[2001] Public Enemy Zero Page 8

  He pulled the car inside the garage and lowered the door. He was reasonably certain that no one had seen him. He felt safe for the moment. But for how long? If they cast a wide enough net, would they find him there?

  His name wasn’t attached to the house, not directly at least. Mitchell walked back into the house and peered through the front blinds and looked down the street. What next?

  16

  The entire mall was essentially a crime scene. A narrow path had to be cordoned off with yellow tape to show people where they could and couldn’t walk. To Rios, it felt like the line through a haunted house. Only this one was filled with real bodies and stretched the length of the shopping mall.

  They followed the path to the front of the food court. Tables and chairs were flipped over. Spilled drink cups covered the floor, mixing with food and puddles of blood. Rios could spot two places where firefighters had to put out grease fires on unattended grills.

  Brooks motioned for them to follow him. He pointed to the other entrance to the food court. “That’s where it looks like everyone came through.”

  Bloody footprints led away from the narrow corridor between the coffee shop and the cookie store. Overturned chairs and tables were shoved to the sides. Some, from the looks of it, pushed aside by first responders trying to make a path. Others, from the trails of blood, by the mob of people rushing through there.

  Rios could make out three outlines of bodies on the ground. Blood was so thick someone had to lay down floor mats so paramedics and firefighters didn’t track it into the mall and leave their own layer of bloody footprints.

  “We think this is where it started. There was some kind of disruption and everyone came out of the food court and into the atrium.”

  “A disruption?” asked Simmons. “Do we have any idea what kind of disruption could cause this kind of panic?” She looked at one of the restaurants that had scorch marks where the firefighters had put out a small fire. “Was it over that?”

  Brooks shook his head. “I don’t think so. We think the small fires happened after the fact. We won’t know until we get a look at the security cameras.” He pointed down the mall. “After they left the atrium, they went down that way.”

  “Shit.” To Rios it looked like something out of National Geographic. The bloody footprints marked a path straight down the mall, tracing out a path of destruction. There were more overturned kiosks, scattered shoes and clothes. Planters were knocked over, leaving piles of dirt and palm trees in the middle of the floor. Pieces of broken window glass were scattered around. And then there were bodies under sheets. Lots of bodies.

  The bodies seemed to be clustered near choke points at places where people had run into obstructions or had been too slow and just got overrun by the crowd.

  Rios tried to imagine what could cause that kind of panic. He looked over at Simmons. She just shook her head.

  They followed the path down the mall. Since most of the destruction was on the right side, the path stayed mainly on the left side of that wing. Forensic techs were scattered around taking photographs. Others were putting down numbered markers and gathering blood samples.

  Rios looked into a beach wear shop on their left. Several clothes racks were overturned. He looked across the way into a jean shop and saw more overturned clothes racks leading from the back of the store. He pointed it out to Simmons.

  “Was there anyone on this side of the mall who didn’t join the crowd?” she asked Brooks.

  “When I first came in here, I didn’t see anyone.” He looked at the overturned racks. “It sure looks like they ran out of there in a hurry. We found three babies still in the strollers their mothers had left them in.”

  “You had mothers abandoning their children?” As a father, Rios couldn’t understand that. “I could see one, maybe. But three?”

  Brooks pointed to the covered bodies and tracks of blood. “It’s a good thing they did. I can’t see a stroller surviving that.”

  Rios shuddered. Bodies under sheets were one thing. The thought of crushed infants unsettled him to the core.

  They kept walking. There were more bloody footprints and covered bodies at bottlenecks. Rios and Simmons noticed more knocked-over racks and spilled clothes inside the stores beyond the reach of the crowd.

  Up ahead they could see the department store everyone had run into. Displays were smashed to pieces along the front. Makeup racks and jewelry cabinets were trampled underfoot. The perfume counter that faced the front of the mall was half caved in. Broken shards of glass stood out at wicked angles. He saw blood splattered over a white dress that looked like one his wife had.

  Rios felt his mouth go dry when he saw what looked like a decapitated body. He was about to speak up when he realized it was just a mannequin. Nearby there were two other mannequins that had almost been flattened.

  They entered the department store. The entire right side looked like a hurricane had gone through. Counters were smashed. Piles of clothing lay in heaps. Entire departments were leveled. And everywhere were footprints in trails of blood.

  Brooks took them the long way through the relatively unscathed men’s section. Rios wondered why that side was spared and the other wasn’t? Was a panicked crowd as random as a tornado that destroyed two houses but left the one in the middle? Hopefully the security footage would have some answers.

  “This is where it gets pretty ugly,” said Brooks.

  Now it gets ugly? thought Rios. What had they just been looking at?

  Brooks took a deep breath and pointed toward the escalators. “They all came in over there and tried to go up the down escalator.” Brooks took another breath. “I have no idea why. But three hundred people tried to go up there at once. People fell. Then more people fell on top of them. It got worse from there. They tripped on the up escalator, too. It’s almost as bad.”

