The Mall Read online

  Then I hear that strangled, drowning-elephant shriek again, like a thousand wrongful deaths balled up into this blob of hate. It’s coming fast. I try to turn and a wave smashes me down, punches all the breath out of my lungs. It rolls over me with a metallic grating like tools being crushed in a house-sized blender. I can’t breathe; I’m drowning, but in my last moment I’m grateful to the sea for saving me from the creature.

  I wake up suddenly, adrenaline bypassing the normal morning formalities. Where am I? How could I let my guard down? Ready to run, I look around. Rhoda’s hunched in a ball next to me, stirring from her own sleep. I breathe the dream out with relief.

  These bright corridors still seem a bit unreal. As if all of it was a dream. But my shit-and-whatever stained jeans, the bruises and cuts on my body, Rhoda herself rubbing the sleep out of her eyes in the corner of the alcove, tell a different story. Despite myself, my mind lodges on the memory of her topless in the bathroom last night.

  ‘The fuck you looking at?’ mutters Rhoda. The closest I’ll get to a sweet and cheery ‘Good morning’ from her.

  ‘Not much else to look at. Either hideous security shutters or you. I got tired of looking at the shutters.’

  ‘Arsehole,’ she mutters. Closest I’ll get to a laugh, I suppose. ‘Hey, Dan. Listen to that. The escalators are working.’

  Thank fuck. The roller door that was blocking the top of the escalator has been raised. That means the mall’s open and we’re going to go home. Rhoda scales the escalator two steps at a time, slings her frame around the corner and bounds up the next flight. When I catch up with her, she’s standing on the middle level. My level.

  The flight of escalators ends here, forcing shoppers to track through the entire level to get to the next floor. Architects who design malls clearly graduate from the Satan-fucking-with-ratsin-mazes-for-sport academy. It’s a relief to know exactly where I’m going now. ‘You sure you want to get out of here?’ I ask. ‘You don’t want to do some window shopping? Check out the sales? Brunch?’

  ‘Fucking funny. Ha ha. Now let’s go. Jesus, I need to see the sky.’

  Rhoda races ahead, following the signs to the main entrance, past shops with their lights on, but their doors closed. I check my cellphone for the time but it’s dead, of course. Beads of condensation stipple the screen. The phone rattles when I shake it. I can tell it’s about half past eight by the mall’s state of almostreadiness.

  ‘Fuck it!’ Rhoda swears when we get to the main exit. It’s still locked down. She kicks at the metal door and the crash resonates through the marbled halls. I rattle the shutter too. More to prove to Rhoda that I’m trying to do something than expecting any effect.

  ‘Hey!’ someone shouts from above. A grotesque man with purple jowls is leering over the mezzanine railing. He’s dressed in an elaborate admiral’s uniform, gold braiding, medals, cap and the whole bit, but the get-up has this cheap, over-ironed sheen that spells Security Guard. Christ, they pay these poor buggers nothing and then make them dress up like clowns to suit the mall’s theme. Except admirals don’t belong in a Joburg mall, six hundred kilometres from the nearest sea. And the poor guy looks so unhealthy that there’s no way he could chase down a shoplifter. His face blooms as if he’s about to suffer a heart attack any minute. More immediately, the way he’s leaning over the railing, I worry that he’s going to fall over it any second.

  Rhoda and I step back out of falling-freak range.

  ‘Don’t shake the door!’ the man yells, jowls juddering.

  ‘Sorry. Can you help us?’ I try. ‘Um, what time will the door open?’

  ‘Open?’ he says, as if he hasn’t heard of the concept.

  ‘Yes. We need to get out.’

  ‘You know you need access. You browns don’t have access.’

  ‘What the fuck,’ hisses Rhoda.

  ‘You stay there,’ the security man orders, medals jangling as he stumps towards the stairs. ‘You need to go to control. Wait there. I’m coming down. And you, dark brown, don’t kick the door.’

  ‘Do you think the lockdown’s because of me?’ said Rhoda. ‘What are they going to—’

  ‘Relax. They only do a shutdown if there’s something really serious. They wouldn’t want to restrict shopping hours. Something else might have happened. Probably a bank robbery. There’s like two a week. There’s no way they would do all this just for you. You didn’t even steal anything.’

