They all looked the same to Mitchell. Only the random rust stains from the sprinklers differentiated them. He couldn’t remember which one was the right one. The last thing he wanted to do was barge in on an occupied house. He drove down one road and then up another.
There were cars parked sporadically in different driveways. It seemed like there were even more ‘For Sale’ signs than last time. One house looked vaguely familiar. He pulled into the driveway and tried to figure out what to do next.
If he knocked on the door and somebody answered, that could be messy. His best bet was to knock and then run back into the car and wait to see if someone answered. It was a coward’s plan, and he knew it. It was all he had.
Mitchell turned off the car and walked up the walkway to the house. It looked very familiar. He got to the door and looked at the keypad. He decided to just try the code and open the door and look. He knew he could run back to the car if he heard anyone.
Fortunately, his mind didn’t blank like it did with his ATM card. He keyed in the code. The door unlocked. From behind, he heard a car pass. Mitchell almost pissed himself.
The car kept driving. Mitchell relaxed and looked inside the house. It was completely empty. He’d expected that but wanted to be certain. He shouted, “Hello!” His voice echoed through the house.
He looked back at the car in the driveway. The sooner he hid it, the better. He stepped into the house and walked through the barren kitchen and into the garage. He fumbled for the switch and opened the door. Mitchell remembered the intern, Mike, telling him that his grandparents had kept power to the house so the air conditioning would keep the moisture low. Apparently other people didn’t do that with their empty property and that caused mold and other damage. Mitchell was just glad he didn’t have to figure out how to open the door by hand.
He pulled the car inside the garage and lowered the door. He was reasonably certain that no one had seen him. He felt safe for the moment. But for how long? If they cast a wide enough net, would they find him there?
His name wasn’t attached to the house, not directly at least. Mitchell walked back into the house and peered through the front blinds and looked down the street. What next?
16
The entire mall was essentially a crime scene. A narrow path had to be cordoned off with yellow tape to show people where they could and couldn’t walk. To Rios, it felt like the line through a haunted house. Only this one was filled with real bodies and stretched the length of the shopping mall.
They followed the path to the front of the food court. Tables and chairs were flipped over. Spilled drink cups covered the floor, mixing with food and puddles of blood. Rios could spot two places where firefighters had to put out grease fires on unattended grills.
Brooks motioned for them to follow him. He pointed to the other entrance to the food court. “That’s where it looks like everyone came through.”
Bloody footprints led away from the narrow corridor between the coffee shop and the cookie store. Overturned chairs and tables were shoved to the sides. Some, from the looks of it, pushed aside by first responders trying to make a path. Others, from the trails of blood, by the mob of people rushing through there.
Rios could make out three outlines of bodies on the ground. Blood was so thick someone had to lay down floor mats so paramedics and firefighters didn’t track it into the mall and leave their own layer of bloody footprints.
“
We think this is where it started. There was some kind of disruption and everyone came out of the food court and into the atrium.”
“
A disruption?” asked Simmons. “Do we have any idea what kind of disruption could cause this kind of panic?” She looked at one of the restaurants that had scorch marks where the firefighters had put out a small fire. “Was it over that?”
Brooks shook his head. “I don’t think so. We think the small fires happened after the fact. We won’t know until we get a look at the security cameras.” He pointed down the mall. “After they left the atrium, they went down that way.”
“
Shit.” To Rios it looked like something out of National Geographic. The bloody footprints marked a path straight down the mall, tracing out a path of destruction. There were more overturned kiosks, scattered shoes and clothes. Planters were knocked over, leaving piles of dirt and palm trees in the middle of the floor. Pieces of broken window glass were scattered around. And then there were bodies under sheets.
Lots of bodies.
The bodies seemed to be clustered near choke points at places where people had run into obstructions or had been too slow and just got overrun by the crowd.
Rios tried to imagine what could cause that kind of panic. He looked over at Simmons. She just shook her head.
They followed the path down the mall. Since most of the destruction was on the right side, the path stayed mainly on the left side of that wing. Forensic techs were scattered around taking photographs. Others were putting down numbered markers and gathering blood samples.
Rios looked into a beach wear shop on their left. Several clothes racks were overturned. He looked across the way into a jean shop and saw more overturned clothes racks leading from the back of the store. He pointed it out to Simmons.
“
Was there anyone on this side of the mall who didn’t join the crowd?” she asked Brooks.
“
When I first came in here, I didn’t see anyone.” He looked at the overturned racks. “It sure looks like they ran out of there in a hurry. We found three babies still in the strollers their mothers had left them in.”
“
You had mothers abandoning their children?” As a father, Rios couldn’t understand that. “I could see one, maybe. But three?”
Brooks pointed to the covered bodies and tracks of blood. “It’s a good thing they did. I can’t see a stroller surviving that.”
Rios shuddered. Bodies under sheets were one thing. The thought of crushed infants unsettled him to the core.
They kept walking. There were more bloody footprints and covered bodies at bottlenecks. Rios and Simmons noticed more knocked-over racks and spilled clothes inside the stores beyond the reach of the crowd.
Up ahead they could see the department store everyone had run into. Displays were smashed to pieces along the front. Makeup racks and jewelry cabinets were trampled underfoot. The perfume counter that faced the front of the mall was half caved in. Broken shards of glass stood out at wicked angles. He saw blood splattered over a white dress that looked like one his wife had.
