by Ian Woodhead
Jefferson sighed when he noticed the city hall clock gently reminding him that if he didn’t get his arse in gear, he’d be late for work. He turned around and hurried back towards the shopping centre, while trying to remember what rank three diamonds signified. Bloody hell, his dad would have had a heart attack at his dire lack of knowledge. Come to think of it, David would have a go at him too.
He walked down the pedestrian walkway, passing the two banks, a music shop, and a pizza joint. The closer he got to the mall, the more people there were cluttering up the path.
He turned the corner and stopped dead, staring in disbelief at the metal shutters across the entrance. “What the hell?” No way could the mall be shut at this time. They didn’t even pull down the shutters when it did close at eight. There was always somebody in the building.
Shutters or no shutters, he still needed to get in there somehow. Jefferson pushed his way through the gathered crowd, trying to spot anyone else who worked in the mall. He couldn’t be the only worker who’d gone out for his lunch. This just didn’t feel right.
Jefferson had noticed somebody with whom he’d had prior contact. He groaned at the sight of that charity worker enthusiastically heading towards him. It did cross his mind to turn around and get away before that charity worker reached him. He could always use this opportunity to visit that library, either that or go home. Jefferson couldn’t do that, though. His friends were inside and because, like a fool, he’d left his phone in his coat pocket, he couldn’t contact them until he’d got home anyway.
“Isn’t this a bit weird, buddy? Nobody has a clue what’s going on here.”
So much for the charity being able to update him. He listened to the dreadlocked youth rattle on about some couple being separated when the shutters came down and how nobody could get close to the shutter because they all went a bit funny. This was unreal. Just because this guy tried to fleece him out of his money, they were now fast friends?
“I think it’s a fire drill.” The youth assumed the air of authority when two other shoppers gazed in his direction. “Yeah, that’s got to be the reason. Give it a few more minutes, and the shutters will go back up.”
Jefferson nodded and smiled before pretending to look at his watch. He spun around and lost himself in the crowd, squeezing his way through the throng, and headed for the edge of the walkway where the crowds were thinner.
Where were all the police and the fire engines? He skirted around the crowd, deciding to go around the other side of the building. The emergency services should have already got here by now, if only to reassure the shoppers.
It wasn’t a fire drill, that much Jefferson did know. Every staff member was supposed to escort the shoppers out of the building; they sure as hell didn’t lock them all in. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he repeated.
On a brighter note, it looked like all the shops in the town centre were about to receive some much needed custom. The crowd was already dispersing, leaving the charity worker leaning against the wall with only a couple of pigeons for company. He picked up the pace, in case the guy tried to collar him again.
What did that clown mean about people feeling weird when they got too close to the shutters? Did it mean anything, or was that guy making up rubbish so people would listen to him? Jefferson hurried past the huge window displays belonging to Martin’s Department Store, still unnerved by the complete lack of explanation to why the mall had just closed itself off from the rest of the town.
There should have been somebody around to explain what was going on. Indigo’s Furniture Store had another entrance at the back on the mall. Jefferson would try to get inside through there. He knew there wasn’t any shutters installed over those doors. He slowed his pace, and then stopped dead at the sight of another set of metal shutters over the furniture shop entrance.
“No, no way,” he said. He and David came through those doors this morning. Had they really installed a set of shutters in just over four hours? Jefferson walked over to them and placed his hand on the metal.
His anxiety melted away. Jefferson loved his job. He had great friends and was really happy with his life. He ought to see this as an unexpected holiday. Why not visit that library? Maybe he’d meet a pretty girl in there?
He snatched his hand off the shutter. “What the fuck was that?” he cried. It felt as though something had just melted the surface of his brain. Jefferson clamped his hand over his mouth, trying not to throw up. His handprint now stained the shutter. Through the shape, he saw what looked like glass. Despite his whole body suggesting otherwise, Jefferson put both hands on the shutter and pressed. Jefferson loved his job. He had great friends, and he was really—
He fell to his knees and bent over. Jefferson slammed his hands on the tiled floor and groaned as nausea slammed through his guts. He managed to open his eyes to find himself in the store’s lobby. Holding his hands against his stomach, Jefferson turned his head to find the automatic doors leading outside were wide open. He slowly got to his feet and burped, grimacing as the taste of that pasty filled his mouth.
Two young girls came into view. They stopped opposite him and stared, only they weren’t looking at him.
“Oh, it’s closed,” said the blonde girl.
Her companion swore before she took a lump of pink gum out of her mouth. Jefferson gaped in incredulity as it looked like she was about to give it to him. Instead, she pushed it against the fresh air. He saw the gum flatten out. It just stayed there, defying gravity, while the other girl let out a loud sigh.
“Fuck it, let’s go to McDonald’s then.”
The girls ran over the road, narrowly avoiding a speeding white van, leaving him standing there gazing at that piece of floating gum. He reached for it then stopped. Whatever was there had already made him feel like he’d dropped his guts into a cement mixer. Did he want to go through that again? Jefferson decided it wouldn’t be worth the pain.
