No Dawn without Darkness: No Safety In Numbers: Book 3 (10 page)

M
A
R
C
O

HEADED TOWARD THE POST OFFICE

W
e waited and we watched and we schemed and we prepared and now the war with the green-faced gringos is
ON.

We know they have sentries every ten feet along the second floor. We know how they signal each other using flashes from laser pointers. We know that they like to overrun attackers, leaving only a skeleton crew to man their base.

Heath is leading most of our team on a full-frontal assault. The plan is to pick off the outliers, then herd the roving patrols toward where we’ve set up our little surprise. The Green Faces have swarmed out to defend their home. Like clockwork.

They do not expect Mike and me. They do not know they are about to get taken down.

It’s what they deserve after killing Kyle on the escalator. The Green Faces had no idea who they were dealing with. They had no idea we already controlled the entire freaking mall.

Now they will learn.

“The halls are empty,” Mike says.

“Let’s move.”

We are so used to the dark, used to this mall, that we don’t turn on flashlights anywhere outside the bowling alley. Part of it’s that we know this mall like we know our own bodies, but the rest of it’s the result of experience. Even in the total black of the service hallways, we know it’s better to keep a hand on the wall than to turn on any sort of light and out yourself to all the vampire kids looking to scavenge the underwear off your ass.

“Ten yards,” Mike whispers. He has this scary accurate ability to judge distances. He says it’s from football. Wherever it’s from, it’s been damn useful.

We walk, feet silent, invisible. Muffled shouts and bangs from the battle in the food court thunder through the walls. We stop. I throw a tennis ball at the wall opposite, about ten feet back from where we stand.

A flashlight clicks on next to us, showing the door sentry we expected.

Mike punches him in the face.

The kid drops.

“After you,” I say.

Mike kicks in the door. Light blazes from inside the post office. The Green Faces have a crapload of lanterns.

Mike finds cover behind a sorting bin. I bolt across to the opposite wall and duck behind a shelf.

“Just the two of you?” a voice calls. “We expected so much more from the terrifying headlampers.”

My eyes adjust. I nod to Mike. He tips his head to the side.

We stand and step into the room in unison—me brandishing my nail gun and Mike his Glock. Five guys are positioned in front of us, including the knife-fisted douche who runs the Green Faces.

Even better, they surround what can only be called a healthy pile of food, including what looks like—praise Jesus—a tub of freeze-dried egg. Where in the hell did they find that juicy nugget?

“Feel free to simply walk away,” I say. “I’ll even give you ten seconds instead of the usual five.”

Knife-fist grimaces. “His gun isn’t even loaded,” he says, cocking his head at Mike. “Get the hell out of my post office.”

“So that’s a no?” Great. I shoot Knife-fist in the chest, then keep shooting nails until the other two in front of me drop.

Mike drops the empty gun, then flattens the two on the right with a bat-and-hockey-stick combo that’s just killer.

I tuck the nail gun into the makeshift holster I’ve constructed. “How’d they know you’re out of ammo?” I ask.

Mike tucks the two weapons back into the bandolier he’s fashioned from strips of canvas. “Lucky guess,” he says. “Maybe they saw the people in the med center.”

“Huh.”

I examine my handiwork. One of the two on the left is dead for sure. The other is kind of crawling away. Knife-fist is up on one elbow, glaring at me like that alone is going to inflict damage.

“You are so dead,” he says.

“Is that a threat?” I ask. “Mike, I think this asshole just threatened me!”

Mike jams the Glock into his waistband and hefts the keg o’ dried egg. “Let’s go,” he growls.

“Always so serious,” I say, grabbing the other food. “The rest of them won’t be back for at least another ten minutes.”

He shifts the bucket to his other hand and opens the door to the service passage.

At the side hall I marked earlier with a glow-in-the-dark sticker, we turn off, stopping at the exit into the main part of the mall. The food court is filled with the flaming wreckage of the Ferris wheel. Shrieks, thuds, and crashes resound, but there are far more Headlamps than Green Faces. Total domination has been achieved.

We backtrack to the main service hallway, book it for the fire stairwell, and climb back up to our fortress in the bowling alley.

“Is it always this fun?” I ask, once we’re in the mechanical room behind the bowling lanes, or Command Central, as I’ve come to think of it.

“Is what always this fun?” Mike says, placing the egg bucket with the rest of our food stock.

“Beating the crap out of people?”

“You tell me.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, on the outside. Is it this fun beating the crap out of people in the real world?”

“What does it matter,” he says. “We’re never going to be out there again. This is as real as our lives are going to get.”

This is the kind of thing Mike says that makes me nuts. It’s like he’s missing my point on purpose.

“They had less food than we thought,” he says.

“That egg alone will last us a week.”

“Then what?” he says. “The post office was the last place we thought there would be a big stash.”

“We’ll find another stash,” I say. “There’s always another stash.”

