Cold Relics

I am writing this story in response to another that has recently made its way to the internet, called “Dead Mall”. As unbelievable as it sounds, I think that it likely happened. But I don’t know where Mike and Jenna are, and I’m not sure if I can provide many answers to what transpired at Sleepy Pines mall in 2013.

What I do have is my own, first-hand experience from when the mall was still open and fairly busy. Past its prime, yes, but still functioning as a place to shop and be with friends. Right off the bat, I should mention that some of my memories around these events may be unreliable. I do have very good long-term recall, normally. I can remember things that happened when I was just two years old. However, these memories were buried and forgotten until recently.

I think I should start by talking about how I remember the mall itself. For a long time, I hadn’t at all. Not really. I only had vague childhood images within a fog of confusion, existing in a place where I couldn’t be sure if I was misremembering a dream or something real. I always knew that I had visited multiple times as a kid. We have pictures to prove it. I think I even have a few toys and clothes as keepsakes that we must’ve bought there.

But until I read about Mike and Jenna’s exploration of the mall’s dying husk, I couldn’t recall anything truly solid about my own visits, like the memories were always hiding just above a dark storm cloud. I had partially blocked out my history with the place, because something traumatic happened to me there, and it would have defined my childhood and growth had it been allowed to actively circle around in my mind during those crucial years.

Let’s start with how innocent my own journey to the past began.

The modern classic movie, Home Alone, had a mall scene. I mean… it did, right? Even now, I can’t let go of the belief that such a scene existed. Before I take a detour into “cursed lost media” territory, I’ll explain.

I first saw the movie in November, 1990, when it had just come out. Though I still don’t have many clear memories of the showing, even after my mental floodgates were opened. I know I went to the sequel when it arrived, as well. But I only ever saw either movie in parts on TV for several years after that, as they steadily ingrained themselves as American holiday movie staples.

I think I was twelve when I finally watched it in full again, on a video tape we rented for a family Christmas get-together. At an age when it’s easier to remember and understand your personal history and the world around you, the fuzzy uncertainty of all things that we have when we’re younger goes away. So I can clearly recollect asking my parents about the mall scene.

“What?” my mom replies, right around the time the bandits start getting tortured by a psychopath kid. “Honey, there is no mall scene.”

I couldn’t accept that. I remembered seeing it when we first all went to the film together at the mall in 1990. It was probably the only part of the movie I could remember pretty well from that viewing in a dark, crowded theater. And as the credits rolled, this time in a living room with a roaring fireplace, I was perplexed. My older brothers and sister called me dumb, for getting something wrong about what was clearly one of the “most important hallmarks in cinema.” Obviously they would, being annoying teenagers.

Years later, when DVDs came out, I eventually rented the movie again and watched the deleted scenes included in the extras, certain I’d vindicate myself. My thumb was on my old flip phone’s digits, itching to call up my sister who was in college at that point, just so I could rub it in her face.

But the scene never showed up. And for some reason, this persistently bothered me much more than it should have. I even talked to my parents about it, and asked them to think “really hard” about the day we saw it back at Sleepy Pines. Had we seen some rare cut of the film, or was I just losing my mind? The thing is, there was a point in this conversation where they both kind of looked at each other, clearly worried, for just a second. Then they assured me that I was probably thinking of another scene, and my young mind back then got it mixed up with other movies, or the experience of seeing it at a mall to begin with.

To be fair, there is a part of the movie where Kevin McAllister, while on his own, goes to a store to act grown up and buy some essentials. But it’s not at all like what I’ve seen my head, which was more elaborate, and featured his entire family. I had always figured that the segment took place before the infamous pizza dinner that gets Kevin sent to the attic.

Kevin has been dragged out to the mall for some last-minute holiday shopping, where his siblings and cousins get all the attention. His mom forgets her credit card, so the dad has to pay for everything. The parents are out of character, acting agitated and impatient, and they end up frightening Kevin almost as much as that childhood nightmare fuel basement furnace. At some point, Kevin stops and looks into a dark hallway. It’s some part of the mall that everyone seems to ignore, and camera tricks make it look much more ominous than it should be. The unlit corridor becomes one more thing in the movie that scares Kevin’s young mind. And that’s it. I was never sure just how long this shopping scene lasted, and I can’t recall how it ended.

This deleted scene that I suppose really does not exist is important to my own story, and how I once perceived what I experienced that day as I grew up. Seeing as how I’m telling a story that deserves a proper buildup, I’ll start at the beginning. I don’t expect everyone to believe that these things really happened, but at least writing all of this down may help me finally move on.

It was late November, just before Thanksgiving and Black Friday. While not quite as big in 1990 as it got to be later on, the shopping weekend was still the annual main event for businesses back then, and malls across America were ground zero. My parents couldn’t stand those sorts of crowds, so our visit to Sleepy Pines that year happened a couple days before the turkey was served.

I grew up in Ohio and not the American northeast where the mall existed, but many of my grandparents and aunts and uncles lived there, so I was used to taking road trips with my family several times a year. This time, we were spending Thanksgiving weekend with my dad’s brother, his wife, and their two kids. My cousins were both a bit older than me and my siblings, the girl being fifteen and the boy seventeen. They were fun to hang out with when I was younger, but by then they were jaded teenagers too cool to acknowledge me.

Similarly, my siblings were also separated by two years. My sister was the oldest of us at thirteen, and as my clothes were mostly her hand-me-downs, I typically show up in our family photos from those years in t-shirts with outdated 80s cartoon characters staring at the camera. She usually just ignored me, or at most called me annoying. Meanwhile, my brothers, eleven and nine, often worked together to plot up new ways to tease or prank me. I was nearly eight, but still the baby. My parents doted on me when they could, but were so busy with the other troublemakers that they had little time to give me guidance or structure in those days before my siblings started heading off to college.

So, it often felt like I was given free reign and could get away with anything. But that also meant that if I got myself into trouble, I’d usually have to get out of it myself. I think that early independence toughened me up, at least a bit more than most kids of that age. Still, most everyone cries the first time they scrape their knee. Then the pain and fear aren’t so bad with each new injury. I could be as terrified by an unfamiliar experience as any kid. I’d just get over it fast and be able to face those scary moments head on should they happen again. I liked to put on a brave face against adversity, and that gradually helped me get my brothers off my back once they realized that I wasn’t going to be the butt of their jokes anymore.

There are some things, though, that you simply can’t get over, and you either have the fortune to learn how to forget, or you’re haunted, and maybe change for the worst. Thankfully, I did forget, for a long time and while it mattered most. As an adult who has gone through other hardships over the years, I can better weather suddenly-remembered trauma that is separated by such time and distance. I now reside in Hawaii with my boyfriend. I have a good life and supportive friends, so don’t worry about me. I only wish it were possible to go back in time and tell my seven-year-old self that everything would be okay that night. Somehow, I survived it. Though my resurfaced memories are spotty, so I may never be certain of every detail. I’ll do my best to fill in the gaps.

Shortly after we arrived at my uncle’s house on a chilly afternoon dotted with snow flurries, all seven of us kids piled into my parents’ minivan. Being the youngest, I was already used to sitting in the back row, but not so much being squished in the middle seat between my sister and cousin for an hour-long drive in a vehicle with barely working heat. It sucks. Nothing starts a big family visit/shopping day like being thoughtlessly crammed in among kids that are all older than you. It feels like you don’t exist.

