Chapter Fourteen
After taking our drenched clothing and molding it to the cracks of the door, the old man climbed up into the ventilation shaft with what was left of our clothing. He said he was preventing the noxious gas from reaching us, but he stilled looked ridiculous. We were all rather skeptical of his strategy, but quickly learned not to question him. When we questioned him, he held his wader high above his head and lectured us, using the name ‘Erma’ for his authority.
While he did what he supposedly had to do, the three of us sat on a diaper changing table. It was truly an interesting experience to sit in my underwear with my two best friends; it was one I hoped never to repeat.
“So this is what the girls’ bathroom looks like.” Gavin commented. “I always thought it would be pink with fuzzy toilet seat covers.”
Just then, the sprinkler system activated, adding to the discomfort we’d already had.
“Great,” Jade sighed. “The building’s burning down and we’re locked in a bathroom on the fourth floor.”
The old man reappeared in the ventilation shaft, wearing the makeshift kilt we’d fastened out of a trash bag. “I’ve turned the sprinklers on, so we will be able to leave momentarily.”
“Fantastic,” I murmured. “Not only do we have to sit here in our underwear, but the only way we can leave is to streak!”
“If we can’t put our clothes back on, we can buy more.” Gavin tried to reassure me, but his efforts were futile.
“Fine then, you can run around in your boxers collecting clothes for me.” I was sarcastic but serious at the same time.
Realizing the mistake he’d made, Gavin trumped to the door and unlocked it, but when he tried to open it, he had to yank hard to pull it open; the once soggy clothes had become like concrete after hardening. After struggling for several minutes, Gavin managed to break the seal; the clothing crumpled until it was again pliable, though no chunks fell away.
He squeezed through the crack he’d created between the door and doorframe. My pants at the bottom of the door were the reason the door had been so stubborn. My boyfriend disappeared behind the door, leaving Jade and I alone; the strange old man vanished in the air conditioning system again.
Now that all the males were absent, Jade calmed down a hair. “That was…” Jade continued speaking, only mentally. I understood the bajillion things racing through her head, mostly because they were going through my brain as well. After half a minute or so, Jade’s tongue finally began articulating the words again. “I always knew some day I’d be relaxing in my underwear with a boy, but I always figured I’d be married or at least grown. I never imagined it would be with my cousin’s hubby while my cousin sat in the same state of undress on the other side of the man.” Jade was, needless to say, in shock.
“It was almost three-way incest.” I agreed with her. Of course it had been nothing like perverted intimacy at a family get-together but the statement surmised what Jade and I felt. The closest the three of us had been to anything remotely sexual was a hug between Gavin and I after he’d refused to look at either Jade or I. So he wouldn’t have to see two females who were barely dressed, he shut himself in a stall.
I don’t think his issues were about finding two of the thinnest and healthiest girls in school unattractive but rather his duty as a gentleman. He had been trying to maintain our dignity, though he could’ve also been hiding his humility. The latter was unlikely, at least in my opinion, because when I went to see him, he didn’t try to hide himself. I hadn’t wanted to sit for an indefinite period of time with Gavin so near, yet unavailable, so I freed him from his noble prison.
I had entered the wheelchair compatible stall he sat in to find him staring only at my toes or forehead. Preaching to him in the hopes of convincing him to relax, and at least be able to sit with me without the nervous apprehension of his darting eyes, I actually threatened to disrobe the rest of the way and give him a lap dance. He saw right through my lie but after a debate worthy of a courtroom, he finally gave in and with my permission, looked at me from the neck down. My relief at that point was translated into a hug and a whisper into his ear which thanked him for being so considerate.
Gavin had been gone for a while and I began to worry he might’ve gotten in trouble with the security guards. Just as I was getting ready to go out after him, an arm appeared in the doorway followed by a shoulder. After waiting more than fifteen minutes for Gavin, he returned!
He was wearing cargo pants that barely fit in the waist and were definitely too short; they looked like capris on him. His shirt of choice was a white button-down that looked like it had been stolen from a tuxedo. Draped over his right arm were dresses, which he tossed onto the diaper changing table for Jade and I.
