Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 120, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 733 & 734, September/October 2002

Fun and Games at the Carousel Mall by Tom Tolnay

New York writer Tom Tolnay says his first love in fiction is the short story. He has published several crime-related stories with EQMM over the years, and produces non-genre stories for other national magazines. In 2001, he took first place in Literal Latté’s national short story contest with “The Ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald.” The story has since been made into a short film by Sea Lion Productions; the company plans to show it at film festivals this year.

Around 9:45 A.M. squadrons of automobiles began rolling into the acres of fresh-tarred parking lots that surrounded the Carousel Shopping Mall, the construction of which had been completed in the fall on a filled-in marsh near a confluence of three highways. By 9:50, the first wave of shoppers stood out in the frosty air, shivering, peering through the green-tinted, impenetrable glass doors. Just barely they could see vendors lined up along the tubelike tunnels, setting up trays of sugar-coated peanuts, salty pretzels, donuts with fifty kinds of fillings (one for each state in the Union), bags of buttered popcorn, gumdrops, and chocolates sold by the pound. Collectively the vendors served as a kind of buffer zone to slow down the army of shoppers that stormed the Carousel each morning.

By 9:55 many more automobiles were pulling up between the yellow-painted lines, and the swelling crowds at the entrances were stirring impatiently, quoting out loud prices of sale items they had seen on television and in newspapers. High above each door was a weatherproof pivoting camera with a cyclopean glass eye that was continually feeding images of them to a windowless compound in the subbasement. Here dozens of video screens were monitored twenty-four hours a day by a rotating shift of security guards in dark blue uniforms and billed caps.

Above ground, the Carousel consisted of a massive rotunda with three floors that surrounded a spacious service area. All shops on each level radiated out from this center, and the front of each was restricted to the same width. This placed shops on relatively equal competitive footing, according to the developers, and gave each the appearance of being small enough to be friendly and unique, like a family-owned hometown store. (Every one of the shops, in fact, was part of an international retail conglomerate, with headquarters located far away, often in Japan or Germany.)

At precisely 10:00 A.M. the six doorways spaced evenly around the Carousel sprang open through the magic of an electronic timer. Shoppers swarmed onto the entrance ramps. While a few stopped at the snack vendors, most continued down into the tunnels. Along the walls, digitally-programmed advertising signs were flashing and passionate music was blaring from unseen speakers. Many of the children bounded ahead of their mothers, fathers, older siblings, grandparents. Several mothers called out to their fleeing offspring, Meet me at Burger King at noon! I’ll catch up to you at The Disney Store! Don’t spend all your allowance on video games!... The kids didn’t look back, swiftly melting into the milieu of the mall.

Secretly the parents were glad. With the kids on their own they would be able to stroll around their favorite shops without constantly being nagged to buy a breast-feeding doll that produced “real” mother’s milk or a laser gun that gave off “real” low-voltage shocks. Besides, they knew their children would be safe in the Carousel — if not here, then where could they be safe, the way things were going? Even out here in the suburbs, some school-children were wearing bullet-proof vests beneath their sweaters to protect themselves against classmates who hid revolvers under their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in cartoon-imprinted lunchboxes. And deadly stabbings were being committed on street corners over outrageously priced designer sunglasses.

The mother of one of the youngsters who had run on ahead entered the subterranean central area of the mall, glad to be inside where it was warm. Here she found herself surrounded by self-service purveyors of breakfast, lunch, and dinner — from scrambled eggs to pasta to tacos to hot dogs to egg rolls. The Carousel Shopping Mall, as its marketing corps pointed out repeatedly in its promotions, was “A Complete Shopping & Dining Experience — Fun & Games for the Entire Family!” The “Fun” referred to the clowns who roamed each floor handing out lolly-pops to the kids; visits from Santa Claus (armed with candy canes) and the Easter Bunny (packing jelly beans); plus a miniature carousel, which played nursery rhymes while carrying tots round and round. The “Games” referred to hourly drawings for door prizes — one could win anything from a free organ lesson to a free cosmetics analysis; as well as the battery of video games, where electronically devised, virtually real human beings would tear off each other’s bodily parts (in color and stereophonic sound) at a cost of mere pocket change.

