by Josh Lanyon
An odor accosted me, and not the usual musk of mold, dust, must, age, poop, and neglect.
Piper’s voice sounded muffled, “What the what?” She’d stretched her shirt over her nose. “That’s disgusting.”
I gasped, “Assume dead rats.”
“Dead something,” she gulped. “Dougie could have warned us.”
“Now where’s the fun in that?”
Jonah swallowed thickly and nudged me. “Come on. Keep moving.”
One second we were halfway along the murky corridor, picking a path around a mound of decrepit insulation, and the next? A gentle, luminous pathway kindled, beckoning us to the very heart of the mall.
Orbs of light were hidden everywhere—in the belly of some stores, or perched birdlike on railings, or crammed beneath piles of rubble. Dougie had carefully crafted a surreal, postapocalyptic landscape with glowing LEDs. A course lay before us of gloomy light and contrasting, tricky shadow. We could easily obscure or reveal ourselves at any moment.
We were players in a live video game. Although some of my friends were NPCs at best.
I whistled. “Wow. He totally outdid himself. Good job, Dougie.”
Jonah nodded, a smile creasing his eyes. “Agreed. Holy shit. This is amazing.”
A few real stars twinkled through some missing panels in the atrium, and from a distance, water dripped.
We wasted a few more precious moments enjoying the view. We could at last see shards of glistening broken glass on the tile and the rusted garage doors shuttering many of the shops. Our voices seemed less intrusive here, a false sense of security in the presence of light. Jonah spoke at a comfortable, if hushed, volume. “Okay. How do we want to do this?”
Piper stuffed our blue flag in her back pocket. “I know you want to get rid of me so you can make—”
“We can split up,” I cut in.
“—out.” Piper blinked innocently at me, and I glared.
What the hell, Piper? I mean, other than texting her that exact message earlier—that I wanted five seconds alone with Jonah to make a move, because if I’d misread him and things turned uncomfortable, at least we could keep playing and salvage the moment. Act like it never happened, she coached me. Works for me all the time.
Seriously. Piper had zero chill.
She offered her plan. “Look. I think we should just pass the flag between us and not use the base at all. We can take turns scouting, hunting, and running interference.” She added with unnecessary drama, “Let’s carry the prize with us. I’ll take the mezzanine.”
Jonah rolled his eyes but kept mum. Either he didn’t have an opinion about our strategy, or he was letting me decide. That was kind of nice.
This wasn’t our team’s first rodeo, and spending the evening running circles around each other would take mental energy away from my plan to lure Jonah into a private niche and, as Piper said less delicately, see what was what. “We’ve tried the carry-it-with-you approach before. Not a successful strategy, in my opinion. We have to have a base to return to.”
“Don’t be so predictable, Tommy,” she said. “Maybe it didn’t work in a warehouse or strip mall or your apartment complex or whatever, but this place is enormous. Roll the dice. We can do it. I’ll be the base. A moving target.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jonah nodded his consent, maybe because we’d been waiting around so long earlier, he was tired of it, or he didn’t have a better idea, so I guess I agreed too.
“Fine.”
We had a plan. A bad one, but it was ours and we’d stick to it.
Mission decided, we were off. Jonah led, with me close, and Piper as sweep.
We took about twenty focused, game-faced steps when something skittered on the second floor directly above us. A stone or pebble or more likely a fragment of glass. A real noise, though, so when it faded, the quiet rang hollow.
I craned to detect movement on the mezzanine while still keeping from sight. Possibly, Team Red had crossed back to our side. It felt like not enough time had passed for them to get all the way across the mall and back, so maybe someone had lingered. Maybe they’d sent a spy. Or maybe they’d adopted the same strategy—i.e., the bad plan—we had.
Could be a rat. Or a bat.
Whichever, we carried on.
Jonah chose our path, weaving through patches of deep-purple shadow and skirting islands of unnaturally white light.
He was a tall guy, slightly taller than me—a fact I rather preferred. Sure-footed and graceful for his height, he leaped a low brick wall near a former sunken seating area, his sneakers finding purchase with ease, and we followed him, up and over. A trio of gazelles.
