Pteranodon Mall (12 page)

“I’m not so sure,” she replied. “Sandy said he hadn’t been great ever since their escape.” She then spun around and grabbed his shoulders. “Jefferson, we really are in big trouble here.”

The woman moved to the side.

“Take a look. Just don’t let them see you.”

He peered through the small square window cut into the door. Jefferson whirled around, so wishing what Janine had just told him wasn’t true. He walked over to the wall and gazed at a poster displaying three smiling women, each one wearing a Martin’s Department Store uniform, each one proudly holding a customer service medal.

Those poor bits of people he’d just glimpsed on the other side of that door wore the same uniforms. Their killers were still in there, picking off bits of meat from exposed bone. Jefferson wanted to close his eyes but daren’t, as that image of all those teeth, claws, and bright feathers feasting on those people had been burnt into his retina.

“I didn’t want to see that,” he gasped, feeling his guts performing a slow roll.

Jefferson’s head then smacked into the wall when Janine slapped her hand hard across his cheek. Before he could even catch his breath, the woman followed her sudden bout of unprovoked violence by wrapping her arms around his waist and kissing him deeply.

“I love you, Jefferson,” she said, after she’d pulled away. “And that is something that I never thought I’d say again.” Janine sighed. “I shouldn’t have left you in there alone. You thought you were safe in there, that the monsters wouldn’t be able to get you. Your adrenalin level began to normalise.”

“I’m sorry, but I really have no idea what you are talking about,” he said, rubbing his cheek. Jefferson placed both his hands on her neck. “I won’t complain if you kiss me again, though.”

“When all this is over, honey, we’ll do much more than just kiss. Right now, I need you to be alert, to have that fear of impending death right there.” Janine tapped his forehead. “You were going into shock. You’d found your safe place and were about to crawl into it.”

“What are we going to do about getting out of here?” Jefferson knew he had three bolts left and figured the single sword they had left might take out another two. Would that be enough to make them panic and run off? He thought of the little dinos back in the eatery. There were loads of those things but the ones in there were three times the size.

“We have three choices. We stay in here and wait for the dinosaurs to leave. We try to fight them, or we wait for those huge armoured living trucks to leave.” She stroked the back of his hands. “Your shaking has stopped. That’s good. Are you ready for round two?”

“I guess. How did you know? And why didn’t the others…?”

“Why didn’t the others notice?” she finished off. “We’re the civilians of modern Western consumerism, that’s why. We are not supposed to be thrust into situations of not knowing whether our next moment will be our last one.” She smiled and kissed him again. “That speech came straight from the bible of my late husband. He loved that particular statement. He had plenty more just like it. I tell you, Trevor would have adored being in here with all this lot. Well, he would as long as he had his trusty assault rifle with unlimited ammunition.” She took his hand. “Come on, we’d better go join the others. I don’t want them to think that we have run out and left them here.”

He nodded, realising that she’d just said that she loved him. Apart from just finding out she was once married and she had a couple of kids, he knew next to nothing about her. As they approached the door, he imagined him and Janine sitting in one of the restaurants in the mall after all this was over. Holding hands and grinning at each other, not having to speak, just thankful they were still alive. Jefferson hoped Alan wouldn’t be too pissed if he asked David to be his best man at their wedding.

“Is it safe?”

Jefferson shook his head. “We don’t stand a chance of getting out that way, David. The next room is clogged with meat-eaters.”

“What kind are they?”

His hackles went straight up, but after a couple of seconds, it became clear that David’s question had just been instinctive. His mind was elsewhere. It scared Jefferson a lot to see David actually looking anxious. He saw why.

Alan had not moved from his spot. He looked so close to death. Jefferson ran over to the lad and skidded to a halt when he saw how much he had deteriorated in only a couple of minutes. What the hell was this? The poor lad’s flesh looked like it was getting ready to melt off his bones. He gazed into Sandy’s tear-streaked face. She gently held Alan’s hand.

“I remember one of them lifting up my arm,” whispered Alan. He ran his tongue over his lips, before bursting into a fit of coughing. “God, that hurts.” He lifted his head. “I fucked up, Jeff. Sorry for spoiling your day.”

“What is it? What’s wrong with him?”

Jefferson pulled David back over to the table. “I don’t know, man.”

“Jeff. Will you tell Chris that I love him?”

“Bollocks, mate. You can tell him that yourself.”

