Silent Interruption (Book 2): Braving The Risk Read online

  Shyanne just shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she said.

  Preston then cursed under his breath. He was the adult here. Why the hell was he asking a child what to do? The past hour had terrified him down to his shoes. Shyanne might have been frightened about being left in the dark, but she composed herself well once Preston had retrieved her from the changing room.

  “Damn.” He couldn’t dawdle any longer. What if Ron and Drake circled back? Better to take their chances outside. Gritting his teeth, Preston pushed open the door.

  The rush of sunlight stung Preston’s eyes. He immediately shielded his face with his arm. It was a short moment before he could see outside.

  The outside of the mall was still and silent. Nobody ambushed them. In fact, there was nobody in sight at all, just stationary cars, trucks, and SUVs parked throughout the lot, their owners disappeared to fates unknown.

  Shyanne approached Preston. “It’s pretty out here,” she said softly.

  Preston drew in fresh outdoor air. He couldn’t argue with Shyanne’s sentiment. Yesterday’s cloud cover had dissipated, leaving a clear blue open sky. It was the perfect climate to wait for Carl and Tara.

  But after a minute, Preston became antsy. The man paced back and forth a few steps close by Shyanne. This whole situation was eating at him. The fact that they had escaped those goons didn’t mean they were safe. These skirmishes, these battles for survival, they would happen again and again. He couldn’t just stand out here with Shyanne with just his sidearm to protect them. What if next time more than two men accosted them? Sure, he couldn’t shake his anxiety about killing a person, but facing killers without adequate firepower just was plain foolish.

  He turned back to the mall door and said something he never thought he would say openly. “Shyanne, we need to lock and load.”

  Preston hurried up the escalator with Shyanne on his back. The escalator was stopped cold, making it no better than a set of stairs, but that was no problem. The first floor of Marianne’s proved a bust, offering clothing and cosmetics, nothing that Preston would find useful as a weapon. He hoped the second floor would be better.

  He exhaled a labored breath as soon as he touched down onto the second floor. Shyanne quickly climbed down from Preston. Although this floor was darker, Preston could make out several beds in front of him. This must be the bedroom section. Preston then turned to his right. There were a few shelves in the distance. It was darker still over there, but Preston stood a better chance of finding something useful over there.

  “C’mon,” Preston said, already walking.

  “But it’s dark here. I can’t see anything,” Shyanne protested.

  Preston reached the first shelf. It was lined with cans that looked like spray cans. “Grab a couple and bring them by the escalator. There’s enough light that we can read the labels.”

  “But why are we looking at these cans?” Shyanne asked, “We’re not going to do their hair.”

  Preston laughed. “That was a good one.”

  Shyanne turned to him. “A good one?”

  “You know, a joke. You wanted to teach me jokes, right?” Preston asked. His smile disappeared when he realized the child was being serious.

  “Well, I’m just thinking maybe we can use some of these spray cans against those bad men who are after us.” He hauled a couple of cans into the faint light, but groaned when he saw the labels. “Spray-on deodorant.” He let the cans drop onto the floor. “Like that’s going to do us any good.”

  “You still have your gun.” Shyanne pointed to Preston’s belt.

  Preston recoiled. He feared the child had touched it, but she was actually a couple of feet away from him. “I know!” He quickly lowered his voice. “I know, but it won’t be enough. I can’t use it more than two times. Actually, I’d rather not use it at all.”

  “Why?” Shyanne asked as she followed Preston back to the shelves. “You can stop the bad men from hurting us.”

  “It’s a little complicated.” Preston took a few steps past what he thought was the deodorant section to make sure he grabbed different cans this time.

  “No one really should want to hurt or kill anybody at all. It’s a terrible thing to do to anybody. Personally, I wish there was no such thing as guns.” Then he pulled a few cans off the shelf.

  “Look, I really shouldn’t be the one to talk to you about this. Carl, he – he’d be better.” He turned back to the path leading to the escalator. “I have to be honest, he’s a lot better at handling this crazy madness than I am.”

  “You’re not all bad.” Shyanne walked beside him. “You kept us safe from those two men.”

