A Matter of Days (17 page)

We had to fumble around in the stockroom to find sizes, but we ended up with sneakers for Rabbit, hiking boots for me, and black leather biker boots for Zack.

Zack went and checked the kitchen goods store next door and found all the shelves with edibles empty, but he picked up a couple of really sharp, intimidating knives. With a shrug he showed me and said, “You never know.”

“Let’s go see what Camping Universe has.” Rabbit turned down another arm of the mall.

The jewelry stores we passed were empty.
Someone knows gold is the new money
.

At the sporting goods store we picked up sturdy hiking backpacks, clean sleeping bags, and a house-sized tent since
Twawki and Zack took up their fair share of space. We would run into rain one of these days.

Zack headed up an escalator. “I want to make sure they got all the ammo, okay? I’ll be right back.”

I fingered a pumpkin-colored cotton sweater, then slipped it over my head. The antishoplifting tag clunked against my hip.

“Nadia, look what I found!” Rabbit raced over holding up foil packets, his headlamp perfectly positioned to blind me.

“What is it?” I tried blinking the stinging blindness away.

“It’s ice cream.”

Twawki barked.

“What?”
There’s a working freezer here? We can’t possibly be that lucky
.

“Freeze-dried ice cream.” His eyes lit up and he held a packet out to me like the true gold it was. “Where’s Zack?”

“He’s hunting up bullets.”

Rabbit shifted, juggling his weight from side to side in excitement. “Do I have to wait? There’s three packets.”

“Go ahead.”

We sat down in display camping chairs. He opened the package carefully, almost as if his life depended on it. He lifted a piece of brown. “Chocolate?”

“Close your eyes and imagine that it’s cold,” I instructed as he gently placed the square on his tongue.

“Penguins,” he said around a mouthful of dissolving chocolate cream.

“Polar bears.” I smiled.

In popped a pink, strawberry-flavored chunk. “Ice cubes. Have some.” He thrust the bag at me.

“Snowmen.” I played along, picking a small crumb; I wanted Rabbit’s joy to continue as long as possible. The creamy goodness tasted exactly like ice cream, but the thing I missed most was the cold. “Brain freeze.”

A clatter of metal against metal somewhere out in the shadows startled us both. Rabbit dropped the bag on the ground as Twawki turned to face the noise, his head lowered.

I met Rabbit’s fearful gaze and clicked off my headlamp, reached over and turned his to dark too.
Talk about having a bright, flashing
Come Kill Me
sign on our foreheads
.

“What do you think that is?” Rabbit whispered, and grabbed my hand.

Where’s Zack?
He’d call out; he wouldn’t deliberately scare us. So who was watching us?

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

We waited in silence. My ears tried to go into superhearing mode. Twawki thumped his tail and paced, his shoes sounding like sandals on the wooden floor. When he whined, I tightened my hand on his collar.

To our right, a clothing rack tipped, making the clothes sway and the hangers clack against each other. Small skylights above the escalators admitted enough light that we were able to distinguish shapes and textures around us before the edges smudged into blacker shadows. The pitch-black, I still wasn’t completely comfortable in, wrapped around us stretching out in every direction.

“There, over there.” Rabbit tugged my hand and we moved out of the chairs and between two pop-up tents and a pyramid of rain boots.

“Hello?” I heard a man’s voice call.

Twawki woofed a deep, exuberant greeting.

Finally, it clicked that Zack called out. “Guys? It’s me. I found a little food downstairs.”

Relief flooded me and made my knees weak. “It’s Zack.”

“We’re over here,” I called, turning my headlamp back on.

Behind us Zack said, “There you are. Not funny.”

We’d been searching in the opposite direction from him for the noisemaker. Just as I was about to tell Zack what we were afraid of, something fell to the ground and rattled as it rolled across the wooden floor.

Zack immediately shifted. Dropping the bag in his hands he turned out his flashlight and dove left. I heard running footsteps, and wheezy breathing, as Twawki strained at the leash. He yanked me along in chase.

“Stop! Wait!” Zack called. A door slammed. “It’s locked.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a metal stick that he jammed into the lock, then slammed his palm against it until the door opened. The door jerked and crashed into the wall behind us. Cautiously, we poked our heads around, swinging the light to the left, then to the right. Rab took the leash back from me.

