I Work Nightshift at the Mall: The Mannequins Move at Night
When I finally stumbled forward, their heads turned in unison, three mannequins, their featureless faces locked on me. My legs wanted to run, but my body wouldn’t move. I was frozen with fear. When I finally broke free of my paralysis, I tried to run, but my foot caught the edge of a display stand kiosk. I hit the floor hard, the wind knocked out of me. I lay gasping, desperately trying to pull air back into my lungs.
I pushed myself up, dazed, and glanced back. They were already there. Close. Too close. All three had surrounded me in silence. Cold plastic hands clamped down on my uniform shirt, shoving me back against the wall with a force that felt nothing like hollow fiberglass. Their grip was iron.
The one holding the knife stepped forward. Its glassy, lifeless eyes stared directly into mine, never shifting. One hand clamped under my jaw, tilting my head back until my throat was bare and exposed. The other hand pressed the blade against my neck just enough to let me feel its edge. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought they might hear it.
<How it began…>
It started as nothing, at least that’s what I told myself. A flicker of movement in glass, a shadow caught by the corner of my eye. Tricks of the light. Fatigue. I clung to those excuses until I couldn’t anymore.
I’ve been the night guard at this mall for three months now. Long enough to settle into the monotony, long enough to know when something feels wrong. And for the past six weeks, it has. I’ve listened to stories like this before, of mannequins moving on their own. I always thought the people behind them were liars, or worse, just paranoid.
I don’t think that anymore.
The mall itself isn’t big. Two floors, a yawning corridor down the center, shops lined up like teeth. Clothing stores, homeware, a handful of restaurants, and a tech store. From the right vantage point, with the beam of my flashlight stretched thin, I can almost see end to end. The owners say that’s enough reason to hire just one guard for nights. Just me. Alone.
My routine is simple. Every forty minutes, I walk the length of the mall, scanning for broken glass, loose doors, the things my report requires. The rest of the time I sit, drowning the silence in books or the dead scrolling on my phone. But every once in a while, I catch myself looking too long into the windows, into the displays that should never change, and feeling like they’re looking back.
On my rounds, I force myself to notice everything, the cracks in the tiles, the hum of the few remaining lights kept on overnight, the mannequins frozen in glass. Some stay the same for weeks. Others shift every night, dressed and posed for the next morning’s shoppers. I’ve grown used to seeing their blank faces staring back at me, but it’s never comfortable.
Then came the news. The man who owned the hunting shop, Charles, had died. Early forties, fit, full of life, or so everyone said. The kind of man who built his store with his own hands and refused to hand it over to any chain or franchise. He treated it like a child. Guarded it. Protected it. Loved it.
But when he died, the store became property. A thing to be sold. His wife tried, for a time, to keep it alive. Grief and inexperience bled her dry. In the end, she sold it off to the highest bidder, a man Charles had despised while living. And that was when things in the mall began to turn.
I clocked in that evening, the mall’s calm had soured into something else, something unsettled. The new owner finally showed his face. He wasn’t a hunter, not even close, just a businessman with polished shoes and empty eyes. He had been trying to get his hands on Charles’s store for years. He finally got his wish.
The mall is usually tomb-quiet at night. Just the echo of my boots. The kind of silence that makes you wish for noise, just so you don’t have to listen to your own breathing. I had just finished my third round and had sat down and started scrolling through my phone when I heard a sharp clatter from the far end of the mall, something falling, hard.
I grabbed my flashlight and went. My stride was brisk, beam cutting across tile and glass, sweeping over every shadow. The kind of walk where your shoulders tighten even though you’re telling yourself there’s nothing to be afraid of.
But there was no one, just empty storefronts staring back at me. I turned to head back, irritation replacing the adrenaline, until I passed the hunting shop and froze. I saw something lying on the floor in the center aisle. However, the roller door was locked tight, and I didn’t see anyone inside.
I returned to the guard station and grabbed the binder containing the store contact phone numbers. The clock glowed 3:03 a.m. as I dialed. After a few rings, a man’s voice answered, groggy but alert enough to recognize trouble.
The new owner, I asked if anyone was scheduled to work overnight in the hunting shop, restocking, moving displays, anything. He told me no. Then, after a pause, he gave me permission to enter the store and look around.
I spent about twenty minutes combing over the store. Stockroom, aisles, register, even the fitting rooms. Empty. Silent. Nothing out of place except for a box of shotgun shells that had fallen in the center aisle. The box was broken, and the shells were everywhere.
Even after inspecting the entire store, I could not shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone. I called him back, told her the store was secure, but mentioned the box of shells and that I had left the box at the front register.
The rest of the shift passed without incident, at least on the surface. But every creak of the walls felt deliberate. Every shadow seemed to linger. Something just felt off.
The next evening, I clocked in as the day guards left without a word of concern. Routine. Normal. But normal doesn’t hold in this place.
When the janitors cleared out, I made my usual first walk. I stopped at the hunting shop just to settle my nerves. I took a look inside, and everything was in its place. During the day, they must have changed the window display. Two mannequins stood facing each other, each wearing a backpack and outdoor gear, with some camping supplies laid carefully between them.
Normal. Ordinary.
An hour later, a single clack sounded, soft, like something settling into place, and I went to look around. The hunting display had changed. One of the mannequins faced forward now, the other’s hat was gone. The one that faced forward was now holding a hatchet from the camp setup, like they wanted to make a fire, and had forgotten they were supposed to be still.
I called the new owner and told him what I saw, but he snapped at me. Told me to stop wasting his time and warned me not to call again unless there was an actual break-in. I told him I’d check into it myself and hung up.
