Big Hard Girls

by Nikki Crescent

  He went for his first mall walk early, and he was practically skipping down the hallways. He still jumped when his flashlight’s beam landed on a mannequin, but the little scare wasn’t enough to ruin his good mood.

  He went for his second walk early, too. Though this time, he had less skip to his step. It was now pitch black outside and the traffic on the nearby streets had dulled to nothingness. The creepiness of the mall was starting to set in, and the boredom was starting to set in along with it. By Terry’s third walk, he was back to his normal self, walking slowly, jumping at every little creak, feeling like time was moving in super-slow-motion. He knew the boredom was the reason he was making as much money as he was. If the job was exciting, there would be people lining up to do the job—or the pay would be much less.

  He knew he would eventually need to ‘embrace the boredom,’ as Phil always said. If he was going to tough out the next few years, tedious quietness was something he was going to have to get used to.

  During his sixth mall walk of the night, he heard a loud sound, coming from that same department store where he witnessed Phil’s degenerate meltdown. “Who’s there?” Terry asked, approaching the store slowly. He crept up along the wall and kept his flashlight drawn. He had no weapon, except for the pepper spray on his belt, which wouldn’t help him against anyone armed with a knife or a gun. The department store gate was closed and locked, like it should have been. It took Terry a minute to find the correct key—he was already getting faster.

  “Who’s in here? I called the cops,” he yelled. But it was a lie. He didn’t want to call the cops. He didn’t want to give his boss any reason to think that he was incompetent, even though he probably was. “I’m serious!” he shouted.

  And then he found the knocked over mannequin. He lifted it back up and then he looked around. His heart was pounding powerfully. He was half-expecting someone to jump out with a knife—maybe even Phil, looking to get that revenge he swore he would get. But there was no one there.

  Terry looked at the mannequin. It was wearing a heavy fur coat and a heavy purse—and it wasn’t the sturdiest unit in that mall. Maybe the weight of the clothes just knocked it over. Maybe a bit of a draft was all it needed. Even now, on its feet, it would wobble slightly when Terry nudged it.

  But he wasn’t convinced. He went up to his security room and found the monitor that was watching the mannequin. He followed the cable from that monitor to the large recording unit and then he pressed the rewind button. But nothing happened. He pressed it again, and then he tried the same button on the other units. None of the monitors changed. None of them were set up to record. There weren’t even tapes in any of the tape slots. “Shit,” Terry said. Was he supposed to be replacing the tapes in those machines?

  He looked around through the various drawers, but there were no tapes. Apparently that mall didn’t waste money on security tapes. Apparently that’s why they had Terry, to save a bit of cash. He did the math in his head. There were forty-two cameras. To record on all of them would have cost a small fortune every night.

  So all Terry could do was hope that no one had infiltrated that mall. He kept his gaze glued to the monitors, watching for even the slightest movement. But if it was Phil in that mall, then he knew he wouldn’t see anything. Phil knew those cameras better than anyone.

  But luckily, Phil was probably still locked up.

  CHAPTER III

  Every few days, a late night delivery would show up at the mall and Terry would have to supervise the drop off. Terry was working the night the new iPhones were dropped off. There was already a long line of eager buyers outside of the mall, so Terry had to be extra alert that night. The phones went up for sale in the morning, but a few of the eager customers couldn’t wait. Terry ended up catching one man trying to find an unlocked door at the back of the mall.

  But Terry didn’t really have much to worry about. The mall was nearly impenetrable. The windows were all made from some sort of police-grade bulletproof glass. The doors were all steel, with many bolts holding them shut. The only way Terry could think to break in without having a key was to drive a truck through a wall, and if someone was stupid enough to do that, Terry couldn’t stop them.

