The brakes on the forest green mustang squealed as the car skidded to a halt.

“Now that is driving,” the Prince of Greed said with a gleeful smirk on his face. Corrine laughed and pulled the keys from the ignition and the pair stepped out of the car. Corrine surveyed the landscape,

“Damn, I thought Manhattan was hit hard,” she remarked as she looked around, seeing the collapsing skyscrapers, craters in the road, and the charred metal frames of cars. The city looked as if it had been ripped straight out of some movie about the apocalypse. Rusty metal jutted out of gaping holes on once proud buildings. It looked like a war zone.

“Chicago can thank Walton Enterprises for that one. Turns out the city that headquartered the company that sold the bombs to both sides wasn’t popular,” Greed said. Corrine looked at the Prince quizzically,

“Both sides?” she asked.

“Money is a hell of a motivator,” Greed replied dismissively.

“Did you make a deal with the person who runs Walton?”

Greed paused and looked at Corrine with a faint smirk. He pulled a pair of gold rimmed sunglasses from the breast pocket of his blazer and slid them on.

“Not at that time, no,” he answered, “Now let’s take a look around, we’re here on business.” He said and he started to walk into the entryway of one of the buildings they had stopped near.

Corrine followed, stepping over the shards of glass and twisted metal where the doors once stood. She looked around at what was once the lobby of the building. It reminded her of the day she met the Prince of Greed, the day that started it all in the Wall Street building. Small shoots of grass pushed up from the cracks in the tiled floor and the sunlight streamed in through the holes in the wall and upper levels. There was an eerie peacefulness to it.

“Corrine, take my arm, we’re going up,” Greed instructed. Corrine made her way to the Prince and linked her arm with his. They were now standing on the top floor of the building. At least, what was now the top floor of the building. The dilapidated sign that hung by one nail in the sheetrock next to the elevator indicated there used to be about ten more floors above this one. Only the sky loomed above them now.

Greed looked out over the cityscape beneath them, surveying it. Corrine looked around too. She knew the Prince was trying to determine where a mortal would be hiding in the city. She looked for anything that might look like a grocery store or have access to water. With the current state of the city and the density of the buildings obscuring their sight, Corrine could see no helpful indicators as to where this mysterious person may reside.

“Ah, come on Corrine,” Greed said suddenly and he grabbed Corrine’s shoulder. Before she could even turn to look at him, they were standing in a mall. In the middle of the floor rose a large glass elevator with the cabin bursting through the glass shaft and lying on its side. The mall was dim at the base level as the sunlight coming through the hole in the roof was blocked by the upper levels. The building was still relatively intact or at least more so than the rest of the city had been so far.

“You think they’re in a mall?” Corrine asked skeptically,

“One that sits on a freshwater lake and may have some leftover food? Yes.” Greed replied. He looked around the mall, “Dark isn’t it?” he asked. He snapped his fingers and the mall lit up with the blinding white of the fluorescent lights that hung overhead.

“Very discrete,” Corrine said dryly but a small part of her was in awe. Seeing the mall bathed in artificial light was both familiar and breathtaking. It was a glimpse into the past.

Andrea flinched as the lights above turned on. She blinked a few times in the new brightness that filled the Water Tower Place mall as her eyes adjusted.

“What the hell?” she muttered. She walked out through the storefront, hunched down to avoid detection by anyone who might be in the mall. She paused and listened. She could hear the echoes of voices from the floors below her. She shuffled to the railing and peeked down. She could hear people but she didn’t see them. She ducked back into the abandoned store she had called her home for the past few months and stuffed her belongings into a backpack she had taken from another one of the stores. It wasn’t the first time she had to change her location and she knew it wouldn’t be the last.

“Malls are so neat, aren’t they?” Greed asked as he and Corrine walked along the base floor, looking into the long abandoned stores. Various pieces of clothing and store furniture were strewn around the abandoned mall. Anything of value was long gone, even some of the metal clothing racks were missing, likely scrapped or repurposed by those who remained.

“So you like cars and malls? Are you just the salesman of Hell?” Corrine joked. Greed smiled,

“Very witty. But not quite. I just find it fascinating how much greed drives innovation. Humans want money so badly, they’ll dedicate entire buildings to selling objects and they’ll constantly make little changes and innovations, compete with one another, and drive others out of business. And in the end, it means nothing. All that material wealth doesn’t come with you. You leave behind a legacy, sure, but what happens when the society you made your legacy in no longer exists?”

Conversations with Greed continued to make Corrine borderline nihilistic. She missed when she thought about the condition of humanity less. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was purposeful, if the Prince continually asserted that human’s actions didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things then Corrine’s actions now didn’t either. There was comfort in that idea.

