Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) by Samantha Durante

smashed
storefront, everything seemed just in its place, waiting for its
inhabitants to come home.
    It was devastating.
    Isaac kicked an empty can which went
scuttling along the blacktop ahead, finally coming to rest at the
base of a large sign marking the entrance to an expansive lot
scattered with cars.
    “ Mall Parking,” he read
aloud.
    But what caught Alessa’s attention was
the carefully lettered banner crumpled beneath, one corner still
nailed to the bottom of the mall sign. She dug the other side out
of the snow and held it up, the distinctive red cross painted
across the tarp waving in the wind.
    “ Relief Center,” she
added. Alessa gazed at Isaac intently. “Isaac, do you think we
found another quarantine zone?”
    “ Only one way to know for
sure – let’s go check it out.”
    The set off to investigate as dusk
settled into the sky.
    “ Wow, look at all these
cars,” Isaac muttered as they crossed the crowded parking
lot.
    Alessa’s hope intensified. “Joe was
into cars, right?” she asked. She’d gotten a sudden flash of him
working under the hood of an old red convertible.
    “ Yeah, he bought himself
this beat up ole clunker for his 17th birthday, and he was intent
on fixing her up – ‘Swift Scarlet’ he used to call it,” he laughed.
Isaac pointed at one of the more recent model electric cars. “This
one would have brought us almost the whole way across the country
on a single charge, you know.” He nodded toward a classic car from
well before he and Alessa were born. “Even this old hybrid could
even have gotten us hundreds of miles away, if it had a little gas
in it. Too bad they’re all useless.”
    “ Are they really?” Alessa
asked. “They seem like they’re in fine condition to me…”
    Isaac shook his head. “It’s been so
long since they’ve been used, the batteries would all have drained
by now. There’s no way to start them up.”
    That was a shame – it
would have been nice to get a reprieve from all the walking,
especially in this cold. But even though the cars were dead, they
still gave Alessa hope. There were so many of them, and someone must have
driven them all here – could all of these people really be
inside?
    “ Isaac, look –” she
pointed toward the loading docks around the side of the building.
“Grocery store delivery trucks.”
    “ They must have used them
to bring supplies,” he agreed.
    Alessa’s mind was racing with the
possibilities. “A mall would be a great place to shelter, right?
They’d have everything they need already inside – clothes, camping
gear, generators, probably some big fountains for bathing, an
atrium where they can build fires…” Alessa couldn’t contain the
excitement in her voice. Maybe they weren’t alone after
all.
    “ They’d certainly have as
good a chance here as anywhere,” Isaac added as they reached the
doors. “After you,” he smiled.
    Alessa pulled the heavy glass door
open slowly, a creak echoing through the large empty hall. They
stepped inside and looked around, their eyes adjusting to the dim
interior.
    Surveying the area, Alessa immediately
noticed signs that the building had been lived in – overflowing
trash cans, the occasional sleeping bag, a stack of discarded
magazines beside a bench. Her hope surged.
    “ It definitely looks like
someone was here…” Isaac observed, his voice barely a
whisper.
    Alessa too felt odd speaking aloud –
it felt wrong somehow, like talking in a library, or a mausoleum.
She just nodded her understanding and swung her bag around to dig
out a flashlight.
    They crept quietly toward the main
hall, Alessa shining the light on the tile floor to guide their
path. Oversize potted plants cast long shadows along the corridor,
their twisted fingers inching up the walls beside Alessa. She
noticed the plants were dried out and brown – she guessed it didn’t
make sense to waste water on them when they needed it for
people.
    Isaac’s foot crunched glass and