Chapter 18
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
LILY
We round the corner outside of the plant phase and other art object displays, only to find a milling crowd of people.
Signage everywhere in blue and yellow declares three words that spark terror in any retail shopper’s heart: Black Friday sales.
“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I say, brushing my hand through my hair, grateful all over again that it comes out tangle-free thanks to Zan’s hard work last night.
I squeeze his fingers, well aware of the fact that this is the real trial.
Well, Black Friday sales and putting together the furniture—both are going to be pretty horrible.
“Why are there all these people here? The entire labyrinth was empty until now.”
“I hate to say it, but a lot of times that’s how IKEA feels,” I tell him. “You can go half an hour without seeing anybody, and then the minute you get to the checkout line—poof.” I make my hands mime an explosion in an expansive gesture. “Pure chaos.”
And chaos it is.
Wherever Ken found these people—if they’re even real people and not just more holograms or robots or god knows what—I recognize the glint in their eyes.
Anyone who’s survived a Black Friday shopping experience would get the same cold chill that’s running down my spine.
There’s no security here. There are no news cameras. And I know exactly what Ken is going for with this.
“We’re going to have to fight our way to that last flat pack,” I tell Zan.
I point beyond the milling crowd, and sure enough, every single aisle that should be lined and stocked with furniture is empty.
Black Friday sale signs swing ominously over unfilled storage containers, and the lone remaining flat-pack piece is raised on a dais, with a single spotlight shining directly down on it.
“Fuck me,” I say, stamping my foot.
Zan squeezes my hand. “If it’s fighting we have to do, that’s easy enough.”
“But I don’t want to hurt any of these people,” I tell him, waving my hand at them.
The minute I say “people,” motion ripples through them. Their eyes all lock, look up as one, like predators homing in on a kill.
I swallow hard.
“You know what? There’s got to be a better way to do this. Like if we could get up over them—”
I regret the words the minute they slip from my lips, because there’s no way to get above them with Zan’s wing hurt.
“I didn’t mean that,” I backtrack. “There’s a way through too, not just over.”
“No. You might have a good idea,” Zan says slowly. “What if we climb these strange walls here?”
I don’t bother to correct him and tell him that these aren’t walls at all, but shelves all the things would be that you could buy, because he’s already confused enough by meat spheres and the concept of IKEA in the first place, which, frankly, mood.
The first line of the crowd staggers forward, jerky motions and horror washing over me, because this is not natural.
Nothing about the way these people are moving is natural, and I don’t know how the fuck Ken got them in here or what he did to them to make this happen, but it is absolutely the creepiest thing I’ve seen in my entire life.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I tell Zan.
“Hurry. We must hurry. Lily, we do not have time for you to be sick right now.”
“It’s like he made zombies.”
“Move,” Zan says, and he pulls me out of the line of slowly staggering zombie shoppers into the closest empty aisle.
“Climb, climb,” he says.
And I do. I follow his lead, climbing up to the top as fast as I can.
There’s one full bin on the second shelf, and a sign says “Wall Anchors: Prevent child injury or death” with a warning cartoon that illustrates just what can happen if a wardrobe is left unanchored.
My heart pounds against my chest, and I hope with everything in me, as the shelving shakes with Zan’s heavier alien body climbing it, that these racks and shelves are bolted into the floor.
I don’t know how he’s managing it with his hurt wing, but when I look back at him, he’s climbing steadily and quickly, much more quickly than me. Reaching the top well before I make it to the third shelf.
The lumbering corpses stagger into the aisle as my foot moves just out of their reach.
“Take my hand,” Zan says.
I don’t bother arguing. I do exactly what he asks, and he swings me up onto the top.
My shin bangs against the rail, a zombie swiping for my foot.
“This is actually hell,” I say surprised at how even my voice comes out. It’s absolutely shaking, but the words aren’t completely garbled.
A win is a win.
“Someone really needs to intervene with Ken,” I tack on, trying to keep my tone light as we stare at the mass of writhing bodies below us.
They’re completely silent, other than the sound of their skin hitting each other.
“I don’t know what they’re doing, but I don’t like the looks of it,” I tell Zan. “We need to move.”
He nods.
“How?” I say, staring at the widely spaced shelving. “There’s at least ten more rows until we get to the flat-pack we need.”
“We can jump,” he says. “I can get us enough air that we can bridge the distance easily.”
“No way. I am not risking your wing completely.”
“It’s either that or them.”
We both look back down at the zombie creatures.
I stagger backwards, a hand to my mouth in disgust. “They’re making a human ladder.”
There’s horror in my voice, and Zan nods. “I do not think what they are doing is human, but if you say so.”
I don’t even have the ability to correct him, and when he scoops me up into his arms, preparing to jump, I’m so terrified at what is happening on the floor beneath us that I don’t even bother bringing up his hurt wing again.
Everything in my brain is screaming to get away from whatever Ken has done to those people as fast as we can.
I'm not even sure they're people anymore.