  It was a Monday night when a delivery truck pulled into the loading bay. Terry checked his schedule and saw that there were no scheduled deliveries for that night. So he made his way down to the loading bay and he cautiously poked his head out. Two bearded men were standing next to their large truck. “Can I help you?” Terry asked. He was ready to recede back into the mall at a moment’s notice. Terry knew that the door locked automatically, and it closed fast, so there was no way the chunky bearded men could get to it in time.

  “We have a delivery for your Game Stop,” one of the bearded men said.

  “We’ve got no scheduled deliveries tonight.”

  “Well then should we just leave these boxes on the street? Look, man, we’ve got ten other places to get to tonight. Quit wasting our time.”

  Terry hesitated, and then he slipped out from the mall, letting the door close behind him. He approached the men slowly and then he looked at the four medium-sized boxes that were sitting on the edge of the truck. Humans couldn’t fit in those boxes, so it couldn’t be a Trojan horse sort of prank. But bombs could probably fit in the boxes… What if Phil scheduled a fake delivery in some strange attempt to blow Terry up? “Open the box,” Terry said, keeping his distance.

  The bearded men looked at Terry strangely. Then, one of them pulled out a box cutter. He quickly opened the box and then tilted it forward so Terry could see inside. The box was filled with many copies of the same game: the new Halo game, which wasn’t supposed to come out for another week. Terry’s eyes lit up, as if he was looking at a box full of diamonds. “I can take these inside,” he said.

  “Whatever,” the bearded men said. They plopped the boxes down on the ground and then they drove off. Terry hauled the boxes inside, pushing them down a long series of hallways to get them to the Game Stop. He hauled the boxes into the store’s storage room, and then he found himself staring at that shiny new game—a game millions of people were eagerly waiting to play. Terry picked up a copy and stared at it.

  At the front of the store was a demo Xbox. It currently had some kiddie game in it. Terry walked over and turned it on, along with the television it was attached to. His heart fluttered as he pulled the plastic away from the new Halo game. He took out the disk and put it into the demo Xbox. Then, he spent the next hour playing the brand new game. He was probably the first person, outside of the development team, to play one of the most anticipated video games of the year.

  He made his next mall walk quick, jogging down the halls so that he could get back to the game. The rest of that night flew by quickly. It wasn’t until the final hour of his shift that he put the disk back in the box and then hid the open game behind a stack of old used games that no one would ever buy. Then he put everything back to the way it was and he returned to the security room. His heart was pounding. For the first time, he’d just broken the rules. He’d abandoned his post to go and play a video game. He knew he’d done a bad thing, but he couldn’t fight away that tingling feeling deep inside of him.

  Sure, there were rules, but there was no one there to enforce them. Between the hours of 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM, Terry was alone. He had the whole mall to himself. And he could do whatever he wanted as long as no one broke in and nothing was stolen. It wasn’t until that night that Terry realized what an amazing opportunity he had. With no cameras recording and no other people on staff, that mall was his own personal playground. Maybe working the night shift wasn’t so bad after all.

  CHAPTER IV

  He was quickly realizing he’d landed one of the best jobs in the world, but working the night shift still had all of the same downsides. Terry’s ‘weekend’ was Tuesday and Wednesday. There were no decent parties on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. All of his friends would go to bed early because they all had school or work
in the morning. So Terry’s ‘weekends’ were completely pointless. He would sit in his room with nothing to do. He wouldn’t even feel like playing video games, because he did that so much at work.

  Another big downside to the night shift was dating. Terry had no way of meeting women, outside of the Internet. And even with the girls he met on the Internet, there wasn’t much he could do. “We should do something this weekend,” the girls would always say. And then Terry would have to reply with, “What are you doing Tuesday night?”

  And even when he did manage to convince a girl to go out with him on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, it always felt strange and awkward. She would order herself a steak or the lobster at dinner, and Terry’s stomach would turn, as he would normally be eating his breakfast at that time. So he would order something light, like a salad. And instead of booze, he would order coffee. Then, if Terry got lucky and managed to take a girl home, then came the awkward hours after the sex, when the girl would snuggle up to him in his bed and fall asleep, and Terry would be wide awake, staring up at the ceiling.

