The Mall Page 28

  It was just another clueless Bot, moving in this direction. Despite the blackout, the Mall was still crawling with them. He had banked on all of them dropping dead along with the lights, but they still continued to haunt the place, like a persistent roach in the kitchen after the lights went out.

  After all these years, they still gave him the chills.

  In the course of a minute, two more of them had joined the first, and together the trio had bee-lined it for the dealership.

  He reached down with the tip of his Gucci loafer and dropped the locking arm down into the track of the sliding door. It’d been a good thing that the door had had a simple latching mechanism, easily coaxed open. If this arm had been set and the employees had left through a different exit, he’d never have gotten inside.

  Behind him, the woman and Chance stared at each other with a mixture of shock and amazement. She glanced at the Mercedes baseball cap—something the kid had found in one of the sales offices--held in his hand by its bill, the dome sagging from the weight of sets of car keys. Her eyes moved to the open driver’s door of the sedan he stood next to, moving along the carpet to spot the keys lying on the floor just outside of other vehicles. From there, she lingered on the shopping cart and seemed to come to the logical (and as it so happened) correct assumption.

  “You’re thieves,” she stated with obvious disgust, her accusatory glare falling on the kid, who shrank back in obvious shame.

  But Dugan’s interest in the woman and her kid was only transitory. The roomful of fresh luxury cars, just off the assembly line, had the majority of his limited attention. Heart rate increasing, he drew the tip of his tongue across the dry crusty corner of his lips and remembered to breathe. If he could only get one of them started and find that transport door they used to get the cars inside the showroom, he’d be home free.

  He wasn’t sure where’d he go. Hell, he didn’t really even care. With a V-8 under the hood, he’d cruise the country with a trunk full of goodies and sell off whatever he could whenever he needed to. He could take the ultimate road trip. See America for the first time.

  It took him a moment to realize that someone was speaking.

  “…my son, Owen?”

  The kid was staring at the little girl with a slightly open mouth and the woman repeated the question again. “Where’s my son goddammit?”

  “He said he went to find you. At the Sears. We thought you were there.”

  Teeth bared, Lara rushed him, casting the flashlight she had continued to clutch to the floor and grabbing him solidly between clenched fists. “You were with him?”

  Chance nodded, his eyes wide with fear and guilt.

  “Why did you leave him alone? Why!”

  Dugan snatched the crowbar off one of the “negotiating” tables in the sales area and started toward the door. Three Bots drew closer to the door, watching intently as he reached down with his toe to disengage the security bar.

  “No,” the woman shrieked with alarm, rushing him. “Stop!”

  Dugan turned a glare on her. “Step back, lady.”

  Two more Bots had emerged from the darkness of the escalator and had gathered beside the other three just outside the door, watching them with rapt, patient interest.

  They’re not demanding that we surrender or open the door, Lara noticed with dread. They’re just monitoring us. Almost like waiting for some cue, she considered.

  “There’s something wrong with the machines,” she stated, her gaze looking past him. “Whatever you do, don’t open that door.”

  He recognized an enormous fear in those blue eyes. (And what an interesting shade of blue they were!)

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They attacked us,” she replied, looking at him this time with hope and pleading.

  Dugan stared into the woman’s tense but attractive face, an uncertain yet calculated smile slowly creeping up to cover the slow dread edging into his own expression. He laughed uneasily and said, “That’s impossible, sister.” Yet his foot moved away from the bar.

  That was when the Bots began to wail.

  8

  Owen slowed as they passed the Mammals and More pet store, the cries and whimpers of the animals pouring through the drawn gate. He gave an experimental tug on the gate and found that it slid up a foot, making just a big enough crack for him to slide through.

  Charlene snagged him by the arm and dragged him away from the store without a word.

  “The animals,” Owen declared indignantly. “Can’t you hear them?”

  “Not our concern,” she answered with a grim expression, eyes facing forward.

  “You know how long they’ve been without food? Almost two days now. They’re starving to death!”

  She gave him a firm push ahead of her, but he stopped suddenly and faced her, giving her the full force of his ten-year-old anger.

  Charlene reached out and slapped him full across the face.

  When Owen recoiled in wonder, cradling his cheek in his head, she swept his hand aside and slapped him again, this time harder.

  “You may be able to get this kind of behavior past your mother, but you will mind me,” she seethed between clenched teeth. She grasped him by the collar and gave him a short shake. “Do we understand each other?”

  Owen swallowed, his muscles frozen in shock.

  She reached up and gave his ear a sudden sharp tug down. White hot pain gripped the entire side of his face and a scream tore loose from his mouth instinctively.

  “Okay,” he answered in a small voice, taking a step away from her.

  She grabbed his arm, spun him around to face the right direction, and sent him forward with a hard shove between the shoulder blades that nearly sent him sprawling.

  Once his fear and frustration had congealed into a single dark mass, Owen felt a sharp dagger of pure hate forming in his gut. In that instant, he realized that he had never fully appreciated that emotion--not in all of the times he thought he had felt it for his own mother.

