Read Online Magic Time: Ghostlands by Robert Charles Wilson, Marc Scott Zicree - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert Charles Wilson, Marc Scott Zicree
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had led him that first night after the Change, where Cal had found his sword. You seemed pretty damn materialistic back then, he reflected, but said nothing; he was just glad Goldie was talking again.
The sign towered over them at the head of the vast parking lot, proclaiming GATEWAY MALL , THE FUN PLACE ! But it was clear that any and all fun had long since departed; had departed in fact—if the peeling paint, ruts in the asphalt, and cracked neon were any indication—months or even years before the Change. ’Twasn’t Beauty killed the Beast, Cal thought, it was the mercurial shift of economics and population growth and buying patterns.
Despite this, a scattering of RVs and dusty, pitted cars dotted the parking lot. Cal knew he’d have to dispatch Colleen and Doc with a contingent to investigate these, make certain there were no surprises lurking within.
The mall was a cavernous and intimidating space, but one well out of the wind, and readily defensible.
By now, Olifiers and his group had come up beside them. The big man peered through the glass doors uneasily. He swallowed hard, looking at all that dark possibility.
His trepidation brought a recollection to Cal of a movie he’d seen ages ago when he was eight and staying overnight at Howard Turner’s house. His own mother forbid having a set in their house (“it does to the brain what candy does to the teeth”) and certainly would have forbid him watching a film like this, which was on the whole just exactly why he was doing it, despite the fact that it scared the crap out ofhim and he couldn’t sleep without a night-light for months afterward.
It was the only film he’d ever seen set in a mall. A mall that was dead, literally, and overrun with the walking dead.
The Dawn of the Dead.
Funny, Cal realized, how since then he’d actually fought the living dead—reanimated grunters that had attacked the four of them outside the Wishart house in Boone’s Gap. But that event hadn’t scared him half as much; he’d just focused on the business of severing the rotted obscenities’ arms and legs and getting inside that damn nightmare of a house.
But this movie, geez…
The living-dead clown, the living-dead nun. Falling all over themselves on the escalators.
Then the cycle gang showed up, and the atrocities they committed made the ravenous dead pale by comparison.
Men were the real monsters, they always had been.
Wisdom could come from such unlikely sources….
“We’ll bed down here for the night; post sentries,” Cal told Olifiers.
“Whatever you say, Chief,” Olifiers answered, and led his people inside.
As the prairie moon rose into weighted clouds and the smell of coming snow filled the air, Cal instructed Goldie to summon up his patented and reliable (one of the few tricks he could do that was) spheres of light to illumine a path into the bowels of the mall, where a safe camp could be made.
Goldie guided his charges deeper into the enormous open space. It was like an airplane hangar; their hesitant footsteps echoed into the void. He noted their open astonishment as he formed the roiling balls of light—glowing bowling balls made of fog and St. Elmo’s Fire—and thought to himself, It’s a handy trick, but while their mouths say thank you their eyes definitely say creeped out.
The Food Court on the second level—near the extinct escalators, allowing quick access to higher or lower levels ona moment’s notice—proved a suitable location, if one mockingly devoid of food.
It recalled to Goldman a favorite joke he’d had as a boy—he’d pulled it a thousand times, or at least wanted to; standing midway on a stopped escalator frantically calling to the bemused shoppers below, “Help, I’m stuck on this escalator!”
Of course, he never really asked for help, not when he’d been a kid with those ludicrously brilliant parents, their souls like chalk and “empathy” merely a word in their universitized (hell yes, it was a word
The sign towered over them at the head of the vast parking lot, proclaiming GATEWAY MALL , THE FUN PLACE ! But it was clear that any and all fun had long since departed; had departed in fact—if the peeling paint, ruts in the asphalt, and cracked neon were any indication—months or even years before the Change. ’Twasn’t Beauty killed the Beast, Cal thought, it was the mercurial shift of economics and population growth and buying patterns.
Despite this, a scattering of RVs and dusty, pitted cars dotted the parking lot. Cal knew he’d have to dispatch Colleen and Doc with a contingent to investigate these, make certain there were no surprises lurking within.
The mall was a cavernous and intimidating space, but one well out of the wind, and readily defensible.
By now, Olifiers and his group had come up beside them. The big man peered through the glass doors uneasily. He swallowed hard, looking at all that dark possibility.
His trepidation brought a recollection to Cal of a movie he’d seen ages ago when he was eight and staying overnight at Howard Turner’s house. His own mother forbid having a set in their house (“it does to the brain what candy does to the teeth”) and certainly would have forbid him watching a film like this, which was on the whole just exactly why he was doing it, despite the fact that it scared the crap out ofhim and he couldn’t sleep without a night-light for months afterward.
It was the only film he’d ever seen set in a mall. A mall that was dead, literally, and overrun with the walking dead.
The Dawn of the Dead.
Funny, Cal realized, how since then he’d actually fought the living dead—reanimated grunters that had attacked the four of them outside the Wishart house in Boone’s Gap. But that event hadn’t scared him half as much; he’d just focused on the business of severing the rotted obscenities’ arms and legs and getting inside that damn nightmare of a house.
But this movie, geez…
The living-dead clown, the living-dead nun. Falling all over themselves on the escalators.
Then the cycle gang showed up, and the atrocities they committed made the ravenous dead pale by comparison.
Men were the real monsters, they always had been.
Wisdom could come from such unlikely sources….
“We’ll bed down here for the night; post sentries,” Cal told Olifiers.
“Whatever you say, Chief,” Olifiers answered, and led his people inside.
As the prairie moon rose into weighted clouds and the smell of coming snow filled the air, Cal instructed Goldie to summon up his patented and reliable (one of the few tricks he could do that was) spheres of light to illumine a path into the bowels of the mall, where a safe camp could be made.
Goldie guided his charges deeper into the enormous open space. It was like an airplane hangar; their hesitant footsteps echoed into the void. He noted their open astonishment as he formed the roiling balls of light—glowing bowling balls made of fog and St. Elmo’s Fire—and thought to himself, It’s a handy trick, but while their mouths say thank you their eyes definitely say creeped out.
The Food Court on the second level—near the extinct escalators, allowing quick access to higher or lower levels ona moment’s notice—proved a suitable location, if one mockingly devoid of food.
It recalled to Goldman a favorite joke he’d had as a boy—he’d pulled it a thousand times, or at least wanted to; standing midway on a stopped escalator frantically calling to the bemused shoppers below, “Help, I’m stuck on this escalator!”
Of course, he never really asked for help, not when he’d been a kid with those ludicrously brilliant parents, their souls like chalk and “empathy” merely a word in their universitized (hell yes, it was a word
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