The Mall Page 12

There’s just one small problem. Which level did I park on? And where the fuck’s the car park entrance?

  Shit. It’s as if a cloud of fog has seeped into my memory banks.

  Think back. Be logical about this.

  What was the first thing the kid and I did when we arrived here? Christ. I can’t even picture his face. He wasn’t a bad kid, though. He’d asked me about my scar straight away when Zinzi introduced us. I liked that. Most people either stare and say nothing, or pretend it doesn’t exist. And he’d seemed quite excited at the prospect of a late-night trip to the mall. Now I wish I’d let him look in the computer games store… which was one of the first shops we saw when we left the parking lot! And the door to the parking garage was one floor up from Bastard Dan’s Only Books, wasn’t it?

  Easy.

  I head back, pausing as I reach the phone shop. Should I go in? Tell Dan what I think about him? Why bother? I’ve got his cell number if I need him to back me up when the cops start asking questions. The door’s shut, and I can’t see any movement within. Dan’s probably made his way out. Probably already heading home to his mum’s sofa and a plate of beans on toast. Probably already convincing himself that everything that happened to us was just an interesting side effect of his fucking antidepressants.

  I back away from the window, and bash into something squishy but unyielding. I spin around and

  Fuck me.

  I’m face to face with the fattest woman I’ve ever seen. She’s draped in a huge floral dress but the giant rolls of blubber wobble noticeably beneath it, and lardy layers smother her feet, swallowing her shoes. Her eyes are almost entirely hidden beneath the pudding of flesh that coats her face. Her skin is so white and translucent I can see every blue vein that’s fighting to breathe underneath the fatty covering.

  It isn’t normal. At that size she shouldn’t be able to stand up, let alone walk.

  I open my mouth to apologise for backing into her, but the words get stuck in my throat. She stinks. Probably even worse than I do. I still reek of that vile floral soap, but there are waves of fishy BO just blasting off her body. She smiles at me. Bad dental hygiene. Really bad. Her teeth are just black nubs in her mouth. But she’s looking at me like I’m her new best friend or something.

  If she speaks to me I think I might scream.

  Heart thudding, legs feeling watery and insubstantial, I back away from her, and hare towards the escalators, taking the steps two at a time. I look around for the creepy guy in the admiral’s costume, but he’s nowhere around. The exit door at the far end is still tightly shuttered. Does that mean the door to the parking lot will also be locked? And what if I’ve got it wrong? What if the computer store isn’t where I think it is?

  I head down the left-hand aisle, praying that I’m heading in the right direction. I’m starting to panic again, and the air suddenly feels too thin to breathe.

  Calm the fuck down.

  Then I see it.

  Thank fuck!

  It’s definitely the same store the kid had wanted to check out, although I don’t remember it being called Time Suckers. Whoever came up with that name needs to be fired and quickly. The shutters are up, and as I get closer I can make out the outline of the Lara Croft cut-out in the window. But there’s something… different about her. Lara Croft’s knowing pout is gone in favour of a traumatised, shell-shocked expression, there’s a bruise blooming over her left eye, and her long hair looks to be matted with blood. Her thighs in those too-short shorts are pitted with cellulite; her braless breasts sag noticeably. I can’t imagine many schoolboys wanking over this version. Could it be some sort of clever in-joke?

  What do you think?

  The floor seems to tip as I’m hit with a wave of dizziness. I sink down onto my haunches and take a deep, shuddering breath. Count to ten.

  What’s happening to me? Am I finally losing it?

  Just low blood sugar. Chill out.

  There’s the harsh scrape of metal as the shutters of the shop opposite start rising. They crank up by themselves, some invisible piece of machinery whirring into action. I can’t see the window display yet, but it must be a chemist, some sort of Bootsstyle store: the sign above the window says Medi-Sin. Crap pun. The shutters roll up higher and it takes me a good few seconds to get my head around the bizarre tableau in the window. There’s a mannequin on a hospital gurney bed, IV needles jammed into its arms, a bedpan resting on its knees. But it’s anything but clinical. The sheet covering the body – I’m sure it’s meant to be a body and not a patient, the thing’s face is slack and empty and it appears to be missing one of its legs – is stained with yellow and rusty brown splotches. The bed is surrounded by spindly wheelchairs, filled with slumped mannequins, most of whom have their heads cocked at impossible angles. There’s a sign painted in cheery script at the bottom of the window: ‘You’ll die for our schedule 5 and 6 specials!’

