No Dawn Without Darkness

  S

  H

  A

  Y

  INSIDE HARRY’S (THE MED CENTER)

  There’s something unnerving about waking in the dark. All the more so when you have no idea where you are, and water is dripping on your face.

  Last thing I remember, I had the flu, was coughing blood and running to the med center in the old Harry’s department store with Preeti’s two friends. Taking them with me was the only way I could convince Preeti to leave me and go to the HomeMart—I would save her friends if she saved herself.

  “Hello?”

  No answer.

  I’m in a bed? Yes. This is definitely a sheet and blanket, and I’m sitting on a mattress and yes, this wet thing feels like a pillow. Why are the lights out? And where is the water coming from?

  “Is this the med center?”

  I am answered by a groan—not a human noise, but some structural sound from the building. The building sounds broken. I don’t remember the building being broken.

  Wait. I don’t feel sick. I’m alive! I survived this flu! But why do my eyes burn?

  Contacts. I slept with my contacts. I use the old sleepover trick of bathing the lenses in saliva, then slipping them back in. On the disgusting side, but effective enough.

  Not that this helps—there are still no lights. What happened to the lights?

  “Help!”

  The building moans again and then there’s a snap and a flash of spark. Something is very wrong.

  But I am alive. Preeti is safe.

  There’s a penlight in my bag, which has gone missing. I feel down the side of the bed for it and my hand is tugged back. There’s something attached to my skin. A needle digs in when my wrist bends. An IV. Totally normal, hospital stuff. Breathe. I follow the tube from my arm up to an empty plastic bag.

  So I am in the med center. And I’ve been here long enough to drain an IV bag.

  It’s actually more unnerving that this pitch-black, silent-but-for-the-groaning-building room is in fact the med center. Things were bad when I got sick; apparently, they have gotten worse.

  Ryan.

  I have to get out of here. I have to find him.

  The IV needle slides easily from my skin. The bag containing my extremely necessary penlight is not beside the bed on the floor, it’s not on top of the sheets, it’s not under them. But there is something poking my leg. Not my bag, but a notebook and laptop.

  The light from the computer’s login screen is like a beacon. I can make out the whole room—though it’s just different depths of shadow. It’s a stockroom. There are other beds—beds with bodies in them. Not one of the bodies moves, though, nor did any answer when I called.

  I’m in a morgue.

  No. It can’t be. In front of me is a table. It’s messy with papers and pill bottles, IV bags filled with fluid. A stethoscope. Doctor things for living patients. There’s one chair. A mug. Is that shiny thing a food wrapper?

  I dive out of bed. There’s some liquid in the cup. Black coffee? I’m so thirsty, I don’t care. There are crumbs in the wrapper. They are delicious.

  The computer lies open on my bed, tilted back in the sheets. Its light shows the trickle from the ceiling. There’s a crack in the concrete.

  Two other beds are lined up next to mine. I think the girls in them are Preeti’s friends. I wait, watching. Yes, the sheet moved. They are alive. This is definitely not a morgue.

  The building groans again. The drip that had been falling onto my pillow is now a steady stream, glittering in the dim light.

  Where is this water coming from?

  My bag is not hanging anywhere near my bed. I sweep the floor with the computer screen and find a dead guy. He’s slumped against the footboard of my gurney. But he’s not dead from the flu. This guy’s been shot.

  It’s Dr. Chen—the man in the hazmat suit that I pulled from the rubble after the riots, when we were first locked in. He was there when I found Nani. And now he’s been shot.

  Security wouldn’t shoot the doctors, would they? I mean, Ryan said they were out of control, but that out of control?

  Mike has a gun. And he’s crazy enough to shoot people. But if Mike is shooting doctors, it means the whole mall society—security, rules, everything—is gone. There’s nothing holding Mike or anyone else back.

  Breathe.

  The login on the computer screen is automatically filled in as “SChen.” This is Dr. Chen’s computer. I check the notebook; it’s also his.

  Did he leave me a note? Is that why this was in my bed?

