'tis the damn season

Nine: mirrorball

"I've never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try, I'm still on that trapeze, I'm still trying everything to keep you looking at me"

It was just after eight and most of the mall was closing up now. The only thing that was open was the movie theatre, as their last movie showing goes until eleven. Robin and Steve were putting the delivery away that the same man in the lynx uniform from yesterday, had dropped off. I stayed back in the break room, waiting for Dustin to tell us where he's managed to follow him to. We figured it might be a little more low-key if just one of us were to follow him. It would be way too obvious if there were four of us. We'd just blow our cover.

Robin and Steve were working away, putting all the new ice cream into the freezers and locking everything up, while I sat on the table anxiously holding the walkie talkie.

"Anything yet?" Robin calls over to me from the front of the store.

"Nothing," I reply. "He better not have been seen."

But just as the words leave my lips, the radio makes a static noise, and then I hear Dustin's voice on the other end.

"Okay, I'm on the south west side of the building, near a huge line up of dumpsters," He says.

"What else do you see?" I ask, turning to see Robin and Steve listening behind me.

"There's two guys standing outside of a really big door. And they've each got a gun. It seems a little over the top for mall security honestly," he explains.

"Okay, sit tight, we're on our way," I say, hopping off the table.

"You're supposed to say 'over'," Dustin huffs.

I roll my eyes as Steve, Robin and I leave Scoops. "Over."

I push down the antenna on the walkie talkie just as Robin finishes locking up Scoops. We decide the best way to go is just to walk around the outside of the building. It would be way too risky to go through the back hallways.

It's dark when we get outside. I've never been around the back of the mall because there was only the one entrance, at the front of the building. Maybe there was a reason for that.

The three of us stay quiet, as we round the final corner to the back of the building. We head further from the walls, near the trees to stay better hidden. I can see Dustin crouched down behind a cinderblock wall on the hill. I point to him, and Steve and Robin follow behind me, as we quickly make our way over to Dustin.

"So what exactly are we looking at here?" Steve asks Dustin, as we crouch down next to him.

"I don't know what's inside that room, but it certainly doesn't seem like they want anyone trying to find out," Dustin says, motioning to what he's been watching.

I reach over Steve to take the binoculars from Dustin. When I look through them, I can see clearer, the two men with machine guns standing guard on either side of the doorway. It startles me when I see the door start to move up, making a loud noise as the metal moves, revealing a regular looking storage room full of boxes.

"What the hell?" Robin mutters, bumping me on my other side motioning for the binoculars so she can take a look.

I hand them to her, leaning over the wall a little more to see a truck pull in, also full of boxes in the back. We watch as the driver gets out, signing something one of the guards hands him.

I can faintly hear their voices, but couldn't make out what they were saying.

"That's definitely not English they're speaking," Dustin says.