  His skin was starting to become paler than ever before. One girl he took out on a date told him that he looked a bit like a vampire. “But I’ve got a thing for vampires, so I kind of like it,” she said, as if that made it some sort of compliment. The girl’s name was Erin. She was a short, cute girl with black hair and very dark eye makeup. She wasn’t exactly Terry’s type, with her entirely black wardrobe, but her dating profile caught Terry’s attention when she wrote that she was ‘nocturnal’. Regardless of her quirks, it was nice to hang out with a girl on a regular schedule.

  For their second date, they met up at 2:00 AM on a particularly dark Tuesday morning, at a park that wasn’t too far from Terry’s house. The park bordered a graveyard, and Terry wasn’t too surprised when Erin wanted to go for a walk along the tombstones. Even standing right next to her, Terry had a hard time seeing her, as her clothes and hair blended into the night sky. “You told me that you worked the night shift, but you never told me where you worked,” she said as she reached out and took his hand in hers. She had long fingers, like a pianist, but they kind of creeped Terry out. At least her hand was warm, proving she wasn’t actually a vampire or a zombie.

  “I work at the mall. I’m in charge of security,” Terry said, almost hesitantly as it was always embarrassing telling people that he worked as a rent-a-cop.

  But Erin seemed fascinated. “You’re in charge of a whole team?” she said.

  “No, it’s just me,” Terry said. “There used to be another guy, but he got fired.”

  “So you get the mall all to yourself every night?” she asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “My friends and I once snuck into a mall—a few years back. We drew big pentagrams with pig’s blood on the floor as a joke. And then we left a bunch of candles burning for them to find in the morning. It made the newspaper—maybe you remember that.”

  Terry forced a smile and shook his head. “It doesn’t sound familiar,” he said. The date was awkward, but it was made slightly less awkward with the large bottle of vodka that Erin had stashed in the inside pocket of her jacket. She passed it to Terry; so Terry took a big, long gulp. It had been a while since he’d had any booze. When your only free time is on Wednesday and Tuesday nights, there isn’t much point in drinking.

  Terry felt the buzz quickly. He took another long sip, and then he went for another walk through the tombstones. He found himself laughing at the absurdity of the date, and then he found himself with an awful dread churning in his stomach. Erin was probably the only match Terry would ever find—or another ‘nocturnal’ girl just like her. Maybe that’s why Phil was secretly seeing prostitutes; working the night shift, finding love isn’t easy.

  Terry looked into Erin’s eyes. At least she had a pretty face, and she was outgoing. He was about to kiss her when she said, “Oh shit, what time is it? I’m supposed to be at this witchcraft meet up in twenty minutes. Do you want to come? It’s not as weird as it sounds—though it can be a bit weird.”

  He shook his head and forced another smile. “I’ll pass. I should probably be getting home,” he said. So he went home and went to bed early, still with that dread lingering in his gut, reminding him that he would probably never find his soul mate as long as he was working the night shift at the mall.

  CHAPTER V

  It was just past midnight the next night when Terry’s phone started to beep. He was in the Game Stop, just about to beat the new Halo game, which still hadn’t been released to the masses. He pulled out his phone and saw that it was his baby monitor.

  Terry didn’t have a baby, but he had purchased a baby monitor that connected to his phone. He left the camera facing the monitors in the security room, and set the sensitivity to high, so that he would be alerted if there were any movement at all on those screens. Now, his phone was beeping consistently.

  He opened up the baby monitor’s video feed, which wasn’t the greatest quality. It took a moment to load, and then he watched the small screens through his already-small screen. He saw a figure moving around on one of the outside cameras. Someone was moving around the mall.

  Terry perked up and then he ran up to the security room, leaving the gate to the Game Stop open and his Xbox game still running. He didn’t have time to clean everything up. He would have to do that later, once this dark figure was taken care of.

