The Mall (Evenstad Media Presents Book 2) (11 page)

Two Suspects Arrested in Attempted Murder Blame 'The Mall'
for Their Crime

2/7/2075 at 12:16 p.m. EST

Two suspects have been arrested in relation to Monday's
attacks at Evenstad Media. Robert and Phillipe LeGrande, both 32, were caught
on security camera footage Saturday afternoon. They attacked two security
guards at Evenstad Media's main office, and pulled guns on several employees.
No one was fatally wounded, but two Evenstad Media employees are currently in
critical condition. Several others sustained minor wounds.

When questioned, both Robert and Phillipe LeGrande blamed
Evenstad Media's reality show, 'The Mall,' for the attack. Their sister, Alexa
LeGrande, was one of the most recent contestants eliminated, and their attack
was "a matter of vengeance" according to Phillipe. They are currently
in custody, awaiting trial. We will update this article as more information is
made available to us here at The Cruise.

UPDATE

2/9/2075 at 6:58 a.m. EST

An attorney has been retained for Robert and Phillipe LeGrande,
though initially they were to be represented by a court-appointed lawyer. When
questioned, they claimed to know nothing of it. “We’re just thankful someone
cares,” said Robert.

The parents of Robert, Phillipe, and the now deceased Alexa
LeGrande, Thomas and Jeannine LeGrande, also claimed to have no knowledge of
the lawyer. “A check was sent in the mail with instructions on what to do with
it,” said Jeannine. We will update this article as more information is made
available to us here at The Cruise.

JOURNAL 12IMRAN

ENTRY 005

DATE: 2/2/2075

I found food, which is good. It’s frozen, so I can’t eat
right away, and I have no way of cooking it, but I’ll take it over nothing. I
was injured, but I managed to fight off the man who attacked me when I got back
to the first floor. Though he isn't a man at all. A machine. In the end, that
saved me from death. The material was tougher, but I've worked with joints like
that many times, fixing puppets and toys for people. It took the full force of
my body, but I broke the joint of its arm and got away. Still, the wound I
sustained is deep. I've done what I can to try and stanch the bleeding and it
seems to be working, so far, but I can’t place much faith in the medical
attention I give myself in a toy store. I doubt it will last long, but I
sincerely hope to be wrong.

The young man who ran for the doors is dead. I can only
imagine he lost his head when the fire started. I expected him to get shot, and
a few bullets did hit him on his way. But the guards on the other side of the
door didn't attack, and he fled quickly enough not to fall victim to the
others.

Knowing what I do now, the bullets were unnecessary. The
door was electrified, or otherwise rigged to stop escape. As soon as he touched
it, his body froze. I don't know for sure how many volts it takes to kill a
man, but there were enough there. I could smell the burning skin by the time he
dropped. That’s why I assume it was electrocution. The burning smell. I hope
the electricity was enough to kill him long before that happened, though.

The doors were the only slim chance of escape any of us had.
And now I see they are not an option. I hadn’t thought to leave through them,
yet it still saddens me to see that even that was covered. A perfect trap.

ENTRY END

JOURNAL 08QUINN

ENTRY 009

DATE: 2/4/2075

I've kept an eye on the bastard who burned down the
bookstore, just in case he tries anything. The last few days have been
uneventful. He hasn't left the knife shop since then. In fact, no one's left
their shops since that day. I can't blame them. The man who got electrocuted,
his body's still there. So's the blonde one who died in the beginning. The
bodies are piling up around the mall, and those are enough to keep people from
leaving. It's keeping me from leaving, even though I don't want to admit it.
It's not the only reason I haven't gone to take care of that sadistic jackass,
but it's one of the reasons. You don't get desensitized to death no matter how
often you see it. It's always there when you see a corpse, that reminder of
your own mortality. And it feels stronger in here, where you could die at any
second, just because. Just like a firefight.

