The Mall Read online

  The door behind me slams with a clank. I whirl around to see Scarface behind me, pushing at it.

  ‘Shit. It slipped. I was trying to wedge it open.’

  ‘Don’t stress. We can unlock it with the keypad if we come back. But it’s really easier to go back through the mall.’

  ‘We’re not going back through the mall.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I told you to stop asking questions. Show me where you saw… him.’ The way she says this makes me think she doesn’t even know his name.

  ‘It was right here. I was… standing… there.’ I indicate the far end of the corridor. ‘And he ran past me down here. There’s nowhere he could have gone but back out to the mall. All the doors stay locked.’

  ‘Okay, show me.’

  ‘The way out? But it was hours ago. You’ll never fi—’

  She grabs my T-shirt and tries to push me against the wall. I smell her dangerous chemical sweat. I wince; she’s grabbing my chest hair along with the shirt.

  ‘Do I look like I’m asking you, Dan?’

  She looks exhausted. She hasn’t had a nostrilful of coke for at least five minutes. I’m thinking about that knife, but she doesn’t seem so threatening any more; she just seems desperate.

  ‘Yes, yes. Just relax,’ I say.

  I lead her along the corridor to the mall exit, past the grey doors to the music shop and the hairdresser and Crazy Toys, the familiar delivery door of Only Books, past the alcove. The doors to the mall are locked. I didn’t even know they could lock. But I can’t budge them. I can’t even seem to find the seam between the two doors. I kick half-heartedly at them. They respond with a heavy, muffled thunk and I know I’m wasting my time.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ Scarface complains. ‘You trying to fuck with me?’

  ‘Honestly. I don’t know wh—’

  She’s already running back the way we came. ‘I’m running out of fucking time!’ she rages as she goes.

  She’s taken the wrong fork, because when we turn left and left again, we’re in a part of the service corridor I’ve never seen. The dark face-brick walls and scuffed concrete floors are all the same, the conduits and ducts and wiring, the gunmetal doors, but we’re not behind Only Books any more.

  ‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘We’ve gone wrong somewhere.’ I lead us right and right again, but we come out in a different stretch. The numbers stencilled on the back doors are in the M80s. Mezzanine level; that must be a mistake. We’re still on the upper level; we haven’t gone down any stairs.

  ‘Christ, Dan, what the fuck?’

  I’m utterly lost now, and it doesn’t help having this crazy woman behind me. I can’t think straight if I’m in fear of being nailed in the kidneys every time I make a wrong turn. My best hope is just to go straight, to follow one stretch of corridor until we reach another exit.

  But there isn’t a straight span of passage anywhere in this godforsaken maze. Now I’m running, watching the numbers on the doors flick by: M87, M89, M91, M65, M63, M1, round a corner then M121, M123, M43, M41, M39. Dead end. Turn back. Take the first right. M14, M12, M10, M8. Oh, thank Christ, there’s an exit door. M6, M4. Just a fucking fire door. We push our way through. L92, L76, L84, L22, L20, L18. What the hell?

  We haven’t gone down any stairs, but it feels like we’re lower down: that subtle lift feeling in my ears. The air is warmer, heavier.

  On this side of the fire doors it’s darker, maybe every third neon light is on. The air-con is off, the air stale and still. As the fire door slams behind us, the comforting grinding noise of the fans immediately recedes. For the first time, I can hear myself panting for breath. Scarface’s shoes screech against the floor; she snorts back some phlegm, she looks around.

  ‘Okay. Where are we?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘I thought…’ She doesn’t bother finishing her sentence. Talking to me is a waste of her time. She reaches into her pocket and for another moment I think she’s going to kill me. This would be a good place to do it. She takes out her phone.

  ‘Have you got reception?’ she asks.

  I take my phone out of my pocket. Battery full; reception zero. I go through the motions of raising it up and waving it around. Nothing.

  ‘Me neither.’

  Our phones beep at the same time. I’ve got a message. How did that happen with no reception?

