Authors note: Sorry for not updating in a while. Got a burst of ideas the other day and finished this in a couple of hours and the next one will be hitting the streets in a few days.
Chapter ten: First day in the mall
In his own opinion Mark woke up too early. He opened his eyes and the first thing that struck him was that he was soaked through with water. The next thing was that he had the worst hangover ever. He didn't remember much from the night before, everything from Steve's speech and forward was a blur. The bottle of tequila and falling into the fountain was about it. He sat up and the headache got worse. As he looked around he could see Jessica sleeping leaned against the counter on which Gerald also slept. He heard footsteps behind him and looked at the entrance to the shop. Brandon and Ryan was on their way back carrying something that looked suspiciously like a coffee maker and two bags which seemed to contain food. As they got inside the shop Brandon handled Mark a coke without even saying a word. The two young men sat down besides him. Mark looked around in the shop and all he could see was empty bottles and cans.
"How's the hangover?" Brandon asked Mark.
"Not so good. What about you two, how much did you drink last night?" He answered.
"Enough for counting it as a good time." Ryan said. "Not as much as you kids though." He gave Mark a very blaming look that under no conditions was to be taken seriously.
"I wasn't worst you know. Alec was way worse and I think Jessica's hangover will be worse than mine." Mark said. "At least I remember some of it."
"Maybe. Both of you mixed beer and booze, which doesn't give to nice hangovers. Take my advice on this, either drink beer or booze, not both. And stay away from moonshine." Brandon said.
"If I didn't already know that I would find it very hard to believe that your advice was any good." Mark said. "I know what you told Alec to do."
All three of them laughed a little.
"Did he do it?" Ryan asked and looked at Brandon.
"They left before he got back, and thank god for that. Man, I don't think he knew if she was together with that monkey boy or not." Mark said.
"You've got to admit that it would have been kinda funny to see though." Ryan said.
"Of course it would, but not for him. What food did you get?" Mark said.
"Besides the canned food we brought there's some bread and cheese here and some kind of ham or something. We're gonna go back later to get lunch." Brandon said and handled the bread, butter and the ham to Mark who started making a sandwich with a plastic knife Ryan handled to him.
"Do you know where Steve is?" Mark asked while eating.
"Nope, hasn't seen him since last night when he told us to be quiet. Think he crashed at that Skip guys place." Brandon said.
"Let's wake Gerald." Ryan said and picked up an empty can of beer and threw it at the sleeping daredevil.
The can of beer wasn't completely empty and on its way through the air it sprayed everything under it with warm beer. It hit Gerald on the cheek and woke him up immediately. He didn't know what was happening and lost balance on the counter and fell down over Jessica's legs, waking her as well. She to got scared when the 167 pounds of Gerald fell on her legs. She opened her eyes tried to understand what had happened.
"For fucks sake! Let me sleep!" She said and tried to get Gerald away from her legs. After a while Gerald crawled away and sat up and wondered what happened.
"Wakey wakey." Brandon said and all three laughed at the two others.
"Fuck you guys. I'm going to sleep. I feel like shit." Jessica mumbled and got up on her feet and walked over to the other side of the shop and laid down and fell asleep again. Gerald started to eat some food and drank some coke hoping that the caffeine in it would help with the hangover. Everyone was quiet for a while but then Mark asked something.
"What are we gonna do today?" He asked.
"Don't know actually. Sleep, eat and check out the mall." Brandon said. "And get a real bed."
They sat there and ate the rest of the food while the other people woke up and walked out of their homes in the other shops. During that time Mark remembered a little more of the night before. After a while Alec woke up and joined them.
"I heard the girl left before you got to follow up my advice." Brandon said to Alec.
"What?" Alec asked.
"What do you mean by what?" Brandon asked. "Don't you remember?"
"Actually not to much. If you don't count falling into the fountain and talking way to much to that girl whose name I don't remember I don't remember a goddamn thing about last night." Alec explained. Mark could see that he wasn't really telling the truth.
"You asked Brandon for advice yesterday on how to get 'closer' to that girl and he told you to squeeze her tits or something and you said you were going to do it." Ryan told Alec and everyone laughed at Alec.
"Good for you that you didn't do it." Mark said. "First off she would either have slapped you in the face or told the monkey boy to do it and second, if it had worked you would have regretted it today." He continued.
"I still claim that it wasn't me, it was the booze talking." Alec said. "And besides, why would I regret it?"
"Don't take this the wrong way, after all it's just my opinion. But that girl wasn't really that hot. And having a tooth brace the size of a transamerican railroad didn't add on to the beauty." Mark said.
