The shelves were lined with the toys, decorations, home and office supplies, and anything else you could possibly imagine. Some shelves were overstocked in preparation for the dreaded Black Friday. Several of the workers were already mumbling about the amount of work that had to be done to prepare for the insane rushes they were going to be forced to face in the next few hours. Large dollies were rushing around the store to find its item’s homes. The floor polishers were working overtime to make sure the bright florescent lights reflected off of the linoleum. A loud, hardly understandable voice came on over the intercom to announce that there would only be two hours left until the earliest shoppers would arrive. It was only two in the morning.

As an hour passed, the amount of work dwindled down and everyone starting preparing their stations, taking their job lists for their allotted hours that day. Once they were finished and the time came for them to leave, they would assign the next person the same list to be done and the cycle would continue until the madness stopped on Sunday night. The exhausted and terrified atmosphere was almost tangible.

Just a half an hour before the store was expecting anyone; a group of five entered the store, starting in at the second entrance near the closed pharmacy. They were already naming off territories loudly.

“The book section you have to sing and the entire time you’re there and if you get tagged you have to go to the silent zone and scream,” a girl with short, dark brown hair said excitedly.

“Fine then,” a tall, thin girl with a platinum blond Mohawk responded, “If you get tagged, or make noise, in the silent zone then you have to go into the opposite genders clothing section and put on an outfit from there.”

The other three girls laughed and looked around, looking for flags. They already had their masks on, tied securely in place around their heads.

“Everyone understands the rules, right?” a girl with ashy blond hair and dark lowlights said with a grin. Once she had gotten an affirmative from everyone she grabbed five small American flags and tossed one to each person. “Let the game begin!”

Everyone scattered off in different directions, avoiding the food section, knowing that only danger lurked there. It had previously been established that when in the food section you had stand still

for a full five minutes and if anyone tagged you, you had to remove an article of clothing that wasn’t allowed to be put back on until you were tagged three more times. No one wanted to go there.

For over fifteen minutes, the grumpy early morning workers of Wal-Mart were unaware of the dangers that were lurking around the store.

“I declare this a no red zone!” A girl with jet black hair called out as her friend, clad in all red entered it. “Punishment will be…hmm…you have to go to the food section.”

Kelly was stationed in the middle of the pain section. Metal cans with different colour painted blogs globed on the lids surrounded her right side. The left was met by a wall of rainbow lids of the spray-paint cans, ones the girl had no problem lobbing at her friend if she didn’t hurry along.

She grinned as her dirty-blond haired friend was sent to the most dreaded zone of all. Not too soon after, the same girl was hit in the back by a harmless bouncy ball. She turned to see the girl with the ashy blond hair holding, what was now, the game ball.

“Ninety-nine red balloons floating in the summer sky, Panic bells, its red alert, there’s something here from somewhere else, The war machine springs to life, Opens up one eager eye, focusing it on the sky as ninety-nine red balloons go by!” The tagged girl sang loudly as she ran for the food section.

By now, at least three workers were aware of something going on. They had heard yells of several songs, several books had been knocked down noisily and people were yelling left in right. Not to mention the repetitive bouncing of a rubber ball. Several of them had decided that they were going to come out to investigate.

They prowled the isles until they found someone standing perfectly still in the middle of the food section. She was clad in all red and was flickering her eyes around nervously. She was looking at something or searching for someone. It was the only conclusion they could come to. Why else would someone be standing in front of the spaghetti sauce?

“Are you okay, miss?” one the elderly workers asked.

The girls’ eyes grew wide and resisted shaking her head and telling them to be quiet. They were going to give her position away if they didn’t shut up. Only one more minute to go though, she could last. With thirty seconds to go, she heard the thumping of the rubber ball and she resisted cringing and running from the sound.

“I know you’re here Jessi,” a girl called out, only a few isles away from the one she was standing

at the end of. The workers were watching her curiously. Just as the girl reached the end of the isle, Jessi was able to become unfrozen and took off in the opposite direction, narrowly missing being hit by the ball. The worker that did get hit though looked shocked and angry in all of three seconds. The ball was rolling back towards the one who had thrown it. It didn’t have to run far as she caught it, stumbling into the display of jars of spaghetti sauce. She narrowly missed knocking it over completely.

Back at the section of books the dark brow haired girl was belting out a Scottie Vanity song while dancing around. She knocked over books left and right, not bothering to pick them up. She was already dancing through the minefield that was crated of the paperback romances and books-on-tape. Various covers with handsome men holding beautiful women stared up at her, not that she cared much for them. She was trying to draw attention to herself for the sole purpose of drawing the Ballmaster out of wherever she was hiding.

It worked. The blond Ballmaster came running out of the food section, pursuing the second blond. Upon spotting the brunette, the Ballmaster stopped, grinning at the sitting duck amongst the books. She was dancing ridiculously around fallen romances, politicals, and cookbooks. No one ever bought books from Wal-Mart though. There wasn’t a decent enough selection, at least which was what many people said.

“Hmm, and here I thought you would have known better Hailey. Sitting out in the open is something I wasn’t expecting. Where’s Kara? I could get a two for one deal.” The Ballmaster had already let the power go to her head. She had already tagged one girl, two more under her belt might add up to a win. “HW-200-ER-3E- 0O.”

“I declare,” the brunette started singing slash yelling, “That the current Ballmaster can only pass to this zone if she takes a shot. If the person she is aiming at catches the ball then the Ballmaster had to relinquish her power to whoever caught the ball.” The brunette grinned and continued to sing her song while swaying as a way of dancing.

“Can you guys pick up those books if you dropped them?” a worker asked kindly, entering the messy book area. “I would also like to ask you all to calm down or leave the store. Some of the customers are complaining.”

Indeed, many new customers had entered the store and were eyeing the girls, one still singing, with questioning looks. As if they hadn’t heard the worker, the blond threw the ball at the brunette and she caught it.

“Ha, Erin! Now you have no power. You had better start running,” she sang loudly, bouncing the ball threateningly. The blond ran.

“I am going to tell you all again. You need to calm down or leave. Next time I will have someone escort you out,” the woman’s expression got darker as she spoke this time.

“Obviously you’ve never played Calvinball,” the brunette sang with a smile before she left the section, leaving in utter chaos.