“Yeah.” He sighs, which is total passive-aggressive crap. “I’ll watch the front with Laila and Jake. Two whistles means they’re back.”

“Fine.”

It’s like Mike has given up, like he’s ready to just throw in the towel and die. Screw that. We are the goddamned kings of this mall. If anyone’s going to live, it’s going to be us.

I down an oxycontin—a gift from Mike for my busted face—and start calculating new rations for my team. We have managed to eat well every day. I have done that for my crew. It’s all about the protein, and we took it wherever we could. Heath had the idea to cook animals from the pet store. Laila protested at first, said no way she was eating Fido, but then she smelled it. When you’re starving, you can’t be choosy.

With this egg, we are set for a week or more. And with the Green Faces in critical condition, it’s probably going to be an easy week. Just defense work, manning the perimeter, that kind of thing.

We’ll need batteries. Maybe Mike and I will hit up the Green Faces for some of their lights. Ha! I just got that—hit up! Hilarious.

Mike appears in the doorway.

“Dude, you have to hear this,” I say. “I was just thinking—”

“We have a guest,” he says, all cagey.

“We’re running a hotel now?”

“It’s Shay.”

Ho-ly crap.

She’s alive.

“She came here?” I ask.

“Heath and Naomi bagged her in the food court.”

So she’s coming to beg for her freedom. Let her beg.

I find the tallest stool in the most imposing corner and perch my ass upon it. “Well, bring our guest right in.”

S
H
A
Y

BOWLING ALLEY

M
y brain doesn’t recover control of my voice until we get to the third floor. My arms and legs hold out, willfully useless, until we’re inside the bowling alley. But even after I regain complete control of my body, I keep silent and limp. Better this jerk thinks I can’t escape. Better he finds out only when I bust loose and make a run for it.

“We taking prisoners?”

I know that voice—it’s Mike.

“Ryan’s girl,” the one holding me says. “Thought you’d want to talk to her.”

“You thought wrong.”

“You want me to let her go?”

Yes! Please!

“Might as well send her to the back,” Mike says. “Marco will want to say hello. I’ll take her.”

The guy holding me tries to pass me like an hors d’oeuvre, but I push myself out of his arms.

“I can walk myself,” I say.

A hand clamps down on my arm. “Fine by me.”

I know better than to fight Mike. Even if he weren’t a cold-blooded killer, he still outweighs me by a hundred pounds.

Mike leads me through the black like he has perfect night vision. He and Marco must know this whole mall that well. Not only that, but they might control the entire mall at this point.

And it hits me like a fist: They are my ticket to getting to the senator.

“Wait here,” Mike says, jerking me to a stop.

Mike opens a door, pouring light into what I now see is a narrow hallway, and speaks to Marco. He sounds like the same Marco. I wonder if this is a good or a bad thing.

“Go in,” Mike says, releasing me.

Marco sits on a stool near the back of a small room bright with lights. His face is bruised, but that’s nothing compared to the red welt covering one entire side of his face, from his temple down to his cheek and back over his ear. The skin is black in places, and the surface of the wound looks shiny. He must be in so much pain.

“You look like you’ve been sick,” he says.

“I have. You look like you burned off your face.”

“Only half.”

Behind him, surrounding the stool, is a stockpile of food that could feed every person in this mall.

“You steal all that?”

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world,” he says. “Mind you, we ate the dogs, so it’s really a man-eat-dog world in here.”

“You’re wearing my duster.”

“You left it,” he says. “Finders, keepers.”

It’s like eighty degrees in here, there’s no need for the coat. So it’s all show. This whole thing, it’s theater.

“Please let me go,” I say. I don’t play it too over-the-top. No eye-batting, no pouty lips. Just your ordinary damsel in distress.

“So soon?” he says. “You haven’t even told me what you and the boy wonder have been up to! Where is that jerk-off friend of yours, anyway?”

“Ryan’s saving lives,” I say. “You want to give me some of your food? I could drop it off for him. Might help.”

“This isn’t
my
food. This is
our
food. My crew’s food. I can’t give you any without taking it from their mouths, and after all, they’re the ones who fought to get this stuff.”

“Well, there’s not much more to tell,” I say, shrugging, smiling. “I’d best be off.”

“Really,” he says, sounding interested. “You have some pressing engagement I should know about? What
have
you been doing? Because I’m told you were with the green- faces. And we have a policy of extermination regarding those particular assholes.”

Am I to understand that, had his friend not recognized me, Marco would have had me killed?

“I put the goo from the inside of a glow stick on my face to cross the second floor,” I say.

“You always were a clever one,” he says. “Now tell me where you got the glow stick.”

He’s smiling like this is all just a game, like the lives of every single person in this mall aren’t riding on this exchange. Truth seems to be getting through to him. Let’s see how the whole truth and nothing but lands.

“I can get us out of the mall,” I say.

“Did Dr. Who show up with his magic police box? Or was it Captain Kirk who offered to beam you up?”

I reach into my bag.

