I’d also realized that he could use them in another way.
The moment we were through the doors, I turned to him and said, “Can you relock that door? That way we’ll have some protection if Sally and her gang show up.”
He hummed in agreement and dropped to his knees again in front of the glass, making quick work of re-locking the door behind us.
When we turned around, we realized we were in the bedding department of a major department store. And I suddenly realized how sleepy I was. I hadn’t slept a wink last night, and we’d walked all the way from town to the mall.
“I wasn’t tired before, but I suddenly feel like I can’t keep my eyes open,” I noted quietly. “You?”
“You took the words right out my mouth,” he agreed.
And without another word, we made our way to twin beds that had been set up next to each other, pulled down the covers, and climbed in.
And even as we laid down, I knew we couldn’t stay long. Because nothing had changed. We were still in a hurry. We definitely needed to get out of that mall quickly. But at the same time, we wouldn’t be much good if we were asleep on our feet.
Being sleepy dulled your instincts. It kept you from moving quickly. It allowed people to sneak up on you more easily. Giving ourselves a chance to rest was the smart thing to do. The responsible thing. And at least the doors were locked all around us.
Still, I meant to set my watch to wake me up in an hour. We may have been behind locked doors, but that didn’t make us completely safe, and I still wanted to be long gone before Sally and crew arrived. So I thought, as my head hit the pillow, that we had two hours at most. One hour of sleep would be better, because it would give us more time to search through the mall for supplies…
And that was the last thing I thought before I dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Chapter 18
I jerked awake, heart racing, eyes snapping to the left and right, completely at a loss for what had woken me up. A sound? A voice? Something happening out there? I couldn’t be sure, and that was the part that bothered me. Because I had no idea if it had just been a dream, or if something had actually made a sound and woken me up—which meant I had no idea whether there was someone else in here with us or not.
I hadn’t forgotten that there had been someone in here locking the doors after the attack happened. And that meant that they could still be in here. They might be happy to see other live people… or they might not.
I really didn’t want to find out. I wanted even less to find out when I was still groggy from sleep.
And then my eyes caught the door we’d come through and I realized that we were in even bigger trouble than I’d realized. Because it had been just past dawn when we'd come in.
And now, the light out there looked as though it was starting to fade. It had that dusky, hazy sort of look that comes right before the sun starts to hit the horizon again. I glanced at my watch, horrified, and saw that I had not only completely failed to set an alarm, but also that we’d managed to sleep most of the day away.
It was five in the afternoon. We were getting close to sunset. And we hadn’t even started finding the things we needed in the mall.
Even worse, without power, we were going to be in here in the pitch black—which would make it even more difficult to look for things.
Even more difficult to know whether we were in there alone, or were actually being stalked by someone. Like Sally. Like the person who had been in here locking the doors after the attack.
Yes, we had a flashlight. No, I didn’t want to waste the batteries on a damn grocery stop in the mall. We should have been in here during daylight, when the windows and skylights would have made our searching easier. Instead, we were going to be doing it in something that was rapidly approaching darkness.
And that didn’t even start to touch on the fact that we’d lost nearly twelve hours of time. Twelve hours when Sally and her men might have been on the move, looking for us. Hell, they might be here already, stalking through the parking lot and getting their guns ready.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, scooting out of bed and moving toward Will’s.
He was still dead asleep, and looked more peaceful and happy than I’d seen him so far, but unfortunately, that couldn’t last. We didn’t have time for him to wake up naturally. Definitely didn’t have time for me to give him five more minutes.
I shook him gently, and then more roughly, annoyed when he didn’t wake up right away. He knew we were in danger and that we needed to be on high alert; why wasn’t he sleeping with one eye open?
Why weren’t you? the annoying voice in my head asked.
I told it to shut its mouth if it knew what was good for it. I was in no good mood.
“Will!” I hissed. “We have to get up and get moving. We slept for like twelve hours!”
“Huh? What?” he asked, coming slowly around to wakefulness and looking up and down the aisle of beds as if he was searching for whoever had woken him up.
“I’m right here,” I snapped. “We overslept. Get up, we’ve got to get moving.”
And at that, he came suddenly awake, totally alert and panicked.
“We did what?” he asked, literally jumping out of bed.
His head turned right and left, his gaze finally coming to rest on the doors in front of us.
“Shit,” he said succinctly.
“Exactly,” I agreed. “I’d thought to give us an hour, but I fell asleep before I could manage to set my watch. We’ve got to get moving. If we’re lucky, we can get what we need and still get out of here before we run into any trouble.”
We hadn’t brought anything in with us, so we didn’t have anything to grab before we left. Instead, we just started walking quickly through the maze of the store, making our way toward the doors that would lead into the mall itself.
The place was surprisingly… empty.
