No Safety in Numbers

  Marco leaned back on the bench, raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m working on it.”

  Shay held her head in her hands. There had to be some way out. Think, think.

  Somewhere, off to her left, a woman dropped to the floor, taking a metal stand of whirligigs down with her. The people around her backed away. The woman began to wheeze and suck air, like she was choking. A security guard used his walkie-talkie, and a hazmat guy arrived within minutes with a stretcher. He loaded the woman onto it and took her away. As soon as she was gone, the crowd began to flow again. The merchant picked up the stand, rearranged the whirligigs. It was like nothing had ever happened.

  “The EMC,” Shay said. “In the PaperClips. The hazmat people have to be going in and out from somewhere in there.”

  Marco sat up. “We could sneak in through the service corridor, leave without them even knowing we were there.”

  “You have a key?” Shay leaned toward him.

  “No,” he said. “But I know where we can get one.”

  They sat outside the Grill’n’Shake and watched for the two guards Marco had served earlier. After a half hour, they emerged and trotted toward the elevators.

  Shay and Marco watched them sink down the glass-enclosed shaft, saw them travel all the way down past the first floor.

  “The parking garage,” Marco said.

  They followed the officers down in the next elevator. The garage was mostly empty. Toward the back wall, they heard voices, the bleat of a walkie-talkie. Marco motioned to her, and they slunk along behind the parked cars toward the rear wall.

  Some makeshift cages of chain-link fencing stood along the wall. The two guards they’d followed were leaning over the prone body of a cop.

  “He’s breathing,” one guard said.

  “Those demolition derby assholes did this,” the other said. “I will make them pay.”

  The first guard patted his partner’s shoulder. “Let’s get him to the Suits.”

  They picked up their friend by the arms and legs and carried him back toward the elevator.

  “What do we do now?” Shay whispered.

  Marco held a finger to his lips. Then he pointed at a shadow beyond the cages: Another downed guard.

  Once the two had carried their friend to the elevator, Marco and Shay crept up to the guard lying in the shadows. A walkie-talkie lay next to him. A thin dribble of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

  “Is he dead?” Shay asked.

  Marco seemed less sure of himself. Then he sighed. “He breathed,” he said, pointing. “I saw his chest move.”

  “And how is he going to help us?” Shay asked.

  “He isn’t,” Marco said. He began patting around the guy’s belt. He emerged with a card key. “This is.”

  Marco explained that all the security doors were controlled by card keys—he showed her the one from his wallet. The mall cops had a special card key that, unlike his, could open any door in the mall.

  Hope spread like warmth throughout her empty body. “We’re on our way,” she said.

  “Wait,” he said. He picked up the walkie-talkie and pushed the TALK button. “Second man down in the parking garage.”

  A voice responded, acknowledging the call. “Sending a team.”

  Marco then turned the volume way down and pocketed the thing. “Just in case,” he said.

  He’d get no argument from Shay.

  As they neared the medical ward, Shay laid out her plan for getting Preeti and Nani out of the EMC.

  Marco scowled. “You never mentioned getting them out too,” he said.

  “They’re coming with us or I scream that you have the flu.” Shay was utterly serious.

  Marco held up his hands. “Okay,” he said. “Calm yourself. What’s your plan?”

  “There’s a space between the windows and the curtained wall. We get them out the front, then all sneak around to the service hall.”

  Shay saw doubt on his face. She took his hand and squeezed it. He looked at his hand and blushed. So what if she didn’t feel anything? She would get his help whichever way she had to.

  Marco shrugged like what the hell and followed her into the EMC.

  All was not well in the med center. Hazmat suits ran from one side of the curtain complex to the other. Machines beeped and wailed. No one noticed Shay and Marco as they walked into the main area. For a minute, Shay wondered if they needed any plan, whether they might just walk out without anyone paying them any mind.

  But then they got to Nani and Preeti’s room. Three hazmat suits crowded Nani’s bed. Preeti was sitting up, crying.

