The Darkness in Dominion Mall

Chapter 13

“I love you, Jilly Marie McNamara!” Layne said loud enough for Jill to hear, blood dripping from his mouth.

She wanted to say it back. That she loved him too. She stopped as Layne began to shake violently, convulse his body in odd ways, and scream at the top of his lungs from unimaginable pain. The mannequin that hovered above him laughed maniacally as the pole began to create more sparks and increasingly glow a very bright blue. Electricity shot out from the pole, hitting Layne in the body and head, the mannequin, and the surrounding shelves.

“Yes, more….more…. MOOOOORRREEE!” The mannequin yelled joyfully.

Jill, as well as the others, screamed out. They tried to break the gate open with the rebar pole and trimmer but didn’t even put a dent into the gate. Jill could only look on helplessly as her boyfriend, and best friend, was dying in front of her eyes. She wanted to do something, anything, to help him. All she could do was look on in horror and hope his death was quick.

It didn’t seem that way, though.

As the electricity surged through Laynes body, Jill could see his shirt start to catch fire with a blue flame around the pole. Small vine-like lines burned up his body as the current went towards his head. Once the lines encompassed his head, blue flames burst out of Laynes mouth, eyes, and ears. It was at this point that he stopped screaming.

Suddenly, a large amount of mist formed in between the group and Layne. The mist was far too tick to see through, even with their strongest flashlight. The blue flames and electricity soon disappeared as well as the mannequin’s crazy laughter. Just as soon as it appeared, the mist evaporated until it was back to the normal amount it was at before. Jill shined her light into the store out of desperation for some kind of hope. She looked for Layne to see if he was still there.

Layne was nowhere in sight.

“LAYNE!” Billie yelled out as if he was expecting a response. “LAYNE!”

He, along with the others, soon gave up in their small search and retreated back into the walkway. Billie stood next to the edge of the walkway and stared into the darkness, occasionally hitting the railing out of anger with his fist. Reggie sat with his back to the gate and had a distraught look to his face as he rubbed his head with his hands. It was a rare tick he did whenever he was upset. Renae stood quietly away from the others in the middle of the walkway with her back towards everyone else. Jill couldn’t read her facial expression, but knew she was just as upset as the others’ were.

With nothing else to do, Jill placed her forehead on the gate and cried silently to herself. She thought back on the entire days events’, how each of them played out. How each of them could have been avoided. How everyone could have been saved. For some unknown reason, as she was thinking about Layne, a distant memory popped into her head; But not by her means.

It was the summer after their junior year of high school and a week before the start of August. The Georgia heat had done it in for almost everyone in the gang, especially Billie who hated being too hot. The heat affected them both during the day and most of the night, only letting up after the sun set. Due of this, it limited whatever plans’ they had to doing things inside. Their homes would be boring, walking around the local stores’ would have been repetitive, and the restaurants’ would have been too crowded with people escaping the heat to have fun. So, Layne had the bright idea of going to the movies.

It wasn’t uncommon for them to go see a movie on occasion. The problem was that everyone in the group had varying tastes in movies that made it hard to get everyone to go together. Layne would see anything, so long as it was good or laughably bad. Jonathan liked sports related and action movies but didn’t like horror. Reggie loved comedies and horror movies, which he laughed at both regardless, but couldn’t stand romance movies. Michael liked horror, crime, and thriller movies but found science fiction to be too boring or complicated to sit through. Billie could watch action adventures, crime, mystery, and some romance movies but could never watch romantic comedies or musicals without wanting to off himself in the theater. Renae adored romance and comedic movies but wouldn’t be caught watching a fantasy or science fiction film. Jill didn’t mind what the movie genre was, so long as there wasn’t too much blood, torture, or overly violent stuff on screen.

She always had a problem with pain growing up. Jill hated the feeling of getting hurt from anything as small as a paper cut to as large as a broken bone. If she could help it, she would do her best to try and avoid it. Even going so far as to not watch too many movies that reminded her of it.

Their local theater was small considering the size of the town. The movies they usually showed had to be the big Hollywood blockbusters that everyone had at least heard of or caught a glimpse of somewhere. With only five screens to use, the theater usually only played movies that were guaranteed to fill the seats and give them a big profit. Usually.

At that time, they were playing The Purge: Anarchy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, 22 Jump Street, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and The Fault in Our Stars. Most of them seemed like pretty decent choices to Jill, but Layne didn’t take any of them to see those. Instead, he took them to a movie that he promised would be an experience unlike anything they had ever experienced.

It was a very old and obscure movie that no one, besides Layne, had ever heard of. It was poorly acted, full of nonsense, and made absolutely no sense; But Jill would be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t enjoying herself.

Layne personally paid for every one of their tickets’, so they would go and see the movie together; Troll 2.

“What the fuck.” Jill laughed at a horribly acted line. “This is amazin’.”

“I know right?” Layne chuckled in the seat beside her. He covered his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

“How did you find out about this movie?”

