Half of the escalators at the mall are shrieking and moaning like wounded animals, the other half are barricaded off and broken entirely. The random distribution of escalators that have died versus those that are only wounded has turned the mall into a challenging maze, like something right out of a Resident Evil video game. If this was Resident Evil, let’s say a PS2 era version, after I entered the mall and stood by the railing we would switch to a cut scene boom shot that would zoom out over the railing and reverse to show my position before tilting down to show the shoe store that I need to get to three floors down. The shoe store is directly beneath me, and in pre apocalyptic times a direct route would only require stepping from one down escalator directly onto the next, but this is the now times. Civilization is crumbling all around us and nowhere is that fact written more largely than in the mall.
My companion and I make our way to the opposite end of the floor we’re on to check out the escalator situation on that end. Along the way we pass a different shoe store and she suggests that I go inside to take a look, but I know better. I only have about enough gas in the tank for a single social interaction and I’m not about to give it up this early in the game. As we approach I can see the sales guy start to stir, triggered by our motion. I quickly doge to the side so I can see the shoes through the glass. There’s nothing I want in there, and the glass proves to be an effective anti-sales barrier.
Rounding the corner I can see that the down escalator is still turning on this side, I just need to make it past the food court to get there. There are only two places still operating inside the food court, Umi Chicken and Thai Chicken. I’m pretty sure there is no difference between the two, so I’m puzzled as to how this came to be, but here we are. Umi chicken has posted a sample guy, Thai chicken can’t be bothered, and as we pass he lunges at us with a toothpick. “Sample?” he says. My companion and I simultaneously point to our mouths and silently speak the word “gum” like we’d rehearsed it. The sample guy nods like he understands and returns to his position in the shadows. He’s smiling politely as he does so, but there’s nothing behind those eyes. He checked out this morning the moment he clocked in.
We descend to the second floor, mechanical bits beneath us shuddering and grinding the whole way. The mall has recently changed hands and I’m starting to get the feeling that the new owners aren’t paying the maintenance bills. This space is huge and you can feel the second law of thermodynamics pushing in from every corner. If it can nip away at the tendons connecting the floors it won’t be long before the mall is brought down by the weight of its own bloated body and finds its throat in the drooling maw of entropy.
Predictably, the down escalator from the second to the first floor isn’t working on this end, so we must reverse course and head all the way back to the opposite side. My companion suggests that we try to find the elevator she thinks is hidden in the back of Macy’s. If she’s right, and it’s working this could save us a lot of time, but if she’s wrong that could mean we’ll have to double back again, or worse yet, we could get stuck in the Macy’s elevator, possibly forever. I decide to keep walking. I can’t risk it when we’re already halfway there, and besides that my companion is really stoned and cannot possibly grasp the gravity of the situation we are in.
The trip across the second floor is mostly uneventful. We do spy another shoe store, but this time it is on the other side of the mall. The open space in the middle of the floor is filled by deflated Christmas ornaments that hang limply from the ceiling and shield us from view. I can see that the shoes I am after aren’t in there either and the sales guy never even suspects that his inventory has been perused.
One more dodgy escalator ride to go and we’re there. This time it’s going smoothy until we’re about halfway down. Our poor mechanical animal lets out a howl like it’s been caught in a leg trap. The fingers of my left hand seize the railing hard, and my right hand reaches up to cover my ear. Surely this can’t be it? We were so close. Were we supposed to take the elevator after all? But it’s ok. The howling subsides and we’re delivered gently to the first floor. As I step off, I’m passed by a tightly bound nuclear family on their way up. They’re looking around excitedly and speaking to each other in what sounds like a Scandinavian language. These cheerful looking people can’t have come here to shop. Each one of the brightly colored down jackets they’re wearing probably cost more than my mortgage payment. It makes more sense that they’re disaster tourists, come here to explore the wreckage of the 20th century.
The first-floor shoe store is probably the last business here with any life left in it. It’s so clean, well lit and well stocked, that it feels like I’ve briefly stepped back in time. I try to relax and browse casually like we used to do when we were young, and the mall was new. It takes some effort at first, but it helps that some of the new old stock shoes are so incredibly dated. I hold one pair in my hand that make me wish I could still go across the hall and buy the matching 8-Ball jacket to go with them.
After four blissful aisles of strolling, I see them, the shoes I have been looking for, the ones from my dream. Impossible to miss with their bright colors, they might as well be glowing and hovering like a save spot crystal. There are three pairs of them on the shelf and my size is printed right on the box in the middle of the stack. The moment I pick it up I feel that the weight of the box is off, a quick check shows that the weight of all the boxes is. This is a one shoe in the box kind of store, a reminder of our current reality that snaps me back to the present day like an overstretched rubber band. The final challenge is here, but that’s ok because as you may recall I have been hoarding my ability to socially interact like a health pack before the final boss. My companion goes off on a side quest to find the NPC who knows where the other shoe is and returns with both the necessary human and the shoe only moments later. Once the fit is confirmed, and the shoes photographed for Instagram, I make my way to the front where I expend the very last of my energy making idle chit chat while the payment goes through.
The return to the car in the parking lot is smooth and unremarkable, because of course everything works fine in the other direction. No game designer is going to waste a bunch of time writing stuff to take place after the final battle.
Tl;dr: I got new sneaks yesterday.
