The van is sent through the portal again. The crew crash into a mall complex. “Who wants to get anything from Macy's?” Ray joked.
“What?” Tori reacted.
“Fuck... Get the antiseptic,” Ryan ordered.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” Tori rushes over to Ryan to clean his wounds and patch him up.
“Mmmmfuck.” Ryan breaths through his teeth, trying to ignore the pain, but failing at doing so.
“Why are you complaining?” Tristan teased.
Ryan gave Tristan a death stare. “I got fucking scratched in the back, Tristan!” Ryan snarls.
“I’ve seen wo-.“ Tristan gets interrupted.
“Will you just shut the fuck up?!” Ryan shouts.
“And I was sent careening into a tree,” Flotsam added.
“Yeah, but you went out in a windstorm. I didn't get a god damn choice on what happened to me,” Ryan replies.
“Fair point.” Flotsam goes quiet.
Ryan is crying a bit from the pain, but he's handling it better than what most people would think. “Are you alright?” Svetlana asked.
“I’ll be alright eventually,” Ryan answers. “It just hurts like a bitch. We have to go, though, because we’re in a new place now.”
The group exits the van. The blue creature crawls through the hole the van had caused. “What is this?” the creature questioned.
“It’s a mall,” Ray replied.
“Which is?”
“Do you know what a store is?”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“Now put multiple stores in one building. Now you have a mall,” Ray explains.
“Hey, is there something we call you?” Brandon requests the creature.
“Uh… I guess,” they reply.
“Lincoln!” Ryan suggests excitedly, before groaning in pain from the scratch wounds. “Shouldn’t have said that so loud.”
“If that's what you want to call me, then that's fine,” Lincoln responds.
“Remember where we parked the car,” Svetlana states.
“Or, y'know, you could ride it around. Having it in the commons is way easier to find it,” Ray insists.
Svetlana gets a smile. “I always wanted to wreck shit up in a mall.” She drives through the Macy's store again until she breaks through to the lobby.
“Don’t destroy the van! It’s a bitch to rebuild!” Riley complained.
The group leaves the Macy's. Brandon and Misty grab some clothes. Brandon threw a coat towards Tristan. Tristan quizzically stared at the faded, dark brown coat.
Out in the lobby, there is a big fountain. Not the biggest imaginable in a mall, but an abnormally big one either way. Lincoln runs to it and jumps in the still clean water. The group watches as he rolls around in the fountain.
“Alright, you can do that, I guess,” Ryan reacts.
Some seconds pass, and he gets out of the fountain. He drenched the floor nearby with water. He shakes the water off, putting more water on the floor, making a big tripping hazard. “Alright, I’m good,” Lincoln announces.
“… Okay,” Misty responds.
The group hears commotion coming from a store down a hall. They brandish their weapons, and cautiously approach the noise. They thought it was coming from the main floor. That is until someone goes flying out of a store on the second floor, and falls to their death, if they weren't dead already. There's a few gunshots, and other commotion sounds. Someone eventually comes out of the store and goes out onto the balcony. They are in what could only be describes as a punk outfit.
“Hell-.” Ray gets shot at, but he manages to dodge. “Wait, we’re not going to attack you!”
The lady hesitates for a few seconds, as if to comprehend what Ray said. “Okay, she replied. She slides down a handrail to a set of escalators, and she approaches the group. “It's nice to see someone, let alone, a group, that doesn't want to kill me for once. Nice to meet you. My name's Monica. Monica Vescovich.”
“Hello there, Monica. I'm Ray. Ray Vantair,” Ray greets her.
Monica spots Lincoln. ”What in the hell is that?
“We don't know, but that doesn't matter,” Ray states.
“They are Lincoln,” Ryan answers.
“Are you a punker?” Misty asks Monica.
“I wonder how you noticed that,” Monica teases, before switching up her tone to a nicer, quieter one. “Yeah, I used to be in a band. I was the drummer for the band, Chasing Something Obscure. We recorded five albums before we all went our separate ways.”
“How are they doing?” Brandon asked.
“I hope they're fine. Last time I knew, they were all alive. They're not with me, though. I've been alone in this mall, fighting bandits. I've been living in this mall, for fuck's sake,” Monica replies.
“Ah, I see. Well, that’s a shame,” Brandon responds.
“Hey, it’s not like they’re dead or anything,” Monica reacts. “I hope their still alive. I miss them quite a bit.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Brandon states.
“Yeah, I know,” Monica replied. “There was a female vocalist, and lead guitarist. There was a male rhythm guitarist. There was a male bassist. And then there was me; the drummer.”
“Ah, interesting,” Brandon comments.
