For as Long as it Takes

There was one person who knew the codes, Alexander Vanderhoff III, and he died officially of a heart attack at 3AM on December 17th surrounded by the half-naked, luxury-pill-popping party-goers most only see in movies.

Alexander had made his first million that day through security systems. The big sale had been completed on December 1st to his brother Michael, international mall tycoon. Installation was completed on the first mall on the 16th. And from that point on, the mall would turn into an impenetrable egg of steel every night at 12AM and would remain that way until the codes were entered the following morning. Alexander Vanderhoff III planned to give Michael the codes at 11AM on December 17th for the mall's grand reopening. But then he died.

No one remembered to tell any of this to Todd, mall cop.

Presently, Todd made his way to the ground floor. His final lap of the night had proven the second floor to be safe and sound despite the feeling of being watched. Thirteen years of malling and you learned that feeling was inevitable in a place this big.

Todd would exit through the first floor Macy’s—that was the Women’s and Shoes floor—passing by the Christmas collection of matching PJs displayed on a middle class looking group of mannequins. They even had a baby mannequin. And if Todd was lucky, the sun would be rising over the parking lot.

Todd checked his belt, not because he did not know his tools were there, but because it made him feel like a cowboy. Baton, pepper spray, and a large metal flashlight. Todd had only drawn his service spray twice in the line of duty, something he was proud of. And past those Macy’s double doors was his cowboy’s ride, parked at the back of an empty lot because it had been full when he’d gotten to work.

Todd pushed through the first set of doors into the vestibule. No luck on the sunrise, he could see it was still dark. Actually it was like pitch black. Actually he couldn’t even see the lights in the parking lot. He wondered if it was some sort of snow storm. Maybe if the snow was black wool and came down in one continuous sheet maybe. Todd pushed on the door.

It moved about four inches before metal hit metal. Todd looked at the door, let it shut, tried again. Clang again.

“The hell?” Todd tried the door next to it. Again, clang. “What the hell?”

The doors were smacking that dark sky, just smacking it like the sky was solid and right there. Todd’s gut realized something was wrong before he did, before he realized he wasn’t staring at a dark winter sky at all but sheets of black metal. Kind of just because, Todd clanged the door again.

Maybe someone had backed a truck up in front of the doors. He knew that wasn’t right. But he also knew there was a logical explanation to everything. Thirteen years of malling will teach you that. Todd tried the JC Penney’s exit, the primary mall doors, and each of the janitorial staff entrances. That truck had backed up in front of every single one of them.

Todd made his way back to the Macy’s doors. Sure, something was wrong, but also there was a logical explanation for everything. So that was that and there was no reason to get worked up about it.

He imagined a massive all metal black truck circling the mall, predicting where Todd would check next then hauling its ass there to back up into it.

Todd laughed at his own ideas the way you do when you’re by yourself and you have no idea you’re being watched.

Once at the doors, Todd decided to just settle in and wait for someone to move the truck. There was a logical explanation and someone would be around to help. The facts of life. Todd slipped into a doze but banging from outside the door woke him up. It almost sounded like knocking. He couldn’t reach the metal but he could clang the door against it. Whoever was on the other side heard and knocked back. Todd clanged. They knocked, right by Todd this time.

The knot in his gut loosened a little. See? Logical explanation was inbound and help had just landed. Things were working out well enough that Todd was starting to wonder if he’d get paid overtime.

That first day, Todd left the Macy’s doors only to grab a wrap from the in-store cafe. He took out a five dollar bill and laid it flat across the counter. Like every ten minutes Todd would clang the door against the metal. Eventually the person outside stopped responding. Eventually Todd went back for another wrap. Eventually the wraps were all gone, and that cafe counter was covered with flattened fives, a stack of ones, and two quarters, and the Macy’s customer service clock had spun around fifteen times, and the person outside was long gone.

The front counter phones got him nothing but static. Sleeping by the doors had filled Todd’s muscles with invisible boulders. He never thought he would need his next meal to be anything but wrapped in a tortilla. But here he was.

