No Easy Way Out (9 page)

Alison interrupted them. “Kris, your kids await.” She shooed them toward the store proper.

“All right, bossy,” he said, giving her a playful shove. “Man, you’d think this was like some crisis situation or something.”

“No touching,” she said, playfully shoving him back.

Shay felt tears in her eyes. She liked these people. They seemed so normal. Where had normal been hiding?

• • •

Ryan had had about enough of the parking garage. It was nearing ten in the morning and Mike and Drew were still passed out after last night’s bender. He’d stayed in the rat hole with them for an hour after waking up, then had to bolt or risk losing his mind in the dark. Not that the rest of the garage offered much in the way of light. Every exit was permanently sealed over, as he and the others had found out the hard way after crashing their cars into what had seemed like flimsy gates. Every window or hole to the outside world was blocked. The only light came from the glassed-in central pavilion. Security must have cut all the fluorescent ceiling lights to discourage people from coming down.

Ryan circled the perimeter, first at a walk, then, once he was sure his head could take it, at a light trot. He only lasted a few strides, but it felt good to stretch his legs. He missed running. Every day, he pounded the pavement. It was part of his training, but it was also something he loved. Like rock climbing, it was something he could disappear into, where he was only competing with himself.

How long would it take to completely recover from the flu? Maybe he could sneak up to the medical center and ask one of the doctors.

He made it to the opposite side of the garage before hearing any noise other than the squeak of his sneakers on the pavement: A door shut on a car. Ryan scanned the nearest cars and saw a giant SUV rocking.

Ryan crept up on the SUV from its rear blind spot. He wondered if he should wake Mike or Drew. It was probably not the wisest move to be ambushing a potentially hostile individual alone. He ducked down and crawled the rest of the way to the bumper. He heard voices inside. Sliding up to standing, his back against the chassis, Ryan peered in through the side window.

A child screamed and the car rocked again. The door creaked open on the opposite side of the car and Ryan heard footsteps. He rushed around the back of the SUV and saw two small heads disappear into the next aisle.

It was easy to catch up to the kids—one boy and one girl. They kept looking behind them and tripping over their own feet. Ryan guessed they were kindergarten age by their height relative to the car bumpers. He grabbed the backs of their shirts, jerking them to a halt.

“Let go!” the boy cried. He had curly blond hair and freckles, the poster child for cute kids. And he was literally crying because of Ryan. Ryan wondered how bad he looked—in general, people did not think his face was scary.

“Calm down!” Ryan said. “I’m not going to hurt you!”

The kids stopped struggling. Ryan let go of their shirts and squatted to be on their level. As he did, the girl kicked his shin and both ran. What had happened to these kids?

“I just want to help you!” he shouted, deciding against chasing them, mostly because his head had begun to throb again. “Where are your parents?”

The footsteps stopped. Ryan heard whispering. Then, from off to his left, “They got sick.” It was the girl’s voice. “They told us to hide in the car until the police told us it was safe to come out.”

Holy crap. How long had these kids been down here? “When did your parents get sick?” Ryan took a few slow steps toward the voice.

“Wednesday, I think.”

“You’ve been in the parking garage since Wednesday?” If the parents had been gone that long, they weren’t coming back.

“We have a bunch of groceries in the car,” the boy said, stepping out from between two cars. “We’re fine down here. Leave us alone.”

“The fact that you’re telling a complete stranger about your supplies in a life-or-death situation like this tells me you are anything but fine.”

The boy looked at his sister. A tear ran down his cheek.

“Crap,” Ryan said, kneeling again. “I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that I don’t think the police are going to come and get you for a long time. Do you have enough food to last a while?”

The girl, who was taller, slung her arm around her brother. “We ate most of the good stuff,” she said. “And some of it started to smell bad, so we threw it out.” She pointed to where the overflowing Dumpsters had been moved. The girl had dark hair, and what little light there was winked off the spangles in her headband.

“That was really smart,” Ryan said, trying to both calm the kids down and figure out what to do with them. He could not leave them in this garage. It was one thing for him and Mike and Drew to choose this hell, it was another for these kids to be stuck here on their dead parents’ orders.

“Mom told us to stay here,” the boy said. “I don’t want to leave the truck.”

“Are people still getting sick?” the girl asked. She sounded older than the boy. But not much older.

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “I would think so.”

“Then we’ll stay down here.” She released her brother’s shoulder and took his hand. They began to walk back toward their car.

