Madison scurried back a few steps to collect her flops, then ran for the door.
Harper dashed after her to the entrance, ducking inside before any of the gang members came walking past the wall again. At least, Harper hoped so. She hadn’t looked back to see. No shouts or gunshots happened outside, so she assumed they’d gotten away.
A vast expanse of dimly lit abandoned stores stretched out before her. Heavy, humid air thick with a stink like a locker room, only stronger, filled her senses. Distant dripping echoed, making the place feel even emptier.
“Eww,” said Madison, deadpan. “The floor is slimy.”
Harper ignored the squish of her sneakers on the tiles. Condensation covered most of the store windows, turning them into opaque panels like frozen smoke. It occurred to her the mall didn’t feel all that cold, as if somehow the heating system still limped along. The mall’s got generators, but wouldn’t they have fried in the EMP?
“Are we going shopping?”
“Kinda.” Harper looked around, focusing after a few seconds on a skylight overhead. Water gathered in droplets, falling every few seconds to a silent landing on the floor a few paces forward of where she stood. “We’re not gonna stay here long. I wanna get some clothes for you.”
Madison pulled her phone out from her jacket pocket and fiddled with it. The blank, black screen still didn’t respond.
We’re going to be okay. Harper clutched the shotgun, trying to hold it in a posture that seemed right. Playing Call of Duty had been pretty cool. Living it, not so much. She advanced down the concourse, shifting to aim at any shadow that moved. Madison dallied a moment to put her flip-flops back on before catching up.
Dad’s voice drifted out from Harper’s memory, a discussion they’d had over his decision not to try heading for Evergreen right away. According to the group of people who told them about the sanctuary in the mountains, a lot of people had taken refuge up there and started rebuilding it into a proper town. Of course, they wouldn’t have electrical power, cars, or anything like that. Total Little House on the Prairie stuff… but it sounded a whole lot better than whatever would happen to them if the blue gang got them.
That could go wrong in any number of ways from being forced to help thugs murder and loot to being raped, or maybe even killed and eaten. Cannibalism did seem a bit farfetched for people who had once lived in normal society. Stuff like that probably wouldn’t happen for at least a few generations if at all. However, Harper had been groped, whistled at, pawed, and touched so often before the breakdown of law, she had no doubt what would happen to her now that police had stopped existing. A man who thought nothing of squeezing her ass as a form of hello would now probably rip her clothes straight off.
Dad thought the lack of organized society brought out the worst in everyone, as if the only thing holding humanity back from tearing each other apart had been the law and expectation that the majority of people in a civilized society would condemn aberrant behavior. Mom hadn’t been so nihilistic. She’d clung to believing every person had some amount of good inside them—right up until the man trying to drag her out the window stabbed her.
Harper flinched at the memory of her mother crumpling to the ground in their kitchen. At least Madison hadn’t witnessed it. She’d been hiding under the dining room table. Dad shot it out with a bunch of punks on the deck while Harper stood paralyzed with dread. She had been supposed to guard the front door, but wound up staring at a man forcing his way in, unable to pull the trigger. The way the gang punk smiled at her made her skin crawl. The hunger in his eyes freaked her out so much she couldn’t move. As soon as he’d noticed the Mossberg in her hands, he went for a gun, but she couldn’t bring herself to kill a man.
Dad’s AR-15 and the Beretta Mom had been using likely served the gang now. The mere thought that weapons her father owned might hurt her or Madison increased her need to get so far away from Lakewood that couldn’t happen. He had been so diligent in keeping the weapons locked up, not wanting them to hurt anyone, especially his daughters. Again, the expression on his face when the bullet tore into him from behind overwhelmed her thoughts.
“There’s a Starbucks,” said Madison, dragging Harper out of her daymare. “I know I missed dance class, but can we get something?”
“It’s not open.” Harper kept on walking, trying to ignore all her memories of this mall. The abandoned brokenness of everything looked so wrong, made worse by the near-total silence. As often as she used to come here, every storefront triggered one recollection or another—but seeing it like this waved reality in her face. It mocked her dead parents, missing friends, and the life she would no longer have.
