The Darkness in Dominion Mall

Chapter 3

Layne could almost imagine how the theatre must have looked back in its prime. Auburn colored seats and wall curtains, the smell of buttered popcorn, and the sound of a running projector as it would shine an image on the silver screen. Now, it was just an ugly shadow of its former self. The seats and curtains were heavily torn, dusty, stained, and had a color that was a mixture of both pink and orange. Most of the silver screen was ripped and hung like a banner in the open air. The air smelled like a mixture of moisture, mildew, and a faint musty smell. He knew there would be no renovating the place. It would need to be demolished if they were wanting to start over from scratch.

“Great place to bring someone on a first date, right y’all?” Michael said as he looked at the empty ceiling above. Most of the tile were missing and on the ground splattered about.

“Yeah! Nothing screams ‘romantic getaway’ quite like ‘free lung infections.’” Layne joked back as tried to calm his nerves. “What now?”

“Now, we get out of this place and go into the actual mall.” Reggie said. “Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Perfect.” He said unenthusiastically.

Reggie led the way for everyone out of the theatre and into the hallway. It was narrow so that only three people could stand shoulder to shoulder and still fit in the hallway. The carpeted walls were just a faded gray of what might have been a light black. Glass littered the floor from broken lights, lighting fixtures, and what looked like the remains of broken bottles. Every step made an echoing crunch that sounded similar to snow. Once they passed the concession stand and ticket booth and made it into the actual mall, Layne was taken aback by the sight.

The ceiling was fixed with large square glass tiles every few yards to let in natural sunlight. Most of them were broken, either from vandalism or time, and their remains laid out on the ground of the first floor. Still water sat undisturbed on the concrete floor from the previous days rain. Although, now that Layne thought about it, the water could have been there for much longer than that since sunlight appeared to not reach most of the first floor. Since the second floor seemed to catch most of the light coming in, Reggie led them up there by a broken escalator.

“You know what Reggie.” Jonathan said once everyone was at the top of the walkway and took a good look around him.

“What?”

“I think your brother was really right for once in his crazy life. No offense!”

“No, it’s good, I was just thinking the same thing.” Reggie said as he looked around the large, empty, and open space that was the mall. There was a look of wonder on his face that Layne had never really seen on him until that moment.

Layne looked at the stores nearby. Most of them were empty long before the place was abandoned. The insides were empty, gutted, and boring looking. Other stores that remained and had their names still on the outside were familiar independent stores that were in Blue Field. He thought it was strange because some of the owners didn’t seem to ever mention having their stores in the mall. Surely, they would have mentioned it at least once to one of them?

‘Maybe they just didn’t need to talk about it or have a reason to talk about it with younger people. I guess?’ Layne thought to himself.

“SAY CHEESE EVRYBODY!” Renae yelled as she held the phone up to take a selfie of the group.

Billie and Michael both leaned on Jonathans left and right arm respectively, all three had their arms crossed and posed like they were about to be on the cover of some boybands CD. Reggie held up two peace signs with his arms crossed, bent over slightly, and closed his eyes tightly; Layne wasn’t too sure what he was really trying to imitate. Layne stood still and just smiled. Jill, however, wrapped her arms around his side with her right leg lifted back like a pin up girl. Layne decided he wanted to make her laugh, so he mimicked the same pose. He mirrored her pose and stance, right down to her exaggerated open smile and wide eyes.

Renae finally snapped a photo with her phone that blinded everyone, herself included with the flash. They could see better after a few seconds of rubbing their eyes.

Billie put on an exaggerated girly voice to sound like Renae. “Just broke into a place on private property! Hashtag lol! Hashtag criminals for life!” He was subsequently shoulder punched by the person he was mocking.

“You know I’m actually surprised.” Renae said after rubbing her hitting hand and checking her phone afterwards. “This place has some signal. It’s only like, one bar, but it’s something.”

“Yeah. We’re lucky, it could’ve be none at all.” Said Layne “Now we can at least to call the cops before we’re murdered and they get to hear our final words.”

“As if. We have three virgins here, right? That should be more than enough to keep a killer away.”

