Prophet (27 page)

But they were buying it, wearing it, eating it, screaming for it, identifying with it; it was so important to them. The place was saturated with it.

I could tell them anything,
John mused.
Hey, I know the media. Give me graphics, music, tight editing, maybe a TV star, and I could tell them . . .
He laughed. He was getting silly.
I could tell them the color brown gets moldy when it rains—I could ruin the sellers of brown!

“Aaaw!” came a shriek behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see a young girl dressed like a rock star confronting a friend who happened to be wearing brown.

“You didn’t buy brown!” she cried, incredulous. “Brown gets moldy when it rains—everybody knows that!”

Just then three high school jocks came marching by, harassing a smaller kid in front of them, pointing at his brown shoes and chanting, “Mold—ee! Mold—ee! Mold—ee!”

John wasn’t shocked or even alarmed. It was happening again! He surrendered to it. He leaned back on the bench and just had a good laugh. It was a great show. He was going to enjoy it.

THE SOUND CARRIED
the crowd onward as one tribe, one voice, one spirit. The young men rocked with the rhythm and pounded the air with defiant fists. The young women swayed as if in a trance, their arms reaching heavenward. The priests on the stage cavorted and blasphemed.

But Carl sank into the seat he’d paid twenty dollars for, dying in a way, falling like a single tree in a thick forest. The question still pounded in his head and not even the
sound
could drown it out:
Where are we going? Where are you taking us?”

But there was no answer. There was only this moment. There was only the
sound.

JOHN FELT A
cold draft moving through the mall as if a huge door or window were open somewhere. Well, he’d just had a cold orange drink, and he’d been sitting still. He got up and got moving. That would warm him up again.

Now he was part of the throng, just moving along with it, being careful to watch for cross traffic buzzing from window to window, store to store.

It seemed so noisy in here. What was everyone talking about anyway, and did they all have to shout like this?

Oops! He lost his balance and staggered sideways, almost bumping into some junior highers, their startled faces as close as his nose. He made it to a wall and stood still for a moment. Did the ground really move or was it his imagination?

There! Again! An earthquake! He could feel the ground stirring to life under his feet. He stayed right there, close to the wall, looking about. Some hanging light fixtures were rock steady. Maybe this was
hallucination as well.

What about the people? Had they felt anything? They were walking faster, exchanging concerned looks, talking more loudly. Maybe they’d noticed the shaking, maybe not.

More cold. That draft had become a breeze blowing toward the far end of the mall. There had to be a huge door open.

What in the world—? He pressed against the wall, trying to find a handhold of any kind. The floor was shaking again, and now, like a sinking ship, the whole mall was tilting, settling at one end!

Steady, John, steady. It’s happening again. Get over to that bench and just sit down. Wait for it to pass.

He set out across the floor, heading for the bench, working his way through the people passing by, trying to look normal, trying to walk a straight line.

But now . . . was it really just him? The people were acting strange. They were noticing it, looking at each other, looking excitedly around, up, and down the mall, talking faster, more loudly.

A rumble. He was sure he was really hearing it—a low rumble—building, growing louder, like an underground train approaching. He looked toward the far end of the mall. The people, the storefronts, the displays had disappeared in darkness as if the lights had gone out.

He made it to the bench and sat down to watch, to listen, to wait. The mall continued to sink, to tilt. The far end grew darker.

Then he heard screams, cries for help, wailings, shrieks of pain. The voices! The voices were crying again, just like the other night! He gripped the edge of the bench tightly and strained to see.

This was no show. This was no amusement, no silly hallucination. This was the worst of nightmares.

Now the darkness at the far end of the mall was growing, rising, beginning to spin like a deep, black whirlpool, a bottomless vortex. It was drawing, pulling, yanking people toward it. The whole mall was sliding in!

At this end, where John sat, no one seemed to notice. They kept walking, talking, laughing, teasing, buying. Well, of course this had to be an illusion. Surely these people would see the same thing he was seeing if it was really there.

John gripped the bench. The floor lurched again, tilted some more.
The monstrous throat was coming closer, consuming the mall, sucking in the people.

Wow
, he thought.
I remember having bad trips, but this one’s a doozie! Just hang on
, he told himself.
Take it all in. It’ll be over soon enough.

