The Mall Read online

  In the dream, she could feel the ropes cutting into her ankles in the darkness and tried to move her legs. She peered into the darkness in confusion. Where was she? What time was it?

  Attempting to roll onto her side to check for a clock on the nightstand, she discovered her wrists restrained as well.

  The worn springs of an old mattress pressed hard circles into her pointed shoulder blades--clearly defined from meals withheld--the thin, frayed fitted sheet cold and damp against her back. It smelled of urine and shame.

  “Prickly ropes tight around his arms,” Cora had said, so accurately describing the feeling of rope on skin. And for a moment, she allowed herself to remember.

  That’s the way it had felt during those hours she had been restrained there in the house alone at the kitchen table in front of a plate of cold uncooked meat. At the writing desk with a timeworn tablet, the pages filled with handwritten phrases repeated over and over.

  I will not disobey. I will not disobey. I will not disobey.

  Somewhere in the ancient house she could hear the old woman’s grumblings. She cursed the empty space under her breath. Once, in the beginning, when Lara had made the mistake of asking her who she had been talking to, the woman told her that she had been arguing with Lara’s father about why he had left such a disagreeable, disrespectful cretin in her care. Why was it her responsibility to take care of the miserable creature? She hadn’t enough room in her house for her and not enough patience for such an unruly brat!

  Sometimes she overheard her talking to others. She would mutter for them to shut up and leave her alone, the requests eventually turning into plaintive pleas, then ultimately screamed urges.

  Lara knew she was in the care of a lunatic.

  In her own mind, she called her the “Witch.”

  Now, in her dream, the whisperings of the old woman stopped.

  Lara looked up from where she was tied to the bed.

  Owen stood in the open doorway leading to the kitchen. There were no shoes on his feet.

  She stared at her son incredulously and opened her mouth to call him but could produce no sound. Straining against her bonds, she forced breath through her lips, but only the fairest of sighs emerged.

  He held a finger to his lips.

  She held a bloody butcher knife and raised it above the head of the oblivious little boy.

  “Lara?”

  Simon had a firm grip on her shoulder and Cora stood before her studying her with wide, frightened eyes.

  “What?” Lara murmured sleepily, looking from one to the other in confusion. “Why did we stop?”

  “You were moaning, mommy.”

  Lara blinked down at her daughter, then looked at Simon.

  “You were asleep,” he stated, giving her a look of frank concern. “We’ll find you a place to rest.”

  “No,” she snapped, brushing his hand off her shoulder forcefully and pushing past him to continue forward. Cora looked up at Simon as Lara snatched her by the hand and began dragging her after. “I’m fine and we need to hurry.”

  49

  Chance rolled onto his elbows and scooted free of Owen defensively, looking frantically around for the crossbow he’d set aside.

  The man with a two day growth of beard set the crossbow out of reach atop the roof of the Mercedes, gave them a single disinterested look then turned to the driver’s side window. He inserted a long flat piece of metal into the seam between the glass of the window and the metal of the door and shoved it forcefully down.

  “Who the hell are you?” Chance snapped.

  The man ignored him and continued to maneuver the tool back and forth inside the door, his eyes staring unfocused into the space above the roof of the car as if envisioning the inner workings of the door.

  Owen remained where he had fallen as Chance climbed tentatively to his feet. He studied the haggard man in the expensive-looking suit and decided that he must have had a ring on every one of his fingers, two on some. The mass of gold chains dangling from around his neck looked thick enough to threaten his balance. The deep brown trench coat that he wore smelled pleasantly of fresh leather, yet unsuccessfully covered the sour-milk smell of anxious sweat that lay beneath.

  The man seemed to find the thing he was fishing for and stopped. The tension in his face loosened and he gave a single sharp pull upwards on the tool. “Presto,” he snapped, trying the door’s handle. He pulled it once. Twice. His face hardened. “Stinking Kraut car.”