Layne was both intrigued by Renae’s horror movie cliché knowledge, since he knew she wasn’t the biggest fan of Slasher flicks, but also somewhat off put by the three virgins part. He knew that he was one, obviously. Jonathan talked somewhat about some girls he had done. Same with Renae. Billie made jokes to make it seem like he was depressed about his lack of s*x, so he had to have been the second one. Michael accidently let it slip about who he “made love” with once, but that was ages ago and her name escaped Layne’s memory. That left Reggie and Jill. Reggie lied constantly about little things, so it was tough to figure out or believe if he was one or not. Jill looked like a virgin, although a rumor from his sophomore year made him think she wasn’t. He didn’t care if she wasn’t a virgin, but hed be lying to himself if he said hoped she was.

“Now what?” Billie asked.

“Now, we party like it’s 2003!” Reggie yelled as played Move Your Feet by Junior Senior on his phone. The music echoed far into the mall, well beyond the light outside or their flashlights.

The group spent the next hour and a half exploring the mall, dancing to whatever song Reggie’s phone played next. They hardly had anything to explore to most of their disappointments.

The food court and restaurants were completely empty with all of their walls completely gone or fallen on the ground. The chairs and tables that would have been out for people to eat on were gone, likely sold off to some other place to make a small profit. Now, the food court was just a large empty space among other smaller empty spaces.

“What’s the fun in breaking into a place that has food if you can’t eat any of it?” Michael said as he looked at the absence of the kitchens in the restaurants.

“You know that all that food would have been rotted by now, right?” Reggie asked.

“Rotten shmotten. I could eat a horse right about now.” He said as he grabbed his grumbling stomach.

After walking around half of the second floor, they decided to look downstairs for a change. Jonathan noticed a large rectangular hole in the ground that turned out to be an old fountain. The fountain was imbedded into the ground instead of laying on top of it. It must have been pleasing and future looking for its time. Large cracks on the inside that drained any water in it ensured that there wouldn’t be anything sitting in it for the foreseeable future.

“This thing’s bone dry.” Billie said as he observed it.

“Of course you’d know about gapping dry holes, wouldn’t you? Hur hur hur!” Reggie fake laughed.

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“……...You right. Forget I said it.”

“I’m keeping that in my ‘jokes that Reggie messed up’ file.”

“Perfect.”

Layne didn’t remember how the conversation started, but the group agreed that it would be best for everyone not to explore anything that looked like it was for only employees to go into. They didn’t want to risk getting lost in a place like the dark mall and so they only visited places that the shoppers would have.

They looked around for what felt like hours. To Laynes surprise, it hadn’t even been one hour when he looked at his phones time. While he was having a blast looking through the mostly dark mall, they were running out of places to look in and things to do at an increasing pace. He knew that meant they would be leaving soon.

Before they were about to leave, however, they saved the best two stores for last. The two anchor stores, JC Penny ad Montgomery Ward. Both appeared to have clothes and other apparel in the store on racks and hangers. They went into the JC Penny first since it was the closest to them on the second floor.

As far as their flashlights could reach, there was a sea of hanging clothes that hung undisturbed in the darkness. The color on most of them were too faded to even distinguish the original color. Even so, years of dust accumulation had left a thick film over all of the clothes, turning them gray. Even the mannequins that dotted the store suffered the same problem.

The mannequins appeared to have older designs. Obviously since the mall closed in the eighties, but they seemed older than that. Much older. They were fairly dusty but nowhere near as bad as the clothes in the store. Their faces and bodies were made to look like the ideal image of a person back in the day. The male ones had short and combed over hair, large jawlines, and a muscular upper body. The Female mannequins had deep red lips, long and wavy hair, and a curvy but slim figure. All of them had one similar feature that creeped Layne out more than it probably should have.

They all had eerily life-like faces that were unique in their own way. Some had longer noses than others. Others had puffier cheeks than some. They had small details that made them unique in their own way. It was as if they were molded from actual people instead of copying off of one template. They all gave off an “uncanny valley” feeling to him.

The worst part for Layne was their smiles and blank stares. They might have looked amazing and very welcoming in the past. In the present however, their smiles looked creepy and unwelcoming in a dark and abandoned place. Especially the one he was standing in front of.

