No Safety in Numbers Read online

  When the icon appeared on the screen, she opened the program and dialed in Darren’s home phone number. His mom picked up. Lexi guessed that she didn’t know about her being trapped in the mall, because she simply screamed to Darren that he had a call.

  “Lexi?” Darren said when he got on the line.

  “Like anyone else knows your number,” Lexi said. A flood of relief poured through her body talking to him. She felt like crying.

  “What is going on over there?” he said. Lexi could hear him shuffling back to his room. “Every news station keeps showing the same stock footage of the mall. There’s no live coverage.”

  “I don’t know,” Lexi said. “Some people in hazmat suits said something about triage.”

  “Some people in what?” Darren yelped.

  “Hey!” a saleswoman yelled from the back of the store. “Put that tablet down! There’s no public Internet use!” She began to make her way toward Lexi.

  “I’ll call back later,” she said to Darren, then tapped the icon, ending the call, and trashed the program, deleting it from the tablet.

  The woman reached her. “I saw you talking. You downloaded a program.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Lexi said calmly, casually, like lying and hacking were part of her daily routine. She walked out of the store as if she hadn’t a care in the world, then, upon reaching a bench, crumpled onto the seat.

  Alone again. A hacker, a criminal. A bad daughter. And threatened by something in this mall that required the employment of hazmat suits.

  A hand dropped onto her shoulder.

  “Couldn’t find Ginger?” Her dad sat beside her.

  Tears amassed along the borders of Lexi’s eyes. She looked at her father’s blithe, smiling face.

  “Do you know what Mom’s doing in the PaperClips?”

  Her father swore under his breath; the man who yelled at her for taking the Lord’s name in vain had just muttered “shit.”

  “If you saw that place, you know how serious this situation is,” he said.

  She had no idea about anything, but it felt good to lean against her dad. Even if he clearly didn’t plan to tell her anything about what was really going on.

  “Are we gonna be okay?” she asked him.

  “Your mom is taking care of things.”

  And this is supposed to be a comfort?

  He hugged her to him. “You want to get something to eat?” he asked. Dad was a big believer in the healing power of food, as one could tell from the slight paunch hanging over his belt.

  “I could really use some pancakes,” Lexi admitted.

  “I know just the place,” he said.

  They stood, two Rosses against the insane horror show that the CommerceDome had become, and strolled toward the massive line streaming into the Pancake Palace.

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  It took Ryan an hour and a half to get through the line to go to the bathroom. By the time he reached the stall, he had composed his apology to Shay for being such a coward yesterday afternoon. All night, he had replayed their good-bye through his mind, run through various heroic scenarios in which he tackled the one cop while toppling the vending machine onto the other cop, creating an opening for her to bust out of the mall. Or he took her hand and dashed with her up the escalator and she kissed him and said he was awesome. Anything but him pretending she didn’t exist and shuffling, head down, into the PaperClips.

  While constructing these scenarios, he flipped through the book Shay had given him—normally, if he read anything, he read magazines, and then mostly just the tags under the pictures, but last night was far from normal. Shay’s book was full of weird, long poems, a bunch of them love poems. Some of the love stuff was kind of, well, how else could he put it, sexy. He kept looking over his shoulder at the other people camped out in the PaperClips like he was afraid of being caught reading it, like old-timey poetry from India was the equivalent of one of Thad’s porno mags. But he couldn’t put it down.

  In reading it, he felt like he was seeing a part of Shay that maybe he shouldn’t. He didn’t know her well enough to know that she had also read these poems. He wondered if she found them sexy. He wondered if she knew what Tagore was talking about when he said, “I offered you my youth’s foaming wine,” and did it mean what Ryan thought it meant?

  Ryan needed to know the answers to these questions. He had to find Shay. And the first thing he needed to do when he found her was apologize for being such a loser. This Tagore guy would never have left her standing in the hallway to fend for herself. The man who had the guts to write to some girl, “I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age, forever” (Like you’d ever tell a girl something like that! Like she wouldn’t laugh in your face!) was not a man who’d have run away from a couple of mall cops.

