Chapter 6 Chapter 6

The mannequins were right outside the door.

Leo could see them through the crack in the closet door. The woman in the blue dress. The man in the suit jacket with nothing under it. The kid in the school uniform. Two more mannequins were now standing behind the known three but he could not see their faces because of the bad light.

They weren't smiling anymore.

Their faces were just blank now. Not that they were angry, not like they were about to lunge. Just expressionless faces. It was like the painted smile had been wiped off from their faces.

Maya had her back against the shelves with her torch light off. She didn't want any glow showing through the crack.

Leo crouched next to her. His knees hurt. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. He could feel his own pulse beating in his throat like it was trying to get out and he was sweating.

"What do we do?" he said. Barely a whisper.

Maya was staring at the door. The crack had gotten wider. The mannequins had already hit it twice and one more good hit was going to be the end of it for them.

"We wait," she said.

"For what? What for? They are clearly going to break in. Can't… can't you see it?"

"We are waiting for them to leave."

"What if they don't leave?"

She turned toward him. He couldn't really see her face in the dark but he felt her eyes land on him.

"Then, we will fight," she said.

"Fight? My goodness Lord. Fight… fight how? They're plastic. You can't hurt plastic. Instead, we will get hurt."

"What I meant is, you run. You find another way. You stay alive." She paused. "That's what fighting is in here. Not dying is winning."

Leo wanted to argue but there was nothing to argue with. She was right. He had no weapon, no plan, nothing. Just this new thing he didn't understand yet. Threshold Memory. Whatever that even was. It wasn't going to hold a door closed.

The door creaked.

They both looked up.

The crack was spreading by itself now. Not from the mannequins hitting it. Something on the other side was pulling at the wood, slowly and carefully, like it wasn't in any rush at all.

Leo watched a whole strip of the door just peel back. The sound it made was like tearing paper. Patient and deliberate.

"What is doing that?" he said.

Maya shook her head. She had no answer.

The hole got bigger. Big enough now to actually see through. They could see the hallway beyond it. Red carpet. Numbered doors. The mannequins standing in a row, completely still, just waiting.

The woman in the blue dress had her hand flat on the door. Her plastic fingers were pressed into the wood. She wasn't pushing or pulling. She was just touching it. But the wood was bending away from her like it was afraid of her hand.

"She's getting in," Leo said slowly and swallowed hard. He clenched his teeth and his eyebrows were slightly raised with eyes widening in fear.

"Yes."

"What happens when she's in?"

Maya didn't answer that one.

The fingers came through the hole. The whole hand followed, reaching into the closet. The fingers opened and closed slowly, opening and closing, like something feeling around in the dark for a pulse.

Leo stepped back. His heel found the mop bucket. He grabbed it before it tipped.

The hand went still.

The fingers turned and pointed directly at Leo.

She knew right where he was.

"She can hear us," Leo said.

"No," Maya said. "She feels you. Your heat. The air you move. The fact that you're alive and warm."

"How do you know that?"

"Three years here. You learn."

Maya stood up and pulled Leo to his feet.

"We go deeper into the closet," she said.

"It's a closet. It doesn't get deeper."

"Everything in here can get deeper. That's kind of the whole problem."

She turned away from the door and walked to the back wall. Leo followed her.

She was right, the way she was always right about this place. The back wall was gone. Where the shelves and the cleaning bottles and the sink had been there was just an opening now. Dark hallway on the other side. It was narrow with a low ceiling and concrete walls.

Leo glanced back at the door. The woman's hand still reaching through, fingers still pointing at the spot where he'd been standing.

"Where does this go?" he asked.

"I have no idea," Maya said. "But it's somewhere else and somewhere else could be better than here."

She walked through.

Leo went after her.

The moment he stepped through, the air hit him differently. It was cold and dry. That bleach and ammonia smell was completely gone. Now it was dust and something old, like a room that had been shut up and forgotten for decades.

He looked back. The opening was still there. He could still see the closet, the mannequin's hand and the mop bucket.

Then the walls started moving. They were slowly pressing in from both sides. The opening got smaller and smaller.

Maya grabbed his arm tightly. "Go."

They ran.

The hallway was so narrow Leo had to keep his head down and his shoulders hit both walls the whole time. Maya was smaller and quicker and she didn't have that problem.

Behind them the opening closed completely. The closet light vanished. It went completely dark again.

Maya's torch light came on. The beam picked up all the dust moving in the air.

"Keep going," she said.

They walked.

The hallway went straight for a long time. Then it turned left. Then right. Then left again. Leo gave up trying to keep track. He didn't even know if they were still inside the mall anymore or somewhere the mall had swallowed up a long time ago.

"Which way do we go?" he asked.

"I'm not sure."

"Then how are you still alive after three years?"

She kept walking. Answered him over her shoulder.

"I pay attention. I remember turns. I look for things that show up more than once."

Leo was getting frustrated now. "Things like what?"

"The mall moves things around but it doesn't get rid of things completely. The numbered doors always come back. The red carpet hallway. The food court. The janitor closets. They shift but they're always there somewhere if you look."

Leo looked at the concrete walls around them. No numbers. No carpet. Nothing he recognized.

"This doesn't look like something that keeps coming back. I can't see anything similar to what I have seen before."

"No," Maya said. "I've never actually been in here before."

Leo really wished she'd kept that one to herself.

They walked for another five minutes or maybe ten. It was hard to tell.

Then he heard something.

A voice was coming from up ahead somewhere.

Maya stopped at the same time he did. Her hand came up.

They stood there and listened.

It was a man's voice. Not like he was talking to someone. More like he was just making sounds. Words that didn't lead anywhere. Like someone reading out loud in a language that didn't exist.

Maya switched the torch light off.

It went completely dark. Then, they just listened.

The voice got a bit closer.

Then Leo noticed light ahead. Not much. Yellowish. The type that barely makes a dent.

They moved toward it slowly. Maya first, Leo right behind her. Neither of them made a sound.

The hallway opened up into a small room with concrete still on every surface and a bulb hanging from the ceiling on a short cord.

A man was in the middle of the room with his back to them. The delivery driver. Yea, the delivery guy. They called him that because he never told his name like Maya and Leo did. They were able to figure out he was a delivery guy because of how he was dressed. His shoulders were shaking. He was still making those sounds that weren't really words.

"Hey," Leo said slowly. "It's us."

The delivery driver didn't move.

"How did you get here?" Maya asked.

He stopped making sounds.

He went completely still.

Then he turned around.