My mind wandered, and I allowed myself the luxury of scoping him out. I didn’t mean to cross the line taking note, but he had a world-class ass, and I knew this was probably a disastrous attraction.
We were friends, best friends in a lot of ways. Only, recently, my interest in him had turned, well, carnal. One day he’d been Jonah. Someone I gamed with and had beer with and sat with at lunch. Then, a few weeks ago, the blinders had come off.
There’d been a scuffle in the hallway as a couple of testosterone-fueled boys did what they do—swung at each other and called each other useless names. A bunch of students snapped them, and Jonah stepped in, snagged those dumbasses by the scruffs of their necks, got all the phones put away, and somehow talked the kids down. He had them shake hands without threatening punishment, or breaking any laws, or getting roasted on Twitter for disobeying school policy, or having any parents show up.
I’m not sure I could have managed the situation at all, let alone as well. The kids liked me, sure, I’m cool, but they didn’t respect me like they did Jonah. Most of us who worked for the school system were reluctant to respond. Not because we didn’t care, we absolutely did, but because we were afraid.
Seriously. The incident had been an eye-opener for me in more ways than one.
So an hour later, into the teachers’ lounge strolled Jonah, looking to me like a snack, bearing an actual snack—a bag of Taco Bell. The clouds parted. The sun came out. I was hydrated and refreshed by an illuminated Jonah. Not the friend, or the teacher, but the man. The available, attractive, smart, funny, hard-working, athletic, tough as nails, take no shit, hard as a rock, capital M for man.
Woof.
So yeah, I took note of the burrito-bearing hot teacher, and now when he spoke, I really tuned in. He told a joke, I laughed a little too hard. He texted, I sent a fucking smiley-face emoji. Kill me. I’d officially become a thirsty seventh grader.
Did he feel the same way? I thought so. I mean, I really did, no kidding. I paid attention lately, and I noticed small things. Even so, hooking up with a random dude who swiped right on an empty Thursday night was one thing, and far too easy; hooking up with your closest friend had long-term consequences, and usually life sucked when the thing ended.
I tried not to overthink. Meaning, I wasted precious moments reflecting on bullshit I couldn’t change, or do anything about, or had answers for, when I should have been paying attention to my surroundings. The he likes me, he likes me not solved nothing.
I splashed through a puddle, following the herd, and despite all that worried thinking, I appreciated the hindquarters of a certain, well-muscled buck. Point of fact, I couldn’t change how I felt. I liked him. I was an idiot.
Probably, I missed something vital along the way as we loped ahead.
Since the weakest link is usually the first to be eliminated, I dragged my attention back to the game. Losing is not hot. Plus, my feet were starting to get soaked.
The corridor opened to the main hallway.
Hallway? More like a major thoroughfare, bisected with a series of fat, long, low-walled planters and cluttered with more toppled kiosks.
However, an indoor forest benefited from Dougie’s well-spaced lights. Mall trees thrived inside Parkway, despite the conditions. Full and leafy, they were lit from below, so long, thick, shadowy branches stretche
d armlike toward the skylights. A line of hands reaching for freedom.
Roots snaked over container walls to a shallow, life-giving pond.
Our progress grew slick, our shoes squelching as we avoided as much water as possible.
We slipped along, bearing to the left at the T. There were probably a billion mosquitoes inside the mall during summer. Dengue. Malaria. Zika. Yellow fever. Fortunately, the water was ice-cold in early May.
Fewer LEDs shone from the second level as we closed in on the neutral zone. I wondered if Dougie meant to encourage or discourage players from climbing to the top, but those haunted shadows were a temptation. No getting around it. One of us would need to scout.
I knew exactly who.
We halted at the juncture, and I motioned for Piper to take the upper deck, not to get rid of her, not really. Jonah gave her an encouraging nod and thumbs-up, and I fought to maintain an innocent expression.
She rolled her eyes, made an obscene gesture with her fingers, and scampered soundlessly to the decrepit escalator, climbing with our flag—again, a stupid gamble.