“I think they did something to both of us,” said Sandy. “Oh God, yeah, I remember now!” her breath came out in shuddering jerks. “They held this silver tube over my stomach. I screamed as this dirty green light came out of the end. I thought they were going to burn me, but it felt cold. So cold.” Sandy looked over at David and Jefferson. “Guys, it might be a better idea if you leave us here. If we’re infected, there’s no telling what we have.”

Jefferson shook his head. “No way. Not a chance. I’m not leaving the pair of you.” Janine crouched beside Alan.

“There’s a doctor’s surgery a short walk from the shopping centre. As soon as we’re clear, I’ll run across and bring someone over. We just need you to hang on for a bit longer.” She nodded over at the other door. “Jefferson, why don’t you see if those living trucks have gone?”

“I’ll do it,” cried David, running over to the door.

“Jefferson, grab him!” cried Sandy. “He’s going to run out on us.”

He raced after his mate, knowing that Sandy wasn’t wrong. He heard that tone as well. The bloody fool was going to get himself and the rest of them killed. Jefferson pushed through the door and saw him streaking along the wall, heading for the far end of the store. He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed him either. Every single one of the fearsome grotesque soldiers had spotted David, and they moved in the intercept. Jefferson gasped when he saw their speed.

David was fast, but he certainly wasn’t as fast as those armour-plated monsters. He must have seen that he wouldn’t stand a chance of dodging past them and had spun around, now running straight for Jefferson. Oh fuck, David was leading those bastards straight for him! He turned and ran back to the door, knowing that they had no choice now but to chance those carnivorous dinosaurs.

Jefferson stopped dead when the door opened before he could reach it and the others all stepped out into the store. Both girls were carrying Alan between them. “What are you doing?” he shrieked. “Those things are right behind us!”

“Grab that idiot!” said Janine. “Come on, do it, there’s not much time left.”

He saw those huge things thundering towards them, their strange-looking guns already trained on their heads. David tried to run past Jefferson. He kicked out his feet, knocking the lad onto the floor. Sandy reached down and wrapped her fingers around his ankle.

“Your turn,” Jefferson. “Take my hand.”

The soldiers slowed and stopped. They formed a semi-circle around the humans; their weapons still trained on Jefferson’s body. His fingers managed to find the hand of the woman he loved, while he forced himself from curling up in hysterical laughter. Like any of those things needed a weapon to obliterate any of his group! They were larger than black bears, with teeth to make a crocodile weep. Thick iridescent-studded armour covered most of their feathered bodies, leaving only their heads and ankles showing. Jefferson had seen what remained of that plant-eating dinosaur, and from the amount of blood staining their huge paws, he knew that they must have literally torn it apart.

Jefferson tightened his grip on Janine’s hand. He closed his eyes and waited for these monsters to do the same to him and his friends.

Chapter Thirteen

Mo and Mrs. Killmore had dragged him down the first flight of stairs. Desmond’s first attempt to escape had been thwarted by Mo by slamming his knee between Desmond’s legs when he tried to sink his teeth into the woman’s arm.

Between the tears, sobbing, and the throbbing pain in his balls, he watched how the others not holding this poor janitor cleared a path through a pack of scavenging dinosaurs at the bottom of the stairwell by spraying them with a combination of air freshener, furniture polish, and deodorant. The little brown dinosaurs stayed in the shadows, hissing and growling while the group tentatively stepped over the pieces of chewed-up plant-eating dinosaur. Desmond thought it now smelled like a summer meadow crossed with a teen’s bedroom before they go out on the pull.

Those dinosaurs waited until they were a good few paces away from their prize before they emerged from under the stairs. It wasn’t fair. Why hadn’t they attacked them? He counted eleven of them. That was enough to take out both Mo and the horrible lesbian. Desmond wasn’t all that bothered about the others. He’d be able to sort out those losers. What were they going to do, spray him to death?

The pair of them had taken an arm each and were dragging his body along the concourse. Neither Mo nor Mrs. Killmore had said a word since they had caught him. They hadn’t even explained why the sudden change of plan, why they were on the ground floor instead of the level above. Desmond looked up at the balconies about twenty feet up and decided not to pursue that line of questioning any further, in case they did change their mind.

