Awaken the Elements (Elemental Trilogy) (10 page)

             
The second elevator beeped, and Moss got out. “Hey! I dropped my pipe; anyone see it?” he asked.

             
“No, and hopefully you lost it!” Anatha yelled at her brother.

             
“I know there’s a store on the fourth floor that sells them,” Moss said, “But I like that pipe.”

             
“How did you drop it?” Autumn asked.

             
“I was sitting on the edge, and I kinda dropped it.”

             
“Well aren’t you smart,” Anatha said.

             
“Oh, give him a break. He just lost his friend,” Autumn said.

             
Rowan shook his head, “What on Earth have we gotten ourselves into?”

              “Trust me, I ask myself that every hour,” Hazel said.

              “She’s your friend,” Anatha said, patting Autumn on the shoulder.

             
Autumn went to her store and flopped on her makeshift bed, falling right to sleep. The others slept too. Some went quickly, and others took a while.  By four, no one in the mall was awake. They slept and dreamt of boy bands, zombies, and girls.

Chapter 6

              Autumn woke up covered in sweat with a scream stuck in her throat. She looked around the room. It was dim. Not too dark but still scary. She wrapped the blanket around her. The dream had really jolted her. In the dream she had witnessed the death of her family, and then herself. All those infected got to everyone before they made it to the mall. Her heart raced as she thought about it. She calmed herself down and over and over again told herself it was all a dream.

****

             
Mabon woke in his twin bed in the trailer with a jolt.  “Shit!”              

             
Rubbing his eyes, Aarawn looked over at him, “What?”

             
“I had a nightmare,” He said, sitting on the edge of the bed. He hated this goddamn trailer. He missed his own room.

             
Aarawn chuckled, “Figures, little cat.”

             
“Leave the cat out of this. Being so close to the mall is letting me see into Autumn’s mind.” He stood up, yawned, and walked over to the small window. “I don’t know who the people were in her dream, but I could feel she loved them. Which means they are likely her family,” he said and hung his head. “I want to be in that picture. It isn’t fair we didn’t get to be in their lives.”

             
“I understand,” Aarawn said, looking over, his eyebrow raised. “We might be able to use getting into their heads to our advantage. I just want to, you know, get closer to my sister.”

             
“Soon enough. The hardest part is waiting when we have them so close.”

             
He nodded. “I will wait, but if I do not get to see her after all this, I will force the meeting.”

****

             
Finally, the dream faded. Autumn had calmed down enough to finally lift her head from the pillows. Reaching over with her right hand, she searched the floor to find her watch. She grabbed it, bringing it up so she could she what time it was. The watch said five o’clock. She’d only had three hours of sleep.

             
There goes my beauty sleep,
she thought with a sigh.

             
She thought about trying to go back to sleep, but the dream made her forget that. Instead, she decided to get up and take a shower. She felt wide awake anyway. She could take a nap during the day if she got tired. There were some things she wanted to do before anyone else woke up.

One thing was getting her room in order. She looked around. She wanted to add some things
to make it homier, more comfortable. She thought of her apartment, decorated by Ryan. The guilt bubbled up, and she looked at the phone on the ground. She had yet to put it back together.

              She slipped into LS Denny’s and grabbed some clothes and a towel. After getting all the other stuff she needed, she left the store, making her way to the nearest shower. There were only two in the mall which was not going to work too well if everyone wanted to take a shower at the same time. The security office on the second level had the closest shower. There was one on level four, but it was on the other side from the elevators in the maintenance office right before you hit the stairs up to level five.

             
She got in the shower, and the hot water relaxed her. The dream, now gone, was just another thing she had discarded like most of her bad dreams. She thought about decorating her room. There were so many ways she could go with all the neat stuff, free for the taking.

             
Soon she was dressed and ready to inspect level two. No one was up but her as she walked around, looking into windows. She took the stuff she liked up to her room. She would rearrange it later. Right now she just wanted to get it all in the room. Down from her pillow store was a furniture store. She went over and tiptoed in. She was sure no one was using it as a room but wanted to be quiet just in case.

              There were some bookshelves that would come in handy. She planned on doing a lot of reading in the next five years. She found a neat little, black, wooden night table. She grabbed the table, since it wasn’t that heavy. Her curls fell in her face, and with her hands full, she had to blow them out of the way.

             
She put the table down and used the blue scrunchy around her wrist to tie up most of her wild curls. It matched her outfit which was boot-cut blue jeans with silver stars on the pockets and a blue shirt with silver stars across the front. She shook her head, making sure the scrunchy was secure.

             
As she went back for a few of the smaller bookcases, she noticed some lamps. Those would look great around her area. Making another trip, she grabbed two of the lamps. They were about as tall as her. In LS Denny’s she found a great CD stereo system. It was one of those remote, five disk changers. There was a twenty-five disk too, but five was just perfect for her. It also had a hook up for her iPod which went everywhere with her. She needed some CD’s now. The sun was finally up, and she thought she could hear the kids playing up on the fourth floor.

             
She ran back to LS Denny’s to find some music as well as a TV and maybe a DVD or Blu-ray player too. Their CD selection was okay, and she found some she wanted. She then picked out a TV and Blu-ray player. Excited, she chose a bunch of TV shows on Blu-ray which would keep her busy for at least a little while.

              Turning on the CD player, she started setting up her room. The Melon Pops came on. She loved the Melon Pops. The band had broken up the previous year, but they would always be her favorite rock band. The music played loudly, just the way she liked it, but the Melon Pops had their softer side too. A bald-headed god, the lead singer’s music touched her.