  “Running and hiding.” Preston chuckled. “Yeah, Tara would have a field day with that. She’d probably want me to jab those two in the head with coat hangers.”

  Preston was just about to step into the dim light by the escalator when the sound of rapid footsteps behind him stopped him dead in his tracks. He turned around, while Shyanne gasped. The store behind him was too dark to see anyone.

  “Damn,” Preston whispered. Did Ron and Drake follow them up here? No, if they had, the two thugs would have ambushed them on the spot. Those footsteps sounded very close. Whoever it was had to have spotted them.

  “Mister Preston, I’m scared,” Shyanne whispered.

  Preston nodded. Me too, he thought, but he couldn’t say it, not in front of Shyanne. But what was he to do? Run? Take Shyanne and flee down the escalator?

  He tossed the cans away. Yeah, bugging out of this place was the best solution. He didn’t know what was lurking on this floor, and he couldn’t risk Shyanne’s safety to find out.

  He leaned down. “Come on, we’re leaving –”

  Shyanne screamed.

  Preston jumped back, nearly falling down. “Who’s there?” A shape was moving toward them from the darkness. Preston reached for his gun. “I warn you! I am armed!” He pronounced the last three words long and hard.

  But as the figure finally emerged from the darkness, he showed himself to be less than threatening. He was a brown-skinned boy with dark hair in a bowl cut. “Hi!” he said with a chipper voice. “I saw you run up here earlier. I went to say hello.”

  Shyanne squinted. “You’re not a bad guy, are you?”

  “Bad? No!” The boy shook his head. “I’m Ricardo. I was shopping here with my mama when the lights all went out. I’ve been hiding here since yesterday. What about you?”

  Preston breathed a sigh of relief. “Actually, we’re new to this place. My name’s Preston. This is Shyanne. Sorry for threatening you earlier, but this place is very hard to see in. You can’t be sure who’s going to pop out.”

  “It’s okay,” Ricardo said.

  Preston smiled, showing off his teeth.

  “Hey, you want to meet the others? I can take you there,” Ricardo continued.

  “Others?” Shyanne asked.

  Ricardo nodded. “Yep. There are others, lots of others. We’re all hiding here. I’ll show you where we hide.”

  Seated on one of the food court’s many dining tables, Whitney withdrew a cigarette from her back pocket. “Well, this whole thing has sucked. There’s nobody around to have fun with.”

  She gestured to the refugees lying around in the food court as she walked up to one of the tables near the court’s edge. Nearby, Scott and John sat across from a pair of dining tables, tossing away any small item they found on the tables, such as salt or pepper shakers, napkin dispensers, utensils, and plates. Some of the plates crashed against the walls.

  Whitney winced at the sound of each smashing plate. She hated these two, but she dared not bawl them out. She was the only woman thus far who Cyrus had tolerated in his group. It helped that Whitney had lured a number of women to Cyrus’ party for a good time. For Whitney, it was better to be on the master’s leash than on the ground under his foot. So instead, Whitney lit her cigarette with the lighter in her back jeans pocket and puffed away.

  “Too bad t
here’s no women around who are, you know…” John grinned at Whitney. “…desirable. Just a bunch of old bats and moms around here.”

  Nearby, a middle-aged man and woman stumbled out of one of the restaurants. When they spotted the three of them, they yelped and tried making a run for it. However, Cyrus quickly got in their way and shoved each of them back with his bare hands. “Get back in there, maggots,” he said with a growl. The two whimpered and fled back inside the restaurant. Whitney smirked. As usual, no one could cross the giant of a man.

  “Yo! Cyrus!” Scott shouted, “I got an idea. Let’s turn some of these people loose in the mall and have ourselves a manhunt.”

  “Yeah, like that book I read in school, The Most Dangerous Game.” John slapped Scott on the chest. “That guy in it, he’d go set this other hunter loose on his island so he could hunt him down. It was awesome.”

  Whitney chuckled. “I’m surprised you two even know how to read,” she muttered.