At the start of the second week, Todd left the department store, silently swearing to return to the doors, and please don’t forget about me in here, and please don’t stay shut just because I’m walking away, I’m just hungry.

He did not need the signs to find the food court. His cash was gone. So after cranking the fryers and raiding more than one freezer, Todd made a list of what he’d pay back once he was out. Then he dug into his blend of french fries, burger meat, and Chinese. He ate, dreaming about that logical explanation.

Month two, Todd decided to pull his tent and camping bedding out of the Macy’s vestibule and haul it over to the food court. It saved him the trips for food, and his favorite bathroom was over there. He would know; by then he had tried them all.

Todd took a walk to the Macy’s doors every morning to clang the metal. He never got a response except for once. But the people on the other side were kids with spray paint cans. Though Todd had no idea.

Entering his third month, Todd started running around the mall every morning. There was a fitness store and he tried his hand at the free weights only to hurt himself. He sought out the bookstore for the back shelf porno mags, but ended up leaving with a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo in addition to the off brand Playboy. Todd figured he was the first man ever to read Dumas and look at titties pics while sitting in the mall Santa’s chair. He realized then that Christmas had long come and gone. And another would be on the way soon enough.

Four months in and Todd was certain something was watching him.

There was the arcade and Todd’s highscores on all but the fighting games and skeeball. There was the bike which Todd used to traverse the mall. There was the carousel of course, but Todd never felt inclined to ride it. That was for kids and romantics. While in the mall, Todd read that Bradbury book which got him thinking about the carousel and whether or not Todd would be an old man when he finally left the mall. Like a time capsule that aged him up twenty years and spat him back out. He supposed he was still under the impression he would get out.

There was the mannequin. And out loud Todd literally swore: “I will not tell a soul until the day I die.” Hand on his heart and everything. The mannequin had been selected from the Macy’s women’s athletic wear section and outfitted with an appendage from the adult gift shop. Thirteen years of malling was a long time. Nine months alone was even longer.

And all that with the mannequin—it watched that too.

It. Always there, always watching. Always at the end of a too long hallway. Always hiding in the bathroom the next stall over. Always peeking over the second floor balcony, just watching, never quite in view. Always just a silhouette plastered to the outside of Todd’s tent whether he was sleeping or not.

It didn’t seem like it wanted to be seen. Todd did what he could to oblige.

And life just kept on going. Todd tracked the days into the twelfth month. In a mall with all the space he could ever need, Todd counted the days in a little notepad he kept in his back pocket always. Even after he had abandoned his baton and flashlight. On the 364th day, Todd tossed the pad into the coin fountain, declaring his wish should be pretty fucking obvious.

He spent the next few days—including Christmas—in his tent. He left only to eat, use the bathroom, and visit the doll in its own tent. After a while, Todd reclaimed the pad, found it basically melted, and started counting in a new notebook. He did his best to accurately track the days he spent in the tent and never missed another day since.

Sometime in July, Todd realized the food in the freezers might be all he had for a while. Not the rest of his life, but maybe just a while. Until he got out, you know. He spent a week taking a full inventory of everything in the freezers across the food court and cafes around the mall. Then he carted it all to a single freezer originally belonging to a chicken restaurant.

It watched him do the math, calculating his time left.

Todd added up just shy of five years. He wasn’t scared of dying after the food ran out. No, but he was scared to the point of vomiting that maybe he would be stuck long enough to see it happen. The work was exhausting. He slept so hard he almost missed the clanging the next morning.

Still half asleep, his mind raced to identify where the sound was coming from, let alone what was making it. But he’d heard it before almost twenty months ago. Someone was banging on the metal dome.

Suddenly awake and standing, Todd was moving before he even knew where to. He crashed into a mall dining stool and it thunked hard against the tile. He was shirtless, barefoot, running like a mad man. The banging was coming from the central area of the mall, and they were banging it hard like they knew someone was in there. His feet made cold slaps as he took the stairs three at a time.

