchandise and toss the entire metallic shelf twenty feet across the store out of frustration. It broke out into a sprint that was faster than anything he had seen before in his life. None of that mattered to Layne, though, since he and Reggie were nearly at the entrance. They would soon be behind the gate, away from the monster and continue on their way.

“COME ON GUYS!” Billie yelled as he was ready to close the slightly opened security gate.

“MOVE IT!” Renae yelled off to the side, pistol aimed at the mannequin.

“JUST A LITTLE MORE LAYNE!” Reggie yelled as he crossed through the door.

While Layne was happy to hear Billie and Renae again, there was one voice he wanted to hear more than anything. Jills.

“LAYNE!” Jill yelled worryingly and with a gasp.

‘There she is.’ Layne thought happily.

“LOOK OUT!” She cried out.

Layne was startled by both the way she warned him, as if she were about to be murdered, and by the feeling of something being wrapped around his right leg. He looked down to see a long cord of wires slithering up his leg. The cord quickly tied itself into a knot before it pulled him backwards. He felt a snap around his knee as pain momentarily shot up his leg. The force of the pull, combined with his run, sent him straight into the ground where his head collided with the concrete floor.

He didn’t know how long he had blacked out. It might have been a few seconds or a few minutes, he couldn’t have been able to tell the difference. His head felt like it was put through a blender and then put on ice. He was out for a while and felt like he would be in that state for some time. The only thing that seemed to wake him up was the sound of something metal shutting and locking loudly, followed by the cries of his friends’.

Everything was foggy, and he felt more dazed than he had ever felt before. Nothing his friends yelled sounded comprehensible. Every sound, whether it was his friends’ yelling or some sort of dragging noise, was too muffled to really make out. Only his breathing and the voice in his head were the two things he could really discern.

‘Where am I? My head, owwwww. What happened to my head?’ He wiped his forehead and saw blood on his fingers as he observed them.

‘Why is it so hard to breathe? Is the air really thin here or something?’ He felt his nose and immediately jerked back as the pain burned his face. It felt like there was a hot iron placed on his nose. Breathing was difficult, but he knew he wouldn’t suffocate to death.

‘I need to get out of here, I guess?’ Layne tried to move but found it nearly impossible to move his leg below the knee.

He looked ahead of him, to where he was being pulled, and could see a figure slowly pulling on some kind of rope that was attached to his leg. Layne’s leg was bending at an unusual angle and would hurt every time he tried to pull back. So, he stopped trying to move it all together.

There was something large on his side that made him lay on the ground at an odd angle. He looked at his waist and saw two walkie talkies. They were quite large, cumbersome, and retro looking. It was strange to him as to why he was carrying them. Not only did he not remember getting them, but he didn’t know why he would be needing them. He thought that he might have liked the look of them and wanted them as a memento.

Layne turned his body and looked up at his friends to ask them what was going on. They appeared to be trying to open a security gate by pulling on it and banging it with some kind of stick. All of them except for Jill.

Jill was on her knees in front of the gate with her arm extended through, as if she was reaching for something. She had a look of helplessness plastered on her that made Layne want to hug her.

‘Is she….is she reaching for the walkie talkies? If that’s the case, she can have them if she really wants them. These can be an early birthday present for her. Eh, I’ll still buy her something else.’

He unhooked the walkie talkies from his belt and slid them across the floor to Jill. They landed against the gate with a small metallic echo that rang in his head.

‘After all, she is my girlfriend……..My……girlfriend?.....’

The words didn’t sit right in his mouth. Then again, they did sit right. It was as if there was a small chunk of his life that was missing from his memories. What could those memories have been?

“…LA…” He heard a distant cry call.

A series of flashes passed through Laynes head. He could see his room packed with his friends as they played Mario Kart, his car filled with everyone in the back and Jill riding shotgun as they sung horribly, and he finally saw a dirt road.

“…LAY…” he heard a female’s voice cry out.

Another flash of memories enveloped his mind. This time he could see a large and abandoned mall, hastily going through a hole in a door, exploring the insides of the stores, hugging Jill and being surprised by the others’ afterwards, a large explosion of dozens of firecrackers, and a figure in the smoke afterwards.

“….LAYN….” The familiar voice wept.

In one more brief flash, he finally put the pieces together. He saw the looks that Jonathan and Michael gave before their demises. He saw Jerry, the tentacles, the canine, the patched mannequins, and the blind mannequin. He could even see the large, glowing red eyes of the dark one. As soon as he stopped moving and looked up at the mannequin, everything made sense once again.

“LAYNE!” Jill screamed.

A gunshot erupted at the entrance. The mannequin tilted its head at lightning speed as if it were hit. It titled it back into place and stared at Layne. It had a small bullet sized hole between its eyes, yet the blind mannequin seemed to not be bothered by it in the slightest.

“I’ve waited, SOOOOOOOOO LONG FOR THIIIIIIISSSSS!” The mannequin screeched joyfully as it pulled the pole out of the concrete ground. It twirled the pole around until the end that was wrapped in wires faced Laynes back.

Layne could hear a collective “NO” from his friends as the pole was shoved into his back. The pole entered through his back, in between his shoulder blades, and exiting through the middle of his chest. The pain Layne felt from the pole in his body was more painful than his ankle, concussion, broken nose, and dislocated leg combined. His heart and lungs felt broken, burned, and weak. Each breath and heartbeat became weaker than the last.

‘This is it.’ He thought to himself through his pain filled grunts and screams. ‘This is the end for me. This really is it.’

He looked up to see Jill, one last time.

She reached out with her right hand and screamed his name over and over again. Tears ran down her face as she knew there was nothing else she could do to save him.

He didn’t want her to be alone, but he knew there was no way out of his situation. Even if there was, it would be impossible for him to survive for another minute. As a final act, Layne raised his hand, as if to meet hers, and loudly proclaimed something he wanted to say his entire life to Jill.

“I love you, Jilly Marie McNamara!” He tried uttering with a smile that dripped blood onto the ground.

A large amount of electricity began to course through his body, more than a human would be able to survive from. It felt like his entire body was vibrating heavily as the muscles in his torso, arms, legs, and neck contracted. His body was being introduced to more and more electricity with each passing second. He lost vision in his eyes and soon wasn’t able to feel anything.

‘Please.’ He thought to himself, alone. ‘Survive.’