Free The Mall by S L Grey Page B

low-budget horror films. Every
so often there’s a sudden burst of deep, humourless laughter and the rumbling murmur of what has to be a large crowd of people. But it’s not just the eerie music and voices that are
holding us back. There’s another one of those fucked-up laminated signs stuck on the door:
    Patrons are advised to enter the market at their own risk. Management will not be responsible for injuries resulting from choking on small parts, exsanguinations, unlicensed
     amputations, theft, transplants, broken pointy bits of glass or death.
    ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Dan. We have a choice here. We can try and go back the way we came and run into that… creature, or we can go through this door. But I’m telling
you, I really don’t have a good feeling about this.’
    Dan rubs both hands over his face, and holds my gaze for a long second. ‘The message said something about market day. This is the place…’ I’m pretty sure that the fear
in his eyes is mirrored perfectly in mine. ‘Christ, Rhoda,’ he says. ‘Let’s just do it.’
    He holds out his hand, and, without hesitating, I take it.
    He opens the door and we step through.

chapter 8
    DANIEL
    Everything’s white. Rhoda closes the door behind us and we lean back against it, waiting for our eyes to acclimatise. Gradually details start to emerge from the
snowsheer glare. Powder-white floor, powder-white walls, a hall the size of, say, your average church or Pep store, but featureless, just a square box with glaring white floors and walls. Bright
spotlights set into the powder-white ceiling like polka dots pierce down at us. We can hear the same crazed hurdy-gurdy music as we did outside, but now more distant, smothered and forced, like a
live band is playing from inside the walls, its members suffocating in the concrete as they play. Its volume shifts in waves, coming up and then receding as if we’ve imagined it, before
fading in again. There are markings stripped out in silver duct tape on the floor, mapped-out boundaries in two dimensions tracing a convoluted design. Labels chalked out on the floor –
illuminator, apothecary, tavern, weaver – make it clear that this is the layout of the market. But there’s nothing here.
    ‘Is this it?’ I ask. ‘Are we supposed to pretend, or what?’
    Rhoda stalks around the hall, leaving dusty shoe prints on the floor as she goes. She tries the door.
    ‘Fuck. It’s stuck.’ She pulls the handle as hard as she can. ‘We’re stuck.’
    She checks the walls, inspects the floor. ‘Fuck,’ she says from the other side of the hall. Her voice echoes in the blank space. When the music ebbs, it’s dead quiet in here. I
can hear my own breathing.
    My phone beeps.
    
    Holy shit. These people are really watching us. Right now. This isn’t some random spam. These people are genuinely toying with us. Who are they and what the fuck do they want? A vivid
picture of my mom at home comes into my head, panicking about where I am. I see her on the phone, crying to my uncle down in Cape Town. I see my bedroom. I want to go home. I want to hug my mom,
tell her I’m okay. I want to be okay. I want to wake up now.
    I drop the phone, put my hands over my face and let out an incoherent sob. It has to be forceful enough to wake me up. You know, just like when you’re about to die in a dream, you wake
yourself up.
    Rhoda joins me, picks up the phone and reads the message. ‘Christ. Evidently this is not it. We’re late.’
    Beep beep. Beep beep.
    Rhoda fishes out her phone, looks at it. ‘It’s yours again.’
    I open the message.
    
    ‘Just tell us how to get out of here!’ I scream at the ceiling. There must be a camera or something. ‘We just want to go. I don’t give a fuck what you’re