by Unknown
I was eager to get away from the scene for a little while, and let Mary sleep it off for a bit, so once we’d put our bags back on I followed Tim through the store towards the escalators. It was surprising how quickly the displays were becoming untidy and unwelcoming now that no one was maintaining them, and the flaming torches everywhere weren’t helping matters, either. The mannequins in the children’s section were starting to look like Victorian chimney sweeps.
We stopped at the top of one of the escalators (now technically a staircase) and noticed a couple of residents standing in some disorganized attempt at a queue. They stood out, because they weren’t wearing plastic bags. It was clear then that the majority of the mall’s residents were under twenty-five, and there wasn’t a single one wearing a T-shirt without some hilarious ironic slogan.
They were passing wadded-up plastic bags down to a plastic man standing waist deep in the jam at the bottom of the stairs, who passed their protective gear under the jam for a second before sending it back. This, presumably, was the laundry.
Tim and I wordlessly took advantage of the service after a mutually unpleasant smell check of our own gear. “Better check it all for rips,” said Tim, after we’d gotten it all off.
I hunted through my own ball of crinkling plastic and tape. It seemed intact for now. “Not a perfect solution, is it,” I said, for conversation’s sake.
“Certainly not a permanent one,” he said, distracted. I gave him a questioning look. “There’re limited amounts of duct tape. And it loses its stickiness after a while. Especially with the amount we’re sweating on it.”
Once our coverings had been freshened up, we bagged back up and headed down the stairs, politely nudging past the laundry technician. My heart quickened for a second as the goo wrapped itself warmly around my lower body.
Sunlight was shining through the skylight, so a lot of the torches had been temporarily extinguished and the air was a bit less thick. But the mall didn’t look any better under natural light. The plastic men had already ransacked most of whatever the jam couldn’t eat. Most of the shop windows were smashed, and iron shutters had been crowbarred aside and left where they lay. Someone had tried to persuade the jam to pipe through the water feature outside Captain Toys, with evidently disastrous results.
The plastic people who were up at this time in the morning swam unconcerned through the jam like half-submerged, plastic-wrapped corpses bobbing along a canal, occasionally pointing out looting or vandalism to each other and tutting with ironic disapproval. Like us, most of them were heading for the food court.
“Funny, isn’t it,” said Tim, as we descended the escalator into the crowded food court.
I glanced briefly at the food court full of carnivorous jam and the many grown men and women in plastic bags and tape trying to look dignified. “What is?”
“I was just thinking, this whole situation. It’s, like, the one apocalypse no one called.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, you know, every major culture in history has believed itself to be living in the end times,” said Tim, with a strange, wistful smile. “It’s human nature, or something. People said it’d come from nuclear war, or overpopulation, or a climate change, or zombies, or whatever. Doomsaying was its own industry. No one called this. Not jam.”
“Suppose not,” I said, unsure what else I could add.
“And you know the funniest part? All the survivalists, all the people who seriously did think the end of civilization was coming, they all set up their compounds in the wilderness. Where all the plants are. They’d have been the very first to be eaten. It’s funny, isn’t it.”
“It’s ironic,” I commented.
The look he gave me could have pinned something to a notice board. “Please don’t.”
“Well, it is.”
As we descended into the food court, we saw the plastic people gathered near the same stage that had played host to last night’s ironic execution. The original intention had presumably been to form a queue, but time and diminished patience had caused it to spread out into something closer to a mob.
The gangly young man with the whiny voice who had taken the role of priest suddenly shuffled out onto the stage, nervously fiddling with his hands. “All right then, quiet please,” he said. “The divine protection of Crazy Bob again brings its wondrous bounty. Hail Crazy Bob.”
“Hail curmleburm,” went everyone else halfheartedly.
“So it’s lucky-dip time again. Won’t this be fun.”
The grumbling plastic devotees who shuffled wearily towards the stage didn’t seem to think so. At this point I noticed a row of half-submerged shopping trolleys piled full of (predictably) plastic bags. The two lackeys pushed the trolleys through the jam towards the crowd with tremendous difficulty, looking like a pair of bag ladies who had taken their title a little too literally.