“The, um, the little kid that’s in this movie made a documentary a few years ago about the movie, how it was made, and the cult following behind it. I guess Mr. Stanley saw it too and decided to play it here.”

“Interestin’. Have you already seen it?”

“Yeah, on my computer. I wanted to see it on the big screen though!”

“Is it better?”

“Magnificent! This is a piece of cinematic art.”

“Modern art.” Jill joked.

“Don’t insult Troll 2 like that. It might be a piece of s**t, but it’s got heart to it.” Layne said overdramatically.

“LAYNE!” Reggie yelled from the front row.

“YEAH!?”

“IM SORRY I DOUBTED YOU EARLIER!”

“I UNDERSTAND, DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT!”

“ME TOO!” Jonathan yelled from the middle rows.

“SHUT UP!” Renae yelled sarcastically. “IM TRYING TO WATCH THIS AMZING MOVIE!”

Luckily, they were the only seven people in the theater. They could be as loud as they wanted to be without having to worry about being thrown out. They all started out sitting together on the back row. When it became apparent that no one else would be watching the movie with them, it turned into a mad house.

Reggie and Michael would sprint down the rows of seats, just for the hell of it, while screaming like car engines. Billie and Jonathan put their hand’s in front of the low hanging projector booth and made shadow puppets during the commercials that played before the trailers’. Renae stayed back and recorded the whole thing on her phone.

For some reason, they went to their own little sections of the theater before the movie started. Reggie, Michael, and Billie sat near the front row with their legs propped up on the headrests in front of them. Renae and Jonathan sat close to the center and to the right of the screen. Layne and Jill stayed put in the seats near the back that they had been in since they arrived; Jill didn’t mind being alone with him though.

It had only been nearly a month since she broke up with Kyle Miller and she still felt upset about the whole ordeal. She was more upset with herself than anything. Even though her friends’, including Layne, told her how distrustful they were about him, she still gave him the benefit of the doubt.

He treated her nicely, said cute things, and wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes. In hindsight, those were the only good qualities about him. Most of the time he could be irritable, arrogant, and annoying at times. What she hated most about him, though, was his pathological lying. It didn’t matter what it was about, Kyle would find something to lie about. He would lie to impress his friends, to get out of arguments, to hide something from her, and sometimes just to lie for the sake of it.

She had enough of it.

Jill dumped him publicly at a 4th of July block party in front of his friends’ and family. She didn’t plan on doing it that way, however, she saw it as karma for some of the rumors’ he stirred up about her. Kyle was nothing but smoke in the wind after that. There was one thing afterwards that did bother her though. It was Layne.

From the moment she dated Kyle to that day they decided to watch Troll 2, Layne seemed off to her. He wasn’t mad at her, because he still talked to her, but he didn’t talk to her like he used to in the past. Layne seemed more quieter and reserved than he did before. Jill hoped it wasn’t because of her.

‘I’d rather have everyone be mad at me than for you to be.’

She thought it was funny that she had feelings for Layne of all people. He could be very easygoing one minute and then be reclusive the next. It was kind of hard to read him since he was somewhat emotionless. It was rare for him to show emotions unless it was something extreme. That made it hard for them to know if his snarky jokes were just that, jokes, or actual insults. Layne could like her for all she knew, and she wouldn’t know.

Her thoughts were disturbed by a waving hand in her vision. Renae’s hand. When Jill looked at her, she began to sign.

Jill, Renae, and surprisingly Reggie, took sign language as their club activity during their first three years of school. They rarely used them outside of class, usually on rare occasions when they had to be quiet and say something to each other.

‘Have you tried flirting with him today?’ Renae signed.

Renae was the only person to know that she had feelings for Layne. It wasn’t uncommon for her to try and convince Jill to try and flirt with him on occasion. If Jill didn’t know any better, she thought that Renae was acting like her personal coach and cheerleader; constantly egging her on.

Jill shook her head.

‘Why?’ Renae signed angrily.

‘I’m nervous. Okay?’

‘No no no no no, don’t give me that excuse!’

‘It’s not an excuse if it’s true!’

‘Bullshit! Just try and flirt with him! Show him a little shoulder and ask him what’s up.’

‘What if he isn’t interested?’

‘You don’t have to worry about that.’ Renae said with a smirk.

Having known her for a long time, Jill caught on to Renae’s mannerisms’ and small quirks’. For example, how she always skipped out on breakfast, how she would usually only snort laugh at joke that Jonathan made, or how she smirked when she knew something that the others didn’t.

‘What do you mean by that?’

Renae shrugged her shoulders and turned around in her seat.

‘UUUUUUUUUUURRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH.’ Jill thought to herself. ‘Cunt.’

“What were you guys’ talkin’ about?” Layne asked her with his head leaned over.

“OH!” Jill screeched. “Um…. makeup, stuff.”

“Makeup stuff?”

“Yeah, makeup stuff.”

