1
VI
By the timethe lights cut out, I’m already running.
Not all the lights, mind you. Just enough to fuck me and the other runners up. Emergency strips along the floor flicker, sick and yellow, slicing the mall into broken sections instead of the glamorous spaces it once held. Shadows pool where stores used to sell shoes and sweaters and phones. Now, they sell nothing. Now, they wait with their open doors like big, hungry maws, anticipating their next meal.
My lungs burn. I keep my mouth shut, pull air through my nose in short, fast breaths. The Rot punishes noise.
Glass cracks under my lug-sole boots, the ones I traded my car for. I don’t slow. I cut left and dive through the jagged glass of a storefront with its sign barely clinging to the wall.
PAYLESS.
The letters are crooked, the E gone entirely. Inside, shelves lie on their sides like ribs. A single shoe stands upright in the center aisle, polished, untouched. A gross display. A rude joke.
A scream rips through the mall behind me—high, raw, sudden. It rolls through the corridors and dies somewhere, then cleaves off so fast it makes me nauseated.
I don’t look back.
You can’t help anyone here. If you’re lucky, you help yourself.
Dead escalators rise ahead, chipped black teeth leading to the second floor. I take them two at a time and trip, of course, and land on my hands and knees, pain flashing through my limbs. Sharp but manageable. Totally stupid. I keep going.
Mannequins line the upper level, stripped bare, arms twisted into gestures that used to beckonwelcome.Come in. Look around. Buy me.Someone’s arranged a dozen along the railing, all of them facing inward, heads tilted just enough to feel deliberate.
Like they’re watching me, creepy as hell. I give them wide berth when I run past, as if one might reach out and grab me.
The air tastes sad—old fryer oil, damp carpet, something metallic that sticks in my nostrils. The food court opens in front of me, tables overturned, chairs stacked into barricades that won’t stop anyone who matters. Freezers gape behind the counters, white interiors empty except for empty packages that probably once held chicken nuggets and other frozen crap.
ICE CREAM — $2.99.
How much would that cost today?
Footsteps hit the tile behind me. Heavy. Even. Controlled. Not panicked. Not chasing.
I push harder. My chest tightens, every breath abrasive and raw. My hands shake. I force my fingers open and pump my arms for balance. Tripping is how they get you.
Another scream—closer this time. A woman crying, words tumbling into each other, begging, maybe. Then nothing except a couple moans.
I cut through what used to be a bookstore. Shelves collapsed into a maze of warped wood and spines. Pages stick to my boots. The smell of mold is thick here, sour. Someone’s sprayed symbols over the children’s section. Shapes I don’t recognize but also don’t need explained. Shit’s mean to intimidate.
Move.
Desperate for a break, I slide between two fallen shelves and press myself flat against the wall, counting my breaths down.
One. Two.
I want to just stay here but the Rot doesn’t reward hesitation, and it punishes stupidity more.
Footsteps pass. Three sets now. Men. I hear it in the weight of them, the way they don’t rush, don’t spread out. Do they know I am here?
They don’t need to hurry. They’re not the ones with everything at stake.
My pulse hammers and something sour floods my mouth.
When the sound fades, I move again, slower, stickingto the dark. My reflection flashes in a blackened display case—eyes too bright, hair plastered to my face with sweat. I don’t recognize myself.
The mall tightens as I exit the bookstore in a sprint, corridors narrowing, ceilings dipping lower. Irrational thought hits hard and fast: it’s breathing with me. Expanding when I push. Contracting when I slow.
