DEAD HORIZON — CHAPTER 17: UPSTAIRS
The second screw turned.
Metal shrieked. The door frame bowed inward a quarter inch.
Under the gap, fingers scraped.
Shhk. Shhk. Shhk.
Then the wet breathing got louder.
Arthur didn’t wait.
“Move,” he said.
He said it once.
The employee stared at the door. Mouth open. Boba tea still in his hand. “But— but security— they have to—”
“They’re not coming,” the janitor said.
He was already standing.
The freshman was on the floor by the KITCHEN ACCESS door, his phone still in his hand. All circuits are busy. He looked up at Arthur. Eyes red. “My sister— she’s downstairs—”
Arthur didn’t answer. He turned.
He walked.
Not fast. Not running. Just walking toward the T-junction at the end of the hall.
The employee made a choking sound. “Wait! We can’t just—”
BANG.
The door buckled. The top hinge tore halfway out of the frame. A spiderweb of cracks ran through the metal.
The employee moved.
The freshman scrambled up, grabbing his phone. He looked at the door. At Arthur. At the door.
He ran after Arthur.
The janitor followed. No words. No questions.
Sophia pushed off the wall.
Her left foot touched down.
Pain shot up her leg like a nail. White behind her eyes. Her teeth clacked together.
She didn’t make a sound.
She used the wall. Hand over hand. Step. Drag. Step.
Arthur didn’t look back. Didn’t offer his shoulder.
She didn’t ask.
---
The stairwell door was steel. Red letters: STAIRS - ROOF ACCESS - LEVEL 2.
Arthur hit the bar with his palm.
It opened into cold.
The sound changed.
Behind them: muffled screams. Metal bending. Wet breathing.
In here: echo. Concrete. Their footsteps bouncing off walls.
The stairwell smelled like dust and old rain.
On the second step, there was a smear.
Not a lot. A handprint. Dragged down. Brown-red. Four fingers and a thumb. Leading up.
Arthur didn’t stop. He took the steps two at a time.
Sophia grabbed the railing. Metal. Cold.
She lifted her left foot. Put it on the next step.
Touched down.
Her vision grayed out. She breathed through her nose. In. Out.
Step. Drag. Step.
The employee was behind her. Breathing too fast. “Oh god oh god oh god—”
The freshman was behind him. Crying again, but quiet now. Like he was out of loud.
The janitor came last. He pulled the stairwell door shut behind them.
It clicked.
Didn’t lock.
BANG from the other side. Muffled now.
Then another.
Then nothing.
---
The stairs went up one flight.
Halfway, there was a window. Narrow. Wire mesh inside the glass.
Arthur stopped.
Below them, through the glass, was the food court.
Forty feet down.
It wasn’t a food court anymore.
Tables overturned. Chairs broken. The Panda Express sign was half hanging, the P gone. The tile was red in places. Not spots. Pools.
People were still running. But not many.
Most were on the ground.
Some were moving.
Some were moving wrong.
Ramirez was in the center. His uniform torn. His jaw hung wrong. He was on top of a woman. She wasn’t screaming anymore.
Three more moved like him. Jerky. Fast. No pause between seeing and chasing.
A crowd was pressed against the main glass doors. Pushing. Climbing over each other. The doors weren’t opening.
Security was gone.
No.
Davis was there. By Auntie Anne’s. He wasn’t helping. He was pulling a kid down by the hair.
Sophia made it to the window. She used Arthur’s shoulder to steady herself. Didn’t ask. Just did it.
She looked down.
Her face didn’t change.
But her hand on the railing went white.
“That’s,” the employee said behind them. “That’s not— that’s not a riot. That’s—”
“Keep moving,” Arthur said.
He didn’t look at the food court again.
---
Level 2 landing.
Another steel door.
Arthur opened it.
The air changed.
Food court had been fried oil and blood.
Up here it was department store. Perfume. New clothes. AC.
And underneath it, starting to sour: something else.
The Level 2 corridor ran around the atrium. Glass railing on one side. Stores on the other.
MACY’S. FOOT LOCKER. LUSH. APPLE.
All the lights were still on.
Music was still playing. Some acoustic cover of a song that had been pop last month.
An overturned kiosk in the middle. Phone cases scattered. Dragons and glitter.
A single shopping bag from Bath & Body Works. Sitting by itself. No blood on it.
At the far end, someone was screaming.
Not close. Two stores down. Maybe three.
Echo made it impossible to tell.
Sophia let go of Arthur’s shoulder.
She tested her ankle. No weight. Just touch.
Pain.
She grabbed the railing instead. The glass one overlooking the atrium.
She moved. Step. Drag. Step.
Arthur didn’t help.
She didn’t want him to.
---
“We need to get to the parking garage,” the freshman said. His voice was hoarse. “My mom’s car. We can drive. We can—”
“Garage is open,” Arthur said. “Six entrances. No doors.”
“So?” The employee was still clutching his boba. The cup was crushed. “So we run! We get in a car and we go! We don’t stay in the mall with— with those things!”
“Up is safer,” Arthur said.