  Ryan decided he would check out the food court first. That was where Shay had been headed and she might not have left yet.

  It was close to ten in the morning and the mall seemed strangely calm. The people who weren’t waiting to get into one of the restaurants were window-shopping or actually going into the stores to buy stuff, maybe with their gift certificates. Families were camped out in the open spaces on the first floor, and children screamed and laughed and chased each other around the benches. Ryan could almost pretend that there wasn’t some vague security situation holding them all hostage.

  Figuring he should check in with his mom to let her know he’d survived the night, Ryan felt around for his phone and realized he’d left it in his jacket—which he’d left in the PaperClips. He bolted back down the corridor, turned the corner, and saw that the PaperClips was gone. It was now a plywood wall. What the hell? He’d only been gone an hour and a half.

  He walked up to the wall and found that there was a door cut into it with a small hole for a doorknob. Ryan peered through the hole. The whole place was covered with plastic tarps and blue curtains. And then a woman in a hazmat suit stepped through the swinging doors from the stockroom.

  “We’re going to need air samples from the affected areas.” The woman’s voice was raspy like a machine’s.

  Ryan stumbled backward and landed on his butt. Why was a lady in a hazmat suit in the PaperClips? His heart raced, the ceiling pressed down—he had to get away. He loped down the hall, forgetting about his jacket, his phone, desperate to find Shay.

  “Whoa!” shouted a familiar voice. “Where you running to, Jumbo Shrimp?”

  The walls retreated; his pulse slowed. Ryan turned and saw two guys from the team, Mike Richter and Drew Bonner, strolling down the main hall toward him. They’d dubbed him Jumbo Shrimp when he was a frosh for being bigger than half the JV team and younger than most of them by a year. It wasn’t the greatest nickname, but Ryan was just happy to get one. Thad said that not every guy did.

  Ryan held out his hand for a shoulder bump, which was how these guys said hello. “Where’d you guys get stuck last night?” he asked. He was a regular guy on the football team, not some freaked-out kid who just saw something out of a sci-fi nightmare.

  Richter punched Bonner’s arm. “Bright Light here wanted to check out the chicks in Abercrombie and so we had to sleep on a pile of winter coats.”

  “With a bunch of hot chicks.” Bonner mimed smacking an ass and humping it. He snatched the book from Ryan’s back pocket. “What fine reading material do we have here?”

  Ryan’s pulse sped up a notch. These were not the kind of guys you discussed your lyrical soul with. “Just something I found in PaperClips,” he said, covering. “I got stuck sleeping on a stack of printer paper.”

  Drew flipped through the pages. “Dude, this book looks lame.” He shoved it back at Ryan. “You might want to upgrade to something that isn’t falling apart.”

  “Right,” Ryan said, shoving the book back into his pocket, saying a small prayer.

  Mike threw an arm around Ryan’s shoulders. “Thad’s like a
brother to me, J. Shrimp,” he said. “He would kill me if I didn’t watch your back in this place.” Mike ran his fist over Ryan’s skull. “So stick with us!”

  Ryan ducked out of Mike’s attack, laughing. “All right!” he cried. “I’m sure my brother will be grateful.”

  “You bet your ass he’ll be grateful.” Mike began walking again; Drew and Ryan followed.

  They headed up to the Chop House on the third floor, where they got on line to grab some breakfast. Ryan fingered the two bills in his wallet: a twenty, which was for his zombie makeup, and the gift certificate, which he figured he should save for dinner. But he was hungry, and breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Then again, he’d be hungrier later. He kept going back and forth as they snaked through the line. When they finally reached the registers, Ryan didn’t order anything.

  Mike gave him a stern look. “Lose any weight and I’m downgrading you to plain Shrimp,” he said.

  “I’m short on cash,” Ryan mumbled, hoping he didn’t sound as lame as he felt.

  Mike shoved one of his burgers at Ryan. “Thad’s going to owe me huge, I can tell.”

  After the three devoured their meals, Mike and Drew leaned against the railing in the corridor.