“Anyone here know how to play instruments?” Monica asked.
“Electric guitar,” Riley answers.
Monica snaps her fingers. “Nice!” She looks around and spots the group’s vehicle. “So, you have a green van?”
“It jumps dimensions,” Ray mentions.
Monica stares at Ray, confused. “What?”
“Don’t question it. It’s weird,” Ryan notes.
“Anyway, there's like... forty-five fucking stores in this mall,” Monica declares.
“Jesus,” Flotsam shutters.
“It's three floors. Fifteen stores on each floor. There's a fucking indoor water-park,” Monica describes.
“What… the fuck?” Ryan murmurs.
“I have a love/hate relationship with this mall. I usually hate it. You get those moments, though, where you think, ‘okay, this is nice,’” Monica detailed. She looks at the floor. “Tah. A year in this mall. Jesus Christ.”
“What the fuck? You've been in this this mall for a year?!” Brandon replies.
“Yeah!” Monica answers.
“That sounds like hell. Fuck mall,” Svetlana comments.
“It’s definitely an experience,” Monica responds.
“I drove through the Macy’s twice!” Svetlana states.
“Nice!” Monica cheers.
“I never got to go to a water-park,” Ryan mentioned.
Monica, Brandon, Flotsam, Misty, and Ray looked at Ryan. There's a moment of silence. “Where’s this water-park?” Ray asked.
“Uh… It’s in the left wing,” Monica replied.
“A'ight. Everyone in the van. We're going to that water-park,” Ray announces. Everyone gets in the van, except for Lincoln. Svetlana starts driving inside the mall. Lincoln follows the van.
“There is way more space in here than I thought there would be,” Monica comments.
“Yeah, it’s strange,” Ray responds.
“You have a TV in here?!” Monica exclaims.
“Yep. There's a built-in VHS,” Ray states. He opens a box on the floor and pulls out some videotapes. “We have Ghostbusters, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Breakfast Club, Poltergeist, and the first three A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, as well as Wes Craven's New Nightmare. We have a few more tapes than just those.” He puts the videotapes back in the box and closes the box.
Svetlana turns the van into the left wing of the mall, and they see in the distance the indoor water-park. “Whoa, is that?” Ryan muttered.
“Yes,” Ray replies.
Svetlana parks the van in front of the water-park. Everyone gets out of the van, while Lincoln just climbs off of the van.
“This is the water-park. I'm a-fucking-mazed that the water system still works,” Monica stated.
“Wow…” Ryan stares at the park, amazed.
“I also don't know who's cleaning it, but it's constantly being cleaned. I don't know who would want to run a mall during a fucking apocalypse, but someone clearly is,” Monica continued. “Are you planning going down the slides?”
“Yes,” Ray answers.
“Alright. Just stay safe.”
Brandon opens a bottle of Champaign, and drinks it by himself. Flotsam and Misty talk to each other. Riley and Monica discuss musical topics. Svetlana attempts to get through an obstacle course set up in the pool. Tristan is just standing by the pool. Lincoln jumps into the pool, splashing Flotsam, Misty, Tristan, and Svetlana, causing her to fall off the obstacle course. Ray, Tori, and Ryan climbed to the top of the funnel slide. “This is high,” Ryan observed, with a tinge of nervousness in his voice.
“It’s a slide, Ryan,” Ray responded.
“Time to go down, bud,” Tori encourages.
The trio ride down the slide. Ryan held onto both Ray and Tori while they went down. Ryan didn't expect they would go down so fast. When they reach the end of the slide, Ryan is out of breath from the ordeal. The trio start to laugh. When they calm down, Ryan starts to speak. “Why did my parents never bring me anywhere fun? It was always just family. Then the apocalypse hit, and they abandoned me.”
There’s a quiet moment between the trio. “I'm sorry... your parents didn't give a shit about you,” Ray tells Ryan. Ryan doesn’t respond. “You of all people deserved to have a childhood. I'm sorry that Amber took that even further away from you,” Ray continued.
“Everyone in this group is more family than I ever had,” Ryan replies.
“I used to be a bit calmer, more nicer when I was younger. I was still a fighter, and tomboyish... Then Aaron killed my cousin, Hudson, and my friend, Virgil. Hudson's death snapped me. I already had to deal with years of seeing my younger siblings be bullied for being Siamese twins. Heh, god, people will find anything to make fun of you for,” Tori explains her past before focusing on Ryan. “Ryan. No matter what, even though you can fight, we will be by your side.”
Ryan smiles and hugs Ray and Tori. They hug him back.
The trio get out of the pool with help from Lincoln. “You three good?” Monica asked.