“Plenty to go around, one bag each, let’s keep this moving,” said the priest, handing out bags to those infuriating morning people who had managed to be first in line. “All you choosy Susies feel free to hold us up as long as you like. It’s not like any of us have anything better to do.”
It was likewise for want of anything better to do that Tim and I joined the back of the column and stood in line for a handout. The safe assumption was that this was the food rationing, and my stomach was echoing the impatient grumbles of the queue. I’d never been completely certain what, exactly, amounted to a “balanced diet,” but I was fairly sure I hadn’t been anywhere near one lately.
As the priest handed Tim his bag, he held onto it for a second longer and looked him meaningfully in the eye in a sort of don’t-make-waves kind of way.
“I got one of those ready-made sandwiches,” I reported, peering into my bag once we had moved aside. “And a Mars bar. And a Capri Sun. You?”
Tim showed me an undersized plastic bottle half-full of water, and a rather soggy-looking shrink-wrapped microwave-ready meal. Either shepherd’s pie or cottage pie—I’ve never been sure of the difference. He looked at me, and I was made very uncomfortable by a momentary flash in his eye.
“Excuse me,” he said, turning on his heel and addressing the priest again.
The priest, not in the least bit surprised, paused in the act of handing out the rest of the rations. “Would you excuse me, everyone? I think I hear Mr. Important speaking.” He straightened up and put his hands on his hips. “Can I help you?”
“This is thawed,” said Tim. “It was frozen, and now it’s thawed.”
“Well, lucky old you. Now it’ll take less time to cook.”
“It’ll have thawed days ago. It’ll be rancid now.”
“Oh, well, I’m very sorry you’re dissatisfied with the room service here. You know, supplies are limited. The supermarket was beneath jam level; we only have whatever was sealed in plastic at the time. We don’t HAVE to ration food to every epicure who might come to stay.” He flamboyantly turned back to the queue in an uptight attempt to end conversation, which Tim chose not to notice.
“What are you going to do when the supermarket runs out of food?” he asked.
“Gosh, I don’t know,” huffed the priest. “If only we were in, say, the middle of a city, where there might be plenty of other shops and restaurants.”
“So you’re going to loot.”
“Yes.” He looked at Tim balefully. “We’d leave some money, but no one ever seems to be around.”
“What will you do when they run out? What are you doing about crop cultivation? Water filtering?”
The priest had done that flamboyant turn to signal the end of the discussion three times now, and the effort was starting to show. “Well, when it becomes necessary, we will follow the divine direction of Crazy Bob. Hail Crazy Bob.”
“Hurm,” answered the hungry crowd.
“Can I talk to Crazy Bob?”
The priest froze for a moment, then looked at Tim, the side of his mouth curling in an impish half smile. I remembered last
night’s casual execution, and I felt renewed fear for Tim. “You seriously want to actually talk to Crazy Bob?”
“Yes,” said Tim, uneasily, like a man who had just looked down and seen train tracks under his feet.
“Well, he won’t be up at this hour,” said the priest, suddenly all smiles and friendly service. “But you’re free to go up and request an audience whenever you wish. After the morning scavenge, perhaps. Hadn’t you better be leaving for that around about now?” He pantomimed checking a watch that wasn’t there.
“The morning what?” said Tim.
Angela materialized from the nearby crowd and tugged at his sleeve. “Everyone has to go out into the city and look for more supplies during the day,” she whispered informatively.
“Just a simple courtesy in return for membership, entirely optional if you don’t want to be part of the family,” said the priest. “Like the guy last night. He never really wanted to be part of the family. What was his name again?”
“Let’s go,” insisted Angela, still tugging on Tim’s plastic. I started doing the same with his other arm. The air between Tim and the priest crackled with malice and I could hear bestial murmurs from the members of the crowd who hadn’t been fed. It seemed prudent to get away while the metaphorical tide was still swelling.