  And for a brief moment, he was sure someone had seized his arm, and he thought he was under assault again by the woman who called herself his grandmother. But when the feeling had passed just as suddenly, he decided that it had had occurred inside him, within his head.

  Instinctively, he called out with all his heart and soul to his mother with a love and longing that he hadn’t felt since before Cora had been born. With that feeling, whatever had momentarily seized him retreated.

  Glancing at the woman beside him, he saw her eyes flicker to him, a look of confusion passing over her face. Then it was gone and the stern, determined expression returned.

  Without another word, she reached out and took him by the hand, forcing Owen to stumble along after her.

  Fifteen minutes later, they passed a single Bot, headed briskly in the same direction they were. Ten minutes after that, Owen spotted another two facing the same direction, stepping just as lively as the first.

  With a purpose, he decided. As if they’ve been given a strong command.

  Thirty minutes later several more appeared up ahead of them, and before long, a small group of five more marched in a staggered formation toward the entrance to the western leg of the Mall painted an obnoxious green.

  Like breadcrumbs, he thought, leading us to my Family.

  9

  The blood drained from Dugan’s face. He backed away from the door, where the Bots continued their piercing wails. “What are those things doing?”

  Cora felt the orange blossom of heat shoot through her brain, washing over the spot just above her eyelids. She knew in an instant two things: Owen was very angry, and someone was leading him here.

  Beneath that initial fiery emotion, the five-year-old felt something sinister lying dormant as if in wait. Something dark and malignant, like an animal resting on its haunches just within the shadows, eyes on its prey. This impression was centered upon the individual traveling with Owen.

  Digging deeper into her unconsci
ous—akin to stepping back several paces to follow tracks--she found the ringing pain and shame of two slaps to his face, followed by a wrenching of the ear. This told her all she needed to know about the relationship of Owen to the other.

  Cora reached out and slowly gathered a handful of her mother’s sleeve.

  Lara looked down, her eyes asking without words.

  “Owen’s coming,” she stated. “He’s not alone.”

  Lara studied her daughter then looked immediately up at Chance, who was watching Cora with wide-eyes. Her eyes narrowed.

  Chance swallowed and lowered his eyes shamefully. “W-What’s she saying?”

  Lara stepped forward until she was face to face with the teen. “Where did you last see my son?”

  “The Mercedes sitting out in the middle of the red section,” Chance offered enthusiastically. “About half way down.”

  “Car,” Lara murmured under her breath.

  Cora glanced up at her mother and puffed out her lips somewhat proudly. “Toldja.”

  Ignoring her, Lara glanced at the shopping cart loaded down with merchandise and the flatbed stacked with batteries, both resting next to Chance. She reached out and ripped the capful of keys out of his hand. “What is all this?”

  “We’re going to start one of these up and drive it right through one of these windows.”

  “Those won’t work,” she responded. “Nothing that runs on batteries work.”

  “Yeah, that’s the same thing your kid said, but that doesn’t explain the Bots.” From his position at the door where several more Bots had gathered, Dugan thumped his fist threateningly against the doors at the siren-like scream each Bot emitted.

  “I might excuse a teenaged boy but how does a grown man just let a ten-year-old child wander around a Mall the size of a city populated with homicidal robots?”

  Dugan glanced over his shoulder, his eyes skipping over Chance and coming to rest on Lara. “Pardon my French, ma’am, there’s no goddamn thing as a killer Bot. Every preschool aged kid from Tokyo to Austin knows that those machines would sooner go ass up than pluck a hair from your little girl’s head.”

  “She’s right,” Chance interrupted, pulling down the neck of his T-shirt and revealing the bright red ring of skin. “One of them tried to choke the life out of me.”

  Rushing Chance, Dugan gave his neck the once over and turned to look over his shoulder at the group of ten Bots standing just outside.

  Several of the sleek metal heads moved in smooth straight lines, tracing along the seams of the door and across the glass wall, eye sensors flickering hyper-kinetically, each searching independently for a structural weakness.

  “They know they can’t get in.”

  “For now,” Lara replied. “But you hear that sound they’re making. You know what they’re doing? Calling others. And when they get enough, they just might decide to push together as one mob and pop that glass like a soap bubble.”

  Dugan licked his pale lips. “We need to find out how they’ve been getting these cars inside and open it up.”

  “But none of them will start,” Chance responded, glancing at the cap in Lara’s hand. She tossed the cap back at him and turned away.

  “Right now, we just need an exit plan,” he proclaimed, taking Chance by the arm and giving him a shove toward the customer lobby. “Go see if you can get into the service area.”

  “There’s no service bay in here,” Chance informed him, resting his forefinger on the display window. “It’s across the parking lot. Out there.”

  As five more Bots joined the ten others outside, several of the units in front began to pound on the glass. Eventually, the others joined in until the entire mob beat their metal fists upon the glass as one body. Lara watched as the image behind the glass quivered with each reverberation.

