Public Enemy Zero by Andrew Mayne Read Free Book Online

face first.
    Mitchell could hear the sound of people knocking chairs and tables over to get to him. He leaped to his feet and spotted three people getting close on his left. The nearest was a teenage boy in a Burger King uniform.
    Without looking, Mitchell grabbed the chair he had been sitting in and flung it at the young man. He hurled it at his face. The young man held out his hands to swat it away.
    The chair bounced off his shoulder and hit a snarling teenage girl in the bridge of her nose.
    On Mitchell’s right, a crowd of a dozen people had abandoned their places in front of the Panda Express and were only two tables away. He looked over his shoulder at the narrow exit from the food court to the main atrium. Rows of tables and chairs lined the center. An old man and three blue-haired women had abandoned their bagels and coffee and were running toward Mitchell.
    He looked back at the rest of the food court and decided his best chance was to go through the old people.
    He ran into the old man as he tried to block Mitchell. Withered hands covered in liver spots reached out and tried to pull at him. The old man let out a yell and gnashed at Mitchell with a mouth full of dentures. Mitchell pushed the man in the chest, sending him into the women.
    Desperate to gain some time, Mitchell started scattering the chairs and flipping the tables into the crowd as they surged into the narrow passage. Mitchell ran into the atrium and ducked as a woman pushing a stroller ran toward him.
    Three women came out of Lord & Taylor at the other end of the atrium to see what the commotion was. Their faces changed and they started screaming. Three sets of manicured hands reached out to claw at Mitchell as he got closer.
    Mitchell’s feet skidded across the floor as he came to a stop when he realized that exit was going to be blocked. The crowd from the food court was starting to make it through the overturned tables and chairs and spill into the atrium.
    The atrium opened up into two wings. Mitchell ran toward the closest one.
    A woman selling scented candles at a kiosk came at Mitchell. He jumped out of the way and hit a clothes display in a Banana Republic. Two sales girls came screaming at him from inside.
    Mitchell regained his balance and ran down the mall. He felt a hand touch his backpack as someone got close. Up ahead he could see a shoe store with shoe racks in front.
    As he passed it, he pulled on the racks, toppling them to the ground. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the two Banana Republic girls fall over it. Behind them was the surge of people from the food court.
    The first few dozen people tripped over the girls and the racks and fell to the floor on top of them. The mob in back just pushed their way through or trampled them underfoot. It was a horrific pileup as waves of people kept coming through. Those that fell were just treated like an obstacle by the people behind them.
    There was an exit coming up ahead of Mitchell that led to a service corridor. If he could make it in there, the narrow hallway should slow the crowd down. He prepared to make a quick turn into the alcove and through the doors.
    He was thirty feet away from the alcove when two mall cops came running out. One of them was talking into a radio. He locked eyes on Mitchell and held the radio overhead like a club. The other mall cop followed suit and the two of them ran to intercept him.
    Mitchell dodged to his left and ran around a toy kiosk. He elbowed the middle-aged woman as she got out of her chair to attack him. She fell back into the chair and continued going head over heels.
    He moved through a rest area and jumped over a couch to the other side of the mall. One of the mall cops tripped on the toy kiosk woman and tumbled. The other was still right behind Mitchell.
    Sales people and customers had begun to step into the center of the mall as the commotion got louder and the crowd’s howling screams grew closer. Two young men and a girl walked out