Talon inspected the images of the dead mall more closely. The desolate shopping center had a post-apocalyptic quality. The large, empty parking lots coupled with the many signs of nature reclaiming the area—trees and vegetation bursting from the stretches of asphalt—stirred an uneasy feeling inside Talon. The place sure seemed like he perfect place for a nomadic band of killers to set up shop.
What might be waiting for him inside the Reaper’s old stomping grounds?
He planned to find out.
CHAPTER SIX
OFFICER ROBERT BENSON and his partner, Glenn Durham, were the first officers to receive the call about the shooting at the Regional National mall.
Benson swallowed the last bite of his tuna sandwich, drained his cup of Diet Coke, and surged toward their cruiser. Less than a minute later, their police car screamed down the road, sirens flashing. Within fifteen minutes, he was making his way through the deadly still mall, Glenn on his side, burning up with adrenaline as he tried to maintain a steady grip on his firearm.
The moment he spotted the first bodies, his heart sank.
We are too late, he thought.
Victim after victim, legs and arms akimbo like broken marionettes, resting in widening pools of scarlet. Their empty, accusatory eyes fixed on him, blaming him for not showing up on time and failing to protect them, to keep them safe from the madmen in the mall. The acrid smell of gunpowder wafted through the air. Benson flinched as the pitiful screams from the wounded mixed with staccato bursts of gunfire. And then, finally, the band of murderers grew visible. Hooded skater-kids, bony hands clutching guns and knives.
Benson lost it. There was zero hesitation as he squeezed the trigger. The punks went down, joining their victims on the floor.
Benson rushed past their broken forms, blocking out the sight while following the desperate cries of a woman. The dead were gone but there was still a chance to save the living. The woman’s shrill voice was laced with mortal fear.
He rounded the corner of the concourse and came face to face with the monster at the heart of the massacre. Schiller, AKA the Reaper, stood in the center of the food court, which had become ground zero of the mass shooting. His bony fingers clawed the hair of his female hostage. The Reaper was bald and skeletally thin with bulging eyes. He wore a ratty hoodie and baggy cargo pants that gave his bony, unnaturally tall frame a scarecrow-like appearance. The bloody sickle in his hand, combined with his death skull appearance and the pile of lifeless bodies at his feet, made Benson think he was looking at the Grim Reaper himself.
Time stretched as Benson locked eyes with the mass murderer. He heard gunshots, saw his partner go down beside him. He squeezed the trigger and bullets roared from the muzzle of his firearm. Later, he’d tell reporters that he got lucky, but none of the papers would print the quote. The public needed a hero after the bloodbath.
The bullets from his pistol found the Reaper, and the skeletal figure crumpled.
It was done.
He’d slain the beast.
A sudden croaking sound made Benson look down.
His partner peered up at him, his cratered head framed by a halo of red, his eyes questioning as if he wanted to know why Benson had let him die.
***
Benson’s eyes snapped open and he fought back a scream. For a long beat, he just stared at the ceiling, breathing heavily. He turned, looking almost longingly at the empty half of the king-sized bed. Ashley had left him a year after the shooting. Poor woman had tried to salvage their marriage, but he’d given her little to work with. Eventually he shut her out to a point where there was no other choice but to make a break.
Why had he pushed her away? Maybe he felt it was the only way to keep her safe, to spare her future hurt. Her side of the bed had remained empty ever since, except for a one-nightstand here or there.
Benson grunted, letting go of the painful memories, and got up. Stumbling into the bathroom, he wiped the thick beads of perspiration off his face and stared at his graying stubble. He was nearing his fortieth birthday and the signs of aging were everywhere. From the wrinkles crinkling his eyes to the paunch forming around his middle, time was marching on—and he’d better just hang on tight for the ride.
And now the nightmares were back.
It had taken him five long years to put the mall shooting behind him. Three cops had been killed that day, another six injured, but Benson had walked away from the carnage without a scratch. No, that wasn’t quite true. His wounds were the kind that one couldn’t see at first but that would manifest themselves in the weeks, months, and years to come. The incident might’ve led to his promotion as detective but also cost him a partner, his marriage, and countless sleepless nights.
Now the past had caught up with him as he always dreaded it would. Reports of the first kidnapping had given him a bad feeling. The vandalism, the graffiti, and the choice of victim—a high-earning investment banker—made Benson immediately think of the Reaper. Benson’s bullets had struck down Ralf Schiller that day, but the legends surrounding the cult leader lived on. The Reaper sold newspapers and books and made people tune in to their local broadcasts. Ironic that a war against hyper-capitalism would give rise to a cottage industry designed to cash in on his notoriety. Benson was surprised they hadn’t turned his story into a goddamn TV movie yet. Maybe there were too many freaks vying for the public’s attention.
With the help of a dark charisma and a hate-filled ideology borne from economic inequality, the Reaper had gathered skaters, runaways, and taggers around himself like some urban Pied Piper. He’d weaponized them with poisonous philosophy directed at anyone who supported capitalist America. A modern Manson. The attack on the mall had been the group’s final statement, the last in a string of violent crimes. At least Benson thought it was the last.
