by Josh Lanyon
I assumed dead.
And because my arms were trapped and I was out-to-freaking-lunch, I didn’t gain any immediate ground. I didn’t utter a sound either, because I’d had plenty of practice keeping silent when all hell broke loose. We were trained for that at work.
Shit. Where was Jonah?
The dude twitched back to life—and yes, a dude because I recognize a man when one is lying on top of me. Please.
He arched, and I completely, albeit silently, lost my caca.
Why did it matter more to me that he moved? I don’t know. I wasn’t rational. I’d blacked out. So yeah, I was relieved he wasn’t dead, but oh my God, the situation became a little too real as he shimmied and bucked and humped on top of me, kneeing me in the ribs and elbowing my jaw and suddenly quite fucking alive, thank you very much—except, here’s the weird thing: he remained silent too. Ghoulishly quiet. The only sound I heard was his breath sawing as he tried to roll over my hips.
Where the eff was Jonah? I couldn’t see him anywhere. Maybe he’d been clobbered too. Maybe there were bodies dropping from the ceiling all around us, squishing people and nailing them to the floor, and we were all going to die under a terrible pile of rotting corpses and become fodder for the zombie apocalypse.
That would certainly explain the smell.
The thought propelled me into action and clarity. I was Tommy fucking Cline, and I worked out. I was strong and capable and was, at last, completely coherent. I shoved the shit out of that blue-sweatshirt-clad dude, launching him into the air, off and up and away from me, and Jonah materialized—where the hell had he been?—as I jettisoned to my feet and the guy landed with a splat.
Holy motherfucking shit. Holy shit.
I tried to process everything at once, but nothing made sense. None of us said anything. Not me. Not Jonah, who had a trickle of blood on his cheek and stared at the ground, wearing the same look of confusion as me. And not the dude, who inch-wormed toward the elevator, hands bound behind his back with a cable tie, ankles duct-taped together, head covered in a black sack.
Not a grunt or a whimper or a moan. I mean, come on. Obviously, he’d been someone’s prisoner. A runaway prisoner. What other explanation could there be?
Unless another, simultaneous game was running inside the mall, and this guy was a player. But if that were the case, they were super fucked up. What was he supposed to do? Houdini himself to safety? Writhe across a finish line?
I realized that technically, we weren’t in the mall legally either, sure, but we also weren’t looking for trouble. We weren’t vandals or delinquents or criminals or meth cooks or fucking weirdos, trespassing aside. We were legit playing a harmless game. Just a group of friends blowing off steam.
So Jonah gaped at the guy, and I gaped at Jonah, who must have been halfway up the elevator shaft before he realized I hadn’t followed him. That’s why he’d taken so long to assist me.
One of us should have said something. Man down. Help. Are you okay? Run. What the fuck? Oh my God. Something.
Instead, the moment elongated, and other than the sound of droplets splashing into puddles, there was a peculiar nothingness inside the building. The air around us thinned with expectation, the silence amplified by the simple noise of our breathing. I didn’t dare speak. The wrong ears might hear.
The stranger quit inch-worming and slumped, chest to the ground, knees tucked under his hips, forehead to the floor. With his elbows bent and his hands fastened at his back, he presented a chillingly accurate impersonation of a man ready for execution.
He wasn’t one of us. Not by a long shot. Not only would no one have had the time to truss one of our friends and send him on his way in the last twenty minutes, and Jesus, why would anyone? This guy wore light-gray joggers, the short kind with the elastic ankle thing—indicating he wanted to be Drake or someone—and a Hofstra sweatshirt in that particular shade of blue, although his was splattered with black across the left shoulder. He also sported the cleanest, whitest Adidas I’d ever seen. Worn to be seen and not to actually use in real life. Inside shoes.
What was a tidy little poser like him doing inside this dead mall? Not to mention, trussed and blindfolded.
Jonah mouthed, “What the fuck?” and I shrugged, not in an asshole or dismissive way, but because I had no fuck to what.
And where were our people? Why hadn’t we seen anyone? We should be hearing Chris laugh, or Piper check in, or footsteps running on the tile. We should be chasing each other and calling each other names. Vaulting over railings and scaling walls. Engaging.