I'll have to leave eventually, for food if nothing else. But
I'm going to put it off as long as I can. Until then, I'll just watch and wait
for whatever happens next. I can hope that no one else will die between then
and now, but I'm fairly certain already that hope is going to be crushed to
dust. Especially with that man out there.

ENTRY END

JOURNAL 03BILL

ENTRY 006

DATE: 2/4/2075

I've been looking around while Kim sleeps. There's plenty of
empty shops up on the second floor, much closer to the food court, and without
stairs to worry about. I don't know how much food is left there. I've been
having a harder and harder time finding it when I go up on a run, lately. I
think we're coming close to the end of the supply, which makes it all the more
important that I get closer. I'm not going to sit around and wait for someone
to steal the food I need to survive. I've got my eye on the movie shop up
there. It's a couple yards from the food court, if I can just get in.

I want to wait until I have a good chance, though. Kim's
finally going to be useful, when the time comes. I'll play up how little food
we have, and how I think we both need to go up there to get it, so we can get
as much as possible. Food's so important, he'll cave in eventually. I can get
him out of my path the same way I did with Lia. He can be my distraction.

I admit, I might miss having some companionship, when all's
said and done. But I'd rather be alone and alive with twenty-million bucks than
dead protecting someone who's probably going to die anyway. But yeah, I'll
probably miss him.

ENTRY END

TO: Evenstad Media

FROM: Kadar Asad

SUBJECT: Imran Asad

SENT: 2/5/2075 AT 11:03 p.m. EST

I send this to you in desperation. I saw tonight's episode
of The Mall, and I couldn't let it go any longer. My father is injured. I know
him. He'll try to continue on the best he can, even as he grows weaker and
weaker. In the few minutes you had of him on the episode, I could see it
happening. He won't make it much longer, now. Perhaps not even a day. His wound
is deep, and he has no way to close it properly, which means it will come open
again. I know you know that, and I know that you won't let him out, either. If
you were going to show him that small amount of mercy, you would have done so
long before now, or not had him on this show to begin with.

But please, let him know that I forgive him. That's all I
ask of you. It's a simple thing, and I don't care how you make it happen. He
needs to know, so that suffering, at least, can end. Please, I beg you to let
him know. Show him that much humanity, enough to put a dying man in touch with
his son in his final days.

Kadar Asad

—

TO: Kadar Asad

FROM: Evenstad Media

SUBJECT: Imran Asad

SENT: 2/6/2075 AT 8:26 a.m. EST

Mr. Asad

Unfortunately, under the terms of the contract your father
signed to work with us on 'The Mall,' he's allowed no contact from anyone
connected to the company nor with the world outside of the arena. If we were to
allow contact to occur in this one case, we'd have to allow it in others, and
that's not something we're able to do without harming the integrity of
gameplay. Your father did understand the details of the competition when he
agreed, so there is no way we can breach that contract.

Regards,

Evenstad Media

JOURNAL 06TESS

ENTRY 007

DATE: 2/4/2075

It's been some time since I've gotten a package from whoever
the mystery person is that was leaving them for me. I hope they're okay, out
there. I still want the chance to say thank you, even if they never leave me
another one. I don't care a lick about that. They didn't have to help in the
first place, and I'd hate to think that someone so kind as that would end up
dead. I know the chances are good that something happened, but I want them to
beat the odds. At least beat them long enough that I can show them my
gratitude.

It would be a shame for someone with so much light in them
to just die like that.

ENTRY END

Unnecessary Cruelty

Posted 2/6/2075

I watched The Park, disgusted as I was. I wanted them to say
it wasn't real. But they never did. I vowed to stay away from it, but I had to
watch the second season. They could do it once, but twice? I couldn’t believe
it. Or, I suppose, I didn't want to believe it. It couldn't happen, is what I
told myself. Eventually, the truth would come out. Something would happen to
let everyone know that it’s fake.

But after a month of The Mall, I'm sure it's real. And I'm
sure there's something sadistic going on here. Both seasons, they've had an
older man on here. Last season was Manfred, who withered away as we all sat and
watched. I'm just as guilty as everyone else. This year, they give us Imran.
And now he's injured. Badly, by the looks of it.

