Mall Rats (reposted)

September 8th, Alone

Matthew tried to make it make sense but couldn't. He wasn't the guy for maths or quickness but things weren't adding up and he needed to figure it out fast.

This girl, seriously, wanted him to believe that she was here alone?

"The person shooting, on the roof?" he asked because that was the most logical thing to cling to. The girl couldn't be on the roof and down here at the same time. "There's no way that can be -"

"Me, yeah," she interrupted like it should make sense, but it didn't.

There were four floors between the archer and the ground. No one could just jump down and be fine.

Matthew blinked.

He hadn't given a thought to the identity of the mysterious person on the roof. Man or woman, it didn't matter. Between the horde and pile driving face first into the floor, more than once, there hadn't been the time. But now, as he stared at the short blonde before him, it shamed him a little to admit that maybe he had been expecting some grown, rugged man with a crossbow and scuffed boots because that was always how they looked in the movies. But Mona was young, looked like she had a decent shower recently, and sure she had the scuffed boots but she definitely wasn't the older, beat your face in type that Matthew would have not been surprised to run into.

She shrugged.

Well, he wasn't about to scratch the beat your face in off his list yet.

"You?"

She nodded.

"Wow."

"Anyone can shoot some arrows if they tried hard enough."

Matthew couldn't shoot an arrow for shit. He never tried but he bet he'd suck.

"Now. Come on. This way too close to outside. Let's move."

"But." Matthew stopped and then continued. "But, you were just on the roof. How'd you even?"

He was still trying to put it all together in his head. This girl, the self-proclaimed sole resident of this mall, just saved his tail. She somehow shot zombies clean from five storeys up and then she did what? Jumped down? Tossed about what had to be a fifty pound desk and yanked him around like a rag doll. It wasn't adding up.

Matthew couldn't even shoot his gun at an unmoving target without difficulty. She wanted him to believe that she was the only one here. For what? An ambush? Were her guys waiting outside that door with guns and weapons. Were they going to eat him? Kill him? Do what to him exactly? He'd exit the door to a blow to the head most likely.

She looked up and smiled. Despite himself, Matthew's heart went through the roof of his mouth. He clenched his jaw so it wouldn't fall out of his face. This was not the time to be thrown by a pretty girl.

"Follow me, away from outside and the zombies, and I'll show you."

Matthew nodded dumbly. He was showing his ass. Anything she and whatever guys she hung with, because this story of being alone had to be garbage for him to let his guard down, he probably deserved because he was going to follow her. What else could he do? Go back outside?

She moved first, jumping off the desk and pushing past him to the exit, high stepping to avoid toppled items.

"Oh," she proclaimed as if she remembered it suddenly. She swung in between the doorframe and looked back at him.

"I won't eat you," she said, "If you're worried about it, don't. Human flesh ain't my thing."

Matthew followed, pretending she hadn't just hit one of his biggest concerns on the head. He'd never encountered cannibals himself, at least not that he knew, but there were rumors. Bad ones. Entire communities that banded together when food ran low. Surviving off of whoever they could find, dead or alive. Human or zombie. It was sickening to think.

In the threshold between the office and the hallway Matthew hesitated. Whether due to an instinct or fear of being knocked out by a swinging bag he glanced back to the door to the outside. The sight sent him trembles up him back. His nails dug into the frame.

A coldness spread in his stomach as he thought of him with his back against that van. That hot, rusty van.

He really had almost done it. He had been ready. He had almost fought and died out there. Those zombies would have killed him. He knew it then but he really knew it now. His gun didn't have enough bullets. His body not enough stamina. He was alive, he was in this room right now walking further into safety, because Mona or one of her band had been on that roof and chosen to shoot that arrow.

The room swam before his eyes. He felt the breath coming from his chest. The trembling kept then it intensified.

"Hey!"

He would have passed out. He have freaked out. If Mona hadn't called back Matthew would have done something that wasn't answer her and leave the room behind.

The trembling isolated to his hands so he stuck them into his pockets and flexed them in and out of fists. It calmed but didn't stop. That was good enough.