  Cyrus stormed up to them, looking unimpressed by the suggestion. “I don’t care about these people,” he fumed. “None of them have what I’m looking for. I want those people who fled into this mall and not a one of them are hiding in here. We wasted our goddamned time.”

  Ilairo followed behind him. Whitney aimed a special smile at him. He had gone to check out that squeak earlier but had found nothing. Ilario was always the silent type, so Whitney couldn’t tell if he was frustrated or not. That made it more fun to tease him.

  Scott jumped off the table. “Well, I think I’m done with this shithole.” Then he grabbed a chair and flung it down the mall corridor. “C’mon, Cyrus, let’s go shopping.”

  John glared at the refugees. More people had awakened from their slumber but did not leave their chosen abodes. “Personally, I’d rather have a little fun with some of these people before we bug out.”

  However, before John could approach a taco restaurant, Ilario cut in front of him. “Careful. You know Cyrus gets pissed when you do things without asking him.”

  John frowned. “Do you speak for Cyrus, little puissant!?”

  Ilario just stood there without answering. Gritting his teeth, John turned to Cyrus and asked, “Fine, man. What’s your call?”

  Cyrus sucked in a long deep breath. “I don’t give a shit. I’m going hunting. Anyone who wants to join me can. Do what you like here.”

  With a renewed grin, John turned to Ilario. “Hear that? I got the blessing from the Pope! Hallelujah!” Then he slammed his hand so hard into Ilario’s chest that the young man fell flat on his back. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, No Balls, I got a date with some fresh meat.”

  Whitney laughed. “No Balls. That was good.” Ilario quickly picked himself up, aiming fresh glares at John and at Whitney, before he scampered off to Cyrus’ side.

  John took two steps toward the taco restaurant. However, he discovered something that wasn’t there before – a black plastic cone protruding from one of the booths, aimed right at his chest.

  Before John or any of them could consider the significance of this fact, a blast of white foam shot out from the cone, coating John almost immediately and filling the air with pressurized gas.

  “What the hell is that?” Whitney shouted as she ran away from the expanding gas.

  Scott covered his mouth. “John! John!”

  “I’m here!” John ran toward him, wiping foam from his face and chest. “Dammit, I can’t see!”

  Another man’s voice shouted through the air, one none of them recognized. “Run! Now! Get out of here!”

  “Who the hell is that?” Ilario asked.

  Cyrus’s eyes bulged. “Our prey,” he whispered.

  Chapter Six

  Charging into the expanding gas, Carl emptied the fire extinguisher of its contents, spraying as much as he could before he was satisfied the canister was useless. Behind him, people filed out of the restaurants and toward the mall’s large corridor. While he wished he could account for each and every human being who had taken refuge in this food court, Carl could not afford that luxury. His plan was simple – shoot this cloud to cover the refugees’ escape, and then take out the enemy one by one. By this time, just about all of them had awakened, so they were ready to flee if given the chance.

  The extinguisher’s cone started sputtering. Now he was ready for phase two. He spotted his first target – John, the man closest to the extinguisher’s blast. He was screaming while trying to wipe foam out of his eyes.

  Carl swung the extinguisher. It connected with the man’s upper back and sent him to the floor in a heap. One down, four to go.

  Scott rushed through the cloud toward the fallen man, screaming, “John! John!”

  Carl took another swing with the extinguisher. It struck Scott’s shoulders, but did not hit him as hard as Carl had wished. The man stumbled but did not fall. Instead he cursed and turned to Carl, raising his fists. “You’re the asshole who –”

  Carl threw the extinguisher into Scott’s stomach, cutting him off and knocking him down. Two down, three to go.

  He almost immediately was assaulted by a flying chair. It just missed his face and hit the taco restaurant behind him instead. The woman, Whitney, was throwing chairs at Carl. “Goddamn son of a bitch!” she screamed.

  Carl batted aside the next chair, although the quick flight of the chair leg scraped his left arm, cutting it a little. The former Marine ignored the pain and ducked to avoid the next chair. The dining chairs were light, but one hit still could do a lot of damage if it struck head-on.