At the heart of the mall, the mother stopped to wait for one of the three cylindrical, high-speed elevators to descend. Because these conveyances were made entirely of glass, passengers were able to observe shops glittering stylishly around them as they were propelled upwards. Between the back-to-back elevators were “Customer Conveniences” such as restrooms, diaper-changing stations, information booth, maps of the mall, baby-stroller rentals, pay telephones, security office... depending upon the floor. On the top floor, stainless-steel water fountains had been installed. Shortly after the mall had opened, however, the water from the fountains had acquired a marshy odor, so a concession stand selling bottled soda, juices, and sparkling water had immediately opened nearby to make up for the inconvenience.

Soon the mother was swept away by one of the round elevators, and she emerged on the second level, where a tall man at a stall, standing erect in suit and tie, offered her a free cloth shopping bag if she would sign up for a Carousel credit card. I already have a dozen credit cards, she exaggerated, eyeing the carousel imprinted on the free bag. But you don’t have the one card that will take care of all your shopping needs in the Carousel Mall, he said, and smiled. The mother hesitated, then said, No, thank you, not today, and moved past him, vaguely disappointed at herself, and not noticing the momentary flash of anger that had passed over the salesman’s face.

Entering the Yarn Barn, she inspected the sale items on a table up front, but none of the scattered craft kits — many were torn open and missing pieces — appealed to her. The deeper she moved into the shop, the wider it became, filling out its slice-of-pie shape, and she found herself surrounded by an ever-widening array of craft supplies and tools to make jewelry out of bottle caps and bird houses out of ice cream sticks. When she’d finished handing her credit card over to a pale, dull-eyed clerk, who dropped the block of candle wax and flowery quilted material into a plastic bag, she left the Yarn Barn with a sense of contentment and accomplishment.

Now she walked over to the housewares store, Kitchen Karma. Here she roamed among the gleaming pots and pans, the rolling pins of glass, marble, and wood, the cookie cutters in the shape of stars, daisies, and cows. Within half an hour she had purchased a set of dish towels imprinted with geese and a spatula with an apple-knobbed handle. Already she was looking forward to placing this new merchandise in a special cabinet at home with all the other items she had purchased the previous week, the previous month, but which — because she had so much to do — still had not been put to use. After drifting along several more aisles, however, it occurred to her that she had purchased the exact same items the week before. Her impulse was to go back to the checkout counter and request a refund. But then she realized that possessing these duplicates would give her a good excuse to return to the Carousel in one or two days instead of three or four.

As the morning wore on, and after the mother had slipped her credit card out of her purse several more times, she began to feel tired, and she wondered what time it was getting to be: She’d neglected to wear her wristwatch, an anniversary gift her husband had purchased at the Carousel Mall. Unable to find a clock, she strode over to The Clock Works. None of its mantlepiece or tabletop clocks displayed the same time, however, and she wondered why none of the shops was equipped with a wall clock. It’s almost as if they don’t want us to know when it’s time to go home, she reflected, a thought that struck her as amusing. At last she stopped a woman and asked for the time. Warily the woman glanced at her watch and muttered, Eleven fifty-six, then fled into the nearest shop.

The mother returned to the central service area and while she waited with dozens of others for the elevators, the circular lights overhead flickered momentarily. Just then she noticed she was munching on a large chocolate chip cookie, though she didn’t remember having purchased it. Not wanting to spoil her appetite for lunch, and having put on a few pounds lately, she stuffed the remainder of the cookie into a filled-up waste can, which was surrounded by a spillover of crumpled napkins, soda cans, paper plates with pizza stains, and gnawed chicken bones. At last an elevator settled into position and she squeezed in.

In a few minutes she was standing at the wide-open doorway of Burger King. Unable to find her son, she took a place in the nearest line of customers to save time while waiting for him. In recent months she had been noticing that it took longer and longer to get served at fast-food outlets, slower really than ordinary coffee shops. But millions upon millions throughout the world were being fed by these franchises, so she knew they were doing the best they could for the public. Just as the mother reached the teenaged African-American order-taker at the counter, her son ran up to her.

What would you like to eat? she asked, straightening his baseball cap. The boy pointed to a picture of a cheeseburger deluxe, which came with a large french fries and a super-sized Coke. His mother ordered two of these “combos.” When the meals were served, wrapped in foil and cardboard, along with white plastic forks sealed in tissue-thin plastic, mother and son wandered deeper into the interior to find a place to sit. But Burger King was jammed, as usual, and it wasn’t until ten minutes later that they leaped into a booth moments before an elderly couple had been able to lay claim to the space. The white-haired, wrinkle-faced shoppers snarled, while the mother and son grinned triumphantly at them.

