The Mystery of Lakeview Mall

"She's masturbating?" he mouthed to his friends in disbelief.

Zoe nodded, still laughing. "I guess whoever's living here thought she could get a little privacy," she chuckled.

Nami couldn't help but laugh too. "This is crazy," she giggled. "She's being, like, so loud too."

"I almost feel bad," Tyler laughed. "Okay, so the hobo who lives here is-"

The sound of Zoe elbowing Tyler in his hefty gut cut him off. "Homeless person, bozo."

"Ow... the homeless person who lives here is just flicking the bean and..." He waited for the latest in a series of sexual moans to fill the air. "...howling like a banshee?"

"I guess so," Zoe concluded. "So, I for one want to get out of here. I feel weird listening to it, I'm sure she doesn't want an audience, and if she's... doing this, she's not exactly in a position to chase us down and kill us."

"Maybe we should have just you use your flashlight, Tyler," Nami suggested quietly, thanking the heavens that it was too dark for the other two to see how deeply she was blushing. "Keep covering it with your hand too. I think it'll give us just enough light to see where to go, but not enough to..."

"I got it, thanks," Tyler replied impatiently. "Follow me. Don't speak unless you have to."

The three walked cautiously through the mall back to their starting point, the moans of pleasure getting farther and farther away as they walked. Eventually, they found their way back into the maintenance room, and eventually, back out of the mall.

"Thank Jesus," Tyler mumbled as he closed the door and breathed in the outside air. "Can you imagine if some cop came by and sealed up this door while we were in there?"

"That was our craziest adventure yet," breathed Zoe. She sighed a couple of times before locking eyes with Nami, then she started laughing again.

"What??" Nami protested.

"You're blushing pretty hard, Nami," Zoe laughed. At this announcement, Tyler faced her and started laughing too.

Zoe pouted and looked away, knowing that the announcement just made her pout harder. "It... it was weird!" she protested.

"Super weird," Zoe agreed. "I get people have urges, but wow, she just did not care about holding back. Does it even make you feel better to just yell like that while doing it?" She stared at Tyler.

"Don't look at me like I know!" Tyler protested. He took off his backpack and started rifling through it. "Anyway, check out some of the stuff I looted."

"Oh my God, Tyler, you did not," Zoe protested.

"Oh my God Tyler I did," Tyler replied defiantly. "This was worth the, uh, Close Encounter of the Bird Kind."

"Bird kind?" Nami asked.

"Isn't there a bird word for cooch?" Tyler asked boldly, earning a chuckle from Zoe.

"No, Tyler," Zoe said between laughs. "There is no bird word for vagina."

Nami was laughing too, but also wondering if the woman masturbating in there maybe had the same urges as she did. Maybe that homeless woman was the one spraying the cologne, and she had her own Jeremy she was nostalgic towards, or something. Maybe that's why Nami could smell it. Either way, she had to take care of herself and not let her hormones get the best of her like that -- at least, not when she was with friends.

Still, if her hormones were acting up, at least they had the good grace to act up when she was under the cover of darkness.

***

"And... that's time. Pencils down please," Mr. Sigorsky called. The only class Tyler, Zoe and Nami had together all semester was math class, and Mr. Sigorsky was their balding teacher, tasked with what may as well have been a teacher's nightmare -- a class with those three at the back of the class.

They weren't exactly a nightmare trio -- Sigorsky saw promise in Zoe, and thought Nami was a 'good kid' -- but Tyler sure knew how to bring out the beast in them. Even the quiet Nami could be a loud and disruptive influence under Tyler's little regime, and separating them did more bad than good. This was why, when he went around and collected his kids' tests, what he said to Tyler shocked the whole class.

"You're pretty quiet today, Tyler."

Mr. Sigorsky half-smiled at Tyler, mostly as a joke, but also to show he meant no harm. The trio had agreed that Sigorsky was a pretty harmless teacher, all things considered -- there were some real a-hole teachers at Hazelwood, and Sigorsky clearly wasn't one of them. He was pretty understanding that kids were kids, but he still liked to have some kind of order and authority in his class, so giving an inch to Tyler like that must have meant that Tyler's quietness was visible.