“Where are all the people?” I whispered, feeling somehow like I didn’t want anyone to hear me speaking.
The place was deserted, yes, but it also felt like it would be somehow dangerous if I made too much noise. The idea that someone else might be in here had me completely creeped out.
I was getting well and truly paranoid. And it was driving me nuts. But that didn’t change the fact that it was weird for this place to be so… empty.
“The parking lot is packed. Why isn’t this place packed, too?”
Will shook his head, though he didn’t slow down at all.
“No idea, but I’m just as glad that it’s empty in here. I don’t exactly want to be stuck in a big building with a bunch of dead bodies. Maybe the attack happened and everyone rushed outside to see what was going on.”
“And right to their deaths,” I said, continuing the thought. “It makes sense. If they thought they heard a bomb, it would make sense to get away from a building that might be drawing fire.”
“More likely they just wanted to get to their cars and try to get home,” Will said. “But you’re right. Whatever their reasons, they were running right to their deaths.”
“And then someone in here went around locking the doors after them, so they couldn’t even come back in,” I said, my voice tinged with the horror of that situation.
The horror they must have felt when they got out there and started dying. When they realized that it was all over—and that they didn’t have anywhere safe to go.
“Which means…” Will turned to me, his eyes big. “That means that there must be at least one person left in here.”
“I’ve already thought of that. Only question is whether they’re alive, or dead,” I agreed, chills running up my arms. “Let’s hope for dead,” I continued, feeling horribly guilty even as I said it—but knowing that it was really our only choice.
If they were in here, we wouldn’t be able to know whether we could trust them or not. We wouldn’t know if they were even sane or not. And if we ran into them personally, we would have to decide whether we
wanted to take them with us… or not.
I didn’t want that sort of responsibility. Life as I knew it right now was already complicated enough.
“Agreed,” Will said grimly.
We came abruptly to the front of the store and found ourselves in one of those large, square areas with benches, a couple of chairs, and a directory. Right across from us was one of those outdoor/camping stores that should have pretty much everything we needed.
“Perfect,” I said. “We’re looking for backpacks, food, clothing, water, flashlights, and whatever weapons we can carry. I say we go in there, find the bags, and then split up to cover ground as quickly as possible. Then we get the hell out of there and make for the freeway. Or rather, the bushes along the side of the freeway. Anything that can give us cover.”
“Done,” Will said.
He took my hand in the growing darkness and we started across the indoor plaza toward the all-goods store, and my mind was already running through the potential list, trying to figure out whether we needed more than I’d just outlined, and what we might need it for.
Half an hour later, we found each other back at the front of the store and stared at each other, our chests heaving with the effort it had taken to gather what we needed in the shortest amount of time possible.
“I have so much food that we’ll get fat if we eat it all,” I told him. “And I’ve got clothes for you and me and three packs of batteries. All sizes, so they’ll fit whatever flashlights you found.”
He pulled out his pack and started rifling through it.
“Flashlights, three of them. I figure as long as we’re shopping for free, we might as well get greedy. Blankets. Lots of water, plus some sodas, because I like soda. Toothbrushes and toothpaste. Toilet paper.”
I laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“Wow, you really did think of everything. And here I only grabbed food, clothes, and batteries.”
He looked up, grinning.
“Food is pretty important, if you ask me. I think you did just fine.”
He got to his feet, slung his bag over his shoulder, and started forward, with me at his side. We’d taken three steps and gotten to the door of the store when my eyes fell on another store, down one story.
A gun store.
Will saw it at the same time as I did and looked up to meet my eyes.
“We need weapons,” we said at the same time.
We ran out the door and straight to the nearest staircase, which was only about half a mall block away. As we clattered down the stairs, I wondered again at the weird emptiness of the mall. I’d already known that we were now living in a dystopian world, but something about this big, open, deserted place, which had been so full of life the last time I was here, made it all seem worse.
Because it brought it all rushing right home. Made it all more real, somehow. More real, and more horrible.
Then we were at the bottom of the stairs and I had to put the thought away. The weapons store was, strangely, locked by one of those pull-down gates that you usually see on city streets. The gate was secured by an enormous padlock. And yeah, I guessed that it made sense for it to be well protected. After all, guns were dangerous. The owners of the store probably hadn’t wanted to take the chance of anyone getting in there when they shouldn’t.
But still. I was getting really tired of running into locked doors when were in a hurry.
Will and I came to a stop next to each other and stared through the gate, our lips pressed together in thought.
“How badly do we actually need those guns?” he asked quietly.
“Badly,” I returned. “If Sally and her goons find us, they’re going to be shooting at us. I don’t know about you, but I want to be able to shoot back. I don’t plan to die today. Or tomorrow.”
“Right,” he muttered.
