The Mall Read online

  He shrugs. ‘Ja. It wasn’t—’

  ‘Shhh!’ I say. ‘Hear that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen!’

  The sound drifts back towards us.

  ‘Is that… music?’ Dan says.

  Both of us keep absolutely still. It comes again. It’s a jaunty folksy tune that for some reason reminds me of the Mos Eisley Cantina riff in Star Wars.

  We quicken our pace, and I almost forget about the uncomfortable heat of the lamp. A stark white door with a reassuringly normal metal handle appears out of the gloom to greet us, the only feature in an otherwise solid concrete barrier ahead.

  ‘You think it’s locked?’ Dan asks.

  ‘Only one way to find out.’

  He pulls open the door and both of us have to shield our faces against the sudden glare of light that blasts back at us. We’ve been in the dark for so long that my eyes tear up, and it takes me a second to realise what I’m seeing. It’s another one of those narrow stairwells, this one at least heading upwards. The stairs, walls and ceiling are tiled in a seamless white mosaic, giving it the antiseptic look of an institutional corridor. With the door open the sound of the music floats down towards us with more clarity. And there’s something else – a familiar low rumbling sound.

  ‘Shit,’ Dan breathes. ‘Voices! There are people up there!’

  ‘You think this leads back into the mall?’ I say. ‘Like a back entrance or something?’

  Dan shrugs. ‘Fuck knows, Rhoda. We’re way underground now.’ His eyes are beyond tired. He’s wearing the same expression you see on disaster victims on CNN, one of weary acceptance.

  ‘You want to take a break?’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I want to get this over with.’

  I place the lamp carefully on the ground, and, without speaking, we both start heading up.

  I’d expected the stairwell to lead upwards for ever, like everything in this fucking place. But after navigating just a few flights, we’ve reached a white melamine door and neither of us is rushing to pull it open. From the sounds we can make out from here, it’s already clear that whatever we’re about to encounter it’s not going to be the bland muzak and polished shopfronts of the mall. The music actually sounds creepily similar to old-school funfair calliope music – the kind that scores low-budget horror films. Every so often there’s a sudden burst of deep, humourless laughter and the rumbling murmur of what has to be a large crowd of people. But it’s not just the eerie music and voices that are holding us back. There’s another one of those fucked-up laminated signs stuck on the door:

  Patrons are advised to enter the market at their own risk. Management will not be responsible for injuries resulting from choking on small parts, exsanguinations, unlicensed amputations, theft, transplants, broken pointy bits of glass or death.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Dan. We have a choice here. We can try and go back the way we came and run into that… creature, or we can go through this door. But I’m telling you, I really don’t have a good feeling about this.’

  Dan rubs both hands over his face, and holds my gaze for a long second. ‘The message said something about market day. This is the place…’ I’m pretty sure that the fear in his eyes is mirrored perfectly in mine. ‘Christ, Rhoda,’ he says. ‘Let’s just do it.’

  He holds out his hand, and, without hesitating, I take it.

  He opens the door and we step through.

  chapter 8

  DANIEL

  Everything’s white. Rhoda closes the door behind us and we lean back against it, waiting for our eyes to acclimatise. Gradually details start to emerge from the snowsheer glare. Powder-white floor, powder-white walls, a hall the size of, say, your average church or Pep store, but featureless, just a square box with glaring white floors and walls. Bright spotlights set into the powder-white ceiling like polka dots pierce down at us. We can hear the same crazed hurdy-gurdy music as we did outside, but now more distant, smothered and forced, like a live band is playing from inside the walls, its members suffocating in the concrete as they play. Its volume shifts in waves, coming up and then receding as if we’ve imagined it, before fading in again. There are markings stripped out in silver duct tape on the floor, mapped-out boundaries in two dimensions tracing a convoluted design. Labels chalked out on the floor – illuminator, apothecary, tavern, weaver – make it clear that this is the layout of the market. But there’s nothing here.

  ‘Is this it?’ I ask. ‘Are we supposed to pretend, or what?’