Benson showered, dressed and headed for the precinct. He was relieved to discover that no new kidnappings had been reported. He decided to catch up on the paperwork that was piling up. He wasn’t actively investigating the new crimes, and his attention was needed elsewhere. Nevertheless, for the rest of the day, Benson’s mind kept returning to his nightmare. He hadn’t been back to the old mall in years. He wondered if his subconscious had dredged up the memory for a reason. If a copycat gang roamed the city, what better place to hole up than the old mall?
The mere idea made Benson crave a drink. Almost as if his colleagues could read his thoughts, they invited him to join them at a local watering hole after work. Benson generally avoided bars when he could and tried to stay away from the bottle. Shit was bad enough without booze in his life. Once he started, it would be too hard to stop. Better to just head home and watch some TV before calling it an early night. Betraying his intentions, he turned on Grand Avenue instead of going straight home.
As he drove toward the mall, he navigated a number of vacant parking lots and rows of tract homes. The cookie-cutter buildings appeared deserted, the windows dark and boarded up. Foreclosure signs alternated with garages tagged with graffiti. The area was a ghost town.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the abandoned parking lot of the Regional National Mall. The fading sunlight played over the surface of the decrepit structure, a sprawling monument to suburban decay. It made Benson think of a shipwreck rotting away at the bottom of the ocean floor. Forgotten by most, only living on in the nightmares of the shooting’s survivors.
What are you doing here?
There had been a time when the mall and its parking lot attracted runaways, prostitutes, and drug dealers. But soon word spread that the mall was haunted, that the Reaper’s victims still lingered within its labyrinthine walls. These weren’t merely tall tales. People who’d ventured into the mall to get high or engage in other shady activities disappeared. One year the department combed the place and found the bodies of fifteen people who’d sought refuge inside the shopping center during the bitter winter months. The official story was they froze to death, but word on the street was that the restless ghost of th
e Reaper had snatched them. Nowadays no one came here except a few teens on occasion, and they were smart enough to not venture beyond the relative safety of the sprawling parking lot.
Benson hadn’t been here since that fateful day, but the mall had lived on in his memories. Seeing it with his own eyes after all this time made him feel numb. He opened his car door and threw up his lunch. Steaming piles of half-digested food hit the overgrown lot.
The shadows lengthened and for a wild moment he thought he spotted the hooded outline of the Reaper in the near distance. The wind outside was bitter, and it was getting late. Tomorrow, he might return with some men and search the area.But Benson would make sure not to be among the detectives entering the cursed place.
He closed the car door and took off. The tires screamed and left tread marks in the deserted lot. He wasn’t ashamed to admit that the mall terrified him.
He drove twenty miles above the speed limit all the way to his home. Stealing nervous glances around the dark neighborhood, he entered his two-bedroom house. As soon as he was inside, he made sure to double-bolt and lock the door. He couldn’t shake the irrational sensation that an invisible stalker had followed him all the way from the mall.
He headed for the kitchen, located the bottle of bourbon he kept stashed in a cupboard behind the fridge, and poured himself a double. He drained the drink and let out a cough. Hard liquor wasn’t his poison of choice anymore. When had he bought the bottle? Must’ve been around New Year’s Eve—eleven months earlier.
He turned up the TV, suddenly needing to hear human voices, and soon the effects of the alcohol washed over him. Fear still held him in its grip, but the booze was taking the edge off his emotions, dulling them somewhat. Feeling a bit dizzy, he headed into the bathroom and splashed some water on his face. When he looked up…a hooded skater punk stared back at him.
Before he could scream or turn on the intruder, the Taser’s 50,000 volts rippled through his body. Benson hit the floor in a twitching mass.
CHAPTER SEVEN
NIGHT HAD FALLEN, and a thick fog shrouded the crumbling Regional National mall.
Talon lurked among a row of trees that faced the sprawling wasteland of the mall’s lot. In addition to the Ka-Bar strapped around his leg and the Glock in his holster, the Heckler & Koch machine pistol hung on a strap from his shoulder. He was garbed in skintight combat black and perfectly blended in with the nocturnal landscape. The spectral green of his night-vision binoculars revealed no sign of life. This desolate temple of capitalism remained forgotten by the world at large.
Talon zoomed in on the entrance of Sears. The tinted glass of the doors gave no hint at what might be going on inside the immense structure. There was no way around it. He’d have to enter the mall to determine if the copycat cult had found sanctuary within its decaying walls.
For a moment he debated if he should hold off his inspection until the morning, but if the enemy were here, he would be active at night.
There was a prickly sensation in his neck, and a sensation of ice in his gut. Shivers tracked the length of his spine. He couldn’t shake the pervasive feeling that he was being watched.
Talon slipped the binoculars into his backpack and dashed across the deserted parking lot. His boots made no sound as he flitted toward the three-story structure. Cloying condensation wrapped around him; the fog was growing heavier by the second.
