He felt sick to his stomach when he realized that the real bottleneck was going to be dozens of people falling down and getting trampled by the people behind them. Mitchell wanted to reach out a hand to help the people he saw fall, but bloodshot eyes looking back at him with rage made him recoil. There was nothing he could do.
To his right he saw what looked like the opening to a stairwell. He ran in that direction. He kicked open the door and saw a flight of stairs leading downward.
He was halfway through the doors when he heard footsteps running up the stairs below. Lots of footsteps. Fuck. Mitchell ran back through the doorway and down the corridor.
He had to jump to avoid tripping on the fire hose. Water was cascading across the floor, making it slippery. At the other end of the corridor he spotted double doors. He shoved them open with his shoulder.
This was the storeroom. He looked around for another exit. There wasn’t one. Could he barricade himself in there long enough for help to arrive? What would happen when help did find him if he could make it that long?
This was no good. He looked for a place to hide when the crowd came. There were shelves of boxes and luggage wrapped in plastic. There was no place for a grown man to hide. He heard outer doors crashing open. The crowd had made it upstairs and was headed down the hallway.
Across the doorway he spotted an ax. He could use that to defend himself. But then what? There was no way he was going to intentionally crack open the skull of the luggage lady or anyone else. But what about using it to threaten people?
He went to pull it from the wall, knowing that this angry mob wouldn’t be threatened for long, if at all. He yanked it free. As he pulled back, something caught his eye. He’d ignored it when he was looking for the stairs to go down.
It was a ladder leading up to the roof. Mitchell tossed the ax to the ground, hoping at worst nobody would pick it up, at best that it would cause another bottleneck when people fought over it.
Mitchell pulled himself up the ladder and pulled the latch that opened the hatch above it. Daylight shot down like light into a tomb. He crawled out onto the gravel surface and quickly got up. He tried shutting the door, but it wouldn’t budge. From below he could hear the echo of dozens of feet in the corridor.
He tried closing it again. It wouldn’t move. Why wouldn’t it close? Of course, he realized, as he spotted the safety catch. That was there to prevent people from getting trapped up there. He popped the latch with his palm and shut the hatch.
He hoped no one saw him go up. He figured he had a moment before they made it to that part of the corridor. He hoped for another human traffic jam in the narrow hallway. Mitchell wished there had been a better option than causing more harm.
Through the metal hatch he could hear the sound of dozens of people flooding into the back room. He could hear screaming. It felt like the roof itself was vibrating. What would happen when they all came pushing into the storage room? Would they just keep pushing and shoving to try to get through?
Mitchell had heard horror stories about people trapped in fires and stadium riots. Below him was the largest riot he had ever seen. And he was at the center of it. For fuck sake, why?
The animal part of his brain told him now was not the time to try to find answers. He still wasn’t safe. Hundreds of angry people could erupt from the hatch at any second. All they had to do was to realize where he’d gone and pull the lever to the hatch. Even in a crowd full of people driven by rage, one or two would be able to figure out where he went.
He looked around the roof for anything to put on top of the hatch.
There was nothing but cigarette butts and a few rolls of tarpaper. He looked on the latch for any place where it could be locked from the outside. There was nothing.
Not wanting to lose any more time, Mitchell decided to run toward the other end of the mall. He would make as much distance as he could between himself and the hatch and then try to find a way down.
He looked out over the parking lot. He expected to see hundreds of police cars and fire trucks by now. There was nothing.
He couldn’t understand why. Hadn’t anybody called the cops? Didn’t anyone pull a panic alarm? Wouldn’t the fire hose have sent a signal to the fire department? What was wrong with the world?
None of it made sense to Mitchell. Then he realized he’d left his table at the food court less than three minutes ago. Fuck. Just three minutes?
11
Mitchell reached the skylight that hung over the atrium. He wanted to walk over to it but was afraid someone would look up. He looked back where he had come from. The hatch was still closed. The sound of thumping came from under it.
He decided to chance it. He squatted low and walked toward the skylight, trying to keep his body close to the roof. Through the glass he could see an overturned kiosk near the entrance to Lord & Taylor. The ground was littered with shopping bags, candles and several shoes. Off to one side he spotted an overturned stroller. Mitchell’s cheeks flushed with guilt. He could make out tiny fists pumping at the air. Off to the other side he saw the body of an older man slumped over a broken planter.
Mitchell was afraid to look any more. He decided his best chance was to keep going all the way to the other end of the shopping mall and look for an exit there. In the distance he could hear the sound of sirens. He couldn’t tell if it was police, fire or paramedics. The safe money was on all three.
As he ran across the graveled roof, his feet made loud crunching sounds. He panicked for a moment at the thought of attracting more attention from anybody below. It was pointless to worry about that now, he realized. He had to keep moving.
He tried to keep to the center of the roof to avoid being spotted by anyone in the parking lot. Another advantage, he realized, of running to the other side of the roof was that first responders were much more likely to go to the opposite side of the mall. What would happen when armed cops and firemen with axes came into the mall? He may have been able to outmaneuver two off-guard mall cops and a middle-age meter maid. What about people with guns? Was everybody affected? He’d have to put that together later. For now he needed to avoid human contact.
Mitchell reached the end of the mall where the other anchor department store was located. It was a Sears, he thought. The parking lot below looked a quarter full on that end. He saw one or two cars pulling into spaces. Everything looked normal.
Sooner or later someone would make it to the roof. Maybe the cops arriving would be a good thing. Maybe it would be the worst thing. Mitchell wasn’t ready to find out.
He jogged along the perimeter, exposing himself to anyone who bothered to look up. It was a chance he had to take to find a way to get down. At one end, he spotted a cluster of tall trees a few feet away from the building. Should he try to jump into them and climb his way down?
When he got closer, he realized they were farther out from the building than he had thought. It was looking like a bad idea. There was no way to do it and not get hurt. He heard a bottle clink off to his right.
It sounded like it was coming from below. He walked over to the edge and peered down. There was a service dock underneath. A door shut as someone walked inside. He could smell lingering cigarette smoke. Someone had just finished a break.
Right below him was a ladder. It had a sliding section locked in the upright position. He could climb down to the lowest rung and then safely drop the rest of the way down. Probably. He looked around for any other options. There was a large open garbage crusher. He could try diving into that.