“That’s stupid. It’s the morning.”
“Look for a place with clothes your size.”
“I wanna cake pop.”
“They’re probably stale and hard as rocks now.”
“Aww, Harp. Please?”
She sighed, weighing the potential danger of remaining near Lakewood with some little thing to make her sister feel better. “Okay.”
They crossed the hall to the Starbucks and raided it. Madison grabbed two pink cake pops from the display case. They did seem stale, but she ate them anyway. Harper nibbled on some equally past-their-prime cookies, savoring the chocolate. Of course, none of the coffee machinery worked. The place reminded her too much of taking her sister to dance class, too much of Mom. She collected the rest of the cookies into a bag, and pulled her sister out into the mall again, unable to tolerate the painful reminder of her old life.
Madison followed for a while in silence before asking, “Why are we hiding?”
“Those people are dangerous. They’ll hurt us.”
“Like they hurt Mom and Dad?”
Harper’s throat closed off with a lump she couldn’t speak past. She gazed down at the floor. The soft snapping of her sister’s flip-flops seemed deafening.
“Harp?”
She cleared her throat, trying to compose herself. “No, worse.”
“What’s worse than being dead?” asked Madison, no life at all in her voice.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Harper. Her mind again filled with horrible images of her little sister fighting a faceless gang thug carrying her off to do unspeakable things. “I won’t let it happen.”
At the junction where the concourse widened to an atrium, Harper paused and crouched behind a large planter box of greenery, aiming the shotgun out at the dead mall. She should be sitting on the nearby bench sipping coffee with her friends, not running around with a gun. Or, at this hour, sitting in school. She’d have turned eighteen two weeks before graduation. Of course, graduation would never happen now… and if she didn’t hold it together, turning eighteen wouldn’t either.
Harper sighed at the Halloween decorations arranged all over the area where two mall concourses met. The attack happened early in September, yet they’d already hung witches, ghosts, pumpkins, and bats everywhere. Despite the décor, crappy Christmas music haunted her memories. Every year on November first, the mall put on the same track for the holidays, music that would never play here again.
Almost every store she looked at brought her back in time to visiting it with her friends. What was Andrea doing at the moment? Or Christina? Or Renee? That girl had always been jumpy, getting nightmares even from lame movies. Veronica loved going to karate, so she could probably take care of herself. Darci, a big fan of weed, probably still hadn’t realized there’d been a war.
Of course, some or all of her friends could be dead.
Harper had fled her home while the men who’d killed her parents barged in the kitchen patio door. Perhaps the hazy smoke had kept them hidden. She hadn’t thought about checking Christina’s house, only three away from hers, until she’d run herself to the point of collapse. Christina liked the coffee place on the corner of the court here, mostly because it wasn’t a chain. She had a thing against the ‘corporate takeover’ of America. Every time they’d gone to the mall togethe
r, they’d stop in.
The smell of ‘wet’ grew stronger in the next concourse. Shops on both sides offered mostly jewelry, electronics, and such. Nothing in that Apple store would be useful ever again. The place looked like it burned, no doubt the electromagnetic pulse had caused all the demonstration computers and tablets to explode in flames.
A short distance ahead, an escalator offered a way downstairs. Harper paused to look back, wary of being followed. Being inside felt weird because she could see more than thirty feet. Though the smell of burn persisted, the smoke remained outside. Nothing moved or made noise, except for unseen dripping.
“My phone won’t turn on,” said Madison. “The battery’s dead.”
“Got the charger?”
“Yeah.”
Harper crossed her fingers. White lies. “We’ll have to find a plug. Maybe there’ll be one in Evergreen you can use.”
“Not here?” Madison squatted beside her, half her pale face concealed by a wall of straight, black hair.
“All the stuff here broke, remember?” asked Harper. “I don’t see anything dangerous. Come on.”
