No Easy Way Out

by Dayna Lorentz

  Her father smiled. “I know I’ll be happy to use them.”

  Dotty raised her water bottle. “Here’s to a good day.”

  “A good day,” her father said, lifting his own.

  “A good day,” Lexi repeated, and tapped her bottle against theirs.

  They finished their meals accompanied by Dad’s anecdotes about training some mall inmates to use the computer system. Oh, how the uninitiated were foiled by things like a macro! It was Dad’s usual method of peace-making between Lexi and her mother. He always had some non-confrontational filler conversation at the ready. Both Mom and Lexi laughed at appropriate times, knowing that’s what they were supposed to do. It was hard now, though, what with their being kind of in the middle of an apocalypse, to just pretend things were cool between them. Lexi wanted to know what was really going on with the mall—were people really getting on board? All those degenerates she’d logged this morning in the PaperClips seemed a rather stark argument to the contrary. And why was her mother being so coy about the bodies? I guess I’ll find out soon enough . . .

  Lexi offered to clear the trays, and when she came back, her mother had resumed examining her papers. “I need one more favor from you, Lex.”

  All the muscles in Lexi’s shoulders tightened. “Another favor?”

  “I got you stir-fry,” her mother said, head tilted and eyebrows raised, like this alone was compensation enough for eons of slave labor.

  It wasn’t too awful a request. Apparently, TVs and DVD players and even some game systems had been set up in all the Home Stores to provide people with entertainment. Lexi was to hook all the stuff up correctly and load the first round of DVDs and games into the machines.

  “I really appreciate your helping me,” her mother said, standing and coming out from behind the desk. She put her hands on Lexi’s shoulders, then pulled her in for a hug. “I feel like I can’t trust anyone but you and your dad.”

  Lexi hugged her mom back, in part because that’s what you did when someone hugged you, and in part because she felt bad about her intended investigation later this evening with Marco. She told herself, I’m not really breaking my mother’s trust in checking out the ice-skating rink. She told herself, It serves Mom right for not telling me about the missing bodies. But she knew, under all that, she was doing wrong by her mom. And worse yet, she knew that she was still going to do it.

  • • •

  The Sam’s Club was crawling with people. Ryan couldn’t hope to snatch anything from it without getting caught. He tried to approach a giant stack of chips and this old lady got in his face about what his assignment was and that if it wasn’t food consolidation, he had better mosey on back to where he came from. There was definitely something funky going on with all the regular food in the mall. Any stores that stocked some type of food (candy places, restaurants, Target) were gated over like they contained piles of gold and not bags of Doritos.

  Ryan would not let these minor setbacks throw him off course from his goal. He had to find stuff for Ruthie and Jack. Though the rioters had cleaned out most edible things from the food court, he scrounged a bag of fried noodles from the Chinese place and a giant can of refried beans from the taco joint. He found a box full of individual packets of fruit snacks in the movie theater, and stole four water bottles from where some workers were building showers in the parking garage. This haul, plus two flashlights and a DVD box-set of Disney movies, filled a backpack, which Ryan carried with no small amount of pride back to the SUV.

  “How are we supposed to open this?” Ruthie asked, turning the giant can of beans over in her hands.

  Neither of the kids were as psyched as Ryan had anticipated. He had pictured tears of joy, more hugs. All he got was a complaint from Jack that he liked Thomas the Train Engine better than Disney and this insight from Ruthie.

  “Here,” he said, snatching the can from her. He placed it on the ground, took a toy airplane he saw lying on the floor of the car, and smashed the top of the can. The can remained sealed. The plane, however, snapped in half.

  “That was my favorite airplane!” Jack wailed.

  “Quiet!” Ryan whispered, nodding his head toward the workmen. “I’ll find you a new plane.”

  Jack shut his trap. He looked miserable. Ryan felt miserable. Why were they making this so hard for him? He was trying to help them, for crissakes!

