The Faces of Lions (Book One - The Reset)

by Angie Morel

  Jerking the shotgun up, she braced the butt on her hip. Blood from her split-open eyebrow was dripping in front of her vision. It hit her cheek and then found its way into her mouth, mocking her with its metallic taste. She licked her lips as an odd sensation took over, like she was watching this from outside her body. Her breath rushed in and out.

  Brenda wasn’t laughing now.

  Savannah smiled.

  Her finger twitched and pulled the trigger. Surprise hit her almost as hard as the punch to her hip from the butt when the shot actually fired. The sound was deafening. And then it went ear-ringingly quiet, except for the sound of Brenda’s body hitting the floor. She landed face up. Well, Savannah thought madly, maybe not face up. Her face was gone. It was hamburger meat.

  She heard a commotion. The whole group had exited the furniture store. She looked around, suddenly confused. What had she done? Her gaze dropped to the shotgun gripped in her hand, and then to the bloody figure in front of her. She scanned Brenda’s missing face and the splatter of blood and brain tissue littering the floor like a bomb site. So this is what happens when someone is shot at point blank range with a shotgun, she thought. Yuck-O. Odd that the sight didn’t bother her much.

  A yell reached her ears. Shit, what should she do?

  Falling to her knees she dropped the gun, knowing she had to come up with something fast. She hoped the little fucker with the slingshot was gone, because she was leaving herself wide-open here. And then she dejectedly thought it didn’t matter, because when Clutch saw this mess, he was probably going to kill her anyway.

  Savannah forced herself to begin sobbing. The tears came easily, as they were a common practice used on her dad in the past when she wanted something. It usually worked. Hopefully they’d work on Clutch. All she could do was give it her best shot. A cackle almost escaped her. Her best shot. Her best “shot” had been pretty amazing the two times that she’d shot!

  Shit, she thought, she had to get control. Pushing a finger into the swollen lump on her cheekbone, she winced as the white-hot pain it produced brought more tears to her eyes. But it brought her back to reality as well, wiping out the crazy euphoric state she’d been in a moment ago. There, that was better, she decided. Blinking out the tears, she watched them approach.

  “What the fuck happened?” Clutch shouted in the distance. They were about thirty feet away and couldn’t quite see what was lying at her feet.

  “The kid with the slingshot got me!” Savannah sobbed. “I was bringing the gun up to shoot at him and he shot me again just as I had him in my sights!” She continued crying.

  Clutch had arrived and was looking down in shock at Brenda. After a few long seconds he moved his eyes from Brenda body to Savannah’s face, and there was no mistaking the wild rage growing in there, turning his eyes glassy and dark. She hurried up with her explanation.

  “Brenda moved and my gun got knocked aside when my face got hit and my finger accidentally pulled the trigger! Oh God, Brenda! I’m so sorry!” She started sobbing for real now. She hated that look on Clutch’s face.

  “CAN YOU HEAR ME YOU LITTLE CUNT FUCKER!” Clutch roared, spittle flying from his mouth as he looked around at the upper floors. “We’ll find you, and when we do I’m gonna…FUCK! I’ll tear you apart!” His hands were fisted and every tendon and muscle was tight with fury. A vein pulsed on his forehead.

  Savannah breathed a sigh of relief. She stayed on her knees, thankful that she had proof of her injuries showing plainly on her face. This situation worked out quite well, now that she thought about it. She’d be glad to suffer through the pain since it meant no more Brenda. After making sure there were ample tears squirting from her eyes, she looked up at Clutch, blinking at him, the helpless victim.

  He put a boot to her chest, which sent her sprawling to the floor.

  “You’re about worthless!” he yelled, glaring at her for several long seconds. And then he turned and stalked back to the furniture store.

