Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) (12 page)

“
Are they really?” Alessa
asked. “They seem like they’re in fine condition to me…”

Isaac shook his head. “It’s been so
long since they’ve been used, the batteries would all have drained
by now. There’s no way to start them up.”

That was a shame – it
would have been nice to get a reprieve from all the walking,
especially in this cold. But even though the cars were dead, they
still gave Alessa hope. There were so
many
of them, and someone must have
driven them all here – could all of these people really be
inside?

“
Isaac, look –” she
pointed toward the loading docks around the side of the building.
“Grocery store delivery trucks.”

“
They must have used them
to bring supplies,” he agreed.

Alessa’s mind was racing with the
possibilities. “A mall would be a great place to shelter, right?
They’d have everything they need already inside – clothes, camping
gear, generators, probably some big fountains for bathing, an
atrium where they can build fires…” Alessa couldn’t contain the
excitement in her voice. Maybe they weren’t alone after
all.

“
They’d certainly have as
good a chance here as anywhere,” Isaac added as they reached the
doors. “After you,” he smiled.

Alessa pulled the heavy glass door
open slowly, a creak echoing through the large empty hall. They
stepped inside and looked around, their eyes adjusting to the dim
interior.

Surveying the area, Alessa immediately
noticed signs that the building had been lived in – overflowing
trash cans, the occasional sleeping bag, a stack of discarded
magazines beside a bench. Her hope surged.

“
It definitely looks like
someone was here…” Isaac observed, his voice barely a
whisper.

Alessa too felt odd speaking aloud –
it felt wrong somehow, like talking in a library, or a mausoleum.
She just nodded her understanding and swung her bag around to dig
out a flashlight.

They crept quietly toward the main
hall, Alessa shining the light on the tile floor to guide their
path. Oversize potted plants cast long shadows along the corridor,
their twisted fingers inching up the walls beside Alessa. She
noticed the plants were dried out and brown – she guessed it didn’t
make sense to waste water on them when they needed it for
people.

Isaac’s foot crunched glass and Alessa
swung the light in his direction. A case from a jewelry store lay
smashed on its side, various rings and baubles scattered across the
floor.

Alessa turned to the other side,
eyeing the sporting goods store to her left. She noticed that the
window display had been stripped bare, a couple naked mannequins
tossed unceremoniously around a faux campfire. The rest of the
store boasted empty racks and solitary hangers, everything
perfectly, unnervingly still.

She looked back to Isaac, who was
crouched and picking among the broken glass. She watched him slip
something into his pocket, but before she could ask what he’d
found, a loud bang echoed from down the hall ahead of
them.

Isaac looked up at her at once and
they both froze, waiting. The tension of the silence clotted in the
air as Alessa held her breath in suspense.

When no other sound came, Isaac stood
tentatively and inched over to Alessa, placing a gentle hand on the
small of her back and motioning ahead with a nod.

She pointed the flashlight in the
direction of the sound and they set off with quiet footsteps in
search of its source.

As they reached the department store
at the far end of the hallway, they paused, staring into the
blackness beyond the threshold. Alessa gripped the flashlight and
felt Isaac’s hand slide on top of hers, the pressure of his fingers
pointing the torch downward and flicking off the light with a
click.

They were plunged into
night.

Alessa could see the gleam of his eyes
in the dim moonlight shining through the skylights above. He
removed his hand from hers and placed a silent finger to his
lips.

“
What?” she mouthed,
wondering why he was suddenly taking precautions to stay
hidden.

He shrugged his shoulders. Just a
feeling, Alessa guessed. Maybe he was still spooked about the
creatures in the woods.

They stepped tentatively into the dark
room and gave their eyes another moment to adjust. From what Alessa
could tell, it seemed the clothing racks had all been pushed to the
sides, leaving a big open space in the center of the
room.

She took another few steps to get a
better look.

And that’s when it hit her – an abrupt
slam in the face as if she’d pivoted into a wall of brick, and the
full-body crash of a tidal wave of pain.

Alessa sunk to her knees, a
soul-crushing rush of sorrow and terror flooding her consciousness
and draining every ounce of strength from her body.

Like a blow to the gut, the air raced
from her lungs and she crumpled over, her face smacking against the
cool linoleum of the floor.

A thousand images flashed before her
eyes, people and places she didn’t recognize jumbled with thoughts
and feelings that she knew were not her own. Alessa squeezed her
eyes shut, her mind pressing outward against the onslaught
barraging her senses, but it was no use.

The torrent pounded through her,
raging. Helpless against it, Alessa poured her concentration into
the only thing she could think to do – the simple act of
breathing.

In, out.

In, out.

In, out.

She drank each shallow breath and
waited in agony for the deluge to end.

13.
COMPREHENSION

Isaac watched in horror as Alessa
crumpled to the ground and lay convulsing in the fetal position,
moaning incomprehensibly.

Rushing to her side, he kneeled over
her and placed a protective hand on her shoulder as he scanned the
room, searching for the source of her agony. His first thought was
the creatures, but as far as he could tell, they were completely
alone. Besides Alessa’s trembling, no movement or sound broke the
stillness.

Convinced of there being no immediate
danger, Isaac scooped up Alessa in his arms and carried her back
out to the hallway, where the glow of the early moon shone like
daylight compared to the blackness of the store. He ran his eyes
over her shaking body, searching for any signs of injury, but was
relieved to find her wholly intact.