  “I’m sorry,” Ryan said, handing the pieces of plane to Jack. “I’ll find something else to open the can.”

  Ruthie flicked the flashlight on and off. “At least we won’t be in the dark.”

  “And I’ll find you more food tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Finally.

  Footsteps echoed from nearby. Ryan scanned the darkness.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  It was Marco’s voice.

  “Nothing,” he said. He glanced at the kids, placed a finger to his lips, and pressed the door to the truck closed.

  Marco tapped his back. “Not too stealthy an operation you have going here.”

  Ryan swallowed the anger that crept in, tightening his fists instinctively. “It’s just some kids. They asked me to help them.”

  “Just send them upstairs.”

  “They don’t want to go upstairs.”

  “They want to stay in the parking garage?”

  “They feel safe here.”

  “Well, they’re not. Send them upstairs.”

  Ryan gritted his teeth. “I told you, they don’t want to go upstairs.”

  “They’re not your freaking pets, Ryan. Let the adults take care of them.”

  “I saw Shay today,” he said, changing the subject to avoid smashing his fist into Marco’s smug mouth.

  Marco’s scowl altered slightly. “So?”

  “So I don’t think she’s your girlfriend.” If she were with Marco, she would never have dove across the counter when she saw him. Though he was not as sure about this as he was trying to sound.

  “I don’t care what you think,” Marco snapped. “I’m the one who’s been there for her every time she needed me.”

  Ryan would not let Marco off with that lame excuse anymore. “I can be there for her now.”

  “Great,” Marco said. “May the best man win.”

  Ryan smiled. I already have. No way that hug was just friendly, especially now that he’d seen Marco’s face. The guy was making the whole relationship thing up. Ryan could smell the lie on him.

  Marco shifted slightly to get a better look in the van. “So how many do you have in there?”

  “Two.” Ryan was not pleased to have the conversation turn back to the kids.

  “Mike know about this little pet project?”

  Ryan’s fists tightened again. “I haven’t told him yet.”

  “I don’t imagine he’s going to agree to adopting two new teammates.”

  “He might.”

  “Well, how about I make you a deal? I don’t tell Mike about the contents of this SUV or your extracurricular activities stealing food for them in the mall, and you do me a favor.”

  “What?”

  “When I saw Mike and Drew earlier—who, by the way, are very worried about where you ran off to this morning—Drew indicated that he was in need of some female companionship. So I was thinking that maybe you could invite some girls to the new hiding place I found you.”

  “Girls?”

  “You’ve heard of the species?”

  Ryan was about thirty seconds from decking the asshole. “Where do you want me to invite them to go?”

  “The storage room in the back of the bowling alley. I’ve even snuck a keg in there for you—that might help get the girls’ attention. If they sneak out into the service halls after Lights Out, they can exit into the
main part of the mall and then run up to the bowling alley.”

  Ryan actually liked Marco’s idea. Maybe he could invite Shay to come? Though he wasn’t sure he wanted to invite her to party with Mike and Drew in a storage room. It didn’t seem like her kind of hang.

  “Fine,” Ryan said finally.

  “Glad we could come to an agreement.” Marco turned and walked back into the dark.

  Ruthie pushed open the door. “Who was that guy?”

  “A friend.”

  “He didn’t seem like your friend.”

  “He’s more like a friend of a friend.”

  “He won’t tell on us, will he?”

  Ryan patted her head. “I told you I’d keep you safe.”

  Jack flashed the flashlight under his chin, lighting his face with ghost-story shadows. “And you said you’d get me a new plane,” he growled in a monster voice.

  “New plane, got it.”

  “See you tomorrow?” Ruthie smiled.

  “Sleep tight.”