  ‘Yeah, but Fingerling and Yellow Eyes really had it in for me. And I did kick that Simon bastard in the balls.’

  ‘Don’t stress. It’s not about you. We’ll just clear everything up with security.’

  ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Dan.’

  ‘Okay. Come. Let’s go to Only Books. Someone there will tell us what the lockdown’s for and then we’ll go to security.’

  We head off before Admiral Security can reach us. When we get to the shop, I notice that someone has painted an ‘L’ in front of the ONLY on the shop’s big sign: LONLY BOOKS. It’s brilliantly done; the font and colour are excellently matched. It was probably Matt, the art student who worked here for a few months before being canned by Bradley for chewing gum at the counter or calling a customer a bitch or Christ knows what.

  The shop’s still closed, though, the glass doors locked. The lights are on but I can’t see anyone inside.

  ‘Jesus. Nice job, evil bookseller,’ Rhoda says, pointing towards the business books display in the main shop window. Bradley’s idea, no doubt. Fuck the Poor, Neurolinguistic Brainwashing for Lazy Arseholes in the familiar yellow and black branding, Jesus Wants You to be Pimp-Rich and so on.

  ‘I’ve never heard of any of these,’ I say. ‘Plenty like them, but not these exact ones.’

  But Rhoda’s moved on and is jiggling the door, nervously looking over her shoulder. The Admiral is stumping towards us from the far side of the main thoroughfare. I knock on the door. Nothing. I knock louder. Surely it’s nearly opening time. Someone has to be inside. I knock three times, and eventually a staffer stands up from behind the counter. He’s nobody I know. He’s wearing a fucking suit and tie. Jesus, this must be one of Bradley’s new recruits. He looks like a Jehovah’s Witness, and, short of being a miniskirted beauty queen, is Bradley’s wet dream of a proper employee. He stands there ramrod straight, stares piously at us but doesn’t budge.

  I gesticulate for him to let us in, but he doesn’t move. Wanker.

  ‘Fuck it, Dan,’ says Rhoda. The Admiral is getting closer. ‘We can’t stand here the whole day. Let’s just go.’ I dart after her down a side corridor.

  ‘In here,’ Rhoda says, pointing towards the only open shop we’ve come across. I hesitate and check out the signage. It’s the same blue logo as Vodacom’s but the name is Last Call. What the fuck? Whichever marketing twat passed that should be fired.

  We duck inside, staying out of sight of anyone who might be passing, and pretend to look at the phones. What I see in the cabinets clears my head of any other thought. ‘Jeez. Look at this tech, Rhoda.’

  ‘What about it?’

  None of the equipment on display looks familiar. Most of the handsets – if that’s what they are – are made of palm-sized blocks of multicoloured jelly. Wobbly, sticky-looking. Nice bright colours, but no evident buttons or screens. This must be the new biotech comms I read about in Wired – but I thought it was still in prototype. ‘It’s beautiful, that’s what.’

  Rhoda just makes a sound in her throat and glances out of the door.

  We only notice the girl behind the counter now. She’s pulling a gel earplug out of her ear and puts the phone on the counter. It sits there, morphing around its basic shape, shimmering green and blue; a constant play of clean, bright curves.

  ‘Jesus, that is the coolest phone I’ve ever fucking seen,’ I mutter.

  ‘Hi. How can I help you?’ The girl flicks her long black hair back over her ear. Her smile makes me warm inside. She reminds me so much of Lexy who used to work down at
the music shop. She was this goth girl I was scared of, but once I built up the courage to chat to her, she laughed at my stupid jokes as if she was nervous of talking to me. This girl has the same smile, and the same pale skin, almost blue-white. Her eyes are ice blue too and I can tell she isn’t trying to make herself up like a goth. She just is. Even though she’s wearing a shapeless blue Last Call T-shirt, she manages to look good.

  ‘Yeah, can we borrow a charger?’ Rhoda’s voice breaks the spell. She holds out her phone, and I fish my own out. It will be a fucking miracle if it’s just our phones’ batteries that are at fault.

  ‘Wow,’ the shop girl says, turning Rhoda’s phone over in her hand. ‘This is great. It’s so… heavy. Hard. How do you dock it?’

