BENSALEM, PA — In a development that experts are calling ‘literally unprecedented since 2002,’ the Neshaminy Mall’s parking lot this weekend was reported to be not just full, but ‘disturbingly thriving’ after the screening of the ‘Stranger Things’ finale at its AMC theater.

Eyewitnesses report that hundreds of people, many of them alive, descended on the otherwise lifeless mall, temporarily reversing years of mall-apocalypse. Locals, who previously believed the only remaining mall tenants to be Barnes & Noble and several feral mannequins, struggled to make sense of the sudden influx. “I thought the only thing growing here was black mold,” said longtime resident Marsha Tindle, nervously eyeing the Cinnabon now operating at full staff for the first time since the Obama administration.

Economists, already reeling from the news, attempted to update outdated mall foot-traffic models. “We’ve had to recalibrate all our calculations,” admitted Professor Thomas Germain of Eastern Pennsylvania Business College. “We never anticipated a scenario where seventeen people would line up to buy a Wetzel’s Pretzel at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday.”

Some attendees didn’t even realize they had entered a mall. “I just followed the crowd looking for Demogorgons, but all I found was a guy trying to sell me a used Bath & Body Works gift card,” claimed self-identified Stranger Things superfan Corey ‘HopperFangirl92’ Yates. The AMC manager, meanwhile, was last seen trying to break into the old Sears to accommodate the overflow, a feat said to be impossible without ancient runes or a master key forged in 1986.

Local officials estimate that if this keeps up, Neshaminy Mall could finally be upgraded from ‘comatose’ to ‘clinically stable,’ barring any unforeseen Hot Topic outbreaks.