 

  Scarface is reading her message. We swap phones without a word. Hers reads: The two of us are trapped deep in this concrete box, all alone. But someone knows we’re here. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.

  ‘Does it mean anything to you?’ I ask.

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  I’m starting to feel claustrophobic, a feeling I’ve never had before. The urge to get out of here is stronger than ever. I start jogging again, following the line of back doors wherever it takes us. It has to take us out some time.

  Left. Left. L74. L72. L70. L34. L36. B22. B20. B18.

  ‘There are no fucking shops in the basement,’ I scream at the walls. I’m answered by an echo, the sound of our footfalls and Scarface’s snorting and puffing.

  Another left and I lose my feet in a pool of oily liquid. I crack my hip and my knee against the hard concrete and slide to a stop in a recess in the wall. Scarface curses to a halt behind me.

  Christ. This is my alcove. There are the crumpled Niknaks bags I ate tonight, the Iron Brew can I drank. But this is not my corridor.

  The pain from the fall kicks in, taking all the space in my brain. My leg feels shattered from hip to ankle.

  ‘What is this stuff?’ Scarface asks, squatting down to inspect the ooze I slipped in. It smells and looks like black oil, an iridescent sheen playing in the low lighting, but it’s chunky, the consistency of lumpy custard.

  Then we hear it. The sound an elephant might make when in heat, but muffled, liquid, encased in wet concrete. It reverberates more than it is loud. But we know it’s near.

  ‘Holy Christ.’

  I writhe to get up, but can’t move. Fear and pain and bewilderment overload my body. The far end of this stretch of corridor is dark, but I hear a familiar hiss. Something – someone – is ducking inside that same old bullet-shot door. Instinctively, I count down, waiting for the slap of meat-blood. 4-3-2-1, and we are assaulted by a hot reek of putrid air, shit-eating breath licking us. While she gags above me, I try to bury my nose near the tar ooze. As near as I can without breathing it in.

  The dying elephant roar again. Louder this time.

  I’m sliding along the floor. Scarface has my wrist and is dragging me down the passage. I’m sliding along a snail trail of the black gloop. Then the scrape of my carcass along the cement as she heaves and we are into the centre of the shit stink. My ears are buzzing. She kicks me aside across the soft, filthy floor, slams the door shut and slumps down beside me in the wavering darkness.

  The screaming elephant roar on the other side of the door. I take a gulp of viscous brown air and something violent and thick lodges in my nose. The air is solid with flies, the floor carpeted with maggots. Now I recognise what’s causing the acid itch on my flesh.

  She jumps up screaming, batting at herself, running away to where there might be anything but this.

  I have to get up. I have to follow.

  chapter 5

  RHODA

  My Nokia’s clock icon has somehow erased itself off the LCD screen, so I have absolutely no fucking idea how long we’ve been holed up in this cramped, stinking room. I’ve never been great in confined spaces, and it doesn’t help that the air’s so dank it’s like breathing through putrid syrup. But it could be worse. Apart from a rusty can of Vim and the scrunched-up corpse of a spider, the room’s empty. As it is there’s barely enough space for the two of us, but beggars can’t be choosers – this door was the only one
that wasn’t locked.

  Dan’s positioned himself as far away from the entrance as he can get, his gangly praying-mantis legs pulled up to his chest. His breath escapes in shallow bursts and his eyes are screwed shut. There’s a writhing maggot stuck in a clump of hair just above his ear. I reach over to pluck it out and he jumps and slaps at my hand.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  ‘Fine.’ I flick the maggot back to him. It lands on his shoulder and he frantically brushes it away.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he says, closing his eyes again.

  The stench that’s roiling off our clothes is immense: one part rotten meat, one part engine oil. What sort of dead animal reeks like that? There was way too much gloop for it to have been a rat. A dog, maybe? I pull out my cigarettes. Hopefully the smoke will mask the stink. Dan’s eyes flick open the second I click my lighter.

  ‘You can’t smoke in here. There’s no ventilation.’

  ‘You have got to be fucking kidding me.’

  ‘Seriously. Put it out. I get asthma.’

