I hated how it had come down to this. The WestCrest Mall was in an upscale neighborhood, the building barely two years old, and was genuinely a beautiful and comfortable place to shop for ridiculously overpriced luxuries. However, unfortunately I wasn't there to buy. I found the entrance I was looking for and parked my little coupe and steeled myself for the humiliation. My little talent agency business had died a slow death over the last year and I'd just been through a bankruptcy at the meager age of 29. So I needed a damn job, and the only offer I'd found so far was through Vick, a good friend and former client. At a shopping mall. Kill me now.
The store was called Flash and Style, selling primarily a mix of high-end clothing and extraneous gadgets like the Massage Couch or Stroller/Plasma-TV combo. "Hey, dude, Ry!" Vick waved me over as I entered. It was still before noon, so the mall was fairly empty, and there weren't many customers demanding his salesman attentions.
As always, Vick gave a pat on the back and a smile made of pure charisma. "Hey, you're gonna love it here, man." I gave him a skeptical look. He reassured me, "Well, it's going to be a lot more fun than you'd think, I promise. You remember Corellia?"
Oh god yeah, I remembered Corellia. At the mention of her name, the dark-haired stunner walked up behind Vick. I'd forgotten that Vick met his girlfriend through work at the mall.
"Oh hello, look, it is Ryan who is here," she greeted me with halting English and a hug. I'd forgotten her exact mix of ethnicity; she had told me once- it was some complex formula of South America and the Pacific Rim that resulted in a 19 year old figure of petite olive flawlessness. I doubted that her imperfect English kept anyone from buying absolutely anything she was selling.
Vick enthused, "This is going to be great, Ry. I know it's not where you want to be, but..."
"Hey, no, I'm completely grateful. Even if it's just until I find another job, it's always great being around you two."
That much was very true. Vick and Corellia were this wonderful, gorgeous couple. To start with, they both tested the limits of adorability. For some reason I especially found it charming that at 5'6" she was a bit taller than him. When I used to book modeling gigs for Vick, it was a tough sell to find clients that didn't mind a perfectly handsome chiseled 23 year old male fashion model with a perpetual 5'o clock shadow that essentially came in a 3/4ths scale version. They were the type of couple who teased and whispered with each other constantly, and when they smiled, puppies and rainbows were no match. It was impossible not to love them, and equally impossible not to be jealous.
Vick put his hand up on my shoulder and talked in a conspiratorial tone, "Okay, you already have the job and talked to the owner, but I know you haven't met our manager yet, and I'm totally going to introduce you as soon as she gets here." "Okay. Well, yeah, meeting the manager is one of the reasons that I came in today."
Vick's eyes were devilish. "No, you don't get it. I've been talking you up to her all this week. I know she's 26, single."
"Wait, what do you mean.."
Corellia whispered happily, "Vick is been thinking Maggie is a hot girl for you!"
I started laughing, "So this woman's going to be my boss and you're wanting me to hit on her on my first day. No wait, before my first day."
"Time to climb that corporate ladder, boy. That's how you do it!' Vick began to do a silly sexy dance.
"Oh god. You guys are the most thoughtful embarrassments of my life."
Vick gave me a "just one moment" gesture and then smoothly sidestepped to begin charming the hell out of a college-aged female customer who was browsing some jackets nearby.
Corellia continued with their pitch. "Our Maggie is not as blonde like you, but she is kind of blonde and a red headed. Vick said that you like a red headed, I do remember. But she is very pretty and smart we promise you."
And that's when the explosions happened.
The ground shook heavily. Corellia grabbed my arm to keep her balance...which managed to unbalance me enough that we both fell over. Items fell from the racks and shelves. I turned to look toward the store entrance and saw nothing unusual aside from confused people regaining their composure. Then came another much louder explosion, just a few moments later, along with the groan of bending metal and a cloud of thick grey smoke rolled in from the left of the entrance.
"What the fuck?" Vick looked over at us. He was crouched over the college girl and a younger boy huddled on the ground. I gave an "I don't know" shrug back, and then the mall sprinkler system activated. I held Corellia a moment longer, then told her to wait there as I carefully crawled to the store entrance. I took a peek around the entryway. We were on the second floor. Through the smoke to the left I could see the flickering orange of something on fire. For a moment, the smoke cleared enough for me to make out the wreckage of what used to be an escalator, now bent and shredded toward one side. I heard several people shouting and coughing and saw their dark silhouettes scampering through the mall on the lower level toward an exit. I heard someone jogging in my direction there on the top level but I couldn't see them through the smoke. Vick startled me by sidling up to my left.
"What was it? We need to just get the hell out of here, right?"
"Yeah. Yeah, let's get everyone and..."
Then, the person that I heard jogging toward me earlier came into view some fifty feet to our right. He was dressed in a green jumpsuit and some sort of plastic gas mask. And to my horror, he was carrying a rifle. We watched like deer in headlights as this man in green approached the railing overlooking the lower level and fired on the customers fleeing to the exits. I'm sure that I saw at least two fall.
I was nauseous and dizzy from adrenaline, but consciously tried to keep rational. "Back, back, back, back, we need to get back."
Vick jumped up and away for a moment, and pressed up against the store wall. "Oh shit, man, fuck this. Get the fence, the sliding gate. In moments, he dug a key out of his pocket and turned a lock in the store wall. I heard a latch click above, then helped Vick quickly pull down a solid metal gate that covered the front entrance of the store for when the store was closed. Just before he went out of view, I saw the gunman in green turn and look in our direction. The gate slammed closed, and there was a reassuring click of the gate locking in place.
"Back of the store." I was worried that the gunman might try to fire through the gate, and those aluminum sheets wouldn't really do much to stop a bullet.
"Yeah, there's a back storage and employee area." Vick began to round everyone up. "I'm calling the police."
When the back room door shut with everyone in, I took a moment to assess and think. Seven of us here total, Lights are out except for a meager yellow emergency light above the door. Sprinklers are on, even here in the storeroom. At least one gunman who I assume had no problems with killing innocents. And setting explosions. He knows we're here. Terrorism? A large scale robbery? What else could it be? I guess motive doesn't matter that much. Just distance. I just wanted more distance between the seven of us and the guy with the gun, and everything else would sort itself out. Vick and two others were on their cel phones. Everyone was talking to everyone, trying to make sense of what was happening. I zoned out a bit in thought, or maybe fright. I heard a female voice curse that her phone was dead from being waterlogged.
I was listening to some of Vick's side of the conversation with 9-1-1 when Corellia seemed to have a revelation. She interrupted Vick briefly to take his keys and unlock the door to the manager's office. She led me in by the arm to show me a small one-way mirror of perhaps three square feet looking into the store proper. We watched intensely for what seemed like minutes, saying nothing. There was no action, just a drenched Flash and Style, gate still down, all in near complete darkness. Everyone else filtered into the room in to look through the mirror as well, talking in hushed tones.
Vick hung up his cel phone. "They say stay put, the police now know we're here. They will come to us when it's safe or give us a call when they want us to do something so I need to, like, save my phone battery if I can."