  No. Fucking. Way.

  The giggle bubbles up and explodes, but it’s actually the sound you’d expect to hear in the padded rooms of a nuthouse.

  Where you’re headed, my internal voice says.

  ‘No I’m not.’

  Get yourself under control.

  ‘I can’t.’

  You’d better, bitch.

  ‘I have to get to the parking lot. Get out of here.’

  So do it. The door’s at the end of the aisle, retard.

  ‘Fuck you.’ But the voice is right. Can’t be more than ten metres away.

  I haul myself to my feet and trudge towards it, making a conscious effort not to look into the windows of any of the stores I pass.

  Here’s the deal. If it opens and the car is still there I’ll bite the bullet, phone the folks, get out of this fucking country and get my life in order.

  If it’s shut…

  Don’t even go there.

  I hesitate. I know it won’t open. It won’t be that easy.

  I push it. It gives. And I’m through.

  It’s cold in here – I don’t recall it being so chilly, and without the mall’s piped muzak it’s graveyard quiet. The ceiling is lower than I remember and there’s the plop-plop-plop sound of water dripping from the roof. But where did I park Zinzi’s Honda? Somewhere in the middle, wasn’t it? The parking spaces closest to me are all empty, but there is a cluster of vehicles in the shadowy middle of the lot. The place is lit with piss-yellow lights, and there doesn’t seem to be any natural light floating in from anywhere. I’m only partly reassured by the usual car park smell of petrol fumes, uriney concrete and rubber.

  More worryingly, I can’t see an exit ramp, or even any signs for one.

  I don’t like this.

  I try and picture driving here, in a desperate attempt to get my bearings. But I’m fucked if I can remember that. All I could think about was topping up my stash, keeping the kid quiet, then getting home and flumming on the couch with a DVD.

  There’s probably an exit ramp at the other side of the lot, hidden behind the cars.

  Something’s not right, Rhoda.

  ‘Shut up.’

  I’ve got a baaaaaaaaaad feeling about this.

  ‘Fuck you.’

  I’m the only person in here, but that’s probably because it’s still really early, right? And I’m almost sure the Honda must be hidden among the other cars, most of which look to be huge American-style gas-guzzlers, although I can’t tell the makes from here.

  Why’s it so quiet?

  ‘It’s early.’

  It’s not that early.

  Ignoring the voice, I walk on. My legs seem to move by their own volition, and it’s almost as if I’m watching what’s happening from a huge distance away.

  Rhoda: The Movie.

  I pass a 4x4 with blacked-out windows. It’s massive. Bigger than any gas-guzzler I’ve ever seen. It looks to be twice the size of a Hummer, and it doesn’t seem to have any door handles, windscreen wipers or side mirrors. It’s jammed between two concrete pillars, so tightly boxed in that it would
be impossible to open the doors.

  What the hell is this?

  Still think everything’s kosher?

  I skirt around it and the sight of the car behind it makes me stop dead in my tracks. It’s a three-wheel contraption with a silver glass roof, like one of those old-fashioned bubble cars. I can’t make out a steering wheel in the cramped interior. Maybe there’s some kind of designer car show on or something.

  At least the rest of the vehicles around it look relatively normal. Square boxy cars, all reassuringly equipped with door handles, windscreen wipers and the usual shit you see on cars. I try and peer past them to spot the white shape of the Honda, but the cars in the rows behind are all dark, and the thick concrete pillars block my view.

  Feet clopping over the concrete, the sound of my breathing loud in the silence, I head into the next row. Still no sign of the Honda. I edge past a low blood-red sports car and stop dead.