A peculiar expression adorned his face, almost like he’d taken a math test without knowing how to work the problems. That wasn’t all that his face seemed to portray; it was just my first impression on the emotions behind it. Further examination revealed appalled horror and overwhelming sadness. Before I could inquire as to what was wrong, he sprinted to the nearest sink and emptied the contents of his stomach.
Seeing Gavin ill was enough for me to stall getting dressed until I knew what was wrong; it had rearranged my priorities. I patted him on the back until he was finished dancing the hunky-chunky.
“What happened?” I continued trying to soothe him.
Wiping his mouth on a paper towel before discarding it in the trashcan, Gavin answered. “Th-they’re all dead.”
“Who? Who’re all dead?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“J-just get dressed.” Gavin stammered.
Casting him one more confused glance, I pulled the floral gown over my head. What did he mean, that they were all dead? Did he mean everyone who had been under the tarp things? Were they all dead?
“Come on, let’s go.” Jade ushered impatiently, stepping through the narrow gap.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked. When he nodded, I too sidled out of the restroom.
The grey floor tiles were bathed in a film of multicolored concrete-like translucent material; it was the same stuff that had turned our clothes into rocks. Beneath the mostly yellow and orange floor were the forms of thousands of people. If one stared long enough, one could make out faces and even the freckles on a young redhead’s face. It was like standing at the barrier between life and death; a veil only a few centimeters thick covered the haunted expressions of those on the other side. Each victim lay positioned so closely to the other victims that I was reminded of the tangram puzzles I played as a child. Present on every face was a novel about the gruesome slaughter each of them witnessed. Sad but unfortunately true was the ghoulish display of Death’s ungainly power. I was reminded that, despite the common belief, humans can’t stop the retreat of life from the fleshy battlefields within all living creatures.
“Hello? Is anyone out there alive?” Echoed a magnified voice from the south west wing of the mall.
In reply, sporadic, if not low in volume cries came but sounds of the living were sparse in the building that had once been flooded with the chatter of thousands of exuberant shoppers. Now the silence, broken only by the pleas for assistance, was louder than the roaring chaos earlier had been.
Gavin, Jade, and I walked as carefully as we could to where the police were. Treading carefully to avoid trampling the uncountable corpses, our trio became a quartet when a young man, a few years older than Gavin joined our troupe.
He had light brown hair and wore a red vest with the emblem of a sporting goods store on it. His eyes spoke volumes about the relief he felt at seeing three people with pulses. Dodging mound of dead things made our trek to safety arduous and tiresome but eventually we found hope. Knowing we were unhurt, the first think out of my mouth was asking how to be of any help. The paramedics on the scene examined us but abandoned us to tend to another victim whose left arm looked as if it had been eaten away by acid. Despite the terrible pain the balding man must’ve been in, he was still conscious and only winced when his arm was bandaged as best as it could be.
The person I’d asked how we could help walked Gavin, Jade, the frightened sporting goods store employee, and I into a small hardware store just next to the first floor entrance. Once inside, he picked up a hammer and told us to do the same so we could start digging. At first, I didn’t know what he meant but as an example for us to follow, he knelt next to a corpse covered in the orange crust.
He had to break the crusted material inch by inch around her motionless form. His tapping resulted in a two-inch patch of the strange residue of the Catrions’ weapons coming loose. The procedure looked much like what carving a cinder block with a swiss army knife might be like.
Gavin’s eyes met mine; he was looking to find comfort and checking to see that I was alright. I tried to reassure him silently, but my brain had lost control of my face, leaving my lips clamped shut and my eyes only showing sadness and confusion.
“Do you understand what to do?” the stoic police officer asked.
“Y-yes” I stammered, knowing Gavin couldn’t answer. “We’ll take over from here.”
“We appreciate the help, just don’t damage the bodies, and as soon as you have one free, call the morticians over.”
I nodded and selected a masonry hammer and a stone chisel to begin the morbid task. Likewise, Jade, Gavin and our acquaintance did the same. Sitting cross-legged on the edge of the crust in one of the few sections of untouched flooring, I began hammering. Jade and the stranger moved to the next body to work, but Gavin stayed with me.
