The Mall Read online

  Then my angel speaks to me in a calm, clear voice. You can do it. I want to believe it.

  5 – 2 – door open – 3 – 11 – 8 – 20 – 3 – 17 – 2

  Ding.

  The lift opens. We’re in the mall.

  chapter 11

  RHODA

  ‘So we’re seriously locked in, then?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ Dan says.

  ‘After all that? We get back here and we can’t even leave?’

  He shrugs. He doesn’t seem too outwardly bothered by this setback; no doubt he’s still overwhelmed with relief that we’re not a pile of shattered limbs at the bottom of the lift shaft. But Christ, it’s a killer not being able to get out of this fucking place. From what I could make out after we fled from the lift, the four interlinking aisles that make up this floor don’t seem to lead anywhere, and every shop window is concealed behind rolldown metal shutters. Total security overkill. We can’t even get up to the next level. Another gate seals the top of a pair of frozen escalators that lead to the floor above.

  I sit down on the bottom step of the escalator, wincing as the metal grooves dig into the bones of my bum. ‘So the only way out is the lift again,’ I say. ‘And that’s out of the fucking question.’

  ‘No shit,’ he mumbles.

  ‘Where in the mall are we, Dan?’

  He shrugs. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘How can you not be sure? I thought you worked here?’

  ‘Ja, but it’s a big place, Rhoda.’ He sighs. ‘This looks like one of the enclosed mezzanines.’

  ‘So where’s your bookshop in relation to here, do you think?’

  ‘Probably up.’

  ‘Oh brilliant, Dan. Thanks. You’re a great help.’

  ‘What do you want me to do, Rhoda? We’re back in the mall, what more do you want?’

  ‘I want to get the fuck out of here, Dan, obviously. We’ve just been to the fucking twilight zone, and I really, really need a shower.’

  We both start giggling, although I didn’t actually say anything that funny. Besides, it’s true – I am desperate to get clean. Both of us reek of that putrid water, and my skin feels greasy, damp and itchy.

  But I suppose that’s the least of my problems. My legs are throbbing with exhaustion; my thigh muscles feel as if they’ve been beaten with a metal pipe, and the rest of my body aches like one big bruise. And I don’t even want to delve into my mind and see how that’s holding up. There’s no way anyone could go through all that crazy, fucked-up, unbelievable shit without some sort of psychological damage, is there? Images of the nightmare swim in that stinking canal keep bubbling up, but I’m just not ready to go there. I stand up, hobble over to one of the shopfronts, and rattle the metal shutter that masks the window display. It’s impossible to tell what the shop sells and the signage doesn’t help. The words ‘Bite Size!’ are printed in jumbo Comic Sans lettering above the window.

  ‘This normal?’ I say, kicking the metal shutter for good measure. ‘I mean, we’re inside a mall, right? Isn’t this security a bit OTT?’

  ‘Probably another lockdown,’ Dan says.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘It’s what they do when there’s been an incident in the mall. You know, like an armed robbery, that kind of thing.’

  ‘So they’ll open the exits up soon?’

  ‘Maybe. Or if it happened near closing time they’ll probably leave them sealed off until the morning.’

  ‘Fuck. And we don’t even know what time it is. We could be stuck here for hours.’

  He shrugs again. ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘What do you think they sell in this store?’

  ‘I dunno. Sweets? Teeth? Dental supplies? Who cares?’ He slumps down on the escalator. He drops his head and runs his fingers through his wet hair.

  Although my legs are screaming for me to sit the fuck down and relax, I’m twitchy and on edge. I should be relieved. I should be on my hands and knees kissing the floor tiles and thanking God that we’re alive. But I can’t crush the nagging feeling that something’s wrong. Could it be because the place is so quiet? Save for the squeak of my sodden trainers on the tiles, it’s ominously silent. I can’t even hear the background buzz of electricity or air-con. And the lighting is way more subdued than I remember it being. Maybe they’re trying to save electricity.

  But why bother with lights at all if the place is sealed up tighter than a bank vault?

  Then something strikes me. ‘But why isn’t this place alarmed?’