A flash of pink swept around the corner of the hallway. Twawki started running and barking, his paws slipping every which way in the shoes. Rabbit hung on for dear life as we gave chase and Zack yelled at the stranger to stop and return. I felt like we were in a bad horror movie. Did we really want whoever it was to come back?

Rabbit bent over and then held up a Barbie dressed in a fluffy ball gown and one shoe. “She dropped these.”

“She?”

“I don’t think bad guys play with Barbies.” Rabbit shrugged, unafraid, if nonplussed.

“Where’d she go, you think?”

I walked around looking at closed doors. The tinkling of keys ahead drew our attention.

Zack placed his finger to his lips and motioned for us to be as quiet as possible as he ventured closer. A tall, tattooed guy with scruffy facial hair, he looked like a criminal—one of those strangers kids aren’t supposed to talk to. I grabbed his hand and shook my head. “You’ll scare her.”

“Don’t assume she’s alone,” Zack said.

“If she wasn’t, they’d already have confronted us,” I whispered.

While Zack and I argued over the next step, Rabbit and Twawki walked down the hallway.

“She’s in here.” Rabbit pointed, then lifted his light so we could read the sign.

“How do you know?”

He handed me a matching shoe to the one Barbie was missing. Or it would have been matching if it wasn’t squished and twisted. “It was stuck in the door.” Rabbit held the door open a crack so it wouldn’t shut and lock.

“Cinderella, anyone?” I muttered.

Zack frowned at me.

“Never mind.”

Twawki nudged the door and pushed his way inside. I followed, keeping Rabbit behind me in case this was some sort of ambush. We entered what appeared to be a clothing store devoted to everything girl, from infant to tween. Pink and sparkles seemed to be the predominant palette.

“Hello? We found your Barbie? Are you in here?”

Rabbit moved down a side aisle. “My name is Rabbit and this is my sister, Nadia, and Zack. We have food. Are you hungry?”

“Rabbit!” I hissed.

Zack made his way toward the front of the store and then returned to my side. “The gate is all the way down. She didn’t leave this area if she came in here.”

We peered under the clothing racks thinking maybe she was hiding in the middle of one. Rabbit started playing fetch with Twawki and a Super Ball he took from a toy display by the cash register.

We saved the dressing rooms for last. We’d cornered her with no idea if she had a weapon.

Rabbit tugged my hand and tossed Twawki’s ball into the dressing room area. The dog bounded after it. Catching a whiff of scent, he stopped chasing the ball.

All I smelled was bubble gum—that pink, too-sweet, globby chewing gum.

“We think maybe you’re inside one of these rooms. We want you to know we’re not going to hurt you. We came for supplies today, but we’re leaving soon.” I hoped I sounded friendly and calm.

“My dog’s name is Twawki, you can pat him if you want to.” Rabbit was busy turning his head upside down to see under the dressing room doors. At the far end, he gestured me over.

I didn’t want to scare her more than she was, but I also didn’t feel comfortable leaving her in the mall to fend for herself. We might be the first visitors, but we wouldn’t be the last.

I reached into my back pocket and slid out the MP3 player. Folded in its case was a photograph of Dad and me. I smoothed it and put it under the stall door, far enough inside she could see it, but close enough I could grab it back. “That’s me when I was eight, with my dad. I’m fifteen now, and this is my brother Rabbit. Zack’s the big guy who stomps around in boots like a giant gorilla. He won’t hurt you either.”

A tiny dirty hand with crystal doodad nail stickers picked up the photograph, then disappeared back into the darkness of the little room.
I’ll take that as a good sign
.

Rabbit frowned and made a motion like he’d go in after the photo.

She needed to feel like she was making the choice. I knew it because that was what I might need. Still needed.

“We’re going to go to the front of the store and count to one hundred. You can think about it. If you don’t want to meet us that’s okay, just slip the photo back out here and we’ll leave you. Or you can come give it back to me. Your choice. I know your mommy probably told you not to talk to strangers, but now you know us so we’re not strangers. Come on, Rabbit.”

Twawki’s happy tail and bright expression told me she followed close behind us. Probably trying to decide if what I said was honest or not. By the time we got to seventy-seven, Zack jerked his head toward the aisle behind me. I turned around slowly.

