The Mall Page 14

  Thank Christ.

  I’m hit with a blast of jaunty old-fashioned cartoon music, and it takes several seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I’m in a small, intimate cinema, and I can make out the shadowy shapes of several rows of seats, but not much else. Doing my best to navigate by the light of the screen, I creep down the aisle along the wall, peering into the rows of empty chairs. There’s no sign of the dreadlocked guy anywhere, and there’s definitely no reassuring green glint of an emergency-exit sign. There are several metres of carpeted space in front of the screen, but no side doors, or even a middle aisle. Fuck. The voice was right.

  I head to the front row. Where could Dreads have gone, though? Could he be hiding on the floor? I get down on my hands and knees and peer under the seats. I can’t see much in the darkness, just the blackened shapes of empty popcorn cartons, spilled soft drinks and balled-up tissues, but there’s definitely no sign of a person.

  ‘Hello?’ I have to shout over the soundtrack.

  Nothing.

  ‘Hello! Anyone here?’

  I’m alone.

  Fuck it. I slump down on one of the seats in the front row, and stare at the screen.

  The film’s familiar. A baby deer scampers into shot, gambolling through autumn leaves with a rabbit. Bambi. I remember going to see it years ago with Dad, and I’m suddenly hit with homesickness so acute that it makes me gasp out loud. My chest hitches, and my eyes start filling with tears. If I snap now, I’m not sure I’ll be able to pull myself together, and I concentrate on the animals on screen in an attempt to get myself under control. I don’t remember them being quite so realistically rendered. The rabbit – Thumper – doesn’t seem to have that cheeky glint in his eye, and his fur looks matted and covered in burrs and dirt. And none of the cartoon characters are talking. They don’t seem to be doing much of anything at all: basically just foraging around in the cartoon forest, nibbling at leaves. It’s actually quite relaxing watching them. Soothing, almost.

  My eyes are getting heavy. I know I shouldn’t. Stupid to fall asleep. Insane to put myself at such a disadvantage. But fuck it. What’s the worst that can happen?

  I mean, how could things possibly get any worse?

  The screams jolt me awake.

  I leap up out of the chair, heart thudding, and almost trip over my feet in my haste to get away. Then it dawns that the screams are blasting out of the speakers – part of the movie’s soundtrack. And the scream isn’t human. It’s the sound of an animal in terrible pain.

  On screen, Bambi’s mother is in the process of being gutted, faceless hunters with gruff voices slicing into her side with curved hunting knives, unpeeling her skin and pulling out her intestines. The fact that the scene is animated somehow makes the gore and horror even more visceral and revolting. Christ. I sink back in my chair. On screen the little fawn limps away and collapses under a bush. There’s a shot of autumnal leaves blowing from branches, signifying the passing of the seasons, and snowflakes drift down, falling onto Bambi’s body. He stares glassily into shot. His ribs stick out and it’s pretty clear that he’s in the process of freezing to death.

  I can’t watch this any more. This place, this world, this reality – whatever the fuck it is – is twisted. Seriously twisted. Sick. I’ll have to do what the schizoid voice suggested, head back into the parking lot, and make a run for it to the other door. Find Dan; warn him that we’re in some serious shit here.

  Oh, fuck.

  The soundtrack’s way too loud, the orchestra blaring out sad Bambi’s-about-to-die-music, but I’m pretty sure I just heard the sound of popcorn crunching behind me.

  I keep as still as I can, barely daring to breathe.

  Then I hear it again. The unmistakeable crackle as someone chomps down on a mouthful of popcorn.

  I really, really don’t want to turn around.

  But I have no choice.

  I get to my feet and slowly turn to face the back of the cinema. There’s the silhouetted shape of someone (something) three rows away from me. I can’t make out its facial features, but there’s something wrong with its head. It looks too large for its body: a bulbous, inhuman shape, stuck onto a too-thin neck. The thing’s silhouette looks horribly like the sign on that toilet door in the Barbie-pink bathroom.