  They piled into her cousin’s sedan around noon. A battered Savannah took the wheel while a silent Clutch sat in the passenger seat. Donna, Darth, Butcher, Penny and Cheeto had to squish themselves into the backseat or get left behind, since none of the other four cars in Savannah’s grand plan of car availability would start anymore. Tension polluted the air, so thick Savannah was practically choking on it. She realized she’d made a mistake by killing Brenda.

  “How long?” Clutch asked tightly, not looking at her.

  “No more than an hour or so.” She had to bite her lip. Clutch would never be hers. He hated her now. The only reason he didn’t kill her was so she could take him to Rolo.

  As the sedan slowly ate up the pavement, an idea began to take root. It wouldn’t be easy, and she’d have to come up with a doozy of a story, but…perhaps it was time to switch sides.

  Chapter 29

  MICKEY

  The boy watched the bad people leave. He hoped they never came back. They killed the pretty girl. He was sad. He tried to help her and she ended up getting killed because of him. There was a lump in his throat that he had to keep swallowing and swallowing to keep down. She would’ve been his friend, he knew it. He’d been watching her since the kiddie store where she kicked the mean boy in the wiener. He had to cover his mouth to keep the laugh in when that happened. The mean boy dropped like one of those big chopped down trees in the forest. Boom! He liked that.

  That’s when he starting thinking that maybe he should try to help her. He needed a friend, he was so lonely. And now it didn’t matter anyway. At least he popped the girl that killed her. Pop! Pop! Two times. He had good aim and made sure that his shots hit her right in the face where it hurt the most. He used the big metal balls too, special just for her.

  His name was Tallak Jarlsberg Nansen. He thought he was six now, since his birthday was right after Christmas and the snow had come and gone during the time he’d been here. He said his name out loud every day. That was the only time he used his voice. There was a fear inside that he would forget who he was, that he would turn into some animal living the rest of his life in this mall, alone.

  Maybe even turn into one of the sick people.

  Or worse, like one of the mean people that just left.

  They were bad people; he saw them do lots of very bad things. He knew that right away when they came to his mall. He could just tell. That’s why he stayed hidden. The thing he couldn’t believe was that they came on the only day that he had gone outside to play. He’d left the mall door unlocked and placed the key ring right outside the door so he didn’t have to hang on to it while he had some fun.

  All he wanted to do was breathe the clean air and feel it rush around him as he rode the stupid bike he’d found in a store. The mall was so depressing and so awful smelling. He had just started riding the bike, weaving in and out of cars and had hit a straightaway, getting ready to petal super-fast when he saw them.

  By that time it was too late, they were closer to the mall than he was, so he had no chance to grab the key ring and sneak back into the mall, locking them out. He quickly got off the bike and hid, watching as they walked across the parking lot. They went right to the door he’d used and found his key ring. Boop. They went inside and out of sight as he hid between the cars, mad at himself. He didn’t like that they decided to live at his mall. He had to sneak around after that. He had to be like a ninja.

  After he saw them do bad things he decided to do something back to them. It gave him something to do so he wouldn’t keep feeling sad and missing his parents and being mad that they had decided to go on holiday to visit his uncle in this country where they died, leaving him alone in this stupid mall, homesick for his small village and the people and language he was familiar with.

  Tallak wandered around the store where they had fishing poles and soccer balls and all sorts of sport stuff. That’s where he found the slingshot. He could do that! Tallak did that for a whole week during the summer when his older cousins came for a visit. They sh
owed him how to do it. They set up empty tin cans for targets and everything. He did good—everybody told him so.

  After removing it from the packaging he practiced and practiced in the store until he was really good. He was a natural, he thought with pride. His papa always told him he was special. Then Tallak made sure that all of his outs were prepared before he started.

  He had at least four or five outs on every floor. Some of his outs were in the ducts that moved the air around the mall, and some were the back doors of the stores that led to long hallways that went everywhere.

  It was a big mall, and the stupid mean people were never quick enough to catch him.

