Double Or Nothing

by Sean Patten

  Or if anyone near the road was simply hiding out, waiting for an easy target to enter their crosshairs.

  Only one way to find out.

  I took a long, slow breath, gathered my energy, and burst into a full-on sprint. I pumped my worn-out legs as hard as I could, cutting across the road. I knew at any moment some psycho might take a potshot at me, cutting me down and leaving me to die in the middle of the road like an animal.

  But that didn’t happen. I soon reached the other side, my lungs burning and my legs sore as I came to a stop at the edge of the mall parking lot.

  What I saw once I collected myself, however, was exactly what I’d feared.

  The mall was there, all right. But it wasn’t calm and silent. Not even a little.

  It was total chaos.

  Chapter 5

  It was the airport all over again. Throngs of people were gathered around the mall, the commotion a low roar even from the distance I stood. Every now and then the sharp crash of glass shattering cut through the air, the soft pop of gunshots ringing out among it all.

  The closer I drew the more the scene reminded me of what I’d seen on the Strip. But while the Strip had been a kind of loose chaos, just drunk idiots taking advantage of the power outage to cause some trouble, the people at the mall were more focused. They likely realized that this wasn’t some temporary thing, and were there on a mission to get whatever supplies they could for their loved ones.

  Just like me. I was about to become one of the crowd, just one more looter among many. There was nothing else I could do—Steve was counting on me, and I had to do whatever it would take to get back to him.

  I considered what that meant exactly as I moved closer and closer to the masses. Was I ready to kill, if that’s what I needed to do? I’d brought my makeshift weapon for a reason, and it wasn’t to make friends.

  I lifted the back of my shirt and draped it over the part of the lever sticking out of my waistband. Last thing I needed was some jackass yanking it out and clocking me over the head with it.

  My gut tightened as I approached the outskirts of the crowd. The people were packed together and barely shifting around. Everyone seemed pissed off and scared and right on the edge of doing something stupid, something that would turn this place from a mob to a full-on riot.

  Up ahead I caught sight of a kid, looked to be about fifteen. I knew the best move would be to keep my distance, but I couldn’t help but be curious about what was going on.

  “Hey!” I said, getting his attention.

  He turned around on his sneakers and locked eyes with me. The kid was full of young-man energy, his temper likely on a hair trigger.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  His expression of tense anger flashed into a big, beaming smile.

  “All night, man. Lights are off and the only cops around are in on the fun, you know?”

  “Right. And what’re you doing here?”

  “You kidding?” he said. “It’s a total free-for-all. Gonna get me some video games, maybe some beer. Who knows? It’s like Christmas!”

  I looked around the kid, noticing that he appeared to be totally alone.

  “Where’s your family at?”

  “The hell do you care?”

  “Seriously, kid,” I said. “This is the last place you want to be right now. You hear those gunshots?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “I’m not scared,” he said. “But my family sure as shit is. They’re hiding at home right now. Told them I’d be in my room, then I snuck off. Smart, huh?”

  “Seriously,” I said. “Get back to your family—this is only going to get worse.”

  “Man, that’s what I’m hoping for!” he said. “The worse it gets, the more free shit for me! Just gotta make sure I get in there before all the good stuff’s gone!”

  Realizing that there was no point in trying to talk some sense into the kid, I moved past him. I slid deeper into the crowd, the smell of sweat swirling all around me.

  I wanted to be back at the substation right then, just me and Steve and enough supplies to last us a week. Being among a crowd was about the worst possible place to be.

  Bit by bit, I edged my way through the crowd. Before too long I was at the far side of it, close to the front of the mall.

  As I’d expected, the place had been smashed to hell. Nearly every window was broken, and small fires raged here and there. No one seemed to care, however—everyone around me was, just like the kid, focused on grabbing what they could.

  Now or never, I told myself.

  Taking one last deep breath, I burst through the edge of the crowd and towards the nearest smashed window I could find. Once there, I carefully angled my body over it, making sure not to give myself a nasty wound to match Steve’s in the process.

  As soon as I crossed into the building, the cooler air inside provided me with some measure of relief. I took a moment to collect myself as I sized up the scene.

  It was total pandemonium. Roving bands of men and women of all ages smashed through shop fronts, rushing inside and emerging moments later with whatever they could carry. And more people poured in through the broken windows, more than a few giving themselves nasty cuts on the shards of glass and leaving dark red trails of blood on the gleaming floor as they limped away.

  Fights had broken out, mostly among men trading punches as they fought over TVs and Blu-Ray players and whatever other now-useless crap they had their eyes on.

  It was still a shock to me that so many people hadn’t gotten it through their heads yet that all this stuff was little more than expensive garbage. They might as well have been stealing the potted plants and benches for all the good it was going to do them.

  As I moved through the mall I reached behind me and slipped the lever out of my waistband, holding it out in front of me like it was a damn medieval sword.

  “Keep calm,” I told myself. “Don’t catch anyone’s attention. Just move.”