Adrenaline usually got the better of Chris because he’s a third grader, and he’d taunt us from afar. I would swear that had been his woot of excitement earlier.
Someone must have heard the guy land on me. That couldn’t have been quiet. It definitely rang my bell. Piper would have come to investigate. We weren’t playing hide-and-seek, for crap’s sake. So where were they?
I scanned the second floor and, no surprise, nothing.
While I wasted precious time pondering the same questions and flipping out and accomplishing nothing—blame the probable concussion for my lack of dynamic, decisive, masculine action and for the general standing around with my thumb up my ass—Jonah motioned to the mezzanine. He was asking about Piper. Had I seen her?
A bit late on that. I shook my head, which hurt, and shrugged again, pointing insistently to my cheek. Blood trickled from a spot where he’d been clocked by something. Hopefully, he was up-to-date on his tetanus.
Tight-lipped, Jonah swiped at his wound, leaving a smudge of red. He cleaned his hand on his pants, action-hero style, and went to assist the new guy. That was the correct, adult response, and I was damn grateful someone followed protocol.
The bound guy must have sensed Jonah coming because his knees straightened and he flung himself to his feet, landing smartly. It took a nanosecond for him to regain his balance. I mean, Russian acrobats had nothing on that guy.
With the element of surprise on his side, he was poised to…what? Face danger head-on and upright? All right, I could respect that. But what could he actually do to us? How could he possibly protect himself? Headbutt us?
Jonah observed from a safe distance, his expression inscrutable.
This new guy turned out to be fairly short, built no larger than Piper, and more reedy than compact. He hesitated, I guess to see if he was fucked or not, as a tight circle of cloth disappeared inside his mouth when he inhaled and bubbled on his exhale.
I checked the second floor again, where lights lent their eerie glow and shadows felt taller, more foreboding. Somewhere—and presumably within the mall—someone would come looking for this guy, and soon.
When whoever didn’t find him exactly where they’d left him, bad things would happen. Prisoner situations never turn into happily ever afters.
We should head back, I motioned to Jonah, and he shook his head. He pointed again to the second floor. Did he want to investigate? See where the guy had come from? Or find Piper? Those options seemed irrationally dangerous, and since Jonah was neither, I realized he wanted to corral the group. Game over. Blow the whistle and get the fuck out of Dodge.
Drip, drip, drip, dripdripdrip, drip.
But Jonah didn’t move. He didn’t untie the guy. And he didn’t blow his whistle. Instead, he appeared thoughtful.
It was officially my turn to take action. I went to uncover the guy’s face, and again, he sensed movement and ducked. Seriously. Folded in half at the waist as I reached to help him, the guy moving like Obi-Wan flipping Kenobi.
Or he could see through the hood. There was that second possibility, which explained why he’d been hopping hopefully around on the upper deck, blindfolded. He wasn’t completely blind.
He stilled and sort of acquiesced, leaning in, so it took barely a moment to remove the thin polyester bag someone had loosely tied at his throat. A pale, goat-bearded kid with razor-shorn, white-blond hair emerged, squinting warily.
; A teenager. No kidding. A fey twerp with a fat neck tat—XANAX—in gothic style that shrieked: tries too hard, middle-class white kid.
He’d have been less obviously lame with thug life tattooed across his forehead. He looked exactly like the kind of weasel who regularly got roughed up and left for dead, and I briefly wondered if he’d done something to deserve his circumstances.
Which smacked of victim blaming, and I knew better. Knew better and still, I struggled.
I pocketed the hood, maybe to be used as evidence or something later, and he assessed us. What he made of two adult strangers in matching mud-colored hoodies saving his ass, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I had his number, and this kid was trouble.
Unfair? Not really. I spent my days working with teenagers. I may act like one half the time, but I’m not one, and sadly, I knew this kid. He’d probably been in and out of juvie already, and his mother cried herself to sleep every single night while hiding her purse and locking the medicine cabinet and asking herself what she could have done differently.
Xanax. He was a walking cliché.
No doubt he’d caught himself up in something foul, and we’d accidentally stepped in it.
