Public Enemy Zero Read online

Mitchell recognized her. She’d once helped him pick out a suitcase for a trip he never ended up going on with Rachel. The woman had been exceedingly polite.

  All of that was gone as she made it to her feet and ran at Mitchell. He sent a knee to her face but tried to soften the blow out of guilt. She fell to the ground again. Mitchell used this opportunity to push another display over. This one he dropped onto the entrance of the up escalator to create a temporary roadblock.

  People were halfway up the down escalator. Mitchell looked around the upper level for an exit. He remembered the woman going to a storeroom near the bedding department. Mitchell headed in that direction.

  If he could get into the storage room, maybe he could block the door. If it led to a service corridor, he could hopefully find a fire exit and get out of the building. From there, he had no idea what he would do. For the moment, he forced himself to disconnect his actions from anything bad that was happening to the people chasing him. In his mind the building was on fire and he had to get out.

  He ran around the shaft and past the exit for the up escalator. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a mass of people making their way through the tables and suitcases he’d dropped in front of it. Ahead of him, two athletic-looking men came running from the bedding section.

  Mitchell reached out and grabbed a large metal pot and threw it at the closet one. It hit him in the face and opened up a gash above his eye. The man didn’t flinch.

  He tried to avoid them by running left, but they cornered him in front of a display table. Rather than go around it, they just climbed onto it. One of them was on all fours reaching out to claw Mitchell. The other landed on his feet and was ready to jump on Mitchell. He knew he couldn’t handle the both of them in close quarters.

  The table wobbled as the two men climbing over it unbalanced it slightly. Mitchell grabbed the edge closest to him and lifted as hard as he could. The table flipped over and the two men fell off. One was trapped under it while the other fell backward and smashed the back of his head against another display. He fell to the ground like a rag doll.

  There was a snarl to Mitchell’s left as luggage lady came at him. He jumped onto the overturned table and ran into the mattress section. He tried running over the tops of the beds but lost too much speed as the mattresses absorbed his footsteps.

  He spotted the entrance to the storage area and ran to it. The luggage lady tripped and fell behind him as one of her heels broke. Behind her, the mob had finally made it to the top of the escalator. Mitchell could see splatters of blood on the bodies of the people in the lead.

  He felt like he was going to throw up. Somewhere a buzzer was going off because the escalator was jammed. Mitchell tried not to think what was jamming it as he bolted through the doors leading to the service corridor.

  10

  The doors pushed inward. Mitchell scanned the hallway for something to put in front of the doors to hold back the crowd. There was nothing. Damn.

  To his left there was a break room. Further down there was a door and then the hallway went in two directions. One of them had to lead to a stairwell and out of the building, away from the mob.

  He ran to the end of the hallway and spotted a fire hose in a glass case. Desperate to try anything, he pulled the door off and pulled the hose free. A label on the hose warned the user to have at least two people hold on to it due to the high pressure. Perfect.

  He threw the head of the hose down the hallway pointed toward the doors he’d just run through. Mitchell spun the wall valve until it came off the screw. The slack hose began to fill up with water as it was flooded with pressure. He watched the bulge race toward the nozzle and come gushing out. Once all the slack was free, the water burst forth, throwing the nozzle around the hallway like an angry tentacle.

  Water flew everywhere, creating chaos in the hallway. Mitchell knew people could make it through. But the water, the hose and the metal nozzle chaotically bouncing around would slow some people down and cause another bottleneck.

  He felt sick to his stomach when he realized that the real bottleneck was going to be dozens of people falling down and getting trampled by the people behind them. Mitchell wanted to reach out a hand to help the people he saw fall, but bloodshot eyes looking back at him with rage made him recoil. There was nothing he could do.

  To his right he saw what looked like the opening to a stairwell. He ran in that direction. He kicked open the door and saw a flight of stairs leading downward.

  He was halfway through the doors when he heard footsteps running up the stairs below. Lots of footsteps. Fuck. Mitchell ran back through the doorway and down the corridor.

  He had to jump to avoid tripping on the fire hose. Water was cascading across the floor, making it slippery. At the other end of the corridor he spotted double doors. He shoved them open with his shoulder.

  This was the storeroom. He looked around for another exit. There wasn’t one. Could he barricade himself in there long enough for help to arrive? What would happen when help did find him if he could make it that long?

  This was no good. He looked for a place to hide when the crowd came. There were shelves of boxes and luggage wrapped in plastic. There was no place for a grown man to hide. He heard outer doors crashing open. The crowd had made it upstairs and was headed down the hallway.

  Across the doorway he spotted an ax. He could use that to defend himself. But then what? There was no way he was going to intentionally crack open the skull of the luggage lady or anyone else. But what about using it to threaten people?

  He went to pull it from the wall, knowing that this angry mob wouldn’t be threatened for long, if at all. He yanked it free. As he pulled back, something caught his eye. He’d ignored it when he was looking for the stairs to go down.

  It was a ladder leading up to the roof. Mitchell tossed the ax to the ground, hoping at worst nobody would pick it up, at best that it would cause another bottleneck when people fought over it.