“Now if I were a survivor of the war to end all wars and the unfolding apocalypse hiding in a rather large mall in a very large city, where would I be?” Greed wondered aloud. Corrine rolled her eyes,

“If she didn’t come out when the lights came on, I doubt she’s going to make it easy to find her. And she can probably hear us.”

Greed looked at Corrine with a half smile and arched eyebrow,

“Do you think I haven’t known exactly where she is since we entered the building? If she’s a Virtue, her abilities haven’t manifested yet.” He looked up and made eye contact with the woman peering over the railing of one of the floors.

Andrea’s heart leapt into her throat as she looked directly into the eyes of the man on the bottom floor. She scrambled back away from the edge and ran towards the stairs, pushing open the door and running down towards the exit. She had heard the man and the woman with him talking about finding someone and she was willing to bet that they were talking about her. She didn’t know why but she had made plenty of enemies during her time in Chicago. Maybe they figured now was the time to settle their scores. Andrea wasn’t going to stay around and find out.

She jumped over the railing and landed on more steps down below. She kept running until she reached the exit door and burst outside to the front of the mall. A dark green Ford Mustang caught her eye,

“Damn,” she said under her breath, astonished. She looked around and then walked over to the driver’s side door. She pulled on the handle and found it unlocked. She slid inside onto the well maintained leather seats and shut the door, pulling off the cover underneath the steering wheel and exposing the wires. She grabbed one of the wires and twisted it, waiting to hear the engine turn over. It failed to start.

She cursed under her breath and looked around the car. In the center console was a set of keys. She looked at them skeptically before grabbing them and starting the car.

“Damn they’re dumb,” she remarked as she pressed the gas pedal to the floor and sped off from the mall, burning tire tracks into the ground.

Corrine heard the engine of the Mustang rev up and then the squeal of tires as the car drove off from within the mall. She looked to Greed,

“She took the car.”

Greed smiled deviously and replied, “I know, I left a set of keys in there.”

“Why would you do that?” Corrine asked and then she thought about it, “oh.”

“Exactly, now we don’t need to chase her. You remember what the interior of the car looks like right?” he asked. Corrine closed her eyes and visualized it.

Andrea swerved around a broken down car on the road as she headed towards the interstate. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw a woman staring back at her,

“FUCK!” she yelled, slamming on the brakes.

Corrine’s head slammed into the back of the driver’s seat as the woman driving hit the brakes causing the car to go from 160 miles per hour to zero. Her vision swam and she groaned as she held her head in her hands. Dealing with that level of whiplash was going to be a bitch. She looked up and shook her head, wincing as she did so. The woman who had been driving had already taken off running with the driver’s side door wide open. Corrine massaged her temples and sighed,

“Why is nothing ever easy?” she wondered aloud. She slid into the front of the car and turned the engine back on. She slammed the door shut and grabbed the steering wheel, looking straight ahead at the woman as she put the car in gear.

“Look at you little killer, we do need her alive though,” Greed said, appearing in the passenger seat.

“I’m not going to run her over, hopefully she’ll go into a building and we can follow her there. I’m not running around Chicago,” Corrine replied, pressing the gas.

Andrea heard the car behind her rev. She turned her head to see the car start coming towards her.

“These motherfuckers are crazy,” she said to herself as she pushed her body to run faster than she ever had before. Her lungs screamed for air and each footfall against the concrete felt like a jackhammer to her spine. She could hear the car approaching and she took a sharp turn down an alleyway, hearing the tire’s shriek as the driver tried to make the turn. She chanced a glance behind her and saw the car turning to come down the alley. She pulled open a door to a club that backed up to the alleyway and ducked in. The car sped by and she breathed a sigh of relief.

She looked around the dark interior of the building, squinting in the low light. This had clearly been some sort of night club. There were a handful of tables around a raised platform that served as a stage. Most of the tables were knocked over or broken. Broken halves of liquor bottles littered the floor behind the bar. Andrea searched the shelves to see if there was anything of use but nothing remained. The place had been cleaned out by other scavengers long ago. She made her way towards the main entrance, stepping over the broken chairs and glass shards in her way and pushed open the door to the outside.

“Can we talk?” the woman who had tried to run her over asked, suddenly standing directly in front of Andrea. Andrea shoved her, knocking her down, before taking off down the road to try and find another place to hide.

Corrine let out a yell of exasperation as she sat on the concrete, having been knocked to the ground by the woman.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“This isn’t going well,” Greed remarked, looming over Corrine. Corrine rolled her eyes and stood up, brushing her hands off on her jeans.

“Would you like to make it any easier?” she asked agitatedly.

“Not particularly, I’m having a great time,” Greed replied.

“You truly are insufferable.”

“Who me?” he asked mockingly. Corrine sprinted after the woman and Greed called after her, “I’ll get the car!”

