Carousel (12 page)

I swore silently. It had to be the hunting knife. Taylor
edged it aside, packed in the light and handed me the bag without saying anything.

‘All set, Rocky?' she asked.

He nodded tiredly and followed us back up the ramp. I took a final glance at the Fiesta. It glinted dully and then was lost from view.

Lizzy seemed uninterested in our attempts on the door. She simply stood up and led us back into the centre.

I think we were all a little relieved. Taylor and Lizzy sat through a bunch of
Gossip Girl
, with Rocky looking on, feigning boredom even though he was clearly into it. I made us some packet mash potato with gravy, and heated some frozen garlic bread. A huge carbo load but one of our favourite meals.

Late in the afternoon Taylor returned from her bathroom, sat down and rubbed her temples.

‘What?' asked Lizzy.

Taylor was still for a moment, then took her hands away. She was pale and looked like she was trying to remember something. All three of us watched her.

‘Taylor?' asked Lizzy.

‘A cubicle in my bathroom was de-gnomed. While we were in the car park.'

I went cold.

‘Are you sure it was gnomed when we left?' I asked. Taylor looked at me. She was.

‘Shit. Shit. Shit,' whispered Lizzy in a kind of anxious daze.

‘What do we do about this? I mean, somebody is in here with us, right?' said Taylor.

I kept quiet.

‘Why wouldn't they come and talk to us?' asked Lizzy.

‘They're obviously not the making-friends-in-empty-malls type,' said Taylor.

‘It's just one door. The other one was an accident. Do we really want to turn this into something dramatic?' replied Lizzy.

The lump of guilt in my stomach rose into my throat.

‘I think they did my bathroom, too,' I said, looking down.

Taylor and Lizzy stared at me.

‘You think?' asked Taylor.

‘It could have been me. I'm pretty out of it in the morning.' I copped out.

‘When was this?' asked Lizzy.

‘A few weeks ago. Sorry.' I said.

I looked up at them and was scared as hell that they would hate me forever.

‘I thought it would just freak everyone out so I didn't say anything. But now it makes sense.'

‘The knife,' said Taylor softly.

I looked at her but she turned away from me. Lizzy seemed confused but gave me a tiny, sympathetic smile.

I looked across the couch and realised that Rocky was with us. These weren't the type of conversations we normally had when he was around.

‘They de-gnomed my bathroom, and Nox's,' said Taylor, thinking it over.

‘And Lizzy's,' said Rocky, abruptly.

We looked at him.

‘That was you, Rocky. Remember?' said Taylor soothingly.

Rocky shook his head. We all watched him.

‘I used the toilet next door. Forgot to gnome the door in there,' he said.

‘Oh my god,' said Lizzy.

I suddenly remembered him lingering weirdly outside the adjacent bathroom as we went back into Lizzy's bathroom.

‘You didn't say anything,' said Taylor.

Rocky dropped his head.

‘Did you get confused, Rock?' I asked.

He nodded.

‘How come we didn't see this when we were cleaning?' asked Lizzy to nobody in particular.

‘I gnomed it again in the night,' said Rocky.

‘Holy shit, Rocky. You gotta stop creeping around the place in those giant boots,' said Lizzy.

It was funny as hell but none of us dared to laugh. Rocky kept his head down. We were silent while Leighton Meester chirped away on the TV.

‘We need to find the security office,' said Rocky.

None of us followed.

‘Watch the screens to see who is moving around,' he continued.

‘Rocky. That's awesome,' said Taylor genuinely.

And it was. Shoplifting was rife in Carousel. There were cameras everywhere.

‘Didn't we look for that already?' asked Lizzy.

‘Yeah, but it's got to be here somewhere,' I said. ‘Have you guys seen anything while you're working on the doors?' I asked Taylor.

It felt good to ask her something. Like I was out of the woods.

‘There are some rooms we could check out. But it's pretty vague,' she replied.

‘Somewhere on the perimeter,' said Rocky. ‘So they can come late at night and check on the car parks,' he finished.

