I can remember when Windward Mall first opened. I was about nine years old then, and the mall became one of my favorite haunts. I had heard rumors about mall employees having problems with strange events. It would seem that I was not the only one haunt ing the shopping center. I scoffed at the gossip; it was just someone taking advantage of people's gullibility. Although that graveyard in the Sears' parking lot was pretty creepy. The idea of ghosts must have got to me subconsciously, 'cause every time I walked past that graveyard, I got chicken skin.

At nineteen I became a mall employee at a junior women's clothing store. Ghost story rumors were long forgotten-until I arrived for work one morning. The assistant manager, Aisha was at the cash register, looking tense. I called through the gate "Morni ng! Can you let me in?"

"Hi, I'm glad to see you!" she replied.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked, worried. "Wasn't Julie supposed to be in today? Is she okay?"

"She's fine but had the crap scared out of her this morning!" Aisha exclaimed.

"What happened?" I asked, thinking the register had been burgled.

"Well, when she came in she noticed that about six pairs of socks: you know the ones hanging under the register, had fallen on the ground. She thought 'That was weird,' because she knew we always make it a point to hang them back up at night, right?" I nodded, thinking of all the socks I had picked up over the past few nights. Aisha continued "And there's definitely no wind in here to knock them over."

I felt my skin become goose pimpled. "Right." I said faintly. "Then what happened?"

"While she was fixing the socks, she heard someone giggling. She looked around, nobody was there. So she figured she was imagining things. She went up to the register to count the change; then she heard that giggling again. She looked around, then some thing BIT her!"

"BIT her!? Where?" I gasped.

"Right here on the hand." Aisha held up her left hand and pointed to the webbing near the thumb. "Then she screamed, and heard giggling and footsteps running away. The people from the gift store came running over to see what was wrong. Julie was scared shitless. And when she told them what happened, they said their salesgirls had been hearing someone or something, giggling too. Anyway, Julie called me and asked if I would come in today," Aisha finished. "Oh yeah, there were teeth marks on her hand!"

Two weeks later, our staff received news that the store was to undergo renovation, and this included re-tiling of the floor. During the re-tiling all the clothes racks had to be moved out of the store. This meant that two people had to stay in the mall with the clothes overnight until the construction crews completed the task. The two lucky, honorable sales clerks were Aisha and myself. Jerry, the manager, had asked us because the four other employees either had young children, were single moms, or stu dents cramming for exams. Reluctantly, I agreed.

On the scheduled night, Aisha and I showed up at closing time, bentos in hand. After bidding goodnight to Jerry, whom would come back at five am to relieve us, we began pushing racks and tables full of clothes out of the store into the mall area. Short ly after the carpenters began pulling up the carpet, we watched for awhile, then sat down on a pile of sweaters and played cards.

We took out our bentos and while we were eating I asked, "So Julie 's not coming back right?"

"Nope," replied Aisha.

"Has anything else happened?" I asked realizing that this probably was not the ideal topic to discuss now.

"It seems to happen in spurts. Weird things happen for awhile and then calm down. But nobody has ever been bitten before." Aisha explained.

"So the mall is haunted! I heard rumors when I was younger, but they didn't seem to be true."

Aisha nodded an affirmative. "Lots of people think so; myself included. Like James the security guard, he said one night, the maintenance man told him 'somebody stay banging around the dumpstas'. When James got to the dumpsters outside of Sears, he hea rd sounds like someone was inside of it, banging the sides with their fists. He came closer, and yelled for them to stop; and that the police were on their way. All of a sudden the dumpster tipped over. There was nobody inside."

It was about 12:45 am, and the carpenters had started laying the new tiles. James, who knew about the overnight job, came over to check on us. "Howzit going?"

"Okay." Aisha replied.

"So nothing bothered you yet?" he grinned. We laughed, but morbid curiosity nagged at me to question James.

"So, Aisha was telling me about the dumpsters, how long ago did that happen?"

"About two, tree years ago. This place is haunted."

"Aren't you scared?" I asked.

"Not really, they don't hurt you they just like to play tricks."

"Oh yeah?" I said looking over at Aisha. Aisha told him what "they" did to Julie.