  Without taking my eyes from it I back away, stumbling as the floor slopes downwards, until my back’s against the screen. I catch a blur of movement to my right. The carpet is shifting upwards, and a square panel cut into the floor lifts up and drops down with a clunk, revealing a dark fathomless hole. A hand appears, followed by a head. In the flickering light of the screen I can make out a shock of filthy dreadlocks. Our eyes meet, and he frantically waves at me to approach.

  Fuck! What to do?

  My phone beeps. Numbly, automatically, I fumble in my pocket and pull it out.

  The message reads:

  The thing with the bulbous, misshapen head gets to its feet and starts edging along the row towards the aisle. The soundtrack swells to a crescendo. The hobo guy extends his hand towards me.

  Fuck it.

  I reach down and take it.

  chapter 16

  DANIEL

  There’s a limp bang like a wet firework behind me and the window of the travel shop next to me shears into a spider web. Holy shit, this guy isn’t fucking around.

  I sprint to Entrance 1, turning a corner at every opportunity so that the Admiral can’t get a straight shot at me. Motherfucker. I’m being shot at!

  Come on! Entrance 1 is still blocked. They must have forgotten to lift the security gate because all the shops are open and the lockdown’s plainly over. Shit. I’d better try Entrance 7. I look over my shoulder, and the Admiral’s just rounding the last corner. Though he looks like he’s about to keel over any minute, he’s managing to keep up. He stops to tamp and load his pistol with another ball and that gives me time to race down another sideaisle.

  I’m nowhere near Entrance 7 and somehow the Admiral has managed to gain on me. I may not make it in time, and what if it’s locked? I duck into an ATM cubby, shielding myself behind the bank machine’s smoked-glass barrier, and look around to orient myself.

  I’m just across the aisle from the phone shop. Will I make it? I have to try. I count to three and dart out into the open. I skid in and shelter in a corner of the shop, my ragged breathing breaking the peaceful quiet.

  ‘Good morning, sir. How can I help you?’ says the shop girl, completely unfazed by my panicked entrance.

  ‘Hi. Um.’ Fuck. What do I say?

  I don’t have long to think because now the Admiral’s filling the shop’s doorway, gasping hard to get his breath back. He raises the flintlock at me again, lowers it, then strides into the shop heady with power. Oh God. This is it.

  ‘I don’t know what I’ve done,’ I blabber, appealing to the girl for help. ‘I don’t know what he wants. But he’s trying to kill me.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll speak to him,’ she tells me. ‘Ensign. I know this is an unregistered brown, but he is interviewing today and I am his sponsor.’

  The Admiral looks at me with a florid glare. ‘Well, why didn’t you say so, brown? Are you karking retarded? I’ve been up and down this karking…’ He tails off as if he realises he’s wasting his time talking to an idiot. ‘Customer Care Officer,’ he says to the girl, ‘you’re its sponsor. Ensure it’s registered by tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, Ensign.’

  ‘This brown has caused me enough trouble for one day. I’m warning you. If it isn’t registered by the end of shifts, I will hold you responsible.’

  ‘Yes, Ensign.’

  With that the Admiral – the Ensign, actually – stumps out of the shop.

  ‘Oh, thank you. God. I thought…’ I say.

  ‘If I might ask, sir, what were you doing loitering unregistered? Surely yo
u know—’

  ‘I know nothing. I don’t know what the fuck’s going on here!’

  ‘I have a victual break coming up in’ …she looks at her gelphone ‘…three moments. Would you like to devour with me?’

  Huh? ‘Um, okay, that sounds good. That’ll be nice.’

  ‘Good, sir. I’ll try to assist you.’

  I gesture towards the door. ‘Should I just, uh…?’

  ‘Yes, please, sir.’

  I move to the doorway and stand awkwardly as she smiles a blank smile through me, ready to welcome any other customer who might come through the door. She poses there like a mannequin, just like the smarmy android guy at the bookshop, I realise, only hotter.