  ‘Liar. You are a complete fucking fuckwit, Dan. Anyone ever tell you that?’

  He does his best to shoot daggers at me, but his eyeliner is smudged into panda rings around his eyes and the result is more comical than anything else. I blow a thick cloud of smoke towards him, and he coughs. But fun as it is toying with the fuckwit, my mouth’s too dry to smoke and I kill the cigarette. I pull off my hoodie and tie it around my waist. At least the T-shirt underneath is fairly free of that foul liquid stuff.

  I press my ear against the door. I can’t hear anything except for a muffled mechanical hum.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I say, getting to my feet.

  ‘No way,’ he says. ‘There’s no way I’m going back out there.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘Let’s wait it out. Someone will come for us.’

  ‘Christ, you’re a retard. No one’s been down here for months, years probably.’ I kick the ancient can of Vim towards him. Judging by the rust and its retro logo, it was last used some time in the 1950s.

  ‘But that thing…’ he says, his voice wavering. ‘What if it’s still out there?’

  ‘Chill the fuck out. It was just some freak. Some hobo or bergie or whatever you call them here. Probably gone off to find his next hit of meths.’

  ‘But that sound it was making…’

  ‘Look, this is Joburg, isn’t it? Far as I can tell, it’s full of fucked-up people. Probably just some guy escaped from a mental home, found his way down here.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, nodding too quickly as if he’s desperate to believe me. ‘But I don’t understand,’ he says, barely able to get the words out, ‘I don’t understand how… the corridors, they…’

  ‘How they what?’

  ‘How they changed.’

  ‘Jesus, Dan. Get a grip. We just took a wrong turn, freaked ourselves out.’ As I say the words I almost start to believe them myself. ‘Look, if you want to stay in here for the rest of your life, that’s your fucking problem. I’m out of here.’

  ‘What about the kid?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘What if that thing got him?’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘And those SMSes. You think someone’s deliberately trying to mess with us?’

  ‘You know anyone who’d want to do that to you?’ I ask.

  ‘You’re the one who should be answering that question.’

  ‘What the fuck do you mean by that? I know hardly anyone in Joburg.’

  ‘What about your dealer?’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘I know you’re on drugs.’

  He’s more observant than I thought. ‘It’s just coke, Dan. I’m not a smack-head or anything.’ Not any more, anyway. ‘Besides. Who the hell would have both our cell numbers?’

  His eyes flick to the scar on my face and then his gaze lingers on my forearms again. It’s clear he’s thinking that no one he knows would be seen dead with a freak like me. ‘Must be spam, then.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s all it is. We got spammed. Big fucking deal. Now hurry the fuck up.’

  I yank the door open before I lose my nerve. The passageway is gloomier than I remember it being on our mad dash down here. The walls are damp and criss-crossed with fingers of pale green moss, and under the flickering fluorescent light the brickwork seems to shimmer as if we’re actually underwater.

  ‘Okay, Dan, which way?’

  He shrugs. Typical. Looks like it’s up to me.

  To our right, the passageway curves towards an unknown but apparently well-lit destination. To our left, the corridor seems to drift away into a cloying blackness that instantly gives me the creeps.

  No contest.

  ‘Come on,’ I say. Without checking to see if he’s going to follow, I set off.

  There’s no doubt about it, the floor’s definitely sloping downwards now, and rivulets of water snake down the walls. Christ, I’m thirsty. My mouth’s gummy and tastes like I’ve been snogging a drain or something. Probably best not to take another hit of blow, although I could do with the energy boost. Now the adrenaline and coke have worn off, my leg muscles are screaming and the back of my head is throbbing. I had fuck-all sleep last night, and God knows when I last ate anything.

  I stumble towards the end of the passage, which splits and curves in both directions.

  ‘Left or right?’ I say. No answer. ‘Dan! Which fucking way should we go?’

  ‘Right,’ he mumbles.

  ‘Thank you. Fuck.’

