Free The Mall by S L Grey

under malls.
    ‘You really believe that?’
    ‘Sure,’ I say. Fortunately lying is one of my strong points.
    ‘And the text messages?’
    ‘Some psycho hacker. Probably works at Vodacom. Has access to customer accounts. Must be.’
    ‘I’m not with Vodacom.’
    ‘Whatever. Something like that. I’m just saying.’ It’s clear that he doesn’t believe me, but what other explanation is there? None that either of us wants to dwell
on right now.
    ‘So, what’s the plan?’ he says, trying to sound game.
    ‘If the kid’s here we need to find him. That’s top priority. He could be in serious shit if he bumps into a nut-job like that freak of a woman back there. There’s only
one other way he could have gone.’ I point to the far end of the lot. It stretches back into the gloom, and it’s impossible to make out any details at that end, thanks to that same
disturbing pitch-blackness we met in the dead-end stairwell. ‘And for that we need a proper light. Any ideas?’
    ‘Hey! That old woman’s got a paraffin lamp in her stuff. I saw it when she was getting out the food.’
    ‘She’s never going to give it to us, and we won’t be able to nick it without her noticing.’
    ‘Then we’ll have to trade.’
    ‘With what? Apart from my phone and your crappy watch she didn’t want any of our stuff.’
    ‘Yeah. But what about the other stuff?’
    ‘What other stuff?’
    ‘You know.’
    ‘Oh fuck off, Dan.’
    But there’s no other option.
    ‘That thing stinks!’
    ‘Trust me,’ Dan sighs, ‘if the old witch had a torch I’d much rather have taken that.’
    Oily black smoke billows out of the top of the lamp, which looks like one of those old-school oil lanterns you see in BBC adaptations of Jane Austen or whatever. It clearly hasn’t been
cleaned for a while and the fuel smells more like petrol than paraffin. Still, at least it’s providing enough of a glow so that we can walk without braining ourselves on the jagged pipes and
concrete pillars that loom out of the darkness every so often. And I guess it was cheap at the price. I’d given the hag the ketamine in exchange, and I was only going to sell that on anyway.
It’ll probably do her and her cronies some good.
    We’re making slow progress, but even so, the parking lot seems to be stretching on further than it has any right to. But at least there’s no debris scattered around, just the
occasional loose wall panel spilling the severed worms of thick conduit wires. A rat scuttles past my foot, and it sounds like it’s dragging something fairly heavy behind it. Thankfully Dan
doesn’t wave the light its way. Neither of us really wants to know the details of that particular scenario.
    ‘We’ll have to find an exit or something soon,’ Dan says. ‘This thing’s getting almost too hot to hold.’
    I unwrap my hoodie from around my waist and hand it to him, and he balls it around his hand. ‘Thanks,’ he says.
    We shuffle along for a few more metres and then Dan stops abruptly.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Look!’
    To our left, I can make out the shadowy edges of a wide concrete ramp, which presumably leads down into the deep darkness of the floor below.
    ‘Oh great,’ I say. ‘Down another level. What the fuck were they thinking going down this deep?’
    Dan doesn’t answer.
    As we get closer, a large laminated sign that’s stuck onto the wall in front of us emerges. Dan holds the lamp up to it, and the red plastic letters shine in the lamp’s glow. He
reads it aloud: ‘“Level X. Authorised personnel only past this point. Danger; Gevaar; Ingozi.”’
    ‘Level X? That’s like ten or something in Roman numerals, isn’t it?’
    ‘Hang on, there’s something else written below.’
    He waves the light along the edge of the sign, but the print is too small for me to make out the words.
    ‘Well?’ I say. ‘What does it say?’
    ‘You don’t want to know.’
    ‘Of course I bloody well want to know! What does it say?’
    ‘It