  • • •

  Marco ran across the parking garage. If this completely fraked-up plan of his was going to work, he had to get to Mike and Drew before Ryan showed up. He’d saved himself the stress and embarrassment of actually having to invite anyone to this stupid party. Now, though, he had to get Mike and Drew to come to the party of their own volition. He hoped that having spent nearly twenty-four hours in the dungeon of the parking garage closet would be motivation enough.

  He was out of breath and sweating by the time he reached the closet. He knocked on the door.

  “Get the hell in here,” Mike grumbled.

  They sound ready to change venues. Marco opened the door. They’d turned the lights off and were again sitting in the dark.

  “Can I turn on the lights?” he asked.

  “How close are the shower people?” Mike asked from the corner.

  “They’re on the other side of the garage, which is what I came to tell you. I think you’re safe here for another night.”

  “Like hell.” It was Drew this time, from the opposite corner.

  Marco flipped on the light, blinding himself momentarily.

  “My head just split open,” Drew groaned. He was sprawled in the corner to Marco’s right, vodka bottle between his legs.

  Mike had an open bottle of Sportade and some empty cracker packets in front of him. “Did you find Ryan?”

  “Yeah,” Marco said. “He was just tooling around the parking garage.”

  “All day?”

  “I guess,” Marco said, shrugging. “It’s not like I had a GPS tracker on him. I just saw him as I was coming here. He said he was on his way back.”

  Mike dribbled some vodka into the Sportade bottle and took a swig. “So we’ll see you in the morning.”

  Marco screwed his courage to the sticking place. “Not that you care or anything, but I heard about this party up in the bowling alley.”

  Drew started as if electrocuted. “Party? You’re kidding me! Here?”

  Mike was not so excited. “How the hell is anyone planning a party?”

  “I don’t know,” Marco answered truthfully—after all, he was planning it and had absolutely no idea what he was doing. “But I heard that some kids had gotten their hands on a keg and had stashed it in a storage room at the back of the bowling alley.” He swallowed down a small ocean of saliva and tried to control the jiggle in his foot. “I could take you guys up there,” he said, “if you wanted to go.”

  “Hell yeah, we want to go,” Drew said, standing as if ready to be led to the place that minute.

  “Sit your ass down,” Mike barked. “We made an agreement to keep away from everyone to avoid contaminating ourselves.”

  Drew slammed the wall with his fist. “Screw that, Mike!” he yelled. “I cannot spend another night in this hole. All the vodka in the universe can’t make this place anything other than hell on earth.”

  “You want to die, Drew?” Mike said, standing. “This isn’t a joke. You make out with the wrong chick and you end up dead.”

  “Ryan didn’t die.”

  “That was a lucky break on his part.”

  “This isn’t living, Mike.” Drew was quieter now. “And how do we know we don’t have it already? We breathed that same crap air that everyone else did. These could be our last freaking days on earth. It seems stupid to waste them hiding in the basement.”

  This was going better than Marco had planned.

  Mike and Drew faced off for a few seconds longer, then Mike hurled his Sportade bottle at the wall, spraying them all with red juice.

  “Fine,” he yelled. “Screw it. Fine.” He glared at Marco like this entire thing was his fault. “We’ll go.”

  Marco did not like that look. “Hey, I didn’t mean to screw with you,” he said, backpedaling. “I just thought—”

  “Stop talking,” Mike said. “Just tell us when you’re coming to take us to this goddamned party.”

  “Lights Out,” Marco said, trying to breathe normally. “Ten o’clock.”

  “Yes!” Drew said, punching the air.

  “Turn the lights off,” Mike said, slumping back in his corner.

  Marco left while the getting was good.

  • • •

  Shay had not realized how far the sadness had drifted from her until the mall loudspeaker requested that she come to the medical center in Harry’s to reclaim her sister, at which point it swept back in like a tide. She handed the jars of paint she’d collected to Kris—they were cleaning up from the afternoon’s activity of painting a mural of fall trees. It had been Kris’s idea. He thought people would like to see the flaming colors of fall around them. “It’ll be a kind of reminder that there’s a world outside,” he’d said.

