Wipeout | Book 5 | Foul Play

by Richards, E. S.

  Now the city was even more dangerous. There were no police officers patrolling the streets. There weren’t streetlights guiding the way over the busy intersections. Sure, not everyone that was still left was a bad person, but just like before, there was no way you could trust just any old stranger you came across. The people were desperate now, they were hungry, thirsty and in need – more so than they ever had been before. Money was far from the only thing that humanity had lost, people’s lives were so incredibly different from before they were almost incomparable.

  By the time the two of them reached the mall, Austin was sweating and panting. He’d pictured almost every scenario he could think of in relation to Bowie, imagining his son being abducted, kidnapped, murdered, sold. His mind was working its way into very dark places. The weight of the blame he placed on himself grew and grew as well, the voice telling him that he should’ve left his family in Poughkeepsie getting louder every time it tormented him.

  “You sure you don’t want to split up?” Miles said as they entered the mall. The front doors were locked, but the windows on either side of them had all been shattered, leaving a wide opening for them both to climb through.

  Austin looked around and gave in. “Okay,” he agreed, “but stay within earshot. Shout to me if you find anything – anything.”

  “Of course,” Miles replied. “It’ll be okay, Austin. Don’t worry.” Then, in a much louder voice, the teenager started shouting Bowie’s name, climbing up the stationary escalator and heading up to search the second floor, leaving Austin at ground level.

  There wasn’t a single store that hadn’t been looted. Even the electronics places were ransacked, televisions and stereos carted away by thieves who had likely stored them away somewhere. Eventually that day would come. Austin had faith that there would be a morning again where he would wake up, roll over and flick on the television to watch the morning news. He had to believe it would happen eventually, that humanity would restore itself and return to the modern ways it was used to. But he doubted it would happen any time soon. The thought of stealing a television set in the hope that it would be of any use in the near future was stupid. It wasn’t going to take months for things to return to what they called normal – it would be years. This was the new normal now and no amount of electronics or fancy technology was going to help them anymore.

  Moving past the tech store with a couple of broken flat screens still left in the window, Austin walked through the quiet mall, listening to his footsteps and the sound of Miles above him. The drugstore was all the way at the back, but Austin didn’t want to just rush over there. Bowie was just a kid after all and Austin knew his son could’ve been distracted by any number of stores before getting there. Whenever they visited the mall, they wound up being there the entire day, there was no chance he wasn’t going to look properly for his son in every available place he could find.

  “Bowie,” Austin called, his voice softer and calmer than it had been in the park, though the same fears and worries still tore through Austin’s head. “It’s your dad. Come out, little man. Come back home with me, Bowie. Please.”

  If Austin couldn’t find his son, he didn’t know what he would do. The thought of returning to the apartment where Dante and Meghan waited was too painful. He couldn’t listen to Meghan’s screaming any longer, he couldn’t watch the woman writhe in so much pain. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Dante and tell him no. Tell him that he hadn’t found their little boy. He wouldn’t be able to do it. It wasn’t an option. Austin wouldn’t let it happen. If he couldn’t find Bowie, then he couldn’t face his husband ever again.

  Chapter 16

  Austin tried not to think about anything but finding his son as he picked through the pile of Build-A-Bear’s that formed a deep, fluffy mountain against the backwall of the store. Bowie had a couple of these back home, one who was supposed to look like his namesake, the English Rockstar lookalike gifted to him by an aunt a few years ago. The other he’d chosen himself: Ali the Allosaurus, the dinosaur that Bowie claimed to be ‘the best meat-eater that ever lived.’

  His son’s fascination with dinosaurs had started from an early age, sitting up in his seat and clapping his hands together in glee one evening when Austin and Dante had been watching an old Jurassic Park movie. Where most children would’ve screamed and hid behind the couch, Bowie leaned forward and watched with wide eyes, the way the dinosaurs moved on screen fascinated him and he begged to visit the park. It had taken several months for Austin and Dante to finally convince him that it wasn’t a place he wanted to go and visit, but even after that, the obsession hadn’t stopped.

