We wait until the sun gets low in the sky before we walk around the back of the medical tent and over to the burnt trucks. We don’t slink, we just walk—with our empty backpacks—looking like we’re out for a normal stroll in the parking lot. If anyone notices us, they don’t yell or point or run to see if they can come along.
I take one glance back but can’t see anyone paying attention to us at all. There isn’t even a lookout.
We enter through a store called Bealls, which I’ve never heard of, but it looks like a department store. Of course, there are no clothes or shoes—they’ve all been moved elsewhere. All that’s left aremannequin limbs and empty perfume and jewelry counters.
There’s also trash, leaves, and debris littering the floor. And quite a few bullet casings.
“Looks like they really did get raided,” Rocky Horror says, nudging one of the tarnished brass casings aside.
On the floor ahead of us are two bodies lying face down. They’re both wearing military fatigues. The gun holsters at their sides are empty, but I check their pockets for anything else. Not even a wallet.
The bodies are old, but they aren’t just decayed; there’s strands of muscle and tissue hanging from their faces and hands, left over from whatever bugs didn’t want them. Holes have been torn in their fatigues by animals. Small, crusty animal droppings litter the floor around them.
“Be careful,” Cara says. “There might still be animals in here wanting to protect their home. Or their food.”
I flick the safety off the handgun. Rocky Horror has the rifle, but it still doesn’t have any shells. There’s a broken two-by-four ahead that I pick up and hand to Cara. She takes it carefully, making sure she doesn’t get splinters.
The department store is mainly empty—as though they cleared it out to be a processing area for their stockpiled supplies.
But the stockpile isn’t really a stockpile. At least not anymore.
Outside the department store, in a glass-ceilinged atrium, there are a few stacks of plastic tubs and cardboard boxes. Most have been ripped apart and are damp with mold and mildew. Dark red sunset filters through the cracked and dirty skylight above the atrium, and tendrils of ivy hang down through some of the larger broken panes.Beneath the skylight is a decommissioned fountain that’s full of stagnant green water.
It was probably drained before the government occupied the mall, but with the broken skylight has become a pond.
“Wait,” I say, holding out my hand to Rocky Horror and Cara. I pick up a broken tile by my foot and toss it into the fountain. The sound of the splash echoes through the atrium and down the empty halls of the mall. Four birds—the most unexpected creatures we could see since so many of them have been wiped out—fly out of the cracked and open roof. Water spills out over the top of the fountain edge but nothing else moves.
“Just checking for alligators,” I say.
“Good looking out,” says Rocky Horror. Then we set about checking the boxes and tubs. I open one crushed cardboard box and fat cockroaches run from inside, scattering to the darker corners of the atrium. The cans inside the box have been crushed, and it looks like whichever ones didn’t immediately open then exploded later, once the seal was broken and the inside started to spoil.
There’s one can that seems like it might be okay. I grab it with two fingers, but its label is slick with fuzz and slime from the rest of the food that sat on top of it. I take it over to the fountain to wash off the sludge, checking again for any movements or eyes. A dead squirrel floating in the water puts me a little at ease. If there was something hiding in there, it would have eaten that thing by now.
“Jackpot.” Rocky Horror is looking inside a large beige trash receptacle. He pulls out a black plastic tub and puts it on the ground. I throw the can into my backpack and join him.
He flips open the lid of the tub and right on top there’s a package of gauze, sterile pads, and bandages.
Rocky Horror claps his hands. “I figured some government schmuck would try to hide his own stash to sell later.”
Cara joins us and we stuff the medical supplies into our bags. There’s also five bottles of rubbing alcohol, rubber gloves, over-the-counter pain meds, and burn gel.
“No antibiotics, though,” I say.
“No, but let’s keep looking. And let’s keep an eye out for places where a grunt with a gun would try to hide things.”
“The security office,” Cara says. “The guards before the pandemic would have had lockers.”
“You’re a genius,” I say.
She shrugs, smirking. “Why do you think I’m still here?” Then she heads over to a smashed plexiglass sign with the mall map on it.
There are four lockers in the security office and all four have combination locks on them. I pull on one of the locks, hoping it’s old enough to just break, but it doesn’t.
“Notice any hardware stores on that map, Cara?” I ask.
“No need,” Rocky Horror says. He holds his flashlight out to me, and I take it. “Keep it on the dial for me.” He pulls on the lock and starts spinning the dial until it stops. “Cara, remember eighteen.” He spins the dial in the opposite direction, only this time it goes around a couple of times before finally stopping. “Jamie, you’ve got thirty-two.”
“How do you know how to do this?” I ask. Cara has grown curious as well and is watching over his shoulder as he spins the two numbersin order, then starts spinning in the opposite direction.
