by April Henry
“What do you want from us?” asks a black woman with silvered dreads.
Wolf says, “First of all, none of you should be talking. And certainly not talking back.” He points his rifle at her and she flinches. “I could shoot you to make my point. But I won’t. Not this time. But the next person who talks, I will put you down like the dogs you are.”
The only sound is the drip-drip-drip of blood hitting the floor from the wounded man’s arm.
“As for what we want—we want the world to listen. You’re here to make sure that people pay attention. And we don’t need any competing messages. Which means all of you have to give me your phones. Every single one. Take them out of your pockets and purses and slide them across the floor to me. Because if we catch one of you with a phone, you’ll die.” Casually, he points his rifle at the group, aiming it at one person, then another. For a heart-freezing instant, it’s aimed at Parker’s head, but then it moves on.
One by one, people bend down and send their phones sliding along the floor until they clear the four-inch gap at the bottom of the gate. If the phones don’t quite make it, people close to the gate kick them the rest of the way. Mole starts tossing the phones into an empty Macy’s bag.
“November, report in,” Wolf says into his mic. “November. Over.”
As Wolf waits for an answer that doesn’t come, Parker’s fingers touch the edge of his phone, which is in his back pocket. Parker’s blocked from view by a plump middle-aged woman in front of him. Instead of pulling out his phone, he slips his finger to the side and toggles it into the silent position.
After Mole is done, Wolf nods at Lips, who goes to the door of the Shoe Mill. “Anyone hiding has to come out now!” Lips yells. “If we find you later, we’ll kill you.”
He repeats himself at every store. A guy in his twenties wearing khakis, a pressed blue shirt, and a name tag appears in the doorway of the phone store. A sixty-ish woman in a white hairnet comes out of Van Duyn, anxiously twisting her hands. Both are made to surrender their phones. The AT&T guy has three.
But Moxie doesn’t appear. Where is she? Parker never prays, but now he prays that she has somehow run very far away. That she has found an exit and is now being evacuated by the police. Because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.
Wolf comes back to the metal security gate. His posture is relaxed, his voice unhurried. “People, you may not know this, but you are at war. And like all wars, civilians sometimes get caught in the cross fire.” The smile visible through the mouth hole of his ski mask does not match the cold gaze coming through the eye holes. “Sorry about that.”
Everyone is silent, watching Wolf alertly. “If there is a hell, then we’ll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war. But you should know that you are serving a more noble purpose than simply being victims.” His gaze takes them all in. “You are the key to changing everything.”
Wolf points through the security gate at the kid Parker recognized. His name is Joe or Joel—something like that—and he’s a year behind Parker at school. “You. In the glasses.” Joe/Joel’s black-framed glasses are sliding down his tearstained face. “Come here.”
The kid doesn’t move. Lips comes up behind him and pokes his back with the rifle.
With a whimper, the kid shuffles forward, a wet stain spreading over the crotch of his pants.
“It’s your lucky day, kid.” Wolf’s grin is humorless. “You’re going to live. We’re going to open this gate and let you out. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fistful of flash drives. “You’re going to put these in your pockets, and then you’re going to run down to the end of that hall and cut through Sears and go outside with your hands in the air. You’re going to give these to any reporters you see. You’re the one who is going to get our message out.”
JUST A SHELL
4:02 P.M.
After Miranda rolls under the metal pulldown shutter, it hits the floor with a bang. Her heart leaps in her chest like a dying fish flopping on a boat deck.
Pressing her lips together, she forces her lungs to still as she strains to hear if Parker will be shot. The bike-locked hall he ran to is just around the corner, about a hundred feet away.
She hears running footsteps and muffled shouts and screams, layered over the blare of the fire alarm, on the far side of the shutter. But no shots. What is she hearing? More victims? The bad guys? Maybe even the cops?
Finally Miranda lets herself breathe again, a series of hitching gasps. She pushes herself to a sitting position. Her body feels heavy and clumsy, a sack of flesh she can barely animate.