  As Bowie got a little older, he started learning the names of them all – the proper names, not just ‘long neck’ and ‘three horn’ as they were colloquially referred to. He read books well beyond his years and spouted out facts to his father’s that neither of them was even aware of, Austin constantly in awe of how bright their son was turning out to be.

  Seeing one of the dinosaur stuffed animals mixed into the pile, Austin found himself welling up. He hadn’t yet given himself a chance to get upset about Bowie running away, focusing on finding his son instead and trying not to think about what might happen if he did. The dinosaur teddy in front of him had other ideas about that though, reminding Austin of his little boy playing with his plastic dinosaurs and reenacting films he’d seen with them. Bowie didn’t deserve everything that was happening to him right now, he should be sitting at home playing with his toys, instead he was missing in a city on the brink of total failure.

  The Build-A-Bear store was the ninth that Austin had walked around, checking the back corners and unlocked store rooms in case Bowie had wondered into one of them and fallen asleep. They were all in different states of disarray, several looted more than others, but all ravaged in some sense of the word. The clothes stores were the ones which remained mostly intact, rails of in-season shirts and dresses hanging up as they always had been, fashion one of the many things which held absolutely no importance any more. In one store, Austin swapped his torn and dirty jacket for a brand-new leather one, transferring the few items in his pockets across and wrapping the material around his body. It felt warm and soothing.

  The drugstore was just ahead of him now and while a couple of other places sat in between, Austin couldn’t put it off any longer. He started walking toward it, opening his mouth to call out for his son again when Miles yelped and shouted upstairs, the sound startling him and making Austin stop in his tracks.

  “Miles?” He called upwards. “Are you okay?”

  “Get outta here, you nosy kid!”

  The angry voice shocked Austin. He thought the mall was completely deserted. In a flash he was climbing the nearest flight of stairs. He found Miles being accosted by a frail looking, but irritated old man.

  “I’m sorry mister,” Miles apologized, “I didn’t know anyone was in there.”

  “Miles?”

  “Austin – tell him I didn’t mean it,” Miles hurried over to Austin’s side for protection. “I thought the place was empty.”

  “Nosy little bugger coming in and going through my things,” the old man huffed. “You never seen anyone living inside a shopping mall?”

  “Hey, he didn’t know,” Austin defended Miles. “Leave the kid alone.”

  “Stupid kids,” the old man curled his lip in frustration. “Already had one of you running by here this morning and waking me up. Now you come in and start stealing my things. No manners, that’s the problem with –”

  “Wait, what? There was another kid in here?”

  “Yeah,” the old man grumbled. “Smaller boy. Came running through about an hour ago.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Where did he go?” Austin repeated in a louder voice, then turned and faced outward into the mall, bellowing Bowie’s name at the top of his voice without caring who heard.

  “That’s his kid, man,” Miles ex
plained for Austin. “We’re looking for him – look I’m sorry about earlier, but come on – help us out. Do you know where he went?”

  “Upstairs,” the old man shrugged, turning away from Austin and Miles. “If you do find him, at least try to keep it down, huh? Some of us are trying to sleep in here. Not just me.”

  Austin barely heard the end of the old man’s sentence, racing up to the third floor of the mall where the food court was. “Bowie!” he shouted again, a note of hopefulness in his voice as he reached the top and spun his head around, searching for his son. “Bowie? Are you up here?”

  “Split up again,” Miles announced, moving off to the right. “I’ll check this side.”

  Austin nodded and raced into the Dunkin Donut’s – a vision of finding Mason and Noah in the one outside of Poughkeepsie flashing in his mind. The kitchen of this one was different, Austin racing around it to check that his son wasn’t hiding in between bags of sugar like the two other boys had been. This wasn’t a proper dine-in place though; the food court was set up with hundreds of tables in the middle and various different restaurants and fast-food stalls lining the outside. The cooking and prep areas of each of them were only small, Austin whizzing around in under a minute and tearing out for the next.