Drug-connect being my first, Mac-Miller-influenced guess. Mob hit ran a close Netflix-inspired second. Maybe he’d pissed off a gangbanger. Maybe he was meeting his Oxy dealer. Maybe he was his own Jesse Pinkman and had been double-crossed cooking meth or stealing cars or turning tricks. I didn’t know. Maybe I spent too much time watching Amazon Prime.
I knew this: I didn’t need to get involved with this kid or know his personal backstory to help him right now. Knowledge wouldn’t change my impulse to flee this place tout suite and drag his skinny ass with me to safety, because it’s my job to protect kids, even the ones I didn’t particularly like. I didn’t have to be his life coach after setting him free. I just needed to be an adult he could count on.
I could be that.
Something flickered behind the elevator shaft, high on the second floor. A shadow or trick of light or maybe a ghost after all, and then it instantly dissipated.
The need to find cover choked me. I motioned to Jonah, but he watched the teenager, whose gaze swept the opposite mezzanine. The kid’s nostrils were crusted with blood, and he sported a juicy, puffy lip and a terrified look.
Again, I was struck by all the normal things he hadn’t done. Asked for help, warned us of impending danger, thanked us, grunted, encouraged us to run and hide. Spoken a single word.
Jonah tapped my arm and signaled we should leave, his fingers fleeing rapidly on air before he pointed back toward the entrance. I gave him a thumbs-up. Right on. Aye, aye, Captain. Yes, sir. Let’s go.
As soon as we untied the kid.
Christ on a fucking cracker, the kid hopped to Jonah, his super-sweet kicks crunching debris, louder than someone eating potato chips inside a vacuum, and we all cringed. I snagged him by his sweatshirt, spun him, and he wriggled his wrists at me. I just needed my pocketknife to slice through—
Jonah snicked the bindings; cable tie first, and then bent to saw through the duct tape, the going less quick, the sound reverberating to the atrium. He moved efficiently, but we were making hella noise, and the guy placed a finger to his lips, eyes round and darting all over the place. What could we do? We couldn’t carry him, and we couldn’t move any faster. We just had to practice patience.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a breath, keeping watch on both the upper deck and the lower as Jonah took what seemed like for-fucking-ever. When he finished and straightened from his task, his questioning gaze landed on me. He mouthed, “You—”
A crack cut the air.
Pebbles sprayed from the defunct fountain, raining into the lower basin, and pinged onto the tile.
I knocked the kid down and ducked, arms shielding my head.
Some motherfucker had shot at us.
Actual bullets.
I play enough video games and watch enough media to recognize live ammo being fired at me. Also, a shell hit the ground, and the sound was unmistakable in real life, real time. I didn’t turn to look. I grabbed that kid by the scruff of his sweatshirt and sprang toward cover.
Another crack, a zipping sound, Jesus fucking Christ, another shell clinking to the tile, and I circumvented the information counter, breaking every track record in the state. Jonah shoved me to the right with a palm to my shoulder, and I careened out of the line of fire.
Zigzag. You twit. That’s what they’d taught us. Our new friend—the Xani kid—had obviously read the same pamphlet and attended an equally informative active-shooter drill. Of course he had. He zagged with us, his shiny new sneakers squeaking with effort.
Another shot, this one life alteringly close, and my heart ricocheted into my ribs, fear propelling me into light speed.
The time with Jonah had officially morphed from weird to fun to sexy to weird again, and now to a flat-out disaster in less than an hour.
I had no plan for anyone to die tonight, myself included, so I leaped an overturned kiosk, and the three of us raced into a side corridor, one Dougie had specifically marked off-limits. This hallway was polar opposite to where we wanted to be, and half the goddamn shops were barred, the metal gates drawn, or the storefronts were blocked with debris. Or worse, they were wide open, having no doors at all, and looked like giant animal pens, or they were chosen by Dougie specifically for ambiance and provided no refuge.
We lacked options as we churned through a thin lake of water, splashing like fucking hippos. I nearly took all of us down pivoting to tail Jonah, who headed for a cluttered but passable gate. He shouldered noisily through, shimmying between bent sections of twisted metal, causing them to warp and whine in protest. The noise echoed along the empty corridor. Womp, womp, womp, screech.