She approached the escalator. At the top, she paused with an annoyed sigh. The ground floor had flooded several feet deep. Harper spent a moment debating if she’d rather deal with water or hope the gang thugs decided to go somewhere else.
They’re probably going to come inside.
“Damn.”
“Why is there a swimming pool inside the mall?” asked Madison.
“I dunno.” Harper sat at the top of the escalator. “Pipe probably broke or something.”
She pulled her sneakers and socks off, stuffing them in her giant purse. Wet jean legs would be bad given the chilly weather, but soggy sneakers—ugh. Still, the last thing she wanted would be to have the gang find her exploring a mall in her underpants. That would be like waving meat at a starving dog.
Barefoot, she crept down the escalator, shotgun poised to deal with anyone who looked dangerous. Since they likely had bad guys entering the mall behind them, Harper figured she had no choice but to keep going forward, even if that meant a confrontation with whoever might be down there.
At the bottom, she stepped into cold water a little deeper than her knees. Plastic cups, trash, and a handful of volleyballs floated by. Without skylights, the lower floor sat in darkness except for where the corridors met at atriums open all the way to the ceiling. Each hallway leading off held plenty of shadows.
“It’s cold,” said Madison as she entered the water, which almost touched the hem of her shorts. “I left my swimsuit at home.”
Harper looked over at her kid sister, who clutched her flip-flops to her iPhone, holding it protectively away from getting wet. “We’re not swimming, Termite.”
She sloshed onward with Madison grabbing at her arm. As much as she wanted to offer the comfort of holding hands, she didn’t want to let go of the shotgun. If she needed it, every second would matter. Eventually, Madison settled on clutching her belt.
Most of the stores on the lower floor looked as though riots had stormed through already. Much of the inventory had been looted and an alarming amount of blood spatter painted the walls in places. A few hunting arrows even stuck out of the wall by a store full of skinny mannequins.
They headed into the shop, ‘D-zign,’ but it sold trendy dresses in sizes that only slim teenagers or Korean fashion models could fit into. Harper rolled her eyes at some of the price tags, and considered taking stuff purely out of spite… but none of the sheer dresses would be practical for living rough.
Harper had spent enough time in the mall over the past few years to know her way around, and remembered a kids’ clothing store near one of the entrances on the north side. She usually avoided that door due to the legion of smokers who always hung out there—not so much an issue anymore. A short walk down another concourse brought them to a food court.
“Where is everyone?” asked Madison. “Are they all in school now?”
“Umm. A war happened. They’re too busy to shop.”
“Oh.” Madison approached a small place with Japanese writing. “Ooh! Sushi!”
Harper cringed. “Nothing in there is going to be safe to eat. You’ll throw up as soon as you open the fridge.”
“Aww.” Madison backed away. “I thought you liked sushi.”
“I do… or did. I don’t want to eat it after it’s gone bad.” She crept forward at a speed that didn’t make too much splashing. Without music or a crowd, every tiny noise echoed over the entire mall.
“Siri,” whispered Madison, “I know you probably don’t have enough power to turn on the screen, but please send Mom or Dad a text and tell them we’re okay.”
Harper blinked away tears. If she looked into one more store, it would trigger a memory that would leave her curled up on the floor, bawling. She stared straight across the food court, her thoughts stuck in a nowhere land between a past beyond reach and a future reduced to ashy snow.
Metal slammed into metal with a great crash.
Barely managing to stifle a cry of surprise, Harper spun to the left, pointing the shotgun at an Auntie Anne’s shop.
Madison leapt into her, clinging, but didn’t make a sound.
No one appeared obviously in sight, though a shadow moved behind the register counter. Shivering from the icy water lapping at her legs, Harper stood her ground, waiting, watching—and listening. Madison peered around her.
Seven breaths later, a shirtless, shoeless boy with a spherical mop of black hair climbed up to perch like a miniature Tarzan atop the counter in the pretzel shop. He appeared to be about Madison’s age, skinny, and possibly Chinese. As soon as he spotted Harper—specifically the shotgun she had pointed in his direction—he let off a yowl of alarm and jumped from the counter into the water.