  Tallak got really good because that’s all he did all day, run around his mall without them knowing it. He was tired of it lately, but in the beginning it was fun. And they never found where he slept. He liked where he slept. He slept in the best store in the world.

  He worked so hard to clear out the mall after his mama and papa died, and after the two normal kids left. He was a smart boy—he knew so because his parents had always told him that—and found where the poor security guard had died and searched him for keys. He had lots of keys and they were all on a big ring. He learned which keys went with which doors. He then figured out how to set those multiple mall doors that led outside to auto lock. That meant they would open for people to leave, but once they closed you couldn’t get back in.

  He made noise and had the sick people chase him outside and then he’d circle around and get back in through one of the service entrance doors using the keys. He was fast. They never came close to catching him.

  Except once.

  Tallak got into a pickle when he forgot that he locked the book store doors and ran in there, with lots of sick people chasing him, only to discover his mistake when it was almost too late. Those doors couldn’t be set to auto lock. He felt stupid for forgetting that. They were just plain old locked and he didn’t have time to use the key. He squirmed away from the grabbing hands and made his way through a door in the back of the store where they kept all the extra boxes of books. Tallak slammed the door shut just in time. The sick people wouldn’t leave the store so he had to go up through the ceiling and drop down into another store. He snuck out and came up on the mall entrance to the book store and slid the security gate closed really quiet-like and then locked it. He counted ten sick people in there.

  In the beginning, he remembered thinking that he should show himself to the two normal kids before they’d left, to see if they would let him tag along. But Tallak didn’t understand them. Their words were foreign to him. And he was afraid. So he stayed here, by himself. And after a while he even got used to the smell of the dead. He thought about trying to clear all of them out, but they were everywhere and it seemed like too much for one boy to do. And after a while they looked really icky and he couldn’t imagine touching them. He did clear out the store where he slept though. Tallak didn’t want any dead bodies in there giving him nightmares.

  He also took his parents bodies to a special place in the mall. It was after he cleared the mall of the sick people and it took him hours to drag both of their bodies there, but it was worth it. Lucky for him they were shopping on the same floor as the special store when they died. It was a special because it had direct access to heaven. He knew it did, there were pictures of beautiful angels filling the store. The angels were all girls and they weren’t wearing a lot of clothes, but maybe in heaven you didn’t need a lot of clothes.

  He stood at the railing, sad as he looked down at the pretty girl’s body. The angel store, he thought suddenly. That’s what he could do for her! He could take her to that store so the angels could deliver her up to Heaven, just like his papa and mama.

  He had one of her ankles under each arm and had just pushed back with his legs, moving the first two feet of the long journey when she made a noise. He froze. The pretty girl had moaned. He was so surprised he dropped her feet and fell backwards, landing hard on his bottom. And then he laughed out loud!

  Scrambling up, he crouched beside her and touched her face gently. She moaned again. He looked at her, thinking hard. After a moment he knew what he had to do. He needed to take her to where he lived, right away. She would need his care and he needed to get her out of the mall area in case the mean people came back.

  Ha! He couldn’t believe it! She was alive!

  Carefully he pulled her to the base of the stairs and paused, breathing hard. Tallak looked up. There were lots of stairs. A determined look settled onto his face. He was a strong boy, he could do it.

  He made it. His store was at the far end of the second level, and by the time he got there, with his precious bundle in tow, in was getting dark. Tallak was beat. His shoulders and back ached from being stooped over and pulling. He made sure to place her where she wouldn’t be seen from the outside of the store. And then he crawled up to the hidden place on top of the castle at the back and collapsed, sleep hitting him like a wall.

  Someone was yelling. Tallak woke immediately, listening as the echoing voice carried up to his store. Oh no, he thought, were the mean people back? He scooted back and down from his sleeping area in a flash. The girl was still in the same position so he didn’t have to worry that she’d be discovered. He could tell how the voice was projecting where they were located. The person yelling was on the main level, and he sounded really upset. He kept saying one word over and over. “No!” That was one of only a couple of English words that Tallak actually knew.

