Maximum Ride Fan Fiction ❯ After Armageddon ❯ Chapter Two: The Ice Mall ( Chapter 2 )

After Armageddon

 

Chapter Two: The Ice Mall

Liela

 

When I was younger, I lived with my parents and younger brother in Munich, Germany. My brother, Heinrich, and I were both happy with our parents, who were mechanical engineers. While they were amazing engineers, they were even better ice skaters. My mom used to be a figure skater when she was younger and my dad was the star of his school hockey team. That's how they met actually; they both went to the same ice rink.

Heinrich and I both inherited our love of the ice from our parents although I have no idea why Dad and Heinrich love hockey so much. Heinrich lost nearly all his bottom teeth the first time he really played! No, figure skating is soooo much cooler, literally and figuratively. We don't get all that heavy padding to help keep us warm like hockey players do.

Unfortunately, Mom didn't get to teach me everything she wanted to about skating. She and Dad died in a car accident as they were driving home for my twelfth birthday. It was raining and the road was slick.

After they died, my brother and I were forced to live with our stern and demanding Aunt and Uncle in Berlin along with the five spoiled brats that I'm sad to say were our cousins. For the next six months our lives were a living Hell. The five idiots constantly teased us, especially Heinrich. He was the youngest out of all of us and it didn't help that he was small for his age.

Not that I was able to skip out on the fun. Chloe and Petra made sure that I was taken care of by berating my every action. They were the only two girls out of the five and both were older then myself. Their favorite joke was to foist off all their household chores on me and then call me Cinderliela as I did them. Yes, the family love was always present in that house, which is why I thank God for the neighbors.

The Clutter's were a nice family that lived about a mile away. Newly weds Paul and Katerina Clutter had moved from America back to Mrs. Clutter's native Germany shortly after the By-Half plan had been put into effect. They had tried to escape the massacre in America by moving only to realize that it was happening all over the world.

Nine years later, when they were 29 and 30, they had their first child. Christian Clutter is two years older then his sister Michaela, who is not only my age but is also my best friend, and four years older then his younger brother David, who is my brothers best friend and same age. Heinrich and I are very close with the Clutter family. They were the closest thing we had to a family then and we spent as much time as we could with them.

In fact, Michaela was with me when I discovered the Ice Mall. The ice Mall was really an old strip mall that had an ice rink in the center with eight assorted stores surrounding it. We quickly went to find our brothers and tell them about our discovery. They were just as amazed by it as we were. Fortunately, Christian had been smart enough to bring a couple of flashlights, so we all started to explore the mall immediately.

The Ice Mall looked like it had been abandoned after the By-Half plan had wiped out its shoppers. For the most part, it was untouched by time except for a few slightly decrepit buildings on the outskirts. As we explored, we began to suspect that this had been a place for teens to hang out before the world had been half emptied. Besides the ice rink, there was a book store, movie rental place, something that looked like an old fashioned diner, a sweetshop, a music store, a sporting goods store, a toy store, and, finally, a clothing store that seemed to have everything from baby booties to granny hats.

The Ice Mall became something like our secret hideout. No one outside the five of us knew about it and Heinrich and I snuck there whenever we could to get away from our Aunt and Uncle's house. One of our favorite things to do was play Broomball, a game that Mr. Clutter had learned back in America. It's kinda like hockey except you use a ball instead of a puck and you only use half of the ice rink to play. The best part about it is that you wear tennis shoes instead of skates. We would usually play boys against girls. Michaela and I always won, except for when we lost.

I remember that I had been dreaming about playing Broomball with my friends just before I woke up in the lab. I felt groggy and confused as I came to and realized that I wasn't in my closet of a room. I was lying on a steel surgical table that had open arm and leg braces lying uselessly over the edge. I noticed it was very clean and practically empty as I clumsily hopped off the table and nearly fell flat on my face. After I regained what was left of my balance I walked over to the counter nearest me. There wasn't anything on it although there was a light switch next to it. The sharp, white light hurt my eyes, but at least now I could see.