Moments later, he reached the department store’s doors. All of them were locked. He removed a lockpick and went to work. Within minutes, the door gave way to his concentrated efforts, and he slipped into the Sears. He donned his night vision goggles, and ghostly green light drenched the store. A landscape of empty racks, shopping carts, and mannequins confronted him. The place was as silent as a tomb.
Talon inhaled the musty air and advanced deeper into the structure. He crossed the main floor and found an arched entrance that led to the mall’s main concourse.
Moonlight shafted down skylights that pierced the length of the large hallway. The mall boasted two more floors with balconies running along the upper levels. Picking up his pace until he was moving at a light sprint, he passed rows of caged-up shops and restaurants that had long ago gone out of business. His senses became attuned to his environment, probing the yawning darkness for any signs that he might not be alone. All throughout, his fingers never wavered from the trigger of his machine pistol, its steel barrel leading the way.
He followed the moonlight. Based on maps and floorplans he’d checked out earlier online, he was headed for the main plaza of the mall where the food court was located. So far, it appeared as though no one had set foot in this place for ages. But Talon knew better than most that appearances could be deceiving.
The forsaken mall stirred strange emotions inside of him. He had a soft spot for malls. Even though he’d traveled the world as a kid, his father had made sure to let him spend his summers in the States with his uncle. He might not have been able to offer him a traditional American childhood, but he wanted Talon to have a taste of what life back home felt like, at least for a few months out of the year. Most days his uncle, who worked security at a local museum, would drop Talon off at an air-conditioned mall in the morning and pick him up at the end of the day after work.
He’d spent much of his summers roaming the local shopping center, catching movies in the multiplex, reading comics off the rack at Waldenbooks, and flirting with girls in the food court. Ever since then, malls had symbolized a slice of Americana that made him feel at home no matter where he was. It made him unaccountably sad to see this one desolate and abandoned. He stepped up to a pair of escalators fronted by overturned, potted artificial trees. Taking two steps at a time, he scaled the escalator, hoping the high-angle view on the second level might offer a better overview of the terrain.
He continued his advance, passing more gated boutiques. He also encountered signs that the mall hadn’t been completely uninhabited for the last few years. Graffiti scarred the walls and storefronts, and detritus littered the ground. Discarded fast food wrappings and empty bottles of liquor abounded.
Guard up, Talon slowed his approach. Shapes were becoming visible in the plaza below him.
He wasn’t alone any longer.
A ring of spooky human silhouettes formed a large circle around a cement island. A lone figure stood at the top of island and overlooked the crowd.
Talon slipped off his goggles. There was enough moonlight here to follow the action without any technological assistance. Narrowing his gaze, he counted about twenty-five hooded figures in the circle. The man they faced was decked out all in ghostly white, and they kept a reverent distance from him. He had to be the leader of the group.
The Lightwalker.
He can speak with the dead.
Talon crept closer to the circle, hoping to gain a better view, his machine pistol ready. He was right above the gathering now and realized that there was another man he hadn’t noticed before. This figure didn’t sport a hoodie but was dressed in slacks and a button shirt. He appeared disoriented and isolated, crouched on his knees, positioned between the crowd of followers and the white-garbed leader on the cement island.
A prisoner, Talon realized.
Now that he hovered directly over the unholy congregation, he saw that the leader wore a spray-painter’s mask. His white attire formed a sharp contrast to the dark clothing of the cultists. The moonlight played over the white hoodie and cargo pants, heightening the spectral effect. The other followers all sported curved blades. Sickles. Was it a way to honor the legacy of the Reaper? Talon gripped his Heckler & Kock a little harder.
Below him, the Lightwalker spoke.
“Death is only the beginning.”
What happened next proved that these weren’t mere empty words.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT TOOK DETECTIVE Benson less than a minute to figure out what was happening after he regained consciousness. One look at his surroundings told him everything he needed to know. He was
back inside the Regional Mall. He couldn’t see the eyes of his hooded captors, but he spotted their shiny blades. To his surprise, a strange calm had fallen over him. He knew what would happen next, and at some level, he even welcomed the confrontation with the terror that had haunted him for five years. One way or another, he wouldn’t have to live with the fear any longer.
A figure appeared on the cement island that once had sprouted trees and plants. For a second the old terror gripped him as he wondered if the Reaper had returned from the grave.
He let the moment pass.
Schiller was long gone from this world. This had to be the man in charge of the copy-cat cult.
The leader in the white hoodie loomed before him like some spectral post-apocalyptic warrior-monk. The figure was about six feet tall and athletically built. Definitely not Schiller, then. Benson tried to catch a better look at the face under the hood, but it remained shrouded in mystery. A spray-painter’s mask hid all details of his features, heightening his larger than life persona.
The cult leader approached Benson.
“You know why you’re here,” he said.
Benson remained silent.
The cult leader turned his attention away from him and addressed the crowd. “Four years ago, this man took the life of someone who wanted to change the world we live in. A man who was brave enough to hold up a mirror to society and show them what this country had become. He told the truth, and it cost him the ultimate price. This man you see before you was the one who pulled the trigger. This is the pig who shot the Reaper.”
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