  He took a step back and eyed the car like an adversary. Checking one way then the other (more out of habit than necessity), he took a crowbar out of his leather coat. Without a word, he gave Chance a look of warning and tapped Owen out of the way with his foot like an annoying puppy who had gotten under foot. Lifting the other arm to cover his eyes, he raised the steel bar above his head.

  Chance seized Owen by the arm and slid him as far back as he could just before the man brought the crowbar down. The window shattered into tiny beads of glass.

  Tossing the bar onto the passenger seat inside, he cursed under his breath and pushed the remaining towers of broken safety glass clear of the window with his gloved hands, gaining access to the door latch. Straightening up, he snatched the crossbow off the roof of the car and tossed it into the backseat. He cast a single accusatory look back at Owen and Chance, as if daring them to speak, before he opened the front door.

  Sliding into the leather driver’s seat, he removed the glove from his right hand so that he could run his bare flesh over the polished wood of the steering wheel. A smile appeared on his face for the first time. “Daddy’s home,” he crooned.

  50

  “I must insist that you rest,” Simon attempted in a louder tone, but Lara ignored him. He had no choice but to fall into step beside her. “This is not healthy.”

  “So is a sedentary lifestyle.”

  “Lara, sleep deprivation is dangerous.”

  “So is smoking, but the next store we pass that sells them, I’m stealing a pack.”

  “Mommy, you don’t smoke anymore.”

  “Cora,” she cautioned.

  The five year-old stopped cold, jerking Lara to a sudden stop. Lara spun on her heel and prepared to let out a string of expletives when she recognized the expression. Her face was as blank as a fresh drawing board, her eyes dropped out of focus and her mouth loosened, bottom lip slack enough to reveal tiny uneven teeth. The flashlight she held dropped to the floor.

  Simon stepped around to look into her face, placing a hand on Lara’s arm to silence any words she might have spoken.

  An enormous smile bloomed on Cora’s face. Her eyes sparkled and her milky white cheeks blossomed with red. “Happy,” she chirped. “Soft. Cushy.” Her fingers curled over, forming into two crescents with her hands. “Smooth,” she crooned, her hands tracing an invisible semi-circle in the empty air before her.

  “Steering wheel,” Lara hissed, slapping Simon’s arm excitedly, feeling like a contestant on some bizarre psychic game show. “Car. That’s a car.”

  Simon gave her a look that quieted her without a single word.

  Lara turned back to Cora, an amused smile molding her lips. This was so bizarre, she found herself thinking in wonder. My child is seeing… feeling something that isn’t here. But it exists… somewhere else. What an amazing gift my Cora has been given, she promptly decided.

  Then on the heels of that, she thought: But can she turn it off? What kind of life will she lead if she can’t? What sort of relationships could she hope to form with this sort of… handicap?

  The little girl closed her eyes and lifted her button nose in the air. “Umm. Leather,” she murmured.

  Lara grabbed Simon’s arm and shook it. “Car seats,” she couldn’t resist whispering. “I told you.”

  Slowly, Cora lowered her chin, the smile dissolved from her placid face and her open eyes refocused and settled on the face of her mother.

  “Mommy?” she asked in confusion. “Where did the car go?”<
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  Lara scooped her up in her arms and hugged her tightly.

  My Coraline must be some sort of genius, she thought fleetingly.

  Or crazy, a second voice suggested. Just like her great-aunt.

  And her father.

  Lara pushed the thought forcefully away and increased her speed in an effort to outrace the cloud of memory before it had a chance to settle upon her.

  Simon started to follow then scurried back to retrieve the flashlight Cora had dropped, giving it the once-over to assure himself the Mall’s merchandise remained in sellable condition.

  51

  Owen had been sitting behind the wheel of the Mercedes, hands gripping the wood finish of the steering wheel, for only a few minutes when he slid effortlessly into a light doze. He had been dreaming about his mother of all things. He had been with her in a strange house he had never been in before and she had been yelling at him, the veins in her neck popping out with the effort. Oddly enough, she made no sound. All Owen could hear was Chance’s distant yet insistent voice.