“Whatcha lookin’ at!?” Jill said as she snuck up behind him and scared Layne.

“f*****g CHRIST!” He yelled out with a high pitch. “Sorry, oh God, I’m so sorry!” He breathed in and exhaled. “It’s nothing, just…these things are freaking creepy.”

“Don’t talk about Jerry like that!”

“Jerry? Wh-who’s Jerry?”

She wrapped he arms around the mannequin that he was previously looking at. “This is Jerry! He might not have the most handsomest face in the world, but he’s got a heart of gold. That’s all that really matters. Plus, I mean, look at them pecks! Lordy Lordy!”

“Actually.” Layne said in a nerdy rasp and he shined the lantern on Jerry’s chest to the gash that ran from his color bone to his abdominals. “He doesn’t have a heart, let alone one made of gold Ms. McNamara!”

“Oh that…...he got hit pretty hard in the war.”

“What war would that be?”

“The, um…...first one?”

“Is that a question or a statement.”

“A statement.”

“So, what you’re saying is that, not only did Jerry fight in a war, but it was one that started a hundred years ago?”

“Sir yes sir!” She saluted him.

“What country did he fight for?”

Jill closed her eyes as if to search the inside of her eyelids for an answer. “The…Germans.”

“Jerry fought for the Germans?”

“Of course. I mean, look at that jawline. It just screams ‘Deutschland!’ Don’t you think?”

“Haha, yeah it does I guess.” He said as he looked at her and found him staring at again. He waited, but she didn’t say anything as she stared right back at him.

Layne looked around him, mostly to hide his flushed face, to see that it was just him and Jill by themselves. The others were nowhere around them.

‘Oh no….’ He thought to himself.

“Don’t worry.” Jill said. “They walked on ahead without us. We can catch up to them if we walk now.”

“Oh, okay.” He said as they began to walk at a somewhat slow pace.

They walked in silence for a moment. Layne kept thinking to himself about the state the store was in. He couldn’t figure out why a company as big as JC Penny would just let all of the merchandise go to waste in the store. Maybe it wouldn’t have cost them much to lose one store full? He didn’t know.

“I know I already asked you earlier, but how’s your day been?” Jill asked with a smile.

“It’s gotten a lot better since the last time. Even though I’m a little freaked out and my blood pressure is higher than the ISS because of this place, I’m having a lot of fun. I’m really glad you wanted to come.” Laynes stomach dropped because he said the last sentence out loud instead of in his head.

“Oh? Would you not have come if I didn’t?”

“Um, p-probably not.” He laughed “I might have stayed home if I’m goin’ to be honest.”

“Well, I’m glad I came too. I wish…. I just wish we had more time to spend together. All of us. You know what I mean?” She said with a hint of sadness.

“Yeah, all these years and I really only kept track of time up until, like, before we graduated. Now summer’s pretty much over and we’ll all be off somewhere doing our own things for a little while. Wish I’d found out stuff I didn’t know or done stuff differently in hindsight.”

“Oh? Like what?”

Layne was somehow caught off guard by her question. He figured she would have agreed and maybe lead the talk somewhere. Now, he had to think fast for an answer.

“Um…. rumors I guess.”

‘RUMORS?!? WHAT THE f**k LAYNE?!?’ He cursed himself and his social awkwardness.

“Rumors huh? I think I have some rumors about me that you might want some answers to. Since we won’t see each other for a while, do you think we should get some things off our chests?”

He hesitated before answering but continued on with his question. “Yeah. Yeah that sounds nice. Um…...when you dated that one guy in 10th grade, I heard a rumor that you and him slept around a lot. I never really believed them, but I was never given a direct ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer from anyone I trusted. Was it, um, were those rumors true?”

Jill looked at him in his eyes with a smirk spread across her face. “You wouldn’t care if I did sleep around with Kyle, would you?”

“N-no, I just…. Didn’t really believe it because you don’t seem like that type of person.”

She didn’t speak for a few seconds. No doubt she was letting the suspense get to Layne. Classic Jill. He hated it when she did that.