But Sleepy Pines on the outset of the holidays was a sight for my young eyes. The parking lot was nearly full despite my parents’ effort to beat the rush, the mall was packed with shoppers carrying bags full of presents, and the ceiling, walls, and storefronts were decorated immaculately for the season with ribbons and giant candy canes. In the atrium by the fountain and mural was the mall centerpiece for the next month: a big Christmas tree that nearly reached the skylight, covered in more ornaments than my entire extended family would ever own. To think there was a time when most malls in America looked so glorious towards the end of the year.

Time lasts longer when you’re young, so to me it must’ve felt like we had shopped for eight hours—but it was probably closer to half that. We went into a dozen clothing stores, along with a couple shoe and book stores. I know a few places were closed up, but like I said, the mall must have still at least been profitable back then. All of this shopping was boring for me and my brothers, but my cousins and sister loved it all and made the three of us wait around while they tried out new threads. None of us had these new things called Game Boys yet, so we were stuck with coloring books and small eight-color crayon boxes for entertainment while the teenagers had their fashion fun.

Once the four adults finally noticed how bored some of us were, we got to visit KB Toys, for a whole ten minutes. Being with happy kids our age and getting to see all the shiny toys we wanted for Christmas recharged me and my brothers’ spirits, at least until the teens started complaining that we were going to run out of time to check out the rest of the “important” stores, what with a movie coming up. The parents wanted everyone to stick together all day, too, so it wasn’t like we could split up, with one group doing the monotonous clothes stuff and the rest of us getting to spend more time at the toy store or arcade.

When you get that bored from unending tedium as a youngster, your mind starts to wander and you look for anything at all that might stimulate that need for new information. You may start to notice things that you normally wouldn’t. Like how surprisingly clean a mall might be. Exquisitely so, in fact.

No, seriously. Spend enough time on the floor filling in other people’s drawings with colored wax, and you learn to respect the cleanliness of a carpet. That small detail—the lack of stains in the store carpets, or the flawless wood floors—was always one of those random childhood memories of the place that stuck with me. Even the pillars and tile out in the mall space was perfection, all polished and shiny. It was unusual enough to stand out in my mind; that kind of eye and effort for spotlessness in what was just another middling consumer marketplace in rural America. You wouldn’t expect such detailed workmanship in any building that didn’t already have gold leafing on everything.

Yet somehow, I only ever saw one custodian during the whole long visit. Yes, places have cleaning crews that work at night, but this guy somehow struck me as someone who did everything on his own, and liked it that way. Sleepy Pines was the old man’s second home, his pride and joy. I just don’t know how he would’ve done it, even if he worked there 24/7. I must’ve spotted him walking around four or five times over the course of the day, trying his best to sink into the background in his beige uniform. I repeatedly saw him picking up trash on the floor, and he took on this angry scowl in each instance that made him look scary. As people passed by and ignored him, he seemed like he was cursing the world and the filth they left behind.

There was something else I noticed: there were security cameras all over the place. And this was 1990, when they were often less ambiguous and hiding inside ceiling-mounted domes, so they were easily visible despite being mounted high up. It didn’t feel like the shoppers paid them any attention or cared. Maybe all of the posted “Smile! You’re Being Recorded!” signs put them at ease, like this level of security was normal. But, like the custodian, I only ever saw a single patrolling security officer. It was as if they considered their CCTV system enough to keep the place safe and ward off shoplifting.

I can remember my younger self thinking that the worst stop of the day was Dillard’s, one of the mall’s two anchors and a huge department store full of clothes and more. My sister, mom, aunt, and cousins must’ve tried on half the outfits. Meanwhile, the rest of us wandered about the store, and at some point, I caught my dad and uncle staring off into space as if they were contemplating on the chain of events that had led them to spending at least an hour there. The memory that sticks out the most was our visit to the perfume section, where one of them remembered that their wife wanted some expensive fragrance for Christmas. I’ve never forgotten how the smell there was so intense that my brothers gagged, or that I had a coughing fit which lasted for a while.

Oh, and now that I’m writing this out and thinking about the nefarious perfume lady in the “Dead Mall” story, I can suddenly see her, and her smile, again in my mind. Along with something else that probably traumatized me. As my dad, uncle, and brothers were all too manly to sample the perfume, I got to be the guinea pig. That large lady must’ve dripped a half dozen smelly liquids on my wrists before the big strong men finally picked one. I’m sure my brothers just loved that.

The planned last stop of the day, at least before seeing Home Alone, was back at the atrium by the fountain. Santa’s chair was set up, but he wasn’t around yet, I’m guessing not until December, so I didn’t get to sit on his lap and ask for something basic like my own new clothes. But there was one thing that I got to finally do, as a reward for being so patient all day: I got to ride on the holiday train ride. For those too young to remember something that might still exist at some malls but were once more prolific, there used to be miniature trains that ran on a small looping track through a faux winter wonderland.

There was a long line, and our movie was starting soon. I think we already had the tickets, but I could tell that everyone else was anxious about getting in on time and finding good seats. This wasn’t helped by the fact that my brothers were “too old” to go on the ride, and got irritated because they had to wait on me. Even though the younger of the two could have gone on it, I vividly recall that at the time he always insisted on acting as “grown up” as his big bro and wouldn’t have ridden it, out of principal. And knowing how I was back then, I must’ve felt guilty about it, like I was doing something selfish.

There was one thing about that mall that really creeped me out. It did so when I visited the first few times when I was very young, and still does when I think back on it. The mural in the atrium, by the fountain, of the settlers and the natives in the dark woods that once covered the area. Most people didn’t seem to mind the artwork, or pay it much attention, but there was something about the people depicted on those tiles. Their flat expressions, and their eyes that stared off into nothing. The nighttime trees behind them, which did look like they were made by another artist, didn’t bother me as much. I’ve heard and read about others’ experiences that mention the subtle brushwork in the background depicting mythical and real forest creatures just waiting to be found by astute observers, but I never got close enough to search for myself. I did have plenty of time to bask in the figures’ gazes while in line for the train, though, and those eyes were unnerving me by the time I got to the boarding area.

To make matters worse, which was the theme for the day, our parents forced my brothers to stand in line with me, even though they weren’t riding. It made them even more agitated, and when they get like that, I become an outlet. They weren’t always mean back then—and we have a good relationship as adults—but when they were having a bad time, they were experts at making me have a bad time, too. Teasing, pranking, mocking my age and height, a general ragging. Anyone with older siblings can relate, I’m sure. Typical stuff, and I wouldn’t bother mentioning it if their behavior wasn’t important later on.

At least I did get to ride the train. If only for a minute or so.

Afterwards, we rejoined the rest of the family after they had moved their purchases to their cars outside while I was in line. We then rushed into the small movie theater, grabbed some snacks, and because we showed up just as the film was starting and it was crowded, we had to settle for seats in the back row. My brothers blamed me for that, too, and they conspired with my sister and cousins to get them peeved as well. I would never tattle or whine to Mom and Dad about petty things like that, nor did I fight back much, instead suffering in silence. I didn’t let myself cry, either. But it still hurts to get gaslighted into thinking that you’re to blame for everything. I wasn’t the one in charge of organizing an overstuffed and exhausting shopping extravaganza.