“Not so fast,” he says, sitting upright, preparing to strike, as if I’m reaching for a concealed weapon.

“It’s just a notebook,” I say, holding open the flap of my bag. “But it contains the last notes of Dr. S. Chen, who discovered that the mutated version of the flu is a better flu. It can’t cause a pandemic. We are no longer a threat to humanity.”

“Whoop-de-freakin’-doo.” Marco twirls a finger above his head. “Thank you, Dr. Chen, for that little newsflash. I’m sure all the nice men with guns surrounding the mall give a rat’s ass whether we’re contagious.”

“They don’t know about what he found yet,” I say. “I—
we
have to tell them. The senator has to have some way to communicate with the outside. We just need to get her these notes, and then she can call the person running things for the government. This can all be over. Once the people on the outside know we’re safe, they’ll let us out.”

Marco snorts a laugh.

I’m not sure what he thinks is funny. I continue, “And you and Mike, you know this mall so well, you could get me there. It would take, like, five minutes.” I’m not above flattery. “No one would bother me, not if I’m with you.”

Marco slides off the stool, approaches. “I hate to be the first to tell you this, Shaila, though really, how you missed it is beyond me, but”—and he’s in my face—“WE. ARE. DEAD TO THEM. The people on the outside don’t care if we’ve discovered the secret to world peace in here. They don’t want to hear from us, not ever, not about anything. They have completely cut us off. There’s no white flag to wave, no Oh-Crap button to push if things get really bad. Because let me tell you, if there were, the senator would have pushed it long before now.

“You think she hasn’t told them anything and everything, including that we’re all fine and please let us out now, over her phone or CB or soup can? Do you honestly believe that she hasn’t used everything in her bullshit arsenal to try to get them to open up the doors, even just for all the nice people in the HomeMart? You think she has a shred of credibility left with the people on the outside?

“God, I see it in your face. You really thought this would work. You really thought you were going to pop your head out and everything was going to be sunshine and daisies. You thought there was a happy ending to all this.

“Well, sorry to crush your little dream of being our savior, but really, Shay. You’ve got to face facts. And the facts are not in your favor.”

My hands begin to shake.

“I have to try,” I say. “Just let me try.”

“No.” He walks away from me.

I run at him.

Marco mule-kicks me in the chest and I fall.

He kneels over me. “Shaila, Shaila,” he says. “Tsk, tsk. No attacking from behind. It’s not sportsman-like.”

I gasp for breath.

The door swings open and slams against the wall.

“This girl had a gun,” a guy says. He pushes Ginger in through the door and she sprawls onto the floor beside me. “Won’t say where she got it, but must have been from security.”

“You are such an asshole!” she yells back at the guy in the doorway.

“Everybody’s so angry,” Marco says, ascending to his perch. “Why is everyone always so angry?”

Ginger cradles her hand in her lap. She’s wrapped the bottom of her shirt around it. The fabric is dark with blood.

“Just let us go, Marco,” she says. “This whole gang thing is ridiculous enough without you taking prisoners.”

“But we’re all having so much
fun
.”

Ginger glares at him. “I’m not. Lexi wasn’t. Or did you forget about her? All she wanted was to go on a date with you and you treated her like crap, all to join this stupid gang. And now she’s disappeared, probably dead. And that’s probably your fault too. If you’d thought about anyone besides yourself.”

“I think about other people all the—”

Ginger stands. “If it weren’t for this ridiculous gang, you might have saved her.”

Marco has collapsed into a mean, dark knot. “What the hell do you know about it?”

“I know you were the last one to see her alive. I know she came to you for help.”

I get to my knees beside her.

“We’re not even asking for your help,” I say, continuing on her thread. “Just let us go. If we die, we die. If we’re crazy, we’re crazy. If we fail, then you were right and we’re all dead anyway, so who cares.”

Marco sits back. His face brightens. “Ah, but if you succeed, then I’m wrong, and I’d hate to give you another shot at making me look like an asshole.”

Everyone will not die because I broke one loser’s heart. “Then keep me here,” I say. “Let Ginger go.”

“I’d be happy to make you look like an asshole.” Ginger rips the hem of her shirt and winds it around the bleeding hand.

“Exactly,” he says. “So you see why I can’t let either of you go. Now, if you had something to trade, like that glow stick, or perhaps where and how the hell you got your hands on a gun?”

“How about a cure for the flu?” Ginger says.

“You have a cure for the flu?” Marco asks, eyes wide.

Something he cares about?

“It’s an antiviral,” she says, pulling a syringe of Tamiflu from her back pocket. “It can make the illness less serious.”

Tamiflu. The notebook. Dr. Chen must have given it to me, I was his test subject.

“It
is
a cure,” I add. “I had the new flu, and this stuff saved my life.”

Marco holds out his hand. “Give it to me.”

Oh my god, this could work. Please, let this work.

She places the tube in his palm.

“We can go?” I ask.

He walks out of the room and the door slams closed behind him.