Once the worst of the pain had turned into a dull throbbing, Desmond had tried everything to get them to let him go. Everything from how they were turning themselves into a target to continuous screaming, with the hope of attracting those soldiers. He’d only stopped doing that when Mo savagely twisted his arm behind him back. Desmond had screamed then but for a different reason. The only tactic that he hadn’t tried was to threaten them with Desmond’s new pal. Something told him though, that if this poor janitor did go down that road, they’d likely stop dragging him to wherever and just kick him to death right here and now, next to this kiddie ride. He did not want to die laying next to a bright pink plastic bus. This level now looked like an abattoir. Desmond dreaded to think of how many people must have died down here. This was worse than the level above them. His two captors dragged Desmond past dozens of mutilated bodies, both dinosaur and human. He wasn’t the only one to be affected by all this devastation either.

One of the others in the group, a dark-haired man who was carrying his can of air freshener like it was a rocket launcher, skidded to a halt in front on a couple of dead kids. He muttered something about all this being such a
senseless waste of lives
, while he wiped the tears away from his eyes.

The corpses were slumped in front of the shoe shop, their heads lying on their chests. He knew why this sentimental idiot was blubbering like a big baby. Judging from the tightly clasped hands, these two were lovers. Desmond imagined that the lad would have been putting up with the annoying cow going into every stupid girly shop and sighing over all the brightly coloured crap just so he’d be able to get a jump later on. It sounded harsh, but it was true. Desmond had seen the behaviour dozens of times while cleaning up the shopping centre. The predators had eaten their way up their legs, stopping once they reached their thighs. He guessed the dinosaurs which did this had spied another meal. It was a shitty way to die, but at least they died together.

All the others were now bowing their heads. Two of his captors were even saying a prayer. He knew for a fact that none of them would be saying a prayer over his body. Not that they were going to get a chance of doing the deed. He’d think of something to stop them.

Desmond turned his head and coughed. They all looked up and glared at him. That was fine, let them glare, he’d fix all their wagons. Right now though, he needed to be calm and clever. He stared back at the middle-aged man, trying to look sincere. “You can stop this! You can stop any more senseless waste from happening. Just tell them to let me go.”

“Bollocks! This is all your fault in the first place,” he snarled. “These poor people died because you cosied up to the enemy.” He marched over to Desmond and lowered his face until he was just a hair’s breath away from the man’s nose. “You’re a collaborator, a fifth columnist. Hell, you’re not even that. All you are is some dirty scumbag who’d do anything to save his own worthless hide, even if it means watching the rest of his species die.”

God, where did all this anger come from? The guy obviously had problems. He jerked his head back, so he didn’t have to cope with this madman’s peppermint breath. “Okay, I’ll admit that I might have made a couple of dumb mistakes. What do you expect? I mean, just look around you. I was scared, okay? Come on, admit it. We’ve all made mistakes. It doesn’t mean we should be put to death. Hell, you’re making a mistake right now. Come on, I’d be on my knees if I could. Stop this now. This doesn’t justify a revenge killing. It isn’t even that. This is cold-blooded murder, plain and simple.”

“Are you done, Desmond?” inquired the mall manager. “We want to get on.”

Desmond glared at the woman holding his arm. He so wanted to bite off her nose. “You need to think about what you’re doing! You’ll all be sent to jail for this. The police will be here any second. Stop this madness before it’s too late.”

Mo laughed. “Yeah right, like anybody’s going to turn up. Even if they did, who’s going to tell them, Desmond? You’ll be dead in another few minutes, and we won’t be saying anything.”

This so wasn’t fair. Desmond hadn’t done anything wrong. He certainly didn’t deserve whatever fate these maniacs had in store for this poor janitor. The security did have a point, though. They would get away with killing him.

Zinik-Tow had already informed him that the hairless vermin infecting this planet would be too distracted with other events to care about the misfortunes of the last few survivors within this building. Apart from saying that his great enemy’s plan was now unfolding, he refused to elaborate. After what Desmond had seen so far, he doubted that the bastards would be organising a charity gala.

Even if by some miracle somebody did get in here, how long would they last before the rampaging dinosaurs ate them or the soldiers on the next level turned Desmond’s rescuers into horse glue?

Desmond lunged for the bitch’s face, but her reaction was far too attuned. His snapping jaw clacked on fresh air and he ended up with a tight fist crashing into the side of his head.

“Do that again, you little shit, and I’ll—”

“You’ll do what, you fat cow?” he spat. “How can you make it any worse?”