The movie provided a distraction from all that, though. I could relate to poor Kevin, being picked on and forgotten, but the idea of getting a chance to take things out on a pair of burglars via elaborate traps was nothing more than cathartic fantasy. The rest of my family probably didn’t see the similarities. To them, it was just a comedic holiday film. It was just annoying that I had to get a whiff of those stinky perfumes every time I took a bite of popcorn.

Afterwards, we had dinner in the food court as a long day came to an end. All us kids and teenagers were more than ready to go home.

But then Mom suddenly needed just one more thing. With only a few minutes until the mall closed at seven, we had to make a final stop because she remembered that we needed a new vacuum cleaner to replace our broken one. I lived with my immediate family in a rural area that was far from any department stores, so squeezing in such a purchase made sense, even if it made the younger ones more irritable. With all of our many other purchases already sitting out in the freezing parking lot, we made a mad dash to Sleepy Pines’ only other anchor store. I’m still not sure just how my parents managed to fit their new vacuum into the van with everything else. They must’ve taken care of all their holiday shopping in one day.

It turned out that the other kids really didn’t like this last minute decision. My sister and cousins don’t always make me into their plaything, stress ball, or punch-pillow, but when pushed far enough, they’ll get in on the action, too. After their pleas to get home fell on deaf ears, meaning that TV shows would be missed and nightly calls to high school boyfriends would be delayed, they turned their eyes to me for entertainment, right in the middle of a Sears. I’m sure I quickly reached my limits on putting up with their crap and got pretty upset. But the adults were too busy trying to buy an appliance just before the mall closed to pay us any attention.

Again, I do have a good relationship with my cousins and siblings in the present, I swear. Even bad children can turn into good adults. It’s just important for story purposes to mention the ridicule I experienced. Though, to be honest, it does feel great getting to call them out for it after all these years. And to subtly blame them for everything that happened next.

You see, I did stupid things as a kid, too. Inexplicable things at times. That’s what happens when you’re young and lack critical thinking skills, and the idea of consequences is still hard to grasp. I was coming from a place of logic when I did it, but that didn’t make it even close to the right decision.

To try and get away from the bullying, I had been walking around the nearly empty Sears store at a faster and faster pace. But the others kept up, and it only turned it into more of a game for them. Then an opportune moment arrived when my dad and uncle started calling for everyone to come back; not because Mom was ready to make the final purchase and free us, but rather, parents just don’t like it when their kids are out of sight for too long. But I knew it was only a matter of seconds before my tormentors wandered off again from the vacuum cleaner aisle to renew the pursuit. So instead of going to the adults with them, I turned around, ran to the major appliance corner of the store, and crawled into a washing machine. Yeah, not my best moment. But you couldn’t beat it as a hiding place. And back then, they didn’t have all the safety features we now take for granted, so it was easy to close the door from the inside.

So there I was, hunkered down in a pitch-black tumbler, more scared of my family than my hideout. I thought about getting out within the first minute, but then I heard someone walking past and figured it might be one of the older kids. I stayed in there, and must’ve lost track of time. To be fair, it was the first bit of true peace and quiet I had known all day.

According to the old memory of this incident that I never used to question, the next thing I knew, I had gotten out, wandered about the empty Sears for a bit, and was then helped out of the store by some cops and returned to my parents amid the flashing lights of the police cruisers.

But I never had a firm grasp on the passage of time around the event. And now I remember why. Much more actually happened.

First, I should note a peculiar observation which never left me about the end of that day. During the last fifteen minutes or so before the seven o’clock closing time, I had noticed the behavior out in the rest of the mall from the Sears entrance. Employees were closing up their shops in a hurry, and rushing customers out, not even all that politely. In turn, the owners and workers I could see looked like they were being directed by the general mall staff to hurry things along—the custodian and head of security guys being among them. This also happened much closer to me, moments later in the department store, just before my siblings and cousins started being mean.

There was a conversation between my parents and/or aunt and uncle with the employee helping them pick a vacuum cleaner that’s always stuck out for me, and it went something like this:

“I’m very sorry, but we’re going to have to make this quick.”

A parent asked, “What’s the rush? We know you close at seven, but—”

“Yes, but this evening, we need to be out of the store within just a few minutes after closing.”

“Has it always been like that?” my uncle or aunt replied. “We’ve been here before, and we’ve never seen the mall like this, with shoppers being hurried out. If customers need a few extra minutes to finish up…”

Further discussion must’ve seemed like a waste of time to the worried sale associate, and he said something like, “It’s like this once a year. We can get in a lot of trouble if we linger around tonight.”

I remember him looking away as he revealed this, or seeing guilt on his face. Like this wasn’t something he was supposed to say to customers. It was odd, but seeing as how this was also the first time I had ever been at a mall at closing, I probably just figured that this was the way things were. But later on, as a teenager in the 90s, I hung out at malls often with friends and it was usually a pretty lax affair as things closed down. You usually just finished whatever you were doing and left as stores rolled down their shutters, things got quiet, lights turned off, and the place emptied out.

But my parents didn’t dwell on it for long, because it was easy to come up with a reason that explained the rush and shrug off the urgency.

I think it was my mom who replied, “Oh, it must be because of the holiday weekend. Of course. Well then, I’ll just have to make my choice quickly.”

I didn’t get to see which vacuum cleaner she chose until I was safely back home. Yes, obviously I did survive that night. But it shouldn’t have been a night where that was ever in question, and now that the memories have come back to me, I’ve only just begun to wonder about the scars it left behind. I think a part of my subconscious has been haunted by what I experienced, even while the rest of me managed to forget for the longest time.

Mom sometimes says that I was different before the night I got left in the mall. What my family believed happened would’ve been enough to traumatize any kid that young. But the whole truth is just… so far beyond what they know.

I’ve delayed writing out what transpired long enough, and there’s nothing left to set up in the story. Revisiting and really processing everything has given me the shakes these past few weeks, so I might have some sort of PTSD thing going on. But I’m going to try. I don’t expect you to believe the second part of this story, and that’s fine. Maybe if just one person does, and they’re the right person, I could finally get some answers. But I doubt they exist.

When I snapped out of whatever state of mind I was in and left that washing machine, I stepped into a very dark Sears store. It was almost winter and already dark outside, and the place had no lights on at all, meaning my only source of illumination came from the parking lot lights outside and what little was still running out in the mall. It was very empty and very quiet, too. I didn’t want to believe that my family would just leave without me. I must’ve thought that they’d come looking, or someone knew where I was. Maybe the reason I stayed in the tumbler for so long was simple kid logic; I was expecting someone else to find me and let me know when it was time to go. I just had to stay put and safe from my tormentors until the adults came and save me.

I ran up to the door to the parking lot, hoping it would open and I’d see the van running outside, with Mom or Dad ready to open the sliding passenger door for me and asking, “what took you so long?” But the lot was as vacant as the store. You could mistakenly think that the mall hadn’t been visited in years, the way a landscape once filled with vehicles appears. The doors were also locked, to no surprise. Not that I was stupid enough to venture out into the cold. Only dumb enough to hide in a washing machine.