  Most of the notebook is all incomprehensible doctor babble. I skip to the end, where I guess he would have left his note to me. On the last page, Tamiflu? is circled. Then there’s this: Evidence suggests mutation Stonecliff 2 is far less virulent. Appears vaccine effective at producing relevant antibodies. Hypothesize standard antivirals may also prove effective at decreasing mortality rates. Continuation of quarantine unnecessary—no risk of pandemic from Stonecliff 2.

  I have to steady myself against the wall. Is this what I think it is? Yes. It’s right there. Quarantine unnecessary. They can let us out. This can all be over.

  Then why are we still here?

  The government doesn’t know. I bet even the senator doesn’t know. Of course they don’t know. We’d be out of here if they knew.

  I have to tell them.

  I sit the laptop in a dry corner of my bed and shake the girl closest to me—Sahra, I think.

  “Wake up!” I yell.

  We will get out of here. We will run to the HomeMart and bang on the door until they let us in. I’ll show them the notebook. We can get out of here. All of us—Preeti, the girls, me, Ryan. This nightmare can end!

  Sahra rolls her head on the pillow, grumbles something about hating grilled peppers, and falls back asleep.

  I shake her again. She must wake up. The stream of water from the crack in the ceiling has become a veritable waterfall.

  Oh no.

  The ice skating rink is above Harry’s. If there’s no power, there’s nothing to keep the rink frozen . . .

  Something crashes outside the stockroom. It could just be the building, maybe the ceiling cracking some more.

  “Dammit!” a voice yells.

  Not the building.

  This notebook has to get to the HomeMart. It’s the only thing that matters.

  If I head straight between the rows of beds back there, I’ll hit a door that must lead into the service halls. It takes a few tugs, but I pull the IV pole off the gurney and tuck it into my waistband across my back—it’s no gun, but it’ll have to do. I close the laptop, drowning the room in darkness, and shove it and the notebook into a computer bag I found on the table, then start walking.

  Preeti’s friends will be fine. No one bothered me while I slept; no one will bother them. The ceiling will hold.

  I feel the first bed. It should only be twenty more steps or so to the door. More beds, more bodies.

  My fingers brush the door, which opens into more darkness. I find the wall, and keep going down the service passage. The floor is, for the most part, clear, littered in places with what feels like paper, then my foot hits something solid.

  A hand clasps my thigh. “Help me,” a voice wheezes.

  I could stop, help this one man, a man who’s done nothing wrong, isn’t even hurting me. I could help him back into the med center, find him a bed, get him water.

  “Please,” he says, and pulls on my bag.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, tugging his fingers from the strap. “Please let go.”

  “Don’t leave me,” he cries, gripping harder.

  I pull out the IV pole and smack. The hand goes away.

  Helping one person helps no one.

  I keep the IV pole in one hand, place the other on the wall, and keep walking.

  G

  I

  N

  G

  E

  R

  ON THE WAY TO THE BOWLING ALLEY br />
  You know that black sweater?” Maddie asks.

  We’ve stopped on our way to interrogate Marco to give Maddie a chance to catch her breath. It’s concerning because we’re still on the first floor, only halfway across the courtyard in front of Harry’s.

  “You are not allowed to start giving away possessions,” I say, nipping that morbid conversation in the bud.

  “Like I’d give that one away,” she says, then takes a pull on her inhaler. “I want to be buried in it. Or at least with it.”

  “Even in death, you remain jealous of how amazing I looked at Jake’s party?”

  “I’m just saying.” She takes a sip of water. “If I catch you in the sweater, my ghost is totally haunting your skinny butt.”

  I want to say, Please, promise? But Maddie’s not going to die, so it’s a moot point.

  “We need to keep going,” I say, glimpsing her face mask under the flashlight. Its outer surface is coated in a fine mist of black, and soot sparkles in the beam. “The air has gone from bad to glittery.”

  “Only in this place is glittery worse than bad.” Maddie refits her mask over her face.