“Yeah,” Ray responds.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yep!” Ryan exclaims. “It’s higher than I thought it would be, but I’ve been in higher places.”
“Gah, I haven’t been at a water-park in years,” Tori comments.
“God, my parents were fucking terrible. They never let me be a kid,” Ryan states.
“Damn, sorry bud,” Monica reacts.
A few hours pass. The group (excluding Lincoln because he stays up for like twenty-four hours, and sleeps for twenty-four hours), get prepared to sleep. Svetlana parks the van in a dark corner of the mall. Everyone (but Lincoln) falls asleep.
It is now morning outside. Lincoln is asleep outside of the van. Ray is watching over Rayan to see if he's alright. Brandon is watching A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. Tristan is watching the movie as well, and he's just confused. He doesn't understand what's going on in it. Svetlana is listening to Boston.
“Y'know...” Monica starts to speak. “Living in a mall is very lonely. I mean, it's a big ass building, and you're alone most of the time, because of the apocalypse. I'm living in a market dystopia that the founder of the concept of malls saw as a utopia.”
“Malls are fucking terrible, though,” Riley answers/
“Yeah! Oddly, it's a good place to be in an apocalypse. Also, a bad place to be in the apocalypse,” Monica notes.
“I always saw malls as chaotic places. It always feels like a lawless wasteland, but with crowds of people everywhere you turn. It’s claustrophobic, honestly,” Riley states.
“You live in a van.”
“At least it gives us as much space we need from its anomalous properties.”
“I mean, You’re not wrong about the lawless wasteland thing. This mall is literally a lawless wasteland.” Monica looks out a window. “I found where they had the intercom setup. Y'know, where they play music over the speakers. All that stuff. They had some good albums. Speaking in Tongues, The Stranger, Cosmic Thing, Rumours. One of them actually surprised me. They had 21st Century Breakdown by Green Day somewhere in there. I played that entire fucking album over the intercom and danced around in the lobby. It was awesome, but eerie as fuck. Also, The Last of the American Girls song. That's what it feels like in this damn mall,” she describes.
Ryan wakes up. He groans in pain as he sits up. His back is scarred. He takes a deep breath and he breathes out slowly. Ray looks at him, worried. “You okay?” he asks him.
“Uh, I could be better, but I could be worse,” Ryan replies.
“Alright,” Ray responds. “You're going to be in pain for a while from that scratch.”
“Yeah, that sucks... How's Lincoln doing?”
“He’s still sleeping out there.”
“He needs somewhere to sleep. I don't want us to accidentally abandon him in this mall if we dimension hop. Do you think he could get in the van?” Ryan asks.
Ray scratches the back of his neck. “It’ll be a tight fit.”
“May we at least try?”
Ray goes quiet for a moment. “Yeah, we can try.”
Ray and Ryan get out of the van. They approach Lincoln. Ryan sits down and gently shakes Lincoln. He stirs awake. “What do you n-. Uh. Hey there, bud. What's going on?” Lincoln reacts.
“Do you need somewhere to sleep? We don't want to accidentally abandon you here if we dimension hop,” Ryan asks.
“I don't think I would fit in the van,” Lincoln replies.
“There are two doors that open up in the back. Maybe you could fit through. The van is way bigger inside than you think. It's worth a try,” Ray notes.
“Okay, I guess,” Lincoln responds.
Ray and Ryan open the back doors to the van. Lincoln looks inside. He climbs in the best he can. A few of the group members help Lincoln get in. He is successful in doing so. He thanks them and finds a place to lay down. “That actually worked,” Ray commented.
“Alright, hope he sleeps well,” Ryan mutters. They shut the back doors of the van. “
“I'm sorry you never had a childhood. You deserved one, and your parents never let you have one,” Ray tells Ryan.
“I…” Ryan’s voice trails off.
“And I'm sorry that Amber was such a bitch to you. How did she hide that abuse she was doing to you for that long?” Ray asks.
Ray tenses up. He looks up at Ray. “I was afraid to speak up,” he answers. Ray goes quiet “I believed if I did, things would get worse.”
“Ryan…” Now it was Ryan’s turn to go quiet as Ray spoke. “You didn't need to wait that long. We could've helped you. We could have stopped that earlier.”
“I’m sorry,” Ryan answers.
“It's okay, Ryan.”
“You're the only father I really knew. You were there when I was twelve, after my parents abandoned me. You've been here for me for a decade. I'm twenty-two now. You taught me how to defend myself. You showed me there were good people out there. I finally got to go to a water-park. To hell with my parents. You and everyone in this group are my family.” Ryan breaths grows uneasy. Ray hugs him and he hugs him back.