  The gelphone in the shop girl’s hand glows a cycle of teal and aqua, throbs and bulges for a moment. ‘Here it is, the breaktime code from Management,’ she says. She taps the code onto her chain’s anklet and it slides open. She steps out of it and bundles the chain and the anklet neatly behind the counter. Simultaneously a dorky-looking, skinny guy in an oversized blue Last Call T-shirt stands up like a meerkat behind the counter. My fuck, surely this guy hasn’t been crouching behind there the whole time? If his shift is just beginning, when and where did he come in?

  His shift? His fucking shift? Here’s a girl who chains herself to the shop counter by the ankle and a guy who hides behind the counter all morning and I’m standing here worrying about when their shifts start.

  ‘God,’ starts the girl as she guides me in her direction then falls into step beside me. I follow numbly. ‘It’s been a shift. Nobody in at all and then suddenly there’s five at a time, and there’s only one CCO per shift because it’s Slaughterday and the Management doesn’t expect it to be busy. But they always do this, crowd in in groups, and Management sits in its vaycay tower without realising what actually goes on during Dead Shifts.’ The talk flows like water out of a bath, until it empties and slows. After hours of hyperpoliteness, her relief is palpable. All that ‘How can I help you?’, ‘The mall’s open, sir’ must be exhausting.

  ‘Anyway, sorry, I’m Colt,’ she says, and stops and turns to face me. She smooths her jet hair over her neck. Her knuckles come back with a smear of blood that she absentmindedly rubs on the hip of her jeans.

  Wait a minute… what?

  Not quite concealed under the hair is a vicious gash on her white neck, a gaping slash from her ear to her jawline. She’s tried to cover it with powder, but the thing is still moist with fresh blood, and all the powder does is gather in dark clumps along the edge of the wound.

  My God, I can’t drag my eyes away from it but then she smooths the hair over the wound again and carries on walking. ‘I’ve got plenty of tokens for McColon’s if you don’t mind going there,’ she starts up again. ‘They’ve got a promotion going with Last Call and they wanted us to devour there for a whole month and by the second week, I would rather go without victuals. But now it’s okay. You know, you can do McColon’s a few times a week, but not every day, don’t you think?’

  She grabs my arm and pulls me out of the way of an on coming man. Another shopper who looks like he should be in hospital, his hands and face swathed in putrid, raggy bandages. ‘You don’t want to have bodily contact with Mr Boils, rich or not. Tomas did, and he went to Wards and he never came back.’ Her touch is icy on the surface of my skin. On her fingers I feel the remnant of sticky blood from her neck.

  ‘Here we are.’ The sign says ‘McColon’s’ but it’s written in the same familiar swooping yellow font as McDonald’s.

  ‘Clog your intestines with crap so that you don’t get hungry,’ declares a poster at the door. ‘Just 10.99.’ The kind-of-familiar clown looks fat and complacent; peaceful, not as threatening as the usual one. The Thieving Kid in the corner of the picture is emaciated and wears street-kid rags and his usual eye-mask. ‘I’m hungry, that’s why I do crime,’ he says in a small speech bubble.

  ‘Micro burgers, just 0.99.’ Another sign advertises ‘Open 38/8’.

  My phone beeps. It’s probably Rhoda and the thrill of relief at the thought surprises me. I thumb open the message.

 

  Nausea. Disappointment.

  Holy. Fuck.

  Where the fuck am I?

  Then it hits.

  Fuck.

  Of course.

  I’m playing a game. I’m still playing the game! Just like in the lift. Just like in the corridors. I’ve just reached the next level.

  An assortment of freaks crowds around the counter. Missing limbs, extra limbs; scabies, scabs and scurvy; pungent breath and malicious body odour; a medieval collection of mechanical aids: archaic leg braces, corrective shoes, hearing aids, slings, crutches, unwieldy wheelchairs ferrying obese corpses, bandages on arms and feet that needed changing last month; everyone jostling impatiently, in no semblance of order. One or two of the freaks look at me and give me a pitying smile. I huddle in the sanctuary of space to the side of the entrance, praying nobody will touch me.