He scissored inside, and if he could fit, so could we. I was at his back, trying and failing to keep the racket to a minimum, the kid on my heels as we advertised our location with the volume set at eleven.
We entered a jewelry store. Maybe. Could have been a Claire’s or a knock-off knickknack shop, or a Hallmark store, or a fancy beauty boutique. Who knew? The signage was gone, and there was no merch left, and I didn’t actually give a fuck.
Murky light revealed a square of ruined display cases in the center of the narrow room. Twisted fixtures vomited wire and debris from the ceiling, and more glass cases lined the shop. Wall-to-wall, a carpet of diamond-like shards waited.
It was like American Ninja Warrior, only the course could cut you to ribbons.
Jonah Jackie-Chan-ed over a display case, fearless, and crouched for cover.
Too bad there was none to be had.
A noise. Another clang from somewhere, followed by a pop of gunfire. This shot farther away, and I wondered why the gunfire was spaced so far apart. Saving ammunition? Reloading? Sounded like a Glock or a semiautomatic of its equal, so probably the user was taking his time to line up shots from the second story, down toward us. Thank God he appeared to have shit aim.
We weren’t being followed as far as I could tell, which was good news because there was no question where we were hiding. Panic underpinned any relief I might have felt. I kept moving, gingerly dodging another stalactite made from electrical wire and rancid insulation. The kid whipped by me, sprinting into a pitch-black rectangle halfway along the back wall, mindless of the glass under his feet. He didn’t slow, just fled point-blank into the hidey-hole.
Maybe he’d found a storeroom or back office or a walk-in safe—a notion I found nauseatingly final. Getting locked inside a safe was a fear straight out of my worst nightmare, and again, I watch way too many movies.
One second I saw the kid, the next a shadow swallowed him. With all the shit hanging from the ceiling, at least the hiding spot wasn’t visible from the entrance. Our best and only option was to join the kid. So I did, entering a small, unfurnished, boxlike room, which, I’m relieved to tell you, wasn’t a safe, but felt like a coffin nonetheless.
I caught my breath, mind reeling, head sore, heart exploding, and Jonah sailed in behind me, taking every bit of air from the room. He gripped the doorway, tense and focused, game face on. Only, this wasn’t a game. And his cheek was marked with blood.
Holy shit. Someone had shot at us.
Okay, yes. Not new information. Check. I was used to paintball and airsoft, not live ammo directed at me, and believe me, I am well versed in the games friends play where they can safely shoot each other, and the ones they play when they can’t. My dad had been big on guns, real guns, and I knew how to break down a weapon and fire one safely. I’d learned from him that real bullets were no fucking joke, and you don’t ever point a weapon at a person unless it’s in self-defense. Or you’re knocking over a liquor store.
That last part was a really poor attempt at breaking the tension because, man, I was tense.
My dad had been dead serious about firearms, and both my sister and I had been taught to shoot. These shots were well spaced, and the popping sound muted. Whoever fired at us had used a suppressor, maybe homemade, which didn’t actually silence a shot, only, you know, suppressed it. Otherwise the sound of firecrackers would have echoed through the entire mall.
Who the hell uses a silencer anyway? Quentin fucking Tarantino? Why would anyone need one when there wasn’t a person or a car for half a mile as the crow flies? We were deep inside a building. Okay, the skylights had partially caved in and sound did carry on the wind or whatever, but there was nothing out here along Highway 21. No one.
It stood to reason that someone wanted to terrify the kid. A silencer is a fear tactic. That’s why you see them in movies. They’re used for dramatic effect. You see one and you know someone’s about to get iced. Execution style. And that someone is probably going to be you.
Great.
I motioned to Jonah, whose eyes shimmered intensely as he kept watch. Thank God some small light reached us in the back room. His gaze moved from the gloomy shop entrance to me. We stood inches apart, and when his hand brushed mine, our fingers touched, then laced. “You okay?” he mouthed, searching my face, and I nodded. “Yeah. You?”