  “What are you doing?” Shay yelled.

  The hazmat people parted. Nani lay still but with a huge plastic tube coming out of her mouth. An IV dripped into her arm. A machine attached to the bed pole wheezed rhythmically, pumping air into and out of Nani’s lungs.

  A hazmat doctor put a hand on Shay’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, but your grandmother has not responded to the antiviral medication. She has developed acute respiratory distress syndrome,” she said. “We have to move her to our ICU area.”

  “Can I come?” Shay tried to touch Nani’s hand; the doctor caught her fingers.

  “We’ll let you know if her condition improves.”

  The doctors wheeled Nani out.

  “Why are you always gone?” Preeti cried, her voice catching on a sob.

  Tears ran down Shay’s cheeks. She hugged her sister. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was trying to get help.”

  Preeti cried, soaking Shay’s choli, until a coughing fit forced her to lie down. She fell into a feverish sleep, mumbling something about spinning. Shay stumbled back. Marco caught her.

  “You should go, escape,” she said, not looking at him. “I can’t leave, not without them.”

  He stepped around to face her. “If you want me to, I’ll stay.”

  He should leave. He should save himself. But Shay didn’t want to be alone. She couldn’t handle this alone.

  “That would be really nice,” she said.

  He seemed to be waiting for something.

  She lifted herself to her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. Her lips felt papery against his skin. But he glowed like she had given him something better than escape.

  “Then I’ll stay,” he said. He sat on the floor and patted the tile next to him. She sat. And when he put his arm around her, she let it stay because any arm was a comfort at this point. Any boy would do.

  DAY

  SIX

  THURSDAY

  S

  H

  A

  Y

  Shay lay on the floor where Nani’s bed had stood. Marco was behind her, spooning her. She’d even let him throw an arm over her side. She felt so cold.

  Preeti drifted in and out of sleep. The doctors came in every hour and checked her IV drip. They would look down at Shay, see her open eyes, and tell her to get some rest, there was nothing she could do.

  Now. There was nothing she could do now. But she could have done so much before. If only she’d let herself see what had been happening. Why didn’t she put things together? Maybe if she’d left Nani here in the first place, she wouldn’t have developed the respiratory distress and wouldn’t be sedated and full of tubes and sucking air through a machine. Maybe Preeti wouldn’t have gotten sick. If I hadn’t been so pathetically needy, they would have never come to the mall in the first place.

  Marco snored and rolled away from her. Shay felt the cold air tickle her spine. She shifted onto her back and a twinge of pain ran from her hip down her leg. It was a welcome distraction, the pain. At least she felt something.

  A white glare blinded her—Lights On.

  Marco winced at the ceiling. “They could at least make it gradual,” he grumbled. “Like use a dimmer or something.”

  “I think you should write a letter,” Shay said. “Someone should get on that dimmer situation pronto.”

  Marco rolled onto his side, his f
ace inches from her own. “I see we’re cheerful as a cheerleader this morning.” He pushed himself up and sat cross-legged. “What if I offered to buy you a dee-licious donut?” He cocked his head and smiled. He had a nice smile.

  “How about a smoothie?” Shay said. She saw no reason to stay in the EMC. She was no use to anyone.

  “Anything you want,” he said, standing. He held his hand out to help her up. She pushed herself to her feet and brushed off her kameez.

  “I could really use some clean clothes,” Shay muttered, noting a tear in the thin fabric.

  “Sure,” Marco said, checking his wallet. “I think I have enough.”

  Shay gave him a shove. “I don’t need a sugar daddy.”

  Nani’s purse lay under the metal tray. Shay dug around for Nani’s wallet and took out her credit card. She only had the one, for emergencies, she always said. If Shay’s current situation was anything, it was most certainly an emergency.

  “Let’s go shopping,” she said.

  They were pretty much alone in the H&M. No one had tried to help them. No salesperson stood behind the registers.

