Read Online From the Indie Side by Indie Side Publishing - Free Book Online

another parked car and then
a third. From the backseat, Justin had become livelier, laughing at
the comical way his body bumped around.
    “Daddy never does that,” he said. “Again,
again, again!”
    “Not now. Not on purpose, anyway.” Her words
sounded slurred and her mind felt foggy. “Got all your plastic
on?”
    “Uh-huh,” he answered. “But I don’t know how
to make eyeballs.”
    “Push a finger through the plastic.” She
heard the thin sound of plastic stretching and popping. The car hit
something again. But it wasn’t another parked car. They’d hit the
concrete curb separating the asphalt from the mall’s entrance.
They’d made it. All at once, Emily thought she was going to begin
crying.
    “A hundred steps,” she said aloud. “A hundred
steps to the doors.” A small fact she’d learned only because she
and her girlfriends had counted them out one afternoon after they’d
grown bored. She stopped then and thought maybe she could drive
over the curb—drive up to the doors. The bollards , she
remembered. Stumpy concrete legs sprouting up through the pavement
like guardian statues. They’d been installed after the last
hurricane, keeping the cars off the sidewalk. She couldn’t see
them, but they were there.
    “Are you ready, Justin?”
    “I’m ready,” he answered. “But where is your
costume?” Emily grabbed the plastic bags and stretched one over her
left arm, grimacing when pain knifed from deep inside her. She
grabbed another bag, pulling it up her other arm, punching a hole
for her hand. More pain that threatened to make her black out. The
inside of the car was turning over, and for a moment she couldn’t
remember why they were at the mall. Dizzy, she cradled her head.
Their time was short.
    “Emily?” she heard. “Let’s go, Emily. I wanna
see Dad.”
    “The water,” she slurred. “Cover your head
with the plastic, we’re going.” Opening a bottle, she dumped it
over her head, pushing down her hair. The cold water woke her up.
Her long red tresses fell flat, covering her face.
    Soon her feet were outside and the salty fog
captured her lungs. The condensation on the car’s handle burned
instantly. She ignored it, opened Justin’s door, and sucked in the
car’s air.
    “Take a deep breath, and hold it as long as
you can.”
    “Hold it?”
    “Try holding your breath, okay? On
three.”
    “On three? But I’m scared.”
    “I am too. Dad will be in there.”
    Justin reached up, clutching his sister’s
neck.
    “One… two… three!”
    Emily began counting as she walked toward the
mall’s tall glass doors. This was one walk she could do with her
eyes shut. A straight shot. One hundred steps from the curb to the
doors—eyes open or closed.
    By the twentieth step, the air had leached
through her wet hair, but she pushed forward, stretching her gait.
Tears were streaming down her face as her eyes tried desperately to
wash the poison burning them. Justin’s hands were loosening,
falling away from her.
    “Hold on,” she coughed, hearing raspy mucous
rattle deep in her throat. Blood continued to fill her mouth, and
by the sixtieth step, the wooziness weighing on her head was more
of a threat than the poisonous fog. The strength in her legs was
failing, and her feet became heavy. She gripped her brother, and
Justin wrapped his arms and legs tighter, complaining in her ear
that it hurt to breathe. And before she could answer him, a flash
of lightning filled her eyes. They’d crashed into the tall glass
doors, bouncing backward.
    A sudden warmth spread over her middle and
dripped down her arms. It was liquid and runny, going cold almost
at once. The heavy flow continued and she thought that she’d
started bleeding, or maybe Justin was bleeding.
    “I’m sorry,” Justin cried, squirming. He’d
peed, and she thought that the fog burns on her arm oddly felt a
little better.
    “It’s okay, buddy. We’re here, anyway,” she
croaked, hugging his little body as he shook