“Look, I’m only paid to patrol this mall at night, not to settle turf wars going on between the damn mannequins!” she said.

"Kathy, please try to understand, the fact that you weren't bombarded with product yesterday means they trust you." he said.

"I don't give a fu-"

"I'll double your pay. Double" He said. He tilted his head down and stared at her, unobstructed by his big glasses.

She thought about what that meant. Double pay would mean placing Aiden in a better preschool (somewhere where they actually remember to cover the electrical outlets). It meant she didn't have to constantly play Bill Collector to Marcus. She'd be able to pay off her nursing school debt in half the time. She mulled it over.

"ok, but this better be it. I don't want anymore surprises, so if you have anything else to tell me about this mall now is the time." she said. Kevin, her manager, was extatic. "Just the manequins, aside from that it's a pretty normal mall" he said.

The mall was a normal modern mall. It was dead. No customers and the little foot traffic they did have was from elderly people walking laps.

She looked at her watch and noticed the second hand ticking in the same place. The screen on her phone was cracked making it useless for telling time. "What time is it?" she asked her boss. "Seven, seven" he told her. She made her way towards the exit, passing the now frozen manequins. Now the weird poses made sense. One manaquin towerd over another, who was on it's back with it's arms fully extended in a defensive posture. Other manaquins froze mid battle with heads underneath armpits of others. When she first interviewed for the security job she assumed the manaquin displays were caused by bored retail workers trying to draw attention to their storefront. Now it was all too obvious that every night at midnight these things came to life and viciously attacked each other.

"its double the pay, it's double the pay, Its double the pay..." she kept repeating to herself.