Unwrapping the foil, the mother took a big bite of her cheeseburger deluxe. All that shopping had made her hungry. That first bite made her realize, however, that they’d had to wait just long enough to make their lunch cold. Better than walking around famished, she thought, taking another bite. As she chewed through the bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise that topped the burger, she was reminded that hamburgers, or slices of pizza, or hot dogs served in any of these national chains tasted exactly alike. Quality control, she thought.

Her son was picking listlessly at the fries, and his mother asked: Why aren’t you eating your burger? He replied, Just not too hungry, staring at kids in the facing booth whose jaws were grinding the ground beef. This had happened during their last trip to the mall, and it made the mother mildly concerned. Are you feeling sick? she asked. No, I just wanna get back to the video game I was playing — Death and Destruction at the Gates of Hell, he said with a faint smile. First eat your lunch, his mother insisted. The boy looked glumly at the foil and cardboard food wrappers before him, twisted his lips in distaste, then plucked a cold french fry out of the upright container, stuck it into his mouth, and seemed to swallow it whole.

Other parents and their offspring were wandering back and forth along the aisles, balancing burgers and beverages and shopping bags as they searched for seats. Not wanting them to have a cold lunch, too, and wanting to make her son happy, the mother gathered the remains of her hamburger and fries onto the brown plastic tray and told her son he didn’t have to finish his lunch. But you’ll have to eat everything on your dinner plate tonight! she admonished. Her son bounded off the seat and into the passing crowds outside Burger King. Meet me at Carvel’s on the second floor at three o’clock! she called out, not quite sure he’d heard her.

Just as the mother was rising off the seat, a woman wearing a ski jacket and hiking boots, accompanied by two young girls wearing ski jackets and hiking boots, hopped into the booth, bumping her aside. She gave them a nasty look, but they only glared back at her insolently. Dumping the leftovers on her tray into the garbage can, the mother pushed her way out of the fast-food emporium. Feeling slightly queasy, and vaguely uneasy, she made her way through the expanding crowds, moving in the opposite direction to that her son had taken.

As the mother emerged from the elevator on the third level, a gang of “toughs” strode by. The young men had shaved heads and wore black denims, thick black leather belts, and heavy black boots. The young women wore black leotards or ragged-edged jeans with patches, and had silvery chains with skull amulets strung across their breasts; blue and red makeup was smeared like war paint over their ghostly white faces. Some were cursing loudly, a few smoked marijuana, and one couple kept bumping purposely into shoppers, causing the gang to laugh raucously.

Nervous, the mother waited until they had stormed by before wandering around the circular space awhile, finally entering Fashionable Fineries. Here placards announced several seasonal sales.

The prices struck her as high — higher, it seemed to her, than before the items had gone on sale. No, I’m just losing my memory, she thought with a smile. Feeling calmer again, she grazed among the cashmere sweaters and cotton bodysuits. Soon she became lost in fantasies of lingerie, picturing the transparent garments draped over her own plump body. Wouldn’t it be terrific, she mused, if I surprised my husband with a silky red negligee and brought some of the old spark back to our bed? Well, there’s no time for that kind of thing anymore, she admitted, with him working such long hours and my own part-time job, just to keep up with the bills. She let the negligee slip out of her fingers onto the counter.

By now she was feeling weary, as if she’d been harvesting com in the fields since sunup. But it was not until she noticed the tiny digital clock readout in the register — she was purchasing two pairs of pantyhose for work — that the mother thought about the time: Three-thirty — a half-hour late to meet my son! It didn’t seem possible that three hours had passed so swiftly.

At that moment, the lights went dim, and she noticed that it had grown chilly. Voices were rising in the corridors outside the shop.

Finding her way out of Fashionable Fineries, she headed toward the elevators and came upon hundreds of shoppers milling around, murmuring loudly, their hands and legs and heads in motion. Now she realized that one of the elevators was stalled between floors and its passengers were pounding hard on the glass as if trying to break through to get air. When the mother asked the clay-faced, skin-and-bones man beside her what had happened, he replied in rapid-fire phrases: Credit card machines chewing up the plastic! CDs playing backwards! None of the phones working! Electronic entrance doors locked automatically! The Carousel’s gone haywire! Then the man shrieked and ran into the crowd.