Rios felt his mouth go dry when he saw what looked like a decapitated body. He was about to speak up when he realized it was just a mannequin. Nearby there were two other mannequins that had almost been flattened.
They entered the department store. The entire right side looked like a hurricane had gone through. Counters were smashed. Piles of clothing lay in heaps. Entire departments were leveled. And everywhere were footprints in trails of blood.
Brooks took them the long way through the relatively unscathed men’s section. Rios wondered why that side was spared and the other wasn’t? Was a panicked crowd as random as a tornado that destroyed two houses but left the one in the middle? Hopefully the security footage would have some answers.
“
This is where it gets pretty ugly,” said Brooks.
Now it gets ugly?
thought Rios. What had they just been looking at?
Brooks took a deep breath and pointed toward the escalators. “They all came in over there and tried to go up the down escalator.” Brooks took another breath. “I have no idea why. But three hundred people tried to go up there at once. People fell. Then more people fell on top of them. It got worse from there. They tripped on the up escalator, too. It’s almost as bad.”
The escalator looked like the chute from a slaughterhouse. Dozens of bodies were laid out near it in a row along the aisle. Jackets and dresses taken down from the racks were used to cover the heads.
Brooks looked down at the ground. “I was nearby when the call came in. I was one of the first ones here. We had to pull the bodies apart as quickly as we could. There were people suffocating under them. We found some survivors. And then ....” His voice cracked. He trailed off.
The blood drained from Rios’ cheeks. For the first time he noticed that Brooks was still in shock. He hadn’t realized how soon after the scene he had gotten there. As a detective, he’d become used to arriving after the body count had been tallied and not being someone responsible for trying to keep it from climbing.
Rios looked over at the lined-up bodies. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to arrive when they were piled on top of each other with people screaming while trying to claw their way from underneath. Just the thought of it made him want to gasp for air.
Ever the professional, Brooks continued. “There’s a stairwell at the far end. They’ve cleared the bodies and the wounded from there. It was a much smaller number of people than here but not a pretty sight. We’re still trying to sort out the storage room at that end.” He looked at Simmons and Rios for an answer. “There were over a hundred people trapped in a room smaller than my bathroom.” He looked at the escalator and shook his head.
Simmons spoke up. “I can understand panic. I can understand people following the pack. But why did everybody try to go up?” She pointed to the far end of the store where light was pouring in from two propped-open doors. “We’re on the ground floor. Who goes up unless there’s a fire?”
Brooks shrugged. “I guess they do if they’re chasing something.”
He led them to an elevator. The doors opened and two paramedics came rushing out pushing a stretcher with a middle-age woman whose head was covered in bloody bandages.
The second level was filled with people too hurt to be moved just yet and those with lighter injuries that could wait for medical treatment. Paramedics were using the mattresses in the bedding department to hold all the people.
Rios looked around the floor. He counted over a hundred people in various states of injury ranging from claw marks and sprains to what looked like broken arms and legs. Most of them were sitting or lying by themselves as medical workers moved around from person to person trying to figure out who needed the most help.
A fire department captain called over to them. “Over there.” He pointed to a cluster of mattresses with people lying on them with untreated wounds.
Rios remembered he was still holding on to his first aid kit. He followed Simmons as she ran to help the people the captain had signaled to. Until they had some answers, it felt good for him to be able to do something besides being a ghoulish spectator.
17
Mitchell tore off his ruined shirt and threw it into a corner. He looked at his reflection in the master bathroom mirror.
“
What’s wrong with me?” he asked as if he expected his reverse image to have the answers. On one side, the right-handed, frightened and confused version, on the other, the left-handed, confident one who knew what to do.
The sight of his own image only added to his sense of despair. There were claw marks on his chest and back. He had bruises he had no idea how he got. His hair was a sweaty mess of brown. He looked exactly like how people look in their mug shot photos.
Was this how people look after they are apprehended, or was falling apart so much what made them easy to spot and capture?
Mitchell turned the faucet and thanked Mike’s grandparents for not disconnecting the water. He splashed cold water on his face and smoothed back his hair. For a moment he didn’t feel quite like the state of constant panic he had been feeling before. He splashed more water on his face and then caught his first unhurried breath.
He turned the faucet off and then looked back in the mirror. His reflection had changed. He felt different. With his hair slicked back and no longer out of control, the effect the water had on relaxing the tension in his face and calming his burning cheeks, he didn’t look like a man in the middle of a panic attack.
He placed his palms on either side of the counter and brought his face in close to the mirror. The face he saw was more composed, less apprehensive. It was the face of someone who could figure out what to do next and manage whatever the world threw at him.
He was looking at Mitch. Not Mitchell. Mad Mitch, the man in control.
Part of it, he knew, was the trick of the sunlight coming through the window, giving his cheekbones and jaw a more masculine look, but he also knew that somewhere deep inside him was someone who wanted to survive. He’d seen horrific things that day. Even though a part of him just wanted to fall down and let the nightmare roll over him and bring everything to a close, something told him to keep running. Something told him that his life was worth fighting for. Fighting for. He repeated those words in his head.
Yes
, he decided,
he would fight to survive
. He’d never intentionally hurt someone, but if they got in his way then he’d have to go through them.