  Rhoda stalks around the hall, leaving dusty shoe prints on the floor as she goes. She tries the door.

  ‘Fuck. It’s stuck.’ She pulls the handle as hard as she can. ‘We’re stuck.’

  She checks the walls, inspects the floor. ‘Fuck,’ she says from the other side of the hall. Her voice echoes in the blank space. When the music ebbs, it’s dead quiet in here. I can hear my own breathing.

  My phone beeps.

 

  Holy shit. These people are really watching us. Right now. This isn’t some random spam. These people are genuinely toying with us. Who are they and what the fuck do they want? A vivid picture of my mom at home comes into my head, panicking about where I am. I see her on the phone, crying to my uncle down in Cape Town. I see my bedroom. I want to go home. I want to hug my mom, tell her I’m okay. I want to be okay. I want to wake up now.

  I drop the phone, put my hands over my face and let out an incoherent sob. It has to be forceful enough to wake me up. You know, just like when you’re about to die in a dream, you wake yourself up.

  Rhoda joins me, picks up the phone and reads the message. ‘Christ. Evidently this is not it. We’re late.’

  Beep beep. Beep beep.

  Rhoda fishes out her phone, looks at it. ‘It’s yours again.’

  I open the message.

 

  ‘Just tell us how to get out of here!’ I scream at the ceiling. There must be a camera or something. ‘We just want to go. I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing down here! Just let us out!’

  Beep beep. Beep beep.

 

  ‘Holy fuck,’ says Rhoda. ‘You better type something back, and it had better not be “out”.’

  I key and write back:

  ‘Wait! I’m not sure if—’ Rhoda starts. But I’ve already hit .

  ‘Ohhh fuck,’ she says. ‘“We won’t tell anyone”? “We won’t tell anyone”? When have you heard that before? Just before the fucking annoying little extra has his fucking brains blown out. That’s when!’

  Then it’s black. All the lights switch off with a whine of capacitors. The music in the walls dies just as quickly. I grab at Rhoda’s arm as she grabs at mine. Just our breathing, my heart beating, the seep of my piss draining into my sock. Then a grinding in the walls, like they’re walking towards us in the darkness. The sound buildings make in an earthquake.

  Then there’s nothing. I can’t see or hear anything. Until

  Beep beep. Beep beep.

  It’s Rhoda’s.

 

  she keys back.

  A few seconds later. <59:59>. The numbers on Rhoda’s phone are counting down <59.57><59.56><59.55>.

  A whoosh of power. Powder-white glaring brightness. The singe of a thousand spotlights on our heads. And now mirrors. Mirrors lining the two long side walls, so that looking in that direction we can see nothing but white receding, and two dirty creatures huddled to infinity.

  ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ Rhoda explodes as we scuttle like kicked dogs to the front end of the room so t
hat we can see as little of ourselves as possible. The ricocheting reflections have me too bewildered to speak.

  ‘Now what?’ she says. She’s picking up my speech habits. ‘What is this “test”? God, I feel like a fucking lab rat.’

  I look back across the white floor, just silver tape and white and our dirty trail wherever we’ve walked. Where we sit, our trousers leave smudgy haloes of oily dust. I’ve never felt so filthy.

  ‘It’s got to be the mirrors. That’s the only thing here.’

  ‘But what’s the question?’

  ‘These guys are bullies. They talk exactly like the cunts who used to terrorise the juniors at my high school.’

  ‘Boy’s school, huh?’

  ‘How did you guess?’ I was beginning to find something to like in this woman. ‘This whole thing reminds me of a hazing ritual.’

  ‘So what’s the point?’

  ‘That’s the problem. There’s no fucking point. It’s just to show how strong the bullies are. There’s no way the new kid can win.’

  ‘This has to be different, then,’ she says. ‘If this is a test, there has to be some way of passing it.’

  ‘What makes you think they’re playing by some sort of rules?’

  ‘I don’t know. Just a feeling. Like this is some existing game we’ve stumbled into.’