  ‘Um,’ I say, ‘I think it works differently from the new ones.’ I seriously want one of her jelly things.

  ‘You know, I’ve seen a couple of these actually.’ She shuffles through a drawer behind the counter. ‘Other brown people brought them with them.’

  ‘Other what?’ barks Rhoda.

  ‘Brown people,’ the girl repeats, her face sweet and innocent. ‘Like you two? I must admit, though, I haven’t seen that many brown people in my life, and you are the darkest one I’ve seen,’ she says to Rhoda.

  ‘Fuck you, bitch. I don’t need—’

  ‘Wait, Rhoda. Chill. I’m sure she—’

  The girl’s face falls in what looks like genuine confusion and remorse. ‘I seem to have caused you offence, ma’am. I didn’t mean to. I sincerely apologise on behalf of my representative and of the Last Call group of companies.’

  ‘Crazy fucking cow,’ Rhoda mutters under her breath. The girl carries on scratching through the drawer.

  ‘Here!’ She lifts up a regular Nokia charger. ‘I knew it was here somewhere. It was left behind by a brow…’ she glances at Rhoda who’s still seething, but keeping herself under control ‘… uh, by a visitor. Will it work?’

  ‘Thanks, it looks like it will,’ I say. The girl takes another lump of jelly from a drawer and bends down behind the counter to plug in the charger. I connect Rhoda’s phone to it. A few seconds later Rhoda’s phone display lights up and the charging icon appears.

  ‘Great, it’s still working,’ I say to Rhoda, but she’s pacing around, poking her head out the shop door, scanning for the security guard.

  ‘Do you know anything about this shutdown?’ I ask the shop girl.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When do you think it will be lifted? When will the mall open?’

  ‘Open?’

  ‘Christ,’ Rhoda mutters from the doorway, loud enough for me to hear. ‘The only fucking shop that’s open and there’s a dumb bimbo working in it. What can’t you fucking understand?’ The shop girl either doesn’t hear or doesn’t appear to take offence. Her face remains angelic. Then Rhoda says louder, ‘Dan, we need to go. I’m not staying here any longer than necessary.’

  ‘We should charge our phones first. Besides, I don’t think the mall’s open yet.’

  ‘The mall’s always open,’ the girl says. Okay, she’s probably not the crunchiest cookie in the jar, but she’s cute and friendly. Frankly, her attitude makes a nice change from Rhoda’s.

  ‘I need a cigarette,’ Rhoda says as she stalks out. As she strides edgily up and down outside the shop window, I switch her phone on. The display must have got a bit screwed in the water. The time reads: <08:69>. But at least there’s no countdown on the screen. I’m never going to use a stopwatch again, ever in my fucking li—

  Beep beep.

  The girl looks at the phone with interest. ‘What does that do?’

  ‘Rhoda, you’ve got a message,’ I call.

  She comes in and picks up the phone. ‘Probably Zinzi. Wonder ing where the fuck I am.’

  ‘You think they found the kid?’

  No response. Rhoda’s staring at the message.

  ‘What is it?’

  She holds out the phone to me.

 

  ‘Oh shit.’

  Beep beep.

  Rhoda grabs the phone back from me and reads the message.

  ‘Motherfucker!’ Rhoda shoves the phone back to me.

 

  ‘What? Is it…’

  ‘Spam. I once entered a competition for some bling gold sneakers at that poxy shop and they’ve been sending me spam ever since. First thing I do when I get out of here is go to the nearest AllSports and kick the fucking manager’s arse. There’s not an AllSports in here, is there?’ she asks me.

  ‘All what?’ asks the girl, thinking Rhoda’s asking her. ‘I don’t think I—’

  Rhoda rolls her eyes. ‘Give me a fucking break. I wasn’t talking to you, dimbo.’

  ‘Come on, Rhoda, she’s just trying to help.’ I turn to the girl. ‘Sorry, I—’

  Rhoda unplugs her phone and snatches it off the counter. ‘That’s enough for a top-up. I’m gone. I haven’t got time to fuck around. You can fucking stay here and swap geek bullshit with your new girlfriend for all I care. While you’re at it, you can tell her how you spent the last couple of days crying and pissing in your pants.’

  She gives me the finger and storms out of the shop.

