The atrium of the maul is easily two or three stories, and windows line the front wall as well as a large portion of the ceiling.As we drove in, a bank of clouds swept across the skyline, and by the time we’re indoors it’s now dark with an oncoming storm, leaving the gathering area more somber than normal.The sky is an electric painting of black and grays, swirling hypnotic patterns into the clouds.

  Despite the small number of cars in the parking lot, there are quite a few people in the mall already heading in one direction or another. Employees on their way to clock in, parents bringing their kids in to shop, and older people walking the halls like it’s a gym class.

  “Ghastly’s event isn’t until noon,” I say, checking my watch. “We’ve got about an hour and a half until it starts.”

  “Why did we get here so early, then?” Winter asks, just a little distastefully.

  “In case there’s a line.You saw the Ghouls outside.I’m surprised the place isn’t already packed.”

  “You know this isn’t twenty years ago, right?Ghastly has had to fall off a lot since then.I’ll be surprised if there’s more than you and the Ghouls when we get there.”

  I scan the open area at this corner of the mall. Speaking of the Ghouls, they’re already gone, so the event probably isn’t up here.

  When events are held at the mall, they usually take place in the open, spacious entry that we have walked into. They set up a stage, chairs, the whole nine yards. It’s the only central hub that is big enough for a large crowd. However, there is no sign of an event. Not a platform, not even a folding table or some chairs. If the Grandpa Ghastly Meet & Greet is being held somewhere else, it’s a surprise.

  There isn’t even any signage to point us to where it should be.

  “I thought it’d be right here,” I say to the others.

  “Maybe it got cancelled for lack of interest,” Winter says. I scowl in her direction, but it only makes her dimples flair.

  Across from the open area is a hub that leads into the food court, and then like the spokes in a wheel (or tentacles of a kraken) the wings of the maul extend out in various directions.Each of tentacle like wings offer two stories of independent shops, with stairways and escalators spaced around them on either side, with an open are on the bottom floor. I look for signs of the event and far down into the Derleth wing there’s a standing sign with some writing I can’t read from here.

  We head in that direction, first passing the Build-A-Banshee workshop, where the employees walk haphazardly with electrocution-straight hair. A dozen harmonic wails blend into the mall’s elevator music. A cluster of parents with sugar-rampaging kids - definitely a birthday party - congregate near the front of the store, where they can see what kinds of Banshees they can build on their special day.

  “We came here for my birthday when I was seven,” Winter says fondly. “I still have Screaming Mimi. That’s what I named her.” I hold back a comment about how that explains so much about her.

  “Wrath doesn’t like screaming,” I say.“So I never really got to try one. I always thought it was a cool idea, though.”

  We pass the store by as the lights inside flicker, and an unearthly wail ricochets off the walls, muted by the time it reaches the exterior of the shop.

  “Really good acoustics, though,” I note approvingly.

  Ironically right next door is the Radio-Shhh, and a deep and unsettling stillness pours out from the shop. “I thought they went out of business?”

  Winter shakes her head.“Not all of them.This is one of the last ones still open.I hear that every time someone tries to come in and shut them down, they can’t get the words out.”

  Yeah, that makes sense.Inside the employees work slow and languid, unhurried and more cognizant of making no noise than of being efficient.The quiet almost seems to have a physical presence and as we close in and then walk past, it feels like something takes hold of us and even our own footsteps disappear.When the sound vanishes, the internal beats of my heart, my lungs, my anxiety grow louder in my chest and it is a chaotic inferno that becomes all I notice.

  And then just as quickly as it overtakes us, it fades away, and the sound of my footsteps returns.

  “Oh, I love that dress,” Winter says as we approach 21 Forever, the vampire aesthetic boutique.A lace baby doll dress hangs in the window, though it’s a charcoal gray than a true mortuary black.“The color’s not right, though.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  A woman, maybe in her mid-thirties, comes out from one of the dressing rooms in the back, absently rubbing at her throat. Her skin is pale, unusually so, and she has a pair of tops on hangers that she returns to where she found them. A few moments later one of the employees also emerges from the dressing area, wiping delicately at her mouth. Unlike the customer, her skin is flushed and rosy, and she looks the picture of health.

  “They probably have other shades in the back,” Wrath suggests, and Winter seems to be considering it. While we walk past, we see the rosy-cheeked attendant lead another shopper into the dressing area and vanish behind a curtain.

  “They keep it too chilly in there.” I shake my head distastefully. Winter nods in agreement and we continue on. We’re just about to walk past the Great Old One Cookies store when we see a familiar figure walking out with a small box carrying a delightful blend of sugary treat and salted madness.

  “Isn’t that Professor Gravechurch?” Winter says, leaning forward slightly.