He turned around and slowly walked into the furniture store.
If it wasn’t for his stomach behaving like he’d just spent the past few hours on a roller-coaster, Jefferson would feel pretty chilled. Better than he’d felt for weeks. Even the mall looking closed, or he’d just walked through a metal shutter, or seeing floating gum wasn’t dinting this weird high.
“I love my job,” he said, strolling through the empty showroom. “I have great friends.” He stopped to admire a corner bookcase, thinking it would look great in his bedroom. Jefferson was aware that something was seriously wrong here, that nobody was about, and the coffee table next to him had four deep scratches across the previously polished mahogany surface. There was also the small matter of that lake of blood by the till-point number one. Yet all Jefferson could think about was that he was really happy with his life.
The mall’s generic annoying music competed with this store’s own choice of classical. He found himself humming to Strauss while admiring a double bed. He was thinking he should still go to the library. Maybe he’ll meet a pretty girl in there.
Jefferson looked over at the entrance which led outside the mall, then at the mall concourse behind the till-points, and wiped away hot tears. “I love my job. I have great friends.” He dropped to his knees again, and this time, he did empty his guts across the tiles. He fell onto his side and rolled under the bed while thinking that someone had just detonated a grenade between his ears.
He screwed up his eyes, feverishly wishing that this weird nausea would leave him alone. What the hell had just happened to him? His thoughts were trapped in thick glue. His recent memory had separated into fragments, and no matter how hard he tried, they refuse to coalesce. His last reliable image was of sitting in some cafe while watching a pigeon crash into a building, then, pick itself up as if nothing had happened before pecking at the pavement in search of food. Even with his eyes shut, Jefferson could still hear it pecking away.
He snapped open his eyes, realising that the sound wasn’t in his head. He looked in confusion at bedsprings a
couple of inches from his nose before turning his head to the left. The question as to why he was lying under some bed flew out of his head when he saw some two-legged lizard with a long neck and tail pushing a lump of brown mush with its tiny head through a puddle of vomit.
It jerked its head up, fastened him with a brief stare, and let out a squawk before returning to its previous task. Was that a…? Jefferson couldn’t even bring himself to utter the name, but what else could it be? He did know that if David was here, he’d be able to tell him for sure. The lad was almost as obsessed with dinosaurs as he was with toy cars and Star Wars.
He thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar that Sandy had given to him at morning break. The rattling had already caught the attention of the little animal. It swallowed the brown lump first, and then slowly approached the bed, with its head bopping up and down. It took effort for him not to smile at its antics. The behaviour reminded Jefferson of the nodding dog that his dad had stuck on the back window of his car.
“You want some of this?” he asked, peeling back the wrapper. “Sure you do, little guy.”
It took one more step towards him then stopped, it froze.
“Come on, don’t be shy.” Jefferson dropped the chocolate and clamped his hand over his mouth, this time to muffle a shocked scream as a huge pair of jaws appeared from nowhere and clamped over the little dinosaur’s neck, snapping off the head. He shuffled back when those jaws lowered again and scooped up the rest of the corpse.
Jefferson kept his hand against his mouth, watching as his narrow view revealed some more of this new arrival’s body. A pair of thickly muscled legs, covered in dark red feathers, walked past the bed. They stopped beside that pool of vomit for a moment. He heard it gulping down its food before the creature moved over to the till-point. Jefferson found enough courage to move a little closer to the edge of the bed so he could get a better look.
There was no mistaking it, this one definitely shouldn’t exist anymore. He vividly recalled David going absolutely ape-shit after watching a certain dinosaur movie set in a park. He went on for weeks, banging on that raptors were feathered like birds. Jefferson telling the lad that it didn’t make any difference went through one ear and out of the other.
This was one of David’s feathered raptors, just metres from him, in the flesh and hungry for flesh. There was no doubt in him that if he had been on view, that collection of curved teeth would right now be chewing on his bones.
Jefferson poked his head out and watched it jump onto the roof of the showroom car before it ran onto the interior of the department store. He climbed out from under the bed and sat on the mattress. He gripped his knees and shook like a leaf while wondering if he was having some kind of mental breakdown.
“Come on, man. Get a grip on yourself,” he said, managing to stand without falling back on the bed. He fought the urge to crawl back underneath the bed. Jefferson waited until he was sure that the monster wasn’t going to run back out of that department store before he made his way over to the first till-point. He leaned on the counter and scanned the concourse, looking for any signs of movement. Human movements, that is. He had no fucking desire to run into another one of those carnivorous ostriches without the reassurance of a fucking shotgun in his hands. “What the fuck happened in here?”
Jefferson almost ran back to the bed when he heard a noise coming from directly behind this till-point. It took a second for him to realise that his ears had heard a quiet sob and not the sound of another freaky animal wanting to bite off his head.
He slowly leaned over the edge and clapped eyes upon a blonde-haired woman. Her blue eyes found his. She blinked. “Are you okay, miss?” he asked. It took him a moment to realise that he knew the woman. This was Janine Butler, the store’s assistant manager. She was almost unrecognisable under the tear-stained foundation, mascara, and blusher. Seeing someone who took so much effort over her appearance in this state was almost as shocking as finding he’d been dropped onto dinosaur island.