  Mitchell pulled himself up the ladder and pulled the latch that opened the hatch above it. Daylight shot down like light into a tomb. He crawled out onto the gravel surface and quickly got up. He tried shutting the door, but it wouldn’t budge. From below he could hear the echo of dozens of feet in the corridor.

  He tried closing it again. It wouldn’t move. Why wouldn’t it close? Of course, he realized, as he spotted the safety catch. That was there to prevent people from getting trapped up there. He popped the latch with his palm and shut the hatch.

  He hoped no one saw him go up. He figured he had a moment before they made it to that part of the corridor. He hoped for another human traffic jam in the narrow hallway. Mitchell wished there had been a better option than causing more harm.

  Through the metal hatch he could hear the sound of dozens of people flooding into the back room. He could hear screaming. It felt like the roof itself was vibrating. What would happen when they all came pushing into the storage room? Would they just keep pushing and shoving to try to get through?

  Mitchell had heard horror stories about people trapped in fires and stadium riots. Below him was the largest riot he had ever seen. And he was at the center of it. For fuck sake, why?

  The animal part of his brain told him now was not the time to try to find answers. He still wasn’t safe. Hundreds of angry people could erupt from the hatch at any second. All they had to do was to realize where he’d gone and pull the lever to the hatch. Even in a crowd full of people driven by rage, one or two would be able to figure out where he went.

  He looked around the roof for anything to put on top of the hatch.

  There was nothing but cigarette butts and a few rolls of tarpaper. He looked on the latch for any place where it could be locked from the outside. There was nothing.

  Not wanting to lose any more time, Mitchell decided to run toward the other end of the mall. He would make as much distance as he could between himself and the hatch and then try to find a way down.

  He looked out over the parking
lot. He expected to see hundreds of police cars and fire trucks by now. There was nothing.

  He couldn’t understand why. Hadn’t anybody called the cops? Didn’t anyone pull a panic alarm? Wouldn’t the fire hose have sent a signal to the fire department? What was wrong with the world?

  None of it made sense to Mitchell. Then he realized he’d left his table at the food court less than three minutes ago. Fuck. Just three minutes?

  11

  Mitchell reached the skylight that hung over the atrium. He wanted to walk over to it but was afraid someone would look up. He looked back where he had come from. The hatch was still closed. The sound of thumping came from under it.

  He decided to chance it. He squatted low and walked toward the skylight, trying to keep his body close to the roof. Through the glass he could see an overturned kiosk near the entrance to Lord & Taylor. The ground was littered with shopping bags, candles and several shoes. Off to one side he spotted an overturned stroller. Mitchell’s cheeks flushed with guilt. He could make out tiny fists pumping at the air. Off to the other side he saw the body of an older man slumped over a broken planter.

  Mitchell was afraid to look any more. He decided his best chance was to keep going all the way to the other end of the shopping mall and look for an exit there. In the distance he could hear the sound of sirens. He couldn’t tell if it was police, fire or paramedics. The safe money was on all three.

  As he ran across the graveled roof, his feet made loud crunching sounds. He panicked for a moment at the thought of attracting more attention from anybody below. It was pointless to worry about that now, he realized. He had to keep moving.

  He tried to keep to the center of the roof to avoid being spotted by anyone in the parking lot. Another advantage, he realized, of running to the other side of the roof was that first responders were much more likely to go to the opposite side of the mall. What would happen when armed cops and firemen with axes came into the mall? He may have been able to outmaneuver two off-guard mall cops and a middle-age meter maid. What about people with guns? Was everybody affected? He’d have to put that together later. For now he needed to avoid human contact.

  Mitchell reached the end of the mall where the other anchor department store was located. It was a Sears, he thought. The parking lot below looked a quarter full on that end. He saw one or two cars pulling into spaces. Everything looked normal.

  Sooner or later someone would make it to the roof. Maybe the cops arriving would be a good thing. Maybe it would be the worst thing. Mitchell wasn’t ready to find out.

  He jogged along the perimeter, exposing himself to anyone who bothered to look up. It was a chance he had to take to find a way to get down. At one end, he spotted a cluster of tall trees a few feet away from the building. Should he try to jump into them and climb his way down?

  When he got closer, he realized they were farther out from the building than he had thought. It was looking like a bad idea. There was no way to do it and not get hurt. He heard a bottle clink off to his right.

  It sounded like it was coming from below. He walked over to the edge and peered down. There was a service dock underneath. A door shut as someone walked inside. He could smell lingering cigarette smoke. Someone had just finished a break.

  Right below him was a ladder. It had a sliding section locked in the upright position. He could climb down to the lowest rung and then safely drop the rest of the way down. Probably. He looked around for any other options. There was a large open garbage crusher. He could try diving into that.

  He looked at the high slimy walls and decided not to. A sound of metal hitting gravel made him jerk his head back toward the part of the mall he had just run from. Someone had just knocked the hatch clean off. People were starting to climb onto the roof and sprint toward him. They were covered in red. Fuck.

  Mitchell grabbed the top of the ladder and climbed onto it. He scurried down the rusty rungs. When his feet touched air, he climbed down like monkey bars. The ground was farther away than he had hoped. It couldn’t have been more than five feet, but his mind told him it was fifty.

