Mall Rats (reposted)

September 8th, she rappelled

No one bashed his head in when he left the room so Matthew swallowed his paranoia and pretended that he wasn't waiting to get jumped by a band of killers that Mona claimed wouldn't be cannibals.

Well technically she said that she wasn't a cannibal but that could also be a lie because she also said she was alone which was most definitely a lie if he ever heard one. He'd heard a lie or two before.

"So," Matthew asked they picked their way through the overturned hallway, "How did you get from the roof so quick? Cause if you tell me you jumped I will call bullshit."

And possibly run away. Maybe Matthew hadn't been jumped yet because the other guy was the only one and they needed the time to get downstairs. Maybe the next arrow was for him and waiting right at the end of the hallway.

Mona smiled, a little amused by him it seemed. Good, if she relaxed around him maybe he'd have a better chance to escape her and run if he had to.

"I didn't jump," she told him pushing on a door that groaned and then screeched as it swung. Not a good place to sneak in or out.

"You could call it more of a controlled fall though," she continued, exiting the hall and pointed to the wall outside its frame.

Matthew had another, will I get hit over the head here now, moment as he left the safety of the hallway - Mona holding the door open and then letting it close behind him loudly - and followed the direction of her finger. A series of ropes and hooks climbed the wall and then the spaces between then that signified each of the individual levels.

Matthew took it all in, not understanding at first, and then looked by at Mona. This time, undistracted by her looks and her height and her life saving capabilities, he noticed the harness wrapped around her lower half.

He lost his words. He looked between her and the pulley system or whatever the hell it was called. All too suddenly she could be alone but also impossibly so. Because if she was then she shot down zombies about to eat his ass, scaled a whole building attached to a series of ropes, fling a huge desk out of the way and then manhandled him into said building. And she looked completely regular about it, like it was no big deal!

He didn't want to say something stupid like 'Oh, I guess you really are alone' so he said something stupid in a different way.

"That's freaking radical."

He blamed his attempt at parkour. The smack to his head reverted him back to his tweens.

Mona's eyes widened.

Matthew wished he could take it back. Now, on top of knowing that he was loser who got chased halfway across town by a horde of zombies he couldn't escape on his own, she was going to think that he was weird and lame. He opened his mouth to take it all back when she smiled.

"You bet. Radical as hell. I like that."

Matthew smiled back hesitantly. He felt a little bad but also a little bit validated. Bad because he was waiting for Mona to turn on him when she was being open, honest and welcoming. Validated because radical never caught on with his friends. Only is grandmother, who oddly shared a name with the woman before him, appreciated the phrase and demanded that she always be referred to as such. It pained his heart a little to think about it.

Maybe it was a Mona thing.

"Anyway, you're probably hungry right?" she asked, beginning to move forward again.

Food. The reason he had gotten into this mess in the first place. The need to eat being the reason he was almost eaten. It's stupidly poetic. And that damn can opener. He had to fulfil his promise to toss it off of something high. The roof would do just fine.

"Ugh, yeah, I was actually-"

"Cool, I can hook you up," she interrupted, unlistening.

"But wait," Matthew ran forward to catch up, this time with only a thin fog of his previous paranoia hanging in the back of his mind. "Hey wait, this is your stuff. I can't just come and take your stuff."

It was her stuff. She said it herself. This was her mall. And if she was the only resident like she said and he was finally starting to believe then that meant everything was hers and that she had spent all this time looking after it. She had to be protecting it well if she was the only person here and everything was completely fine.

She waved him away from her face. Matthew didn't realize he got so close and backed off a little. So much for her possibly being a killer if he could drop boundaries so quick because he saw some ropes hanging off the side of a wall. He could stand to be a little more cautious.

"It's only my stuff because no one else stays."

Now that was morbid. Matthew opened his mouth to question.

"Look," she sighed, "and listen I guess or don't. I'm not going to kick you out. I never do. You can stay here as long as you like. Maybe even forever. And while you're here everything is your stuff too. The mall is mines only 'cause I was the one that found it and stayed. How does that make it mines?"

Matthew slowed, staring at Mona's retreating back.

She was offering him a place to stay? Permanently? She knew it all of five seconds. He could be a killer, a murderer, a anything. He could be the cannibal. Stupidly he caught back up and told her as much.

"Then I'll kick your ass and kill you first."

Matthew didn't doubt she could.

"Why though?" he asked.

She, a complete stranger, offering him, a complete stranger, another chance at life after already giving him one. She only knew his name and that could have been a lie.

"We're all just trying to survive, right? How are we gonna defeat these zombies and get back to our feet if there's no one around to do it with, huh? Humans are stupid selfish and it's stupidly idiotic to be fighting with each other right now. Banding together and forming community was how they got through the first outbreak. This is no different. I have more supplies than I'll probably ever need. Giving some to others won't hurt me."

She seemed to realize she was rambling and stopped with a flush.

"So yeah," she began again after a breath in which Matthew stupidly just stared at her, awed by her impassioned words, "if you're hunger let's go grab some stuff and let's eat. I could never use up all of this shit on my own if I tried."

"Yeah, I'm hungry."

Matthew placed a hand over his stomach. That stupid can of peas almost killed him. And he wouldn't be able to eat them in some form of stupid retribution. He wanted to fume.

The least he could do is eat something better and be alive as revenge. 

Hi Stephenelle! :-P