by Jae Vogel
When he retired, he opened up a hobby store, which allowed him to pursue what he really enjoyed: building the latest and best model aircraft he could find. It also allowed him a cheap way to buy parts. After he hired some people who knew about the business and sales side, it allowed him to do what he wanted all day long. The hobby store was quite profitable and allowed him to interact with other hobbyists. In time, his store, Hobby Visions, became a popular source of tools and material. Hitch would also put out a catalogue that became known all over the world.
“Good morning,” a voice said to their left and they turned to see Edward again. This time he wore a USAF uniform. The rank said “Major” on the nametag.
“You can get in trouble walking around impersonating an officer,” Dion said to the little man.
“It’s the least of my concerns. I’m more concerned with your current situation.”
Edward was a strange little Englishman who popped in for brief moments to offer advice it seemed. They could never get a straight story out of him as to his origins. He claimed he was allowed to give them guidance on their adventures, but not to do anything else. Edward was corporal for only five minutes at a time, but he was vague as to how long he was allowed to appear. The only thing consistent so far was that he showed up in a different outfit each time. The last time he’d appeared, Edward wore a concert t-shirt, jeans and a pair of suede leather shoes. As far as clothing went, this was a vast improvement.
Edward pulled out a cigar, clipped off the end with a pair of tiny scissors, and lit it. He took a long inhale, much to the disgust of Dion and Lilly. “Ah, one of the few pleasures I am still permitted. Just don’t say a word if anyone asks you what I’ve done, please.”
“Anything special we need to know about what is on the other side of the glass doors?” Lilly asked. “Are you going to call in an air strike?”
“It wouldn’t do many any good if I had the authority. They could drop blockbusters all over that structure and the builders would find another way to create a new one. They are that powerful.”
“So, does this explain the Air Force uniform?” Dion asked him. “It looks a lot better on you than the last outfit.”
“While thank you. No, I get a brief opportunity to make a request before they send me back. I’ve spent my time on the other side looking into what is considered proper attire these days. Beastly, I tell you, just dreadful. This was the best outfit I could find on a short notice. What I came here to let you know, is that the builders of the mall are furious you walked out of it with your earth elemental power yesterday. They have threatened to replace all of the ghouls, although what good it would do is beyond me. Any other earth elementals they can bring inside will automatically be under your authority. The chemist is leaving and has told the management she will end her lease next month.”
“Chemist?” Dion asked.
“Oh, dear, that is right; you call them pharmacists in this country. Anyway, she feels it is time for her to move on to set up shop somewhere else. I’m guessing her work is finished in the mall. This might be another reason all the Element Grandmasters were so willing to relocate to the mall. They knew you would find it easier to locate them if they were in the same area. She spoke highly of you, my lad, so keep up the good work.”
“You went ahead and talked to her?” Dion asked. “How did you manage to do that?”
“I have my ways. They wanted me to do a follow up, so I had tea with her yesterday after the mall closed. We spent a good hour together. I want you to know that she gave you the highest recommendation ever for a new Master of the Earth Element.”
Dion thought for a few moments. He was pleased she would think so well of him, but did it really make a difference? So long as his parents were imprisoned inside the inner part of the mall, he had to find a way to get them out. If the other Elemental Grandmasters thought well of him, well then maybe it would all work out in the end. But until he had all five powers, no single one of them would do him any good.
He thought back to his early years and remembered his father showing him how to make small creatures out of clay. They didn’t last very long and soon crumbled back to the soil, but it was fun. He remembered luring the wind elementals to push sailboats along when the air was calm. At an early age, he would play with the air elementals in the backyard of the house. He liked to watch the sylphs of the lower air fly around the trees. They could tell you if company was headed down the road or when the big storms were on the horizon. The air elementals didn’t interact much with humans.
He remembered several talks he had with his parents about what he could and could not say in front of the “English”. “The English” were the elemental workers’ term for those who couldn’t manipulate elements. No one seemed to know where the term originated; it was just something they used among themselves. The elemental workers even had certain signs and terms to use whenever they were afraid an outsider was listening in on the conversation. He remembered the first time his father told his mother there were too many “spirits in the night” at a restaurant. This was a coded term they used. It meant there were people listening in on the conversation who shouldn’t hear what was being said.
“And it’s just about time for me to go,” Edward said as he looked at his wristwatch. “I prefer a pocket watch, but this Rolex is smashing. I hope they let me use it the next time.”
Once again, he was gone without so much as a flash.
“I can’t get used to him popping in and out like that,” Lilly said to Dion. She turned and looked at the entrance to the mall. Nothing at the front to stop them.
“Did you know there’s a town in Ohio called Revenge?” Dion said.
“You’re kidding? Why would a town have a name like that?”