We nodded. This made total sense and narrowed the search significantly.

‘It's got to be in the south, right?' said Lizzy. ‘All the perimeter stores in the north are boutiques. The east is boarded by that car park. And the west is the dome.'

Taylor and I nodded. None of us seemed to have anything else to say. In the morning we would search the south end for the security office. If we could find it then Carousel's mystery fifth inhabitant might be revealed. I looked over at Rocky to give him a nod or something that said good job and sorry we all accused you of being a demented freak. He was back watching
Gossip Girl
.

We made an unspoken decision to remain in JB's until morning. Shit was going down in Carousel and nobody seemed keen for any more right away. Taylor curled up on the couch with a blanket. Rocky didn't move. I shuffled over to the gaming couch with a sleeping bag and some chocolate bullets. Lizzy picked up a guitar.

She thumbed softly through some songs from
Holy Noise
and
The Quell
on a beanbag amid the DVDs. It was gentle and only for herself. I turned over and listened the best I could from my couch. After twenty minutes or so I noticed the TV noises had stopped.
Taylor had turned it off. JB's was silent but for Lizzy.

She finished her song, paused for a moment, then put down the guitar.

I was beginning to hate that our breakfasts were becoming a prelude to some big venture. I just wanted to sit around with Lizzy, chewing on pancakes and making perfect lattes. Not spoon down serious porridge covered in dirt-coloured supplements and stress about what we were about to find. But that was pretty much the deal the following morning as we prepared to search for the security office and whatever horror it decided to reveal.

The four of us moved steadily southward through the centre. We stopped briefly at the dome to water our strange, sprawling garden. Lizzy and I quietly noted the lack of any growth from the seeds in the rubbish bins. The place was going to need a decent clean-up once the winter rains had stopped. At the moment any heavy rainfall was flushing through the pots and spreading dirt in an increasing fan across the tiles. We left, carrying
this on our shoes past the cinema and further south.

It was hard to get a handle on what type of stores were in the south end. The east was similarly mishmash but held together by the theme of thrift. You could buy a pair of sneakers, and a giant bottle of shampoo. And both would be at a bargain price. This wasn't really the case in the south. There was a Freedom furniture outlet selling sleek rectangular lounges and glass coffee tables, as well as a bubble-tea house covered in kitschy yellow pandas. If anything, the smaller stores seemed like filler for the corridors leading to big outlets like Woolworths, Coles and Big W. For us this meant the south was our major source of food in the centre. Twice a week we would trolley back to JB's with a pile of whatever was still in code and prepare what we could to eat.

Beyond the big stores were a series of smaller corridors leading out to car parks. There were stores lining these routes but it was pretty average real estate. Shoppers were either on their way in for groceries and nothing else, or on their way out after marathon ventures throughout the centre, too exhausted to look at another mobile phone plan or wall calendar.

As we suspected, several of these stores had exterior facings that provided independent access to the centre after hours. Rocky deemed this vital to a potential
security office. His stepdad worked night shift for Guardhouse Security in the city so none of us were in a position to doubt him.

We paced along looking for anything that wasn't retail. There were a couple of offices that had us momentarily excited until we noticed the
To Lease
listing on the counter. Otherwise all we found was a series of random shopfronts where you could picture the shop assistant shamelessly tapping their smartphones as you browsed inside.

Right at the end of one of the corridors, beside an exit leading onto a ramp and most likely a car park, Rocky noticed a hallway. We wandered over and found a couple of cleaning closets and a large cupboard housing firefighting equipment. The end of the hall was pretty dim and we nearly dismissed it, but for some open space on the right. Moving closer we found a small staircase leading up to a singular door.

It had to be the security office.

For some reason it made perfect sense that the office would be upstairs, above the surrounding stores. I doubted whether you could see any more from up there but it somehow fitted with the security office's omniscient feel. Rocky stopped at the base and looked back at us like a well-trained puppy. We nodded and
followed him up the stairs.

The door was locked and looked like it swung outward, which would make knocking it in problematic. Taylor produced one of her crowbars and wedged it in between door and frame. We stepped back and she braced herself for a great heave.