Damn, that player moved fast, and I trusted her. Piper possessed rare athletic skills and laser-like focus after spending her childhood as an elite gymnast. She loved our games now because she’d never been permitted to play them as a kid, and she was easily as good as yours truly.
When she vanished from view, Jonah grinned boyishly at me for a full second, and I was a little nonplussed. His hoodie fell back, revealing shorn, dark hair and the strong planes of his handsome, devilish face. Brown eyes, square jaw, straight nose, butter-soft lips, slightly pointy ears.
Call me a goner.
With no warning, he snagged my hand. Just flipping reached out and took hold of me as if he wanted to lead me somewhere, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember if he’d ever actually touched me before. Like, skin to skin.
But that touch thrilled me, which sounds dorky and juvenile and queer, but I am all those things, so what do you know? I lit up. Like a fucking Christmas tree. I mean, he instantly charged my entire body with jolting electricity, his touch that powerful. That sexual. That intense.
Shocking and exciting and unlike anything I’d felt before. As if an actual electrical current zapped my central nervous system, hot-wiring me. From his hand to mine, up to my neck, down to my chest, and coursing way, way lower. Jonah ignited areas of my person not generally activated for gaming. Everything woke up, and at the same time, he fried all relevant thoughts from my mind.
I blinked at our joined hands, and his fingers curled tight, sealing our palms.
Oh, man. I thought I’d be the aggressor. Nope. No.
My gaze met his, and his smile turned sexy, bold, and mischievous.
I was fucking hypnotized. What game? Where? Who? Huh? Although for a second I did ask myself why had I taken so long to even notice him.
Clearly, he’d noticed me.
Go Tommy.
Jonah tugged me under a wide gap beneath the escalator. A nook. A fucking make-out nook right there, nestled within Dougie’s fancy light show, in the crud-filled Parkway Mall. I didn’t want to be too eager, but my dick homed in on Jonah, hard and reaching and absolutely inappropriate.
Heart hammering, mouth dry, zero resistance as he palmed my neck, whispering against the shell of my ear, “You ready, Tommy? I’ve been waiting forever for this.”
Oh my Jesus, yes, holy shit beans.
“Forever?”
“You have no idea. Took you long enough.” He nibbled my neck, and I groaned. No kidding. I hoped Piper couldn’t hear me, and wasn’t watching, and fuck it, who cared? His lips fluttered softly, and he murmured, “Open your mouth.”
I did, and he pressed, tender and sweet, and totally removing any questions I had about my own intentions for later—yes, fuck yes. We were so doing it.
I kissed him, full tilt. No holding back, my palm snaking to grip him, and I took charge, pushing until his back met the wall, hard. I tipped his jaw and dipped my tongue deep. Licking into him. He was the one moaning now. Right freaking on. I lapped into his mouth, tongues swirling, and a noise rang from somewhere above and beyond our nook. A voice echoed around the bend, and Jonah and I jolted apart, dicks hard, breath ragged, stunned.
He grinned sheepishly at me, and I’m sure my expression mirrored his. We were blinking and listening and smiling and shuffling our feet, and I had to sort of tuck a certain overeager appendage back into a less obvious position. All said, at the very onset of our evening, I was smiling like a fucking clown and way ahead of schedule. Booyah.
Jonah turned, ready to go. “You think they have Piper?”
I nearly asked, Piper who? Honestly. “Maybe, but I don’t think they’d nab her this fast.” She was too sly and way too athletic for Chris and Vinnie—although Vinnie had a long reach, and his ability to climb outmatched most of us. Not me, of course.
I followed Jonah from under the escalator, skirting branches and checking doorways and tiptoeing around broken glass and skating puddles, grinning foolishly the entire time. My heart pumped as we came to the widest open area in the mall. Man. What a time to be alive. I flipping sparked with joy and hope and this crazy blossoming feeling for Jonah.
He’d kissed me.
We stopped under the mezzanine and assessed the route ahead.