  Legs already bent to prevent breaking them, he let go and hit the ground. He let his body keep moving and came to a stop at a full squat. Nothing felt broken or sprained. He stood up and looked around a corner. There was nobody on foot. That was a good sign, he thought.

  In the distance he heard the sirens getting closer. Behind him he heard the rumble of hundreds of feet running across gravel. The sound of screaming was growing louder.

  Out in the parking lot, he saw a blue sedan looking for a parking spot close to the mall. Mitchell wanted to get as far away from there as possible. Preferably on foot. Maybe he could flag them down.

  He ran into the parking lot waving his hands in the air. He headed toward the car. The driver, an elderly woman, put on the brakes.

  Mitchell ran to the driver’s side window. She rolled it down. Mitchell started to speak. The woman let out a scream. At first he thought it was at him, but she was looking past him. Hundreds of people were on the roof looking down at him. Some of them were falling as others tried to push themselves to the front. Oh god, thought Mitchell. The sound of bodies hitting pavement echoed from the loading dock.

  The woman let out another scream. Mitchell felt something claw at his arm. The little old red-headed woman was trying to climb out her window to get at him, but her seat belt was holding her in. The car moved forward slowly as she took her foot off the brake pedal.

  He needed her car. Mitchell reached down and opened her door. She tried to bite him but ended up hitting her chin on the metal door as he yanked it open. She was stunned for a moment.

  Keeping pace with the rolling car, he reached over and undid her seat belt. She tried to bite him again but her head hit the horn instead. Her small hands tried to claw at his arm.

  As gently as he could, he pulled the tiny woman from the car. He tried not to look behind him as he heard the horrible sound of bodies hitting the pavement. When he had the woman clear of the car, he ran back to the rolling vehicle before it crashed into a parked pickup truck.

  He forced himself into the small space between the seat and the wheel. He shut the door and hit the lock as his foot hit the brake. The small woman ran to the window and pounded her fists against the glass. One of her rings clicked like a dagger on ice every time it hit. Mitchell found the button to move the seat back so his chest and knees could clear the steering wheel.

  He stepped on the accelerator before the woman could break the window. The car was still pointed toward the mall. As he turned around a row of cars, he saw another body fall off the roof. He headed out of the parking lot and avoided every impulse to look in the rearview mirror.

  In front of him he saw a fire truck race around the perimeter of the mall toward the first department store. Several police cars were behind it. Every impulse wanted to step on the accelerator and speed away as fast as possible. The sirens and flashing lights told him otherwise. He needed not to look like he was fleeing the scene of the crime. He fastened his seat belt and tried to focus on what he needed to do next, not on the fact that along with everything else that had happened that day, he’d just committed a carjacking.

  12

  When Detective Rios arrived on the scene, there were already two squad cars, three ambulances and a cluster of parking enforcement vehicles outside the yellow tape perimeter. He parked next to Detective Simmons’s SUV and got out.

  On the other side of the street, just inside the perimeter, were four parking enforcement officers gathered in a huddle. They’d heard the call on their radio and came to check on their fellow officer. One of them was talking in an excited manner and jerked his thumb over at a parked car near another parking cart.

  The front window was completely smashed in. Several bloody handprints were on the hood and dashboard. Pieces of broken glass reflected light like tiny green diamonds sprayed with blood. The passenger side window looked kicked-in as well.

  Usua
lly when he saw a smashed-in window and that much blood, it was on a crumpled car in the middle of the highway. It looked out of place parked in a quiet neighborhood between two other cars. Other than a dent in the driver’s side door, the body looked intact.

  Rios looked over at the nearest ambulance and spotted his partner. She was talking to a young woman in a stretcher. Paramedics were cleaning up injuries and taping up her hands in preparation for the trip to the hospital. Underneath the bruises and gashes on her face, she looked like she was probably an attractive girl. Who could do a thing like that to a young girl? The answer, he unfortunately knew, was lots of people.

  He walked over to his partner. Simmons was still dressed in the pants suit she’d worn to court earlier that day. Dark hair, athletic and in her early forties, she was in better shape than most of the men in the department, himself included. Rios still worked out but was beginning to get the cop gut that came from spending more time taking kids to soccer practice than keeping in shape.

  Rios waited behind Simmons as she talked to the girl. He knew not to interrupt that part of the investigation. She was good at getting people to relax and talk.

  “So what happened?” Simmons asked in her most matter-of-fact tone. She preferred to let people talk in their own terms before drilling down for the particulars. Some cops started off with a check box kind of interrogation, which was aimed more at filling out an incident report than figuring out what was going on.

  Rachel looked up from her arm where a paramedic was cleaning blood out of wounds on her knuckles. She was still in shock and not reacting to the stinging sensation. “My boyfriend ... I mean my ex ... he showed up and I ... I answered the door ....” Rachel paused and stared into space for a moment.

  “What happened after you opened the door, Rachel?” asked Simmons.

  “He ... I don’t know ... it just happened, you know. I don’t even think I said hello. And then it was just ... I was on the ground trying to kick ... I think to keep him off me.” She looked at Simmons as if she could explain what took place.