“Did you see Roy?” Michael asked.
“Who’s Roy?”
“He killed our Mom and all them other people. He had a gun, too.”
Amanda’s fear was giving way. “She doesn’t know him. She’s just like us.”
The woman looked back towards the front of the storage room. “One man did all of that?”
Michael got the door into the office opened. “This is where we’ve been hiding since it happened. You better get inside before he finds us.”
Chapter 15
“My name’s Angela.” She bit into one of the truffles and sat in the chair behind the desk. “What are your names?”
“I’m Amanda, and that’s my twin brother, Michael.”
“Your mother… was she the only one you were with? Was your father in the mall?” They nodded and then shook their heads in unison. “Do you kids have any idea what happened? Do you realize what took place outside of here?”
Michael answered. “Our Dad was always watching CNN. It was terrorists. They probably came inside the mall with bombs strapped to their chests.”
“It wasn’t terrorists, Michael, at least not like all that awful footage you saw on television. I’m afraid this was much worse. The bombs were much bigger… they went everywhere, hit all the cities. Everything’s gone.” Angela didn’t want to scare the children any more than they already had been, but she needed to let them know the entire scope of their problem. They wouldn’t be able to simply leave the mall and start over. They no longer had a home to return to.
They didn’t seem overly surprised. Michael spilled the accumulated wax from his second candle onto the floor. The scent it let off had made the office smell nicer, like fudge baking in an oven. But even that pleasant aroma didn’t fool the children to what waited beyond the confines of the four walls around them. “I kinda figured it was worse outside. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want my sister to get any more scared.”
Amanda looked at both of them. “Just ‘cause I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t handle what’s happened out there. Quit treating me like a dummy, dummy.”
“Quit calling me that.”
“Both of you stop,” Angela said. The children listened, and she felt relieved. The three of them would have to stay together, and paying attention to the only adult would make things easier. “Tell me more about Roy.”
“He shot Mom,” Michael started. “He shot all those people, and we saw him start dragging them into a pile. He was a security guard… he was supposed to help shoppers.”
Amanda continued for him. “And then he started playing that music, that song with no singing. Over and over again.”
“I didn’t hear any music.”
“It stopped just awhile ago,” Michael said. “Right when we went to get the chocolate.”
Angela considered this. The music had stopped just before she’d entered the mall. Perhaps this Roy had seen her coming, and didn’t want her to discover what he’d been up to. Or he was luring her in. “We have to get out this mall. I have to get you kids somewhere, anywhere else.”
Canon in D started up as soon she went quiet.
“He’s back,” Amanda moaned.
Michael blew the candle out. “He never left.”
Angela made her way in the dark for the door and opened it. “Come on, you can’t hide in here anymore.” They wanted to argue, but brother and sister remained quiet as they followed her out through the store. Hiding in shadows had only kept them alive up to this point. If they wanted to keep on living, they would have to follow the dishevelled looking woman outside.
Michael poked something into Angela’s back when they were out in the plaza way. She stared down at the revolver handle. “You dropped it back in the store. We might need it.”
She wanted to remind him that she didn’t know how to use it, that it was too heavy to carry, and too terrible-feeling in her hands. Angela took the gun from him, considering the alternative of one of them waving it about even more frightening. She pointed it down the long corridor towards the intersection where she’d run from all those dead bodies. If this Roy was still in the building, it wasn’t any guarantee that he was still in that store. He could be anywhere, tracking their movement on camera. There’s no power. The cameras are all down. So how was the music playing?
“Don’t run, kids.” She stood straighter, tried to look bigger and more imposing. “Don’t let him see how scared you are. We’re going to keep an eye on that corner and walk slowly back towards the sportswear store.”
Put that gun down before you kill one of those children.
Her father’s voice was loud in her head, but it didn’t startle Angela. She’d been listening to him for years; interfering when she least expected it, offering his advice and cutting down her decisions, usually at the same time. “I don’t have time to argue with you, there’s a mad man in here with us.”
Amanda had taken hold of her free hand and was looking up at her. “What?”
“Nothing, just talking to myself… I do that sometimes.”
They backed along the corridor. Angela kept the gun pointed out at arm’s length, sweeping it from side to side across the shadows. “We’re there,” Michael whispered. Angela peered over her shoulder and saw the blasted in remains of the window frame she’d entered through. Fifty more feet.
May as well be fifty miles. You’ll never make it.
“Run to the window,” she ordered the children. “Get outside and hide somewhere.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” Amanda asked.
“In a minute. I want to take some clothes while we’re here. It might start getting really cold at night.” She pushed Amanda towards her brother before either could argue. “Go!”
The children vanished around a display of running shoes towards the bleak grey opening. Angela ran in the opposite direction, to the youth section of the store, and started snatching once-expensive brand-name shirts off the walls. Nothing short-sleeved, she told herself. They needed to keep warm. Her fingers hovered over a grey hoody—she remembered the teenager in the house across from the collapsed church—and then decided on the white one next to it.
“Just because the world’s come to an end doesn’t mean you get to take that stuff without paying.”
Angela told the voice in her head to be quiet as she grabbed more.
“Hey! Quit stealing that shit.”
A fresh wave of fear crawled up Angela’s back. The music had stopped, and that wasn’t her father’s voice in her head.
“Put it all back where you found it, and wait right where you are. I’m on my way.”
She wasn’t about to wait for the man the kids called Roy to show up. Angela started back towards the window, spinning about in half circles, waving her gun around and dropping clothes. He’s watching me… he’s been watching us the entire time since we left the toy store. How? There isn’t any power. How can he see me?
Now isn’t the time to act stupid, girl. Places like this have all kinds of back-up power in case of an emergency. And this is about as big as emergencies get, wouldn’t you say?
Just for once I wish you could say something helpful, Dad. Just this one time.
Okay, I can do that. Remember when you first came through this way… on your way down to that store at the other end with all them poor saps piled up cold and stiff? Angela ran into a golf bag set up in the middle of the walkway. The stand collapsed under it and the bag fell to the floor. Big-headed drivers and irons rattled half way out along the tiles. Easy, girl, watch where you’re going… What was I saying? Oh yeah, on the way to that Bay store… don’t you recall seeing that little hallway just to the left of this place? You couldn’t have missed it… the little hallway with the public washrooms sign above?