This Plague of Days Season One (The Zombie Apocalypse Serial) (34 page)

The search party craned their necks but saw no one. Someone on the second floor moved around, sneakers squeaking on the tile, but they couldn’t spot him.

“Who’s there?” Oliver said, his hand tensing on his canister of bear spray. He held it up in a gesture of defense and then let it go slack at his side, feeling foolish. The spray was no use at this distance. If he tried to spray up at such a steep angle, he’d give himself a dose of the stuff.
 

Jack waved her children back toward the wall, out from under the second-floor balcony. They were slow to comply, still searching for a face to go with the voice. Frustrated, Jack jumped up and down to draw their attention. “In case he decides to drop a couch from Sears on top of us,
move
!”

“Who is that?” Anna called.

“Mallrats!” the man replied. “The only government here, baby!”

There was a rustling and more footsteps. Jaimie glimpsed a beautiful young black girl, maybe aged five, with a fall of curly hair framing her sweet, oval face. She looked afraid. Unseen hands pulled her away from the balcony railing and it grew quiet again.

“Hello?” Jack called. “We’re not looking for trouble!”

There came a murmur from above. The high arched ceilings above acted as a whispering gallery. “If you’re taking things from the mall, you’re taking something from us and that’s trouble!”

Someone stomped their feet to a beat. Others joined in. The beat started slow but quickly built to a crescendo. It sounded like an angry platoon of crazed soldiers.

“I think we should run before I pee my pants,” Anna said.

Jack stepped out from the wall to show herself. Oliver waved her back but she held up a hand.

The drumbeat of heels on tile suddenly stopped. “I’m unarmed!” Jack called up.
 

Oliver gritted his teeth and backed away, headed for the exit. Jack signalled for the old man to wait.

“How many are you?” the young man’s voice came again from a different spot, a little farther away.

“Four!”

Oliver frowned at Jack’s honesty.

Another murmur hummed, followed by sound of running feet receding from the upper balcony. A moment later, the pounding feet and shouting returned, this time on the ground floor. They came in a rush, five from in front, two cutting off the way to the exit. None of the Mallrats wore masks.
 

Most carried weapons fashioned from sticks. One crept from behind holding a bow, the arrow poised to fly. All were teenagers. Above them, a young man appeared with the little black girl in his arms.

Oliver held up the can of bear retardant, though the kid with the bow and arrow was outside the range of the canister’s spray. The kid’s weapon was a large compound bow, which could be very effective in putting an arrow through Oliver’s chest or brain, if the kid was steady and practiced. The old man’s eyes locked on those of the archer. The kid had the bowstring pulled all the way back, yet he didn’t appear to shake at all under the strain. Oliver stepped behind Jaimie, using him as a human shield.

The archer grinned and said, “That’s cold, dawg, but my arrow will go through you
both
!”

Jack put her hands up in an openhanded, please-sherriff-don’t-shoot gesture. She stepped in front of her son.

Oliver scowled and barked, “Jacquelin — ”

“Shut up, Oliver!” Jack said.

“Yeah, shut up, Oliver!” the man standing above them said. “This is Mallrat territory. You shouldn’ta come here.”

“Is your mom okay?” Jack called up to the young man.

“Wha — ?”

“I haven’t seen you since you were much younger, but occasionally I see your Mom around…at school.”

His eyes narrowing. “I don’t know you!”

“I’ve got a girl about your age,” Jack said. “If you’re from the neighborhood, we’ve probably met at the same playgrounds. Have I seen you in a school play? Or at church maybe?”

He put the girl down and stepped close to the railing to look closely at Jack. He was a handsome fellow, though he wore microdermal implanted silver studs over his left eye and a Chinese tattoo on his neck. “Do I look like I was in a school play, bitch?”

“Every kid is in the school play when they’re in elementary school,” Jack said evenly. “You go to Jefferson? Or Ginsberg Private?”

“Ha!” he said. “You’re bluffing.”

Jack shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know your name. I’m going to guess either Chad or Spider. How should I know? You do look familiar, though.”

“It’s David. My name is David. And you’re starting to really piss me off.” He squinted down at her.