             
She had made a pretty good living space of her own between the racks of towering pillows. She stood there staring at the bins of pillows for a while, hands on hips. Why would anyone have a store just for pillows? She shook her head.

              “Autumn? Are you in here?” She quietly waited; hoping whoever it was would go away. “Come on, you have to be here.”

             
“What?” Autumn finally said over the music. She walked over to the radio, turning it down.

             
“It’s about time. Couldn’t hear me over the radio?” Anatha asked.

             
Autumn shook her head. “No, just didn’t want to hear.”

             
Rude this morning
, she thought. She looked around her cousin’s area. “You need something to sit on.”

             
“I wasn’t planning on visitors so early. Rude, I know. By the way, you’re up early.”

             
Anatha looked at the watch she had lifted from Lears. It was going on nine. “I would say the same about you, but you’re used to getting up early.” She leaned against one of the pillow bins.

              “I don’t miss working one bit,” she said, but her thoughts went to Ryan, and she shook her head. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I want to get this finished before noon.”

             
She felt how tired Autumn was. Why would she be so tired? Unless
  
“Okay. How long have you been up?” She sensed Autumn building her mental walls.

             
“You need to stay the fuck out of my head! Do you sense me ever going into your head? Fuck! I don’t like it, and you have no fucking right. Now please go away!”

              “Howard comes in today,” Anatha said before leaving.

              “Shit. I totally forgot,” she said.

             
“They should be here about two your dad said.”

             
She nodded. “Thanks for the reminder.”

             
“Are they coming up inside the garage?”

             
Autumn had heard her dad talking about that yesterday. “They’re supposed to. There are too many zombies down at the main entrances. So far, the entrances in the garage are okay. A few zombies but not many.”

             
“How did you find out about the entrances in the garage? You didn’t go out and look, did you?”

             
“Your brother went out.”

              The shock on Anatha’s face was almost comical. “Moss went out? That little shit!” Autumn didn’t need to tap in to her mind to know how angry she was. It filled her head with red lightning. “I’m going to go talk to him about this right now.” She stormed off.

             
Autumn looked at her mound of pillows and suddenly felt very tired. She decided to lie down. About five minutes later she was deep in a dreamless sleep. She slept for about two hours, unaware of the things going on around her.

****

             
Anatha stormed right up to the fourth floor where her brother was getting high with some of the others.

             
“Hey, An.” Moss said, greeting her by blowing a big puff of smoke in her face.

             
“Don’t hey me,” She smacked the joint out of his hand. “How could you go out there with the zombies?”

             
“Calm down. I volunteered to go out.” He bent over, picking up his joint.

             
“Calm down? You do something like that again, and I’ll kick your ass. You might be bigger, but I’m older. I will hurt you if I have to.  Do you hear me?”

             
He nodded. “Yeah, sure. Want a hit?” Moss held out the joint.

             
Anatha gave him a dirty look. “You know I don’t do that crap.” She walked away, having said what she came to say. On her way out, she bumped into her dad.

             
“Anatha, great to see you up. Come up top, I want to show you something,” He told her.

             
What now
, she thought but said, “Sure, Dad.”

             
Following him up to the roof, she noticed her stepdad checking out things on the fifth floor. On the roof, Anatha saw that Bud was sitting up there by himself. He sat by the edge with a gun and binoculars by his chair. It looked like something she would see in a spy movie.
We take out the president at noon,
she found herself thinking.

             
“Look.” Her dad handed her a set of binoculars.

             
“At what?” She asked, looking through them.

              “For Howard. You’re in charge now,” her dad said.

             
She put the binoculars down. “What?”

             
“You’re on watch,” Bud replied. He got up, grabbing his beer. “We’re going down to make sure which exit they should be able to get in.”

             
“What a dirty trick,” Anatha said, mumbling.

             
“Have fun, hon,” Her dad said as he left the building.

             
Anatha watched them leave. Whatever. She didn’t have anything planned anyway. She knew what to do to kill some time. She picked up one of the rifles. She aimed down at a scrawny infected male. It had on nothing but a pair of pants, and she saw the nasty greenish scar on its arm which had turned it into a walking infection. Aiming for its head, she pulled the trigger. Missed. She tried again, hitting it this time.  Now he could rest in peace. She felt a ping of something in her chest, perhaps some kind of guilt for killing the infected person. But they weren’t really people anymore. Once the infection dies out, they would just be body parts and nothing more. Four years seemed excessive for the infection to run its course.

             
Aiming at some of the other zombie-like people, she started shooting.  She’d love to meet the person or persons responsible for the virus outbreak. She wasn’t sure what she would do, but she did know it wouldn’t be an easy death. Killing some of the infected didn’t change anything.  There were more staggering over to the mall, but it did make her feel better.

****

              Envy and Ivy Lee walked around the third floor talking. They stopped in front of the Pillow Shoppe and looked in. “Autumn’s room,” Envy said.

             
Ivy Lee nodded, “Yeah. She picked a good place too.” They continued walking, stopping in front of the music store two shops down.

             
“Do you hear something?” Envy asked.

             
Ivy Lee nodded. Music. The sound of a piano with acoustic guitar came floating out of the entranceway to the music store. They peeked inside. Rowan looked at them as he stopped playing the guitar.

             
“Can I help you?”

             
“We wanted to know where the music was coming from,” Envy said.