"She had a tooth brace?" Alec asked. "Didn't notice that."
"There you see how drunk you were. How's the hangover?" Mark asked.
"It's fuckning killing me." Alec answered.
"Do you think we should clean this before Steve gets here?" Gerald asked as he looked at the disorder in the shop where empty cans of beer littered the floor and a few shelves had fallen down and there were clothes all over the floor. The whole place smelt of hangover, a mix of beer, booze and the 'fags' Cassidy had smoked.
Cleaning was easier said than done. It took them little over an hour to get the worst of it away. And when they were finished they realised that they hadn't done more than to pile all the junk in a corner. And still it smelled hangover. But the boys decided that it was enough and that they needed to sleep more. But before they got anymore sleep Steve followed by Martin and Roy entered. The ones that had slept was woken up and the group of survivors gathered around Steve.
"Howdy friends." Steve started. "Smells real nice in here. If you don't mind I like to say that you did a shitty job cleaning up. I talked a little to Skip last night and I've got a few things that I would like to inform you about."
"Go on." The group mumbled.
"You weren't all that quiet last night. You guys are really lucky that not to many people have settled down in these parts of the mall. But I didn't think anything else would happen. Just hope you had a good time. Second, if we're going to stay here we're going to help with everything anyone needs help with, like everyone else in here are going to help us. There's not really any laws here, except for those that come naturally. I talked to Skip and it's okay for you to carry your guns around as long as you don't fuck up. I told him I believed I could trust you to not fuck up. I think that's about it. If you don't mind I had the idea that we should grab some useful things in the other shops. Like beds."
The rest of the day was spent ransacking the other stores for everything that could be useful or just nice to have in their new home. Beds, a few tables, some plasma screen televisions with built in DVD players and movies for them. Mark didn't dare to think about the price of everything in all. A whole lot of money, that was for sure. When there were people in the shops they 'borrowed' something from they seemed eager to help. Life in the mall was pretty good and by 4 p.m. Mark and Alec sat down in a newly acquired sofa with the rest of the beers from the night before to watch The Simpsons Season 4 on a 36 inch plasma TV. Mark didn't hear to much of it since he listened to Sublime on his 'borrowed' walkman. Alec didn't watch to much of the TV show since he was consumed by checking out the new laptop he had. After watching a few episodes Mark remembered his promise to himself. He both smelled and looked like shit. He walked around the store looking for something to wear. He grabbed what seemed to be his almost uniform clothes, jeans and a black T-shirt.
"Do you know where I can take a shower?" He asked Steve who sat and read a book at one of the tables. Steve closed the book and looked at Mark.
"There's a staff room on the second floor. Took a shower this morning. Grab a towel before you go there, I didn't and had to dry myself with the old clothes." Steve said. Then he opened the book again and started reading.
Mark walked away to find the staff room. The second floor wasn't different from the first one except for different names on the stores and a lot more people. Most people seemed to have settled on the second and third floors for some reason. On his way to the staff room he entered a shop and grabbed some hygiene stuff, a razor, a towel and so on. It didn't take long before he found the staff room. He had to wait for three other people to take showers before him and when he was next there was five others behind him. They seemed to look at him with judging eyes to deem him worthy of his place in the haven from the dead, or at least it felt like that. The staff room was pretty big, made for at least ten people and had a essential stuff that the maintaince crew and security guards could have spent their time with. Mark just walked past it and into the shower.
When he had cleaned himself up, shaved and put on the clothes without gore on them he felt like a new guy. Not really, but real good. Clean was the word to describe it. But as he stood there and looked at himself in the mirror it felt as if he had forgot something. Something very important. Then it hit him like a slug from a .45. Where's the shotgun? He thought and almost panicked. He wasn't holding it and didn't have it slung over his shoulder. Then he remembered that it was back in the shop.
Before he returned he stopped at a uninhabited seven eleven and grabbed a coke and a candy bar. While he was in the seven eleven he took the opportunity to look over the counter and check if there was any cash left. Not that cash had any real value now, but it would be cool to show up with a grand back with the others. But someone had been there before him. Figures, he thought and returned to the others.
Back there everything was as it had been when he left. Gerald, Terry, Ryan and Brandon played a game of basketball outside and Cassidy and Carl sat besides the game and talked over a beer. Alec sat where he had been sitting when Mark left and was still checking the computer and the Simpsons at the same time. Steve was still reading the book. Jessica was nowhere to be seen. He walked up to the sofa where Alec slacked and sat down.