There are four other teens in the store. On her left is the dark-skinned girl in a turquoise headscarf, the one who just lowered the metal shutter. She works here, at Culpeppers. Her name, Miranda remembers, is Amina. Her eyes are wide enough that they are rimmed with white. “This can’t be real,” Amina says, more to herself than anyone else. “This can’t be happening.”
On her right, the guy who urged Miranda under the shutter stands with his fists clenched. His dark hair falls over his eyes, and he holds his mouth so tightly that his lips have disappeared. He’s dressed in jeans and a plain black T-shirt.
The girl whose mom just died leans against the counter, head down, sobbing wordlessly, high-pitched huh-huh-huhs. Heard just by itself, Miranda thinks, it might almost sound like laughter.
The busboy sits on the floor, his back against the counter. His eyes are closed, his face taut with pain. He’s pressing his palms on the front and back of his thigh, over the places where the bullet came and went. Miranda squints to read the name tag on his green apron. JAVIER.
Javier opens his dark eyes and looks at her. Despite his efforts, blood is already puddling on the white linoleum.
“We should try to stop that bleeding,” Miranda says to no one and everyone. Grabbing two acid-yellow sweatshirts from a stack, she scuttles forward on hands and knees.
Javier shifts his hands so she can sandwich his leg between the two sweatshirts. Then she ties the arms of the bottom sweatshirt over the top one.
“Thank you.” His bloody fingers squeeze her palm. His eyes are so dark, they don’t seem to have pupils.
Amina is staring at Miranda. Her eyes narrow. “Wait—it’s you!” Her tone is almost indignant. A month ago, Amina caught her walking out of the store with a foil-lined Culpeppers shopping bag filled with stolen cashmere sweaters. As a result, Miranda has been banned from the store.
People are out there dying, and this girl is still thinking about the rules. Miranda starts to laugh. She can’t help it. The sound flirts with hysteria. It’s too loud. What if someone out there, one of the men with guns, hears her over the fire alarm?
Putting her hand over her mouth, she tries to stifle herself. She can taste Javier’s blood, metallic and salty. She wants to throw up. She wants to scream, she wants to cry. She wants to be anyplace but here.
When Miranda finally speaks, she manages to keep her voice to a half whisper. “What are you going to do, make me go back out there again?”
“No,” Amina says. “Of course not.” She looks away, her mouth twisting.
Miranda looks away too. The rich girl is lost in her own world. She locks her fingers in her hair as she mutters, “Oh my God, Mom, please, no, no, no. Don’t be dead, Mom. You can’t be dead!”
The guy who urged Miranda to roll under the shutter steps closer. “Wait—was that your mom who got shot first?”
The wailing pauses, and the girl’s eyes flash to him. Her expression is a wordless answer.
“I am so sorry,” the guy says, wincing in sympathy. His eyes are light gray. “That’s awful.”
The girl chokes out, “But what if she’s not dead? What if she’s just hurt? I should go back out there.”
“Look—” Javier begins, then interrupts himself. “What’s your name?”
“Grace.” Her eyes dart back and forth between him and the security shutter.
“Trust me, Grace. She’s dead.” His voice is as flat as his words, with only a trace of an accent. “Your mama is dead.”
“How can you know that?”
“She’s not the first person I’ve seen die.” He closes his eyes again.
Miranda exchanges a curious glance with the other guy. What does this Javier person know, anyway? Then she realizes that she knows something too. She swallows and says, “I’m sorry to say this, but I think Javier’s right. I saw one of them come down the escalator. He was killing anyone who was still alive.”
“Even if my mom is dead, I can’t just leave her out there.” Grace’s voice is high-pitched, distorted to a quaver. “That’s my mom.”
“But that’s not your mom,” the pale-eyed guy says in an urgent whisper. “Not anymore. That’s just—just a shell.” His mouth turns down hard on the corners. “And she would want you to live.”
“Who are you and what would you know about what my mom would want?”
