Jam Read online

  We watched her, biting our knuckles through four layers of plastic. After she had covered six feet with no incident, she let the air out of her lungs and waved for the rest of us to follow.

  For a split second I thought I saw some strange movement in the air surrounding her, too fast to get a proper look at it, just as the jam at her waist pulsed oddly. She flung both arms towards us in panic before the jam flooded her suit with a comical farting noise.

  Cramming any more tightly together was a tall order, but we managed it somehow. Another nonverbal election seemed to be taking place before someone at the back said, “What the hell do we do now?”

  A shrewd-looking black garbage bag at the head of the group, perhaps realizing who the next logical victim might be, turned around and faced the shopping-center entrance. “How about,” he said, “we not do any scavenging today?”

  “Seconded,” said someone behind me.

  Immediately the entire platoon except me, Tim, and Angela about-faced and trooped back down the steps into the Briar Center, chatting amongst themselves.

  “Hang on!” I called. Most of them ignored me, but a few halted at the foot of the steps and looked at me expectantly, including the two who had suggested and seconded abandoning the morning’s hunt.

  “Yes?” said the first.

  “People are dead!” I said, avoiding looking at Tim.

  The plastic men at the foot of the stairs exchanged glances. “Yes?” repeated the ringleader.

  “Aren’t you going to . . . you know . . . be upset about it?” I remembered what word I was after. “Mourn?”

  “You mean . . . mourn ironically?”

  “No, I mean just regular mourn!”

  They seemed quite amused, like I was a small child confronting a visitor with a foam sword and a colander on my head. “Sure, why don’t you take care of that,” said one, before they went off to join their fellows.

  “What is wrong with these people?” wondered Angela aloud, catching their departure on tape.

  “It’s almost like a hive,” said Tim thoughtfully.

  “How do you mean?” asked Angela.

  “No concern for individuals.” He brushed down his crinkling vest. “I guess one plastic bag looks pretty much the same as another.”

  DAY 4.2

  —

  There was a crowd in the great-hall food court again by the time we got back, this time without even the slightest pretension to being a queue. Our abortive salvaging party had joined a much larger group consisting of all that morning’s salvaging parties, most of which seemed to have returned with significantly reduced numbers. Tim, Angela, and I endeavoured to lurk in the background.

  Lord Awesomo stood in the middle of it all, his face thunderous as everyone within a ten-foot radius tried to bellow their version of events into his ears. Finally he snapped, picked up a chair, and smashed it repeatedly against a nearby escalator in lieu of a gavel. “All right!” he roared irritably when he’d achieved silence. “One person. Explain what the matter is.”

  This proved to be the wrong choice of words, because about fifteen individuals immediately nominated themselves the one person. He smashed the chair a few more times. It was becoming severely misshapen.

  “You!” he said, pointing at the nearest talkative looter. “What happened?!”

  “Jam!” barked the chosen one incoherently. “Jam ate! People! Outside!”

  “Okay, not you.” Awesomo picked someone from our party who seemed a little more together. “You!”

  The plastic person explained the events we had just witnessed, identifying the victims only by the colors of the plastic bags involved.

  “Oh yeah,” said Awesomo. “I can see how easily you could forget that this happens, like, every day. You just need to refresh your bags every now and aga—”

  “No, no, no,” interrupted a rather agitated creature with a high voice. “It happens to everyone who tries to go outside.”

  “And where was this again?” demanded Awesomo irritably.

  “The east entrance,” said our spokesman.

  “And the south entrance,” said someone from another party.

  “And every entrance,” said someone else.

  I glanced momentarily at Tim. He was staring fixedly at Lord Awesomo with a plastic-covered hand at his plastic-covered chin, like a serious gambler watching the racehorses reach the final furlong. The skinny leader stood stiffly, arms wrapped around his waist, as the plastic crowd looked to him for some kind of wise leadership. Judging by the growing spark of panic in his eyes shining through his permanent expression of ironic contempt, he wasn’t sure himself where that wise leadership was going to come from.