Too bad there wasn't anything to see. Aside from the table that I had been on, there was a roller chair near the counter I was standing next to and a laptop computer sitting on a small, collapsible desk across the room. I staggered over to it in hopes that it could tell me something about where I was and what was going on.

I pulled the single chair with me and gratefully fell into it after I pushed the power button on the computer. It started up quickly but I wasn't able to learn anything because a password bar popped up, denying me access.

I groaned. My head hurt, my body ached, and my back was killing me. Not to mention that I had no idea where I was or what was going on. I sat there for awhile trying to think of what to do next. I couldn't think of much, so I stood up, hoping to see what was outside, when my foot bumped into something under the desk. I bent down to see what it was and was surprised to see that it was my bag. I pulled it out from under the desk and plopped it on the table to see if it still had all my things.

Amazingly it did. My CD player and music were still in the back zipper pocket. The main body still had my brand new holo-book and my many, many, story discs that I had collected throughout the years. My cell phone, however, was gone, although my small digital camera was still were I had left it as well as my new shoe-skates that had been a gift from the Clutters for my fourteenth birthday.

The shoes reminded me of clothes and I saw that what I was wearing couldn't really be put in that category. It was more like a hospital gown then anything else, except it was uglier then the kind I had seen. I looked around me for some real clothes before I saw a stack in my bag. I knew for a fact that I hadn't put them in there even though they were most definitely my clothes.

Deciding that I didn't care how they got there, I took off the ugly rag and changed.

As I pulled on my shoes, the hairs on the back of my neck began to rise. I glanced around the room again. No one was there and the single door and window were locked from the inside. I knew that because I had checked before I took off the rag I had been wearing. I quickly grabbed my bag and stood to leave then on instinct, I picked up the laptop and stuck it inside next to my holo-book.

I made for the door but something inside me screamed not to open it or the window. I looked around the room, hoping that I had missed another way out.

It was about then that I noticed the door knob was turning and shadowy silhouettes were trying to look inside the shaded window. My head was screaming at me to get out, but I didn't know how.

“Open the door. This is the Police.” A mechanical voice outside started to repeat its message.

Oh no Not them. I thought to myself. Before they had died, my parents had warned us about the robots that were called the Police. They were used more by the higher ups who worked in the labs scattered throughout the world. More often then not, if they were after you, then you were a failed project that they needed to deal with.

And by deal with, I mean kill.

So needless to say, I was freaking out. I looked around the room again in a futile attempt to find a way out. I shivered as the door trembled as the police started to break it down and a slight breeze rustled my hair. Then I realized that I was in a closed room with no fans of any sort.

So where was the breeze coming from?

I stuck my index finger in my mouth and then held it up, trying to tell where the fresh air was coming from.

There. I ran back over to the desk that had had the laptop and tried to move it aside. It wouldn't budge so I looked at the wall trying to find a crack.

BANG!!!

The door was starting to splinter, so I quickly looked under the desk and nearly missed the slightly open wall panel in my haste. I pulled the panel away as quietly and quickly as I could away from the wall.

As soon as it was open I flung my bag and then my body through the small hole and started pulling the stubborn panel shut. It had just sealed itself shut with a tiny, inaudible click when I heard the door burst open.

I stayed perfectly still as the Police searched the room, holding my breath whenever they got close to my hiding spot.

“She's not here.” One of them said in a cold, unemotional voice.

“Are you sure?” An even colder voice replied, except this one seemed to be human, probably the person who was in charge of this squad.

“Yes.” The first voice replied.

The second one started cussing. “The Director will have my head is we don't find her. Now keep looking!” He screamed the last sentence and the squad answered him with a single unemotional, “Yes.” They then left the room to carry out their leader's order with him following close behind.

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. I looked down the crawl hole I was stuck in and briefly wondered where it led to before grabbing my bag and leaving to find out.