Andrea ran down another alleyway, searching for any sort of opening into a building. She looked up and saw a ladder dangling down from a fire escape. She jumped and grabbed the bottom rung, pulling herself up until she reached the iron balcony and ran up the stairs, busting through a window and rolling into an apartment. She brushed the glass shards and wood splinters from her hair and clothes and looked around the apartment.

It had been vacant for a while and smelled damp. She searched through the cabinets and found some canned food. She checked the expiration dates before throwing them into her backpack. She opened the fridge and recoiled immediately as the stench of rotting meat assailed her nostrils. She slammed the door shut and pulled the collar of her shirt over her nose, gagging as she used her hand to try and wave away the noxious odor. She walked through the hallway, looking at the pictures on the wall. Most of them were of a young couple, they looked happy. Andrea felt a pang of sadness as she looked at them,

“Hope they died together,” she said quietly. She searched the bedrooms and the bathrooms but found nothing of value other than a half empty container of ibuprofen. She threw that in her bag too, she knew she would need it later when the adrenaline wore off. She walked out into the hallway of the apartment building and looked around. There was no sign of the girl or the weird suited man that was with her. Andrea walked down the hall and saw the door to another apartment that was slightly ajar. She pushed it open and looked around inside,

“Hello?” she called in quietly. No one responded. She walked in and recoiled from the putrid smell of rot. She groaned and pulled her shirt collar back over her nose again and looked around the corner. Her eyes fell on a body suspended from the ceiling by a rope. She sighed,

“Shit, man,” she murmured, pulling her knife from her bag and going over to the man’s lifeless body. He was young and, based on the state of the body, he hadn’t been dead for that long, maybe a week. She cut the rope and caught his body as it fell, turning her head away. She dragged him to the couch and laid him on it. She used her fingertips to close his eyes and covered his body with a blanket that was lying on the floor.

“Everyone deserves a proper resting place, don’t you agree?”

Andrea whirled around to see the man in the green suit looking at her from the doorway. Her eyes darted to the window.

“I wouldn’t,” the man said. His tone had an edge to it. Andrea stared down the man, trying to figure out if she could overpower him or at least knock him off balance to enable her to get away.

“You can’t,” the man said as if responding to her thoughts.

“Can’t what?” she asked as if she was challenging him. He smirked,

“You can’t get past me if I don’t want you to,” he answered and Andrea felt a chill run down her spine. She clutched the knife in her hand tighter, holding it directly at her side with the point facing the man.

“Of course, you’re welcome to try if you want,” the man said, spreading his arms out with his palms up, opening himself up to Andrea.

Andrea gripped the knife and then charged. She felt the knife lodge into the space between his ribs and heard the steel slide into flesh. But it felt wrong. She twisted the knife and realized there was no resistance. She pulled the knife out and looked at the man. He was completely unfazed.

She looked at the spot where she had stabbed him and saw there was no blood. And then she watched in disbelief as the hole in his chest sealed back together. Even the suit reformed and it looked as if she hadn’t stabbed him at all.

“See?” he said, gesturing at himself. Andrea slowly stepped backwards until her back was pressed against the wall. “Andrea, this doesn’t have to be this hard,” he said, stepping closer to her.

“How do you know my name?” she demanded to know, thrusting the knife out in front of her even though she knew it was pointless. The man reached out and pinched the blade of the knife between two fingers and it broke cleanly off, leaving Andrea with only the handle.

“I know everything about you, Andrea Sharpe. I know that you’re a survivor because you aren’t new to living on the streets, are you?” He asked and Andrea felt her heart rate spike. Her mind raced, how did this man know who she was?

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Is that the default question for mortals? Why does it matter?” The man seemed annoyed and Andrea noted his use of the word ‘mortal.’

“Regardless, there is something I don’t know about you, Andrea. Something I am trying to figure out,” the man said. Andrea remained silent, still clutching the handle of the knife as if it would provide her any sort of protection. A shimmer caught her eye and she saw a silver crucifix lying on the floor.

“So Andrea, how important are…”

Andrea ducked down and grabbed the crucifix before chucking it directly at the man’s head. It made contact and he recoiled and grabbed his head,

“OW!” he roared and reached out to grab Andrea, but she had already used the brief second that he wasn’t focused on her to bolt out of the window and down the firescape. She slid down the ladder and made it to the ground, sprinting again to get as far away as possible.

Greed appeared in the car next to Corrine and folded his arms. She noticed he had a black eye.

“I didn’t know you could be hurt,” she said. He held up a hand,

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he huffed.

“Ookay,” Corrine replied, starting the car up. She started driving, navigating the car through alleys, slowing driving as she looked through the windshield to try and spot the girl. Greed remained silent.