“Nobody really knows. I ran across it in the library. The best theory is that there was a competition between two men over who would get to name the town. The loser of the competition was to get the chance to name it. What the town officials didn’t tell him was that the award of naming the town went to the man who lost the competition. So, as the story runs, as his retaliation on everyone for losing, he named the town ‘Revenge’. At least that is the story I was told.”
It wasn’t yet ten in the morning so the mall was still closed to everyone but the employees. Dion watched the security guards come to the glass doors and let the workers in. Every time they opened the door to let someone inside, the guards would make a point of glaring at Lilly and himself. There was no love between Officer Karanzen, who was in charge of the security guards, and Dion. They’d spent the previous day avoiding Karanzen and his goons while they hunted for Emily after she was kidnapped by the ghoul cleaners. It was only after the appearance of Dion’s grandfather, who was Karanzen’s commanding officer in the Korean War, that the overbearing security chief left them alone.
“I was surprised your grandfather was here yesterday,” Lilly said. “Do you think he’ll be back today?”
“No. It takes a lot to bring him and grandmother back. He has some of the same restrictions Edward has, just not as severe. I don’t think we’ll see much of them. By the way, did your parents seem concerned about last night? It was late when I took you home.”
“My mother and father understand I’m a big girl,” Lilly laughed. “After my sister married and moved out, they eased up a lot. I told them the truth: we had to go get gas for your van after it ran out.”
She avoided telling them the gas was stolen by thieves who were after a tire on his van. She didn’t tell them how Dion caused the ground to open up around the getaway car until they returned the tire. Had he known that the same thieves had also siphoned off the gas in his van, he would’ve made them fill it up. Luckily for the thief, they didn’t learn the tank was empty until they tried to start the van.
There was a small crowd of shoppers in front of the glass doors ready for them to open. Likewise, the best parking places were taken by people who arrived early. Dion and Lilly were standing toward the
back of the lot as they expected to be there most of the day. The builder of the mall had thrown all forms of hurdles in front of Dion to keep him from reaching the Earth Elemental Grandmaster yesterday, and he had every expectation they would do it again.
They noticed Emily’s car the moment she pulled into the lot. Even Dion was surprised she knew where to find them. He sat there and watched her little green Ford pull into the entrance and drive right up to them. After her experiences the day before, he was stunned she would return after having vowed never to come anywhere near the mall again.
Chapter 2
“I didn’t expect to see you here again,” Lilly said to Emily as she got out of the car. “I thought you never wanted to see this place again.”
“I don’t,” she said, her hair combed down and not the mess it was the day before. “But I’m not leaving you two here alone to do whatever task Dion has to do. We’ve known each other for years and I don’t want to lose friendship over a haunted mall.”
Emily had grown up with Lilly. They attended school together most of their lives. As their last names were similar, they were in the same homerooms all the way through junior and high school.
“Besides,” Emily continued, “I’ve got some help today. I want you to meet Sean. Come on out, Sean.”
The passenger side door of her car opened and another high schooler stepped out. He was the same age as the rest of them, eighteen, but that was the only thing Sean had in common with the rest of the group. He wore thick glasses, which were smeared with grease. This made it difficult for them to see what his eyes looked like. His face was scared by skin infections, and his clothes might’ve been new ten years ago.
“Always good to get some help,” Dion told the newcomer. “Did Emily fill you in on what we’re up against here?
“She gave me some idea. According to her, the place is infested by ghosts, zombies and werewolves.”
“No ghosts,” Dion corrected him. “They won’t come anywhere near here unless it’s to shop. I don’t know about werewolves because I haven’t seen any of them. The map I had of the mall listed a hidden restaurant that caters to them, so they might be here. However, you wouldn’t know it unless it was a full moon.”
Sean looked at him for a few seconds. “That is awesome! What about the zombies?”
“You haven’t met the security guards.”
Sean didn’t have a girlfriend. In Sean’s mind, this made him less than human. At eighteen, Sean lacked many of the basic social skills which would have allowed him to have the relationships that might have alleviated his loneliness. But Sean was an introvert, someone who didn’t have the kind of social connections he needed to get along with people. He found relief from his ultrarelgious mother and suffering father at an early age in books. In books, there were neat endings and people lived happily ever after. Evil was destroyed and good triumphant. As he got older, Sean realized the world around him didn’t match the one he read about, but he still went to the same sources for guidance: books.
He had grown up in a small ranch-style house in town. His father, a mechanic at one of the auto plants, worked long hours and took all the overtime he could so his family had a decent place to live. He never understood his son or the fascination the boy had for fantasy literature and monster movies on television. As far as he could see it, it was a waste of time. Now, football and team sports, this he understood. Sean’s dad enjoyed watching the big game when he came home. However, he couldn’t even coax his son to toss a baseball. The one time he tried, Sean had bloodied his noose when he missed the ball and never tried again.