  “How about this shirt?” Marco asked, holding up a slinky-looking spandex tank.

  “There are strippers with classier getups,” Shay retorted, pulling out something a bit more her. It was a regularish T-shirt, but in a soft cotton knit with a wide neckline to complement her broad shoulders. When she stepped out of the changing room, Marco’s face lit up.

  “You’re right,” he said. “That’s the right shirt for you.”

  “I’ll get two,” she said. If they were going to be here for a while, she might as well have a change of clothes. She tried on some new jeans and boots. She left her old clothes in the dressing room—she never wanted to see those rags again.

  Marco seemed perfectly happy watching her flip through the racks. He even let her pick out a jacket for him to try on.

  “This would look really great on you,” she said, holding it up in front of him. Really great was a definite overstatement of the case, but anything would improve his current look of fresh-out-of-the-hamper dishevelment.

  Marco took the jacket, looked at the price. “I don’t normally do jackets.”

  “You need that jacket, trust me. I have a crazy idea. Let’s put on the clothes and just walk out.” Part of her was joking, but once said, she was surprised by how much she really wanted to do it.

  Marco looked around, like he expected a cop to jump out from between the hangers. “Okay,” he said. He checked again, then slid the jacket over his shoulders.

  Shay swallowed the giddiness that bubbled up inside her. She slipped the second shirt over the first, pulled her bag’s strap over the outfit, and walked casually toward the exit. Marco followed a few steps behind.

  Just as they reached the hall, someone shouted from inside the store. “Stop! Shoplifters!”

  Shay sprang forward, running like the earth was opening behind her, ready to suck her down. The world flashed by in a blur of color. Her heart thumped like a fist against her ribs. A laugh started in her gut and burbled out her lips, the first real laugh she’d uttered in days. The first real feeling since Ryan had left. She was still alive.

  Marco caught up with her. “Shit, you’re fast,” he said, panting.

  “You owe me a smoothie,” she said, swatting him in the face with a tag.

  He caught it and tried to pull her closer. She tugged back, snapping the thin plastic thread. He looked at her like she’d cheated, and she shrugged and skipped toward the escalator feeling light as a bubble just before the pop.

  There was no line at the smoothie place, so they went there first.

  “I’m getting a strawberry-banana-pineapple with yogurt,” Shay said, turning to Marco. “You look like a blueberry-orange guy to me.”

  “I can be blueberry-orange,” he said.

  Shay couldn’t take the intensity of his stare, so she scanned the crowds in the food court, her brain allowing itself the dim hope that Ryan was somewhere in the throng of people.

  Kids were sitting on tables, hanging from the trees in the pots. A gang of what looked like college rejects had taken over the merry-go-round. Guys in jerseys jumped on and off the spinning platform, hung from the horses with one arm. A girl lay on the roof, howling like a wolf.

  “It’s crazy,” Marco said. His breath ruffled her hair, he was so close.

  The darkness crept back in. “Crazy,” she whispered.

  The mall speaker squealed to life.

  “Good morning. I finally have some concrete information for you on the security situation.”

  A palpable silence fell over the mall.

  “It has been determined that we have all been exposed to a biological agent. It is a form of the flu virus, and I regret to say that this strain of the virus is unlike any we have seen before. To prevent contagion from spreading to the surrounding dense population centers, it has been decided that the mall will be quarantined until such time as the virus is deemed to have run its course. I will relay further details as I receive them.”

  Voices began muttering. Shay looked to Marco. He stared at a small television behind the smoothie counter. On its screen was one word: OUTBREAK.

  A woman screamed. A chair clattered to the ground. The announcement continued, “If you develop any of the following symptoms—”

  Shay’s pulse quickened. More screams, more voices. The announcement was drowned out by the noise. Shay had to run somewhere, anywhere. A table crashed to the floor. People began to shove past her.