  “Hey!” came a familiar voice from above. Everyone looked up to see Princess Ravenhair on the next level up, leaning over the barrier. “Has anyone seen Whiskers?”

  “Is something the matter, my lady?” asked Awesomo flamboyantly, clearly grateful for the distraction.

  “I can’t find him anywhere. I think he must have escaped. If you see him, could you let me know?”

  She ran off without waiting for a response, and everyone turned back to Lord Awesomo. His eyes flicked back and forth a few times, then to the spot where Princess Ravenhair had been, then back.

  “Didn’t you hear?” he barked suddenly. “Your princess is upset! Everyone must search the center until Whiskers is found!”

  And, to my surprise, every plastic person in the crowd immediately jumped to it, each one running to search in a different direction as if they’d each had a spot prearranged. We didn’t move. Tim was chewing on his plastic-wrapped finger.

  Soon we were the only ones left in the food court besides Awesomo himself, who caught our gaze with a triumphant smile, as if daring us to call him out on something. Instead, the three of us simultaneously opted to drift off in a random direction.

  “This isn’t right,” said Tim.

  “What isn’t?” I asked, unable to narrow down the possibilities of what he might have been talking about.

  “I thought they were just running things a bit dictatorially. But there doesn’t seem to be any leadership at all. His decisions don’t make any sense.”

  Angela blinked. She looked strangely pale. “Wait, so putting the search out for Whiskers doesn’t make sense, but executing that guy was fine?”

  Tim shrugged. “You’ve got to exercise authority. Could’ve done it more efficiently, I guess.”

  Angela boggled. “Are you from space?!”

  Tim changed the subject quickly, either not wanting to confront her statement or too perplexed by it. “I’m going to go talk to Crazy Bob. You coming?”

  “I’ll meet you on the top level,” I said. “I’m just going to stop by somewhere. I left something behind.”

  —

  Specifically, somewhere was the spot in the department store where we had made camp the previous night, and something was Mary. I’d suddenly realized I’d left her there unsupervised, and the uncertain fate of Whiskers had made me paranoid about some kind of roving pet thief.

  I arrived at the store without even bothering to take my bags off. After I rounded a display of refrigerators, the campsite came into view. I could see Mary’s box sitting on my lingerie mattress, and she seemed perfectly all right. Probably still dozing after her extravagant breakfast.

  “Oh!” came the voice of Princess Ravenhair as I strode over to Mary. I’d been so fixed on the well-being of my spider that I hadn’t noticed her. She was sitting sulkily in the little area where I’d found Mary’s meal, hugging one of her knees. A single handmaid fully wrapped in olive green appeared to be fanning her with a plastic snow shovel. “Has Whiskers turned up?”

  “Er, no,” I said, caught off guard. “What . . . what does Whiskers look like?”

  “He’s the prettiest little blue bird with black speckles on his face.”

  It was like a jugful of molten lava had been emptied into the hole at the top of my head bag. I felt myself redden
right down to the toes. My first attempt to talk came out as a sort of strangled whinny before I could take a deep breath and try again. “Whiskers . . . is a bird?”

  “Yeah. I called him that because it’d be ironic.”

  I sincerely wished that Tim was still around. Or Don. Or anyone. I was having to consciously restrain myself from running away. Princess Ravenhair was watching me curiously. I had to say something.

  “Were you . . . very attached to Whiskers?” I mentally face palmed at my own words.

  She looked at the floor sadly. Her handmaid redoubled her fanning efforts. “My parents got eaten by the jam,” said the princess without much emotion. “Whiskers was the only one I could save. He was the only thing that I brought here with me.”

  I was mentally face palming so much, I could hear things rattling around inside my skull. I tried not to blink or look too psychotic. “Oh dear.”