  Painting had soothed her mind. But now, as she rode the escalator down to the first floor, her brain fritzed.

  Harry’s, now the medical center, was only open on the first level, like the Home Stores, with the gates pulled across half of the wide entrance. The other half was mostly blocked by a phalanx of cosmetics’ counters. A bored-looking woman sat at one and flipped through a magazine. No need for a security guard, Shay guessed, to keep people from invading the disease ward.

  Preeti was sitting in a chair by the front desk. She hugged her purse to her chest and stared at the floor. The girl looked like a skeleton. Her eyes were ringed in shadows and her lips bore a fringe of cracked and peeling skin. The shirt they’d dressed her in was either two sizes too big or Preet had shrunk that much in a span of days.

  Shay put on her most confident face and opened her arms. “Hey, stranger.”

  Preeti glanced up, a smile briefly turning her lips, but it instantly fell away. “Where’s Nani?”

  They didn’t tell her.

  The person at the counter spoke. “Are you Shaila Dixit?”

  Shay nodded.

  “Your sister is being released into your care. You should watch for signs of relapse.”

  Shay nodded again, barely able to concentrate. They hadn’t told Preeti. Meaning she would have to tell her.

  “Any coughing or sneezing, thick green mucus, a fever—if she exhibits any of these signs, you must bring her back here.”

  The woman’s words began to sink in—they wanted her to take over caring for her sister. She was going to have to keep Preeti alive again. She could barely keep herself alive.

  The counter person handed Shay a medical mask for Preeti. “Keep the mask on at all times. Good luck.” The woman nodded toward Preeti, as if prodding Shay on.

  Preeti was staring at her.

  “Here,” Shay said, holding out the mask.

  “Where’s Nani?” Preeti asked again. She did not take the mask.

  Shay found it hard
to keep her hands from shaking. “She.” What words to use? There were none. “She’s dead.” She spat the word out like poison.

  Preeti looked confused. “She had the flu. I had the flu. I’m alive.”

  Shay sat in the chair next to her, thinking it better to sit before she capsized. “She was too old.”

  A sob shook Preeti’s shoulders. She fell forward into her own lap. After a few moments, she sat up. “How can you just say that like it’s nothing!”

  Shay felt herself retreating, as if there were doors inside her that could be closed, sealed over, better than a Ziploc, leaving only this shell to respond. “It’s not nothing.”

  Tears ran down Preeti’s face. She glared at Shay for a few seconds longer, then stood. “I want to talk to Ba.”

  There’d been an announcement in the afternoon that CB radios had been set up in the old Silver Screen store. People were invited to sign up to use them to call their families. Someone in the med center must have told Preeti about it. Probably that traitor Jazmine.

  “There will be a line.” It was dinnertime, and Shay was sure that everyone would be trying to call out. Everyone, of course, except her. Like she could face her parents right now.

  “I don’t care.” Preeti snatched the mask from Shay’s hand and started walking.

  Shay followed.

  There was a line at the table for the CBs, as Shay had predicted. Preeti was undeterred. She stomped to the end of the line and stared at the prodigious rear of the man in front of her rather than look at Shay. Shay did not mind. The last thing she wanted was to fight with Preeti about whether or not she was showing the appropriate amount of remorse for letting Nani die. Like there were measures for such things. If only Preeti could see the desolation inside her. Would that begin to pay her debt?

  When they reached the front of the line, Preeti spoke for herself. “I need to call my mother.”

  The man behind the table slid a clipboard toward her. “Write the name and the home and cell phone numbers, address, and then your name. The guard will contact the government on the outside, and they will call your mother and tell her to come to the mall. Once she arrives, they will contact us here and an announcement will be made over the mall’s PA system. Return to this location when you hear your name over the PA. All calls are monitored by the federal government.” From his deadpan tone, Shay could tell this was a speech he’d given one too many times.