  ‘Nah, the mall itself isn’t. The individual shops are,’ Dan says without raising his head. ‘Relax, Rhoda. We’re safe, okay?’

  ‘You might be.’

  ‘Are you still worried about the security guards? After all that’s happened?’

  He’s got a point. If Fingerling and Yellow Eyes were to pitch up right now, I’d probably hug them. I’d do almost anything to be sitting safely in their stinking office right now.

  ‘We have to tell someone about the kid,’ I say. ‘Tell them that he got lost down there ASAP. They need to send out a search party.’

  ‘The security guards would have called the cops, Rhoda.’ His patronising tone is beginning to grate.

  ‘They need us to tell them where he went, though.’ I fumble in my pocket and pull out the phone, my fingers grazing over the knife’s handle. ‘We’ll get a signal here, right?’ He slaps his forehead like an old-school comedian parodying forgetfulness, and pulls out his own cell. My Nokia’s screen is blank, and it’s so out of juice it won’t even switch on. Either that or it’s finally succumbed to water damage. ‘Shit. Dead. You?’

  ‘Also.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Look, don’t worry,’ he says. ‘There’ll be someone here early to open up. Cleaners or whatever. We’ve just got to wait it out.’

  ‘What about payphones?’

  ‘They’re normally next to the toilets.’

  I don’t remember seeing any after we’d raced out of the lift, but I hadn’t really been looking. Too hysterical with relief to think about anything else. And the mention of toilets makes me realise that I need to pee really desperately.

  ‘Come on,’ I say.

  ‘Huh? Where you going?’

  ‘See if I can find a phone. And a fucking toilet.’

  ‘I really don’t want to go back there, Rhoda,’ he says.

  ‘I’m not going near the lift, Dan. Anyway, we jammed the door open, there’s no way that psycho can get up here after us.’

  ‘You still think it’s a psycho?’

  I don’t know what to think. I just know I can’t think about that right now. Besides, even though my stomach’s telling me something’s off about this place, my mind’s still dizzy with relief at the normality of our surroundings.

  ‘Whatever. Look, you can hang here if you like, but I’m going to check it out.’

  I stride off, not waiting to see if he’s going to follow. I’ve barely gone ten metres when I hear the slap of his boots behind me.

  We walk past shops sealed with uniform metal security gates; the signs above the battened-down windows are each as brightly coloured as the next, and just as crassly named: Clips ’n’ Crap, Curl Up & Die (although shouldn’t that be ‘Curl Up & Dye’?) and Diabeatties. Dan slows down as we reach the point where the four aisles meet. At the end of the aisle to our left, the lift is still wide open, the empty trolley we’d used to keep the doors open still jammed in place.

  ‘See?’ I say. ‘We’re cool. Like you said, we’re safe.’

  Dan tries to grin at me, but fails miserably.

  The aisle in front of us ends in a locked-down dead end, so I hang a right – the only other option. The shops in this section are similarly shielded, but none have the garish signs above the windows.

  Dan grabs the back of my T-shirt. ‘Wait, Rhoda!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Check.’

  There’s a narrow corridor to our right. It’s gloomy and ends in a brick w
all. There’s no sign of a phone, but there are two doors opposite each other about halfway down. I follow Dan towards them.

  ‘What the hell?’ he says.

  Both doors are emblazoned with toilet signs, but they’re nothing like any I’ve ever seen before. The men’s decal is a silhouette of a man holding a huge stylised penis over a urinal. The ladies’ shows a fat woman balancing over a too-small toilet seat. If they weren’t so neatly rendered I’d assume they were Banksy-style jokes.

  ‘Fuck it,’ I say. ‘I bloody hope they’re not locked. I really, really have to go.’ I push the door of the ladies’ tentatively, and it creaks open. ‘Thank God. See you in a bit.’

  Dan nods and disappears into the men’s.

  Bloody hell.

  Whoever designed the ladies’ bathroom won’t be winning any awards for subtlety. It’s like walking into a tiled womb – everything is pink, right down to the toilet bowls, the double sink and the stall doors. The taps are gold-plated and shaped like the heads of swans, and even the tampon dispenser is spray-painted pink. There are mirrors everywhere, including a full-length one on the far wall that cruelly reflects a gaunt grubby skeleton with too-large eyes and baggy trousers. But now I’m here, my bladder can’t hold on a second longer. All of the stall doors, except for one at the far end, are double width, as if for disabled people. I choose a middle stall and the relief is almost overwhelming.