“I’m Cole. And that’s what any parent would want for their child.”
“Well, Cole, you don’t know what my mom would want. Maybe she wouldn’t want to be alone. You guys don’t know anything about her. Whether she’s dead, what she would want…” Grace takes a step toward the shutter.
Miranda grabs her wrist. “If you go back out there, you’ll put all of us at risk.”
“But they’ve stopped shooting.” Grace tries to pull free, but Miranda won’t let her.
“They’ve stopped because anyone left out there is dead.”
Suddenly the fire alarm cuts off.
Miranda holds up her free hand. “Shh!”
Everyone freezes. From outside, in the direction Parker ran to, comes a series of sounds. Rattling metal. Announcements made through what sounds like a megaphone. Miranda can make out some of the words. Something about the world listening. Something about giving up their phones. And then they all flinch at a sound. It’s muffled, but it sounds like a shot.
“We have to get out of here,” Miranda whispers. “If they figure out we’re in here, they’ll kill us.”
Amina points. “The metal security shutter will protect us.”
Javier opens his eyes. “That don’t mean anything. I’ve seen bullets go right through car doors.”
Miranda doesn’t want to know how Javier knows these terrible things. She points toward the rear of the store. “Where does that door go to?”
“To the service corridor.” Amina’s face lights up. “Which eventually leads to an exit.” She hurries over, pushes it open, and sticks out her head. But before anyone can think about following her, she yanks it closed again. When she turns back, she’s shaking so hard, her whole body trembles. “They’re killing people out there, too. There’s a body right there. I think it’s Linda from Pottery Barn.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Linda!”
Everyone slumps as the strings of hope are cut. “Can they get in here from out there?” Miranda whispers.
Amina shakes her head. “Not unless they have a key for this store. And only employees have those.”
So the five of them can’t leave, but it’s not safe to stay, either. According to Javier, bullets could stitch through the metal shutter like it was tin foil.
“Everyone, turn off the ringers on your phone.” Cole slices his hand through the air. “We don’t want them to hear us.”
Miranda’s phone is already on silent. Closing her eyes, she forces herself to stop picturing how they are going to die. Forces herself to think. Three months ago, her school did a lockdown drill. She remembers sitting in the far corner of a dark classroom while someone out in the hall rattled the locked door. It was like playing hide-and-seek, holding your breath in the gloom and trying not to giggle. Fun, not frightening. Sure, you knew bad things went down in other schools, other places. But stuff like that always happened to someone else. It would never happen to you.
What had the sheriff’s deputy told them in that assembly? Now it comes back to her. To run if they could. To hide if they couldn’t. To fight back if they must.
With killers at both store exits, running is out of the question. They’re hiding now, but if Javier is right, sitting behind this metal roll-down shutter isn’t offering them much protection.
A man’s voice, just outside the shutter, makes her jump. Addressing himself to anyone hiding in the mall, he says that this is their one chance to leave. That he will let people go now and only now. And that if they stay and are found later, they will be killed. After a pause, he repeats himself, only he sounds farther away.
“Maybe we should open the shutter and go?” Grace whispers.
“No! We can’t trust them.” Cole’s voice breaks. “They’ll just kill us all.”
“But if we stay here and Javier’s right, that metal shutter isn’t enough protection,” Miranda says. “We need to get farther back from it.” She points. “Where does that other door go to?” She thinks she knows, but she’s not sure.
Amina follows her finger. “A storeroom.”
“Let’s go.” Miranda gets to her feet and looks at Cole. “Help me get Javier back there.”
THE WORLD’S BEST REALITY SHOW
4:07 P.M.
After the kid named Joe or Joel runs off, Parker and the other thirty or so trapped shoppers stare at Wolf in silence, a silence broken only by a little boy who is crying hysterically.
“That’s getting on my nerves.” Lips raises his gun. “Make him stop.”
His mother desperately tries to shush the boy, but he just cries harder.