  ‘Fuck!’ She springs up, unable to contain her agitation any longer. ‘We’re wasting our fucking time. We’ve got to do something.’ She shows me her phone. <56.45>. She paces away and starts examining the mirror on one wall.

  I just sit.

  ‘Come on, Dan. Get up! You go that side and search the mirror for a seam, some opening. Maybe it’s as simple as that. Just find a way out.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’m telling you. There’s no answer. This is designed to be a no-win situation. Besides, I don’t do mirrors.’

  ‘Christ. Don’t be such a pussy. We were getting along just fine. Let’s try and keep it that way.’

  And despite myself, the threat of a woman’s disapproval works its charm, as it always has. I want her to like me, despite myself. I stand up and start searching the opposite mirror.

  I really don’t like mirrors. I’m getting to a place in my life where I’m starting to feel halfway decent about myself, as long as I can just forget what I look like. My giant freak nose, my black-bagged skull eyes, my scrawny neck, zits. I thought that shit was supposed to end when you stop being a teenager. Inside, when I’m feeling good, I think I’m a nice guy, someone a girl would talk to, someone who might one day be loved. Sometimes a girl even smiles at me as if they see that grown-up inside me.

  Then a fucking mirror comes along and reminds me I never had a chance. That ghastly vision brands itself on me, and I carry that freak inside me wherever I go. And whether I try to hide it with kohl or T-shirts or dye or tattoos or whatever the fuck, it’s still me. This leering, skinny, ugly, pimply freak.

  And I have to work in a mall. Fucking malls, with their mirrors on every available surface; beautiful girls beautifully dressed telling me with every sexy spike-heeled step that I have no chance; mannequins and magazines and money; everything just grinding home the fact that I am there to serve, and that I will never, ever be one of them.

  Keep in your place, boy. You are worth nothing.

  This is what those SMS fuckers are doing. I know that tone. The pricks at high school, bullying all the little kids just because for some utterly mysterious reason they were in the right group. For some utterly mysterious reason they were in a position of power. They were butt-ugly and stupid, but for some reason they had the confidence to believe otherwise.

  Real power, they should know, is not having to use it. Motherfuckers.

  I look at myself again, repressing that urge to avert my eyes. I really look. At least now I have some reason to look awful. At least I look like I’ve been through something. My face is greasy with dirt, the pores clogged up with sweat and dust. If I had a cigarette in my lips it would complete the look. I’d look like a bum who didn’t give a fuck. I really want not to give a fuck.

  I glance across at Rhoda and wonder how she manages. I wonder how she got the scar on her face, what made her want to cut herself on her arms. Now she’s cocky and strong, scary as shit. Where did she get that?

  ‘Nothing here,’ I call across. ‘Can I bum another cigarette?’

  ‘Jesus,’ she says. ‘I’ve created a fucking monster. I’ve only got a couple left. But since you asked so nicely.’ She meets me halfway across the floor and lights one up for me before lighting a pinched half for herself. I sit down right there and inhale with a sigh.

  ‘Maybe don’t sit here, Dan,’ says Rhoda. ‘Shift up a bit.’ She points out the word ‘butchery’ taped onto the floor.

  ‘Ja, probably right.’ I move across to ‘cheese’ and Rhoda sits facing me, staring past me to the opposite bank of mirrors. <47.21>.

  ‘I feel like the turd floating in the punchbowl.’

  ‘At a wedding.’

  ‘At Princess fucking Di’s wedding.’

  I smoke. Then I know what I have to do. I grind out the stub on the white floor, smudging the ashes as far as they’ll go, then I stand up and run and scream, scream as much of this god awful place out of my lungs, scream until the hall rings with overlapping waves, until my lungs become part of my throat, my whole body resonating the sound.

  Running. And SMASH. Body block straight into the mirrored wall.

  A squeaking shear as the first crack shoots up the length of the mirror, then the sound of hell’s window breaking as the silvered panes plummet into vicious, jagged dust at my feet, nothing but blank wall behind it. I curl my head under my arms and stand there as the brief apocalypse comes down. I must be a bit demented, the glass chips spattering all over my boots and into my clothes, but I don’t feel a thing, and while the echoes are still ringing around the hall I plough into the next shard of mirror and then the next.