  “There’s nothing to do,” Drew grumbled. He hacked up some phlegm and spat it at the nearest trash can, missing by a foot.

  “Gross, dude,” Mike said.

  Drew burped. “No, that was gross,” he said. “Burger is so foul coming up.”

  “We should be at practice,” Ryan said, noticing the time. It was now half past ten.

  Mike kicked the glass wall. “Coach is going to go ballistic.” He stared out at the mall, then swept his hair from his face and squinted his eyes. “You guys feel like a game of touch?”

  “Two on Shrimp?” Drew asked, punching Ryan in the shoulder.

  “No,” Mike said, a snarky smile twisting his lips. “Three on Tarrytown’s offensive linemen.” He pointed to the first-floor fountain, where there sat four guys from the Tarrytown varsity team. Tarrytown had defeated West Nyack in a squeaker Friday night—part of the reason Ryan had come to the mall was to avoid his brother; Thad was no fun to be around after a loss.

  Drew punched his fists on the metal tube of the railing. “Yes!” He lurched down the walkway toward the escalator. “Time for Jumbo Shrimp to man up.”

  Ryan could not wait to man up with these two.

  Drew went to Shep’s Sporting Goods and got a football. Mike and the Tarrytown guys scoped out the best location for the game, settling on the first-floor lounge area outside Harry’s department store. Ryan tagged along, trying to look useful by carrying Mike’s half-empty Sportade bottle.

  Drew came back with the ball and the guys started dragging the trash bins into some semblance of a goal post at either end of the lounge. Other kids sensed their plan and asked to join the game. By the time everything was set up, they had two sides of eleven players, and plenty of volunteers should they need more. A crowd developed around the edge of the lounge area’s rug.

  Mike was running back and Drew a guard, so that left Ryan to take position as quarterback. Normally, he played wide receiver, but he was meant to be QB. In other words, he felt like a freaking god. The Tarrytown guys formed up opposite Drew—they were all linemen, as Mike had said. The stragglers from the crowd took up the other positions. Guys who looked to be from the local community college asked Ryan where to stand and he told them without missing a beat. Mike smiled at him from his position near the planters; Ryan nodded his head in as cool a manner as possible.

  A fat guy who claimed to coach a Pop Warner team offered to ref and someone in the crowd scrounged up a whistle. Drew had gotten colored socks from Shep’s to use as flags, and each player had a pair tucked into his waist, but from the grim snarls plastered across every guy’s face, Ryan was not sure they would be used. It didn’t take long for the trash talk to start—emotions were running high. They’d all been trapped in a mall for nearly twenty-four hours and none had had a decent night’s sleep. Everyone, even the crowd, was impatient to start the game. Ryan cracked his knuckles.

  Ryan had memorized all the plays from the team’s book, but in this situation, Mike had simply said, “Throw to me.” It seemed as good a plan as any. When the whistle blew, Ryan took the snap from the center, then threw a short pass to Richter. He plowed through some scrawny kid playing linebacker and dashed for the trash-bin goal posts. The Tarrytown guys didn’t bother holding their positions; they made straight for Mike. The whole concept of “touch” football did not seem to have registered with them. Ryan guessed they had some unfinished business from Friday’s game, given the speed at which they hunted Mike. But Mike was like a freaking cheetah and beat them through the bins. He spiked the ball and everyone screamed like it was the final TD of the Super Bowl.

  Ryan played as if his very life depended upon winning this game. Forget that they were in a mall playing touch on a patch of rug barely half the size of a regulation field with a bunch of guys who’d last played football on an Xbox; this was Ryan’s first gig as QB and he was not going to blow it. When a Tarrytown guy busted through the line on the snap to sack, Ryan sprang over his shoulders and ran the play in for a touchdown. Mike screamed like some cannibal in from the hunt and hugged Ryan with a ferocity that felt like it left bruises across his back.

  Even the crowd got into it, shrieking and hooting with each play. More and more people gathered around them, and crowds formed against the banisters of each of the floors above. The cheers echoed up and down the corridors of the mall. Ryan took a brief moment to take it all in and got smashed by a Tarrytown end.