Mo stopped and grinned at Mrs. Killmore. “I know you said you wanted to feed him to the dinosaur in the furniture shop, but maybe we should do this ourselves.”

“Mo, I thought we had already decided that throwing him off the balcony would be too quick.”

“I know that, it’s just I thought we shouldn’t let something else do the job for us. I thought that maybe we should grab some sharp knives and slice him up a bit. You know, like one slice for every poor sod who’s died because of him.”

The middle-aged aged man nodded eagerly. “I’ve heard of that. It’s called a death of a thousand cuts. It’s meant to be one of the worst ways to die. Yeah, I reckon we should do that to him. It’s what he deserves.”

The woman sighed. “Fine, whatever. Why don’t you three go have a look what you can find behind the eatery while we keep hold of him. Just be careful in there. There’s still a few of those nasty little ones scampering about.”

Desmond watched the others run off, leaving just him with these two. He figured that all he had to do now was to find some way of disabling just one of them. The cleaner’s entrance was only a few minutes from here. Desmond could lose them in the passageways behind the walls. They’d never find him in there.

“Can I slice him first?” asked Mo. “You know, for old time’s sake.” His dark eyes focussed on Desmond. “To show this dirty little thief that I’m not an idiot, and I know he’s been stealing food for months.”

The woman told him to be quiet. “Don’t let her speak to you like that,” said Desmond. “By the way, I once crapped on your desk. I wiped it everywhere too.”

“I’m going to enjoy cutting you up, you vile little man.” He drew his index finger along Desmond’s forehead. “That’s where I’ll make the first cut.”

“I mean it, shut it, both of you.”

Desmond had no intention of being quiet, not now he’d seen what the woman had spotted. “You like to spy on people. I guess that’s part of your job, but I watch and notice things too. Like that time when you were rubbing yourself this morning when that woman bent over in the eatery. Bet you even have a camera installed in her office too. In the toilets as well, I bet.”

The man clenched his fist and swung his arm back. “One more word,” he yelled. “Go on, I dare you!”

Mo obviously hadn’t noticed the blood draining from the woman’s face or that they now had company. Who’d have thought it would have been so easy to aggravate a security guard? Desmond thought that having a thick skin kinda came with the job. Like a thick hide that comes with that dinosaur currently sneaking up behind Mo. A dinosaur which Desmond had seen before. He wanted to hum a happy little tune. It turned out that somebody
did love
this poor little downtrodden cleaner after all.

The woman had already removed her hands from Desmond’s clothing and finally, the penny dropped with Mo. Desmond wasn’t sure if it was the sight of his accomplice backing away, Desmond pushing out his tongue, or that perhaps the feathered animal had unintentionally made a noise in its approach. The security guard slowly turned at the exact same time as the dinosaur jumped five feet into the air and performed a vicious roundhouse kick. Its elongated talon sliced through both of Mo’s cheeks. It followed this by disembowelling the man before he even fell onto the tiles.

Desmond dropped low when the animal leaped over his head. He stopped grinning at the sight of the dying man’s hot blood spreading out from his body and turned to watch the dinosaur jump onto Mrs. Killmore’s back. Its jaws fastened around the back of her neck, and within seconds, her shriek was cut short as its curved teeth ripped through skin and muscle.

The rest of Desmond’s ill-fated execution squad looked over the sandwich bar counter and, bless their cotton socks, they even had found a couple of knives. Desmond so wanted the dinosaur to run after them too, but it just flipped the woman onto her back and bit out her throat before trotting back over to where Desmond stood. The temptation to pat it on the head was so great. In the end though, he decided against it. He wanted to keep his hand attached to his wrist.

The dinosaur squawked a couple of times, and then ran over to the corridor which led to the toilets. The other three still stared at Desmond from behind the counter. How dumb were they? He gave the buggers a mock bow. “I’m living with the enemy, you bitches,” he screamed. Desmond spun around and kicked Mo as hard as he could in the balls before running after the dinosaur. Oh God, he couldn’t wait to join up with Zinik-Tow again. He could even forgive his pal for leaving him all alone in that timeship now that he’d sent his pet dinosaur to kill the people wanting to murder this poor janitor. “You need a name, I think. If you don’t mind, I’m going to call you after my mother. Yeah, Susan. It’s such a fitting name for such a nasty violent bugger like you.”