Read The Mall Online

Authors: Bryant Delafosse

The Mall (40 page)

BOOK: The Mall
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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?”

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!”

BOOK: The Mall
10.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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