  A limo is parked sideways, practically filling up the entire row. The windows are tinted, and it’s got to be ten metres from bonnet to trunk. How could it have got in here? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s hemmed in by two pillars, and its tyres are just smooth rubber spheres with no hubcaps, like the kind of wheels a child would draw. I trace my fingers over the bodywork as I walk towards the front of it. The bonnet feels warm.

  I can’t do this any more. The strength leaves my legs instantly and I sink down so fast on my bum that I knock my spine painfully against the limo’s bonnet and jar my tailbone. I rest my back against the smooth front of the limo, wrap my arms around my knees and bury my head into them. I close my eyes; I have never been this tired.

  Get up.

  ‘Can’t.’

  Get. Up. Now.

  ‘Leave me alone.’ I look up at the pillar directly in front of me. Someone’s spray-painted ‘Life’s better with butter’ in blood-red swooping letters.

  You’re not alone.

  ‘Yes I am.’

  Think, retard.

  Maybe Schizo Voice has a point? I pull out my phone and scrabble in my pocket for the piece of paper with Dan’s number on it. It’s hidden between the folds of my wallet. I tap in the number.

  Beep beep beep, then,

  ‘Fuck!’

  Try texting him.

  Fingers shaking, I type in: and press .

  I have to tell him what I’ve known deep down ever since we left the lifts. We haven’t left the game at all. In fact—

  It’s only just started.

  My phone beeps. Thank God! I click on the message.

 

  Oh fuck.

  Told you!

  Behind me, the limo starts rocking.

  Get. Up. Now.

  I can’t move. Part of me just wants to sit here, on the damp concrete and let whatever’s going to happen to me just happen.

  There’s a click and a clunk as one of the limo’s doors opens behind me.

  Get up! You have to get up now!

  I heave myself to my hands and knees, using the bonnet for leverage. The door is open, all right, but no one has emerged.

  Look!

  There’s an emergency-exit sign on the wall almost directly in front of me. The door below it is blocked by a triple row of cars, but it’s way closer than the entrance I came through. I don’t have any choice. I edge past the end of the limo’s bonnet, trying to resist looking at the open door. But I can’t help it.

  A black pointed man’s shoe emerges. It has a high stacked heel and the toe of it is filed to a sharp point. A sharp metal point, like a thick syringe.

  Run!

  And this time, I listen.

  chapter 14

  DANIEL

  I stare at the chain around the shop girl’s ankle, and back at her face. She’s looking at me with a generic smile, like Yeees? I think of asking her outright, Why are you chained to your counter? but that would just sound stupid. I must be missing something.

  Then I finally get it. Of course! She’s into S&M and the whole slave thing. I’ve heard about this. They sometimes get so far into their act that it becomes their everyday behaviour. Come to think of it, it’s like gaming in that way. I’m surprised her managers let her do this chain thing in the shop, though. It isn’t very professional. But I suppose in a quiet shop like this, the manager probably shows his face once a week.

  ‘Uh,’ I say, playing along. ‘Do you ever eat? Go out for a drink?’ It’ll make my shifts a bit less boring if I have someone cool to hang out with. Someone who doesn’t work at that fucking shop.

  ‘Yes. I get a moist break between shifts three and four, and a victual break between shifts seven and eight.’

  Okaaay. ‘Okay. Well. Are you working tomorrow?’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’ She smooths her hair behind her ear again.

  I smile, laugh, pretend I’m hip to her scene. Either she’s seriously fucking with me, or she’s flirting in some coy way I don’t really understand.

  I grab my phone and pocket it. ‘Well,’ I say, because I don’t really know what the next move is, ‘I hope to see you soon.’

  ‘Please call again, sir,’ she says. ‘I’d love to assist you again.’

  ‘Um. Sure. Thanks.’

  I head towards Exit 9, thinking about what she said. Usually in the movies, the leading lady says something like that with a seductive arch of the eyebrow. Nothing from S&M phone girl. Deadpan. But I suppose that’s her game. Fascinating.

  The entrance is still closed. For fuck’s sake, man. What the fuck’s going on today? Was the Pope hijacked on his way to Only Books to buy Bibles? The President and his wives held hostage during a shopping spree? I look at the time on my phone. <09:92>. I should have asked the girl if they do repairs. That way I’ll have an excuse to visit her again.