  The ceiling in this corridor is lower than the others, and I quicken my pace. The strip lighting hisses and pops worryingly – especially considering the sodden walls. Please God, let this one lead somewhere. The soles of my feet are starting to ache now. We must have woven our way through a good kilometre and a half of connecting passageways and they have to end up somewhere at some point.

  ‘How the hell can there be so many tunnels? You think we’re still underneath the mall?’ I say.

  Dan shrugs.

  ‘Can you at least answer me? For fuck’s sake, we could be anywhere!’

  ‘You’re the one that wanted to leave the room,’ he mumbles.

  ‘That’s helpful.’

  ‘We should have stayed put.’

  I can’t take it any more. I grab the front of his shirt and shove him into the wall. It takes all of my control not to punch him in the face. ‘Dan, I swear to fucking God I have never met such a fucking pussy!’

  ‘Fuck you!’ he yells, and pushes me away so roughly that I stumble back and bash my tailbone on the opposite wall. Before I can grab his arm, he’s stalking off around the corner.

  ‘Bastard!’ I haul myself up and sprint after him, not bothering to dodge around a puddle of dirty water. I skid around the sharp right-angled turn, wet feet sliding on the concrete, and whack straight into Dan’s back with such force that both of us are almost thrown onto the ground.

  ‘What the fuck do you—’

  ‘Look,’ he says, voice flat.

  Fuck me.

  We’ve stumbled upon some kind of hideous, bloodless massacre. Naked female bodies are piled across the narrow passageway in front of us. There are so many limbs and torsos and hairless heads that it’s difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. Several severed body parts are scattered carelessly around the heap: there’s a leg just half a metre away from us, and a hand seems to be pointing back the way we came, warning us to come no further. The bodies are stacked so randomly that they could have been vomited out of the ceiling, but this corridor’s roof is sealed with water-stained ceiling board, and there are no doors or apertures in its walls.

  ‘What the hell are they doing here?’ I say.

  Dan doesn’t answer, but he must be thinking the same thing as me. Someone brought them here deliberately.

  Far as I know we could be miles away from the mall. Not that I can imagine these particular mannequins being used by Truworths or an
y of the other chain fashion shops. There’s something just… wrong about them.

  It’s the heads that are the most disturbing. The majority seem to be attached to some sort of body, although there are a few severed ones in among the limbs. But disembodied or not, the eyes all seem to be staring directly at us, like those portraits where the subject’s gaze follows you around the room. All of them have flat black irises and too-long eyelashes like wolf spiders’ legs. And unlike the pouty blank expressions you see on the dolls displaying overpriced tat in the stores, none of them are smiling. With their too-wide eyes and slightly down-turned lips, they seem to be gazing at us in despair, or (some part of my brain insists) pity. The grisly scene isn’t helped by the fact that the usual fluorescents have been exchanged for two naked bulbs that hang from the ceiling, lazily swinging in opposite directions. One moment the tableau is lit almost too brightly, and has the look of an over-the-top art student project; the next it’s a shadowy nightmare of twisted limbs and pseudo-suffering.

  ‘Fuck,’ Dan breathes. ‘I nearly had a heart attack. I thought they were real.’

  I spot something at the end of the corridor – a familiar flash of green neon. The light bulb sweeps in its direction again.

  Thank. Fucking. God.

  ‘Come on!’ I say, heading towards the body pile.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Climbing over them. What does it look like?’

  ‘No ways! Let’s just go back.’

  ‘Try and look past the plastic tits, Dan,’ I say. ‘We’re home and fucking dry.’

  ‘What are you…?’ His voice trails away as he catches sight of the exit sign.

  The pile can’t be higher than a metre at the most, but the mannequins’ skin is ultra slippery, and as I climb up, their fingers snag on my clothing, almost as if they’re deliberately slowing my progress. There’s also something awful about the way their skin feels; it’s warmer and clammier than I was expecting. I’m nearly at the top when one of the dolls beneath me starts sliding backwards and my left hand reaches up reflexively to steady myself and lands on a small breast with a pert nipple. Next to me Dan’s having the same trouble. He slips and grabs hold of a sculpted crotch. We glance at each other.