"Up for a game of Tekken dear friend?" Alec asked while he sat down, not taking his eyes of the computer screen. Both of them knew that Mark was the undoubted master of the game and that Alec wouldn't stand a chance.
"Sure, I'll gladly kick your ass as good as I would have in reality. Don't you have any other game that we are at least almost matched in?" He answered and reached out for the 'borrowed' playstation and started it. The game was on.
"We've only got Tekken and Resident Evil, which doesn't feel all that cool to play." Alec answered as the credits to the game started.
"Why the hell did you pick that game? If we want zombies we can look outside." Mark told his friend and chose fighter.
"Before all of this I liked the game. But you're right, it's a little macabre to play it nowdays." The friend concluded. The fight started.
Mark outmatched Alec easily. Alec was the one that owned a playstation and Tekken back in the days but Mark was a natural at it. With a few kicks, punches and combos Alec's fighter was knocked out. A new fight started. This was also won by Mark, even if Alec was a little closer to even get a single hit on Mark's fighter than last time. After nine matches of Tekken both of them had got tired of playing, mostly because Alec only won once.
"This sucks! Can we play something else?" Alec asked and put down the gamepad.
"Sure, as long as I can beat you in it." Mark answered. "The thing is that we don't have any other games than this and Resident Evil, which I'm by no means playing now."
"Let's go then." Alec said and stood up. Alec picked up the glock that had been lying besides the two boys in the sofa since it wasn't comfortable at all to sit down with it in ones pants. He tucked it in his pants again, making sure it was safe two times. Then they left.
The closest shop that housed playstation games was the electronics shop where Tim, Maria and Chris and the two others lived. Alec didn't really want to go there but since both of them felt to lazy to go anywhere else they didn't have any options. Mark actually looked forward to it as he didn't know how Maria would react to see Alec in a sober condition.
"Stop smirking like that!" Alec ordered as they got closer and closer to the dreaded electronics store.
"No." Was the only answer Alec got from the boy whose whole face seemed to be a smirk. "I like smirking."
"You really look forward to what she's gonna say aren't you?" Alec asked.
"Yup." Mark answered, still smirking. "Aren't you?"
"What do you think?" Was the answer.
"To be honest I think you're a little ashamed of yourself for being a drunken slob yesterday. That's why I look forward to it so much." Mark said.
"Shut the fuck up now, we're here." Alec hissed and Mark tried to control his smirk a little.
As the two boys entered the store three pairs of eyes locked on them. It was Tim, the boy they had told to fuck off and the girl with the tits. The fuck off boy didn't look to happy about them being in his home, the girl seemed to not care and Tim looked pretty glad to see them. Chris and Maria was out of sight. Tim looked at Alec and then at Mark, and when seeing Marks smirk he started to smirk too. For a moment no one said anything.
"Can we rob you on a couple of Ps2 games?" Alec asked.
"Sure." Tim said. "Had a good time last night, as always with alcohol."
"You left before the fun had a chance to start." Mark told Tim. Alec punched Mark on the shoulder when he understood what Mark really meant.
"Yeah I know, but Chris was to tired and Maria wasn't drunk enough so they went home and I followed them." Tim told Mark as Alec checked out some games.
"Wasn't drunk enough?" The fuck of boy said with doubt in his voice and looked at Tim. "You said she threw up on the way home and she couldn't get out of bed until two p.m. I'd say she was pretty damn drunk. If I knew my sister would drink that much without you even caring I would have followed just to check on her."
"Well, when you say it like that your sister was pretty drunk. But she wasn't drunk enough for some things." Tim said and looked at the boy. "Oh, Mark have you met Matt here."
"A little, didn't know his name though." Mark said calmly, he didn't like Matt at all.
Mark looked at Matt who did the same at him. The boy could be as old as him or maybe a year older but was shorter, skinnier and had blue eyes and black hair. It was dyed, he was sure since he the hair was black enough to look dark blue. Then he looked at the girl who also looked at him. Her hair color was something between brown and red, she had freckles and of course, big tits. While not being ugly she wasn't all that pretty either. In some kind of way she looked a little to masculine. Mark just couldn't point out what it was, but she sure as hell looked a little like a guy. He stopped analysing as Alec tapped him on the shoulder.
"I've got the games, let's go." He said and started walking.
"See you around." Mark said and followed his friend.
"You got real lucky this time pal." Mark told Alec as they walked back. "Next time she'll be there and then I am going to laugh at you when you try to explain why you did as you did. I am going to laugh a lot."
"Whatever." Alec mumbled.