I left the guard station and walked back over towards the camping store. The display this time was worse; the mannequins turned so their backs faced the glass, arms outstretched, the fire kit now sprawled across the floor as if they had tried to light it and been interrupted. A charcoal smear darkened the sandbag that lay in the center of a small woodpile; a camp lighter lay bent in the wrong direction.
I should have filed the report, but after just getting told off, I just walked away. Instead, I started keeping a record. I started logging shifts and times, jotting down the changes that occurred with the mannequins. This only occurred in the camp store. Every night, they moved, most of the time just slightly, a head tilt, an arm in a new position.
As time went on, a pattern emerged. Whenever new stock that wasn’t previously carried arrived, during big sales and promotions, the more commerce was pushed into that space, the angrier and more noticeable the moves became. Last-minute markdowns, a new shipment on the loading dock; by that night, the mannequins protested even harder.
Then, the other night, a guard quit midweek, pale and shaking, after seeing the mannequins stand up and rearrange themselves in front of him. He called me that morning, asked if I had ever seen anything. I told him I had seen things too.
He told me this wasn’t the first time he had noticed things, either, but this was the most blatant, as if the mannequins didn’t care to stay hidden. He told me he no longer feels safe there and said I should quit.
I needed the work. I couldn’t walk away like he did. So I learned to live around it. Some nights are quiet; others feel like being watched by a jury of frozen faces. Sometimes, things fly through the store. Small tools, a handful of camping stakes, and once a full shelf was flipped.
I’ve come to one unreal conclusion: Charles is not done with his store. When something threatens his store, the mannequins respond to right the insult and punish the trespassers. I don’t know if it’s revenge, or grief made hard and bitter. Either way, I try now to leave it alone and let it have what it wants, because I have no clue how I would stop it.
I tell myself it’ll be nothing more than broken displays or rattling doors. But in the back of my mind, I see fire. I see glass shattering under heat, alarms screaming until the wires melt, mannequins standing guard in the flames like sentinels avenging their maker.
Everything came to a head the night they changed the name of the store; something in the air of the mall shifted. As the logo was stripped away from the hunting store’s glass, and the new banners slapped over Charles’ name. It was the mannequins. They had always moved in subtle, unnerving ways. Now they stood waiting. Three of them, lined in the window like soldiers. Their plastic eyes gleamed under the dim security lights, and for once, I had the sense they weren’t watching me.
I was doing my usual round when I saw him, the new owner. Suited, smug, cutting through the empty mall with a clipboard under his arm. He wasn’t supposed to be there after hours, but he walked with the certainty of a man who thought the place was his.
I stood behind the security desk and let him pass. Something about him struck me; this wasn’t the first time I’d seen it. He’d been at Charles’ funeral, standing in the back. I remembered the whispers even then: deals made in shadow, debts called in.
He paused at the hunting store window. The mannequins had shifted again; one held a knife from the display, another had its camouflage jacket half-open, and the third stood just inside the glass display, dressed head to toe in camo, a shotgun slung across its back. Like it had just moved into position moments before. As I approached, I saw his smirk falter. He tapped the glass with his pen. “Cute trick,” he muttered, though no one was around to hear him.
Then, the mannequins moved. Not a tilt or twitch. They turned, together, every joint bending wrong but purposeful. One raised the shotgun, its barrel glinting in the overhead light. The suited man staggered back, dropping the clipboard, and hitting the tiles with a crack. His voice went high, panicked, and he put his hands out in front of him to shield himself.
I should have run. I should have shouted. Instead, I just stood there, my flashlight beam catching the moment the mannequins moved in the display like their plastic bones had grown tendons. Their heads jerked in unison, locked on him, and for a moment, I swore I saw Charles’ reflection stretched across the glass panel in front of them.
The suited man screamed. Not words, just a raw sound as the glass shattered from the shotgun blast. His scream cut off like a switch had been thrown. They moved as one in the chaos of shadows and motion.
When I finally stumbled forward, their heads turned in unison, three mannequins, their featureless faces locked on me. My legs wanted to run, but my body wouldn’t move. I was frozen with fear. When I finally broke free of my paralysis, I tried to run, but my foot caught the edge of a display stand kiosk. I hit the floor hard, the wind knocked out of me. I lay gasping, desperately trying to pull air back into my lungs.
I pushed myself up, dazed, and glanced back. They were already there. Close. Too close. All three had surrounded me in silence. Cold plastic hands clamped down on my uniform shirt, shoving me back against the wall with a force that felt nothing like hollow fiberglass. Their grip was iron.
The one holding the knife stepped forward. Its glassy, lifeless eyes stared directly into mine, never shifting. One hand clamped under my jaw, tilting my head back until my throat was bare and exposed. The other hand pressed the blade against my neck just enough to let me feel its edge. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought they might hear it.
Then, without warning, the knife lowered. The mannequin crouched, set the blade gently on the tile, and reached into its pocket. My stomach twisted when I saw what it pulled out: a cell phone. It shoved it into my trembling hands and jabbed a rigid finger toward the glowing text-message icon. I tapped it, barely able to control my shaking. The screen lit with a message thread, the last text timestamped only twenty minutes earlier: “Thanks for taking care of the Charles problem. – KP.”
The truth landed like a stone in my gut. Charles hadn’t just died. He’d been killed. Bought out in blood so the business could change hands. And the mannequins, they wanted me to see it. To know it.
They loosened their grip. One by one, they stepped back, turned in perfect mechanical rhythm, and walked toward the storefront. By the time I could breathe again, they were frozen in their glass case once more, posed as if they’d never moved at all.
This has been Pale Lantern Media.
Some things don’t belong to the living anymore, but they refuse to let go.
If you ever walk past a shop window and feel eyes on you, don’t linger.
Don’t stare too long at the mannequins. They’re waiting for someone to notice.
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And we’ll keep the lantern lit. For as long as we can.