  Drew shoved the guy in the chest. “What the hell, Martin? He hadn’t even called the snap.” Drew hooked an arm around Ryan and dragged him to his feet. “You cool, J. Shrimp?”

  Ryan rubbed his temple. “Yeah,” he said. “All good.”

  “Kid was, like, spaced,” the Tarrytown guy said, defending himself from the boos of the onlookers. His teammates gathered around him; together, they formed a menacing huddle.

  Mike strutted to Ryan’s side and slapped an arm around his shoulders. “I’m sure Thad will appreciate that you flattened his brother, no matter the reason.”

  “Fuck Thad,” one of the dudes said.

  “You upset that he nailed you on that first down Friday?” Mike asked. “Let me clear it up for you, it wasn’t an accident.”

  The Tarrytown kid lunged at Mike. Ryan threw his shoulder into the guy’s path and nailed him in his solar plexus. The kid fell to his knees, breathless.

  The rest of the Tarrytown line stepped forward. One grabbed Ryan’s collar.

  “Break it up!” A mall cop thrust his way onto the rug-field. He strode up to the group of them. “You boys have caused a bit of a ruckus.”

  “It’s just a game, officer,” Mike said. The other guys loosened their fists, like they were all just pals playing a friendly game of pickup.

  “We got to set up beds,” the officer said. “Clear out.”

  A few other mall guards began breaking up the audience and the straggler players wandered back to wherever they had come from. The Tarrytown guys flashed Ryan a look like they’d see him later, and Drew smashed a fist into his hand to clarify that the Jumbo Shrimp was spoken for.

  Mike jutted his chin at the Tarrytown guys as they disappeared into the masses. “Nice move with the shoulder, J. Shrimp,” he said. He smirked at Drew. “Now, I feel like gnawing on a Taco.”

  “I need to pound something,” Drew growled.

  Ryan had no idea what they were talking about, but he was not about to leave their side.

  Mike led the way up to the top floor. The whole trip, Drew and Mike were doing a play-by-play of the game.

  “When you tanked that skinny guy, I thought he was going to puke!” Drew honked a laugh.

  “Nothing beats J. Shrimp here hurdling Leon and taking it in for the kill.” Mike noogied Ryan’s head, then pushed him aw
ay with a laugh. It was something Thad would have done.

  “Just playing the game, my brothers,” Ryan said, cool as anything, though inside he was bouncing like a five-year-old hopped up on sugar.

  Mike led the way to the Grill’n’Shake and waited for the hostess. “We’d like a table,” he said when she appeared, “in his area.” Mike pointed at a scrawny kid laboring under a giant tub of dirty dishes.

  “Marco?” the girl said. “He’s a busboy, not a server. This way.” She pinched three menus between her pink-clawed fingers and led them through a maze of tables to a booth in the back of the restaurant.

  “We eating?” Ryan asked.

  Mike scanned the restaurant. “We can eat,” he said, slapping his dad’s credit card on the table.

  Ryan was fine with just a chicken sandwich and a Coke, but Mike and Drew ordered wings, a fried onion thing, potato skins, and two chicken sandwiches each.

  “A growing boy’s got to eat,” Drew said, winking at the waitress. She rolled her eyes in response.

  While they ate, Mike and Drew rambled on to Ryan about their conquests over the years. Ryan knew of Mike and Drew’s reputation for preying on the weak, but he’d had no idea how much time they devoted to their efforts. It was like every second they were off the field, they were at work on their latest target. They liked to study a kid, really get under his skin, then tear him apart from the inside.

  “Remember when we caught VanEmburgh waxing his chest?”

  “I had no idea that shit would actually rip his skin,” Mike said, holding his hands up like, Whatcha gonna do?

  With each story, Ryan found it harder to muster a laugh. If it weren’t for Thad, he might be on the wrong side of Mike and Drew’s equation and end up having his head dunked into a toilet for buying the wrong kind of chips.