  Doors slammed and echoed through the mall as he and Miles searched, checking every option as they searched for Bowie. There was rotting food in some of them, food pumped so full of preservatives and chemicals in others that it looked as fresh as it had done the day it was made. Rats squeaked and scuttled under foot whenever Austin disturbed them, but he kept searching, desperately trying to find his son.

  “Dad?”

  “Oh, my God. Bowie!” Austin raced toward his son and dropped to the floor in front of him, wrapping his arms around his little frame and squeezing him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Don’t you ever do that again, Bowie. What happened? Why did you leave? Why were you hiding?”

  “I thought I was in trouble,” Bowie mumbled into his father’s shoulder. “I heard you shouting and I thought you were mad at me.”

  Austin held his son tighter, cradling him in his arms and gradually catching his breath, his heart pounding against his ribcage. “I’m not mad at you, I was just worried. Why did you run off like that? Why did you leave the apartment?” They were in what was once the walk-in freezer of a Subway sandwich store, the rotting deli meat curling Austin’s nostrils as he held his son. “Come on,” Austin stood up and scooped up Bowie in his arms, “let’s get you out of here.”

  Carrying Bowie out of the sandwich store and out into the food court, he gently rubbed his back. Miles was still searching on the other side, but the second Austin stepped out carrying Bowie in his arms, the teenager stopped and smiled. He gave Austin two thumbs up and heaved a sigh of relief. Austin smiled back as he sat his son down on one of the chairs, still confused about what he was doing here.

  “Did something happen little man? Why did you leave home without telling your Daddy?”

  “He was with grandma,” Bowie mumbled, not meeting Austin’s gaze. “She was crying.”

  “Hey,” Austin placed two fingers under his son’s chin and lifted his head, forcing Bowie to look at him. “You’re not in trouble, remember? I’m not mad at you, I promise. I just want to know what happened. Did you leave because you were scared?”

  “Sort of,” Bowie replied, “I couldn’t sleep because grandma was crying and screaming and my tummy was hungry.” Bowie clutched his stomach as it grumbled on cue, the sound making the corner of Austin’s mouth curl up in a smile. “I ‘membered the medicine store that was here and thought I could get something to help her. But then when I was down there I got scared by the people and I had to run away.”

  “People? What people?”

  “The people in the medicine store,” Bowie explained. “They were crazy.”

  Austin hugged his son again and exhaled. “Okay baby, that’s okay, you’re safe now.”

  “But I got up here and I still couldn’t find any food. Nowhere is open like it used to be, dad. I don’t understand.”

  “I know,” Austin sighed. “Everything is different now, which is why it’s even more important that you don’t go off on your own, okay? No matter how scared you are or what me or your daddy is doing, you should always come to us first, do you understand?”

  “Okay dad,” Bowie nodded, looking up at his father and putting on a brave face. “Can we go home now?”

  ***

  “Bowie!” Dante flung his arms around his son. “I was so scared. Are you alright?”

  Bowie nodded and mumbled quietly, Austin closing the apartment door behind the three of them as he and Miles returned to complete the group once more. “He’s fine,” Austin answered for his son. “How’s Meghan?”

  Austin had been expecting to hear his mother-in-law’s wailing as soon as he entered the building. The fact he was yet to hear her cry even after he had entered the apartment worried him. It felt almost too quiet, the absence of her screams filling Austin with more dread than the anguished crying had. Something wasn’t right and the second he asked the question, he knew it.

  “I...” Dante faltered, his bottom lip trembling. “I don’t know how long she has left.”

  “Is grandma getting better now, daddy?” Bowie asked. “She’s not screaming anymore.”

  Dante plastered a grim smile on his face. “I think she might be.”