It occurred to me early on that the mall was going to be closed until Friday, so I might’ve taken that to mean that absolutely no one would enter the building before then. The realization upset me, and chances are I shed a few tears, but I would’ve also been brave and try to focus and reach out to reason. I knew my aunt and uncle’s home phone number. All I needed was to find a phone. I could get quarters from the fountain for a pay phone if I needed to, and I knew that there should be plenty of phones around the store, too. Not that I would’ve even known what it meant to get an outside line on any of them.

But calling out was a moot point, anyway. I did locate some phones as I explored the back offices and found the one at the customer service desk, but nothing had a dial tone. Figuring I was doing something wrong or the store shut them off at night, I left the relative safety of Sears to try and make my way to a pay phone. Whereas the store felt somewhat safe, despite being a left-behind seven year old in the dark, even today the idea of walking around in an empty mall at night freaks me out. I may not fully get the “liminal spaces” craze, but there is something universally unnerving about exploring some place typically full of people that you’re never supposed to see after closing.

The Sears wasn’t blocked off by a rolling shutter I’d have no hope of getting open, like most of the stores. All that kept me inside were a pair of latches on the top and bottom of glass doors. I found a step ladder so I could reach the upper lock and got out in minutes. Scared and shaking, yes, but rather proud of my handling of the situation so far and ready to find a pay phone. Being an hour from the house meant rescue would take time, but just hearing a parent’s voice would’ve been enough for my spirits at the moment.

The mall itself was better lit than the Sears, though not by much. It was a dark and cloudy evening, so the skylights were pitch-black. But what was coming from the vending machines and any storefront signage that had backlighting provided me enough to navigate by. While the darkness was bad enough, it was the silence that really got to me. Most people probably feel that the sprawling indoor shopping plaza playing its crappy Muzak at night would only add to the creepiness, but I might’ve found it rather comforting in comparison.

My sneakers squeaking against the tile, I kept otherwise quiet and on the watch all around me, my eyes peeled on the shadows as if expecting a monster to jump out at any moment. It didn’t take long to find a couple of pay phones, but they didn’t have dial tones, either. That must’ve dampened my outlook. I think I shrunk down against the wall and had another good cry.

At some point, I noticed a warm flickering light down the hall, towards the atrium. Was the mall on fire? It would have been a frightening discovery at first, like something out of a strange nightmare, but I didn’t see any smoke or hear any alarms going off—and there could have been someone down there, some member of the staff who was either fighting the flames, or had ignited them.

I wiped away my tears and approached cautiously, and I as a turned the corner, I saw the first of that night’s bizarre scenes. Dozens of candles lined the inactive fountain, and there was a thin sheen of some kind of dark liquid on the water that had an acrid odor. The image of the mural now stands out vividly in my mind. The dancing candle light on the faces of those colonists and the natives ceding the land to them… there was something old world about it, like a part of the past was lingering in this place.

That was when the chanting reached my ears. It was distant, but I could tell it was coming from real people. There was only one more way to go: towards the Dillard’s at the other end of the V-shaped mall. I looked around the next corner, and under a larger skylight were a number of figures, sitting on the floor and surrounded by four load-bearing pillars and countless candles. The people were in silhouette and difficult to see, but there were people.

Call me judgmental, but I wasn’t naïve enough to believe that a group chanting in candlelight near a polluted fountain in a mall at night would offer to help a child who may have already “seen too much.” Even so, I kept still and stuck to the shadows, watching from a distance for a short while. My young mind must’ve had no idea what to make of the sight. Was this something adults typically got together and did after work? Were they practicing for some kind of holiday performance? It sounds ridiculous to even consider those things now, of course, but when you’re a kid whose worldly experiences are limited, every new discovery can mystify, no matter how mundane.

I should mention how well I can remember this part. I’ve always been able to, but I just couldn’t recognize it as something that really happened. I’ll explain why later, but I figured it I should preface the clarity I have of this moment.

Over the course of several minutes, I had snuck closer to the group, only stopping and hiding behind a fake plant once I could make out their strange chanting. It was in harmony among the seven people and oddly rhythmic, if not muffled by their masks. Their mantra was paced like breathing, in and out and muttered in a low drone. And it only consisted of two words that I had never heard before. Words that I knew didn’t belong to the English language.

I can best translate their pronunciations as “yohdge-ah-dey,” followed by “hahdow-nie-ee.” The candlelight was too dim to make out their clothing at first, but their animal masks were easier to discern. There was a rat, a raccoon, some bird of prey like an eagle or hawk, a fox, a deer, and a snake. The person leading the incantation wore a pig mask, and if everyone was positioned on a clock, he would’ve been at midnight, with the others at three, four, and five on one side, and seven, eight, and nine on the other. There was no holding of hands, no movement or swaying. It was like they were in a meditative trance, saying those two words without thought or end.

There was also a source of light in the middle of the group that I couldn’t make out yet, as three of the people blocked my view. It cast a scarlet glow, and it stretched their shadows across the mall tile.

I realized as I watched this strange spectacle that I actually might have had some frame of reference for what I was seeing. Surrounding 1990 was the height of America’s “Satanic Panic”, which was in essence baseless concern among religious communities that satanism and other forms of pagan worship were prevalent in all walks of life across the country. In other words, a few people were convinced that their neighbors could be trying to summon demons in suburbia. My parents weren’t religious and I never went to church growing up, so I can objectively say that it was nothing more than a form of mass hysteria.

Back then I wouldn’t have been so sure what it all meant, the panic only being something I’d heard about from my classmates at school and occasional reports on the nightly news. But I did at least have some idea of what such a ritual might look like. It didn’t matter whether or not I believed in any of it; if the people chanting in a circle truly did, then who knows what they may have been capable of doing, no matter how misguided. Too much faith and conviction in any belief can give people the power to do and justify almost anything.

Having convinced myself that they were trying to open a portal to the place where bad guys went, I didn’t want to take a chance on any of that stuff being real. So I started backing off, deciding to avoid the area entirely.

I mean, think about seeing something this messed up as a world-weary adult. Then imagine seeing it as a child. It’s surreal, inexplicable, nightmarish, the type of thing that would probably never leave your mind. I’m surprised I stayed and observed as long as I did. But, looking back, it may have been because something was pulling me in, tugging at me from a distance, trying to whisper in my ear. Only, it was too far away, so its touch was too subtle to quite reach me.

I was about to leave. Until I heard a familiar sound: the ring of a phone. I hadn’t seen it until the pig man got up and went over to it, but there was a phone on the floor next to the ritual site. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to see and follow the long cable connected to it, which ran from some place further down the hall that I couldn’t see from my position. As the pig man went to answer it, I got a look at his clothes. He was wearing a business suit of all things, and it was stained in a deep red.

“Yes?” he said into the receiver, in a plain voice as if he were talking to a regular person on a normal day. “Yes. We’re ready. Understood… We will begin right away. And a good weekend to you as well. Goodbye.”

He hung up, and his other animal mask friends waited patiently as he walked off down the hall. I couldn’t take my eyes off the phone, perhaps the only one in the mall that was working. There was no way I’d ever be able to make myself sneak over to it, but I knew that if I could follow the cord, I might find other usable phones near where it was plugged in.

The pig man returned after a few seconds, pulling over a trolley cart, like the kind used by ice cream vendors around the mall during the day. And this is where things got unexpectedly disgusting and perverse. He opened the sliding metal lid of the cart and pulled out an animal carcass. I think it was, I suppose appropriately, a pig—although its head was missing. And, no, he thankfully wasn’t wearing it; it was easy enough to tell that what he had adorned was a simple rubber mask. Not that it made any of what I was seeing less bizarre.