They returned to their home and played the looted games until it was really late at night and the others told them to stop it and go to sleep. Mark agreed that it was a little late and convinced Alec that it was a day tomorrow too. After a while he too agreed and went out for a smoke. Mark went to bed, turned the walkman on and drifted to sleep to Santeria by Sublime.
Waking up is always a bitch. Especially when you had a dream that everything was like before, sugar and spice everything nice and that you had a hot girlfriend. What else could you demand from a simple dream? Not much, Mark concluded and opened his eyes. He was where he had fallen asleep, a good sign. He sat up in the bed and looked around. He couldn't see any of the others in the shop. He could hear something though, but he was sure it wasn't one of the others in the shop. It was music, really bad music. Some pop music he concluded. His ears hurt more and more every second he had to listen to the crap. He got up and looked around for the source of the sound. It came from the CD player he and Alec had taken for the party. And besides it sat Jessica reading a magazine, a girlie magazine of course. Mark crouched into a sneaking walk and advanced as soundless as he could. And when he was close enough he tapped her on her shoulder. A high pitched scream pierced the crappy music and at the same time Mark pressed the stop button so that the whole shop went silent.
"Did I scare you?" Mark said and smiled.
"What do you think?" She answered.
"A little maybe, what's the time?" He asked.
"About half past one I think. You slept through all of us eating a breakfast together and didn't wake up when I started playing music. Not much can wake you up, can it?" She sad and smiled at him.
"This crappy music did. How can you listen to it?" Mark asked and started looking for something to eat. After a while he found a candy bar and a coke and sat down besides Jessica.
"You're not aware of the fact that you're in you're not wearing any pants are you?" Jessica said after a while.
Mark wasn't. This sucks, a lot. Just play along. Be cool man. Mark thought.
"Nope, I wasn't aware of that at all. Do you mind?" He asked and tried to sound as cool as he could. He managed to sound a little calmer than how panicked he actually was.
"A little. But it's okay. After all you live here as much as me or anyone else." She said while Mark ate the candy bar.
"Do you know where they are?" Mark asked as he hadn't seen or heard anyone else than Jessica.
"They're on the roof. Steve, Cassidy and Martin are playing chess or something and Gerald, Terry, Brandon, Ryan and Alec and a couple of others are throwing expensive stuff from the roof. Felt kinda dumb to compete in destroying as expensive stuff as possible so I went back here." She told him.
"Cool." Was the only thing Mark said. As he finished the coke he went to get his jeans. When he was dressed he turned to Jessica. "See you later. Gotta go beat them in their own game."
"Bye." She said as Mark exited the his home.
Mark hurried to the roof as he wanted to see the destruction his friends had caused. He took the elevator to the third floor and then went through the service stairs to the roof. It was crowded. At least two thirds of the malls population had gathered on the roof to enjoy the sunshine and get as much fresh air as they could. Some people just sunbathed, some played volleyball and a couple of others had a chess tournament. And of course a group of people enjoyed the beautiful day by throwing stuff from the roof, TV's and computers mostly. Other than his friends Mark also noticed Tim, Matt, Chris and two punk rocker kids in the standard punk gear like chains, piercings and mohawks. The punks explained why Rancid boomed out over the roof. While not a bad band it wasn't something Mark used to listen to. If you didn't count the destruction of lots of expensive electronics the feeling was that of a beach. Mark looked at the chess games and saw something he hadn't excpected. Cassidy the streetfighting, punk rocking, heavy drinking Irishman was playing chess. Right now he was facing someone in his mid twenties with a cowlick.
"Hey Mark! Come over here and help us tip this over!" Alec shouted over Lock, Step and Gone by Rancid. It wasn't easy to overpower the hoax roar of the singer but Alec managed.
Alec, Gerald and Ryan was trying to push a stove down into a pile of crashed TV's, computers and various other things that someone could have spent good money on just a week ago. Mark hurried to help them. Together they tipped it over and saw it fall for a few seconds only to impact in the pile of junk and throw all kinds of parts from the already crushed stuff into the air. It was beautiful.
"How long have you guys been doing this?" Mark asked his closest friend.
"For about an hour I think. Maybe two. Time flies away when you're having fun you know." Alec slurred. As he started to talk a smell of beer hit Mark like a punch in the face.
"Are you drunk Alec?" Mark asked him.
"A little. Maybe a lot. Don't really know." Alec answered.
"I'm leaning towards saying a lot. It was his clumsy ass that dropped the beer down there." Gerald put in the conversation and pointed down at the pile. Mark looked a little closer and could see the smashed bottles of beer reflecting in the sun.