Thankfully Tim nodded his agreement and turned away with us, but not before giving the priest one last wary glare, a promise that the matter was not closed. The priest replied by displaying his palms in ironic benevolence.
“Well, good morning to you guys, anyway,” said Angela as we headed away from the food court. “What’d you get in the lucky dip?” From her own breakfast bag she produced a wrinkled ice-cream wrapper, opened it slightly, and attempted to suck out the now-liquid contents.
Tim glanced back at the stage for a second. “I’m a little concerned with the administration of this settlement,” he said distractedly.
“Mm. Noticed that,” said Angela, jiggling her camera. “That was Lord Awesomo. He’s pretty much in charge.”
“He doesn’t seem to have planned much in the way of long-term survival.”
“And he killed a bloke,” I said.
Tim looked at me oddly. “Why do you always go on like this whenever someone dies?”
“Well, anyway,” said Angela. “Point is, you shouldn’t make an enemy of Lord Awesomo. Everyone does what he says.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I dunno. As far as I can tell, it’s because he’s popular, and everyone’s afraid of not being cool anymore.”
“Where are we going?” asked Tim suddenly. Angela seemed to be leading us on a very specific path, through one of the narrower corridors on the ground level that went past the bookshop.
“Oh, this is where we meet Sergeant Cuddles for scavenging duty,” she said.
“How do you suddenly know all this?” I asked.
“Hey. Journalist, remember?” She jiggled her camera again. “I’ve spent the whole morning on reconnaissance.”
“Journalism student,” corrected Tim.
“So?” she said defensively. “That made it easier, if anything. I told everyone I was filming for a project.”
—
Our destination turned out to be the bookshop, which had been full of wooden shelving units and good, old-fashioned organic paper before the jam had obligingly cleared it out into a ready-made meeting center. It was directly opposite a short staircase, one of the smaller side exits up to Queen Street. A collection of plastic men were arranged into three uneven rows, standing to attention somewhere within their baggy plastic shells. We quietly joined them.
Sergeant Cuddles turned out to be an overweight young man wearing coke-bottle glasses over his transparent face bag and a wide-brimmed drill sergeant’s hat constructed from plastic bags and cardboard. He was striding back and forth in front of the first row of men, hands behind back, raising his chubby leg so high with each step that it rose above jam level like a battered sausage bobbing in a deep fryer.
“A-all right, maggots,” he began when everyone who was going to be there had arrived. “Expect you think you’re ready to, to represent us out there on the, er, scavenging grounds. Aren’t you!”
He was trying as hard as he could to bark, but just didn’t have the voice for it. He lost confidence in the shriek midway through the first syllable and dropped down to the level most people use to order drinks in a crowded bar.
“Yes, sir,” said the recruits, in rather sloppy unison.
The sergeant coughed self-consciously. “I can’t hear you!”
“Yes, sir,” repeated the recruits at precisely the same volume, after a moment’s unspoken debate.
“Well, you’re wrong,” said Sergeant Cuddles weakly. “Probably. Never mind. Today we’ll be heading up Queen Street towards the river, left on George away from Hibatsu, and looting along the length of George right up to the bo—to where the botanical gardens used to be. Anyone got a problem with that, you . . . stupid . . . silly . . . bastards?”
“Not really,” said someone.
“Seems reasonable,” said someone else.
“What’s going on at Hibatsu?” said Tim.
Angela nudged him in another example of a don’t-make-waves kind of gesture, but Sergeant Cuddles had already turned to look at him. He strode slowly and deliberately up to him, perhaps to give him time to think of something to say, then stood nose to nose, the sergeant’s round belly pressing against Tim’s midriff.
“Where are you from, recruit?” asked the sergeant.
“Er,” said Tim. “Fortitude Valley.”
“You know what they say about Fortitude Valley, don’t you!” demanded the sergeant.
“Er,” said Tim again. “The night life is good?”
The sergeant opted to abandon this line of inquiry. “You think you know better about how to spend the morning, do you?”