  “I knew Gerald would come to the mall because we’d talked about what we’d do if there was, you know, a zombie apocalypse or something.” She didn’t seem to be talking exclusively to me anymore. “So I headed straight here and he was already setting all this up.”

  “Who’s Gerald?”

  She started, perhaps having revealed something regrettable. “I mean, Lord Awesomo.” She cocked her head. “Are you new here?”

  “Yes,” I said unguardedly, hoping this would be a permanent subject change. “I’m Travis.”

  “The yellow looks horrible.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t tell anyone I said this,” she said, eyeing her disinterested handmaid and lowering her voice. “But, to be completely honest, I’m not 100 percent sure about what G—Lord Awesomo thinks that he’s doing, here. With this whole cult thing.”

  I frowned. “But aren’t you, like, the messiah, or something?”

  She sighed. “Everything’s gotten so ironic lately I just don’t know where I stand anymore. Travis, do you ever get the feeling you’re just . . . going along with things? Without really thinking about what you want?”

  I stared at her. I felt myself take a slow step forward and place my hand on the backrest of a chair opposite her. “You know. It’s funny you should say that . . .”

  Suddenly she flinched again, and her face twisted in disgust. “Oh my god. Is that a tarantula?”

  I leapt back, hugging Mary to my chest. “Yaybe,” I blurted.

  Ravenhair softened after the initial shock, but she kept leaning away from me with the kind of reassuring smile one reserves for insane gunmen. “It’s very . . . big.”

  Mary hissed jealously as I tried to subtly move her box behind my back. “Anyway, I should be going,” I said, sidling carefully away. I noticed a blue feather on the floor, and tried to subtly scrape it under a counter with my shoe. “Nice talking to you, princess.”

  “Deirdre,” she corrected. “Erm. You should probably . . . turn around. You’re about to back into a lamp.”

  —

  I found Tim and Angela on the second-highest level in the main mall area, at the foot of the set of curved stairs that led to the cinema lobby. I trotted to catch up.

  “Tim,” I said breathlessly, once I’d drawn up to his side. “I think I did something bad.”

  “What?” He glanced down, then yelped and grabbed at his heart. “God damn it, Travis, could you not sneak up on me when you’re holding that thing?”

  “Sorry.” I held Mary’s box behind my back as we began tramping up the steps.

  “What do you think you did?” he asked.

  For a while I’d been quite desperate for someone to share my latest problem with, but I saw he probably had enough problems of his own to deal with. He was still anxiously chewing a finger in deep thought; at this rate, it would probably be worn down to the knuckle by the end of the day. “Nothing,” I said. “Never mind.”

  “So, what are we doing up here?” said Angela, for the benefit of the tape.

  “Talking with Crazy Bob,” said Tim. “And failing that, trying to get access to the roof, start thinking about cultivation. Because I’m starting to get a horrible feeling that Crazy Bob will turn out to be a dog or a cardboard cutout or something.”

  At the top of the stairs was the cinema lobby, directly underneath the frosted ceiling and thus probably the best-lit part of the whole complex, as well as being completely free of jam. It seemed like this would be a prime piece of real estate, but it was nearly deserted. The popcorn and snack counters had been emptied of anything edible and the film names on the display board had all had their letters rearranged into rude anagrams, but otherwise the area didn’t show any of the ransacking the rest of the mall had suffered.

  Five guards, each in black bags and carrying a makeshift spear like the ones we had met at the south entrance, stood at regular intervals around the perimeter wall. I hadn’t noticed them at first because they were as still and disciplined as Buckingham Palace guards, although they all had their motionless gazes fixed suspiciously on Don Sunderland.

  Don was almost bent double by the snack counter, examining the glass with his hands behind his back like an interested tourist. Occasionally he took a look around the room at the guards, and it was during one of these that he spotted us.

  “Hello, friends,” he said, in an insincere, staccato voice. “Come over and look at this extremely interesting exhibit.”