"We're out of stuff." Another voice told the group. It belonged to one of the punks. This one had a black mohawk and a few piercings in the face. He looked to be in Mark and Alec's age or a little older. Alec turned around and looked at the empty boxes and realised that the guy was right.
"You think we should go down and get more?" Alec asked the others.
Before anyone could answer him a gunshot rang out. Everything stopped moving for a moment. Mark looked around to find the source of the gunshot. It didn't take long to find a man aiming a hunting rifle down on the parking lot. He fired again and then put down the rifle and turned around.
"No big deal, just two stiffs." He called out and everyone turned around and resumed what they had been doing.
The man himself had to be one of the national guardsmen that came with Skip. He had the camo pants on but had changed into a black shirt with an electric blue pattern on it. It clashed so bad that it was funny.
"Should we get more stuff?" Alec asked and sat down on the roof.
"Nah, it's starting to get boring now. We should do something else." Brandon said and looked at the pile down in the parking lot.
"Like what?" Ryan said.
"Eat lunch?" Gerald asked the group. "At least that's what I'm going to do."
"I'll come with you, I need something real to eat." Mark said and the two of them exited the roof.
"I just got an idea." Ryan said after a while. "Bowling anyone?"
"Sure, nothing better to do." Brandon agreed. Alec grunted something and followed them. Terry stood up and walked over to the volleyball to see if he could join. The rest of the group shattered into two groups, the kids from the electronics store returned to it to watch a movie or two and the punks stayed and listened to the music. Until one of them got the impulse to kick the cdplayer down from the roof. Then they decided to do something else.
Mark and Gerald settled to eat lunch by raiding the same seven eleven that Mark had stopped at the day before. As the sat down, Mark behind the counter and Gerald milling around looking for something to eat, Mark threw a glance at the newspapers. Headlines like "The pope is dead!" and "Election in Zimbabwe" filled them. He couldn't care less about any of that now. Before all of this Europe and Africa had been too far away to really care about. It was a thousand times less important now. Gerald got back with two bottles of water and bag of cheesy poofs. Not really the greatest food, but the best in the store. Gerald threw one of the bottles to Mark who caught it and opened it. It was nice to drink simple cold water instead for a change.
"How do you like it here in our new home?" Gerald asked.
"It's safe, that is good enough. What about you?" Said Mark.
"It's nice, got everything I need and a lot more, got good company and a dry place to sleep at. Can't ask for much more can I?" Gerald concluded and handled Mark the snacks.
"Not really." Mark said and ate a little. The didn't say anything for a while.
"Did you see that hot chick playing volleyball on the roof?" Gerald asked after a while.
"Blonde, nice body and about your age?" Mark continued as Gerald nodded. "Hard not to miss. Why ask?"
"I think she checked me out. Maybe I'll go talk to her later on." He said.
"Or you could ask Bran and Ryan for advice how to get such a girl that is so far out of your league." Mark joked. Gerald laughed a little and then looked at Mark.
"Out of my league? Hell no. And you shouldn't say anything since you're on Jessica like a leech. She's way out of your league." The friend returned the joke.
"Thanks a lot man. And do you really think I'm on her like a leech?" Mark said.
"Not really, just needed a comeback line. I think she likes you if you ask me." Gerald said, now sounding a lot more serious.
"Cool, I just made an ass out of myself this morning you know. Woke up, heard crappy music, sneaked up on Jessica listening to crappy music and scared the crap out of her. Then she pointed out that I didn't have any pants on." Mark said. A maniac laughter rang out in the room.
"That sucks. Not as worse as a thing I did though." He said after finishing laughing.
"What?" Mark asked.
"I was seeing this girl. She was really hot but a little of a snobby bitch, not that it mattered since she was a goddess between the sheets. However, we were taking a weekend in her cabin in the mountains and everything was nice. But on the third day or something she was going into town shopping early in the morning so she woke up before me. So when I woke up in around noon I heard someone unlocking the door. Of course I thought it was her so I got the idea that I would jump out and scream 'booh' in the nude at her. So I hid, waited till what I believed to be her entered the door and then jumped out and screamed only to realise that it was her family checking in on her. Mother, dad and baby sister. And there I was standing in nothing at all. From then it was get clothes, get on bike and drive a hundred miles an hour away from there." Gerald said and once again a maniac laughter was heard. After a while Gerald also started laughing.
"That sucks man." Mark said after a while.
"Yup."
Mark looked at the headlines and realised something.
"Do you think the pope is a zombie?" He asked Gerald.