  “Put on two,” I say, handing her a mask from my hoard, and she does.

  • • •

  The escalators have not been claimed by lunatic toll-takers, thank god, but Maddie and I climb up them as fast as possible all the same. The bowling alley looks abandoned. If a whole gang of headlamp kids were inside, wouldn’t there be guards or something?

  “Did that book light asshole lie to us?” Maddie whispers.

  “Maybe they’re in the back?”

  I walk ahead, pulling Maddie by the sleeve. Off to the side of the main bowling area is a hallway with the bathrooms and offices and stuff. If I were running a gang, I would set up camp somewhere down that easily defendable hallway.

  My instincts are confirmed. The instant we step into the hallway, we are grabbed.

  “Get off me!” Maddie yells. I hear clothing rustle, then something (Maddie?) kicks me in the leg.

  “We’re here to see Marco!” I shout, hoping this serves as a kind of password. Someone—a very strong someone—is wrestling my arms behind my back.

  The attackers say nothing. One person wrenches my arms while another hoists my legs so I am dangling like a human hammock. I kick, wriggle, bite, and scream until some wad of cloth is shoved into my mouth. From the grimy taste of soot, I realize it’s my mask.

  I’m carried down the hall through the black.

  • • •

  A door opens and light blooms. It’s like we’ve crawled out of a cave into a summer afternoon.

  “Where the hell did you get all this light?” Maddie wails, like they stole it from the rest of us.

  “We blew the transformer.” It’s Marco’s voice. “We planned for certain eventualities.”

  “You blew the transformer?” I manage. “On purpose?”

  “We had our reasons.”

  Other voices snicker their approval. So he’s converted a band of idiots to whatever insanity he’s planning. Oh crap. What if Lexi’s one of the idiot converts?

  “Lexi!” I shout.

  “Who’s Lexi?” someone asks.

  “She’s our friend,” Maddie answers. “And Marco’s.”

  “What have you done with her?” I demand.

  My eyes adjust to the brilliant light, which shines from camping lanterns spaced evenly around the floor. The smallish room is crowded with about thirty other people, some sitting, some standing, all wearing weapons of some sort. I scan every face. Lexi’s is not among them.

  “Why would I have done anything with Lexi?” Marco asks. He uncoils himself from where he was sitting on the floor, rising up like some enchanted snake. “She told me to leave her alone. I did.”

  “She wasn’t with you at whatever party happened in the IMAX?” Maddie is still struggling against the huge guy who has her by the arms. He has a hockey stick strapped to his back.

  “She stopped by,” Marco says, scowling. “Then she left.”

  Which means she could be anywhere. How will we ever find her? We need to find her.

  Marco glares at me. “Wait, are you saying the senator abandoned her own daughter along with the rest of us?”

  “Lexi ran off,” I say, suddenly becoming angry with his attitude. “The senator asked Maddie and me to help search because security had her on lockdown, what with the mall falling into the hands of crazy people. Which I’m sure you had nothing to do with.”

  “I had everything to do with it,” Marco snarls. He isn’t playing the sarcasm game anymore. For some reason, this scares me more than his hulking gang of thugs.

  “Well, aren’t you special?” Maddie says. “Congrats on bringing down society. Now let us go.”

  They all laugh at her. I go cold inside. People don’t laugh at Maddie. Ever.

  “You have to pay the piper for your freedom,” Mike says. He’s hunched in the corner nearest Marco.

  “We know where your girlfriend, the Indian girl, is,” I yell.

  “Shay was never my girlfriend.” Marco steps closer. “What else have you got?”

  Do we hand over the location of our candy stash? I look to Maddie. She stares at me, eyes bulging, like she’s trying to telepathically communicate. Is that a yes? Then she stamps her heel down hard on the foot of the guy holding her. He screams and lets go of her arms. I get the message.