He dropped to his knees in front of the lock, pulled out his lockpick case, and got to work.
After about thirty seconds, though, he looked up at me, a question in his eyes.
“Do you want me to teach you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I told him quickly. “But now's still not exactly the best time, bucko.”
He gave me a quick grin and then got back to work, and within two minutes he was sliding the grate up and letting us into the store.
I let Will handle the weapons, since he was already a criminal and had at least some experience with that sort of thing. Yes, I was a criminal too, but not one that used things like guns.
I’d end up getting one that looked really great but had an incredibly short range, or something like that. I wanted Will picking a gun that would work well for me, not me picking one that looked cooler than the others.
If Sally came after us and I had to shoot at her, I would. But i
f I could keep my hands off of weapons until then, I would absolutely do that, too.
Instead, I went down a side aisle, looking through the other offerings of the store for anything that we might need. It took me almost no time to come to the liquor aisle, and I quickly grabbed a bottle of the best whiskey I could see. We were going to need something to make us feel better out there on the road, and whiskey was about the best thing in the world for that, as far as I could see.
When I started down the next aisle, I realized that it was full of poisons.
“What is this, a store that carries anything a hunter could ever ask for?” I asked myself, surprised.
Why the hell would a store that carried weapons also carry something like rat poison?
You didn’t poison the animals you were about to eat, did you?
But maybe if you were willing to shoot some animals, you were also willing to poison others, I realized. And, before I could think about it, I reached out and grabbed a small box of rat poison, sliding it into my pack right next to the whiskey bottle. I went back around to the other aisle and grabbed another bottle of whiskey, adding it to the stash.
Rat poison definitely wouldn’t be the best weapon when it came to people shooting at me. But I didn’t trust anyone—not even Will, not yet—and I wanted to have weapons that no one else realized I had.
At the end of the day, I was the only person I could really count on. I needed to make sure I could keep myself alive, and sometimes that meant killing other people before they could kill you.
Chapter 19
We tore out of the hunting store and into the main walkway of the mall, and then made our way to the closest door, where Will dropped to his knees again and pulled out his magic lockpicking kit. He was faster this time, taking less time to figure out which tools he needed and inserting them straight into the lock.
“Getting pretty good at that, eh?” I asked, watching him breathlessly.
Then I felt that prickle you get on the back of your neck when you realize that someone’s watching you, and froze. I closed my eyes and prayed—for maybe the first time in my entire life—that I was wrong. Prayed that I was just imagining things, that the paranoia I’d noticed in myself earlier was just getting worse.
That I was just imagining things. That I was just talking myself into thinking that something was wrong, because I was so freaked out over how long we’d been in this mall.
I breathed out and counted to ten, then threw my senses outward again, putting my criminal-doing-bad-things sense on especially high alert… and listened.
And I heard something. It wasn’t much. And on a normal day, when the mall was fuller than it was right now, and packed with noisy people and children screaming and announcements coming over the intercom and the sound of bags being carried, I probably wouldn’t have heard it.
But this wasn’t a normal day. This was a day that felt like we were living on the edge of the end of the world, and the mall wasn’t crowded. It was enormously, cavernously empty. And quiet.
And that meant that I heard the muttering and breathing of the person who was somewhere behind us, in that enormous open space. I heard them speaking to themselves—and then respondin
g—and breathing loudly, like they’d just been running. I heard the craziness in their voice and the violence underlying it. I heard the danger they were going to be once they realized that there were other live people in the mall.
Other live people who might be able to tell them what was going on outside. In the world they’d locked out when they'd thrown the bolts on all the doors in the mall.
“Shit,” I breathed.
I ducked toward Will and put my mouth right up against his ear.
“Hurry the fuck up, buddy, because we’ve got company coming and I don’t think it’s someone either one of us wants to meet,” I hissed.
I threw a quick glance over my shoulder, my eyes piercing the growing darkness in the mall as I tried to figure out where that person was. Where they might be coming from—and how close to us they really were.
Please let them be far away, please let them be far away, I thought frantically.
Yes, we had weapons and there were two of us against what I presumed to be only one of them, but that didn’t mean I wanted a run-in with anyone right now.
It didn’t mean I wanted to see what a week in a dark, deserted mall had done to them.
I didn’t see anyone, though, and I turned back around to see that Will’s shoulders were stiffer with tension, now—but that his actions had also increased in speed. He was moving through the steps of picking the lock about three times faster than he’d done it before, and a second later, I heard the telltale click.
“Done,” he snapped. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
He jumped to his feet, shoved his shoulder against the door to force it open, and yanked me through the space between the two pieces of glass. He closed them almost as quickly and then got to his knees again and went through the same steps—in reverse, I assumed—to re-lock the door.
Survival of The Fittest | Book 2 | Shallow Graves Page 9