Alarmed, the mother moved through the crowds toward the door to the stairwell, but it was roped off and a large red sign indicated it was closed for repairs. She noticed dozens of shoppers swarming outside the security office. Some were pounding on the door, some were shouting: My purse was stolen! I’ve lost my daughter! My nose is bleeding — someone punched me! But the door of the office didn’t open. A network of loudspeakers concealed in vents crackled: Attention, shoppers! The electronic system of the Carousel Shopping Mall has apparently been infiltrated by a virus on the ground level and the infection is spreading to the higher floors. To protect public safety, no one is permitted to leave any floor until the virus has been isolated and destroyed. Sorry for the inconvenience...

As soon as the message ended, the music that had been playing blared back on. Usually the mother didn’t hear the background music, but this time she couldn’t block it out because the bony man had been right — it was playing backwards, sending eerie, electronic whining sounds sailing above their heads. Now the lights grew dimmer, and this time they remained dim, casting a drab sepia tone over everyone and everything. The voices of the shoppers rose higher, but none of them were intelligible any longer, having become part of the collective roar of confusion and fear.

Suspecting her son was still at the Video Games Arcade, the mother felt a wave of panic swelling in her chest, and she entered the closest shop, Jewelry Classics. As she wound her way past customers and counters, she felt a sluggishness expanding within her, and noticed it was getting more difficult to breathe. But she forced herself to keep moving. Her idea was to locate the emergency fire exit that was located at the rear of each shop, and use the outside fire escape to make her way down to locate her son at the arcade. Upon reaching the back wall, however, she found a door painted on the concrete surface, but no actual exit leading out of the building. Although certain the mall’s Shop Directory indicated fire exits at the back of every shop, she realized she had never looked for one before. Stunned, she turned and started toward the front of the store, but the air seemed to be thickening, and her body felt as if it was gaining a pound with every step.

Midway through Jewelry Classics, she saw a man and a woman, both well dressed, reaching into a broken glass display case, scooping jewelry off the gray-velvet-covered trays and stuffing the golden trinkets into their pockets. Shaken, the mother took a different aisle to avoid the thieves. After what seemed a very long time, she passed into the central mall. Amid the crush of people she spotted the young toughs in black leather vests and metal-spiked bracelets, their eyes gleaming, their fists raised. In the blur of movement around her, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a clown with a bulbous red nose strike a child on the head with a wooden paddle. The girl fell to the floor and the crowds, now swaying out of control, trampled over the small, tender body. The child’s screams pierced the mother’s heart.

Unable to reach the girl, the mother pushed frantically through the mob to the stairwell. Here she ducked under the rope, past the warning sign — DO NOT ENTER! CLOSED FOR REPAIRS! — and took hold of the doorknob and yanked. To her surprise, it opened. The mother slipped inside, the heavy metal door slamming with a click behind her. Total blackness enveloped her but, determined to find her son and get him out of the Carousel Mall, she placed her hands flat against the walls and began to make her way down, one step at a time. Suddenly she realized she had lost her purse and shopping bags, but this no longer mattered to her. The cold darkness made her shiver as she continued to descend. Her primary fear just then was that she might trip over construction materials left behind by the workmen, and would tumble down the concrete stairs. Yet nothing came in her path, and a strange idea entered her mind: The Carousel Shopping Mall had lied to her, to all of them, about repairs being made in the stairwells, about the existence of fire exits, and a dense apprehension seized her. These weren’t ordinary, sales-driven lies, she realized, but lies that had been used to entrap them inside a cinder-block tomb with locked doors and no windows. Frantic, she tried to get her legs to move more quickly down the stairs, but she couldn’t seem to gather any momentum.

Some time later her foot stepped onto a landing, and she spotted a thin crack of faint light. Feeling along the wall, she found the doorknob, pulled weakly, and staggered out of the stairwell. By now she was feeling immensely exhausted, and her body was shaking from the extreme cold. The lights were dim here, too, and the advertising signs were blinking too slowly, surreally, smearing yellow and purple and red light across the ceilings and walls. Music was groaning out of the iron grillwork, as if a mass of people were in great pain, having suffered wounds on a battlefield. Hundreds of shoppers and sales personnel stood all around her in the frigid air, and despite the appearance of movement caused by the blinking lights, each of them was motionless. Their shiny stillness struck the mother as curiously permanent, like things glimpsed in a flash of lightning. By now she felt entirely too weak to move, too spiritless even to be terrified any longer. Her body no longer trembled. It was only when she noticed her son — caught in place at a video game, his skin coated with an enamel sheen — that she sensed movement, and the last realization that ever passed through her being was that all of them, though frozen in place, were beginning to move in a circle around the central mall, revolving round and round and round and round...