  Tallak went to one of the good peek-through spots in the railing. Carefully he looked down towards the voice. He saw two unfamiliar boys. One had black hair and was on his knees with his head clutched in his hands, and the other one was tall with long brown hair and was standing off to the side, looking like he was crying.

  It was the one on his knees that had been yelling. Tallak swiveled his head, looking as far as he could in each direction. What were they so upset about? From what he could see it was only these two. The boy on his knees suddenly got up and started grabbing things and throwing them.

  Tallak decided to go check on the pretty girl really quick, to make sure she was still okay. He didn’t want her to wake up and be afraid and start screaming, alerting the boys below to her location. She hadn’t moved. Putting his hand on her chest, he made sure she was still breathing. He said a silent prayer of thanks that she was still alive before heading back to the railing to spy.

  The angry boy was still smashing and breaking things. Tallak couldn’t see him but he could hear him. Tallak spied the key ring on the floor. How did they get that? The other boy was gone from his sight. Tallak scurried around to the other side of the mall to see if he could find him. Just as he was putting his eye up to the slat to search for him, the missing boy came into view. What was he carrying? It looked like a rug—

  A faint sound came from his store. It was the girl—she was making a whimpering sound. He rushed back to the store and looked down at her, panicking. Could they hear her? He knelt by her head and gently placed his hand over her mouth.

  “Shhh, shhh,” he repeated in a hushed voice over and over to her. Her head was moving back and forth slightly, like she was in pain. She must be having a doozy of a dream, he thought, feeling bad that he had to cover her mouth.

  Finally the boys left and Tallak was glad. He scrambled back up to his bed and grabbed a bottle of water. He twisted the cap off and poured a trickle into her mouth. He knew water was important. She made a hurt sound. Tallak suddenly realized that her head was resting on nothing but the hard floor. Looking around, he found soft pillow with the face of a blue fish on it. Dory! He liked that movie.

  Lifting her head, he put the pillow beneath it and gently lowered her head onto it. Not knowing what else to do, he sat next to his friend. After a while he covered her with a Sleeping Beauty blanket, thinking it was appropriate, making sure to tuck it all around her body. He even reached inside the blanket and held her hand for a bit. Every now and then he’d giv
e her sips of water, praying for her to wake up.

  He prayed a lot.

  Chapter 30

  Neglected farmland stretched as far as the eye could see. I marched on, my vision filled with dead corn stalks. They stood in row upon row like withered old men, baked brown and crispy from the sun, having nothing to bear but wasted harvest. Something was telling me that up ahead was a garden, tender and young and so precious. A sanctuary. It must be protected at all cost. I was desperately needed there.

  There was a sign up ahead. I-80. I was travelling west. West would lead me where I needed to be. My skin crawled, sensing something evil watching from the graveyard of corn. The dry stalks crackled and swayed in a few spots deep within the fields flanking me, like they had a life of their own. Movement all around. I must hurry.

  There was a whispering. I could barely make out the words. “You’ve only met the lost ones,” it said. “He’s gathering his horde in the south. The group must be prepared when he comes. But you must open yourself. You must…”

  “What? I don’t understand,” I said as the words faded away.

  And then a vision grew in my mind. It was a green bridge spanning a wide brown river, and a sign that said “Welcome to Iowa”. Turning, I saw in the distance a water tower that had a brown rectangle painted on it. Inside the square of paint was a white star. Five bald eagles were perched atop the water tower, like the white-tipped points of a crown. Behind it sat a wind turbine, its massive blades cutting through the air with slow, mesmerizing clarity. The turbine, with the additional length of the blades, soared a few hundred feet into the sky, dwarfing the water tower. Though I couldn’t hear anything in this vision, I somehow knew the sound it’d make—whump-whump-whump—deep and steady, shaking the ground with its power.