“Ryan, you were a good kid. Sometimes you were a hassle, but that doesn't make you a bad person. We all have are moments where we get a little annoying. It happens. That doesn't make us bad. It makes us flawed. It's better to be flawed than to be perfect.
You're a good person, Ryan. Don't let whatever your parents did to you affect you. Don't believe whatever Amber said about you. We are all here for you,” Ray consoles Ryan.
Ray and Ryan enter the van. They see Lincoln is laying down somewhere. Ryan smiles.
Flotsam wakes up. He sees that Lincoln is next to him. He freaks out a bit but calms down quickly. “Oh, what the fu- Oh... Hehehe... Okay.”
“I think Dream Warriors should have been the last Nightmare on Elm Street movie,” Monica discusses.
“I would agree, but then we wouldn't have Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Get rid of all the shit after Dream Warriors but keep Wes Craven's New Nightmare. Part five was a fucking joke,” Brandon adds on.
“Part five was terrible,” Monica agrees. “Anyway, over there is a "spiritual" store. Don't know how much I believe in that stuff, but there was this art piece of a wolf that looked fucking awesome, and one of a dragon that looked fucking awesome. Many times, I thought of taking the pieces, but I stopped myself every time. I already essentially live in the mall, so I can go see the pieces whenever I want, as long as they're there,” she states. She looks over to Svetlana. “Drive to the main wing.”
“Okay,” Svetlana replies. Svetlana drives out of the water-park section of the mall and drives down the left wing. Monica points out the store she was talking about.
“There it is. "Spirit Mine". I-I don't know how people think up these names,” Monica points out.
“There is a Dick's Sporting Goods store there. Insert your joke here. There's a gun store over there. Don't bother looking in there; it's already been looted to hell and back. God, so American that that's the case.
There's a comic and memorabilia store. All I grabbed were some monster figurines, y'know, like the classic kaiju creatures. That stuff. I almost grabbed a comic called The Adventures of Dr. McNinja. I decided against it.
In the main wing there's a Barnes & Noble. In there I found The Martian, grabbed that. I found a book on the Black Dahlia, grabbed that. I found Twilight, burned them. I found a book on conspiracies, grabbed that. I found some books on World War II, grabbed those. I found some Harry Potter books. I left those alone. Oddly, the fourth entry was missing. I found the 39 Clues books, I grabbed all of those. I grabbed some other books as well.
They actually have a record store as well. They have some great shit in there. Pink Floyd, Yes, Rush, R.E.M., Metallica, Modest Mouse, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Arcade Fire, Tool, B-52's, Billy Joel, American Football, Three Days Grace, Avenged Sevenfold, We Lost the Sea, Green Day. They even had stuff from Motorama, which surprised me. I had a field day.”
“Those are really good artists,” Riley comments.
“It's weird seeing stuff that the band I was in out in the wild. Seems that a lot of people like our first and third album the most out of the five we did,” Monica states.
“Our first album had a cover art of a fire in a field. I-... When I was a kid, I would always see this fire in the field behind the garage. It was a small fire. Whenever I got close to the fire it would inexplicably disappear. I don't know why. I will never fucking know why. I got a few photographs of the fire, and a few videos on tapes of it.
I and my friends would always joke about the fire. Vanessa decided it would be cool if we made our first album themed around that fire. We called that album ‘The Mystery of the Flame.’” She reaches over to Svetlana. “Hold on. May you stop the van for a moment? I need to grab a few things.”
“Alright,” Svetlana responds. Svetlana stops the van. Monica runs out and goes to a room in the mall. A few minutes later she returns with a heavy duty bag of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, 8-tracks, a record player, a cassette player, and an 8-track player.
“Sorry about that. I'm back.” Monica pulls out a vinyl copy of “The Mystery of the Flame”. “We used one of the photographs I took of the fire as the album cover. There's a VHS in here. I keep my videotapes from that era on me. They're in my backpack. Hold on, I'll put one in.”
She takes her backpack off and puts it on the floor. She opens her backpack and pulls out a videotape. She goes to the VHS player, takes out A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, hands that tape over to Brandon, and inserts her videotape into the machine.
The tape starts to play. There is the sound of people chanting the "Happy Birthday" song.
“That was of my sister's birthday party. She was seven.” She fast-forwards the tape, then looks over at the T.V. hanging from the ceiling. “That was a random scene I and my friends recorded.” She repeats this process. “That was a road trip. I would just record random things. She repeats the process again. I don't even know what I was recording there.” Eventually, she gets to the part of the tape that she wanted to show them. “Alright, here we are.”