  I flush and steel myself for another assault by mirror.

  It’s worse the second time. The water in that canal must have been way filthier than I realised; my grey T-shirt is a dull brown colour, and there are rust-coloured stains splotched all over my combats. As usual, I avoid looking too closely at my face. But it’s clear enough that I’m a human turd in antiseptic Barbieland, and the stench rolling off me is making my stomach churn. I need to clean myself up.

  I plug the sink and turn the taps on full. I dunk my head, letting warm water pour over my neck, not caring as it flows into dirty pools on the floor. I fill my hands with squirt after squirt of pink floral-scented liquid soap and work it into my scalp, rinse it off, and repeat the process.

  Better. Much better. But not good enough. I pull off my T-shirt, smother it in soap, and scrub it as best I can. The water turns black, but it’s doing the trick. Using my T-shirt as a swab, I scrub under my arms and around the back of my neck.

  I turn my back to the mirror and peer over my shoulder. The familiar old keloid scar tissue that bleeds down from my neck and over my shoulder leads down into a thick bloom of new bruises, and an ugly scrape spreads across my ribcage. I’ve seen worse. No permanent damage.

  I rinse out the T-shirt and wring out the soap. The water still runs slightly muddy, but fuck it, the shirt no longer stinks of sweat and gore and maggoty water. Is it worth sticking it under the hand-dryer? Probably not. It would take hours to dry.

  There’s the sound of a flushing toilet behind me, and I jump and drop the shirt. I whirl around. The stalls’ doors are all open, except for the one nearest the entrance.

  ‘Hello? Is someone there?’

  Nothing.

  The dread coils in my stomach again, and my heart goes into a gallop.

  I walk over to the closed stall and nudge the door with my foot. It doesn’t budge. Whoever was responsible for designing the toilet signs has excelled with this one. I have no clue what it’s supposed to represent. It shows a stick-thin figure leaning on crutches, its out-of-proportion, misshapen head cocked spastically to one side, its single leg too thin to hold up the weight of its body. Bizarre. Maybe it’s a toilet for one-legged amputees. The signs must be Banksy-style piss-takes after all.

  I knock. ‘Hello?’

  Still nothing.

  The toilet flushes again. I put my ear to the door. I can’t hear anything but the last traces of water running into the cistern. There’s no tell-tale sound of scuffing feet or rustling of clothes.

  Fuck it.

  I get down onto the floor to peer under the door. There’s a good fifteen centimetres of space above the floor, and I wince as my naked stomach and breasts press against the cold pink tiles.

  The stall appears to be empty. No feet, no shoes, just a sodden square of toilet paper and a spreading puddle of brown water around the base of the toilet.

  A blocked toilet. What could be more normal than that? What the hell’s wrong with me? Nothing’s going to come after us here. Like Dan says. We’re safe.

  ‘Rhoda!’

  The scream lodges in my throat and I sit up too quickly, stars dancing in front of my eyes.

  Dan’s looking down at me, eyes wide. And it’s not my face he’s staring at.

  I get to my feet and cross my arms over my breasts.

  ‘You could have fucking well knocked!’

  ‘Sorry. You were ages. I’ll just…’ He starts backing away to the door. ‘Hang on, what were you doing on the floor?’

  ‘Just fuck off, Dan!’

  ‘Okay. Look, sorry, I’ll just go…’

  ‘Yeah. Do that.’

  I retrieve the sodden T-shirt from the floor and pull it over my head, shivering slightly. It’s warm down here, so the damp clothes shouldn’t be too uncomfortable.

  Dan’s waiting for me outside, and doesn’t catch my eye when I join him.

  ‘Look, Rhoda, I’m really sor—’

  ‘Whatever.’

  Apart from his acute embarrassment, he’s looking better. His hair is also sopping wet and clean, and his face is free from the worst of the dirt.

