Page 24 of The Girl on Hallow's Eve

“Look at this! Isn’t it incredible? This feature is unique only to Village Square, something the developers are very proud of. It’s just one example of how the Calloway Group is committed to being a valuable asset to the Sherwood community and beyond, providing a specialized shopping and entertainment destination that offers an experience you can’t get anywhere else.” George turns to look out of the glass panel. The lights surrounding the mall and dotting the parking lots below make the entire area glow brightly, but there’s still inky darkness on the horizon. “I can definitely see myself spending a lot of time up here. Maybe grab a coffee from the shop down in the food court. A pastry. Then just sit back and watch the world.” He glances over his shoulder. “That sounds like a nice afternoon to me. What do you think?”

I’m fully expecting a wink, but he manages to restrain himself and starts to turn back toward the door. Something in the distance stops him briefly. I hear it, too. It makes me sit up a little straighter.

“Was that a scream?” I ask. I look at Sam. “Did you hear a scream?”

Sam is feeling his day at work and starting to fall asleep beside me. Usually that would be my signal to turn off the TV and call it a night. I would be doing that right now if I hadn’t heard that strange sound in the background of the footage. Sam’s heavy eyes open further like he’s trying to convince his brain to come back to fully awake.

“What?” he asks in a slightly slurred voice. This is why my husband should never drive while even remotely tired. That voice would get his ass dragged out of the car and the side of the road turned into the midway at the field sobriety carnival. “Did I hear what?”

“A scream,” I repeat. “I swear I just heard someone screaming. He heard it, too. He just stopped and looked behind him.”

Sam shakes his head. “No, babe. I don’t think that was a scream. I mean, it could have been, but it would just be one of these teenage girls getting all riled up in one of the stores or at the dance party. She’s probably all hyped up on cookies and milkshakes and is just screaming for fun.”

“The people there aren’t toddlers, Sam. A sugar high isn’t going to make them go out of control. That wasn’t someone screaming because they’re having fun or because someone startled them. That was a really intense scream.”

We both watch as the reporter stares down the skywalk toward one of the other stores for a few seconds like he’s trying to see something. There are lights installed along the skywalk and at the doors on either end, but they aren’t on, likely to discourage the invited guests from thinking the passages are accessible during the party. Instead, it’s only the entrance to the next store that is visible as a lit rectangle in the distance. With the rest of the light pollution from the parking lots and security lights around the mall, it’s not distinct and it’s barely distinguishable that there’s anything else there. I can discern a couple of dark shapes, but nothing specific.

George turns back around and goes back into the store without mentioning anything about the sound he so obviously heard.

“See?” Sam says. “He’s there and he doesn’t think it was anything. It’s fine.”

I nod, willing myself to sit back and my mind to stop racing with the immediate thoughts that spring up whenever I think something could be happening. I’m at home, I tell myself. Curled up on the couch with my husband. It’s fine.

The mall…

Someone was there. Just a second ago, someone was there in the lit-up glass room at the end of the skywalk. Mindy had tried to get his attention. She banged her hands against the glass. She waved. She jumped up and down. But he didn’t see her, or he did and didn’t realize there’s something wrong. Just another girl shopping. Another girl dancing.

Now, she’s running.

She saw the hooded man’s reflection in the glass seconds ago. He was coming toward her and she couldn’t stop the scream that burst out of her as she ducked out of the way and started back across the store. He’s right there behind her. He’s fast, but she feels almost like he’s intentionally not getting too close, like he’s playing with her rather than taking her. The soft laugh that is the only sound she’s heard come from him is the most terrifying thing to have ever gone through her mind.

It lasts only a second, but it settles into every part of her. Her joints. Her blood. The spaces between her bones and the place where her eyes connect to her brain. The curves and tunnels of her heart and the pit of her stomach. Her fingertips and the tiny hairs running along the back of her neck. The back of her tongue and the soles of her feet. She feels every bit of it. It will stay with her.