  Colt looks back over her shoulder. ‘What do you want?’ she calls. The menu above the counter has the familiar lettering, but the names are different. Big Number Two, Cheeselike, Oil and Salt Starchsticks.

  Come on. Snap out of it. You have to say something. You’re playing a game. They’re waiting for input. ‘You choose,’ I call back.

  Colt comes back in a minute with a tray laden with enormous cups and packages. She finds us a table and we sit. ‘I didn’t know if you wanted Supersized or Oversized so I got you Over. Hope that’s okay? I’m so sick of fattening, so I got Super today. And plus my teeth are sore. I haven’t had all my replacements yet.’ She sucks at her massive fizzy drink. ‘Ouch. There’s a rumour going around that SugarGas drinks make your birth-teeth sore.’

  I heft my two-litre cup off the tray and take a sip. It’s like pure Coke syrup, as if they have forgotten to add any water, but put in too much gas. It bubbles stickily down my throat. I watch as a heavy drip slicks thickly down the side of Colt’s slightly smaller cup.

  She’s making conversation. She’s my ally. I’m going to need help. I’m going to need information. I’ve got to say something. ‘From what I understand, that’s true.’

  ‘Oh well, it’s my fault really. I should have got my replacements by now but I’ve just been lazy.’

  Mindful of my strategy of keeping Colt on my side, I mirror her as we unwrap our burgers. She has what looks like a double Big Mac, while mine is about twice as wide and twice as high. It’s stacked in four layers. The bun looks okay, but the four platesized burger patties are bleeding. Not just seeping red juice, they’re bleeding. The thick, warm blood spurts out in a rhythm like it has a beating heart. The patties are dolloped with ladlefuls of mayonnaise that smells rotten, the reek of sulphurous eggs mixed with the fizz of off milk. I lean closer to the thing and lift the top portion of bun and a jet of blood shoots into my eye.

  ‘Ha ha,’ trills Colt. ‘Watch out! Eating disorder!’ as if this is an everyday mishap like spraying a shook-up can of Coke up your nose. ‘I got the Fat Big Number Two for you. I hope you don’t mind. I don’t know if you’re fattening or not. It’s always awkward to assume, isn’t it?’

  Info bite number one: What the fuck is ‘fattening’? ‘Do, are a lot of people fattening here?’ I ask, putting the burger down and wiping my hands on my jeans. I’m hungry. I don’t know when I last ate. But I can’t imagine putting that flesh in my mouth. I go for a chip. It’s okay, a bit salty; I grab a handful more.

  ‘Kark, everyone. Either that or Starving-and-Amputating. When you look like me, there’s so much pressure to look like the magazines and things. If you don’t get admitted to Wards at least once a month, it’s like there’s something wrong with you. I try, really, but sometimes I just stop caring. And I’ve got used to Management too.’ She stops and takes a huge bite from her burger; bl
ood dribbles out of her mouth and stains the translucent skin on her neck.

  Management. Key protagonist. I need to gather as much intel about them as possible. ‘What do you mean?’

  She chews for a while, then answers with her mouth half full. ‘They can be nasty. You must know by now. Let me see…’ She takes her gelphone out of her pocket and scrolls through some messages. ‘Read these signals.’ She hands me the phone.

  I take the lump of gel from her hand, and her icy fingers brush mine, then she sits back and tucks into her meal. I have a moment alone with her phone. I can see a phone like this is going to be essential inventory; I’d better learn how to use it. As she passes it over, the thing moulds itself to my hand. It’s dry to the touch and settles with a matt finish into my hand, like a taut mass of muscle suddenly relaxing to my touch. Like I’m holding a living heart. The teals and blues shimmer across it, counterpointed by more ice colours in the depths of the gel. Projected a micron above the surface is a text message in slashing red and orange.

 

 

  I don’t want to read more. I hand the phone back to Colt and open my mouth to say something sympathetic but my phone beeps. I open it under the table, ashamed of my plastic piece of shit. A few of the cuts on my hands are bleeding again. I think of Rhoda, who seems so far, so long away. It would be nice if the message was from her, but I know it’s not.