The lock gave meekly and the door swung open towards us.

‘Some security office,' said Taylor and headed inside.

We followed and were relieved to find a simple room with a wall full of closed-circuit TVs. Each one offered split screens with multiple live angles of the centre. The checkouts at Target. The box office at the cinema. The dome. Our little hideaway in JB Hi-Fi. Every exit in the centre. It was all there.

The four of us stood and stared at the screens. It felt strange looking at our centre from up there. Kind of like we had somehow gained objectivity. We were able to see our situation, our entrapment, for the absurdity that it was. We had been wandering across these screens for months and months. Tiny black figures lingering in places we shouldn't.

‘This is weird,' said Lizzy.

‘So weird,' said Taylor.

The coverage was impressive. Every corner of the
centre that we recognised seemed to be on-screen, and then there was a bunch of places that didn't look familiar at all.

‘We have a Domino's?' I asked.

‘You didn't know that?' asked Lizzy.

I shook my head.

‘No bases though. It's tragic,' she continued.

‘Holy crap, you can see outside!' said Taylor.

She pushed a chair aside and leant in close to a couple of screens trained on the surrounding car parks. The four of us huddled around, eager for a glimpse of the outside.

Taylor sighed. We were foiled by angle. All the cameras seemed to be positioned up high, pointing down at the car parks and exterior doors. This made perfect sense for surveillance, but gave us no hint of horizon or even the immediate suburb. The city could be burning with a thousand corpses but these cameras would still offer an indifferent empty car park.

A little deflated, we wandered around the room looking for anything interesting. I think Rocky was disappointed that the place didn't have its own exterior door as he'd said it would. I wanted to tell him that he had still helped us greatly in suggesting we look for the place. It felt like we had a real shot of finding our fifth housemate now and that was because of Rocky.
But the truth of the matter was that we had all blamed Rocky for the de-gnomings. Each of us citing his absentmindedness or something worse. Rocky knew this and things were even more awkward now than they had ever been. Every supportive gesture felt like a guilty admission. Every grumble felt insensitive and crass. Including him was all we could do now.

‘So I guess we just watch,' I said.

The others nodded. Rocky sat and coughed a little. Taylor followed. Lizzy slid down the wall and sat cross-legged on the floor. I leant on a bench. None of us seemed too pumped. We were used to comfort and entertainment and the security office had neither. I don't think anyone wanted to say it for fear of sounding precious. This was one of the rare times that Carousel had asked us to focus. There seemed to be a collective resolve not to screw it up.

Four hours later Lizzy and I left the office to get some supplies.

Finding the security office had been a little easier than we expected and we weren't really prepared for the long hours of surveillance that would follow. We had no idea what kind of schedule the resident weirdo kept in the centre. Normally you might assume they
would stalk around at night but the de-gnomings were seemingly carried out during daylight. Taylor's room was done yesterday but this also didn't necessarily mean there would be more activity right away. This person could have been in the centre all along. Hiding out, devouring food and making some rationalisation as to why talking to the chatty twins, or the skinny teenager, or the wannabe writer was a bad idea. Basically we had to sit and watch the screens until they decided to surface – whether this was days, weeks or months. We couldn't ignore this like the Fiesta.

With this in mind Lizzy and I pulled the most comfortable set of cushions from a large couch in Freedom and lugged them upstairs with a pile of blankets and pillows. Heading back down we raided the shelves of Woolworths for food and were happily surprised to find a decent selection still in code. Coles was a lot closer to us at JB's so Woolworths had remained decently stocked. The fruit and veg section smelt terrible, as you'd expect. Rows and rows of oozing, mould-covered blackness that used to be apples and bananas. There wasn't much we could do about this kind of thing in a big centre like Woolworths. We'd closed the doors to smaller stores like Nick's Fruit 'n' Veg early on in our stay and watched with fascination
as the room filled with gas and mould then slowly, eventually, returned to looking like a regular store with empty, albeit stained, shelves.