Out of instinct, Zoe turned towards Tyler and realized that while he wasn't sad or anything, he was being a lot less disruptive than usual. She joked with him a lot, but she actually liked how bold and frankly obnoxious he could be. He wasn't so muted today that she picked up on it herself, but after Sigorsky made a note of it, she couldn't help but think about what was on her mind. She stared at him, trying to figure him out for only a brief second, her teeth nibbling on her pen in thought. Nami was, as usual, staring out the window, probably thinking about boys or something.

After class, while everyone else filed out, Zoe put her hand on Tyler's shoulder to stop him from walking out, a smug grin on her face. Nami quickly joined them.

"You were halfway decent today, Tyler," Zoe joked. "Even Sigorsky was surprised."

Tyler, never shy to being the butt of a small joke, smiled. "Yeah, I'm losing my edge."

"Are you okay?" Nami asked.

"Oh yeah, I'm fine," Tyler waved it off. "I got a lot on my mind. This week was rough. I've got this dumb To Kill a Mockingbird paper coming up. Anderson wants it in by Thursday."

"Well, at least you had three weeks to do it," Nami commented.

Tyler gave her a face. "Three weeks? It was assigned on Friday."

"Really?" Nami asked. "That's weird. Wagner assigned ours on Friday too, but she gave us three weeks."

"So wait, you had less than a week to do this, and you still went tomb-raiding with us on Saturday?" Zoe asked with a grin.

"Of course I did! You're only young once," Tyler protested. "I wanna live! I wanna live!"

"Any chance you could 'live' outside my classroom for now, Tyler?" Mr. Sigorsky asked humorously. "You have your own class to get to."

Tyler, used to being chirped by teachers, shrugged exaggeratedly towards Sigorsky. "I almost made it through a whole school day without being called out by you today."

Mr. Sigorsky gave a small laugh. "You made it through a whole period, I think we can call this a half-victory for you." He motioned towards the doorway, from which a few students were already filing in.

The three met at Nami's locker (the other two barely used theirs, for their own reasons) as they always did before their next class. Tyler leaned his head back against the neighboring locker and sighed.

"You sure look like you have more than schoolwork on your mind, dude," Zoe remarked.

"Yeah, and it's not like schoolwork is on the top of your to-do list anyway," Nami joked.

"I think I'm just -- hey, Nami, ease up -- I think I'm just antsy or something," Tyler answered. "I just wanna go out and, just, do stuff. Are you two free this weekend?"

The two didn't say anything for a bit. Zoe's eyebrows slowly rose. "Two weekends in a row? You're going to burn yourself out."

"Did you find something else we could do?" Nami asked.

"Could we, like... go back to the mall this weekend? I mean, we didn't even get to go to the north end. Maybe there's something really cool there. Plus, that was like our biggest adventure! Can we?"

"We never go back to the same place twice," Zoe pointed out. "Wasn't that your rule?"

"Yeah, well, I don't exactly have abandoned malls and shit lying around waiting for me. And who knows how long that entrance is going to be there? I can't explain it, I just want to go back. Can we?"

Neither Zoe nor Nami could explain it, but even though they had their own hesitations, a weird part of both of them wanted to go back themselves, so naturally, it didn't take too much convincing for the two of them to eventually cave and agree.

It was decided. The adventurous trio were going to go back to the mall that Saturday.

***

The three of them held their breath as Tyler tried the door. In one swift motion, as if worried himself, he turned the doorknob and swung the door open. All three of the friends lightly cheered.

"Okay, here we go," Tyler announced as Nami handed out the flashlights. "To the north this time. Still past the food court." With that, he walked in, finding his way past the maintenance room to the court. Looking at each other for a brief second beforehand, Zoe and Nami followed him.

Nami didn't bother with the mask this time. After all, she seemed fine last time, and even if she wasn't... the damage was already done? Was that how that worked? She didn't know. But what she did know, though she wasn't sure why, was that she was glad to be back in the mall. Tyler was right, it was the perfect place to have an adventure.

And weirdly... in some weird way, she was glad to be breathing in that air again. It was probably the nostalgia, or maybe even the residual smells of the stores or something. After all, she did have a lot of memories of Jeremy in here.

Jeremy...

No, none of that. Not now. She had to behave.

In an effort to clear her mind, Nami started marching forward at a noticeable pace, earning a "Hey! Wait up!" from Tyler. Eventually, all three were matching her pace until they came to a break in the hallway.

"I take it this is the... uh... break in the hallway?" Zoe asked, her voice a little unsteady. Tyler flashed his light in her direction to reveal that her face didn't show fear or anything.

