The soldier was coming ever closer; he was tall and wide shouldered, with homegrown, mid-west farm boy good looks that Shavian did not fail to notice. Elliott didn’t fail to notice her noticing either. Elliott’s feet were starting to cramp from squatting down but he didn’t dare move. Aubrey looked completely terrified; for a girl who had already survived more of the zombie apocalypse than most people, she sure frightened easily.
“We need to get rid of him,” Roger hissed.
“Yeah, but how?” Shavian asked. “I don’t have any of my guns!”
Higgins gestured over his shoulder. “Mannequin,” he said enigmatically.
“What?” Elliott hissed.
Shavian got that look in her eye. “No, I got this.” She stood in a half crouch, moving stealthily towards a mannequin wearing the unlikely combination of cammo hot pants and a ski jacket. As they watched on, unsure what was going to happen next and Higgins looking very sure he knew exactly what would happen next, Shavian hefted the mannequin. She slunk back towards the soldier, circling around behind him. With a primal scream that, against a lesser force of nature than Shavian, would have warned her victim of her attack, the redhead launched herself at him, swinging with all her might.
At that moment, another soldier came around the blind corner and into the store.
“Johnson!” he cried in warning to his cohort, but not in time. Shavian hit Johnson in the chest with the mannequin, knocking him over. The head of the mannequin snapped and flew off at high velocity, striking the other soldier directly in the head; he folded, unconscious. Shavian, in the meantime, leaned down and punched Johnson in the face and he too fell unconscious.
Higgins looked supremely pleased with himself and Roger was shaking his head.
“I cannot imagine the indignity,” Elliott muttered, “of having ‘johnson’ be your last expletive before being knocked cold by a mannequin head lobbed by a ninety pound girl.”
“By accident, no less,” Roger added.
Shavian reached down for Johnson’s weapons, checking the ammo. Roger paused and picked up the mannequin head, hefting it thoughtfully; he took it with him and both he and Higgins headed towards the other fallen soldier to take his weapons as well. They didn’t get far enough.
“Hold it right there, girlie!” came a shout from the other side of the door as the rest of Johnson’s squad, four men, came around the corner.
“Shit!” Roger cried. He grabbed Elliott and Aubrey by their collars and pulled them down behind a display of hiking boots. Higgins and Shavian both dove behind the register.
“Well, what now?” Roger hissed.
“Give ourselves up, that’s what!” Aubrey whispered back.
“No, we can’t do that,” Elliott said immediately. “We don’t know what they’re after and until I do I’m not just going to give up.”
Roger clapped him on the shoulder. “Good one, my boy.” Elliott rolled his eyes.
“Come on out, now,” the soldier in the lead said. He sounded closer. From where Elliott was he could see Shavian jump up and fire a few rounds, warning shots… or cover. As the soldiers ducked down and looked for cover, Higgins darted out from behind the cash register to the prone form of the soldier who’d been knocked cold by the mannequin head. He quickly gathered the man’s weapons and extra ammo and darted between displays and racks to get to he and Roger. He handed Roger a pistol and an extra clip, keeping a shotgun for himself. Roger tossed the mannequin head to Elliott. Aubrey swiped a hand across her pale face, clammy sweat marring her pretty features. Elliott sympathized and reached out to pat her shoulder. She smiled weakly at him.
Shavian continued to provide covering fire; she’d winged one man but Elliott thought it might have been an accident. Taking out zombies was one thing but he didn’t think she’d relish the idea of killing a human unless she really had to. The soldiers were firing back but they were too slow to hit her, and now Higgins and Roger were joining the fight.
Shavian was aiming for displays, eliminating the places the enemy could hide, while beckoning her friends closer to the entryway of the store. Bit by bit they moved closer as bullets flew around them. Elliott felt faint, his heart racing and Aubrey looked even worse, closing her eyes and breathing hard every time they found new cover. They had just jumped behind a rack of boots when they heard the cracking of wood. Splinters of wood sprayed out as the bullet devastated display. A faint wisp of smoke arose from the hole just inches from their heads. Close call, and Aubrey’s nerves were shot, the whites of her eyes showing.
They were only feet from the door but bullets still flew; now, however, their enemy was deeper in the store.
“Now!” Higgins cried. Not privy to the plan, Elliott looked around stupidly for a moment and then stood and did the only thing that made sense: he ran for the door, hauling Aubrey with him. Roger and Shavian were right behind him. A soldier jumped out in front of Elliott, his pistol leveled. Aubrey screamed and without thinking, Elliott lobbed the mannequin head at the soldier; it bounced off the soldier’s arm, causing him to drop the pistol, rebounded off a wall and rolled right back into the path of Roger, who scooped it up as he went by.
“Right handy this thing is!” he called. Elliott heard a wordless battle cry behind them and turned just in time to see Higgins wind up a powerful arm and hurl a grenade back into the sporting goods store, far over the heads of the soldiers.
“Distraction!” he said as he raced by. The others followed.
Keeping against the walls and peering around every corner, Shavian and Higgins led the way. Aubrey stayed behind Roger.
“We should find one of the big department stores and sneak out the loading bay doors,” Elliott whispered. “They probably aren’t guarding those.”
“That’s becoming an MO, lad,” Roger muttered. They crept nearer to a J.C. Nickels store and they passed all the usual mall stores: little boutiques full of ribbons and bright gaudy jewelry for pre-teens, men’s shops featuring trendy clothes that Elliott wouldn’t be caught dead in even if he could afford to shop in them (which he couldn’t) and various little stands selling specialty juices and pretzels.
“It works,” Elliott retorted. “If there’s anything I know, it’s malls.” No one argued the point. “But we have to find Junie and Fipps.”
“Not again!” Shavian growled.
“No, not again,” Roger said, his eyes fixed on something ahead of them. They had just come around the corner to the escalators. Fipps was hustling down the escalator faster than the escalator was moving. He was carrying Junie, his left arm under her neck. His left hand was clapped firmly over her mouth, and she did not look happy. She was struggling but not really against Fipps; she was gesturing wildly at something behind them, grunting angrily. A decorative vase was set on a shelf to the side of the escalator and Junie grabbed it, hurling it back up towards the second floor, her blonde hair practically bristling. Whatever had Junie so angry was not pursuing.
“She has a good arm,” Roger commented. Fipps’ face lit up in relief when he saw the others waiting, waving them on. Shavian and Higgins had moved to the sides, checking down the corridors for more military presence: Junie was making a lot of noise.
When he reached them, he set Junie on her feet but didn’t take his hand away from her mouth.
“What the hell?” Elliott asked.
Junie grunted and growled behind Fipps’ hand, her eyes blazing with anger, gesticulating maniacally. She went on for quite a bit. When she finally stopped, Fipps explained, “The military broke the espresso machine.”
There were blank stares all around.
“To be fair,” he went on, “she had just fixed it.”