“No, I was just asking what’s been going on at Hibatsu.” A pause. “I’m just asking.”
“Oh really?” said the sergeant, his voice heavy with sarcasm. He glanced around uncertainly as he tried to think of how to follow that up. “We never go near Hibatsu. Never.”
“Why not?”
“Because. I said so.”
“And who are you again?”
The sergeant reddened in equal parts anger and embarrassment. “I’m the sergeant!” he whined, apparently stamping his foot. “Lord Awesomo appointed me in charge of supply gathering! The order came from Crazy Bob!”
“Was this one of those ironic things?” asked Tim, neatly adopting that strange emphasis. Angela nudged him again.
Sergeant Cuddles seemed afraid that he was losing his authority. “I hope . . . you get killed!” he squeaked, then turned quickly away, visibly shaking himself. “Anyway, if no one has any actual objections, let’s move out!” He turned on his heel and march-waded towards the stairs. “Left, right, left, right . . .”
The rest of us decided swiftly that, like chafing and executions, the sergeant was going to be another factor of our new lives we were just going to have to deal with. We shambled towards the stairs after him in a disorganized mob.
“Keep in line, please!” commanded the sergeant petulantly as he stepped outside, adjusting his hat to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight. “Left, right, left, right, left—”
He stopped dead with his back to us and stiffened oddly, as if he’d just stepped on something nasty and couldn’t bring himself to look down at it.
“Right?” prompted Angela.
Something red and viscous squirted gaily from Sergeant Cuddles’s breathing hole, as well as the two small holes where he’d inserted the hooks of his glasses, and his bags swooned emptily into the jam.
Fear beat a tribal rhythm down my spine and rooted my legs to the spot. A shocked glance was exchanged around the group of scavengers like a hot potato.
“He’s dead!” I exclaimed.
“You’re doing it again,” said Tim distractedly.
“What happened?” said someone near the front.
One by one, everyone pushed close enough to the front to witness Sergeant Cuddles’s fate, then immediately retreated, hoping someone else would take command. Finally a large, businesslike fellow in a mix of black and sky-blue plastic heaved a sigh and pushed his way cautiously to Sergeant Cuddles’s garments, which floated morosely on the surface a few yards into the street. He carefully lifted them up, and a pair of coke-bottle glasses tumbled out into the jam. I felt sick.
“There’s a rip,” he reported, holding the bags up to the light for all to see. “The jam got in his suit. Through the leg.”
“He must have got it caught on something,” suggested Angela.
The newly elected point man got halfway through a yeah of thoughtful agreement when he realized that he was almost certainly standing within inches of whatever it was that had claimed Cuddles’s life. With nothing protecting him from the jam but two flimsy layers of bin liner, the tiniest pin, piece of broken glass, or jagged paving stone was as good as a land mine.
“Keep calm,” said a plastic woman in red, who had decided to be next in rank. “Just move away as slowly as you can.”
The point man nodded infinitesimally, holding his palms parallel to the jam’s surface as if trying to placate it. He very, very slowly lifted one leg, moved it as far away as he could, then planted it down as if walking a greasy tightrope. He kept still for a moment, then, satisfied he was still alive, lifted his other leg.
The jam suddenly flexed oddly directly in front of him. His hand flew to his thigh, then his outfit ballooned madly. Jam streamed festively from the breathing hole in the top of his head for a few moments before his bags flattened.
Tim elbowed me in the arm. “Stop screaming!”
I hadn’t even noticed I’d been doing it. I clapped both hands over my mouth.
“Okay!” yelled the woman in red as the other plastic people whimpered and wobbled around in alarm. “Nobody go over there anymore!”
“So which way?!” asked someone else.
The woman in red leaned into the street and looked fearfully left and right. The street seemed to be completely deserted, but the X factor was obviously whatever was going on under the jam. She took a single step into the open, keeping her hand on the side of the mall entrance, then turned hard left and slowly headed north, at right angles to the route the last two guys had taken, keeping her back to the wall.