  I let the bar drop down to my side as I went on. The pharmacy was one of the anchor stores, which meant it was down at one of the far ends of the mall.

  My heart thudded in my chest, adrenaline pumping through me, my focus on nothing but getting what I needed and leaving as fast as humanly possible. Picking up my pace, I rushed over to one of the mall maps and checked where I was going.

  I let out a wry chuckle as I thought about the last time I’d been to a mall, probably to pick up a shirt or some other stupid thing. I’d never liked the mall, but it’d always been a place of safe, if not mindless, consumerism.

  But now, the veneer of civilization already long gone, it was a madhouse.

  I turned in the direction I needed to go and hurried along. As I did, I caught the attention of a gang of rough-looking guys, their arms covered in tattoos.

  “Nice pipe, tough guy,” one of them said to me. “Hope you’re not afraid to use it.”

  I sized up the group, realizing right away that there wasn’t a chance in hell I could take all of them on. They looked right for a fight, ready for any excuse to smash the shit out of anyone who glanced at them sideways.

  No time for bullshit, I thought. Just keep moving.

  I locked my eyes onto the ground in front of me, the back of my neck burning flaming hot as I passed the men.

  And they went on. I let out a long sigh of relief as they continued.

  “Pussy!” one of them shouted. “Knew it right when I saw you!”

  I didn’t turn around as the rest of them jeered and laughed. Sure, the male ego in me wanted to spin around on my feet and rush at the guy for insulting me like that, but this wasn’t the time to get caught up in any honor bullshit. They wanted a fight, and I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.

  Then I spotted it. The pharmacy was right up ahead.

  My stomach sank when I saw that there was already a huge mass of people in front of it, but as I moved closer, I realized that they
weren’t giving the store the same smash-and-grab treatment. Instead, they were gathered in front just milling around, as if they didn’t know what to do.

  Once I joined them, I realized why. Unlike the rest of the stores, heavy, metal slats had been pulled down in front of the entrance.

  It was locked up tight.

  “Goddamnit!” a woman nearby shouted. “Can’t someone get through?”

  “You don’t think we’ve been trying for the last hour?” a nearby man said, frustration in his voice. “The damn things are thick as a bank vault!”

  A few members of the crowd approached the barriers, as if they’d be able to figure out something that no one had tried yet. Together, they squatted down in front of them and grabbed the bottom, all of them coordinating to pull it up at the same time with all their strength.

  The barrier shuddered as they pulled, but it didn’t budge an inch.

  “Out of the way!” a booming voice called out.

  An enormous, hulking man stepped from the crowd, an L-shaped metal pipe in his hands. He stepped up the barrier, sized it up, and pulled the pipe back for a swing. With all his might he brought it down on the barrier, a deafening bang sounding out at the impact.

  Didn’t do a damn bit of good.

  “Ah, shit!” he shouted, the pipe falling from his hands and dropping to the floor with a clatter.

  A chorus of ahhs erupted from the crowd, as if they’d just seen a bad play in a baseball game. The man who’d swung staggered backward, the expression on his mean, ugly face making it clear he was in a hell of a lot of pain.

  Dumbass. Hitting a barrier like that had probably not felt too different than smacking it right into a brick wall with every bit of force he had. Guy’s head was probably ringing like a bell.

  Despite the fact that no one had even come close to opening up the barriers, the crowd didn’t budge in the slightest. They all stared at it, talking amongst one another as if one of them was going to figure out some way to travel through solid space.

  I wasn’t about to waste any more of my time with this bullshit.

  Without drawing attention to myself, I moved away from the crowd and looked around for some other way to possibly get into the store.

  Didn’t take long to spot one. A dozen or so feet down the way I’d come, between the pharmacy and the toy store next to it, was a nondescript red steel door, looking to be a service entrance. The press-bar on the front of the door showed that it could be opened from my side. Only thing I needed to do was get in without anyone seeing me.

  I made my way over to the door, standing by it and hoping for some kind of distraction that would get everyone’s attention and allow me to slip though unnoticed. I didn’t have to wait for long.

  A deafening crash exploded through the air. Before I could wonder what it was, a large, old-style van tore through the middle of the mall, smashing into benches and potted plants and whatever else happened to be in its way.

  It kept on going, the frantic crowds running out of the way, more than a few disappearing under the tires with a shriek or a yell. Then it smashed into the fountain at the center of the mall, the front half of the van crumpling up like it was made of aluminum foil, smoke rising from the engine.

  After a few moments, a man opened the door and stumbled out. He was clearly drunk off his ass, a bloody gash on his head and a stupid smile on his face as he dropped the bottle of booze he’d been drinking.

  Stupid asshole, I thought bitterly. One of the few working cars on the planet, and he’d just wrecked it.

  I glanced around to see that the attention of everyone nearby was on the van, and I realized this was the best chance I was going to get. I quietly pressed the door bar, angling my body and slipping into the darkness beyond.

  The hallway was cool and silent—just what I needed after the chaos of the mall. No footsteps could be heard, and I realized that I was likely alone.

  Thank God.

