Page 30 of The Girl on Hallow's Eve

The fountain is only a couple of feet deep, shallow enough that the speed of her being shoved back into the water makes her plunge all the way down and hit the bottom. Mindy scrambles to her feet and something hits her hip. For a brief second she thinks she might have been shot. But it’s not pain. Not searing heat. Just impact. She looks and her stomach rolls at the sight of the dead man now pressed against her. As she moves through the water, the body moves, seeming to chase her as she tries to find a place with enough space for her to climb out.

The shots stop and she looks up in time to watch the hooded man sink backward a few steps, then turn and make his way back toward the store. The crowd dissipates as people run for the exits, the closest stores, back toward the food court.

Suddenly, they are thinking like Mindy.

The sound of partying gives way to the sound of screams and doors being shaken. Bodies litter the floor. They had no chance. They were easy targets. She wonders if he was really aiming at anyone or if he was just shooting down at the people scurrying around beneath him like he was playing a carnival game. The floor is slippery beneath her wet shoes. She takes them off and then her socks, leaving her feet cold and bare, but gripping the floor with greater confidence.

She watches as two people try to throw themselves against the glass doors hard enough to break through them. They only bounce backward, eventually falling to the floor. Those doors are designed for security. They aren’t going to shatter so easily.

A horrific, blood-curdling cry rips through the air, and she knows he’s found someone. He’s come down from the second floor and is among them. She only has to survive until morning. She knows most of the organizers, if not all of them, left before all the doors were locked an hour or so into the party. They weren’t supposed to. They were supposed to be there with them all night, but she hadn’t seen any of them. They likely didn’t feel they needed to be there anymore and left for a more comfortable night with the intention of coming back in the early hours so they’d be here for the planned morning greeting and breakfast.

She just has to make it until then. If no one will come for them, if they can’t get out, she just has to survive until the sun comes up.

Sherwood…

The pre-dawn darkness is so deep it seems to swallow the car as we drive into the farmland. Here, there are no streetlights. There are no comforting yellow orbs on worn pavement or glowing porchlights offering a welcome respite and guiding our way. There are only the car’s headlights giving us visibility as far as the illumination they throw, making the dark seem only darker and restraining our pace.

We want to go much faster, to get to the mall in as short a time as we can, but we have to keep our speed to what will prevent us from going off the road on unexpected turns and ensure we don’t hit any obstacles that might show up in our path. It makes the drive torturous. I can feel the minutes slipping. The sense that something is very wrong only worsens with each breath until it’s crawling along the back of my throat and making my body twitch.

“What the hell is going on in that place?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” Sam replies.

“And he seriously has no one else he can send there to check? He won’t even go himself?” I ask.

When Sam spoke with Glen, the officer told him every officer on duty as well as a few others he’d managed to wrangle are responding to two separate incidents in the county. A large fire that broke out on a piece of abandoned farm property probably caused by teenagers having a bonfire party, and a brawl at the local bar that apparently spilled out into the parking lot and drew supporters for either side in pickup trucks equipped like miniature rolling armories.

They have officers at the mall. There’s no reason to take others who are needed at these calls and send them to check up on the ones already there. They didn’t get any threats about action from the protestors that night and they haven’t reported anything other than a man spewing nonsense about his brother at the very beginning of the night. I’d be interested to know more about that incident, but with as dismissively as Glen said it, I take it he didn’t show back up and cause any more trouble.

But someone did. And we need to get there.

The mall…

There are no more screams.

There are no more footsteps pounding on the floor and shoes squeaking against the surface as people run.

The chaos is still here. It hasn’t calmed like the dissipation of energy as frantic animals spread into their own space and settle. It has shattered into shards now embedded in the hearts of every person still alive, now hiding, none knowing where the killer is or when he will strike next.

The music and lights are still going. Mindy despises them. And yet, the idea of silence terrifies her. In silence, he can hear you breathing.

She’s alone.

Many of the others are still clutching close to people they came with or have fused together in mutual grief after watching their friends and partners fall. But Mindy has no one. She prefers it this way. With only herself to think about now, she can move when she needs to move and hide when she needs to hide.

She knows a good portion of those still carrying on have sought refuge in bathrooms, but she’s not going to do that. It’s too small of a space. The image of Gloria’s body on the floor of the dressing room is still fresh in her mind. She doesn’t want to be trapped that way. A small space might feel comforting and secure, but it means having nowhere to go. She wants to be able to keep moving if she needs to.

Avoiding the brightly lit large stores, Mindy is hunkering down in a novelty shop kept dark and moody as part of its brand. It means the lighting, right down to the glowing neon decorations around the edges, flows seamlessly into the party atmosphere of the mall beyond. It prevents her from standing out, obscuring any movement at least better than the vibrant overhead fixtures did.

Her first thought was to hide behind the counter like she did in the dressing room, but its position in the store would mean not being able to watch the entrance. She needs to be able to see that entrance, to know if anyone comes in. So she has taken up a space between displays of cheap accessories and cringe-inducing party supplies where there’s little light shining on her face and she has a clear view of the door.

The smell of patchouli here would usually repel her from the store immediately, but tonight, it’s welcome. It takes up space in her senses, helping to lessen the impact of the sharp, rusty smell that clings to her and keeping her mind more focused. That scent means she’s here. In this moment. In this space. It’s carved out from the rest of the mall, different than the other stores. It won’t confuse or disorient her like others trying to differentiate one anchor store from the other, one clothing department from one so similar on the other side of the mall. It’s large enough to allow movement, but not so large that it will become a maze she has to navigate if she needs to get out.

She waits for something to happen and hopes for nothing. She waits for the sound of screams and hopes to only hear the same songs on rotation that have played throughout the night. She waits to see a figure appear at the entrance and hopes to only continue tracing the outlines of the displays with her eyes and reading the same T-shirt captions and product box information over and over until morning.

But it doesn’t last.

At first, Mindy’s brain doesn’t process the movement at the front of the store. It’s almost as though she’s been expecting it so much that the thought itself is reality and not actually happening. But the confusion breaks when the hooded man steps the rest of the way into the shop and starts slowly down one of the aisles. Mindy keeps herself still.

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