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Dedicated to 1olMichelle for the amazing banner to the side! I love it; thanks so much, lovely!
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~Chapter Three - Some People Have No Shame~
******RAINE’S POV******
I followed the security guard—whose name turned out to be Steve Southers—down the main strip of shop and towards the movie theater and food court.
It was strange being here and seeing it so deserted. Every shop had been left open in their haste to leave the building, and now clothes and shoes and movies and handbags were on display for the rest of inhabitants—or lack thereof—to see.
We entered the food court, and I stared at the abandoned fast food restaurants. On one particular restaurant was an abandoned cup of soda that someone had been in the middle of making when the alarm must’ve been pulled. It was now splashed against the white counter, contrasting darkly with the white marble, effervescent bubbles still sparkling in the dim lighting and late afternoon sun streaking through the glass ceiling.
Just then I saw two people appear from the bathroom alley, one girl giggling and swinging dizzily in her six-inch heels, her miniskirt riding dangerously high.
One was a boy that I immediately recognized from school—River Peterson. He was the clichéd, notorious bad-boy player that was infamously known through my high school for breaking girls’ hearts. He was cute, with piercing blue eyes and tousled dark hair, but he wasn’t my type. I didn’t fall for arrogant jerks that had been with half of the female population in our senior year. Seriously. He went between girls faster than he changed underwear.
The other was the head cheerleader, Jessica Sloan, a girl whose hair was too blonde, her nails too acrylic and her skirts way too short. She had your signature athletic legs, non-existent waist and bright blue eyes. Her lips were bright pink, and she walked with a swagger only Queen Bee’s possessed. She was the girl that you couldn't help but be jealous of. She had amazing curves, but she was slim and petite. She had style, money, class and a boy on each arm. She didn't have to concern herself with what she was going to do on a Saturday night, because she had a planner larger than that of a corporate tycoon. You know the type. We all do.
Both of their hair was severely tousled, strands sticking up everywhere. River’s lips were smudged with her dark red gloss, and their shirts were askew. It was pretty obvious what they had just finished doing - and why they hadn't heard the alarms in the throes of their passion.
In a mall bathroom? Are you freaking kidding me?
Some people had no shame.
Both of them looked around, and River blinked at his surroundings, noting the abandoned stores and lack of people walking around.
“River?” the girl asked, swaying in her six-inch peep-toe stilettos, her voice an annoying nasally sound that resembled nails on a chalkboard. “Where is everyone?”
“I don’t know, babe,” River replied, frowning. His dark, perfectly sculpted eyebrows pulled together. Even frowning in an unattractive way he managed to look abominably cute. No wonder he had so many girls after him.
Once again Steve called out and explained the story to them that he had to me, and River took this in slowly, nodding, before he muttered a colorful curse that I didn't hear very often, and shook his head.
Jessica just looked up at him. “Lockdown? Fire evacuation? You mean we’re stuck in here?”
River tightened his grip on Jessica, his knuckles turning a milky white. “Apparently so," he replied grimly, a scowl on his handsome face.
He then noticed me, and his eyes ran down the length of my figure, before he slowly raised his eyes to mine. A blush filtered into my cheeks at his wandering gaze, and his lips quirked in curiosity. “And who are you?”
It really didn’t surprise me that he didn’t recognize me. Why would he? I was just another little nerd in his world. Nothing important. Maybe someone he'd boss around to complete his homework, or laugh because I worked a shift at lunch in the school library.
“Raine Miller,” I replied slowly, debating whether to give him my actual name or not. Might as well, right?
He tapped his chin thoughtfully, eyes skirting around the inside of the mall as he mulled my name over. Suddenly his face morphed into one of realization and recognition. “Hey, we have Latin together, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied, even though I didn’t even take Latin this year. No need to point out the technicalities.
As we continued to walk together—I have no idea why we stayed as a group—it wasn’t like we planned on fighting zombies or anything—we picked up a few more people who had been stuck here.
The first was a twenty-three year old man named Donovan that had long black hair and coal-black eyes and worked at the music store. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was drawn and pale, and frankly he scared me a little. He looked like the kind of boy you would find in a dark corner of the alley with a sketchy dude handing out packets of powder. I know you're not supposed to judge people based on first impressions and everything, but frankly this dude looked like someone who neither thought nor cared about my opinions, so it didn't really matter, anyway.