That was good. Tyler didn't want to admit it, but if Zoe was afraid, the whole team would be scared shitless inside of one minute. The security guard incident proved that handily. "Yup, this is where the north end begins."

"Why is it called the north end, anyway? Kind of seems silly to break the mall up like that," Nami piped in.

"Oh, I have no clue what they called it. I just call it that. I just remember the mall has three ends," Tyler answered honestly. He shrugged. "Seems like it works."

"Hey, if it works, it works," Zoe replied, followed by a slight laugh.

Nami jokingly pushed Zoe's shoulder. "You're being easy on him today," she joked.

Zoe scoffed. "No I'm not."

"I don't have the jokes, you do," Nami continued. "Just remember that I'm relying on you to keep Tyler in his place."

"I'm standing right here," Tyler complained, then the three pressed on.

Nami cursed at herself under her breath. She really was too boy-crazy. Here the three friends were, back at the only adventure that was so grand, they actually went back twice, and instead of enjoying the moment, she was, of course, thinking about Jeremy. As hard as she tried, she could not get him off of her mind. She should not have made that association with him the first time they came to check the place out -- Nami was sure she was now fully going to associate the mall with him.

She shrugged to herself as she walked. At least the mall would be one of many adventures, and at least she'd get over Jeremy at some point and inevitably latch onto someone else -- like almost all of her other crushes, Jeremy barely even knew she existed. Still, she was clearly letting him get to her a bit too easily -- it couldn't have been more than ten minutes since they arrived, and she could already feel herself getting wet, and her breathing was audible.

Luckily for her, that seemed to be the case across the board. When she listened in the dark, she didn't just hear her own heavy breathing, but three sets of heavy breaths. The air in the north end must have been thinner or something. Probably the lack of windows or proper filtration, even if the windows at the other end were boarded up.

"Be careful," she said aloud just for insurance. "See how there are less windows here? I think the air is thinner on this side of the mall."

"Is it dangerous?" Tyler asked.

"I don't know. I don't think so," Nami replied in a small voice.

"We can handle dangerous. We've survived two encounters with people. One of them was in this mall!" Zoe pointed out.

"Speaking of her, do you think she's still here?" Tyler asked.

"Tyler, could you show respect for other human beings for once in your life?" Zoe asked him. "If she is, I'm sure she wants to be left alone. Plus she was at the other end of the mall."

"Look who's being Captain Presumptuous!" Tyler shot back.

"That's 'captainness' to you, Private."

"I was just asking if she was here. I wasn't planning no field trip to see her! She can hang out in her home all she wants, but today, I ain't going with her. There's no one I'd rather explore this mall with than you two."

Zoe laughed sympathetically. "And there's no one we'd rather be here with than you, Tyler," she responded in a faux-rehearsed sing-song voice.

Smiling, Nami turned away, looking up and down the walls of the stores on the north end. She also wanted to look away because, try as she might, she thought she was still blushing from earlier. She was a heck of a blusher.

Out of nowhere, a sharp "Oh!" from Zoe made Nami compose herself quickly then swiftly turn around. Zoe was standing herself up from something. Upon seeing Nami's concerned face, Zoe waved it off and smiled. "Just tripped over some debris. All good."

"You need to be careful!" Nami told her. As fun as it was to hang out with these two and go on adventures, there were no serious injuries... yet... and Nami would do her best to keep it that way. She looked on the ground and, sure enough, this part of the mall was less well-kept than the other parts. She made a mental note to watch her step.

It seemed the trip also took a small toll on Zoe. Tyler and Nami could tell that from that moment on, Zoe's normally cocky, almost smug face was clouded with some kind of distress. Nami guessed that Zoe was upset at her own carelessness or something -- despite making almost none of the plans initially, Zoe was essentially the de facto leader of the group during adventures, much to Tyler's own dismay. She needed to remain strong.

The trio walked on for a little bit longer, peering into old book stores and shoe stores, their only company the haunting hallways, the seemingly eternal darkness and the heavier breathing of the three. In Nami's case, her thoughts were really fighting to keep her company too, but she made her best effort to shoo them away.

"Hey Tyler, check your messages," the dry voice of Zoe pierced the darkness after a weirdly long period of silence. The two of them looked up from their investigation to look at Zoe.

"You're right here. What for?" Tyler asked.