She cursed herself. Chad? Spider? She could at least have tried a common name, like Joe, for instance, though no one his age was called Joe anymore, either. In a moment, she was going to tell the kids to run. Oliver would be the slowest moving target, but he was the one with the bear spray. He was the one so willing to sacrifice her son. She would sacrifice the old man. Jack was ready to gamble that the gang wouldn’t be so organized as to catch her or her kids with the old man drawing fire.
 

“What’s my mother’s name then?”

Jack shrugged again. She glanced at the others. Many held hockey sticks, but she took in each face, looking from one to another. Most looked almost as scared as she was. Almost. Some looked happy and excited.

“Are you bluffing me, old lady?”

“Who are you talking to? I’m not old!”

The group grinned and a couple laughed out loud.
 

“Just a sec. I’m coming down.” The sound of wheels on tile whizzed away and after a couple of minutes, he was coming to them. The little girl stayed by the balcony rail staring down at Jack.

The young man rolled up on a skateboard. At first, Jack thought David was going to knock her over. At the last moment, he jumped off the board and jabbed at the back end with his forefoot. The skateboard popped up into his arms. He held it up like he was about to bash her in the head.
 

David scowled. “I don’t know you, and more important, you don’t know me or my moms. You tried to play me! You think I’m stupid?”

“Are you sure you don’t know me?” Jack offered. “I know a lot of people…and you lost your glasses, didn’t you?”

A girl in the closing circle tittered. She carried a large mahogany piano leg with nails sticking out of it.

“Don’t mess with me, lady.”

“Watch out,” the boy with the bow called, taking a step closer. “She might turn you over her knee and spank you.” The group laughed again.

Oliver stepped away from the Jaimie, closer to Jack and the group’s leader. Seeing his movement, the Mallrats moved closer still, holding their weapons higher.
 

“Step back!” Oliver yelled. He held his walking stick out like a lance, warning them back, sweeping it back and forth. Two larger boys moved left and right to get the old man between them.
 

Anna dashed forward to her mother’s side and Jaimie followed slowly, looking up at the glass in the high ceiling. By the slant of the light, he thought it would be dinner time soon. He was getting hungry.

The archer ran forward, making sure he wouldn’t miss.

“Stop it!”
 

Everyone froze at the clear, high voice. It was the little black girl. “Stop!” she repeated and pointed at Jaimie. “I know him! He goes to my school! He goes to my school!”

“You
sure
, baby girl? He’s too old to go to your school,” David said. His hands were tight on his skateboard. He still looked as ready as ever to attack. “What’s that kid’s name, Baby Girl?”

In her strange high voice, the girl answered, “Retard,”
 

Except for Jack, Anna, Jaimie and David, the group laughed. Some nearly collapsed in laughter.
 

“Baby, you know Daddy doesn’t like that word.”

“I didn’t say it,” she said. “The other kids said it. They’re mean to him.” She pointed at Jaimie. “He’s nice. He never hurt nobody.”

“You mean he never hurt anybody,” David corrected the girl.

“That’s what I said.”

“Lots of people are mean, that way,” Jack said. “Your little girl is very cute.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t want her to see you bash me in the face.”

David’s grip on his skateboard relaxed, though the boys circling Oliver weren’t letting their guard down. Sensing his distraction, the young archer moved up behind Oliver and placed the tip of his arrow at the base of his neck. “My arm is getting tired, old man. Put that stick down. And that other thing, too.”
 

The bear spray canister hit the tile with a clang and, rather than drop his walking stick, Oliver leaned heavily on it and he put his free hand to his chest, breathing hard.

“Oh, great,” he grimaced. “One way or another, you bunch will be murderers when I drop dead.” Oliver began to pant.

Two boys with hockey sticks stepped away from him and even the steely-eyed archer faltered, giving the bowstring slack and letting the arrowhead slip from the old man’s neck to point to the floor.
 

David gave the archer an encouraging nod of approval and turned to look up at his daughter. “How is Ret — um…how is that boy nice, Baby?”

“He’s never been mean to me. The same kids who are mean to him are mean t’me.”