“You don’t know that!” The employee’s voice cracked. “You’re a kid! You don’t— security has protocols! Police have— there’s a system for this! We need to find a manager! Find the—”
“There is no system,” the janitor said.
He was looking at APPLE. The glass storefront was intact. Inside, the screens were all blue. NO SIGNAL. One display table was knocked over.
“Parking garage means outside,” Arthur said. “Outside means exposed. We don’t know what’s out there yet.”
“We know what’s in here!” the freshman yelled. Tears again. “My sister is down there! We can’t go up! We have to go down!”
Arthur kept walking.
Not fast. Same pace.
Past LUSH. The smell of soap was strong. Fake clean.
On the tile, a trail.
Blood. Not a pool. A smear. Like something had been dragged.
It led into FOOT LOCKER.
The glass door was broken. Not shattered. A hole. Big enough to crawl through.
From inside, a sound.
Not screaming.
Chewing.
Wet. Slow.
The employee stopped walking.
“Don’t,” Sophia said.
It was the first thing she’d said since the stairwell.
Her voice wasn’t General Evans.
It was quiet.
The freshman looked at the store. At the blood. At Arthur, still walking.
“Don’t,” Sophia said again.
The freshman ran.
Not into the store.
The other way. Back toward the stairwell.
He hit the door. Went through.
The door swung shut behind him.
No one went after him.
---
Arthur stopped at the next corner.
Atrium on the right. Glass railing. Drop to Level 1.
Left was more corridor. MACY’S entrance. Doors open. Lights on.
Straight ahead was a bridge. Glass. Going across to the other side of the mall.
He looked down.
Level 1 was worse from here.
The main entrance doors were broken now. Glass everywhere.
Bodies in the doorway. Piled up.
Some were moving.
Some were moving on top of the ones that weren’t.
Three figures came through the broken doors. From outside.
They didn’t run. They walked.
But not like people walk.
Like they were new to it.
One had a mailman uniform.
Sophia made it to the railing. She leaned hard.
She saw them.
She didn’t say anything.
Her hand went to her pocket. Phone.
She didn’t pull it out.
Because who would she call.
The janitor stopped next to Arthur. He looked down too.
He didn’t whistle. Didn’t curse.
He just nodded. Once.
Like he’d expected it.
“What do we do?” the employee whispered. He was still holding his boba.
Arthur looked at the bridge.
Glass. Exposed on both sides. No cover.
He looked at MACY’S. Big. Multiple exits. Lots of places to hide. Lots of places for things to hide.
He looked at the corridor behind them. Back toward the stairwell.
One way in. One way out.
Choke point.
He chose the corridor.
He walked.
---
They made it fifty feet.
Past MACY’S. Past a closed SEE’S CANDIES.
The screaming had stopped.
That was worse.
The employee was muttering. “This isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t happening—”
“Shut up,” Sophia said.
It wasn’t mean. It was flat.
The employee shut up.
Sophia was sweating. Her face was gray. She was using the wall now, not just the railing.
But she was still moving.
Arthur stopped.
Ahead, the corridor opened into a balcony. Wide. Overlooking the main atrium.
From here you could see everything.
Level 1. Food court. Main entrance.
Level 2. Where they were.
Level 3. Above them. Movie theater. AMC.
The lights were still on. All of them.
The music was still playing.
The mall looked normal.
Except for the blood.
And the bodies.
And the things moving between them.
There were more now.
Not dozens. Not yet.
But more than ten.
They were spreading out.
One was climbing the stopped escalator. Using its hands. Like an animal.
Two were at the main entrance. Pulling at the pile of bodies.
One was looking up.
Right at them.
It couldn’t see them. Too far.
But it was looking.
Arthur counted exits.
Main entrance: gone.
Food court side exits: blocked by crowd.
Parking garage: Level P1, P2. Both open.
Roof: stairwell said roof access.
He filed it.
Sophia came up next to him. She didn’t lean on him.
She looked down.
Her face didn’t change.
But her hand went to her side. Where her binder would be.
It wasn’t there.
“Security didn’t stabilize it,” she said.
Quiet.
Arthur didn’t answer.
Because she wasn’t talking to him.
The employee made a sound. A hiccup.
“Up there,” he said.
He was pointing.
Not down.
Across the atrium. Level 1. The other side.
The ENTRANCE. The big ones. Where the carousel was.
The doors were opening.
Not broken.
Opening.
People were coming in.
Running in.
Screaming.
And behind them, things were coming in too.
Not walking.
Running.
The mall wasn’t sealed.
It was still filling up.
Arthur looked at Sophia.
She looked at him.
For the first time since the food court, she really looked.
Not past him. Not through him.
At him.
Her eyes were doing math.
Not A. Johnson. Bag Check.
Just Arthur.
The janitor spoke. “Well.”
He wasn’t looking at the entrance.
He was looking behind them.
Down the corridor they’d come from.
Past MACY’S.
A store. SPENCER’S.
The glass was dark. Gate half-down.
But the gate was moving.
Not up. Not down.
Shaking.
From inside.
And there were fingers.
Under the gate.
Scraping.
Shhk. Shhk. Shhk.
The lights inside SPENCER’S were off.
But something was in there.
And it heard them.