The carcass had already been slashed multiple times, with deep wounds going across the body that were still leaking blood. As if this was just another typical Wednesday for them, he nonchalantly stabbed the pig with a large knife to create another exit for more blood to flow from, and dangled the carcass over the ritual site. He also shook it around, making the crimson liquid splash across the tile. The other people just kept sitting there throughout, not even reacting. I’m sure they were hit by blood droplets, but didn’t care at all.

When the pig was thoroughly drained, he chucked it off to the side, then returned to the cart and pulled off an object that had been perched atop the retracted umbrella pole. When he brought it into the light, I could see that it was a cow skull with horns intact. It was bleached, dusty, and cracked. It had been around a while. The pig man returned to his spot and held it over his head.

“Fresh blood and old bone, binding our cycle of life with those that have come before, we ask that you hear us once more. This sacred, ancient land, we respect your bounty. We know our desires to be worldly and petty, small and meaningless in the eyes of the timeless earth around us. We humbly beg your forgiveness for our sins, for forsaking and abusing nature, and for the death and destruction brought by our forefathers. May the old spirits of those who truly tended to and respected this land only know paradise. They did not deserve our wrath against them, and surely their use of your great power was modest and just. But now we live in a modern world. We know it to be a shallow, frivolous place. And yet livelihoods are, as always, at stake. Failure of our crops, famine and pestilence may no longer be of grave concern, but we still fear failure and destitution, the loss of opportunity. If we do not succeed, then someone even worse than us will, and it will be as if we were never here.”

The pig man lowered his arms and cradled the cow skull. It could be that his arms were just tired, as he wasn’t yet done with his diatribe and requests to what must have been some unseen personal god.

“Capitalism has swept across this land and carries with it many sins, but our greed is not in excess. For all of its faults, the industrialized world brings benefits to our health and standards of living. But it requires constant economic growth, so we ask that you bless us with one more year of your generous gifts. We are caretakers of a structure that has brought an income to many, and joy to far more. We are proud to remain independent, and not under the thumb of corporate tyranny. Yet, and God knows we’ve tried, our slow decline continues. Were it not for your charity, our time here would have already come to an end. We heartily ask that you renew and revitalize our beloved enterprise again. Allow it to persist and may our days remain full of purpose for as long as you see fit. We cannot be abandoned or forgotten, or bow to those who would dispose of us for profit. Look into our history. See how we are cherished by the masses!

“And now, my friends, let us pray…”

With that, he set the cow skull in the middle of the circle, and the chanting resumed—louder, and more forceful this time.

“Yohdge-ah-dey hahdow-nie-ee… Yohdge-ah-dey hahdow-nie-ee…”

They continued like this and remained still, like they were meditating. I thought that their eyes must have been closed, and their mantra was boisterous enough to hide any sounds I might make. It was the right time to get moving, to follow that phone’s cord and maybe earn a chance to make a call.

I know you’re probably wondering just how I remember all of this so well. I have actually more than memorized the pig man’s words. They’ve been a part of me for decades, lingering and repeating in my dreams and thoughts.

While I had until recently forgotten the context of that ritual—what came before and after—the scene has persisted in my mind since I first witnessed it. It’s an unnatural memory, one that could have eventually driven me crazy if I didn’t get my answers. Why did I have so many nightmares about it? Why would I think about the pig man’s speech while trying to focus on schoolwork, or during sleepovers with friends, or while busy with every other aspect of growing up? The ritual didn’t feel like something that had really happened, so I could never explain to myself just where it was coming from or what any of it meant.

I’ve written those words on composition book journals and in text files on computers many times over the years, just to test my memory. I’ve gotten them exactly the same on each attempt. It’s like they’re burned into my head, no less likely to decay than an ancient language inscribed on stone tablets. That’s the whole thing behind all of this. It’s our memories. It wants to survive through them, to persist and be rebuilt. The rituals, the personal beliefs, how you view the process, even what you make it out of. It doesn’t care, as long as it exists in some form, and you can give it power. It will bend reality for you and fulfill the closest things this world has to a wish, but the cost… Well, I’m not sure yet what it is. I don’t know if it has a name, or if it’s even aware of what it is. Nor how old the thing is, or who created the first one.

I’m talking about the totem, an object bound to this land, whether it can be called cursed or hallowed. I didn’t see it the first time I walked past it. Not that I can remember. Maybe I did, but in my memories, it’s nothing more than a burning bright light, like a hole in celluloid that the projector shines through.

As I snuck around the seven worshippers, if that’s what they could be called, I got my first real look at their ritual site. Other than the cow skull and the fresh pig blood spatters, I could see that there had been a circle on the ground also made of blood, smeared messily across the tile. Dotting that circle were seven smaller halos, for the participants to sit within. In the center of it all was the totem, though as stated, I only remember it at this moment as a bright flare, a burning ball of fire too luminous for the mind to imagine or process. It was there. My eyes must have seen its true form, but I simply cannot picture that form in this instance.

I hurried around the corner and began to make some distance from the animal mask people, feeling safer with every step. I followed the cord connected to the red phone on the floor into a side hallway, and then to the mall’s security room, which was empty. It was a small place, little more than a couple of desks and an array of black and white TV screens. They must’ve been connected to cameras across the building, but all of the monitors were off. I don’t think the CCTV system was active during the ritual, ensuring there was no record of it.

The very long phone cord was plugged into a jack by one of the desks, and the other desk had a phone resting atop it, just waiting to be used. I knew it had to be working, so I reached out to check for a dial tone.

But then it rang.

I froze up. I wasn’t expecting it to ring, and I was too scared to answer it. What if it was the same person that the pig man had talked to? Or maybe it was someone who could help me, but in my panicked state, I just wasn’t sure what to do. I hesitated and stood in place too long, and by the third ring, I could hear approaching heavy footsteps, from someone who must’ve been wearing boots.

I hid under the desk, making myself as small as I could. The light in the room was positioned in a way so that it cast the man’s shadow on the nearby wall. Between the phone’s rings, I could hear his muffled breathing from under his mask. He sounded agitated, perhaps offended, by the interruption.

My heart beating out of my chest, I remained under there, quiet and frozen, as he stood just behind me on the other side of the desk. I believe he was waiting for the phone to stop ringing. But after about a dozen or so rings, I could see his shadow bring up his mask and then grab the receiver.

“Sleepy Pines Security,” he answered, in that kind of tone of voice I remember my parents using whenever we did something bad, yet they were trying really hard not to yell at us just yet. I’m paraphrasing, but he went on to say something like, “Lost child? No. No one’s here. Yes. I’m looking at the cameras right now. You don’t need to get the police involved. Your kid isn’t here. Goodbye. Don’t call back.” He then slammed the phone down, and I could hear him mutter out a frustrated, “Damn it.”

Despite my terror, I could still comprehend that it was one of my parents that just called; they knew I was missing, and it was just a matter of time until either they or the police would show up. I suppose it was also a good thing I didn’t pick up the phone, or I would likely have been caught.