“One of the reasons I left Kyle was because he constantly lied to me about everything. Even little nonimportant things. He’d just lie lie lie all the time. Plus, he tried to pressure me into doing things I didn’t want to do. But, you’ll be happy to know that that rumor was one of his lies.”

A wave of relief washed over Layne.

“Now that I answered a rumor about me, it’s your turn to answer a rumor about you?” She said as she quickened her pace.

A wave of nervousness washed over Layne.

She stopped in front of Layne with her arms crossed and her eyes slightly squinted. He felt like he was under interrogation for a crime.

His reclusiveness always meant that he wouldn’t get the chance to be involved in any drama at school. He was sure that he was never in the middle of any at least. Unless he was unaware of any, he was one hundred percent sure he was exempt from every kind of drama.

“Do you, you know…..” She asked with her accent. “…. still like me? More than a friend, I mean?”

To say Laynes stomach churned or fell would be like saying the Titanic took on a pint of water when it hit the iceberg. His expression, which was a mixture of surprise and fear, made her smile and laugh for a second. Only for a second before returning back to her serious, and somewhat nerve racked, face.

A secret that was over a decade old had made its way towards the one person he didn’t want to find out. Only a few people knew about it, so someone would have to pay later. Now, however, Layne had to decide whether to tell her no or yes. His body was telling him to say no. But he figured since she already knew the secret, what was the harm in telling her the truth?

“…..Yes.” Layne said in a higher pitched voice than his normal somewhat deep one.

He braced himself for the worst. A rejection or the dreaded “I like you as a brother” excuse.

“Good. I’ve gotten tired of keeping it a secret between the two of us; Because I like you too.”

It was deadly quiet. The words somehow didn’t process the way he thought they would in his head. He had to replay it, over and over again as the seconds ticked by.

‘Did she just confess to me? Did my crush really just f*****g confess to me? It wasn’t as dramatic as they make it out to be in anime, but still! Did she really?!’

“Really?”

“Really.” She said with a smile.

“Really really?”

“Really really.”

“…...Since when?!”

“I don’t know the exact moment, but it was during spring break when we were in 8th grade. Do you remember? We all went up to the lake with our families and camped out for a few days. On the last day, I couldn’t sleep for whatever reason and decided to go for a walk. Just to clear my mind or whatever. When I came back, I saw you sitting on a log by the lake listening to music.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that! You snuck up and scared the s**t out of me.” He laughed.

“You probably woke everyone up you big baby. I tried talking to you for a while to see if it would make me sleepy. It never did.”

“Are you saying my voice is boring?” Layne asked sarcastically.

“Well it certainly ain’t interesting.” She laughed sarcastically back. “I remember how we talked about any and everything for hours until the sun came up. I figured if any guy that can keep me up all night might just steal my heart. And you did that night. It was a small crush then, but then it grew over the years.”

“Damn. If I knew you liked me for that long, I would have asked you out a long time ago.”

“Were you scared I’d say no?”

“Very. And I was afraid it would ruin our friendship. Make things too awkward between us.”

“I can understand that I guess.” She said as she looked at the ground and kicked something small away. Jill slowly walked up to him to the point that she was barely an inch away. “What about now? Are you scared now?”

“No.” Layne said in a quitter voice. “My palms are sweaty though if that means anything.”

She smiled at his nervous joke. “Then ask me. Right now.”

He swallowed a lump in his throat. Even knowing that his lifelong crush had the same feelings, it was still tough for him to ask the question. All the years of waiting, and he never once put them together in his head. It was as if the words were being held down by his anxiety and fears of rejection. Layne finally, but quite speedily, asked her the one question he had wanted to for years.

“Jill will you be my girlfriend!?” He speedily asked

With tear-soaked eyes, an ear to ear grin, and not holding back her accent at all, Jill embraced Layne and exclaimed as loud as she could. “YES!!! I’ll be your girlfriend Layne!”

“WOOOOOOO!” Layne yelled happily as he twirled around with Jill.

Layne hugged her back and could feel his smile stretch his face beyond what it normally would. He could feel his face twitch as he was not used to the amount euphoria he was feeling at that moment. The amount of happiness he felt was indescribable. Here he was, hugging and twirling around his new girlfriend. Admittedly, it was bad timing since they would be separated for months on end, but he didn’t mind or care about that. All he cared about was that Jill was now his girlfriend.