  The walls closed in on Shay. She couldn’t catch her breath. Marco screamed for her to give him her hand. She looked around. She couldn’t see him. There were so many people. A shoulder knocked into her head. She stumbled. Another person shoved her in the back. She fell forward, palms hitting the tiles. She screamed for help. A shoe stabbed her in the back. She tried to crawl for the wall. Someone tripped over her chest, kicking her in the ribs. Tears stung her eyes. She clawed for the safety of the wall.

  A shoe connected with her temple.

  Everything went dark.

  M

  A

  R

  C

  O

  He couldn’t explain what had come over him. All these years of staying off the social radar, of protecting himself, jettisoned for this girl. He was overwhelmed. When Shay touched him, he wanted to cry. He would do anything for her.

  But he was so weak. He couldn’t hold on to her when she needed him, when real danger struck. When he reached for her, as the crush of people started stampeding toward them, her fingers slipped from his grasp. Why wasn’t he bigger, stronger? He could have pushed people aside, lifted her up and to safety. Why, when the crowds barreled down, didn’t they trample him instead of her?

  After the mob had passed, he found her limp near the window of a leather store. She was unconscious, but still alive. He collapsed with relief, feeling her breath upon his cheek. He had to get her to the medical center. They would know what to do.

  He grabbed Shay’s hands and dragged her body onto his back. He needed something to help hold her to him. Glancing into the leather store, he saw a messenger bag with a thick strap. Marco snatched it from the rack, slung it over his head, and tucked the bag part under Shay’s butt; the strap held her chest to his. Then he began a stumbling shamble down the corridor.

  The announcement had transformed the mall. Whereas before, the mall-walkers had seemed dazed and confused, now they were crazed and focused: Every single one of them wanted out. They wanted out of the mall pronto.

  People poured out of the stores, pushing against one another as if running a race. Marco could barely keep a straight course as the mob shoved and kicked him out of its way. Forget that he was trying to carry an injured girl. Or that they were all in the exact same shit storm.

  Marco lugged Shay onto the escalator. The escalators were jammed full of people, some riding down on the handrail. Suddenly, the machine made an awful shrieking
noise. Marco smelled burnt rubber. The escalator slammed to a halt, throwing everyone forward. The ones at the bottom of the steps were shoved to the floor.

  People screamed, then began pushing their way down the steps. They were like ants, climbing over one another to get to the bottom of the escalator, as if there were a prize for being the first off. Marco tried to shield Shay from the worst of the violence, but had enough trouble walking her down the steps. One careless woman smacked both Shay and Marco in the face with her giant purse as she stumbled, howling, down the stairs.

  In their desperate attempts to reach the exits, people were hanging off the balconies, trying to drop down from one floor to the next. Some climbed down the metal-bracket columns that held the whole mall together. One man missed his footing and free-fell twenty feet, disappearing into the throng below.

  Once on the first floor, the people raced for the exits—any exit. Even knowing that the doors were blocked by walls of concrete, they rushed toward them. Crowds formed at the end of each of the first-floor halls. Marco managed to drag Shay’s limp body to the head of the PaperClips’ hallway, where he saw that the place was packed with screaming, terrified mall-walkers.

  “The service hall,” Marco muttered, and began slogging back along the main corridor.

  Moving against the flow of the masses, Marco saw those left in their wake: an old lady flat on the rug reaching for her purse, a screaming child. He felt that fiery rage explode inside him. Even ants helped their injured. People sucked. These mall-walkers don’t deserve to survive. But then Shay groaned, and Marco felt how much he wanted to help her, and the rage subsided slightly, if only to make room for the tenderness he felt toward Shay.

  Marco opened the service door and collapsed into the silence of the empty hallway. Echoes of the general chaos in the mall vibrated through the walls, but compared to the main corridor, the clean, white service hall was silent as the grave.

  Shay slumped on the floor behind him. Marco glanced down the stretch of hallway. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to walk himself that far, let alone carry Shay there. But he had to get her help.