  I wander past Charles Pratt jewellers to look at the watches. That’s no help either; they’re all set to different times. In the last window along an advertising poster catches my eye. What the fuck? At first I think it’s just typical wish-fulfilment advertising: a white yacht lit with fairy lights, glamorous Mediterranean dusk scene in the background. But sprawled out on the deck in the foreground there’s a skeletal woman in a bikini modelling Pratt’s jewellery, her diamond-encrusted watch displayed on a stump instead of a wrist. The model has to be some famous fucking Paralympian or something, but still, fuck. Actually, the more I stare at the picture, the more nauseated I become, against-theodds fucking sports hero or not. The woman is so thin her bikini bottoms don’t even clamp around her skin-and-bone pelvis and I can see wispy pubic hair sticking out. This is another example of a marketing campaign missing the boat.

  A waft of raw sewage passes me and I gag. What the… then I realise it’s me. Though I washed my shirt when we got back here, I still reek. There’s a stash of old promotional T-shirts at Only Books, so I head that way. More shops have opened their doors and I notice a few customers wandering about, trapped by the shutdown. They must be from the Highgate Mall apartments.

  Typical of early-morning shoppers, most of them are freaks and losers. Fat, ugly, skinny, crippled, amputees or just plain weird. The type that don’t go to parties. I know their type well from my shifts at the bookshop. Especially on weekends. While the casual staff are nursing their hangovers inside the shop at five to nine, trying to get ready for opening, there are always these early-morning zombies with nothing better to do with their lives than scratch on the doors to get in, mouthing: I see you inside, come on, just open up, I need my newspaper or my porno mag or my computer manual or whatever the fuck else I need at this time of a Sunday morning. Fucking freaks.

  When I reach Only Books – Lonly Books, ha ha – the door’s still closed and that dick in the suit is still standing like a corporate android at the counter. I knock and the guy revolves his head towards me then points to the sign on the door.

  Monday–Thursday 8:88
–8:88. Friday 8:88–8:88. Saturday, Sunday and Feast Days 8:88–8:88.

  Ja, right. Helpful. Always a fucking clever graphic designer on every night shift.

  I rattle the door again. Come on, arsehole, I work here. I’ve worked here for three years and you’ve worked here for one minute so OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR.

  Nothing.

  I kick the door and a siren starts up somewhere inside the shop. Good. Maybe Bradley the Fuckwit or whoever’s the shift supervisor today will come out and open for me.

  A few seconds later the door buzzes and springs open a crack. I stride past the android without acknowledging him and he greets my back with a chirpy, ‘Good morning, sir! How may I help you?’

  Christ, I’m surprised they haven’t made this arsecreep Bradley’s deputy instead of putting him on counter duty. I hurry through the shop and punch the code into the chromed numerical buttons of the poky lock on the back office door. Fuck. They must have changed the stupid combination again. I knock on the door and wait.

  I knock again. Nothing. On a hunch, I push 1-2-3-4 and turn the knob. The door opens. One of these days, I swear, I’m going to ‘borrow’ Bradley’s ATM card.

  The back office is empty. Who the fuck buzzed me in, then? It’s too quiet in here. Normally at opening time the computer servers are whirring away and I’ll hear the music playing in the front, staffers chatting over their nicotine or caffeine pick-meups, guys slamming piles of new books for shelving onto trolleys. There’s nobody here and nothing’s happening. Maybe all the staff are stuck outside the mall waiting for the lockdown to lift. But then where did android boy come from? Did he sleep here?

  I find the box of promo shirts under the tea sink and scratch through it for a large black T-shirt. I take out one with a coolenough design on the front. Whatever, as long as it’s clean and fits fine. I check to see that nobody’s coming in, unlace my boots, strip off my jeans and after another quick glance, throw my underpants into the bin. The hot water flows russet brown for ages as I rinse the jeans; then finally they’re clean. Ish. I wring them as dry as I can, then stroll across the office, arse out, to Bradley’s desk. I feel kind of like when nobody was at home and my friend Karl and I went through his sister’s underwear drawer.