  Taking a quick look around the showroom, she saw that there were maybe ten vehicles of various sizes and body types below and a level of glass-walled offices surrounded by a railing above. Immediately, she ruled out trapping herself on an upper level that had no back way out.

  Taking Cora by the hand, she began to back deeper into the showroom. She glanced around, chose a tank-like black Mercedes SUV and angled toward it.

  Lara opened the door of the SUV and helped her up behind the wheel. “Now I want you to keep this door locked, Cora. Do not open it for anyone but me. If anything bad happens get down on the floorboard and don’t move. Do you understand me?”

  Cora gave a fearful nod. “Mommy, where’s Simon?”

  For a moment, Lara’s eyes detected movement on the dashboard. Glancing up, she saw a small compass set into the dash just above the blank face of a digital clock. The hand of the compass spun in wild loops around the four points. Discounting it as simply strange, she turned her attention back to her daughter.

  “I don’t know, Sweetpea,” she answered, planting a quick kiss on her nose, locking the door from the inside, and shutting her daughter safely within.

  Glancing at the front show window one last time, Lara gasped. Over the roofs of the vehicles, she could clearly see the body of a Bot above the others. Stepping around the SUV, Lara could clearly see that one of the Bots had climbed upon the shoulders of several others and was proceeding to remove a metal grating that appeared to be used for ventilation above the door. She had not noticed it before as it was easily twelve feet above the floor of the Mall.

  Clasping her hands below her waist, she backed slowly toward the rear wall of the showroom. “Please God,” she murmured, “if you exist, what more do you want from me? From my children? What?”

  The grille dropped to the floor and a metallic arm reached through the opening.

  Almost in unison, the Bots outside stopped their assault on the glass and turned to face the showroom expectantly.

  10

  On hands and knees, Chance crawled along one side of the wall below a large picture window that let out onto the parking lot outside. Glancing over the nearly empty parking lot, he couldn’t help but notice a blood-red wave across the sky on the slowly darkening horizon.

  Was that the aurora-borealis? He’d heard on the Discovery channel about that sort of thing happening up north in Alaska and in Canada, but this far south?

  Reaching the end of the wall, Chance turned the corner and spotted the edge of a small metal door built into the wall, nearly hidden beside a towering snack machine. He wedged himself into the small space, and bracing himself between the wall and the machine, he used all the strength in his legs to push the machine aside and widen the space.

  Coughing from the stirred-up dust, he managed to reach down and yank the door open.

  Pasted on the inside was a step-by-step set of instructions. In large red letters the following warning was posted: “Do not attempt to open without authorization from management.” And just below that, “Both key card and physical key required to activate.”

  Chance swore aloud.

  “You find something, kid?” Dugan yelled from the opposite side of the room.

  “Yeah,” he barked. “Did you have a plan C?”

  Dugan turned a slow circle, rushed over to the customer service lounge, set his gun on the table, and hefted one of the chairs up over his head and took a run at the window. The chair bounced off the glass and flew ten feet backwards.

  “So basically, your plan C was my plan A?”

  Dugan shot him a warning glare, picked up the discarded chair and turned back to the window, this time taking a few more steps back.

  Swearing under his breath, Chance turned to the table. His eyes fell on the gun.

  11

  Lara glanced around, searching for anything that could be used as a weapon. She rushed over to an Emergency Roadside Kit display in the customer service area and snatched the large wrench that the mannequin held.

  The Bot slid as lithely as a snake through the open grating hole and dropped like a stone onto the carpeted floor of the showroom.

  Slowly, the Bot rose to its f
eet. It turned, lifted its head, and gave two high-pitched squawks that rung throughout the expansive space like the scream of an injured child.

  12

  At the sound, Dugan lowered the chair he held cocked at the display window and turned to look up front.

  Chance shot one last look at Dugan before he bolted through the customer service department, leaped over a short glass case displaying Mercedes merchandise and dropped down behind it.

  Dropping the chair, Dugan rushed over to the table where he had put his gun. It was gone, and in its place was the capful of keys. Uttering a string of curses, he yanked open the trunk of the nearest vehicle, threw himself inside, and pulled it closed behind him.

  13

  The Bot glanced briefly at Lara and the wrench in her hand before turning his attention to the inside of the door. His sensors searched from top to bottom and stopped upon the locking arm.

  “Mommy!”

  Lara spun to see Cora, her arm reaching out to her mother from the open door of the SUV. Without a word, Lara pushed Cora back inside, leaped in after, and locked the door behind her.

  “Not a sound,” Lara hissed, pushing her to the floor of the SUV.

  Cora turned one terrified eye up to her mother and uttered three words: “Pray with me.”

  Lara pressed her lips together, steered Cora back into the space beneath her, and covered her protectively with her body.

  Less than a minute later, they felt a dozen sharp impacts outside the vehicle, rocking it from side to side with every jolt.

  Lara stroked her daughter’s hair as she whimpered beneath her.

  And she began to pray for the first time since Ben died.

  14

  Very few individuals were aware that there was yet another level beyond the subterranean. This lowest level of the complex held the heart and soul of the Mall.