"Nah," said James in wonderment. He pointed to the mall maintenance people, mopping the floors. "They make sure to get their work done by 1:30, 'cause one the ladies s tarted to clean the bathrooms by the cookie shop. She was about to push open the first stall, when it flew open at her, knocking her over. She came running out. It was around 2:00 o'clock when she was in there. Now two people go to clean the bathrooms." J ames' walkie talkie started to make some sounds which startled us all. He spoke to Derek, who was patrolling the parking lots. To our left we heard a hydraullic motor start up.

"What's that?" I asked.

"The elevator," replied James nonchalantly.

"It goes off by itself?" I just had to ask.

"It only goes off when someone activates it," said James. "Oh, then the other security guy went upstairs right?"

James gave me an ironic grin: "There's only me and Derek tonight. Still I better go check." He rode in his golf cart to investigate. Aisha and I looked at each other.

"Hey we can put a bunch of these sweaters down and take a nap," she suggested. Taking a nap was the last thing I wanted to do. But that damm elevator went off again, so I figured, if I slept, I wouldn't encounter any midnight shoppers. After all, our s tore looked open.

Five o'clock rolled around, and I had actually managed to get some sleep. The newly tiled store looked clean, and modern. We helped Jerry push the racks and tables back into the store. James stopped by to inform us that there had been no human in sight around the elevators. Great, I couldn't wait to get home. Jerry kept Aisha and I off the schedules for the next two days so we could recover. On my return back to work, I found Aisha standing outside the gate; her face was pale, her eyes wide and fearful .

"What!" I asked, scared, "What is it?"

Aisha pointed, "The earring racks, the socks..."

Peering through the metal links, I could see some socks on the floor. "But it could have been a burglar," I said, hopeful.

"Then why didn't the alarm go off!" she demanded. Darn good point.

"Look Aisha, okay, we can't stand out here forever." She nodded, then said "I should call Jerry." She raised the gate and we walked in. The rear of the store was a mess. I glanced at the cash register, it seemed untouched. Aisha counted the change.

"All there," she said. I began to pick up the colorful riot of socks. This time the entire wall of them was on the ground. The revolving racks that held the earrings had been pushed over, gold and silver dangles were tangled within each other. Aisha was i n the process of standing up the racks when I heard a deep chuckle. Aisha turned to me with a frantic look in her eye. Loud laughter began, and came from the behind the clearance shelf. The laughter grew hysterical and pervaded the whole store, as if a ma dman had taken over our speaker system.

I know that in horror movies the moron always goes to investigate the disturbance. I was no moron. And neither was Aisha. We had been standing near each other inching towards the gate when I finally squeaked out, "Run!" We turned to do so; as we did, t he entire clearance shelf was propelled by a gust of wind, it flew over our heads. We screamed. Last summer's halter tops, shoes, and swimsuits flung themselves at our faces and bodies like they were completely pissed off at being put on sale. We managed to make it to the gate. Behind us the hysterical laughter seemed to have become triumphant; laughter that was celebrating our flight from its territory. Aisha and I squirmed under the metal gate; and hightailed it to the gift shop. Soon after, Jerry, mall security, and the police arrived. I half expected the cops to scoff at our story. But they didn't; and the gift shop sales clerk reinforced our statement. She'd heard the laughing, and also had seen the clothes flying around by themselves. I couldn't sto p shaking. I told Jerry that I was really sorry, but I did not think I would be coming to work tomorrow; or ever.

A few weeks later I got a job in Waikiki, posing with tourists as a fake Hula girl. The only laughter I heard there was me looking at my pay check. I still like to go to Windward Mall, but strictly as a customer. The store I worked in has long since cl osed down, but the space it occupied has had a facelift, and re- emerged as yet another clothing store. I went browsing in there one day with a friend of mine. We were near the back looking at some jeans; when I began chuckling at a comment my friend made . I looked up and saw the sales girl staring wildly toward our direction. She saw us and relaxed. "Sorry to look at you like that, but some strange things have been happening around here."

"No problem." I said. I turned to my friend, "I'm not hanging around to be bitten, I'll catch up with you later." With that, I quickly walked out.