“……Never realized Sephora could cause so much emotional signin’.”

“You wouldn’t know, you’ve never been there before.”

“I’ve been there before….”

Jill stared at Layne.

“…. In my dreams.”

“I thought so.” Jill giggled. She saw an opportunity to ask him out on a date. “…I should probably take you sometime. Show you what all the fuss is about.”

“Me in a makeup store?” Layne joked and made a quiet puking noise.

Jill giggled on the outside. ‘Take a f*****g hint Layne…’ She thought on the inside.

“Nah I’m kiddin’, it’d be pretty fun to go with you.”

“Really?” Jill asked slightly flustered.

“Of course. Oh my god, this one of my favorite parts’ right here!”

In the movie, the little boy is told by his grandfather’s ghost, whom only he can see, to stop his family from eating the food they were about to eat. If he didn’t do so, his mom, dad, and sister would turn into food for the goblins’.

“Okay.” The grandfather said the reassure the little boy. “You have thirty seconds to come up with some way to stop them!”

The grandfather snapped his finger and, somehow, made the mom, dad, and sister freeze before they were about to bite down on the slime covered food. Instead of them being perfectly frozen, like a picture, the actors simply stopped in the middle of what they were doing and did their best to remain as still as possible. Their attempts’ barely worked. It easy to see their small twitches and shaky hands move slightly.

The kid circled around his family and looked at them as he tried coming up with an idea to stop them from eating the food. He finally appeared to have come up with an idea as he looked back and forth at his mom and sister. The little boy finally spoke after what felt like a solid minute.

“I must do it!” The little boy said to himself as he climbed up onto the empty chair at the dinner table. “I must do it! I must do it!” He said once again before unzipping his pants.

Reggie let out a high pitch scream and laugh.

The scene then cut to the mother and sister throwing their food away into the trash can, while the little boy is being carried upstairs over his angry dad’s shoulder.

“No daddy! Please!”

“RAAAPE!” yelled at the top of his lungs.

Jill, and everyone else, was too busy laughing at Michael to notice what the next few lines were from the mom and sister. It was something about not hitting the little boy and how he needed to be disciplined.

“Listen listen!” Layne said quietly to Jill.

The dad walked in front of a door with the name “Holly” written on a hanging piece of paper.

“Do you see this writing?” The dad said angrily.

He walked to another door labeled “Mr. and Mrs. Waits.”

“Do you know what it means?”

He walked to the third and final door at the end of the hallway with it labeled “Joshua.”

“Hospitality.” The dad threw the boy on the bed and pointed at him. “And you can’t piss on hospitality. I WON’T ALLOW IT!”

Every single of them erupted into a fit of laughter after the line. Jill laughed until sides and abdominals cramped up. It was hard for her to tell who was laughing the hardest out of the seven of them, although it was a definite tie between Layne and Jonathan. Jonathan’s large size contributed to him having a very boisterous laugh that could make the hardest person crack a smile. Layne, however, did his rare laugh that seemed to come out of nowhere and light up the room.

As she looked at Layne’s red face, she couldn’t help but think about him. How he looked. How he laughed. How he did everything. His love for movies and pop culture. His overall nerdy self. She loved all the little things about him, and yet it amazed her that she was still finding out new things about him even after a decade of being friends.

She rested her head on his shoulder and could feel him tense up slightly. Soon, he relaxed and continued to watch the movie.

‘I don’t care if it’s now or later, I just hope that you can see me as more than a friend one day.’

She felt happy. That happiness, however, gave her a sense of déjà vu. She was confused and thought over the events of the day and found she couldn’t remember any of it exactly. It was almost dreamlike to her the more she thought about it.

‘What is this?’

“Jill?” Billie softly said as he shook Jill awake.

“Huh?” She said in a daze. “What was…”

“Are y…. Um, I think you passed out.”

“Yeah…” Jill said as a tear fell down her cheek.

She was confused about what she had just seen or lived through. It felt like a dream. Although, it would be more correct to say it was like reliving a memory. It was hard to come up with an answer, but she rationalized it as her mind coming up with a memory as a response to a stressful situation. Her passing out simply caused her to experience the memory instead of simply remembering it.

That’s what she thought at least.

“Okay…” Billie tried to hold back his tears in his eyes but was failing to do so as a steady stream began to fall down his cheeks. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but we need to keep moving. We’ve…we’ve gotta keep our heads up and find a way out. It’s what-”

“It’s what Layne would want us to do.” Jill interrupted Billie. She didn’t mean to, but she needed to say the words’ herself.

She noticed the walkie talkies in front of her on the other side of the gate. She hated them. They were the reason Layne was killed. If she decided to turn back at the first sign of danger, he might have still been there with all of them.

She didn’t though.

Jill grabbed the walkie talkies and handed them to Billie. He took the batteries out of their spare flashlight, put them into one of the walkie talkies and squeezed the side button. There was a click in the speaker.

“They work.” He whispered.