  But it was just about pitch-black, reminding me of when Steve and I had led the small group through the back halls of the casino the night before

  The light was nearly non-existent, but a source of sunlight up ahead provided enough illumination for me to read the directional signs on the walls.

  One in particular caught my attention. It read “M & T Pharmacy Delivery Entrance” with an arrow that pointed to the right.

  Just what I needed. If the idiots out front were still gathered in the mall entrance, that meant they likely hadn’t found the back one. It was the best chance I had.

  I continued along, lever in hand as I moved carefully down the hallway. The light increased with every step I took, and as soon as I made the right turn I laid eyes on a door down at the far end, one with a long slit at the top, sunlight streaming in. The words “DELIVERY ENTRANCE” were written in big, bold letters.

  Excitement began to build in me as I kept along. If I were lucky, there’d be some kind of way to get in, some way to climb in through the back and get whatever supplies I needed. I imagined running out of the place with bags full of medicine and water and food, everything Steve and I would need to ride out the next few days while he healed.

  But as soon as I pushed open the door, my stomach sank.

  I wasn’t going to be so lucky.

  Not even a little.

  Chapter 6

  A half dozen pairs of strung-out eyes locked onto me the moment I opened the door.

  Standing in front of the back entrance in the alley was a small gathering of around ten men and women, all of them skin and bones and dressed in ratty, dirty clothes.

  There was something to them, something I couldn’t put my finger on at first. Sure, civilization had collapsed and the collective hygiene of everyone was worsening by the minute, but this was no explanation for the way they looked. Their sorry state was something pre-outage.

  “Yo,” said one of them, a gaunt man with stringy brown hair and blank, sleepy eyes.

  At first glance the man appeared to be in his forties, but the closer he got the more I realized that he was actually likely nearer to my own age. He was a very rough-looking thirty-something.

  “What you got there?” he asked.

  Behind him the rest of the group stood with their arms hanging limply at their sides, their eyes still locked onto me.

  “What” I asked.

  The man nodded towards the lever in my hand.

  “That thing.”

  “Just something to defend myself,” I said. “You seen inside the mall? It’s a madhouse.”

  My strategy was to keep the group calm. No sense in rushing right into hostilities if I didn’t need to.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Not my scene.”

  Silence hung in the air for a long moment as I sized the group up. Each one of them looked like they’d seen better days. I couldn’t spot one that’d look like a threat one-on-one, but that wasn’t the issue—the problem was that they were in a group.

  “What was that crash?” asked another one of them, some thin-faced girl who couldn’t have been older than twenty-one.

  “Some asshole drove his van into the middle of the mall,” I said. “Ran right into the fountain. Took out a few people when he did it.”

  The group glanced to one another, as if trying to figure out if I was screwing with them.

  “A car?” the first man said. “Cars haven’t been working since last night. You fucking with us?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m not.”

  “Why’s the power out?” asked the girl. “You heard when it’s coming back on?”

  I realized that by not being totally strung out, and by not going wild with my weapon right away, the group hadn’t yet decided I was a threat.

  This was good. Maybe I could work with them.

  “It’s not coming back on,” I said. “And you’re right—just about every car is done. Only the really old ones, the ones without all the computer parts, stand a chance of working.”

  “Shit,” said the man. “T
hat’s wild.”

  I glanced at the large metal delivery door to the pharmacy. The group had clearly been trying to get in before I’d shown up. My eyes flicked down to the bottom of it, at the pair of cheap-looking padlocks that held it fastened down.

  I realized it could be doable. Might even be able to pry them open with my lever.

  “What’re you guys doing?” I asked. “Trying to get in?”

  The man narrowed his watery, half-awake eyes.

  “What does it matter to you?” he asked. “You a cop or something?”

  His body language tensed up, and I sensed he was trying to figure out exactly what my game was, if I was a threat.

  I decided to come clean, thinking that I might be able to get on their side, maybe get their help opening it up.

  Before I could, however, one of them spoke up.

  “Not like it’d make any difference if he was a cop,” said one of them. “You saw what happened to Marley. Fucking awful.”

  “Marley?” I asked, a little curious.

  The group’s leader, or whatever he was, nodded slowly.

  “Yeah,” he said. “One of us. Pair of cops grabbed him and beat the shit out of him on the Strip last night.”

  “What?” I asked. “Why?”

  One of the girls shrugged.

  “When the power went out most of the cops tried to keep the peace or whatever, but when it got later into the night some of them started acting just as psycho as everyone else.”

  “To serve and protect, my ass,” said another of one them.

  “What happened to your friend?” I asked. “To Marley?”

  “Told you,” said the leader. “They beat the shit out of him. Nothing we could do about it—they had guns and clubs and all that crap.”

  “And where is he now?”

  The members of the group looked at one another with pained expressions.

  “Didn’t make it,” said one of the women. “Fell asleep and, I dunno, never woke up.”

  Not good news. I knew how people could be, but part of me, maybe a more hopeful part, had hoped that it’d take at least a few days before people like the cops started acting like looters and thugs.