Sean’s mother was absolutely sure something was wrong with him. This was the time of the many “How To” books on child rearing. Whenever she’d hear something on one of the morning radio talk shows, she would meet Sean at the door when he returned from school with a cold stare. Sean endured a lot from her, but the worst was when she forced him to read a book about a teenage psychopath. He had nightmares for months over that one. It was almost as bad as the morning ritual he experienced where his mother read the latest advice column from the newspaper outload. Later, when he learned to read, Sean would find the columns himself when she tossed away the paper. He discovered his mother only read aloud the columns that agreed with her.
School wasn’t much of a relief from what he endured at home. In neither place was he deprived of any material needs, but, as a certain book said, people do not survive on bread alone. His school system was over-loaded and understaffed, a victim of the massive enrollment increase, which came with the bloom of the suburbs. The teachers didn’t know how to handle the hormones exploding in teenagers, packed forty to a classroom. The school administrator was stuck with a township that didn’t want to pay much for their children’s education. And the school buildings were repurposed every year from elementary to junior to high school and back again. It was not a shining moment in the education field.
Sean soon discovered when he entered high school that you only counted if you were a jock, genius or a troublemaker. If you didn’t fall into one of these categories, you were one of the teaming masses of students who ran from one class to another when the bell rang, which it did seven times a day. He learned to keep his mouth shut and avoid any stare at the toughs, who didn’t need a provocation to punch you. What if the teacher saw them? So what? They were sent down the office several times a week anyway. Their parents were beyond concern by this stage.
What he could not understand was why these bad boys were so popular with the girls. Every single one of them strutted around the hall as if he owned it. All he had to do was glance at one of the girls and she would swoon. This wasn’t always the case, but it happened enough for Sean to understand the basic inequality in the human race. Worse, it seemed the nicer you were to one of the hot girls, the nastier she was to you.
This is what drew him to the literary journal at the school and the crowd which surrounded it. It allowed him to indulge in his love for books and play at being a writer. Best of all, there were some girls involved who would give him the time of day. It was at the school’s journal where he met Lilly and Emily. They seemed to merely tolerate him, but it was more time than any of the other girls in school would give him. It was also fun to see his name on the masthead. Needless to say, his mother considered it a waste of time and belittled him for never making the honor roll.
Emily he adored.
She realized after a few months of his attention she could get Sean to do anything she wanted, just so long as she paid him some compliments. She thrived on the attention too, although the relationship was always determined by her. Sean tried to raise the “girlfriend” topic at one point, but she put a stop to it. Emily wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship after she saw what the broken one had done to her father.
But Sean longed to tell Emily how he really felt about her. He would write stories where she was the maiden and he the knight. Then he would ball them up and throw them into the trash. He would instantly fish them out of the trash and tear the stories into shreds before flushing them down the toilet. His mother had found one of his stories in the trash one morning and read it aloud to the family as an example of why “There had to be something wrong with him”. Sean knew he would remember that slight until the day he died.
So he was thrilled when Emily called him from her father’s house with a secret mission. This would allow him to show her that he was worthy of her attention. It would permit him to enter into the adult world, which in both of their cases was due to take place when they left for college. She wouldn’t tell him what it was about and they agreed to meet early in the day before the mall opened at one of the local breakfast places near where they lived.
Sean was transfixed after she finished with her story as to what occurred the day before at the mall. He felt one of his high fantasy novels come to life as she sat there and told him what happened over a coffee. He didn’t know what to do. It all seemed so surreal.
What he didn�
��t want to do was tell his family. His dad would roll his eyes and go back to watching TV; his mom would wail and get the pastor on the phone, if he was lucky. They might take him to a shrink if he even let on about this story. In no way would he allow any of them to know. At least his sisters were left alone. They seldom found reason to stay around the house.
“So, how do you want me to help you?” he said from across the table. Sean picked a small booth toward the back where they would less likely be noticed. He didn’t need the sneers from the jocks who found reason to come inside from time to time.
“Just come out there with me today as back-up,” she told him. “I need you to run cover for me. It’s all I’m asking.” Emily slid one hand over his.
When she did that, Sean made up his mind he would do anything for her. He was gone to the world, madly in love with the girl who faced him, even if he couldn’t tell anyone.
“So he knows it all,” Emily told Dion and Lilly. “I told him every detail what happened yesterday. Sean is here to help too. Why don’t you let him?”
“Do you have any idea what we’re up against?” Dion asked Sean. “You have any idea at all what could be on the other side of those doors?”
“I’ve talked with Emily,” he said. Dion noticed Emily gave Sean’s hand a little tug with hers.
“I see. Well, let’s get moving. Just watch me and listen to anything I have to tell you. It might appear to be a normal mall on the outside, but the place is the entrance to hell.”
As with the other entrance, there was as small water fountain outside the entrance to the “Air” section of the mall. Dion stopped and watched the water play out. He wondered what he could do to make the dangers of the mall real to Sean, but his full power extended only over the earth element.