  I stamp on my guy’s foot, except a girl’s voice cries out and my arms are free. Maddie gives her captor her signature groin kick and pulls the hockey stick from his back. I figure kicking my captor in the groin would be useless, so I throw a punch at her face. She blocks it and I end up hitting her in the boob, but she doubles over anyway and I shove my way past her toward Maddie, who’s sweeping the stick back and forth, jabbing at any of the headlamps who approach.

  On the next sweep, I dive past her and kick the door open. I drag her into the hall and shut the door behind us. Maddie jams the stick through the handle, locking the door closed against the frame.

  We race down the dark hallway, so much darker after those few precious minutes in the light. The door slams against the hockey stick, and the wood snaps. Maddie pulls out her flashlight. Once in the mall, we run toward the movie theaters.

  “Where do you girls think you can hide in our mall?” Marco shouts. His cry echoes, mixing with the slap of several feet on tile.

  “Here!” Maddie yells, gasping, and grabs my sleeve.

  I stumble after her down the escalator, trying to calculate in my mind where on the second floor we will be. Maddie slows down, clicks off her flashlight. We crouch on the steps. She holds her hands over her face to muffle her breaths, which come in gasps.

  Please let them pass us by.

  “They’re on the escalator!”

  We are up and racing before we hear the first foot on the stairs.

  Ten feet onto the second floor, we run into a guy wearing a black robe with a bolt of glow-in-the-dark green paint across his face. “This is our floor,” he says.

  Maddie’s sucking air. I tug her away from the green-faced guy. Several gleaming headlamps bob down the escalator. We swerve around its railing.

  “Drop to the floor,” I whisper.

  We sink below the lip of the handrail. Maddie crawls past me, wheezing, and I follow her down the hall.

  “Hey!” the green-face shouts.

  “What the hell are you supposed to be?” one of the headlamps growls.

  Green-face shouts for backup. Maddie and I hide our shadows behind a garbage can. She buries her face in my shoulder, her breathing now frantic. I pat her on the back like that might help.

  A swarm of green-faces gathers in front of the esca-lators, wincing in turn as they are blinded by the sweeping beams of the headlamps crowded on the stairs. The scene would be ridiculous if they all weren’t armed to the teeth.

  “Where’re the two girls?” A headlamp girl, maybe the one who’d been holding me.


  “They ran.” The green-face holds a long metal pole with a small hook on one end across his chest like a lance. “Now it’s your turn. We’ll give you ten seconds to clear the steps.”

  “What makes you think you can tell us where to go?” Mike. It’s like he’s trying to start something.

  Another face-painted guy emerges from the black. It’s the leader we saw in the Halloween shop. He flexes his fists, each of which is crowned with metal claws. “What makes you think you can question us?”

  An arrow flies out of the black, piercing the clawed leader in the shoulder. He screams.

  The two gangs fall on each other. It’s total mayhem. Poles and bats and chains and hammers smash and clang. People scream. I swear I hear a bone snap. How can that sound be so clear?

  After less than a minute, it’s over. The green-faces whimper and groan in the hallway. The headlamps scurry away, lights bouncing back up to the third floor. The cries get softer, so I assume those who can’t walk are being taken somewhere by those who can. It’s not until Maddie holds my hand that I realize I’m trembling.

  “What just happened?” she asks. She alternates words with pulls on her inhaler.

  “Why would they do that?” I ask. A body lies splayed on the bottom of the steps. Less than a minute, and someone died.

  Maddie peeks around me. “Give a guy a weapon—” She takes another pull from her inhaler. “And he’s gonna want to use it.”

  Maddie lights a blue glow stick, then sips some water. I take a drink myself, nibble on a Snickers.

  “We’re back at square none,” Maddie says, chewing Skittles between wheezing breaths.

  “Wrong. We know Lexi was at the party. We start there. We are not giving up. We will find her, we will get into the HomeMart, and we will get you your medicine.”

  Maddie takes a final pull from her inhaler, then tugs a fresh mask over her mouth. “I like this in-charge Ginger.”

  She hugs my shoulder and I start to cry, but it’s dark, thank god, so she can’t see me.

  R

  Y