  At some stage, I notice that Rhoda is doing the same on her side, screaming like a banshee and kicking wild karate kicks at the mirrors. I’m laughing till it hurts.

  Fuck your test, motherfuckers. I’ve passed my own.

  When it’s finished, I crunch over the debris back to cheese and stand there. I’m shaking. I look at my hands. They’re covered with blood; back and front, hundreds of pinpricks and slivers. I pick up a palm-sized mirror shard and look at my face. A few shallow cuts. Not too bad. I pick out what glass bits I can and rub the blood off my brow.

  Now I look like I’ve been through something. Something in my pathetic little life. Though what it means, who knows? Nothing, probably. Nothing, of course. The high dissipates as quickly as it arrives.

  ‘Good going, Dan,’ says Rhoda. ‘Knew there was a psycho somewhere inside there. You want me to…’ She reaches out and takes some shards out of my hair.

  I walk across to my wall and smear my blood along its surface. I consider writing some words, but I don’t think I’ll have enough blood. It doesn’t go very far, but it looks great against the white. Then I come back and sit picking glass out of my skin for the next few minutes.

  ‘Now what?’ I say. <32.55>

  ‘I’m going to have another look. There must be some way out.’

  Then blindness again. Pitch dark. Whining down. Silence except for Rhoda’s footsteps on the broken glass. Then a heavy crunching from the other side of the hall.

  ‘Rhoda?’

  ‘Dan!’

  ‘Rhoda?’

  ‘Take out your phone, Dan. See if you can get some light. Do you see me?’ Her phone flickers alight, reflecting off thousands of mirror shards. I can’t make out the original, but I know which direction she’s in. I thumb my phone on and make for her light. My shoes crunching on glass. Crackling ahead where Rhoda is. And another heavy clink behind me.

  ‘Rhoda. Jesus. Do you hear that?’

  ‘Ignore it! Get here.’

  I make it across to where Rhoda is squatting, sweeping her ph
one’s light across the floor. The silver duct tape reflects dully back to us.

  ‘I saw a glimpse of something here. Something different. Use your phone.’ The crunching is coming closer. I can hear a snoring sort of breath.

  ‘What’re we looking for? Jesus, that thing.’

  ‘Here! Here!’ I shine my light where Rhoda’s just was. One word is taped in strips of weak luminous green. ‘Downstairs’, it says.

  The steps behind slow, the stumping turning to a padding.

  ‘But it’s the floor,’ I say. ‘What—’

  ‘Come on, Dan. Please. Help me find it. It’s a trapdoor. It’s got to be.’

  The breathing is loud now, I can hear the wetness of the throat, the snoring, but high above me. I scrabble my hands across the floor. Fuck, yes, a ridge.

  ‘Got it! Here.’

  We find the latch together. A gob of spit spatters on the back of my neck as I crouch. Pull. Pull. It’s too heavy to move.

  The breathing stops.

  chapter 9

  RHODA

  I can barely feel my fingers.

  The metal rungs are icy and flecked with rust, and my hands are starting to cramp up.

  It’s been ten minutes or so since I last looked down, but I’m not going to make the same mistake again. That resulted in a vicious wave of nausea and crushing claustrophobia, and I really don’t want to know how far down we’ve still got to climb. The stiffness in my fingers isn’t helped by the fact that the air is now lung-achingly cold.

  The only light comes from the occasional caged bulb stuck into the wall, but the lower we go, the weaker they get, and we’re in danger of ending up in the dark. We’ve climbed down so far that the top of the narrow shaft is nothing but a faint pinprick above us. At least the rungs feel secure; they’re bolted tightly onto the wall, but the rust is worrying.

  I pause and scrape my knuckles against the rough brick wall, trying to force some feeling back into my fingers. My shoulders and forearms still throb from the exertion of hefting open the fucking trapdoor. Good old adrenaline; under normal circumstances I don’t think I could have budged it an inch.