text: [Themes: Horror, mall, music, ghost, vampire, sexual content, occult]
  
  > look around
  This is far east as the Mall goes. The Mall technically dips a bit as one goes west, as it was originally constructed upon a landfill. There's a three-sided advertising kiosk in the middle of the corridor.
  
  To the west is the Beads Store, Sporting Good Outlet and the (closed) Arcade.
  
  My store, the Gaming and Role-Playing Emporium, is to the south. Audrey and Casey are here.
  
  > Go west
  I'm at the eastern side of the Mall. To the north is Choad's Sporting Goods. My store is a bit to the east, and the Bead Store a bit to the west.
  
  There is a table here, set adjacent to the Sporting Goods store.
  
  Audrey and Casey follow me.
  
  "This won't take me a moment to sort out," says Gibs. "I'll be in and out like a greased German through the Maginot Line."
  
  "I thought the Germans circumvented around the Maginot Line?"
  I say.
  
  "No. You've got that confused with what they did with the bounds of good taste when they collectively invented scheisse  porn,"
  says Gibs with commanding authority. "Anyway, more importantly, I know just where the shotguns would be in this store. Anyone want to come with?"
  
  "I'll go," says Audrey. "I'll try to find some helmets and pads and such."
  
  "Pads?" This is good. Very good. "Oh, so you were able to trickle a puck past the five hole with the Detroit Red Wings after all?" I ask Audrey.
  
  "What?" It takes Audrey a moment to translate my intended delicate innuendo in her head, but when she does, she's not laughing. "No. I meant like shoulder pads and shin guards. For personal defense." She pauses for a moment. "What on earth is wrong with you?"
  
  Whoops. "I'll just, ah, stay out here with Casey, then."
  
  > talk to Casey
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "So... what's new with you?"
  (2) "Hey, you talk to Audrey all the time. Is she going to dump me again?"
  
  > 1
  "I broke up with my boyfriend not too long ago," says Casey. "Other than that, nothing much."
  
  "Hey, really? What brought that on?"
  
  "He never wanted to go do anything," she says, "But you know what it was, really? He would always wear a baseball cap, and wear it so that the bill was always right over his eyes. Every time I would try to kiss him, I would have to navigate around the thing. Romance shouldn't be a frustrating puzzle in three-dimensionality, you know? Sometimes I just wanted to get intimate, not play a real-life game of
  Klax."
  
  I don't know what Klax is, so I just nod in agreement.
  
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "Hey, you talk to Audrey all the time. Is she going to dump me again?"
  (2) "Gibs... I mean, Barnaby, he wears his hat backwards."
  
  > 2
  "That's definitely a point in his favor. Make sure he gives me his number when we get out of here. I'm tired of being either cooped-in on the weekend or hanging out at the Bead Store like tonight."
  
  "You seem awfully confident that we are going to get out of here."
  
  "Shouldn't I be? From what Audrey tells me, whatever we resurrected... or, I guess, 'surrected' in this case, isn't any match for the geek encyclopedia you've got knocking about in that skull of yours." She gives me a genuine smile of reassurance and I, to my discredit, don't have the heart to tell her that in reality most of the thoughts knocking about in my head have to do with how I'm going to get back with her best friend.
  
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "What does Audrey want from me, then?"
  
  > 1
  "You're going to have to ask her that, eventually, Jarret."
  
  "Yes. I know. Eventually."
  
  "What does she want? She wants to be with you, in my opinion, anyway. I've seen her with other guys in between the dozen or so times you two have broken up. She is always so much happier when she is together with you. She just lights up when you enter the room, you know that?"
  
  "I didn't know that." I try to think back the best I can, to try to get some sort of visual holographic proof of this, but I just can't. Maybe I've just never been paying attention.
  
  "But she wants to see you take the next step, Jarret." Casey turns and looks right into my eyes. "She's going to graduate soon. The future is coming and everything. I think, ultimately, what she wants to know is if you think you have one."
  
  I hear Gibs swear violently from within the Sporting Goods store.
  
  "Jarret!" screams Audrey, "Help!"
  
  > go to the north
  There is a light blue-skinned, feral beast hunched over towards the corner of this store. A ghoul, just as how I'd imagine it. It has Audrey backed up against the eastern wall. A row of jacket racks separates them from me. Gibs is much closer, and seems to be holding the ghoul at bay by slowly darting in and out of its range, and preventing it from ripping Audrey apart by giving it another target. That won't stop it for long. The only thing preventing the ghoul from shredding Audrey is its attempt to work out just how he can incapacitate and consume them both.
  There is a circular jacket rack here.
  The ghoul, Audrey, and Gibs are here.
  
  Gibs swears violently.
  
  "Jarret!" screams Audrey, "Help!"
  
  > check what you're carrying
  I am carrying my glasses (being worn), some socks, the crystal ball holder (broken), the Magic: The Gathering cards, the gaming glove (being worn), Gibs's lacrosse stick, and the phone.
  
  The beast is content, for the moment, to look back between his prey and his attacker. I know that at any moment it is going to choose one of them to attack first.
  
  > hit the ghoul with the stick
  I clobber the ghoul with Gibs's lacrosse stick.
  
  I try to wail like a banshee: "ooOOooOOOO!"
  
  The ghoul attacks and hits me!
  
  > examine Glove
  The Sierra Hobbies Gaming Glove is an inky black novelty gaming companion for the hurried Games Master. It's full of mnemonics, scribbled shortcuts and tables to allow for a smoother (and more stylish) game of D&D. No Dungeon Master that takes his craft seriously should be without!
  
  I'm currently wearing the gaming glove.
  
  The ghoul attacks, but misses me!
  
  > take the rack
  Taken.
  
  The ghoul attacks and hits me!
  
  > throw the rack at ghoul
  I hit the ghoul with the circular jacket rack.
  
  (The circular jacket rack breaks as a result.)
  
  I hear a grotesque snapping sound coming from the thing. I completely flattened it on that last one!
  
  I walk over to Audrey. She's shivering.
  
  "Are you OK?" She nods. "Where did your coat go?" She doesn't say. She shakes her head and melts into my arms. I hold her, hug her and bring her as close as I can. Her face is buried within my chest and I scratch the back of her head and feel her close-cropped hair on her neck flick through my fingers. I had no idea if I'd ever feel that again, or feel her body, alive and whole, this close to mine. "I'll keep you warm," I say with a whisper.
  
  Casey enters from the entrance to the south. "Ugh," she says, after spotting what's left of the ghoul. "What on earth did you do to that thing?"
  
  > talk to Casey
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "I buried it."
  
  > 1
  "What was it?" asks Casey.
  
  "It was a ghoul."
  
  "So, so far, a skeleton, zombie and ghoul... " Casey drifts off and leaves that bit hanging in the air.
  
  "Yeah. So far, just as the demon that possessed Sydney claimed."
  
  > talk to Audrey
  Please select one:
  
  (1) "I'm with you now. My preeeeecioussss..."
  
  > 1
  talking about the precious of his very own. I don't say it at first, I don't say it right away... but I say it and she knows what I mean by it. Her body shakes with a quick, stifled bit of laughter. I'm so glad she's here with me that it doesn't even occur to me that it must be killing Gibs to not be able to tell us just how bop we are
  for each other.