“
Alessa,” he whispered
into her ear, dropping to the floor and cradling her against his
chest. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

He knew it
obviously
wasn’t
okay, but he didn’t know what else to do. He wasn’t going to
get any answers – or know how to help her – until he could draw her
out of this state.

Isaac rocked her for another moment,
his heart drumming, each second stretching into an eternity. His
mind was completely numb but racing at the same time; he couldn’t
seem to come up with even a single explanation for what had
befallen her.

Finally, Alessa snapped out of it and
looked up at Isaac in a panic. “What happened?” she
beseeched.

Relieved, Isaac released a long, deep
sigh. “I was hoping you could tell me…” he prompted
gently.

Alessa dropped her head and gazed at
the floor, taking a few deep breaths before she looked up at him in
reply, her eyes almost frantic in the moonlight.

“
I don’t understand it,
Isaac. It felt like I got… hit. But, like,
mentally
hit. Like I was at the
ocean, standing in the surf and a huge wave came out of nowhere and
smacked me in the face. But it was a wave of
emotion
.”

Isaac still didn’t understand. “Maybe
you’re just overwhelmed with being here, seeing all this stuff from
before…”

Alessa shook her head
vigorously. “No. It wasn’t
my own
emotion. It was someone else’s. Lots of someones,
actually – like hundreds of people. I saw all these –” she
considered for a moment, “– memories, I think. Babies being born,
kisses at weddings, birthday parties, families gathered around the
dinner table, school graduations. It was like how people say your
life flashes before your eyes when you die, only
it wasn’t my life
.”

Isaac didn’t know how to respond to
this, so he just held her tighter and tried to swallow back his
discomfort. He was a practical person, and he didn’t like not being
able to fix things. If Alessa had twisted her ankle, he’d splint
it. If she was hungry or cold or lost, he’d guide her to safety.
Hell, even if she was sad over missing her sister, he’d know how to
comfort her.

But in this case, he was
at a complete loss. Whatever Alessa had experienced – had
been
experiencing, he
realized, ever since they left the colony – was not supposed to be.
People couldn’t
see
memories that weren’t their own; that just wasn’t how things
worked. Only, apparently, Alessa could.

“
Isaac – it wasn’t just
the memories, either. I could
feel
what they were feeling. Pain – just horrible
physical pain, the pain of death – and misery, and fear, and
regret.” She rubbed her face with her hands and gazed up at him,
her eyes shining with tears. “It was like I was inside someone’s
head as they realized it was over, that this was the end, that all
their dreams for the future – for their family, for their children
– would never be. A
thousand
times.” She clutched at her stomach, grimacing.
“Nothing has ever
hurt
like that, Isaac. It was – it was wrenching. It was like my
heart broke a hundred times over.”

Just then a whoosh and a loud WHAP
overhead broke them from their reverie. Isaac and Alessa both
looked up, startled, and noticed that a skylight was hanging open –
it had blown against the ceiling in the wind. Isaac realized this
must have been the sound they’d heard earlier.

He took her hand in both of his.
“Listen, Less. I’m not gonna pretend I have any idea what’s going
on. But you’re okay now, right?” She didn’t seem to be in pain
anymore, but he wasn’t sure if she was ready to be alone, and he
would have to leave her for a few minutes if he had any hope of
finding answers. “I want to go look around that room for a bit. Are
you okay to stay here for a couple minutes by yourself?”

Alessa nodded, and flopped back
against the floor, exhausted. He was still hesitant to leave her,
but she seemed all right for the moment. He knew he couldn’t walk
out of here without at least looking for some kind of
explanation.

He grabbed the flashlight and
cautiously headed back into the darkened store. The air felt heavy
in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but besides that
nothing seemed amiss. He noted that all the clothing racks had been
shoved to the side, and as he ventured further into the room, he
understood why – this place had been retrofitted as a
hospital.

The center of the room held row after
row of empty cots, most of them riddled with dark stains. Blood, he
knew, from the virus – he tried unsuccessfully to shake off the
memory of his sick parents bleeding their putrefied innards from
their ears, their eyes, their mouths. It was a horrific way to
go.

And judging from the looks of things,
hundreds – if not thousands – of people had met that same end in
this very room.

IV hooks hung ready in between the
cots, empty bags sagging from their tips. Isaac pulled one down and
held the light up to read the block letters printed on the plastic
– narcotics. He tossed the empty bag on the nearest cot, wishing
he’d had something to ease his own family’s suffering at the
end.

Turning, he made his way back toward
the entrance to check on Alessa.

He found her lying in the same spot
he’d left her, but she looked more relaxed now, less
shaken.

“
What’d you find?” she
asked, sitting up.

“
It was a med center,” he
replied. “I think that’s where they brought the sick people from
this town.” He shook his head. “This place isn’t a refuge, Alessa.
It’s a hospice.”

Alessa shrugged. “I kind of figured
that out already.”

Isaac sighed and sat down
next to her. “I don’t understand
how
, Alessa. I mean – I believe you
– it’s clear that a lot of people died in there. And you seem to
somehow have felt their thoughts, what they went through. But I
don’t understand how. Nothing like this ever happened to you
before, right?”

Alessa laughed. “Don’t you
think it would have come up if I had some kind of psychic powers?
‘Oh, by the way, I
see dead
people
.’” She sighed.

Isaac sat back, leaning
his palms against the floor behind him. It just didn’t make any
sense. How would Alessa just suddenly develop the ability to feel
the thoughts of someone who’d died? Besides what the producers had
rigged for her on the drama, she’d never even
seen
a ghost before, and that was
all totally fake anyway.