  I narrow my eyes in concentration.Indeed, the man walking out of the bakery and in our general direction is in fact our new Ecology professor, the one that Freddie was the TA for before he… decided to take a semester abroad (dimensions).Professor Gravechurch is older, but his hair is still dark black and his eyes an unsettling blue.

  “Professor!” I call out, and I’m not sure why, but he seemed to focus on me in particular in class. So I want to see if he’s going to continue that trend. Faculty that know me by sight are not exactly good for my academic career. At least not so far.

  “Hmm?” He looks at us, and contrary to the last class, there’s no hint of recognition.

  “Professor Gravechurch. We’re in your Recycling and the Living Dead course.I have to say, I had so much fun in class the other day.You really have a different method than Freddie.”At first I think Winter is just trying to suck up, but it occurs to me as she keeps talking that she’s actually serious.In fact, she and Nico were particularly excited once Gravechurch took over the class and actually seemed to want to teach us.Is she a closet nerd?

  “I’m sorry, my dear, but I think you have the wrong person,” Gravechurch responds formally, and he sounds exactly like he did in class the other day, posh accent and all.

  Winter’s expression becomes what I can only describe as ‘contempt meeting disbelief for coffee’ as she looks at him. “No sir,” she says slowly.

  “Yeah, you definitely have a class we’re in. But if you don’t want to talk to us in public, that’s fine. If the Admin think you’re having memory lapses, though, that won’t go over so well,” I offer. It’s not exactly a threat. I mean it kind of is a threat, but I’m not the one making it. HHU is no stranger to teachers breaking up with reality, or going on sabbatical from their senses, and they don’t treat it casually at all.

  Just like that, Professor Gravechurch’s expression clears. “Of course I remember you too. Where’s your tall friend, the one with the brain.” He makes a brief show of looking around.

  I exchange a look with Winter.“Do you mean Nico?” she asks.By silent agreement, we know he can’t be referring to Isaac.

  “Yes, of course. Nico.” Gravechurch says with a snap of his finger.“His grandmother interviewed for a faculty position.Wonderful woman.Impressive resume. She’ll be such a fine addition to our loving brood.”

  “He couldn’t come out with us today,” I supply after a moment. The professor looks crestfallen, and everything about this man is odd to me. And that’s in comparison to everyone else at HHU, who are already odd. It’s like he’s so normal it’s…normal.

  I don’t know how to explain it exactly.

  “I still don’t like him,” Wrath murmurs quietly in my ear.Though not quietly enough that Winter can’t hear it.She cants her head at me and I nod in agreement.

  “Are you here to see Grandpa Ghastly at the event?” Winter eventually asks, when the silence between the three of us starts to become awkward. Professor Gravechurch doesn’t seem interested in continuing the conversation, but neither does he make any move towards departing.

  The reaction is not what I expect.

  “He sent you here to follow me, didn’t he?” Gravechurch demands, eyes narrowed.

  I think we’re both stunned into silence. Winter, who normally takes the lead in these kinds of situations, falls back and I guess I step up. “No one sent us here. We were just here for the meet and greet, that’s all.” I keep my voice low and soothing, the way everyone on campus talks to the kids who survive Screamers 151. Slowly and with no sharp movements. If they make it past the first year their fright or flight senses start to relax, but until then they’re a danger to themselves and others.

  Winter slips her arm through mine. Another strategy is to make yourself big, or barring that, linking up with other people so you seem a bigger threat. I don’t think Gravechurch is going to hurt us, exactly, but at least this is more of the sanity-adjacent faculty I would expect.

  “He knows what he did. And so does Channel Thirteen’s basement!”

  I wipe some of the spittle of my face. For her part, Winter pulls a delicate black lace cloth from somewhere within her person and dabs at her own face as well. The outrage is much more familiar from faculty and I begin to relax.

  “I don’t think we have a Channel Thirteen,” Winter muses.

  “You can’t watch Channel Thirteen anymore,” Gravechurch corrects, again falling into his academic lecturing tone, “but the problem was always what Channel Thirteen was watching. And it still is.”

  “I don’t see how that’s Grandpa Ghastly’s fault.”

  He makes a soft sigh of regret. “I know who you are, Mr. King. And even more, I know where you live. Keep that man as far from Morecroft Manor as you can.” And then he tips his imaginary hat at the two of us and takes his box of cookies towards the exit.

  We watch him walk away for nearly a minute. He never breaks stride, never looks back, and eventually I can even hear an off tune whistle that sounds remarkably like one of the lullabies my mother used to sing to me. “Down in the hollow, the dreamers sleep, into the darkness their secrets keep…”

  I shake my head, curious at the melody. I always thought Mom made up the songs she used to sing to me, but maybe the lullabies were more common than I knew.

  “What is it?” Winter asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “Maybe he’s not so bad after all,” Wrath says cheerfully.“You should have asked him for a cookie.”