The Mall (37 page)

With a grunt of frustration, Lara tugged on the chain-link gate blocking the entrance to Time Out and glanced back toward the escalator.
 
She could clearly hear Cora calling her brother’s name (and occasionally Simon as well).
 
If she couldn’t lift the gate, then she had to assume that Simon couldn’t fare any better.
 
After all, he had admitted to having the strength of a normal man.
 
Maybe he could think of a better way to get in.

A figure rushed out of the darkness within and struck the gate beside Lara.
 
The metal links bowed out with a clang and struck Lara in the shoulder.
 
More surprised than injured, she dropped to the concourse floor hard enough to drive the air out of her lungs, stifling a scream.

“Priority one!
 
You are to be escorted to the designated representative!
 
Please maintain your current position,” the yellow-striped Bot bellowed.
 
It rushed forward again and struck the barrier headfirst.

Disoriented, Lara gathered her legs beneath her and slowly began to rise to her knees.

“Please maintain your current position!”

She turned her head and saw a second yellow-striped Bot headed toward her up the walkway.

She popped to her feet and ran, glancing back once to see the Bot pursuing her at a steady pace, yet not running.

They’re not designed to run, Lara decided.
 
Why should they?
 
Running just might cause injuries to the customers which could lead to lawsuits.
 
Besides, there were so many of them before the blackout, there would be no need to rush when the next Bot could have cut me off.
 
Now, they have no ability to communicate with one another.

Under Simon’s watchful eye, Cora had been leaning out over the railing of the bridge, when the seizure hit her.

Simon heard Lara’s urgent scream and turned toward its source, taking his eyes off of the five-year-old for a moment.

Cora began to quiver and shake violently, her body slipping out farther over the railing.

Simon noted Lara and the Bot pursuing her and the gurgling sound at his back all simultaneously.
 
He swept around and snatched the seat of Cora’s pants by a single belt loop.
 
The thin ring of material snapped under her weight, sending the rest of her body sliding over the edge of the railing.

With impossibly fast reflexes, Simon seized the girl by her ankles and lowered her slowly back down to the floor of the bridge, only a moment before Lara reached her.
 
She dropped to the floor and spun the girl’s body around so hard her curls took a moment to catch up with her head.

The eyes that stared back at Lara were completely white, and she realized that they had rolled back into their sockets.
 
A thin trickle of foam leaked from the corner of her mouth.

Before she could utter a single word, Simon was there, gently laying the girl down on the floor, ripping off his jacket and placing it beneath her slightly elevated head.

Simon rose and stepped forward into the path of the advancing Bot and held a single hand out to him.
 
“Stop,” he instructed in a conversational tone.

The Yellow Bot grabbed him by the wrist.

Simon stared at the hand in confusion.
 
“I order to stop!” he snapped with greater force.
 
“Code Beta One Five Zebra.”

Ignoring the words, the Bot yanked him aside by his arm and thrust him against the railing on the opposite side of the bridge so hard the entire structure shook.
 
His spectacles sailed off his face, disappearing over the railing to the level below.

The Bot turned to Lara, who kneeled beside Cora.
 
“I’ve been ordered to escort you and your daughter to the designated Mall representative.
 
Please rise and come with me.”

Lara watched with alarm as the Bot reached down and put a hand on her shoulder.
 

“Get away from me!” she howled, pulling out of its grip and bowing down to shield Cora with her body.

The Bot withdrew its hand and hesitated for only a moment before reaching out again, seizing her arm and tugging it firmly up.
 
“You will be given one more opportunity to comply.”

Simon rose behind the Bot and seized the metal man’s head in his hands.
 
“Forgive me,” he said, as he twisted the Bot’s head one hundred and eighty degrees until it faced him.
 
Its eyes flickered but did not die.

“Deactivate all five H-type units immediately,” its distorted voice croaked from the broken headpiece.

Albert came-to on the floor of the Mall.

It was slowly coming back to him.

He was a man.

Every muscle in his body ached, even his tongue.
 
From the smell--and the grimy feeling beneath him—he had shit his pants.
 
His stomach felt like tenderized meat and his jaw rung with the echoes of hard clenching.

He felt used, like a beat-up suit jacket tossed into a corner.

Was this what it felt like to be raped, he wondered with disgust?

How much time had passed since he had left the security offices?
 