The pig man slid his mask back down and turned to leave, and I planned to return the call as soon as he was gone. The instant that I began to move, however, the phone rang again. I retreated back under the desk, only seconds before the pig man came stomping back in. He ripped the phone right off its cord and threw it at the wall with such force that I could hear its plastic casing shatter on impact. His rage only made me even more scared of getting caught. The slightest inconvenience getting in the way of his ritual was like heresy.

Worse, he knew there was a child somewhere in the building, a helpless interloper. He and the others would now keep an eye out for me.

Recognizing this, I must’ve stayed under that desk for a decent length of time before mustering the courage to get up and leave the room. With the only phone I could easily get to destroyed, but also armed with the knowledge that help was on its way, I saw my best option as just trying to get out of the building. Sleepy Pines was at a central location and served many towns, and yet it was still a way from the interstate and the gas stations near it; the place was in the middle of nowhere, and there were no other businesses I could run to. Even so, by then I was ready to take my chances waiting or hiding outside.

The emergency exit doors out in the hall were also a no-go, however. Looking back, I think that the mall could be completely locked down by design. Maybe it was important for the ritual that nothing could get in or out. Or, it could be… that they were keeping something else inside. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but ever since getting out of the washing machine that night, I had felt like I was being watched. As if eyes were on me the moment I had stepped into the darkness of the Sears store. I wonder—if I had just stayed in the tumbler, would I have been safe?

I’m not saying that the mall itself was alive, but I believe there was some kind of presence in there that night, all around. Pervasive, lingering in the shadows and in every corner where light didn’t reach. The feeling was never stronger than when I slipped into the utility corridor, its entrance being right by the useless emergency exit. It was a cold, dirty place, left unheated. Nothing but gray concrete, wiring, air ducts, old equipment, and remnants of stores that had closed over the years. The long stretch of hallway was like the building’s unseen museum. Sales signs, going out of business banners, cardboard stands, broken shelving units. I’m not sure what the places that no shopper typically sees are like in your typical mall, but here, it was as if the management never threw away anything. It was a mess, but at least the flickering fluorescent lights that lined the ceiling kept it from being dark. I’m guessing they were rarely turned off.

I never actually got a chance to look for some seldom-used doorway back there, though. I didn’t even take a step past the entrance. The presence I had felt was almost overwhelming from my spot at the end of a hallway any kid would be scared to navigate in normal times, and for one reason in particular. The corridor was breathing. The night still gets worse, but I’m confident that just being in that hall was one of the main reasons my mind locked me out of the surreal memories in the first place.

Like the chanting under the skylight, the breathing was rhythmic and natural, in and out, as if I were staring into a huge monster’s throat. It was frigid, too, but impossible to mistake for a draft. Wind pulled trash and other loose objects away from me, and then blew them back several seconds later. And yet there was no sound other than the skittering of small debris affected by the current; no rumblings or snoring. Only dead silent, breathing air.

I don’t remember how long I stood there, debating whether it was safer to turn back or actually proceed into the hallway. Maybe only seconds, but I’m sure it felt longer. My decision was made for me when I suddenly saw a rapidly-approaching darkness from the other end. Its movement was swift and never stopped—it wasn’t like the fluorescent lights were taking turns shutting off. There was an abyssal blackness coming right at me, at the speed of a train, and it engulfed everything it swept over. I think it may have even generated a shock wave of air, hitting with enough force to push me forward just after I had turned around to flee from whatever entity was threatening to swallow me.

I threw my body against the door I had stepped through only moments ago before the darkness could reach me, fell to the floor, stumbled about, and took off in the opposite direction as fast as I could go. Keeping it all in was impossible, and I can recall screaming as I ran away with no destination in mind. It didn’t matter that my panic had given myself away, because the pig man was already on the lookout for a child. He grabbed the back of my jacket the instant I passed by a corner, where he had been waiting.

He was tall, and strong. I think he must’ve picked me up with one arm, by just the collar of my outerwear. He brought me up to his mask, and I could see nothing but black through the rubbery pig face’s eyes.

“Well…” he muttered in a guttural growl. “What brings you to Sleepy Pines tonight, young lady?”

Able to hold and carry me with a single arm over his shoulder like he did the pig carcass, he took me towards the ritual site. My survival instincts kicked in, and remembering what my parents taught me to do if I should ever be grabbed by a stranger, I started thrashing and yelling in his grip. Not that it did me any good against such a brute.

I need to take a break here. I don’t feel prepared to move onto what happened after that just yet. It’ll take another round of steeling my nerves to revisit the next part. I do want to keep writing while these memories are fresh, so I think I’ll spend the next couple of nights doing a little research and getting down some objective facts. Pardon the brief interlude.

During its existence from 1973 to 2008, Sleepy Pines only ever had two owners, the first of which also helped design the building. The second owner was brought in to oversee a revival attempt starting in 1991, but didn’t quite succeed and ended up closing shop less than two decades later. As far as I can tell, he was a typical businessman of little importance, and his only noteworthy accomplishment was getting a good deal on the sale of the land.

So… let’s instead talk about Pierce Colchester, the first proprietor. I did what I could on digging up information about him before writing this story, but it’s no easy task. Whether the world simply ignored him as much as an owner of a mall could be ignored, or he tried his hardest to bury his tracks, his legacy has been made enigmatic. But there are a few things we do know.

He was born in 1942, appeared to be quite tall when compared to others in what few photographs of him exist, and was once a college professor in the northeast of all things, teaching a class on anthropological studies as they pertain to the native populations that once thrived in the area. But that only lasted a short while, as sometime around 1970, he inexplicably came into a lot of money, quit his job, and bought a large tract of wooded land not far from freshly-laid interstate road. His business dealings were seen as “shady” and his construction contracts are seemingly lost, but all of that was brushed aside by the local government when Sleepy Pines opened in 1973 and brought a cash flow into an area that was little more than farmland and abandoned steelworks.

I’m certain I met him that night, because he suddenly disappeared in 1990, and a new owner had to be found who wasn’t as successful with running the place. The mall’s reputation for being clean and safe was hit hard, then it fell into disrepair, vendors evaporated, and its glory days became a memory. In other words, I was there the moment its slow death spiral started.

There was something else notable about Sleepy Pines that I gathered from a series of small articles over the years written about the place; stories and observations that never gained wider traction yet persisted while Mr. Colchester was in charge. Excluding the workers who ran both the corporate stores and smaller, independent outlets, the mall had been knowingly understaffed during his tenure. It did function as any other decent mall, only with far fewer people at the helm than usual, to the point where it was noticeable to anyone looking. It managed to thrive in the early days even so, and that small overhead must’ve bolstered the monetary success of Sleepy Pines and put more money right in Colchester’s pockets. He only ever commented directly on the matter once, and never in a written interview.

After contacting a few people I grew up with and who still live in the area, one of them managed to uncover an old videotape with recordings of local news broadcasts for the closest city to the mall. It so happens that Colchester was interviewed in 1988, right in the atrium itself and in front of the mural. He had made one of his rare public appearances for what was little more than a fluff piece celebrating the mall’s 15th anniversary, and the segment was less than two minutes long. Hearing him speak was what really confirmed to me his identity. He is standoffish and his answers are to the point, if not a little defensive. I won’t transcribe the whole thing, but his responses are worth a mention.