He had two options: One, wrestle both kids up to the main floor and turn them over to security, which was not only risky for himself, but might expose the kids to the disease, or two, leave them in their SUV, where they had been fine until he scared the crap out of them. The decision was clear.

“My name is Ryan,” he said, backing out of their way. “If you need me, I’m staying with friends in a closet on the other side of the garage.”

The girl stopped and nodded at Ryan. “I’m Ruthie, and this is Jack.” The boy waved.

“If you need anything,” Ryan said, “just remember—Ryan, in the closet.”

I
t took Lexi the entire morning to process the delinquents in the PaperClips. By the time the last one was escorted out, Hank told her to take the rest of the morning off until lunch.

“Isn’t lunch at noon?” Lexi asked. According to her phone, it was eleven fifty.

“Enjoy your ten minutes of freedom,” he said, taking the laptop from her and exiting through the stockroom.

This was the thanks she got for working without a break since eight in the morning? She cracked her knuckles, then flopped onto the table. Alone in the PaperClips yet again. At least this time she wasn’t buried under anything. And there were no bodies.

At least not on the floor in front of her.

There were over fifteen hundred unregistered names according to the database last night, and this morning, she’d only accounted for fifty of them in the PaperClips. Where were the rest of the missing? Maddie could not be right in thinking that they were all dead. But in these ten minutes of freedom, Lexi decided to count the few bodies she knew about.

The hole in the wall leading from the PaperClips to the Pancake Palace was still covered over by a sheet of plastic, though the material now sported some holes and was so wrinkled it was no longer transparent. Lexi pushed it aside and stepped into the Pancake Palace. The lights were off, so she followed the wall toward where she remembered the doors to the kitchen to be. Beside the swinging kitchen door, she found a light switch.

The lights shone down on an empty space. Everything that had been in the Pancake Palace—the beds, the boxes of supplies from the government, the patients—had been taken out. Lexi pushed through the swinging doors and entered the kitchen. The door to the freezer was closed, but there was no evidence of it having been sealed over as her mother had ordered.
Which means they haven’t gotten to it yet, which means I’m in business . . .

Lexi pulled on the freezer’s handle. With a thunk, then a rush of air, the door released and swung toward her. Cold air kissed her face. The freezer was empty.

Lexi stuck her head inside. Empty. Nothing. The freezer contained shining steel walls coated in a dusting of white frost, that was it.

Had she dreamed the bodies she saw in there? No. Her mother had screamed. There had been bodies. Stacks of them. The mall manager. Lots of people. All dead. All frozen.

Where were they now? Who had taken them? Was the government somehow sneaking the dead out? Did her mother know?

Lexi slammed the freezer shut and scrambled out of the Pancake Palace. In the halls, she blew by people carrying giant bags of popcorn, pushing dollies stacked with towels and bins piled with clothing, a line of children marching and singing “Ten Little Pumpkins.” None of that mattered. Where were the bodies?

At the mall offices, she had to lie to the guard about finding a computer glitch to get inside, but what was one lie compared with the disappearing dead? She had to get to her mother. She had to know.

Hank Goldman was sitting talking to the Senator when Lexi burst breathless into the room.

“Lex, what happened?” her mother said, standing. She even came out from behind the desk and took Lexi into her arms.

“The bodies,” Lexi said, trying to regain her breathing. “The freezer. Empty.”

“We can talk later,” Hank said, getting up to leave.

“No,” the Senator said. She pushed away from Lexi, held her by the shoulders, and glowered into her eyes. “Baby, I need you to forget about the bodies. I have that situation under control.”

“But Mom,” Lexi retorted. “The ones in the Pancake Palace. They’re gone.”

“I know,” her mother said. “I had them moved for sanitation purposes.”

Her mother moved the bodies. The government was not meddling. Her mother was moving bodies without anyone’s knowledge. “What’s more sanitary than leaving them frozen and sealed in a freezer?”

The Senator released Lexi and shuffled back behind the desk. “Please, trust me. I have this situation under control.” She sat in her large leather chair. “Just relax and go be with your friends. I gave you three an assignment you should like—clothing sorting.”

Three?
This was how out of touch her mother was—she still thought Ginger was her friend. “When was the last time you saw me clothes shopping?” Lexi asked, not even trying to hide her snark.