Zoe shrugged. "I sent you a meme. Thought you'd like it."

"Now?!"

Zoe shrugged again. "Or don't, check it later if you want, I don't care dude," she replied coolly. "Just thought you'd want to see it."

Nami felt left out. "Do I not get to see?"

"It's kind of... crude, I can send it to you too but I specifically thought you wouldn't like it," Zoe answered.

"Oh," Nami simply replied. It was true, she was the least interested in the spicier riskier memes of the group. She smiled at Zoe's thoughtfulness and went right back to investigating a bolted-down broken cash register, with Tyler beside her, clearly taking Zoe up on the advice to look at her meme.

"I'm amazed we even get service in here," Zoe continued. "Isn't this place all concrete?"

"It looks all concrete, but a lot of malls are other stuff I think," Nami answered. "Otherwise people wouldn't be able to get signals in here when it still worked, and a lot of people use cell phones in malls."

"Good point," Zoe replied, and Nami looked back at Tyler to see his reaction to what she was saying. He was still nose-deep in his phone. Clearly he moved on from the meme and was just checking his Instagram or something.

"Tyler!" Nami all but barked. She hated when people were on their phones in situations like this.

"Just a sec," Tyler replied distantly in a cool, even voice. He checked a few more things and promptly turned his screen off, subsequently turning his flashlight on, pointing it near Zoe.

"What did you think?" Zoe asked with a small grin.

"It was crazy! Totally crazy," Tyler chuckled back.

"Ha, yeah, it was," Zoe replied, keeping up her grin.

Tyler, clearly not wanting to leave Nami out, turned to her. "I got a few I've been holding back, by the way," he told her. "Remind me tonight in the group chat."

Nami laughed back innocently. "Okay, Tyler."

With that, the group pressed on, their flashlights now aimed closer to the floor to prevent another tripping accident. They passed by a couple more stores and nearly got to the end when Tyler abruptly stopped and held up a hand again.

He paused for a bit longer, then turned to the other two. "Flashlights off," he whisper-barked at the two.

Zoe promptly turned her flashlight off. Nami, remembering last time, paused.

"Flashlights off!" he repeated.

"Shouldn't we do what we did last time? With one of us holding the fl-"

"Nami, turn it off, now!" Zoe whispered with urgency. It was the most serious Nami had ever seen her. Understanding the other two clearly knew something she didn't, Nami turned her flashlight off and let the darkness take her.

"Give me a sec to hear," Tyler said slowly. None of the three could see a thing. Nami tried concentrating on what she heard, but it was no use -- Tyler had the good ears of the group. In fact, Nami's hearing wasn't that great at all. She allowed the silence to have its turn, not daring to speak first in case Tyler was onto something. He did look like a man on a mission, after all, and he had her best interests at heart.

Unfortunately, being alone in the dark meant being alone with her thoughts, and as Nami breathed in the mall air, she couldn't help but think of Jeremy again. That time she saw him with his friends sharing a joke as they passed her in the main hallway, with him cracking a joke and all of his friends laughing at him... it was stupid, but the way she smiled his arrogant smile when he knew he landed a joke to his dumb friends made Nami's poor pussy throb.

Throb. It was throbbing. Nami realized right then and there. It had been screaming so loud that she hadn't heard it all this time. She was wetter than before, much wetter. It was begging for attention since she first thought of Jeremy. She did a good job ignoring it when she could focus on her friends, but now, under the convenient cover of darkness no less...

She normally would have paused for longer, or thought more about this. But especially with the silence, she couldn't help herself. Stealthily turning around without making a sound, she slowly snaked her hand into her pants. She couldn't believe she was doing this. She knew she had a lot of hormones, but never in her wildest dreams could she guess that she was actually masturbating in front of her friends.

Nami was so horny that she only barely succeeded in not making a sound when her hand first came into contact with her clit. Praying that she wasn't wet enough to make an audible sound, she started moving her hand in a circle underneath her underwear, blushing a deep crimson and practically feeling faint with how good playing with herself felt at this moment.

Almost immediately she realized that it was making a very quiet squishing sound; she was that turned on. Still, she stopped and cursed herself; she had terrible hearing. If she could hear it, the others could, and the last thing she wanted was to make them feel uncomfortable. She paused and waited for any kind of reaction from the other two, and couldn't hear anything apart from the occasional click of Zoe's tongue in thought.