For all he knew, he had spent several hours caught in the dream.

In the dream, he had been a robot, being pursued down the empty corridors of a maze like one of those characters from that video game Bezerk.
 
Rushing around corners and hoping he was moving away from--not closer to--whatever was chasing him.

Evil Otto.

He had felt
Its
presence.
 
That maniacally grinning ball of white hot energy, bouncing lazily toward him.
Seeking him out.
 
Wanting to possess him.
 
Use him.

What was it?

Then he had turned the corner and nearly ran down the little girl from the street.
 
(
Or had it been the little girl from the residential level, Albert no longer knew for sure.)
 
She had stood there with that identical look of shock and amazement on her face that she had had that day.
 
Then when Albert had tried to move past her further into the maze corridor, she had spoken to him.

“I see you.”

He had stopped then and turned back to her, but she was no longer alone.
 
That brown-skinned skateboarding punk was with her now.
 
He was standing just behind her like a big brother defending his sibling, that cocky smart-ass grin on his smug face.

“You’re the Boogeyman.”

Albert felt a smile rising to his face.
 
Her name for him was an honorific based on fear and fear was a form of power.
 
Albert Lynch—the Boogeyman.

“Lamia’s a sack full of nada,” the dead kid sneered.
 
“You don’t have to worry about this guy, kiddo.”

The little girl looked up at him with interest.

“It’s the Mall you have to worry about.”

Evil Otto.

A ripple of panic rattled through Albert’s body like the vibration of an aluminum bat when the ball misses the “sweet spot” and smacks off the shaft instead.

It wants to possess me, Albert knew.

Then he had heard the sound.

It was that hollow warbling sound like the one made by one of those red rubber “dodge-balls.”
 
The source of that sound was close now.

Albert rushed forward and came dead-end to a corridor running east to west.
 
He took the right turn and saw at the end of the two hundred foot long black and white striped hallway a sizzling ball of energy sailing in the distance through the air toward him.

Albert opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out.
 
Instead a synthesized voice issued forth: “Stop the humanoids!
 
Stop the intruders!”
 
It was the same digitized language from the Bezerk video game.

He turned back and ran in the opposite direction down the corridor toward the west but instantly struck a door, a door similar to the locked entrance doors along the northern end of the red sector of the Mall.
 
He grabbed the handle and tugged once, twice.
 
Locked.

Through the glass he could just make out the Mall on the other side, and on the tiled floor, he could see his own body lying outside.
 
He was having some sort of seizure, his muscles twitching,
his
limbs locked and rigid.

He spun around and saw that the ball of energy was closer now.
 
He could just make out the two pin-prick eyes and the single curving black stripe of a smile superimposed upon the glowing white globe of its body.

Albert turned back south to the corridor where the two dead kids had been.
 
They were gone now, replaced with an identical Mall door.
 
He grabbed the handle and pushed.
 
Just as it started to give, there was resistance.
 
On the other side of the door was the dead skateboard kid.
 
He was blocked the door on the other side, a look of amusement on his face.

“C’mon, piggy,” the kid called through the unlocked door.
 
“You better move your lard ass.
 
It’s right behind you now!”

Albert braced his feet and set his shoulders--giving the kid a look of undiluted hate—and pushed.

The kid stepped aside with a laugh.
 
The door had swung free, and Albert had lost his balance, spilling face-first into the Mall.

Remembering now that twisted dream, Albert took comfort in the reality of the tiled floor where he lay.
 
He peered around at the empty space around him and tried to regain his bearings.

It had taken him—
Evil Otto
—but then, for some reason, let him go again.

He started to roll onto his side, felt a sharp dagger of pain, remembered the wound,
then
rolled onto the opposite side.
 
Slowly, for a period of five agonizing minutes he crawled like a baby onto his knees and managed to make it into a sitting position against the wall just outside the entrance to the hallway leading to the security offices.

Obviously, he hadn’t traveled far, which probably meant that the Voice hadn’t “used” him as it had on previous occasions.

I’ve got to get out of here, Albert thought.

It was still out there.
 
Somewhere.

Albert rose to his feet with the final reserves of a strength he never knew was inside him—terror being the great motivator that it was--and rushed out into the empty corridor of the Mall toward the stairwell leading to the residential level no more a hundred yards away, keys clutched tightly in his hands, hoping to outrun the creature from his nightmare.