  The escalator looked like the chute from a slaughterhouse. Dozens of bodies were laid out near it in a row along the aisle. Jackets and dresses taken down from the racks were used to cover the heads.

  Brooks looked down at the ground. “I was nearby when the call came in. I was one of the first ones here. We had to pull the bodies apart as quickly as we could. There were people suffocating under them. We found some survivors. And then ....” His voice cracked. He trailed off.

  The blood drained from Rios’ cheeks. For the first time he noticed that Brooks was still in shock. He hadn’t realized how soon after the scene he had gotten there. As a detective, he’d become used to arriving after the body count had been tallied and not being someone responsible for trying to keep it from climbing.

  Rios looked over at the lined-up bodies. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to arrive when they were piled on top of each other with people screaming while trying to claw their way from underneath. Just the thought of it made him want to gasp for air.

  Ever the professional, Brooks continued. “There’s a stairwell at the far end. They’ve cleared the bodies and the wounded from there. It was a much smaller number of people than here but not a pretty sight. We’re still trying to sort out the storage room at that end.” He looked at Simmons and Rios for an answer. “There were over a hundred people trapped in a room smaller than my bathroom.” He looked at the escalator and shook his head.

  Simmons spoke up. “I can understand panic. I can understand people following the pack. But why did everybody try to go up?” She pointed to the far end of the store where light was pouring in from two propped-open doors. “We’re on the ground floor. Who goes up unless there’s a fire?”

  Brooks shrugged. “I guess they do if they’re chasing something.”

  He led them to an elevator. The doors opened and two paramedics came rushing out pushing a stretcher with a middle-age woman whose head was covered in bloody bandages.

  The second level was filled with people too hurt to be moved just yet and those with lighter injuries that could wait for medical treatment. Paramedics were using the mattresses in the bedding depa
rtment to hold all the people.

  Rios looked around the floor. He counted over a hundred people in various states of injury ranging from claw marks and sprains to what looked like broken arms and legs. Most of them were sitting or lying by themselves as medical workers moved around from person to person trying to figure out who needed the most help.

  A fire department captain called over to them. “Over there.” He pointed to a cluster of mattresses with people lying on them with untreated wounds.

  Rios remembered he was still holding on to his first aid kit. He followed Simmons as she ran to help the people the captain had signaled to. Until they had some answers, it felt good for him to be able to do something besides being a ghoulish spectator.

  17

  Mitchell tore off his ruined shirt and threw it into a corner. He looked at his reflection in the master bathroom mirror.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he asked as if he expected his reverse image to have the answers. On one side, the right-handed, frightened and confused version, on the other, the left-handed, confident one who knew what to do.

  The sight of his own image only added to his sense of despair. There were claw marks on his chest and back. He had bruises he had no idea how he got. His hair was a sweaty mess of brown. He looked exactly like how people look in their mug shot photos.

  Was this how people look after they are apprehended, or was falling apart so much what made them easy to spot and capture?

  Mitchell turned the faucet and thanked Mike’s grandparents for not disconnecting the water. He splashed cold water on his face and smoothed back his hair. For a moment he didn’t feel quite like the state of constant panic he had been feeling before. He splashed more water on his face and then caught his first unhurried breath.

  He turned the faucet off and then looked back in the mirror. His reflection had changed. He felt different. With his hair slicked back and no longer out of control, the effect the water had on relaxing the tension in his face and calming his burning cheeks, he didn’t look like a man in the middle of a panic attack.

  He placed his palms on either side of the counter and brought his face in close to the mirror. The face he saw was more composed, less apprehensive. It was the face of someone who could figure out what to do next and manage whatever the world threw at him.

  He was looking at Mitch. Not Mitchell. Mad Mitch, the man in control.

  Part of it, he knew, was the trick of the sunlight coming through the window, giving his cheekbones and jaw a more masculine look, but he also knew that somewhere deep inside him was someone who wanted to survive. He’d seen horrific things that day. Even though a part of him just wanted to fall down and let the nightmare roll over him and bring everything to a close, something told him to keep running. Something told him that his life was worth fighting for. Fighting for. He repeated those words in his head. Yes, he decided, he would fight to survive. He’d never intentionally hurt someone, but if they got in his way then he’d have to go through them.

  Whatever guilt he was feeling he could deal with later. When it was time to surrender, he would do it only when he knew he would be safe. Until then, he had to do everything he could to protect himself.

  “What the fuck,” he said to his reflection.

  “What the fuck,” Mitch replied.

  In broadcasting school, he’d learned the quickest way to feel confident was to assume the posture of someone who looked confident, even when you were alone. He turned around and hopped up and sat on the counter. For a moment, he would try to think of a reason why certain people were trying to kill him.

  If the girl by the side of the road hadn’t attacked him, he would have thought that something happened to him at the radio station. But she had. If he’d been attacked by Rookman or Bonnie or the old man at the gas station, things would make more sense. Why not them but everyone else? It couldn’t be proximity. He was much closer to most of them than anybody else.

  Mitchell looked at his reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror, hoping for the more confident version of himself to give him an answer.