  ‘Let’s head back to the escalators,’ I say.

  ‘Okay.’ He still won’t meet my eyes.

  ‘Dan. It’s cool, okay? Chill out. No big deal.’

  He nods.

  ‘I mean, it’s not as if there was much there to see, right?’

  This time he does catch my eye. ‘I’m still, you know…’ His stomach growls, and we share a smile, breaking the awkwardness.

  ‘Ditto,’ I say. ‘I’m also fucking starving.’

  ‘How long have we been gone?’ he says.

  ‘No idea.’ I’ve totally lost track of time. But it can’t be longer than twenty-four hours, surely?

  There’s one of those mall-style bins pretending to be something else in the centre of the aisle, and I flip open the lid and start rooting through it.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Dan says prissily.

  ‘Thought you were hungry?’

  ‘I am, but—’

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers, Dan.’

  There’s not much in here, just a balled-up newspaper, an empty soda can and a pile of those styrofoam chips people use to pack fragile ornaments. I dig down deeper, and pull out a half-eaten baguette filled with cheese and mayonnaise. Bingo! It’s almost as if it was left there for us. I sniff it. ‘Seems cool.’

  I strip off the plastic covering, break it in half and offer Dan a piece. He may not approve of my shopping methods, but he doesn’t hesitate to grab it out of my hand. We eat while we head back to the escalators, and it takes us less than thirty seconds to polish off the food. My stomach begs for more. I’m even hungrier now that I’ve eaten something.

  ‘Not bad, was it?’ I say.

  ‘Nah. First time I’ve ever eaten… you know…’

  ‘Bin food?’

  ‘Is that the technical term?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah. I’m a regular fucking connoisseur of eating shit.’

  He looks as if he’s thinking about a snappy comeback, but he’s clearly way too knackered for that. We both are.

  We head between the escalators and sit down side by side with our backs to the wall in an alcove that’s actually pretty snug. It wouldn’t be a bad place to hide, and I have to remind myself that this time we actually want to be found. I stretch out my legs and allow myself to relax. The shifting dread in my stomach is lessening somewhat. It’s over. We’re okay.

  Dan yawns. ‘What’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get home?’ he says.

  ‘I do
n’t have a home.’

  ‘When you get out of here, then.’

  ‘Have a fucking shower, try not to get arrested, make sure that kid is found.’

  ‘In that order?’

  ‘Sure. You?’

  He rests his head on the wall behind him. ‘Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese. Then a trip to a psychologist.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘No. I hate McDonald’s.’

  It’s a lame joke but we both try and smile anyway.

  ‘How are we going to explain to the cops what happened?’ he says.

  ‘God knows.’

  ‘Because we are going to have to go to the police, you know that, right?’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Dan?’

  ‘I just mean… maybe you don’t want to because…’

  ‘Because I’m clearly a criminal?’

  ‘No…’ He pauses. ‘Well… yeah.’

  ‘Dan, I just bought a bit of blow off a guy, no big deal. Besides, whoever was fucking with us down there needs to be stopped before someone actually gets killed.’

  I can imagine the conversation with the cops: Yes, officers, things started going pear-shaped after I dumped the kid to buy some drugs, kidnapped Dan at knifepoint and ran into a maggotspewing monster. It’s not going to go down well. But one thing’s for sure. I can’t keep on running.

  There’s nowhere to run to.

  But I’m not totally without options.

  ‘Dan? Look, I know you don’t know me very well, but I couldn’t crash at your place for a night, could I?’

  He doesn’t answer. His head is resting against the wall behind him, hands slack in his lap. I can tell by his measured breathing that he’s fast asleep.

  chapter 12

  DANIEL

  I’m paddling in the sea. It’s a perfect-weather day, body-temperature water, and I’m bobbing there, feeling… feeling nothing. No fear, no expectation, no judgement, no eyes watching me. Invisible. It’s pure contentment. I see a distant figure walking toward me across the beach. At first I think it’s Josie and I enjoy watching her long legs as she approaches, but then it morphs into Rhoda. As the figure gets closer, though, it be comes bigger and bigger, too big. It’s covered in dirty scabs. It isn’t human.