Public Enemy Zero by Andrew Mayne Read Free Book Online Page B

at his throat and start to strangle him. Mitchell jerked his head back and bashed in his assailant’s nose. He turned to see a saleswoman topple into a rack of wallets.
    Mitchell recognized her. She’d once helped him pick out a suitcase for a trip he never ended up going on with Rachel. The woman had been exceedingly polite.
    All of that was gone as she made it to her feet and ran at Mitchell. He sent a knee to her face but tried to soften the blow out of guilt. She fell to the ground again. Mitchell used this opportunity to push another display over. This one he dropped onto the entrance of the up escalator to create a temporary roadblock.
    People were halfway up the down escalator. Mitchell looked around the upper level for an exit. He remembered the woman going to a storeroom near the bedding department. Mitchell headed in that direction.
    If he could get into the storage room, maybe he could block the door. If it led to a service corridor, he could hopefully find a fire exit and get out of the building. From there, he had no idea what he would do. For the moment, he forced himself to disconnect his actions from anything bad that was happening to the people chasing him. In his mind the building was on fire and he had to get out.
    He ran around the shaft and past the exit for the up escalator. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a mass of people making their way through the tables and suitcases he’d dropped in front of it. Ahead of him, two athletic-looking men came running from the bedding section.
    Mitchell reached out and grabbed a large metal pot and threw it at the closet one. It hit him in the face and opened up a gash above his eye. The man didn’t flinch.
    He tried to avoid them by running left, but they cornered him in front of a display table. Rather than go around it, they just climbed onto it. One of them was on all fours reaching out to claw Mitchell. The other landed on his feet and was ready to jump on Mitchell. He knew he couldn’t handle the both of them in close quarters.
    The table wobbled as the two men climbing over it unbalanced it slightly. Mitchell grabbed the edge closest to him and lifted as hard as he could. The table flipped over and the two men fell off. One was trapped under it while the other fell backward and smashed the back of his head against another display. He fell to the ground like a rag doll.
    There was a snarl to Mitchell’s left as luggage lady came at him. He jumped onto the overturned table and ran into the mattress section. He tried running over the tops of the beds but lost too much speed as the mattresses absorbed his footsteps.
    He spotted the entrance to the storage area and ran to it. The luggage lady tripped and fell behind him as one of her heels broke. Behind her, the mob had finally made it to the top of the escalator. Mitchell could see splatters of blood on the bodies of the people in the lead.
    He felt like he was going to throw up. Somewhere a buzzer was going off because the escalator was jammed. Mitchell tried not to think what was jamming it as he bolted through the doors leading to the service corridor.
     

 
    10
    The doors pushed inward. Mitchell scanned the hallway for something to put in front of the doors to hold back the crowd. There was nothing. Damn.
    To his left there was a break room. Further down there was a door and then the hallway went in two directions. One of them had to lead to a stairwell and out of the building, away from the mob.
    He ran to the end of the hallway and spotted a fire hose in a glass case. Desperate to try anything, he pulled the door off and pulled the hose free. A label on the hose warned the user to have at least two people hold on to it due to the high pressure. Perfect.
    He threw the head of the hose down the hallway pointed toward the doors he’d just run through. Mitchell spun the wall valve until it came off the screw. The slack hose began to fill up with water as it was flooded with pressure. He watched the