The Mall (16 page)

Now it can be told.

Machines!
 
They’re all machines!

It wasn’t murder, then.
 
You can’t kill a machine.

Fulfill your function, Lamia!

My name is Albert.

“Where is everybody going, Mommy?”

“Quiet, Cora,” Lara hissed, pushing her back into the middle of the clothing carousel where they had taken refuge.

The small group of ten people marched past them headed in the opposite direction.
 
One woman shrieked hysterically at one of the two security guards.
 
“I cain’t find my chile!
 
She still inna store!
 
Jes’ lemme find her!”

“Don’t worry about your daughter, ma’am,” the security guard replied, guiding her firmly after the rest of the group.
 
“Everybody’s being escorted to the nearest exit.
 
She’s probably waiting for you this very moment outside.”

Lara felt her heart skip a beat.

“Please move toward the main exit to the north!” the second security guard leading the group yelled from between raised palms.
 
He had been repeating the phrase over and over for the last few minutes, his deep voice resounding in the unnatural silence of the empty Sears store.
 
They had earlier ducked inside the store when she had heard another small group coming up behind them.
 
She had chosen the first hiding place she could find.

Why did it feel so familiar?

Then almost as if prompted, the memory came back to her.
 
She had often used this sort of carousel to play hide and seek with her father as a child while her mother shopped.

But it had only been a game to her.

From her vantage point, she would watch her father as he grew more and more agitated, the urgency in his voice growing, that elusive emotion slowly edging into his voice as he called her name.

Anything to hear that sound in his voice.
Emotion.

Then just at the height of his anxiety, she would sneak up behind him and reveal herself.
 
He would get so angry at times that he would actually spank her, but it was never very hard.

Even in his discipline, the passion was missing, she found herself thinking.

Afterward he would always hold her hand--her little hand in his big protective one--and she would feel a little of what she rarely felt from the man.

At this newly unearthed thought, a sudden chill settled about her.
 
For a moment, she was eight years old again, alone in her aunt’s house, waiting in the dark for the sound of that key in the lock.

Why did she leave me there? Lara thought.
 
What could she have been thinking? I was only eight.

“Mommy?”

The sound of her daughter’s voice broke the spell and for a moment, she was completely disoriented, staring at the multi-colored dresses around her in confusion.

“Not another word,” Lara hissed into Cora’s ear.
 
She parted the dresses carefully and peered outside.
 
She could hear the voice of the security agent fading in the distance.

She swept the clothing aside with both hands like a diver parting water and helped Cora back out to the floor.
 
Taking her hand, she walked briskly out into the shadowy aisle, a dim auger of brown light spilling up the floor from the Mall entrance they had come from.

Cora followed after her whining, arms in the air.
 
“Pick me up.
 
Pick me up.”

“No, Cora, you’re getting too big for that.”
 
The five-year-old hadn’t asked to be picked up for over two months now.
 
They had made such progress in that department and now this.

Cora was sniffling now, on the edge of a crying fit.

“Don’t you dare, Coraline,” Lara said, spinning on her and looking her in the eye.
 
“You’re a big girl.
 
Now c’mon.”
 

Stepping outside the store, Lara took her by the hand and started down the empty corridor, peeking through the opening of one of the shops she passed--a trendy shoe store--and judged it too dark to risk entering.
  
With Cora in tow, she found a Radio Shack a few shops down, and glancing over her shoulder furtively, snagged a flashlight from the display.

Cora gave her wide-eyed look of confusion, opened her mouth then closed it again.

“We’re just borrowing it, hon,” Lara explained, depressing the button below the handle once, twice, three times.
 
“Shit,” she hissed, and returned to the display.
 
She turned back and retrieved a combination weather radio/flashlight from another display that read, “Are You Ready for the Coming Storm?”

“What the hell?” she murmured in confusion, before realizing that there was a hand-crank on the side of the unit.
 
Giving a few turns, the bulb glowed dimly like a half-dozing firefly.
  
Flipping the switch to the off position, she handed the light to Cora and said, “I need you to turn this handle as many times as you can, as quietly as you can.
 
Can you do that for me?”

Once Cora took the flashlight hesitantly from her, Lara started back outside, thought twice, and grabbed a second one from the display.
 
“C’mon,” she said, taking her by the arm.

Cora continued standing in place, the flashlight held motionlessly at her side.
 