“They’re mean because they’re jealous,” Anna said. Everyone turned to her. She stepped in front of her mother, close to David. “I never knew her name, but I know who she is. I pick up my brother from his school. He takes special classes from a teacher who works with kids like him,” Anna said. “I pick my brother up every day. All the moms who pick up their kids at the playground call her the singing girl.”

David nodded. “Yeah, my Baby Girl sings all the time. She’s going to be a star some day. When this is all over, I’m going to be able to finance her career and no record company will own us and we’ll go on tour. She’ll remind the world what beauty is. She’ll be our opening act.” His face took on a dreamy look. “It’s gonna be sweet to be a rich man. The toilets are backed up now, but after plague days are done? It’s going to be sweet. Fewer people, fewer hassles.”

Oliver’s face was red and he was beginning to shake. “Excuse me…” he gasped. “Dying here.” He pointed at his chest. His jaw worked up and down but no sound came out.

The archer stepped around him, looked in his face and kicked the walking stick out from under him. Oliver collapsed to the ground, landing on his face. “Ouch!” he cried out.

“Give it up, old man,” the archer said. “Nobody’s buying it.”

Oliver looked up at him and a lopsided grin crawled across his face. “Worth a try,” he said. “Not long ago that act would have gotten me an ambulance.”

A tough-looking girl of about fifteen with purple streaks through her long hair stepped forward. She held two uneven lengths of rebar. “So you know Baby and Baby recognizes your retard brother from school. So what? Trespassers will be prosecuted. We said that, remember? This is Mallrat territory! What’s it worth if we don’t defend it?”

“Shut up, Sonya!’ David said. “Everybody just chill. Brass-balled momma here is right. I’m not going to scar Baby for life by, y’know, scarring anybody for life. What’s wrong with you?” Sonya retreated to the edge of the group in disgust and dug out a cigarette pack from her pocket.

David turned back to Jack, squinting at her again. “You really tried to bluff me. That’s funny.”

“It worked once when some kids were about to throw water balloons at me. They were a lot younger than you, though,” Jack said.

David laughed and nodded. “Okay, Brassy. I hereby grant you a pass. Get out of here, and tell everyone you meet to stay out of the mall. Tell them it’s Mallrat territory.”

Anna stepped closer to the gang’s leader. “We’ll tell everybody we meet there are at least a hundred of you in here if you want — ”

“That would be good.”

“For a price,” Anna said. “We’re not leaving with just a bunch of plastic bags. If you want fewer intruders, you should put up a sign. Seems to me you need someone to go out there and say how badass you are so the legend spreads. The name Mallrats is nothing but a movie unless somebody spreads your word, David.”

Jack and David looked at her with new respect. “Your daughter, huh?” He looked Anna up and down and gave her a friendly smile. “It’s cool. I got a soft spot for hotness.”
 

He turned to Jaimie, stepping close to study his face. He stepped back almost immediately. It felt like he’d walked into a forcefield. “Uh…okay…I got an idea. Follow me.”

Zombified, carrier or in the ground?

D
usk closed the day quickly as birds searched out their nests for the night. The Mallrats leader escorted Douglas Oliver and the Spencers out of the mall. Baby Girl’s angelic voice followed them out, echoing after them until they reached the door to the parking lot.
 

The fires to the south seemed much closer in the encroaching dark. Fires threw light to the sky, mimicking city shine.
 

Jack, Anna and Jaimie each wore new hiking boots. David had refused to give Oliver anything and the gang confiscated his bear spray.
 

No wonder there’d been so little of value where Jack had searched. Anything useful or edible had been moved to the mall’s second floor and was guarded by the Mallrats. They squeezed everything they wanted into Target. The store was their warehouse and their fortress.
 

For all the danger, the hiking boots seemed a small prize. David had decided their public relations efforts were worth three pairs of hiking boots, or maybe it was just a demonstration of good will for Baby Girl’s sake.

David put a gentle hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Hey, Brass Momma. I have to tell you something. We’ve heard stuff. We hear there are looters, like gangs of them in the ’burbs. They might look military, but they’re looters. Have you seen them out there in the wilds?”

“Gangs? No. We have heard gunshots at night sometimes.”

“Watch out,” the young man said. “A lot of people are dead, but everybody who
ought
to be dead isn’t dead yet.”