Oh-oh. The people around him were starting to notice. That was not encouraging. John would have preferred to be crazy just by himself. But the shoppers were starting to hurry, to talk more loudly and more quickly, to tug and pull at each other in all directions. A weird panic was setting in, and the people were getting frantic.

But they were not frantic to escape, to get out of this place, to flee the other way. They were frantic to buy things, see things, hear things, handle things. They ran into the stores, began grabbing the first items they could get their hands on and shoving money and credit cards at the merchants. They talked more loudly, they laughed, they mocked, they teased in desperation. In the home entertainment store they turned up the volume on all the stereos and televisions, and hundreds of voices and little talking faces shouted and sang deafening bedlam. The shoppers laughed with relief, cowering among the shelves and rows, looking toward the screens and listening to the booming speakers, looking away from the darkness approaching.

John kept telling himself he was having a delayed drug trip, a hallucination. That vortex, that monstrous swallowing tunnel, wasn’t really there.

But it was so big, so terrifying, and so very close now that he was getting unnerved. He could hear it swirling and sucking, roaring like a tornado. He could see unwary people disappearing into its depths, tumbling headlong down its throat, screaming, clawing to get away, their bags and packages flying from their hands.

And as far as John could tell, the mall was still sliding into the vortex, just like a ship going under or, worse yet, like a log being fed into a gigantic grinder.

Now the people who would not look began to fall and tumble down the sharply inclining floor, grabbing onto benches, posts, planters, doorways, each other.

John couldn’t hold on to the bench any longer. He slipped off the end, slid along the crazily slanted floor, and grabbed hold of a post, where he hung on for dear life.

Shoppers, still clinging to their packages, went sliding by him. Two girls were comparing prices and colors of their new clothes as they slid by, and here came those three high school toughs, still tormenting the little guy: “Mold—ee! Mold—ee! Mold—ee!” One woman came rolling by and grabbed hold of a quaint jewelry stand in the middle of the mall. She frantically waved money at the young salesgirl, who let go of the stand to grab the money and went tumbling toward the vortex.

Half the mall was gone now, and the vortex kept sucking, swallowing, destroying. The cavernous throat was getting closer, closer, wider than the whole mall, higher than the ceilings, unrelenting, insatiable.

Tables, chairs, dressers went sliding by, then cameras, computers, Tim and Hank the computer salesmen still on the phone, whole racks of clothing, jewelry, knickknacks, clocks, televisions. Here came a huge portable tape player, tumbling in time to the rock music it was playing.

John wrapped himself around that post in stark terror.
Please, God, please make it stop!

CARL BURST FROM
the doors of the arena and grabbed a light pole, trying to steady himself. He’d come here to enjoy this concert, to rock out, to be a part of it.

But he’d been scared to death.

“HEY, MISTER,
are you okay?”

John awoke with a start. “Huh?” He was clinging to a post in the mall. A security guard was nudging his shoulder.

The mall was still there. People were still passing by, though now the crowds were starting to thin down. There was no tilting floor, no cold wind, no black, gobbling vortex.

Well, of course not.

“Are you okay?” the guard asked again.

John let go of the pole and looked himself over. “Uh . . . sure, sure . . . I’m fine.”

The guard was looking at him suspiciously. “Well, it’s getting close to 9, closing time. If you’ve got any more business here, you’d better get done with it and then head for home, okay?”

“Sure . . . right . . . I was just on my way out.”

“Good.” That sounded rather emphatic.

John looked up and down the mall. It was back to its usual, peaceful bustle, and yet . . . if he stood still, if he listened not just with his physical ears but with his soul, he could hear that rumble. It was faint, distant, behind the scenes, but it was there.

Enough. He got out of that place and out to his car. But he wouldn’t be going home tonight. Not yet. He wondered if Mom was still awake. Probably. He had to see her.

CHAPTER 12

JOHN SAT AT
the big, round, oak table that had been in the family since he was a child. He could still see the scratches he put there with his tricycle, then his model spaceship, and then the tape deck from his car. The silverware Mom placed in front of him, and the cup from which he drank the freshly brewed coffee, were as old as his memory.

“Can I get you anything else?”

He couldn’t think of anything. He wasn’t thinking too well anyway.

“How about some toast?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Peanut butter and jam sandwich?” That sounded better.