A flash to his left and two loud pops that showered him in some sort of material brought Layne out of his little world. The rest of the gang had hid themselves behind some of the racks and waited to spring their surprise. Renae had taken their photos off guard with a large smile on her face. Billie and Michael, still armed with more party poppers, were showering the two with confetti and hollering ineligible noises. Reggie and Jonathan were singing and dancing to the beat of Its Not Unusual by Tom Jones that was playing on the phone. All of them were yelling how proud they were.

“CONGRATS YOU TWO!” Jonathan yelled over everyone as he danced. “Only took you 11 f*****g years to ask her!”

Jill looked down and appeared to be doing some mental math in her head before looking up in shock. “YOU’VE LIKED ME SINCE THE 1ST GRADE?!

“Hehe, um, yeaaaaah.” He said with a flustered voice.

“THAT’S SO FREAKIN’ ADORABLE LAYNIE!” she yelled as she gave him a bear hug.

“Not even a minute and y’all are calling each other cute nicknames.” Michael said before pretending to heave.

The alarm on Billie’s watch went off. He looked at it, turned it off, and spoke. “Alright. It’s time to go guys. If we stay in here any longer, the sun will go down completely, and it’ll be pretty dark in here.”

“But we got flashlights.” Reggie said.

“Do you want to be stuck in here all night with batteries that could go out any second?”

Reggie clapped his hands together before speaking. “You heard the man, lets bounce y’all!” Reggie walked in front of the group to the theatre, still dancing to It’s Not Unusual.

Layne walked with Jill in the back of the group. He wrapped his hand around hers and enjoyed everyone’s jokes and compliments about them. Her hands were smaller than he thought they would have felt, but they were a lot warmer as well. Maybe she was just as nervous as he was. It was a moment he hoped would last for a long time.

As they made their way out of the store and down the escalator, Layne couldn’t shake this feeling he was having. It was the type of feeling he got anytime he was alone after a particularly scary movie. It was the irrational feeling of unseen eyes watching him. He looked around him but couldn’t see anything with the limited distance of the lantern. If there was something watching them, it was clouded by the darkness of the mall.

‘It’s probably nothing. Don’t worry about it Layne, just worry about her right now. Enjoy yourself.’ He thought to himself.

“Hold up Michael, lemme get the stuff out the backpack real quick.” Reggie said as he pulled a box out from the backpack.

“What’s that Reggie?” Layne asked

“Just a bunch of bottle rockets hooked up to one fuse. I’ve been saving this thing for a month! It’s a like little grand finale to celebrate y’all two love birds finally getting together.”

“A month?” He looked at Jill. “You’ve been planning this for a while, haven’t you?”

“Maaaaaaybe.”

“Wanna help me Michael?” Reggie asked.

“f**k yeah I do!” Michael yelled as they both ran back towards the escalator.

The two tried lighting the fuse for half a minute to no results, only a lot of cussing. It seemed like there would be a fireworks’ finale to an awesome day after all. Finally, the fuse was lit and the two psychopaths booked it back to the rest of the group. Everyone waited in anticipation for the fireworks to sail up into the sky and light up the inside of the mall.

The first few went off without a hitch. They sailed up and popped one after the other. The rest, however, seemed to all go off at once. A large trail of bottle rockets flew into the air and blinded the group. Layne could see spots in his vision that left him practically blinded. His friends complained the same.

“God damned bootleg fireworks.” Reggie grunted as he tried to blink the spots away.

“Who the hell buys bootlegged fireworks?!” Billie grunted.

“It was a friend of the family, I couldn’t say no.”

“Yeah. Yeah you could have said no.”

After a few moments of eye rubbing, Layne could somewhat see better. He observed the box that was covered in the lingering smoke. As the smoke slowly dissipated, he could see something a few feet away in the smoke. It was a figure shaped like a human. The figure wasn’t there moments ago. Layne was positive about it because Reggie and Michael were both there and would have said something to the others. It didn’t appear to be moving at all, like it was a statue. Layne knew exactly what it was once he observed the large gash on its torso.

“Jerry?” He whispered to himself.