“Your friend Maddie requested the job this morning,” her mother said. “I thought you’d be grateful I gave you an assignment together.” The Senator turned her attention back to Hank. “So you were saying about an alternative for the rats?” The interview was over.

Lexi wandered out through the offices. Her mother was stonewalling her on the bodies, a secret they had shared not twenty-four hours ago. And apparently there was a rat problem.

Out in the hallway, Lexi heard the crowds gathering for lunch. It took her ten minutes to find Maddie in the chaos of the first-floor courtyard. There were a few tables set up, but most people were still camping out on the floor with their plates of freeze-dried goop and bottles of water.

“Hey, stranger,” Lexi said, sidling up to her on the food line.

“Girlfriend!” Maddie gave her a one-armed hug. “You missed it. I complained about my original assignment to, get this, mop the freaking floors, and got upgraded to clothing sorter. I just said that I was friends with you and
voilà!
We’re clothing sorters.”

“Yeah,” Lexi murmured. “It’s good to know the boss’s kid.” She wasn’t sure why, but it felt a little gross to have Maddie using her name to get better stuff. It was one thing for Lexi to use her influence, and another to have it used by proxy.

“Turn that frown upside-down,” Maddie said. “We have the best gig in this hellhole.”

They reached the guy guarding the Borderlands Cantina, which was where whoever was assigned to cooking duty was reconstituting the freeze-dried rations. They gave their names, which the guard checked against the database. He grunted an okay and waved them in.

Trays of goop in hand, Lexi followed Maddie through the crowds toward the central fountain.

“Okay, don’t freak out,” Maddie said, “but we have a bit of a leech problem.”

Lexi glanced at the fountain and saw Ginger already seated on the stone wall. “That’s some leech.”

Maddie sighed. “She got placed on clothing sorter duty too, and has been hanging on me, begging forgiveness, blah, blah. She asked if she could eat lunch with us and I told her it was a free country.”

Maddie did not sound quite as pissed off as Lexi felt. “She bailed and left you to die.”

Maddie shrugged. “We’re all going to die.”

Ginger shuffled over to make room for them. “I had to tell two old ladies to take a hike to save the spaces.” She smiled this big grin, like saving seats on a wall made up for anything.

Maddie plopped down beside her. “I’m not sure I can choke this crap down.”

“They said it was veggie chili.” Ginger smoothed a lumpy section with the back of her spoon.

“It’s food,” Lexi said. Was she supposed to just laugh, let bygones be bygones, forget how Ginger had slunk away from her when she’d asked for help trying to save people,
people
here including her alleged best friend? Which person, strangely enough, seemed to have completely forgotten said abandonment. Lexi shoveled a mouthful in and instantly regretted it. “Nuhpken,” she managed through closed lips.

Ginger passed her one.

Lexi took it grudgingly and spit out the food. “This meal must be ingested in small bites.”

“And with lots of water.” Maddie passed her a bottle.

As the minutes ticked by, Lexi had a harder time maintaining her level of maximum annoyance. Ginger was apologetic to the point of ass-kissing: “I’m so sorry I left you, I was just completely freaked out.” “I’m a total hypochondriac, I know it’s no excuse, I’m pathetic.” “You were such a superhero, Lex, I wish I were as strong as you.” It was easier to just talk to her than keep up the force field of anger.

But there was something else. As Maddie recounted their morning of sifting through clothes, how it was so unfair that someone was going to be given this amazing pair of 7 for All Mankind jeans and would they even appreciate them the way Maddie would, Lexi felt the power of the bond between Maddie and Ginger. Ginger, for example, knew what 7 for All Mankind was. She agreed with Maddie about how there should be a clothing hierarchy, where people who knew about designers got the designer clothes. The two were “besties,” always would be, no matter what. They had what Lexi had with Darren. So what if Lexi had saved Maddie’s life after Ginger left her for dead? Whatever had happened, Lexi sensed that she would always be their third wheel.

And so when Maddie turned to her and asked where she’d been all morning, Lexi told her about the PaperClips, about the people who’d gotten Tasered for sneaking out at night, but said nothing about the missing bodies. She would find someone else, someone more like her, someone, maybe, like Marco, to help her with that project.

“Alexandra Ross,” her mother’s voice boomed from the loudspeakers, “please come to the mall offices.”

Lexi pounded the last of her water. “Break time’s over.”

“We’ll catch you later?” Ginger asked, smiling.