A man in a pinstriped suit steps closer to the security gate. Forgetting about the crying child, Lips moves to block him, but Wolf waves a hand to indicate that it’s okay.
The businessman’s voice is pitched low, but Parker is close enough to hear him. “Look, man, just tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you. You want money? I have nearly a thousand dollars on me, and I’ll give you even more if you let me go.”
Wolf tilts his head. “Money?” He lifts the megaphone and speaks into the mouthpiece. “You’re offering me money?”
Parker’s blood chills as Lips jabs Businessman in the ribs with his rifle. With a grunt, he steps back and raises his hands. Only now does he look uncertain.
“You think this is about money?” Wolf’s voice is a lash. “You think that if you have money you get to call the shots, and the rest of the people here”—he waves his rifle so that it takes in the whole crowd—“they can just die, for all you care?”
“I’m s-s-sorry,” Businessman stutters.
Wolf is just getting started. “You are what America has become. A place where money is the only thing that matters. But you’re going to help this country wake up to what’s really important. If they think it’s acceptable to leave people dead or dying, or to abandon them in their hour of need—wait until it’s broadcast right in front of their eyes. We’re going to make it so they won’t be able to look away. This is going to be the world’s best reality show. Broadcast live.” His grin is full of menace.
Wolf’s gaze takes in all of them. “In less than an hour, you’ll all be the lead story on CNN. Tomorrow, you’ll be on the front page of every newspaper. In a few days, you’ll be on the cover of People.” He nods as if they should be pleased. “And how you behave yourself will dictate whether there’s a black box around your story, or whether you can give interviews later as a survivor. If our demands are met, we will release you. Until then, you need to stay calm and not panic. No one will be hurt if you do what we say.”
Parker thinks that’s a lot of ifs, but he keeps his face impassive.
Wolf nods at Lips, who goes over to a janitor’s cart parked next to a bench in the center of the hall. On top are two bundles of stiff white plastic cords.
“Now you’re going to zip tie each other’s hands in front,” Wolf says. “Anyone over the age of five. One loop around each wrist, and make sure both wrists are hooked together. And if you don’t do a good
job, both of you will die.”
A low, shifting murmur is broken by a cell phone ringing to Parker’s left. It’s the theme from Rocky.
People back away from a big man in a green down jacket who is about ten feet from the security gate. His hand frantically roots around inside one of his coat pockets as he struggles to silence his phone.
Mole and Lips swing their rifles in his direction, but instead of lifting his own AK, Wolf reaches into the back of his waistband. He pulls out a pistol with a silencer screwed onto it. Calmly, he steps to the gate and then fires a single shot to the man’s chest. Despite the silencer, the sound is still a muffled clap. People stifle their cries with their hands. The man’s eyes widen and he stays on his feet for several long seconds. The sound of his breathing, rapid and bubbling, fills the hall. Finally he drops to his knees and then slowly crumples until he is facedown on the floor.
Wolf’s voice is as unemotional as if he had just swatted a mosquito. “Any more phones out there?”
Three more cell phones suddenly go sliding along the floor.
Businessman is the one who zip ties Parker’s wrists in front of him. He leaves a little slack. Parker can’t tell if it’s on purpose. Still, it doesn’t seem like a good idea to try to slip out of them. Not right now. But he feels a pulse of hope.
While they work in silence punctuated by low sobs and distant sirens, Wolf walks out into the food court. It lies at the intersection of four hallways. He goes to the hall opposite theirs, the one that leads to Nordstrom, lifts his megaphone to his lips, and says, “If you’re still in the mall, you can leave now and we’ll let you go. But this is your only chance. If we catch you hiding later, we’ll kill you.”
Nordstrom’s security shutter is down. It’s made of thin metal slats set an inch apart, partially revealing the store’s darkened, deserted depths. Most of the other stores just look empty. But then a woman in a gray dress appears in the doorway of a Sunglass Hut. She freezes at the sight of Wolf, but he simply says, “Go on. Get out of here. While you still can.”