  He waved us over and I saw that the glass-covered snack counter had been converted into some kind of museum, with a variety of random knickknacks tastefully arranged on the shelves, including an overloaded key ring and an empty yogurt pot.

  Don was drawing our attention to what was presumably the newest addition to the display: the donated hard drive, apparently containing the build that spelled Don’s entire future employment and happiness. A bit of folded card in front of it read The Sacred Hard Drive of Bugger D’Klee.

  “The guards won’t even let me touch it,” muttered Don as we huddled around.

  “Have you tried telling them it’s for a project?” said Angela.

  “How about you guys cause a distraction for a minute?” said Don hopefully. “I’ll grab it while the guards are duffing you up and run away.”

  “Sorry,” said Tim firmly. “We’re working on creating sustainable agriculture for long-term survival.”

  Don gave him a very flat look. “You’re just trying to get a rise out of me now, aren’t you.”

  “We’re going to plant crops on the roof.”

  “Ah. That would be with all that in-depth knowledge of farming you have, will it?”

  Don and Tim were standing practically chest to chest, heads held high as if they were both looking through their nostrils. “We’ll look it up,” growled Tim.

  “Don’t kid yourself. There’s no Google.”

  “And what exactly do you plan to do once you get your hard drive back, Don?” challenged Tim.

  “I’m going to laugh,” said Don, after a moment’s thought. “Laugh and run away.”

  “Look, what is it you people want?” said the nearest guard, unable to remain silent any longer. Don distributed his favorite dirty look to everyone in the room, then marched purposefully towards the stairs, nose still held high.

  “We want to speak to Crazy Bob,” said Tim.

  The guard cocked his head. “You actually want to talk to Crazy Bob?” he said.

  Tim sighed. “Yes. Would that be a problem?”

  The guard jerked a black plastic thumb towards the wide set of curved stairs that led up to the actual theaters. “No, no, you can talk to him whenever you like. Right up there, first left, cinema number one.”

  We thanked him uncertainly and made our way up the stairs. The red carpet had almost certainly been there before, but someone had also been cutting up decorative plastic flowers and sprinkling the pieces tastefully down the steps.

  “All the guards are watching us,” I whispered, identifying out loud the cause of the hot prickly sensation running down my back.

 
“Yeah,” said Angela loudly. “I’m starting to feel like the lookout that gets sent into the monster cave first.”

  “Leave the talking to me,” said Tim, unconcerned.

  At the top of the stairs was the short hallway connecting the five theaters, where the posters and cardboard cutouts advertising upcoming films were displayed. They were still there, but every single human face had a cardboard mask taped over it: the face of a cartoon man with bulging crossed eyes and his tongue sticking out. I wasn’t sure, but I could swear I’d seen that face before somewhere.

  We took a left and moved on.

  Most of the theater entrances were pitch dark, but theater 1 was illuminated with the prerequisite flaming torches. They were neatly laid out down the two aisles of the auditorium, with a clustered handful illuminating what was going on directly in front of the movie screen.

  There, a high-backed leather armchair from the most upscale part of the department store had been set up like a throne. Around it were several plastic-covered concubines arranged in seductive poses, each with two pieces of contrasting-colored bin liner over their standard plastic covering in an attempt to simulate bikinis.

  Crazy Bob was presumably the occupant of the throne. He sat in a Conanesque slouch, chin supported on one fist and legs spread unsettlingly wide. Remarkably, he wasn’t wearing a single plastic bag. He had on a blue maintenance jumpsuit that seemed to be in dire need of a wash, and his face was entirely covered by another of those strangely familiar cardboard masks.

  “Okay, how to approach this,” muttered Tim to himself as we walked slowly down the aisle. I could understand his uncertainty. There was no way of knowing if a simple hello was acceptable or if anything other than full-on ironic we-bid-respectful-greetings-to-your-most-resplendent-majesty would bring immediate execution for treason.