Tapping around the dead female’s right shoulder, I planned to break the edge free first. Sensing my strategy, Gavin started pounding on the surface next to her right foot. The works was so gruesome that my mind blocked everything except the body, Gavin, and my own racing thoughts. The only reason Gavin stayed in the picture was because every few moments, he touched the back of my hand and studied my response; he knew me well enough to understand when I needed encouragement. With the job at hand so stressful, I welcomed every ounce of encouragement that came my way, but especially when the encouragement came from the one who’s mere name excited my heart and forced a smile to my lips.
Nearly two hours passed before Gavin and I were able to chip away the body, though we didn’t bother trying to scrape the film off the body. We did only as we were told and nothing else.
As Gavin and I dragged the body a few feet from where she died, my eyes, caught a glimpse of a thin square abnormality barely visible in the woman’s breast. I leaned enough to try and understand the strange shape. Beneath the surreal curtain the dead lingered behind, the woman who had been in her early thirties, had a clear plastic package of miniature screwdrivers tucked into her undershirt.
I shook my head and sighed. The deceased female was a petty thief; she was a shoplifter who found an inhuman security guard with an inhumane method of detainment. While I breathed in through my nose, Gavin and I searched for the next body while the mortician’s field crew took away the body of the shoplifter.
In this cramped and expensive hardware store, the floor wasn’t as littered with corpses as each of the floors in the largest part of the mall; to me, that was an understandable fact, considering the shops were for those with money, but the commons areas were for those with window shopping in mind.
The sight Gavin and I beheld caused us both to jump back startled. It wasn’t a gruesome sight, at least not any more so than the rest of the grisly slaughter, but the sheer horror of this scene was unheard of. In front of us were three bodies in a row, though only one was on the ground.
What looked like the body of a five or six-year-old boy lay face-first before us. He’d fallen dead while pushing a blue stroller that was now only partially covered in the concrete-like stuff. This wasn’t a normal stroller, though it seemed to have few defining characteristics. For the most part, it was an aluminum skeleton covered by plush fabric’ the difference was the length. It was long enough to carry two infants.
Gavin and I approached the ghastly tragedy with more apprehension than I would’ve expected; we knew they were dead. Maybe we were hopeful that reality was a lie and they weren’t dead, or only partly dead. Death was too much of an absolute for us to comprehend, particularly with the unimaginable present before us.
Sadly, the two identical curly-brown-haired twins, no older than eighteen months, were curled up in the stroller. If I hadn’t seen the stillness of their chests or the murderous concrete blanket keeping them cold, I would’ve thought they were snoozing so they could wake their parents at the break of the next morning. The sight we saw was so disturbing, Gavin and I could barely take it.
Our unearthing the innocent creatures was spared by a paramedic who was barely out of college. He choked out instructions for us to come with him for medical treatment.
Where Gavin and I had previously declined such attention, now we welcomed it as an excuse to leave our duties. We trudged along in the footsteps of the paramedic, who thankfully, avoided stepping over the bodies wherever he could. Not surprisingly, the young man led us to one of the mall’s entrances were people were gathered. As we approached, approximately twelve feet away, Jade sat on a bench with the sporting goods store employee. I couldn’t be sure, but it looked like Jade was unusually close to the man.
A haggard looking man with a digital recorder in his outstretched hand rushed towards us. “Excuse me, but may I get a few words?”
“Sir, you’re not supposed to be in here. The media hasn’t been given clearance yet.” The paramedic scolded but his words had no effect on the reporter, except to deter him from Gavin and I.
His new target was Jade and her new friend. This time however, the man who stopped him was far older than the college graduate; the old man reappeared from the shadows.
“She cannot answer your questioning.” He was rather sterner than I would’ve thought his age could be.
“And why not?” The reporter snapped as best he could without stirring the water too much.
“She’s a minor, and I’ve not given my consent for her interaction with the press.” He snarled. “The same goes for this young lady.” Jade and I both gave him a baffled stare, and I thought I saw Gavin join in also.
“And who would you be in relation to these two?” For a reporter, he didn’t have the greatest grammar skills; twice in a row, he started a sentence with the word ‘and’.
“I’m their legal guardian, not that you need to know, now scram before I cal over my buddy, Sgt Cromwell of the Arlington City police Department.” He snapped his fingers loudly.
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