“Hey!” shouted Harper. “Wait!”
The boy didn’t bother trying to run. He dove under the surface and swam to the left so fast his shorts almost came off. She trudged after him as he raced away from the Auntie Anne’s, heading deeper into a dark concourse.
“Kid, stop!” yelled Harper. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Madison struggled to keep up behind her. “I don’t think he wants to be friends.”
7
Plus Two
Harper ran after the boy as best she could in knee-deep water.
He slowed momentarily to pull his shorts up, then swam hard for a corner some fifty feet from the pretzel shop, easily outpacing her and disappearing around the bend about ten seconds before she reached the intersection. Harper rushed after him, rounding the corner straight into the tip of an enormous silver handgun pressed to her forehead.
A tiny whine escaped her nostrils. It took her a second to collect herself enough to realize a man held the gun. It took her a moment more to remember how to breathe. She stared past the handgun at the face of a man a little past forty, with a short, scruffy brown beard and shaggy hair. Somewhere between muscular and mildly overweight, he filled out the uniform of a mall security officer with little room to spare.
“That’s a hell of a cannon for a girl your size.”
After six seconds of having a pistol touching her, she recognized him.
“Officer Cliff?” squeaked Harper.
The glower on his face relaxed. “Oh… I remember you—and your attitude.”
“Please don’t shoot me,” said Harper in a mostly calm voice. “Umm, there’s been a war. There’s no such thing as shoplifting anymore. Besides, I don’t think there’s even anything left to steal.”
The boy peered out from behind Cliff, eyeing her warily.
“What were you doin’ chasin’ the kid?”
Sloshing behind and left reminded her of Madison, but she dared not look away from a man holding a gun to her face. “I wasn’t going to hurt him. Kids shouldn’t be alone.”
Cliff patted the boy on the head with his free hand. “People haven’t exactly been nice to him.”
“W
hy?” asked Harper, chancing a peek left at Madison, who crept into a Hot Topic on the other side of the hallway.
“As you so astutely pointed out, we had a war. Numbnuts out there assume he’s Korean and ‘his people’ nuked us, or started the whole shitstorm.”
“My great-grandparents are from China,” said the boy, barely over a whisper. “I’m not a Korean.”
Harper sighed at the kid. “People are stupid. You’re an American like everyone else here. I swear I wasn’t going to hurt you.” She looked up at Cliff. “I just saw him alone and figured he was too little to be on his own.”
Cliff lowered his gun. “All right. You’re still a kid, too. S’pose you may as well stick around if you want. At least until the supplies run out.”
“I’m seventeen. I’m—”
“Still a kid.” Cliff smiled.
“Hi. I’m Jonathan,” said the boy. “You kinda scared me with the gun.”
“Sorry. Just heard a noise in there, and saw some bad guys outside.” Harper glanced to the left, watching her sister rummage the store. “Surprised there aren’t more people here. It’s like abandoned.”
“Yeah. Most everyone hauled ass away from big cities once the fireballs stopped. We got real damn lucky nothing landed on our heads.”
“Heard one hit Colorado Springs.” Harper relaxed enough to stop watching Cliff, and instead kept tabs on Madison exploring the variety store. “Any idea who nuked us?”
“Nah. I was in here on night shift when the shit hit the fan. Only ran outside for a little while to grab some gear. Could’a been Russia, China, Korea… hard to say. One nuke goes off, the computers take over and blow everyone to shit. All the targets are loaded into the computers already. Hell, could’ve even been hackers that fired the first shot and everyone else just responded.”
“I’m trying to get out of Lakewood,” said Harper. “My dad…” She choked up, remembering him scream Harper! Shoot! while she stood there frozen. “Uhh”—her voice quivered—“my, umm, dad, talked to a guy who told us about a settlement or something up in Evergreen. It’s supposed to be safe. My… umm… parents both died.”
Evergreen Page 5
