Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Forty-Three

The shrieks were earsplitting. As parents yanked their children to the tile and wrapped them tight, I lay on the ground with palms pressed over my ears. We were supposed to pretend to be regular customers—dumb, horrified—and this was no stretch for me. I might have been screaming myself.

A woman behind me whispered, "Why is this happening?"

I glanced back. A jar of pickles had shattered, its juices running into the pants of her young son.

"Don't move," she told him. "You'll roll into the glass!"

I crawled closer and picked up jagged chunks of glass from the briny pools. "Let's stay down. Probably it'll be over soon."

But the boy kept squirming. The woman smothered him with both arms, which he only squirmed more against, both of them sobbing and sniveling.

I took the boy's fingers and raised them into our shared sightline. I looked directly at him with the stillest expression I could manage, my hands caressing but firm—a calming mechanism that had worked with Karen. (Thought not often with Zach.)

The woman repeated, "Why is this happening?"

In my periphery, I saw Piper look our way. Her lips were tight. Was she fighting regret? Peeved at Josiah going off script?

I wished Durwood would rush in and take Josiah, end this helter skelter. The plan had been to stop Josiah before he could hurt anybody, but he'd acted too quickly.

Up on the podium, Josiah gripped the microphone. "Are we all feeling the savings now? Who's ready to reconsider their life? To think deeply about the impact their choices have on the rest of humanity?"

Four security guards converged on the podium, their steps hunched and deliberate. Shoppers watched their blue and yellow forms advancing from the floor with a measure of hope.

Josiah's red eyes found Piper in the crowd. She gave a subtle nod.

He reached into his cargo shorts, and a twitch in his sinewy forearm betrayed a tap on his remote.

Low, brittle noises began. The guards spasmed and clutched their sides where tasers were attached to their belts.

"That's a warning zap." Josiah pivoted, wide-eyed, addressing them all. "We can go hotter, baby! We can go a whole lot hotter."

The security guards stood or knelt in place.

The man who'd lost his ear had recovered to his feet. Stopping the bloody side of his head with his vest, he now staggered toward Josiah. He was broad-shouldered, possibly a college athlete. A patch on his vest read Pasternacky.

"You're the despicable one," he grunted, rushing the leader of the Mice, managing to knock him down.

Josiah bared his teeth in a hyena's grin and hurled himself at the man. As they grappled, I wished Pasternacky would go for Josiah's remote, but he seemed unaware of it.

They fought for a minute before Hatch, with what might have been a reluctant air, stepped in to subdue Pasternacky.

"DO NOT," Josiah screamed, "MESS WITH ME!"

His white hair whipping about, he scanned the floor around him. He spun several times in search of...what? The only thing he found was the severed ear, which he snatched up and held close to his mouth.

"Do not mess with me!" he repeated, and when nobody reacted—the ear didn't project his voice through the PA system—bit hard into the ear.