  He scurried into the security room and then he scanned all of the screens for signs of the potential intruder. His heart was pounding, even though it wasn’t unusual for homeless people to sneak up to the mall and then sleep against the side of the building. There was music playing through speakers around the whole building through the night, to deter the homeless, but it didn’t always work as intended. Now, Terry could see nothing. Maybe it was just a guy out for a very late run, or a deer cutting through town.

  Terry was about to turn away from the monitors when he noticed a humanoid figure standing by the loading bay. It was slowly wandering from door to door, as if trying to find an opening. Terry pulled out his phone and considered calling the cops—but he didn’t want to get the cops involved. So he grabbed his flashlight and his pepper spray and then he made his way down to the loading bay. He approached the heavy steel door slowly and then he grabbed the handle. He took a deep breath and then he swung the door open. “This is private property and you’re trespassing!” he shouted as he swung his flashlight’s beam from left to right.

  And then his beam landed on a short woman. She winced away, covering her face with her hands. Terry stepped back into the doorway, ready to slam the door shut in case the girl had a weapon, or if she decided to charge. And then she said, “Put down the light!” and Terry recognized her voice: it was Erin.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, lowering his flashlight.

  “I thought I would come and keep you company,” she said with a big smile.

  Terry took a second to let him heart calm down. He looked around to make sure she hadn’t brought all of her witchcraft friends with her. And then he wavered. If he let her in, was he not just as bad as Phil? He shook his head—no, Phil brought a prostitute in, and he was letting her steal. This was much different. “Okay, come on in quickly. But just for a little bit.” He rushed her inside and then he looked around again to make sure no one was watching.

  “Whoa. What is this place?” she said, looking around.

  “It’s the loading bay. It’s where all of the stores’ deliveries come in.”

  Erin pointed at the forklift. “Can we drive that around?”

  “No—definitely not. I don’t know how and I don’t want to lose my job.”

  Erin laughed as if Terry had just made a silly joke. “Relax, man. I’m not going to get you fired. I just want to see what you do around here. Why don’t you show me around?”

  Terry took a deep breath. His heart was still pounding. He’d recently been given a two-dollar raise, and the mall manager said, “If you k
eep up the good work, there will be another raise before the summer.” Sometimes Terry had nightmares about being fired and having to get his old job at Subway back.

  He showed Erin the back hallways. “You can get to any store through these halls,” he said. Then he took her up the long staircase. “Up here is my office. This is where we watch the monitors.” She looked around, nodding her head as if she was only mildly impressed.

  “That’s a lot of cameras,” she said. “Are they recording?”

  Terry hesitated. He nearly told her the truth, but he hardly knew her. As far as he knew, she was plotting to rob the mall. He parted his lips to lie, but then he hesitated again. He’d never been a good liar.

  She laughed. “I’ll take that as a no,” she said. “Don’t worry, man. I’m not a burglar. I just wanted to see you. Is that so weird? C’mon—show me the mall. I want to see it all dark and scary.”

  So Terry brought Erin down to the big, open, dark, and scary mall. “This is it,” he said. She looked around with a big smile on her face. Then she spotted the camera staring down at them. She waved. “I always assumed these things were recording. I guess they’re just there to scare people, right?”

  “They’re there so that I can keep an eye on the whole mall from my office,” Terry said.

  She laughed again. “This is fun. Do you have access to all of these stores? Can you just go into any of them and try on clothes or—” Then she noticed the open gate and the glowing screen at the Game Stop store. She turned to Terry with a big grin. “So you do take your job super seriously, huh?”

  Terry felt his cheeks turning red. “It’s not what it looks like,” he said.

  “It looks like you were playing video games on the job.” She started skipping towards the store. Terry scrambled to keep up. “It’s okay—I would do the same thing. Do you ever go into the Sears and sleep on the beds. They actually have some pretty comfortable beds.”