Self Destructing Messenger

#30 - The Malling

I am so sorry.
-DM

Azalea took the stairs two and three at a time, it was enough to keep the voice in her head at bay. While there were faster ways, she didn't want to get there faster. No she wanted to be last on the scene, after mall security or whoever. Let them take a stab at whatever it was first. Saving people was for heroes. She was merely a hostage to migraines.

She hit the third floor and heard fast clicks behind her. Hunter had caught up and was now racing past her up the next set of escalators. The blonde considered calling him back but didn't. Fluffy had a mission. He had his own voice to follow now or so she assumed. She ran over to the edge of the level to see how far Cayce was behind her. He wasn't. She scanned. Elaine, Gia and the Man in Black were together but no lime green mohawk in sight. The elevator. S@#$. He'd make it before her. How dare he be logical? She picked up the pace.

The food court did not take up the whole floor space that every other level of the mall did. It was a tiny loft in a giant building with eleven tightly packed food services and a few lesser stands dead center with tables and seats clustered all around. Truly one of the worst designs for such a grand shopping center Cayce had ever come across. It was always packed with bodies. And now, as the elevator doors opened, it was still packed with bodies... only no one was eating.

Acrid air fought for his attention and lost among the dense piles of deceased people. The lighting was normally a bit low because most of the mall relied on the skylights for illumination but it was even worse now. Many of the fluorescents in the food stands were blacked out with only a few sparking to life intermittently. A liquid rushed inside the elevator, lapping at his shoes. Everything, everyone was wet, covered in something that looked like amniotic fluid. Cayce fought to keep his stomach in check but the smell was intense, so thick he could taste it in the back of his throat. The flavor was such that his own vomit might even be an improvement.

Shallow breaths. He moved forward slowly, turned and saw one man was still standing. Well not exactly a man but a teenage boy. He was wearing a yellow and red striped, collared shirt and a bright hat to match. Cayce knew him, sorta. It was hot dog guy! Sometimes he'd get one because they were cheap as f@#$ but usually he bought them for Hunter to eat while he wolfed down his Chinese or whatever. But that didn't matter. It was what hot dog guy wasn't wearing that made Cayce want to get back in the elevator. Pants.

Actually it wasn't quite that either. Cayce had seen a lot of dick because back home he had a lot of dick friends and usually dick was accompanied with hilarity. This wasn't f@#$ing funny. In one hand, hot dog guy had an upside down container of mustard. In the other hand he had a hot dog bun and in the bun was his baby maker. Okay, it was kinda funny. He was massaging himself with the bread, a purplish bubble of god knows what forming at his tip.

Cayce made up his mind right then that if they lived through this, they would refer to this idol as the Ejaculator.

The bubble grew and with every stroke, filled with fluid, until it was the size of large open umbrella. Something in his peripheral, a blur of black opposite the elevator. It was Hunter. The dog lept up the last escalator steps and streaked across the food court towards the teen idol just as the orb detached. The bubble drifted towards the charging animal but he was too fast and the orb passed harmlessly above him. It sunk beyond the fifth floor railing and presumably to the floors below.

The Ejaculator shrieked in pain.

It was a horrendous noise, one that kicked Cayce's adrenaline up a few notches. He stared blankly at the spectacle before him. Hunter was hanging from the teen's wang doodle by his teeth. Apparently the shepherd thought this was simply another trip to the mall food court and it was time for wieners.