  Austin swallowed and started walking toward the bedroom where Meghan lay. The door was closed and the apartment silent. After taking just one look at his husband, Austin could see just how beaten and broken the man was. Things couldn’t be looking good for Meghan and without meds they had no way to try and turn things around.

  As the thought of medication occurred to him and the three words he had been repeating over and over in his head as he searched the hospital echoed around his mind once more, Austin remembered something else. He froze with his hand hovering over the door handle and turned back to look at Dante, the man watching him as he hugged Bowie on the couch.

  “There might be a place we can take her,” Austin said. “Somewhere that she can get the drugs she needs.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I met these people,” Austin continued, “earlier this morning – before I came back here the first time. They said they knew of a place with access to drugs, a place that we could take Meghan and potentially save her.”

  “What? Where? We have to go!”

  “They said something else too,” Austin’s tone changed. “If we go there, they won’t let us leave. If we go there, then we won’t be allowed to come home afterwards.”

  “What?” Dante stood up from the couch, leaving Bowie there with Miles, who held the young boy’s attention, even though he was listening carefully to the conversation as well.

  “What are you talking about?” Dante questioned. “What do you mean we won’t be able to come home afterwards? What is this place?”

  “I don’t know,” Austin sighed. He told Dante about the place they had said he could meet them and the sort of group that he thought Taggy, Luc and Walter belonged to. He left out the detail about him passing out in the drugstore, but he told his husband everything else, speaking quickly.

  “Do you think we should go?”

  “We have to,” Dante replied, “if they can save mom, then we have to try.”

  “But Dante...” Austin placed a hand on his husband’s arm and looked deeply into his eyes.

  “I have to try, Austin,” Dante replied firmly. “If there’s a chance that someone can save mom, then I have to try.”

  Austin looked at Dante and breathed steadily for a moment. He was yet to see what sort of state Meghan was in, but he’d spoken to Dante about his work enough over the years to know that when someone finally stopped screaming and crying and gave in to the silence, that was when things were bad. Now that they had the potential of saving her, Austin knew he couldn’t dangle that carrot and then ta
ke it away. Now that he had told Dante of the opportunity, there was no chance they weren’t going there. If Meghan could be saved, they were going to do everything they could in order to get that done.

  “Alright,” Austin nodded at last. “We’ll go.”

  Dante swallowed and pursed his lips, nodding in agreement. This wasn’t going to be easy. Austin looked around the small apartment and wondered how serious the people he’d met had really been about never returning here. Surely, they couldn’t keep them prisoners; they didn’t seem like the type of people who would do that.

  But Austin didn’t really know what type of people they were. He was taking a massive chance on this, but a chance nonetheless that needed to be taken. There was no way he was letting his family down again – one way or another, no matter what it took – they were outliving this disaster and surviving long enough to tell the tale. He would keep his family safe even if it killed him.

  Chapter 17

  “Come on, Dad, are you sure that’s all you want?”

  Charles held a napkin over his mouth and nodded. The old man had hardly eaten anything and Samuel was getting increasingly worried about his father’s appetite. He could understand why he didn’t want to eat loads – and it wasn’t like their kitchen was overflowing either – but he seemed to be getting weaker every day and Samuel didn’t know what more he could do for him.

  “You might as well finish your plate,” Samuel remarked anyway, unwilling to clear it away. “We can’t reuse that tomorrow.”

  “Do you not want it?”

  “No, thank you,” Samuel declined. “You must still be hungry.”

  Reluctantly, Charles finished the plate of kidney beans and rice, one of the driest meals either of them had eaten for a long time. Samuel had been into every house on their street and raided the pantries and larders for anything that was left – unfortunately, that wasn’t much. All the houses had already been broken into, meaning there was very little left behind. Even with their new spoils, Samuel and Charles both knew they couldn’t survive on Long Island for much longer. Sooner or later they were going to have to venture into the city if they wanted to see out the collapse, and both of them were aware it would have to happen earlier than they’d have liked.