The tape shows a scene of a young Monica walking in the backyard of her childhood house. She walks to the field behind the garage. The field was big. She didn't live on farmland. She lived in a small city.
A young Monica speaks. "So, there's this fire I keep seeing in the field out back. I don't understand it. It always disappears when I approach it. Hopefully I can capture it on video here right now."
She walks out to the field. There is a fire going on far off in the distance. She stands there. The camera zooms in on the fire. "There it is," a young Monica reports. "Now, when I walk closer to it..."
She proceeds to approach the small fire in the field. It suddenly disappears when she gets to a certain point. "See what I mean?! I don't get this," a young Monica comments.
She proceeds to turn around. She starts walking back to the backyard. The videotape shifts to a different scene of Monica on a train with her family. Present day Monica walks up to the VHS player and stops the tape.
“What the fuck?” Brandon reacted.
“Yeah, I don’t have an explanation either,” Monica replies.
“How old were you when you recorded that?” Riley asked.
“I was nine, I think,” Monica responds.
“God damn, that was weird,” Misty mutters.
Monica sighs. “Yeah.”
“So, throughout your childhood, you were haunted by a fire in the field behind your house?” Ryan noted.
“Essentially, yes,” Monica answers. Ray scratches his head. “Yeah, I know, it's fucking peculiar,” she adds on.
“And you never got an explanation for it,” Ryan comments.
“No, and I never will,” Monica states.
“How the fuck does such a thing constantly happen?” Brandon muttered.
Misty covers her face. “What… the… hell?”
“This is some Stephen King shit,” Flotsam replies.
“Who’s Stephen King?” Tristan asks.
“An author,” Monica answers.
“Life is stranger than fiction. The fact that you have that on footage. Oh boy,” Riley comments.
“Um... Anyway. Let's continue,” Monica suggests. Svetlana continues to drive. “There's the Macy's you smashed through. There's a Subway. Depressing it's not opened. I mean, food gets stocked here still, so I can make stuff. I don't know who keeps stocking this place, but they're my goddamn hero for doing so.”
“It's just- I mean-.” Monica chuckles. “Who would want to keep this place running? Obviously someone, but who?” She does a sigh. “Alright, were about to be turning on the right wing.
“I feel like there will be people there,” Ray states.
“Yep,” Monica replies.
As Svetlana turns to the right wing of the mall, down the wing, there are four vehicles. They have weapons on them, and they look to be a bit armored.
“Fucking bandits,” Monica snarls.
“Good. It was getting boring around here,” Tristan remarks. Tristan opens the side doors. He presses a button, and a machine gun deploys on the right side of the van. The bandits start firing at the van, whilst the drivers of the vehicles drive closer to the group. Svetlana drifts the van, giving Tristan a good vantage point of the vehicles to shoot at. “Hahah! Nice!” He starts firing at the vehicles via the machine gun. One of the vehicles succumbs to all the damage and explodes. “Not so armored without a machine gun, now are you?!” Tristan starts laughing maniacally.
Brandon grabs a gun and climbs over the passenger's seat. He fires at one of the vehicles a few times, eventually hitting a driver, causing that car to swerve and flip a few times. Ray grabs a grenade, pulls out the pin with his teeth, but hesitates throwing for a few seconds, until he hit the grenade against his left hip to activate the mechanism, and he throws the grenade to the car that flipped, and when the grenade goes off, the car explodes.
Svetlana corrects the van, and gets a few kills herself by firing at a car whilst using a semi-automatic; the same one she used to save Ryan from an infected creature in the previous dimension the group was in. That car slows down.
Tristan fires at the last vehicle's wheels, making the car go to a halt. Bandits start getting out of the vehicles. Svetlana proceeds to ram into one of the vehicles, sending it flying a bit, probably killing a few bandits in the process. Svetlana spots a hole that bandits probably got in from, and swiftly drives through it, exiting the mall.
Svetlana drives away from the mall. Monica gets struck with a realization. “I'm... actually leaving the mall. Heheheh...”
“Bandits best learn to never mess with the Slavic Soldier!” Svetlana shouts.
“I lived in that hellhole for a year. Holy fuck… Uh... I don't know what else to say. I guess... thank you for getting me out of there,” Monica thanks the crew,
“No problem,” Svetlana answers.
There's a moment of silence. Svetlana pulls onto a road. The group look around the scenery. Trees behind forlorn, broken houses. Power lines lining the roads; a few wires are on the ground. They could only see a few cars. A red corvette, an old Studebaker, a black truck. Ever so slowly, the mall leaves their point of view.
A portal opens up. “Let’s go,” Svetlana states as she drives into the portal