  It did.

  “Rookman, Bonnie and the gas station dude were behind glass, dumbass,” said Mitch.

  Fuck.

  Mitchell thought back over the last two weeks since he’d been sick. When was the last time he’d actually been face to face with anyone who wasn’t behind glass or on a Skype screen? He hadn’t.

  What was the most significant thing that happened between the time when people just ignored him and when they wanted to murder him on sight?

  Getting sick.

  What did he come down with? Reverse rabies? Could there even be such a thing?

  It was stupid, but it made the most sense for the time being. It gave him something to think around. Rather than thinking it was something so far beyond his understanding or involving a cosmic-level conspiracy, that hypothesis was something he could deal with on a rational level.

  Seeing him wasn’t what made people want to kill him. It was something in the air. Something he gave off, either his scent or something else like a fast-acting virus. Maybe it was like the pheromones bees gave off when it was time to attack? Did getting sick mess up his pheromones and tell people to kill him?

  It didn’t matter for the moment. Knowing that it was scent or something else he gave off allowed him to focus on the problem. The key to his immediate survival was going to be to avoid having people smell him or breathe the air near him. Handing out gasmasks or finding a spacesuit weren’t practical solutions. Until the authorities understood what was going on, he had to avoid them as well.

  Mitch hopped off the counter and walked through the house, checking the windows and doors again. Everything was locked down. Not that it mattered if the police surrounded the house. They’d have no trouble getting inside.

  Mitch walked back into the bathroom and splashed some water under his arms and on his chest. He dried off using toilet paper. No time for a shower, he just wanted to get some of the sweat and smell of fear off of him.

  He looked back at the reflection. “What now?”

  “Find out what’s going on and move to someplace else.”

  He pulled out his iPhone. It was still turned off. Could they locate it when he powered it on?

  He knew they could trace phone calls, but what about just the phone? There was a “Find my phone” function that used GPS and WiFi spots to find iPods and iPads. All he had to do to use that was to log into his Mobile.me account and click a button to see where the device was.

  Fuck. His iPad. Mitchell put his phone into his pocket and ran to his backpack. He pulled out his iPad and pressed the Home button. It was on.

  He quickly powered it down.

  He knew the odds were against them having gotten a search warrant and accessed his account to trace him. But there was that small chance. He could take a risk or he could assume the safe house was blown.

  The scared Mitchell wanted to just stay there or, better yet, go hide in the attic. The Mitch he caught a glimpse of in the mirror knew it was a bad idea to stay. The more he tried to guess the risk on things like that, the more likely he was to put himself in harm’s way.

  Something Mitchell had put at the back of his mind finally made its way forward. When he turned off the iPad, for the first time he got a look at the time. For some reason he thought it was almost nightfall. It was only 1 p.m. He’d left the mall just a little over an hour before. He’d left his car and the mess at Rachel’s less than twenty minutes before he got to the mall.

  He had been on the run for less than two hours. All hell was going to break loose very soon and a lot of angry people were going to be looking for him. However, he still had time to get more distance. He had time to find out what the rest of the world was saying.

  Mitch shoved the iPad back in his backpack. He sat down with his back against the front door so he could listen to the street outside while keeping an eye on the backyard through the sliding glass doors. He pulled out an analog
radio he kept tuned to the radio station and turned it on.

  18

  Mitch pushed one earbud into his ear. He left the other one open to listen for anything suspicious. He half expected the station to have switched over to a full-time talk format dealing with the mall events like they did on 9/11. Thankfully, no. The station was playing its normal afternoon lunchtime mix of ‘80s pop. For a moment, Mitchell felt a sense of calm from the normalcy of it. New Order’s “Blue Monday” was playing. He listened to the song a little bit longer than a man on the run should have, but he could feel his heart stop beating so fast.

  He flipped the dial over to AM and went to a local news station. In his mind he expected to hear someone say “... in other news” and then go right to talking about the mall. But they didn’t. It was a car commercial. Then a commercial for a life insurance company. Then a commercial for an accident attorney. I bet that guy has a boner right now, thought Mitch.

  Finally the station’s afternoon newsreader came on.

  “We’ve got an update on the incident at Park Square Mall. The fire department has said that it wasn’t a fire that caused the evacuation.”

  Evacuation. That’s what they were calling it right now?

  “We’re getting more reports that a riot took place inside the mall and led to a chase of the person who instigated it.”

  Was that a riot or an attempted massacre? Instigator? They didn’t understand.

  “Although official numbers haven’t been released, news helicopters on the scene have spotted what look like at least six bodies on the outside of the mall. It’s not clear yet if they fell from the roof as some people reported or if they were injured inside the mall or outside in some other manner.”

  Six bodies. And that was just on the outside. He’d heard the sounds behind him as he ran. He knew a lot more people were hurt than that. Seven? Ten? Twenty? Lots of people died because he ran. Mitchell’s knuckles were beginning to whiten as he squeezed the radio. He switched hands before he cracked the plastic.