Lexi did not miss her use of
we
. “Yeah,” she said, and went to see what Mommy Dearest wanted.

• • •

Ryan had taken the rest of the morning to hunt through the parking garage for other stowaways. He found two bodies, one in the front seat of a sedan, seat-belted in as if ready to drive off, the other stretched across the back of a station wagon. Most people had decided that whatever was going on aboveground was better than going it alone in the dark. He saw the appeal of that decision.

But better than other people, Ryan found people’s stuff. It seemed that a number of shoppers had stowed goods in their cars. And as Ryan was already Stonecliff’s Most Wanted, he did not see any reason not to bust open some windows and collect the gear. He found a laptop and a bunch of DVDs. There were some children’s clothes in the back of an SUV. One wagon had a huge box of crackers stashed in the tailgate. Arms full, he went back to Ruthie and Jack’s SUV.

The two were curled up in the dark with the door cracked open. Ruthie was whispering something to her brother. “And then, Peter threw dust from Tinker Bell on Wendy and her brothers, and they could fly!”

Ryan felt like Santa Claus. “Delivery for Ruthie and Jack,” he said, stepping into the doorway.

“Are those crackers?” Ruthie dove for the box, nearly pushing Ryan over.

“You guys have any light?” he said, releasing the crackers and nearly dropping everything else.

Ruthie shuffled into a sitting position. “We stopped using the car’s light two days ago. That way, when Mom and Dad come back, we can drive home.”

These kids had been trapped down here with no lights for two days, they thought Mom and Dad were coming back—they really needed his help. “Here’s some clothes and a laptop and some DVDs for when you get tired of telling stories,” he said. “I didn’t find anyone else hiding out down here, but that doesn’t mean someone won’t show up, so keep this door mostly closed. How much more food do you have?”

Jack held up a bag of chips. “I’m saving this for lunch.”

“We could use some more food,” Ruthie said, mouth spewing cracker crumbs. “And drinks. Juice boxes?” She sounded excited, like maybe they could go shopping. Ryan sensed she was desperate to no longer be in charge of things.

“Let me see what I can scrounge for you,” he said.

Ruthie threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you.”

He pushed her off, uncomfortable with being thanked before he actually did anything. “Just keep the door mostly shut until I get back.”

She nodded and pulled it halfway closed, blocking the two from Ryan’s sight.

It felt good to have a mission, to be doing something he was sure was right for a change. He would get them flashlights and juice boxes—there had to be some left in the wholesale place—he would give them everything they needed. He would take care of them.

The only way back into the mall—aside from Marco’s magic key—was the central pavilion. Ryan rolled the dice on whether anyone would recognize him or even care if they did. He pushed open the glass door and took the steps two at a time up into the blinding light of the central courtyard.

• • •

Two security guards had brought trays up to the food court, so that Shay and the others in the school could eat lunch separate from the masses. The children ate what they were given, though some made fun of the way the food squished. The fact that everyone had the same thing seemed to make eating it all the more acceptable.

Shay had to admit that it was nice being around the kids. She even missed Preeti, whom she normally found annoying. It would be nice to be annoyed by Preeti instead of worrying about whether she really would be released from the med center this afternoon. She imagined Preeti being once again like these kids, happy to run around in the empty food court, playing freeze tag or jumping rope. They appeared to have forgotten that they were trapped in the mall. Even if she couldn’t feel that happiness or forget the walls locking her in, it was calming to watch those who could. People like Kris, who it turned out was just an overgrown five-year-old.

He had found a large blue plastic bottle of bubble solution and was waving its giant orange wand in slow circles. The bubbles were not floating far enough for his taste, so he began dancing in loops. The kids—all different ages, whoever had finished their lunch—orbited him, unable to escape the palpable gravity of the bubbles.

Kris began to wave the wand in larger circles, to run, trailing a stream of bubbles. The children pranced, laughing and squealing, under the shimmering orbs as they glided up toward the glass ceiling. Kris was unable to keep from giggling right along with the kids. He ran back through his bubbles, slapping at them with the wand, causing the kids to shriek with delight. The bubbles formed a gleaming cloud around them.
Bubbles on clothing, bubbles in hair, bubbles, bubbles everywhere.

Shay watched the rainbows swirl on the surface, followed the soap-sacs as they drifted up, up, and finally burst against the glass. For all the joy around her, all she saw was that death, the final gasp and pop of the bubble against the wall that divided picture of sky from sky.