He is asked three questions. To the first, he explains his mall’s success on keeping a small but dedicated and professional staff on hand at all times. To them, the place is more than just their livelihood; it’s their sanctuary. His words, not mine. Even the reporter seemed a little taken aback by this degree of reverence. Perhaps thinking that he went too far, he visibly tries to lighten up a little, and emphasizes that he just wants to turn the mall and the work around it into an artform, something to take pride in, like “the Italians and the Japanese” do. Keep in mind, this is a middling shopping center in a low to middle class rural area. He definitely thinks too highly of himself and it’s clear he isn’t much for socializing. Replying to a follow-up question on why he hired so few people, he claims things like efficiency and forming a tight-knit family. I think he just wanted to save money and have the right number of workers that he felt he could control, either keeping them devoted to his cause or leaving their numbers small so they wouldn’t consider rebelling against him.

After some banter back and forth and compliments from the reporter about the pristine nature of the place, she asks her last question, about the mural. The camera pans over to it, basking in the daylight from the windows above, and because of the low-res video it’s like the figures are watching several children passing by who have ice cream cones in their hands.

“Every mall needs a centerpiece, something that defines and speaks for it,” Colchester says. “I’ve visited many across the country, and seen things from elephant sculptures to meaningless displays whipped up by a commercial artist. I had this mural commissioned to pay homage to the people that were here first. It allows us to look back at them, and them us, from the distant past. And for anyone that studies the brushstrokes closely enough, they will find little secrets. Depictions of folk stories and forest creatures. I cannot give away the name of its two creators—one did the backdrop, the other, the deceptively simplistic figures—but suffice to say, they are both modern masters.”

All this art talk goes over the reporter’s head, and she concludes the interview with a toothy grin and wishes Colchester luck in the next holiday shopping season. Himself an artist in backhanded wit, he smiles wryly and suggests that she might wish to check out the sale at the Pottery Barn. She cheerfully closes out, and we return to the local newsroom to learn of other trivial matters. I do miss the simplicity of that time.

It’s hard to believe that just a couple years later, that man was covered in blood, wearing a pig mask, and returning to what was pretty much a cult ritual in his mall with me in tow, kicking and screaming. I can really only owe my survival to a rift among his workers. Some of them hadn’t lost their humanity quite yet, and seeing their boss dragging over a small girl to a sacrificial circle was a step too far for them on first sight. Since I was again near their holy object, I can revisit my recurring nightmare realm where my memories are crystal clear.

I was finally close enough to the site to see the others, and I took in their appearances despite being terrified. While they never took off their animal masks, the rest of their clothing was also business attire and I recognized two of the uniforms—that of the custodian and the head of security, both of whom I had seen earlier in the day. There were two other men in suits, and two women as well that I know I’ll never identify.

For some reason, when I was brought close enough to the object in the middle of the circle, I could see it. Or more accurately, I can remember seeing it since from then on, it doesn’t seem to burn a hole in my memory.

The totem radiated a strange energy, its structure glowing and containing something exotic and prodigious. There was a red orb floating inside it, giving off waves of heat like a road on a hot summer’s day. I don’t think its color actually had anything to do with blood. Rather, that was just how these delusional people perceived it. Nor do I think they dug it up. It was too clean and intact to be some ancient lost relic found in the area.

I believe they built it. I was able to watch the Mike and Jenna videos after getting in touch with the person who discovered their camera files and is keeping them otherwise private, making me one of the few who has watched those mall exploration clips. This was definitely not the same totem that briefly appears in their video. Its composition, size, and materials are totally different. Whereas the object they stumbled upon was tall and looked like a wood carving, this 1990 iteration of the supernatural device was made of bone bound by leather to wood, and in a shape similar to an antique hourglass, with the bone twisting around to form a cage of sorts that kept the crimson sphere inside.

Thankfully, I doubt it was made of human bones. They looked like they had come from a large animal, and I don’t think that the people were macabre enough for that kind of defilement, not yet. Some of their arguments made their opposition to what was happening clear and gave me hope, but that night was already one of the most demented things a child could ever experience.

Other than Mr. Colchester the pig man, I can’t be sure of who spoke because of the masks. But their quarrel went something like this:

“Why is there a kid in the mall? Where did you find her?”

“We have to stop everything at once! She isn’t part of the process!”

“But she’s already seen too much…”

“No, we can medicate her—knock her out. She’ll think this was all a bad dream. Her parents must already be on the way. Don’t waste time debating.”

“But you know it doesn’t let anyone forget.”

“This is true,” Colchester tells his flock, as I continue to stare in awe and fear at their sacred object. “And her family is looking for her. But isn’t it obvious what we must do? This is a sign. The divine miracle is testing us, our devotion, by bringing us this lost lamb. You know what has to be done.”

“Sir…” one of the women replies shakily. “When you use language like that, it concerns me. The icon is remarkable, yes, but we need to remain rational and clearheaded. We agreed years ago that it would be dangerous to place such blind faith in this… thing… that we still don’t understand.”

This remark angers Colchester, and he roars almost incoherently, “That is exactly why its power has waned! You never truly believed in the icon—none of you did! Not like I do. How can you take this child’s appearance in any other way than a pronouncement? No—a holy commandment?!”

“We are never going to sacrifice a child!” the other woman says, and she and the custodian get to their feet. “This is too much!”

“When does it end? What’s next?” the custodian asks his boss. “Do we put two kids under the knife next year? Then double it every year after?”

“If we must!” Colchester rages on. “Think of all the happy families, making memories, buying presents for their loved ones! We need that to persist! This is a small price to pay for success. Open your eyes!”

But he’s only losing followers, and everyone but one of the men in a fancy suit stand up to oppose him.

“I don’t think its power has weakened, sir,” the head of security replies harshly. “I think that even it can’t keep the tide back any longer.”

“He’s right, my friend,” a man agrees. “We can’t fight where the market is going. The golden days are over for many businesses, not just us. Let’s calm down and talk civilly. There are other uses we can find for the object, and Sleepy Pines may still be able to sustain itself for years to come, even without its help. The past isn’t worth holding onto, not at this price…”

“None of you ever had enough faith in our blessed icon! If you had truly devoted yourselves to it, we would not even be here tonight!”

It was then the last person still sitting on the floor, one of the men wearing a business suit and hidden by the rat mask, stood up. He took out the knife from the pig corpse nearby, and wiped off the blood on his sleeve.

“My faith is still strong,” he grumbled in a harsh tone.

“Good! Then show me!” Colchester demanded, and turned with me still in his grasp so that I could face the large butcher’s tool.

The man in the rat mask approached callously, like it meant nothing at all to drive that blade into a child’s heart if it meant another year in the black. But the others still wouldn’t let it stand, and they drew near.

They recoiled when the rat man slashed the knife toward them and said sternly, “Get back! I have too much riding on this place. If you can’t do it, I will.”

Ever since my mind opened up and confirmed to me that the memories at the ritual site were real, I’ve found myself wondering the most about the rat man, more so than Pierce Colchester. Who he was, what he had on the line, and why he was the most devoted of the followers. He must’ve disappeared, too. I think they all did, but the others were just less newsworthy.

Whatever his story, the group didn’t hesitate a second time, and as soon as he had let his guard down, they rushed both him and Colchester and wrestled me from their grip. From the floor, I heard them scuffling, maybe even fighting in earnest. It had to have been just the tail end of a long, tumultuous relationship among them all, and I was merely a passerby in the night. Whatever their boiled-over disagreements with one another, they were more important to the ritualists than me. I was only the trigger—and also suddenly forgotten for the moment.