There, holding out the photograph to me, was a nymph of a girl, so tiny it was hard to fathom her age. She was skittish and wild-eyed, like she’d been raised in the maze of hallways here. I had no idea what this kind of solitude and fear might do to a child.

I knelt. “Hello. I’m Nadia.”

“May I pet your doggy?” she asked.

Rabbit dropped the leash and Twawki bounded over to her and sat while she strangled him in a hug that broke my heart.

Against his fur I heard her mumble, “Patty. I’m Patty.”

Once Patty started speaking, there was no shutting her up.

“How’d you end up living here by yourself?” Rabbit asked.

“My mom works here. She’s the boss of everyone. She brought me when she got sick.”

“Why?” Rabbit frowned.

“The soldiers s’posed to save me.”

“How do you get around in here?” Zack asked softly. I knew he was trying to make himself as unintimidating and harmless as possible.

“Lights and keys.” She turned on a tiny pink flashlight and showed us a ring of keys she kept tucked in a pink glittered fanny pack.

“Keys?”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” She leapt to her feet and we followed. Rabbit walked beside her and I let him take the lead. She seemed to bond with him the quickest.

I’d never seen the inner maze of hallways that connected offices and stores behind the scenes. Maybe all malls had them—I guessed I would find out if we went to any others on the trip. Bare yellowed walls and chipped linoleum, empty racks, and cardboard boxes made each hallway look exactly like the last.

“Don’t you get lost?” I asked.

“No, I came here all the time—before school and after school. Mommy worked a lot.”

“Why were you at the sporting goods store?” Zack asked.

“I eat lunch there.”

“You do?”

“Mm-hmm, every day.” She turned left into another warren.

Her hair was nested with neglect and oil, but not quite as terrible as I’d expect after weeks of not bathing. And besides the bubble gum cloud, she didn’t stink. “How do you take baths?”

“There’s a pool at the gym.”

“A pool?”

“Yeah, mostly for kids. Mommy told me never to swim by myself, so I stay in the shallow end, but I get clean.”

“You don’t drink that water, do you?”

“No, there’s drinks in the back rooms. Every place has an office.” Patty’s tone was so matter-of-fact she unnerved me.

“How old are you?”

“Uh”—she held up seven fingers—“first grade.”

Incredibly, she’d adapted.

“I have breakfast at Gift Baskets from Heaven.” She pointed at a door to our right.

“Why?”

“They have lots of cereal stuff.”

“Where’s dinner?”

“I change around. I miss hot food. The microwaves don’t work.”

I can’t say I found fault with her mother’s plan. Get her kid to a safe place with guards and food, and pray. Her mother must have done a lot of praying.

“Where do you sleep?” I asked.

“The bed d’partment at Macy’s. In the monkey bed. Want to pick out your bed?”

“Oh, we … um …” Rabbit shrugged.

She threw on the brakes so fast we all ran into each other. “You’re not staying?” Her chin quivered and enormous tears welled up in her dark pleading eyes. I bent over and opened my arms, and she clung to me crying. “Shhh …”

The boys pushed on, checking doorknobs and poking into boxes and rooms.
Like because I’m a girl I know what a mother should say and do
.

“We won’t leave you here, I promise, okay? If you want to come with us we’ll take you. Can you show me your mommy’s office?”

She wiped the snot on her sleeve. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

“ ’Kay, in here.” Patty pushed on a door marked Director. The outside office was larger than I expected. A fake tree, bad art posters, and plastic chairs in the corner made a reception area. I kicked something and realized it was a small mountain of plastic bottles. Empty. All of them.

The woman must have spent every last bit of energy stockpiling food and drinks for her child.

“Patty, did you get sick like your mommy?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Mommy’s in there. She said she was going to sleep forever.”

Zack walked toward the door.

“Don’t!” Patty shouted. “I promised when she went to sleep I wouldn’t go back in.”

He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, kid, I don’t have to go in there.”

Underneath the stale air I picked up on the unmistakable odor of decomposing flesh. Mommy was sleeping the sleep of the dead.

“Did she want you to stay here? Forever?”

“No, I was s’posed to talk to the soldiers, but they left.”

“Have other people come through?”