He walked around the edge of the counter and crouched directly in front of her. “Miss, it’s okay. That thing’s gone now. You’re safe.”
Janine let out another quiet sob before she launched herself at Jefferson and wrapped her arms around his body. He felt so awkward reciprocating her gesture, but when it became obvious that she was in no rush to let him go, Jefferson put his arms around her too.
“I, I thought I was the only one left,” she whispered. “I can’t tell you how good it is to find somebody else. That thing, the huge bird-thing. It came in here and ate Mr. Allinson.” She swallowed hard. “Oh God, I can still hear the sound of its teeth crunching through his head.” The woman looked up. “What’s going on?”
He let her go and stood, feeling his face reddening. Jefferson didn’t reply, deciding not to tell her that he was as clueless as her. Jefferson helped her up, he also decided that he’d keep the floating gum event to himself as well. “You’ve seen nobody else, Mrs. Butler?”
She shook her head. “Not since about eleven. It’s been a quiet day.”
He nodded. This store usually only attracted the browsers. Most of the stuff in here was too expensive. Alan told the gang that he went in here a couple of days ago, when his partner was after a new wardrobe. He still ended up buying a piece online. “What’s outside the store? I mean, like people walking past.” Jefferson took a couple of steps towards the concourse and stopped when the woman slipped her hand into his.
“Don’t, please. Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t leave, you, Mrs. Butler.”
“Janine. Call me Janine.”
“People, you were about to tell me about other people.”
The woman squeezed his hand. “I’m sorry. When that thing did that awful thing to Mr. Allinson, I ducked under here and didn’t move.” She gazed fearfully around. “Has it gone? I mean, it’s not hiding somewhere? The monster does that, you know. I saw a boy about your age rush in here. Just like you did. He must have thought he was safe in here. The monster leaped off the top of a bunk-bed and dragged him out of the shop. Are you sure you’re not going to leave me?”
Had she seen David? Oh God, please don’t let it be David. “So you haven’t tried to leave the shop?”
The woman sighed. “Hiding behind the counter wasn’t my first choice. I did try to escape, only somebody must have put the shutters down.”
“What shutters? The shop doesn’t have any.” Jefferson was about to add that is how he got in, then changed his mind. “It must have, otherwise I would be halfway to bleeding China by now. I love my job. I have great friends.”
Jefferson’s scrambled memory slotted back into place. He remembered placing his two hands on that shutter and finding himself in the store lobby, as well as repeating the same word that the woman had just uttered. Christ, just what the frig was going on in here? “Look, miss. I need to find my friends.” He looked over to the exit. “Believe me, there’s no shutter over those doors. All you have to do is close your eyes and walk through.” He pulled her fingers out of his hand. “Trust me on this. You’re safe now. That monster has gone.”
She forced her hand back and shook her head. “No, I’m not leaving you, mister. I’m going where you’re going.”
Jefferson reached into his pocket and pulled out his blue plastic box cutter. He slapped it on the counter. “In that case, we’re going to need something to use if that thing comes back, as I think that will be about as useful as a chocolate fireguard.”
The woman looked around the under the counter, pulling out plastic bags, and coat hangers. She then straightened her back and placed a craft knife in the palm of his hand. “That belongs to Mr. Allinson.”
Jefferson tried not to laugh at the sight of the very same type of craft knife that they sold in his shop. “It’s better than nothing, I guess.” He pushed out the blade. “Although it is still only one claw versus ten claws and a gobful of teeth. I doubt that dinosaur will be shaking in its boots.
”
“You mean that’s a dinosaur?”
“It isn’t a cat, honey.” David might not have been talking rubbish about that feathered dog after all. He pushed out the blade before sneaking out of the furniture shop. He crouched beside the pretzel stall and scanned the concourse, looking for signs of movement. The eatery and the group of shops where he and his mates worked were around the corner. To get there, the pair of them had to pass the department store. Right now, Jefferson wasn’t that keen on doing so, not after the woman had told him about the bunkbed incident.
He had seen enough wildlife documentaries to recognise an ambush predator when he saw one, and neither of them had been all that quiet. He could see those evil claws whipping out from behind that handbag stand and ripping the woman out of his grip as soon as they passed that shop.
“I don’t understand. How can it be a dinosaur? I thought that they all died out millions of years ago.”
“Mrs. Butler, do you have any children?”
“Yes. I have two boys a bit younger than you. Why do you ask?”
“What did you used to say to them when they were about five and kept asking you stupid questions?”
“Sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” He took a handkerchief out of his back pocket. “Here, you go, Mrs. Butler. I mean, Janine.”
She took it out of his hand. “Thank you.”
He knew it wasn’t the only dinosaur, at least didn’t used to be the only one. Meaning, how many more of them were they in the mall? And how many more of them stood between him and his friends? He looked down at the knife in his hand then across at the sporting goods shop opposite him. “Come on, Janine.”