  What the fuck? ‘Rhoda, wait. Come on. Wait!’

  She slows down at the end of the corridor.

  ‘I don’t know what just happened, but can’t you just wait another few minutes? I’ll plug my phone in and we can check what’s—’

  ‘No, Dan. It’s done now. You’re back where you belong. I’ve still got a whole lot of shit to deal with. I need to call Zinzi and find out about the kid. I need to… sort some other things out, okay. I don’t belong here. I really, really need to go.’

  ‘But I need to… I want to find out about the boy too. And I also want to know that you’re… okay. Give me your number at least.’

  She rolls her eyes and sighs as if she’s doing me a favour. ‘All right.’

  She stands there as I run back to the Last Call shop to borrow a piece of paper and a pen. We swap numbers.

  ‘Call me, okay? Before tonight. You don’t need to sleep somewhere dodgy. I live close by.’ I’ll deal with that one if it happens. Hi, Mom, sorry I’ve been gone for however many days, but here’s Rhoda, my druggie runaway friend, and she needs to crash. I’m such a fucking loser not to have my own place.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, and disappears around the corner. I feel really weird.

  When I get back to the phone shop, the girl’s arranging gelphones in a cabinet. She catches me looking at her and smiles that stomach-warming smile again. Now that she’s away from the counter I can tell she has a nice body, slim, but curvy under the black skinny jeans she’s wearing. She bends down to remove the adaptor.

  She’s chained to the counter by her left ankle.

  chapter 13

  RHODA

  Fuck Dan.

  And fuck this shit.

  If he wants to stay and get it on with that freaky racist whitetrash goth, then let him. After all we’ve been through, if he wants to act like an arsehole and drop me like I’m a piece of bog roll he picked up on his shoe, that’s his loss.

  So good luck, Dan. And good fucking riddance.

  Christ. I can’t wait to get out of this hellhole and get as far away from here as possible. See the sky, for a start. Breathe some fresh air, maybe bum a ciggy (or two) off someone outside. But first things first. I need to get hold of Zinzi. She may be a fuckup, but she’s all I’ve got. And she’s my cousin, so she’ll have to help me. Mind you, God knows what she’s thinking right now. I bloody hope she doesn’t think I’ve kidnapped the kid or something. But I’ll explain things to her. Let her scream in my ear for a bit first, get it out of her system. And anyway, I’ve covered for her before; call it payback. I was doing her a favour looking after the kid in the first place.

  Still, my stomach squirms as I scrol
l down to her number and press . The phone makes a beep-beep-beep sound and then a breathy woman’s voice warbles in my ear: ‘We’re sorry, but the number you have requested is not viable, please try again later.’

  I try the number again. This time there’s nothing but static. Third time lucky: there’s a second of dead air, then… something that sounds like breathing. Nasty, congested breathing, like a kid trying to breathe really quickly through a lungful of phlegm. I hang up and try once more. This time the screen goes dead, followed by:

 

  Bollocks.

  I try the emergency number.

 

  Now what?

  Should I try and get hold of Yellow Eyes and crew? Get them to start the ball rolling looking for the kid in the tunnels? Would they listen to me? What if they don’t? What if that bastard Simon tries to get me arrested for grievous bodily harm?

  Crap. I really don’t know what to do.

  But there’s something niggling at me. As if I’ve forgotten or lost something.

  Your mind! a maniacal voice screams in my head.

  ‘Shut up!’ I’ve spoken out loud, but the mall is empty, most of the windows on this level still shuttered, and there’s no one to hear me.

  Think, stupid!

  Then I have it.

  Zinzi’s car!

  Talk about being a complete retard. I rummage in my pockets, fingers fumbling over my lighter, a soggy packet of cherry Halls, the handle of the knife, but Zinzi’s beaded chilli-pepper keyring isn’t here. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it since all this shit started. Since I tripped and bumped into Yellow Eyes a million years ago.

  But maybe Zinzi has a spare? Fat chance, knowing her, but it’s worth a shot. So. Here’s the plan. Find the car, hope against hope that she’s hidden a spare key somewhere, and then worry about how the hell to get out of the parking lot without paying for the ticket, which seems to have gone the way of the keys.

  Piece of cake.