There's a pattern, and it's concerning for any old man who
winds up somehow tricked into this show, if they manage another season after
this. God-willing they won't, but I'm sure it'll happen again. The ratings are
good, and so are the viewer numbers. They wouldn't throw away a cash cow that
good.

Maybe the people in charge have daddy issues, or granddaddy
issues. I don't know. But it seems, especially this season where they have
robot guards, they could put people out of their misery rather than letting
them slowly fade for the world to see. They've robbed these men of the dignity
in quiet, private death, and they've added torture on top of it.

I pray for the next man over fifty to go into one of their
disgusting arenas. Next year, I won't watch, and I urge everyone else to do the
same.

JOURNAL 11KIM

ENTRY 005

DATE: 2/7/2075

So apparently, we're running short on food. I'm really
fucking freaked by this. This whole thing is already bad enough. If we start
starving, it's going to get worse, as hard of a time as I have believing it
could be worse than this. Kidnapped and expected to kill. Starving us seems
stupid, like there's really no point to any of it. They had plenty of food in
the first season of this stupid show. They couldn't extend that to us, too?

I want to puke, but I'm not going to let myself. Bill
convinced me to actually eat something. Just some old, uncooked fries, but
something. And if he's telling the truth, I can't afford to go throwing up any
food.

At least something kind of good came from this shitstorm.
Bill's actually trying to take care of me, which means some part of the plan
must have worked, I guess. But now it seems pretty pointless. Really pointless.
We'll probably both starve before I see anything come from my work.

ENTRY END

JOURNAL 12IMRAN

ENTRY 006

DATE: 2/8/2075

In the end, all men are made fools by death, and I am no
exception, although I feel I've been a bigger fool than the average man.
Perhaps because I'm in a situation very far separated from the average
experience, now.

The wound I sustained gathering food came back open. I'm not
trained to handle those sorts of things. I make dolls and puppets and try to be
a good person. I've never had to tend to anything more than a childhood scrape.
I was lucky the first time, I thought. I wasn't bleeding, and I assumed I'd be
okay. That was my first foolishness. Simply moving around the shop ripped it open
again, and nothing I could do would stem the blood flowing from it. Now, as I
type this, my fingers are tingling with oncoming numbness. My toes as well. It
doesn't hurt, at this point, and I can be thankful for that. But I don't even
have a needle and thread here to sew myself back up. No matter how badly I
would do at it, I have to think it would be better than what I'm doing now.
Lying here, bleeding to death. And now, I think there's no hope for myself.

I will die here, and I will likely die soon. I won't take my
own life. Not when I'm so close to my inevitable, natural death. Hardly
natural, I suppose, but much more natural than slitting my own throat. I have
nothing here I could slit it with, either.

More than dying here, though. Much more than that, and much
further back in my life, I was still a fool, and death has brought that to the
forefront, now. I have little family left. My youngest son died before I moved
to the United States, and my wife not long after we bought our first house here.
It left me with a lone son, and we lived in practiced peace for quite some
time. I knew the truth about him since he was very young, but when he finally
told me, I stopped talking to him, unless I could avoid it. I loved him, and I
always have. His sexuality had nothing to do with that. But it caused a rift
all the same. Foolish of me once again.

We never spoke, and I denounced him except in my own private
thoughts. I tried to convince myself he was useless, that no connection
remained. I wanted that to be true, because that is what I was expected to
believe. But Kadar was always my son.

Now, as I bleed alone on the tile floor here, my foolishness
is made clear to me. I don't want Kadar to watch this show, see me like this.
But I hope he is, if only to see my message to him. It took what little
strength I had, and given the choice, I would never change my mind. Before I
died, I needed to apologize to him. I needed to tell him the truth. I spelled
it out in fingerpaints on the front window of this shop, and I hope that the
producers show that. Let them do just that one thing for me.

I've done what I can. This is the last of me, the fool.

ENTRY END