  Eyes flickering open, Owen gave a moan and looked up around in confusion.

  “What’s your name anyway?” Chance asked loudly.

  The man in the leather jacket never looked up from his position under the Mercedes hood where he connected another fresh battery up to the leads. The flatbed cart at his heel was stacked with enough Die Hard car batteries to run a small South American village. However, not one of the three he had hooked up thus far had worked.

  “Fine, I think I’ll call you, Toolie,” Chance said just loud enough for the other to hear. He examined the shopping cart that the man had pulled up next to the trunk of the Mercedes in expectation of his departure. The cart was filled with small, yet high ticket items. Computer memory cards and handheld electronics; watches and jewelry; clothing and shoes with names like Gucci and Armani.

  The man glanced up just long enough to give a sharp whistle at Chance. “Keep your sticky fingers off the merchandise.”

  “So what’s the deal, Toolie? Did you hide out here like us?” Chance asked, ignoring his request and squatting to see what was on the rack beneath the cart, a couple of those video game systems that no kid in his neighborhood could afford. He smiled and nodded. This guy had the right idea. “You got all the stuff you want. Now you’re just looking for a way out, aren’t ya?” Chance asked, sliding out one of the boxes to get a closer look at the illustration. “Does this one come with any games already?”

  “Kid, don’t make me perform emergency ass-ectomy on you,” the man seethed, half-rising from his position beneath the hood.

  Chance dropped the box and rose. He stepped over to where Owen was sitting behind the wheel. “What, you think you can get this car started and drive it right through one of those display windows out front, right?” He tapped the other with his hip in an effort to get him to move over, but Owen just glared at him insolently.

  “Look, whatever I do is my business,” he answered with a tired sigh. “Why don’t you just go on with whatever you were doing and forget you ever saw me?”

  “By coincidence, we were trying to get the car started so we could drive it right through one of those display windows out front, Toolie,” Chance came back, giving Owen another more firm tap with his hip. Finally, Owen scooted over onto the passenger side and Chance dropped into the driver’s seat.

  “Well, you were doing a piss-poor job,” the man commented, rising stiffly. He rolled his shoulders and twisted his head from one side to the other, eliciting a crack of his neck muscles. In frustration, he ripped the suit jacket off and tossed it to the floor next to the discarded coat. He started around to the driver’s side, giving a snap of his fingers and cocking his thumb at Chance, but he remained seated. “Never send a boy to do a man’s job,” he quipped, grabbing Chance by the collar and hauling him out of the seat roughly.

  Chance stumbled out, sliding across the tile but remained on his feet. He spun and shoved back at the man’s broad chest. “Get your fucking hands off me, asshole!”

  The man froze in a half crouch in the doorway of the Mercedes and raised the lip of his vest up just enough to reveal the handle of a handgun tucked into his black leather belt. “Easy, killer,” he whispered, displaying a mouthful of bright white teeth, and one gold one.

  He dropped down behind the wheel and gave one glance at Owen in the next seat. The ten-year-old shoved the door open and swung out.

  Chance stood just outside the door with hands on his hips, studying the man as he fished around beneath the dash. “Let me understand this? You have a gun and you’re still here? Why don’t you just blast a front door for yourself?”

  “Tried that,” the other replied grimly, pulling up the two colored wires out from beneath the console. Taking a shiny red Swiss Army knife from his pocket, he began to whittle away the outside sheath of the wire. “Who would have thought a department store would have bullet-proof glass.”

  Chance snickered. “Damned near gave yourself an ass-ectomy, eh?”

  The man peered up at Chance with dark deep-set eyes. “You remind me of a cousin I used to have.”

  “Let me guess,” Chance sighed. “He was voted Ms Congeniality on his cell block?”

  “For the record, the name is Dugan.” He pressed the two exposed wires together between two fingers. Silence.

  “Yeah, much better than we could do, Toolie,” Chance cackled.

