Me and my friends love the mall; or, at least we used to. First, let me introduce myself: my name is Joy. and my friends are Tony, Alice, and Francesca. We all used to love going to the mall, but that changed during our sophomore year of high school.

The night it happened – the night everything changed – started with a call from my boyfriend, Tony.

“Hey, you want to go shopping at the mall?”

“Sure. Should I invite the others?” I asked.

“ Yep. Meet at my place in 30,” Tony said.

“See you then,” I said and hung up the phone.

I sent a mass text to the squad and told them to meet at Tony’s in 20. I put on my helmet, leather jacket, and gloves, grabbed my Yamaha out of the shed and sped off towards Tony’s. When I got there, Alice was sitting on the hood of Tony’s Mustang talking with Francesca about something. The moment I rolled up Tony yelled, “Lets Go!” and we all hopped into his car.

As we drove, we listened to rock, boy bands, and talk shows. When we arrived at the Stanville mall we all piled out and headed for the food court. After we grabbed something to eat, we saw a nearby store that was themed for holiday events. With Easter right around the corner, the store was decorated for Easter and set up for pictures. When we walked in, the man behind the counter, who was dressed like the Easter Bunny, said, “$20 for a 5×7.”

As we sat there waiting for the man to be ready to take our picture, we heard over the mall intercom, “Mall closing in 5 minutes; hurry up y’all!”

The man told us he had to grab something from the back and asked us to stay put. After five minutes had passed, we heard a loud crash from the back of the store. I sat up and yelled towards the back of the store, “Sir, are you all right?”

I got no response. So Tony said he’d go and look to see if the man was okay.  Another 5 minutes went by and Tony hadn’t returned, so the rest of us decided to go look in the back together.

We went to the back of the store and I slowly opened the door, which led to a warehouse-style back room.  Sitting in the middle of the floor was a body, strapped to a chair, his chin dropped to his chest, and blood pooled on the floor.  Francesca yelled, “We need to call the cops!”

That’s when we heard a voice say, “Little missy, you aren’t doing anything…”

Out of the shadows stepped a giant Easter Bunny holding an axe.  The three of us screamed and ran in different directions. I found a pile of large boxes and squeezed amongst them and, as quietly as possible, pulled my pocket knife out. I wasn’t sure where my friends went, but the next thing I heard was Francesca screaming, “Let me go!” and another voice respond, “Hippity hoppity, I’m coming for ye.”

The next sound I heard was the loud thump of a body hitting the floor. Right after that, one of the boxes next to me was shifted and I was exposed, but it wasn’t the Easter maniac, it was Tony. I hugged him and asked him what had happened. Tony told me the man had stabbed him but he was fine.  I told Tony we needed to find Francesca and Alice and get out of there.  Tony grabbed my hand and pulled me with him; that’s when I saw Francesca’s body motionless on the floor.  The moment I saw Francesca’s body I also noticed what Tony was wearing – a white Easter Bunny suit.

I spotted Alice moving towards a back door and sprinted towards her.  As I ran away from Tony, I felt a burning sensation in the back of my thigh. Thud! I was down. As I laid there, Tony grinned at me and said, “I always wanted to do this; you were never the girl for me, just a play thing.”

As Tony hefted the axe, we all heard a “Bang!” and a gruff voice yell, “All of you, down!”

Security had arrived in the nick of time, since Alice had set off an alarm while opening the back door. Later, with Alice by my side, and Francesca on the way to the hospital, a police officer explained Tony had been under the care of a psychiatrist for his sociopath tendencies after he had brutally attacked his mother. My girlfriends and I were going to be okay and the local police had cracked the case.