  So, Carl acted quickly. Having avoided the next chair, he rushed in and smacked her in the face with his arm. She tripped and fell onto the floor with a scream of pain. She stayed down. Three down, two to go.

  But before Carl could turn around, a pair of strong hands seized him from behind and tossed him over a small row of plants onto the tiled floor just outside the food court. Carl winced. That throw was hard.

  He turned and rolled onto his side so he could spot his assailant. To his horror, said assailant also happened to be the biggest of the group, the one called Cyrus. The brute looked down on Carl with a chilling look that actually bordered on delight.

  “Hello, little rabbit,” he said, “Are you ready for the hunt?”

  Carl stole one more glance at the edge of the food court. Three more people dashed over the threshold. No other noncombatants fled from the food court. Carl hoped he was successful in buying the people time to escape, but the only way he could be sure was to lure these bastards away.

  Fortunately, Cyrus seemed to want a hunt, not a quick kill. Carl had listened carefully ever since he had snuck up on this bunch and crept into the taco restaurant. By now he at least understood who these five were and basically what their personalities were like. So, if Cyrus wanted a hunt, he would get one, only he and his goon squad would serve as the prey.

  Carl sprang to his feet and dashed away from the food court, down the corridor toward the clothing store where he and Tara had taken up their positions. Cyrus let out a roar before shouting, “Let’s go! Tear him apart!” He followed Carl, his large legs making loud stomps on the mall floor as he ran.

  “Tara, get ready,” Carl said between breaths.

  Behind him, Scott actually had caught up to Cyrus, with John not too far behind. “Woo-hoo! I’m going to get this son of a bitch first!” Scott shouted.

  But Scott didn’t even come close to his target. As soon as he passed by the clothing store’s threshold, a shot rang out. Scott suddenly fell backward and slammed onto the floor.

  John slowed down and screamed a “Hey!” but he was too late. A bullet cut through the air and caught him in the leg. With a howl, John slid and hit the floor.

  However, Cyrus had made it past the clothing store without being hit. He turned in the direction of the clothing store. Carl also slowed down and shouted at the store, “Tara! Take them down!” They could not waste their chance to behead the snake.

  Cyrus realized he was in a fire zone
and quickly dove for the floor. Whitney and Ilario turned and ran back to the food court upon hearing the shots.

  Still on the floor, John clutched his right leg. “Dammit! I’m shot! I’m shot!”

  Carl gritted his teeth. If he couldn’t take out most of the pack up front, he wanted to take down Cyrus at the very least. He was the ringleader. Without him, the others might lose their resolve and bail.

  He rushed back to the store entrance. Tara emerged, her rifle in one hand and the bat in the other. “Here!” she said, tossing the bat to him.

  Nearby, clutching his leg, John was weeping. The man then turned toward Tara and screamed, “You bitch! You’re the one who shot me?”

  Tara aimed her gun at him. “Yeah, would you like another one in the head?”

  “Forget him. You shouldn’t waste any shots,” Carl said. “How much ammo do you have left?”

  “Uh, probably two shots?” Tara bit her lip. “Damn!”

  “Shit!” Carl shook his head. Two bullets, three people. “Cyrus, the big guy, he’s our target. The others I can take care of myself, but Cyrus is –”

  He didn’t get to finish his sentence. A hairy fist suddenly reached out and struck Carl in the stomach. A second blow hit Tara and knocked her down. Upon hitting the floor, Carl discovered two men, an older and a younger man, standing over them with big grins.

  “Hey,” Ron said, “whatcha doing?”

  Preston continued holding Shyanne’s hand as Ricardo led them through the clothing store. Unlike Marianne’s, this place, Kelly’s Boutique, was almost completely decimated. Clothing racks were strewn everywhere, along with lots of hangers and a few clothes – coats, shorts, and a couple of expensive button up dress shirts. Glass display cases were smashed, and whatever valuables lay inside them had been looted.

  Shyanne gripped Preston’s hand. “I don’t like it here.”

  Preston gingerly stepped over fields of broken glass while making sure Shyanne did not step on any glass herself. “That makes two of us.” Eventually, he just picked up the girl and carried her.