I step out into the mall corridor.
The wide-open space hits me after the confinement of the storeroom. The ceiling stretches higher here, the shadows longer. Emergency lights flicker, marking paths I don’t know. To my left, the corridor bends toward the food court. To my right, it disappears into darker retail rows… and endless shoe stores. So many shoe stores. Had I realized that when I was a kid, when my mother would take me shopping here?
How many goddamn shoes did the people of Rothwell need?
And look at us now.
Me, in a pair of lug-soled boots I had to sell my damn car for.
The Rot hums around me, low and constant. Somewhere deeper in the mall, another signal taps out. Somewhere, a woman cries and then stops. Another runner captured. That’s good news for me. If I’m the last one standing, I win.
That’s right, motherfuckers. I just need to hold out until all the other dumb bitches get themselves caught.
Sucks to be them, yo.
I cut straight across the corridor and slip into another side passage, keeping in the shadows, my pace controlled, my breath steady. My body hums with it now, alert, wired, angry. I’m not going to lie, it’s exhausting.
Then, an awareness follows.
Not at my back. Not at my throat. Above. Behind. Somewhere just out of sight.
The Rotter isn’t rushing me. He isn’t closing the distance. He’s letting me run so he can chase. Have his fucking fun.
I keep moving anyway, because stopping means I let him decide when this ends.
Come and get me, fuckface.
4
ARMEN
She moveslike someone who understands being cornered, or who is at least learning to.
She’s got a ways to go.
I watch her from the second-floor balcony where, when I was a kid, I spent weeks of hard-earned lawn-mowing money at a fancy sunglasses store. By the following week, I’d already lost the goddamn Ray-Bans. I haven’t worn sunglasses since, not that I need them here in the Rot.
The girl’s half hidden now behind the gutted shell of a phone kiosk.
The railing vibrates faintly under my boots. Below me, the mall stretches open in broken lines, passageways feeding into passageways, sightlines collapsing and reforming as emergency lights flicker. The Rot breathes slow tonight. Cooperative.
The girl cuts across the main corridor instead of following it.
Smart.
Most of them stick to the straight paths. They think distance saves them. Distance just makes the end louder.
She keeps to the shadows, pace controlled, head up. No flailing. No blind sprinting. She knows she’s being tracked and doesn’t pretend otherwise. That alone puts her ahead of the others still running.
She’s also clean.
Not untouched, no one is, but she’s put together in a way that stands out. Her clothes fit. Her boots are solid, new, practical. She hasn’t given up on herself, which is rare in Rothwell these days. Most people here look hollowed out, worn thin by bad choices and worse luck. She doesn’t.
I shift my weight and scan left.
Movement near the food court. A rival group, three douchebags who hunt wearing rubber masks of presidents they found in the back of some novelty store. One is clearly Ronald Reagan. I know that from seeing a picture of him in a long-ago school book. The others I can’t identity. Hell, it’s not my fault my education was interrupted.
The presidents are spreading wide. Too wide. They’re thinking like dogs, not hunters.