“I’m here!” And he was, he fucking was. Right here, baby.

He headed toward the mall’s main entrance, ducking through Santa’s Village which had developed a stale smell. As he got closer, he realized he’d been wrong about the direction. He paused, listened, and ran toward a cluster of employee doors.

“I’m here!” It was weird hearing his voice that loud. When was the last time he had spoken? It couldn’t have been the mannequin could it?

Todd realized he had picked the wrong way again. He doubled back, sprinting with seemingly limitless energy. He passed the bookstore that he thought of more as his library now. Past the mural he had started—and kept up with; he had a vision of it extending the entire hall. Past the cafe he had taken his first meal from and toward the Macy’s vestibule.

He stopped hard enough for his bare feet to squeak on the tile before throwing Todd head over heels. He pushed himself up, dread twirling like a spool, unraveling him from the inside.

Clang. Clang.

It was looking at him. There were no eyes. There were no hands and yet… Clang. Clang.

Todd was seeing it now, oh God, he was seeing it. It started to come for him, letting the door slide shut. Todd scrambled to his feet, stumbling again, finding footing then running, god damn sprinting to anywhere but here. Even though it didn’t walk, not like him, Todd heard it coming.

The mall felt smaller than it ever had in nineteen months. He thought about hiding, but was terrified of trapping himself in an enclosed space. It was all enclosed space.

He charged into the mall’s central area, planning to lose it at the crossroads, among the staircases and still humming escalators. He couldn’t hear it behind him anymore. Maybe all those laps around the mall were paying off. But as he neared Christmas Village, all the energy left him.

It was there, sitting in Santa’s chair, shaking a head that wasn’t quite there. Tired, defeated, and stuck Todd could only put his hands on his knees and breathe.

He did not look up when he heard it rise from the chair. In fact it was a struggle not to close his eyes when it began to glide toward him. Those steps were quiet accidents, rain drops dripping on a path toward him. He saw what passed for its feet stop right in front of him. Somehow saw the floor through those feet too. It was like a breeze when it leaned forward next to his ear, the word just sort of falling out.

“Stay.”

When Michale Vanderhoff died of old age, the great mall and its metal shell became a matter of estate and liquidation and the like. The shell wasn’t cracking, but Michael’s daughter had the profound idea: “Let’s dig a hole then come up right up in there from the ground.”

She led a team ten feet under the Macy’s parking lot—Todd’s car a stacked up pile of red rust—and then back up into the first floor of the department store, Women’s and Shoes.

They brought masks, good thing too. Flickering lights illuminated dust particles in the air like fairy dust. They searched every inch of the mall, feeling watched the whole time.

They reported that the food court was sucked dry of everything it had. They reported several tents all interconnected, forming a mansion of polyester and nylon and occupied by not one but three hand made sex dolls. Each one prettier than the last.

They found two notebooks. One showed nothing but tally marks, totaling 2,911. The other journal was a list of books—comics, cookbooks, classics, character studies, and collectors guides—each with a star ranking out of three. Those also totaled over two thousand.

They reported a mural that covered the walls all around the mall, every inch of walls except for the stores. To their best guess, the mural depicted a retelling of Alexandre Dumas’s most famous work, with the emphasis on the prison sequence.

Finally, almost unsure if they should speak, the team reported a presence.

“Well, technically two presences.”

“Like people?”

“No. No. Definitely not people. Maybe they weren’t actually there.”

“Of-fucking-course they were. You saw them. I saw them. Let’s not bullshit. Like at the end of the hallway. You saw that. Or when they were standing at the balcony.”

“What did they look like?”

A hand waved the question away. “Nothing really.”

“But you just—”

“The first time I saw them was in that little Santa display. They were kind of sharing the chair.”

“Did they ever, I don’t know, speak or anything?”

“No speaking but—”

Someone else stepped in: “They did this thing with the doors. Like sort of slammed them. Like they wanted us to leave maybe?”

“Or like they wanted out.”