I could have just gotten to my feet and snuck away, but I was worried that I still might not make it out. That overwhelming presence in the building remained, and if it didn’t catch me, then Colchester or the rat man would. The two of them were strong and fierce, and in my brief glimpse of their struggle, I saw that they were already close to overpowering the lesser five.

My solution to everything was remarkably simple. If this had happened when I was adult, I might’ve overthought it, or doubted my ability to do it. But easy, impulsive solutions are what being a kid is all about. So I did the only thing that made sense to me throughout that night.

I got up, went over to the totem, and crushed it with my foot. I furiously stomped on it repeatedly, breaking the bones that comprised it with satisfying snaps. Upon hearing those sounds, and then seeing what I was doing, Colchester expressed his extreme disapproval by flying into another rage. He broke free from the others and came charging at me, but his anger was short-lived and quickly turned into some sort of physical or mental anguish.

Once the totem was completely shattered, the floating red orb in its center turned black, melted into a liquid that oozed onto the tile, and then seemingly soaked into the tile. The substance had disappeared within seconds, and I think this caused a reaction in Colchester.

He spasmed and started choking on liquid. Black fluid dripped from the pig mask eyes, and then he vomited up a torrent of that disgusting black gunk from the fountain. The others backed away from him, and I’m guessing they didn’t know what was happening, either. But he was obviously in pain and suffering as his body tried to purge something… unnatural. This was always where my repeating nightmares ended. With the totem destroyed, it no longer had a hold on my memories, and the rest of the night becomes a blur again—although I now remember the rest just as well as any other fuzzy childhood account.

Colchester ran off, clutching his chest or stomach, and there’s a chance that everyone else just stood around a moment longer, looking at each other and me as if wondering, “what now?” It didn’t last long. Since the mall was dark, the flashing red and blue lights that had suddenly appeared from the other side of the nearest locked doors filled the halls and scared them off. After they also disappeared from my life, I ran to the door, feeling overwhelmed by panic and desperation to get out of that building.

I’m not sure, but when I destroyed the totem, all of Sleepy Pines may have trembled. If it wasn’t from me severing some otherworldly grip on the place, then perhaps it was that unseen but omnipresent entity I had felt since the start of that night. Either way, I had returned to the world of reason and everyday normal adults doing their jobs.

The police officers that had come to my rescue weren’t able to get in touch with any mall staff for reasons obvious only to me, so after I ran up to the doors, they ended up breaking glass to get me out of there. My parents were waiting nearby in the van, we had a tearful reunion, and I got the back of the vehicle to myself on the way home. I only have bits and pieces of these last moments of the night, so it’s likely I passed out as the adrenaline dissipated and they brought me straight to bed.

I never told my family everything. They knew that I had been trapped in a mall, alone at night for hours, and that was more than enough to warrant some child therapy. After a few months or so, I must’ve shown good improvement because they no longer saw a reason to keep at it—so long as I didn’t visit the mall again. I don’t remember much from my sessions, but I don’t think I ever told my therapist the full truth, either. Who would believe it? What would it add? If anything, I’d just be seen as delusional, or confusing the resulting nightmares with reality. People in animal masks, worshipping bones and pig blood…

While therapy taught me how to manage my emotions and not let past events control me, I mostly credit my recovery to my mind quickly burying the reality of what transpired. I can’t explain how it did so exactly, but it could have something to do with the unbelievable things I saw, and part of me just couldn’t accept them as real. Or maybe the totem can remove or rewrite memories to disguise its nature and make finding out what it is difficult. In my recurring flashbacks and dreams over the decades that take place at the ritual site, the totem itself never actually appeared until recently. I’d forgotten its form.

My theory is that the enigmatic object is both a lock and key. It can hide itself away from perception, but when I read Mike and Jenna’s story and saw the videos, the totem unlocked itself within my psyche and freed other memories about the day as well. How it can do this is one more mystery as to its origin. I think any physical form it takes is tenuous, only as strong as the person that creates it. But it knows how to linger, and wait, to be made again. I can’t even begin to assume anything about its powers or true purpose.

I haven’t seen any of the people at the ritual since then. And I never returned to that mall. We did visit my uncle’s family a couple more times, but I stayed at the house when the others paid a visit to Sleepy Pines. It had to have been understandable for my parents that I shouldn’t need to relive something so traumatic. A few years later, once both of my cousins were adults with their own lives, my aunt and uncle moved from their small town and we had no reason to go back.

Before I wrote this, I finally asked my mom about her perspective of the night, emphasizing that I remembered everything she thinks happened to me again. It reawakened old guilt, but I assured her that I had moved on and forgiven everyone for leaving me behind. Her answers gave me a clear understanding of how things went wrong, and I can’t really blame my parents anymore, at least not fully. It was an accident, something that could happen to any large group at the end of a busy and chaotic day.

It wasn’t as basic as driving a van full of kids home and not noticing that I was missing. There was actually some miscommunication between my parents and my aunt and uncle about who was riding with who. Presents filled up both vehicles and meant that passengers had to be split up. In the confusion, each driver must’ve thought that I was in the other car. Specifics about which siblings and cousins were in which vehicle are lost to time, not that it really matters. However things panned out, no one noticed I was missing until a few hours later, when it was time for bed. My parents rushed back to the mall after calling the police, and their response time was such that both parties arrived at just about the same moment despite the difference in distance.

Life moved on for us after that, and the incident became just another one of those childhood disasters that big families get used to. All of my siblings have horror stories of their own as well, though none as strange as mine. Not that I’ve divulged to any of them the full truth. I don’t believe that the ritual site was ever discovered, or it was cleaned up in a hurry. No local newspapers had a story on any of it that I’ve found after an extensive search.

However, I did manage to track down the words that the ritualists were chanting after repeating them in my head enough times and thinking about Colchester’s reverence for local tribes. They were from the Seneca language, used by the Iroquois people in the area. “Yohdge-ah-dey,” meaning the earth, and “hahdow-nie-ee,” to breathe. Yöëdzade and hadö:nye. I’m not certain of the pronunciation, and they probably weren’t either. They probably didn’t have to be. It’s the belief that counts, that fed the totem. But if there truly is something special about the land up there, the “breathing earth,” I wouldn’t be surprised. It would track with what I felt and witnessed one night in November.

The one last thing I don’t understand (to top off so many other things), is that I had to have been in that washing machine for at least several hours, since my mom swears that I didn’t get to bed until midnight. There’s no way that I would’ve willingly stayed in there that long, so I must be missing time. I either fell asleep without knowing, totally spaced out for a while, or something else happened the moment the mall closed up that defies explanation. If the totem can screw around with space, it’s not a stretch to say that it could also play with time. The danger is great, but I have a feeling that it will eventually be remade again by someone with a different point of view than a few guilt-ridden capitalists in charge of a dying mall. And maybe then we’ll get some answers, because I have none. Only guesses, and an outsider’s story.

Until then… I’ve recently found that sketching my own version of the totem on occasion is strangely soothing. It makes me feel calm. I kind of like it, and think it’d look best if created with something artistic, like clay. But I’m also well aware of what it might do if fully realized.

So, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. Everything in moderation.

By the way, Home Alone doesn’t have a mall scene.