“Mommy, why are we going in a different direction than everyone else?”

“We can’t go with them, because we have to find your brother.”

“What if he’s with them?”

It was a thought that had already occurred to Lara, but knew she couldn’t alarm Cora by acknowledging the possibility.
 
So, as she often did when faced with a well-posed question from one of her two children--often times wise beyond their years--Lara did what came naturally to her.

She bull-shitted and hoped that her passion could sell the lie.

“He would never have left the Mall as long as he knew we were still inside,” Lara replied matter-of-factly, tugging her daughter toward the corridor.

“He left the theater without us,” the five-year-old countered.

Damn these smart children.
 
She was right, though.
 
What if Owen had left the Mall?

“Cora, we can’t take the chance that he’ll be left behind by himself after we leave.”
 
Though, if he was, it would serve him right, Lara thought, the simple unadulterated maliciousness of the thought shocking her.
 
She instantly regretted thinking it, considering the possibility that they might have been evacuating the Mall for any number of reasons: gas leak, structural instability, maybe even terrorists.
 
Knowing she couldn’t start getting hysterical without cause, she turned her attention back to Cora.
 
“I want you to think, now, hon.
 
Did Owen say anything to you about where he wanted to go?”

Cora nibbled her lip as she considered.
 
Her eyes lit up and she answered in a quiet voice, “He did say he wanted to go back to the E-Bot store.”

Lara nodded and started outside again.
 
“That’s here on this side, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, we’re in blue.”

Lara knew the E-Bot store was on the ground floor, because they hadn’t gone to any of the stores on the upper levels.
 
Most of the main stores were on the ground level.
 
The smaller stores, independent and boutiques, were usually situated on the upper levels.
 
Anchor stores—the big crowd-pleasers--were always strategically placed on the ends.

Taking a furtive look outside, Lara took Cora by the hand and started toward the distant voice of the yelling security guard.
 
As long as they were headed in the same direction as she was, she figured the best tactic would be to follow the crowd.
 
There would be less of a chance of being questioned by other security agents if they were headed in the right direction anyway.

“Not another word until Mommy tells you, okay?”
 
She drew thumb and forefinger zipper-like across her lip, and Cora responded with a nod of understanding.

Owen tried calling the elevator car down but the button refused to light up at his touch.
 
Taking a step back from the closed doors, he noticed the digital sign above the top edge scrolling a message composed of red dot letters: “Currently out of order.”

Why was the sign working and not the elevator, he asked himself.
 
For that matter, why were some of the emergency lights still functioning?

At that moment, both the digital message flickered and a nearby wall light dimmed several watts.

They’re on a separate circuit, he hypothesized.
 
Probably a battery.

But didn’t the Bots run on batteries?
 
So why then had some of them frozen up?

Owen knew the fact that he had noticed these discrepancies put him in a class above most ten-year-olds.
 
He knew that he was a sharp kid.
 
Not that it helped in his current situation.

Nothing was making sense.
 
He was beginning to feel every bit the shortcomings of his ten years of experience and knew he was ill-equipped to deal with the overwhelming events that had been dropped at his feet.
 
He ached for anything familiar.

Grandma Charley!

It was a more logical choice than being thrown outside with total strangers.
 
If he couldn’t get up there using the elevator, surely there must be a stairway.

He turned down the hallway adjacent to the bank of elevators.
 
The corridor was completely dark except for a single dim exit sign at the end and tiny slivers of light spilling out from beneath the twin bathroom doors.

Owen tried the unmarked door just under the exit sign and discovered it unlocked.
 
He stuck his head within the stair well and peered up into the pitch black darkness beyond, listening to the distant whistling of air currents.
 
Was that fresh air coming from a rooftop door?

In his enthusiasm, he slipped inside and started up the first step, letting go of the door.
 
An instant later, a terrifying thought occurred to him and he leapt back down into the path of the door, wedging his foot in the doorway before it could close.
 
He conceded the very real possibility that the door might lock behind him, and if the doors above were also locked, he could be trapped here indefinitely, in total darkness no less.

Leaning his back up against the door, he untied his shoe and yanked off his sock, moist from nervous sweat.
 
Tucking it into a firm ball, he wedged it between the jamb and the locking mechanism of the door.
 
It eased shut, held open by the sock ball.

That should hold for a few minutes until he could check out the state of the doors upstairs.