A crumbling, stucco fountain marked the epicenter of Parkway Mall, a light burning within its topmost basin. This one cast a different sort of shadow, making everything flicker. A trick of the wide, voluminous space and the three-story, vaulted ceiling, perhaps. Or they weren’t the same lights. Dougie may have gotten crafty.
A tumbled retaining wall ringed the dry fountain, and far to the right, near the old arcade, a ghostly carousel marked the bend to the food court. The rendezvous.
To the left of the fountain stood an information desk, currently lacking any authority, and next to that, one of those freestanding mall directory stations. Together, they perfectly blocked the sightline, and beyond them lay an inaccessible main entrance. The other less formal entrances were locked within the anchor stores.
Stars twinkled from the naked sky, the clouds having blown past. From every direction came the soft, arbitrary ploink, ploink, ploink of water dripping into puddles. The air felt cooler, but the view no less magical.
I scanned the mezzanine briefly; still no sign of anyone. The bad smell tickled my nose again, not as strong as when we first entered, yet lingering, its origin unclear. Jonah must have caught a whiff as well because his nose crinkled.
Making him even more attractive.
Jonah pointed to Red Territory ahead. An elevator hid their hallway. No hint where to find those a-holes, which meant they’d split up (which was appropriate) and had probably secured the base for their flag on the second level, near a balcony. That’s what Dougie would do. Tighter control, better vantage point, easier to defend, textbook gaming. When a strategy proved successful, he didn’t deviate.
I assumed someone would show his or her face soon enough, most likely along the open, multilevel staircase, or they’d drop down from above, all Mission Impossible-like and cool. Intervals of wide gaps were visible in the balcony railing, the ruined remains of twisted metal littering the tile around me.
Piper surely watched from up top, where at least one enemy lurked. Because Chris had a history of impulsive behavior, I assumed he had called out, moving the game along, or just being overly excited. I didn’t see him either. No one.
Jonah turned and smiled. He tugged his hood back up, and presto chango, he turned into an ambiguous ninja. He gestured toward the elevator, obviously jacked for crossing the center of the mall and scaling that decrepit tower. He winked, my heart raced childishly, and he darted ahead, target locked. He moved with real beauty at a beastly clip, smoothly broad-jumping a pile of mall flotsam and landing deep in a stabilizing, athletic squat.
I remained under the lip of the mezzanine, hidden from view, waiting my turn. I checked again for Pipe
r—
And a whirly gray blur fell fast and furiously, knocking me flat on my back and nailing me to the floor.
Run
My skull cracked on the floor, stars exploded behind my eyeballs, and a wicked, resonant clanging hollowed my head and loosened my fillings. In that split second, right before the world ended, I figured either the light flashing before me was a massive overhead fixture coming to life, flooding the building, and falling smack on my head, or the welcoming glow of the afterlife greeting me. Or both.
Either way, I was fucked.
I woke up, cold, blinking as the night sky twinkled through a broken skylight, and struggling to remember what the hell. Mall. Parkway. Game. Jonah.
One second I’d crouched confidently like a dope-ass, Parkour ninja ready to hoist myself catlike to the balcony and impress the fuck out of Jonah, and the next? I’d been knocked stupid, that spectacular starburst inside my head actually a billion brain cells incinerating.
Things appeared more threatening and less of a good time from my new position, particularly in that section of broken balcony where shadows prickled with movement.
Assessment. Pressure on my chest and a probable, mild concussion.
Maybe. I didn’t know. Hard to evaluate oneself after being knocked stupid and having virtually no medical training. I mean, yes, I could get by in a pinch, but I wasn’t the EMT. That shit fell under Vinnie and Jonah’s jurisdiction. I could treat shin splits, sprained ankles, and save someone from choking on a hotdog, or overdosing on narcotics, or staunch the bleeding in the case of gunshot. That was about all the first-aid training our school system could afford.
But something heavy definitely pinned me like a bug to the ground. Draped over my upper chest and shoulders like a—
Jesus.
Like a body.
Like an adult human body.
My world tilted, and I shimmied to free myself, not sure if I was dealing with someone dead or unconscious or something else. Was there something else? He didn’t move, at all, and I couldn’t sense him breathing.