  The man raised his eyebrows. With a heavy sigh, he swung his legs out and stared for several long silent moments at the flatbed cart loaded with batteries.

  “Doesn’t matter if they’re charged or not if the electrical system is fried.”

  Dugan glanced behind him through the open passenger door at Owen. He rose and folded his arms atop the roof and gazed down at the ten-year-old.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “The Bots. The elevators. The lights. The signs. Same reason why all the other machines are fried. Why the building was locked down.”

  “Okay, Genius,” Dugan asked with a smirk. “What’s your theory?”

  Owen shrugged and folded his arms across his chest. “The Russians have taken over the world.”

  “Got it,” Dugan snapped, rising and leaning up against the car. From his pocket, he withdrew and unfolded a well-worn map. He lifted his head toward the north, turned the map around in his hands, and finally gave a nod. “Well, it’s been real, but I’m not waiting around to be thrown into the Gulag, if you know what I mean.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Somewhere where there are lots of cars and lots of chances to disprove that theory of yours, Short Round.”

  Chance took the handle of shopping basket and tested the weight. “No way am I pushing this one. I’ll take the other one.”

  “Sorry. No way,” Dugan shot back. Refolding and replacing the map, he took a few steps toward the palette of batteries then cast a longing look at his basket of high-tech goodies. He frowned, seemed to do a bit of calculating, then looked over at Chance. “Okay, it’s like this. You and you are doing the hauling. That’s the deal. So, who’s taking what can be worked out between the two or you, but I don’t want the little guy lagging behind just because he doesn’t have the leg strength to...”

  “I’m not going,” Owen snapped, snatching the flashlight from the floor where he’d left it and taking a few steps backward. “I’m going south to find my mom and sister. Remember?”

  Chance turned and stared at him in sudden confusion. “You don’t even know for sure they’re in here!”

  “That’s what the Bot told me!”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t a Bot just try and force us to follow him to the North exit? Don’t you get it, kid? It was lying to you.”

  “Bots can’t lie.”

  Dugan scoffed. “Did you buy into that corporate propaganda? ‘Bots can’t lie.’” Giving Chance a gentle push aside, Dugan grabbed Owen by the front of his shirt and pushed him out ahead of them. “J
ust to be safe, you just better stick with us, little dude.”

  Owen stood immobile and watched as Dugan steered the shopping cart away from the Mercedes.

  “C’mon,” Chance grumbled, seizing the handle of Owen’s flashlight and trying to drag him after.

  Releasing the flashlight, Owen spun away and ran in the opposite direction.

  “Hey,” Chance screamed.

  “It’s his funeral,” Dugan grumbled. “Let’s go.”

  Chance ignored him, watching Owen disappear down the concourse.

  “Fine. Whatever. Have a nice shopping experience and all that,” Dugan replied. He took the handle of the flatbed and tugged it awkwardly behind him as he continued to muscle the shopping cart ahead of him.

  Chance lowered his eyes, staring down at the flashlight in his hands. Finally, he turned his back on Owen and started after Dugan.

  52

  Stepping from the frozen escalator, Simon cast the beam of his flashlight down into the blackened cavern. Just behind him he could hear Cora diligently cranking her own flashlight.

  Lara craned her neck to peer around him.

  The central access to the subterranean level was in the direct center of the Mall. From her vantage point just beneath the floor of the first level of the Mall, Lara could see only what the dim sunlight cast through the glass ceiling above provided; two pedestrian platforms stretching from east to west and north to south meeting at a traffic circle of sorts that surrounded the bank of escalators from where she stood. A short wall separated each of the platforms on either side into halves, presumably to keep pedestrians from accidentally stepping into on-coming traffic.

  Beyond the pool of natural light spilling down from above she could see absolutely nothing in the impenetrable darkness.

  A tiny voice inside her asked to “please be let outside to play,” and for a moment, she thought it had been Cora making a dark joke that exceeded her years.