When she was a little girl, her brothers used to chase her. The youngest and the only girl of the family, with brothers ranging in age from teenagers at her birth to one barely out of babyhood himself, she was raised in a unique balance of pampered and tormented. In some moments she was the princess. In others she was the ball they played catch with, the bandit their cowboys chased, the villain their superheroes vanquished. They had tea parties with her and tried to teach her sports. She wasn’t good at sports, but she learned to be good at running. And at getting away.

Without giving any indication of what she’s going to do, Mindy suddenly darts to one side, whirls around, and sprints in the opposite direction. It disorients the hooded man enough to make him pause and have to look for her. It gives her a few seconds, but it also takes away any hint of twisted playfulness he might have had. He takes off after her at full speed, knocking over racks as she weaves her way through the store in every attempt to avoid him.

As she’s nearing the entrance to the emergency stairwell, she notices a girl standing in the path like she’s frozen. Her eyes wide, her body shaking, she stares at them coming toward her.

“Go!” Mindy screams at her. “Run!”

The girl doesn’t move. Mindy veers off the path, swerving to try to distract the hooded man, but it doesn’t do any good. He rushes to the girl with his blade held in front of him, plunging it through her stomach. Blood bursts from the girl’s body before the scream does. Mindy knows there’s nothing she can do. She has to get out of the store and there’s only one way to do it.

Her legs are getting tired. She doesn’t know how much more they can take, but she can’t stop. She pushes with every ounce of strength left in her and runs for the escalator. Bracing herself against the horror of what she has to do, she crawls over Gabe’s mangled body. She tumbles down a few of the steps, cutting her arm and ripping at her clothes, but she manages to get to her feet and get the rest of the way down to the main floor.

Sherwood

We watch as George makes his way out of the store and continues on toward the other side of the mall. The noise inside is getting louder and more chaotic the later it gets, but I suppose that’s not wholly unexpected. Events like this tend to start getting more out of hand the longer they go on. It’s both caused by and the reason why they follow the lock-in model.

Having that many people roaming around in the middle of the night with little to no supervision makes it necessary to implement at least some modicum of control, which is why they’re locked into the building and their movements are restricted by preventing access to certain areas, like the skywalk. At the same time, knowing they are locked in can create heightened emotions and anxiety. Even if they aren’t interpreted negatively, those feelings can cause people to act out. They lean into the out-of-control feeling and let it fuel poor decision-making, lack of restraint, and outbursts that are often totally out of character.

Sam has some stories about the lock-ins he went to when he was in high school. I only went to one of them, when I was a young teenager. Before graduation and college and my eighteenth birthday when everything in my already so altered life changed again. He’s told me some of them, and though he promises he wasn’t the one who was causing the trouble or giving in to the stereotypes of teenage boys that cause mothers to shudder, I don’t know if I fully believe him.

Perhaps he forgets that I did know him during that time. Even if I wasn’t around Sherwood all the time, and even if I didn’t go to all the parties and things with him, I was still very familiar with who he was and the types of things he got himself into on a regular basis. For the most part, he was a really great guy, just the way he is now. Actually, he was always a really great guy in all the ways that really mattered. He was sweet, friendly, and accepting, not allowing his popularity to cause him to outcast anyone, at least that he knew of. He gave genuine smiles when he walked down the hallway and took the time to be nice to people who he observed weren’t treated nicely by anyone else.

As the son of the sheriff and the grandson of the sheriff before him, Sam was held to a different kind of standard than everyone else. He was expected to be the best influence he could possibly be. There was never a question that one day he would take on the title of Sheriff Johnson.

But there were nights of mischief, parties his parents didn’t necessarily know all the details about, and plenty of times when he didn’t make curfew or snuck out after going to bed. He was a teenager. All in all, a good one who didn’t get into any major trouble and never ended up behind the bars of his father’s jail, but still a teenager.

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