The next was a girl that I knew frown school, Stephanie. Except she insisted that that wasn’t her name. She said that her name was really—and I quote—Drella the Princess of the Dark Shadows. Poor parents. She was wearing all black, and had an eerie vibe about her that put me off immediately. I felt like she should own a cauldron and some mixing spells or something. At least sport a wart on her nose or something.
Next was a boy that my school, and he was a jock with cropped blond hair, piercing green eyes and a cute smile. His name was apparently Jason Redmond, and he stayed nearby me the whole time. I recognized him from the football team, but had not spoken to him before. He was muscular, broad-shouldered and pretty cute. I had no qualms with his close proximity, I'll tell you that now.
Along the way we also encountered Brad, who had on bright pink skinny leg jeans, fashionable black-rimmed glasses and a yellow neon jacket. He was about nineteen or twenty, and seemed to have taken a certain interest in River. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take a certain enjoyment in watching River squirm under Brad's inquisitive gaze.
And finally we encountered Travis, a mysterious butch boy who wore all black, and refused to look any of us in the eye. He barely spoke beyond giving us his name, and then lapped into a mournful silence. He shuffled around with absolutely no enthusiasm, and he kept his hands shoved in his pockets and his neck down the whole time so as to avoid any type of contact - both physically and verbally.
All of us were here because we hadn’t heard the alarm—well, for a certain two of us, it was because we were a little… busy—and we decided to stick together for now. What else were we gonna do? If we separated on our own, we'd be bored. With some of us sticking together, we'd have company for the nice overnight stay we were in for.
We all sat in chairs in the middle of the food court where tables were set up for dining guests. I traced patterns on the tabletop numbly, while Jessica clung to River like a lifeline, and every now and then he would look back at her like she was a parasitic, blood-sucking leech. Stephanie—sorry, my bad, Drella—and Travis stared gloomily into the distance and Brad tried to engage Jason into conversation, obviously noting that we had not one but two cute boys in the group right now.
For a while we all sat there, staring into space as the reality settled in on us. We were trapped in here overnight—or maybe even longer—with no contact to the outside. Didn’t that sound fantastic? Stuck with an arrogant player, a beefy football player, a witch-looking girl, a quirky guy, a moody boy, a cheerleader, a mall cop and a stoner.
“I think we should look again for more people,” I said to everyone, breaking the tense silence. I just needed something to occupy myself with for the long wait. I wasn't good at just sticking around and doing nothing. “There could be more people out there.”
River shrugged, as if my words affected him in no way at all. “So? They’ll survive.”
Steve silenced him with a glare. “Raine is right. Jessica, Raine, go look for others in the west side. I will look in the east side. Drella, Donovan and Brad go look upstairs in the east wing. And Travis, Jason and River, go check the west side of the second story. Okay?”
Everyone assented with minimal complaint, and we all split off. The last thing I wanted was to be paired with an airhead like Jessica—Hell, I’d take even Drella over her—but I was too mentally drained to say anything. The stress of being stuck in here was weighting on my mind.
“So, what were you doing when the alarm was pulled?” Jessica asked conversationally, trotting along beside me and making horrendous clacking noises with her shoes. I had a feeling she didn’t care, and was just asking so that she could boast about what she was doing at the time. Something I had no desire to hear about.
“I was in the library,” I replied.
She nodded, but didn’t say anything. Whatever she had to say, I didn’t want to hear.
We walked in silence for a while, and occasionally one of us would yell out a half-hearted, ‘Hello?’ to no avail. It seemed we were the only ones left, and that every person stuck here had found somebody.
We entered the corner of the mall, where there were delis, a bakery, a grocery store and a florist where flowers were beginning to wilt from being left out in the warm mall for a few hours without being moistened. I sighed, spotting the exit where once again we were locked in by a chain-link door.
Just then Jessica let out a scream so loud I thought my eardrums had just popped, and I spun around to face her with wide eyes. I swear if it was only a cockroach there and she ruined my hearing for nothing, she would have hell to pay. I'd kick her mini-skirt covered butt to the curb.
“What is it?” I asked Jessica, eyes wide and searching fervently for a threat.
She didn’t say anything, just pointed one shaky finger adorned with acrylic nails and silver rings towards something on the ground that I had discarded as a rug or bag or something dropped in everyone’s haste to get out.
Now I noticed the distinctly human lump, and I let out a staccato shriek as I realized what it was.
A human body.
Or, more specifically, a dead human body.
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Here's another chapter, where we discover our first body :)
I'm having so much fun, you have no idea.
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