“So, do you want to explain how you got hurt?” She asked. A cloud passed over the sun as Greed turned to face Corrine,

“I was cocky,” he said, “It’s nothing we can use against my siblings unless you can move faster than they react and that’s highly unlikely.”

“That’s not a real answer,” Corrine pressed. The sunlight had noticeably dimmed and Corrine wondered whether she should just let it go.

“I took a crucifix to the face,” he mumbled.

“What?” Corrine asked,

“The bitch threw a cross in my fucking face,” Greed said angrily. “Normally, it never would have touched me but I was being cocky, that’s my fault.”

“So if a cross touches one of you, it leaves a mark?”

“If is the key word there. Under almost all circumstances, it’ll never get close and it’s temporary. Again, it’s not useful for us. Only the Virtues are.”

“Got it.”

They continued the drive in silence until Greed held up his hand. Corrine stopped the car and looked at the Prince expectantly,

“She’s in there,” he said.

Andrea’s heart was pounding as she entered the toy store. She struggled to catch her breath, ragged short breaths bursting from her chest as she bent down and held onto her knees. She quickly ducked behind one of the shelves, hiding away from the glass storefront. She couldn’t keep running but she knew she couldn’t let those people catch her. She thought about how the man seemed to know so much about her. Not only did he know her last name, but it was like he knew that she had been living on the streets, homeless, even before the world had ended.

She saw the dark green car drive by and she dropped to the floor, hoping they hadn’t seen her. The car didn’t come back and she stood up, dusting off her jacket with her hands. She looked toward the back of the store, seeing a doorway. She started to walk towards it when she heard the distorted notes of ‘the itsy bitsy spider’ start playing. She whipped her head around to look for the source of the noise.

In the middle of the floor sat a small red box with yellow star inlays with a wind up handle that was slowly spinning as the high pitched song slowly played. Andrea felt her heart pounding in her chest and she backed up slowly, keeping her eyes on the toy. She bumped into the wall and turned her head for just a moment to check her surroundings.

Rows of beady black eyes stared back at her from the dolls on the shelf. Each one had its head turned to look directly at Andrea and she felt their glass eyes follow her every movement. The distorted nursery rhyme continued to play in the background.

“What the hell is this…” Andrea whispered, her lips suddenly dry. She felt her way along the wall, shooting glances at the dolls and the wind up box, as she made her way to the back room. She slipped through the doorway and pushed the door closed behind her. Now she was standing in darkness.

A quiet raspy voice spoke from the darkness, “The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.”

Andrea’s breathing became more rapid and she squinted in the darkness to try and find the source of the voice.

“Down came the rain and washed the spider out…”

She could hear something moving in the dark room. It sounded as if something was dragging itself across the floor, landing with a wet thud as it moved forward. She stayed along the wall and began inching towards the exit, seeing traces of light breaking through the gap between the door and the wall.

“Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.”

The voice sounded closer now and Andrea could hear the breathing of whatever was in the room. She heard another thud followed by the noise of it sliding across the floor. Her hand hit the metal knob of the exit door and she slowly turned it.

“And the itsy bitsy spider went up the…”

There was a click as the door opened and Andrea paused, holding her breath. She could still hear the music box in the background.

“SPOUT AGAIN'' bellowed whatever was in the room and now Andrea could hear it scuttling rapidly across the floor. Rapidly, the thing bounded across the floor with heavy thuds and a wet swishing noise as Andrea threw the door open and ran out into the street. She kept running, not looking back.

“There she goes,” Greed remarked boredly as the woman sprinted out from the back of the store.

“Why is she running like that?” Corrine asked and a devious smirk appeared on Greed’s face,

“Probably scared,” he replied impishly. Corrine didn’t ask any further questions. She pressed the gas pedal and the car accelerated forward, following the woman.

Andrea heard the car behind her.

“Goddamn it!” she yelled, frustrated with the never-ending pursuit. Her lungs screamed for air and her legs felt like lead but she kept going. She slid her backpack off her shoulder and pulled out a can of food. She stopped and turned and faced the car directly. She glared at the girl driving as she reared back her arm and chucked the can directly at the windshield. It bounced off without leaving so much as a single crack in the glass and Andrea felt defeated.

Corrine watched as a can thrown by the woman bounced off the windshield and then the woman just sat down on the ground and buried her face in her hands. She slowed to a stop and Greed looked at her,

“Your turn,” he said. Corrine rolled her eyes and stepped out of the car. She walked over to the woman and sat down on the ground next to her,

“Hey,” she said softly. The woman looked up at her with a venomous glare,

“Don’t ‘hey’ me after you ran me around this damn city and nearly ran me over with your car.” she said. Corrine held up her hands in surrender,

“I wasn’t trying to run you over, I just want to talk,” she insisted.

“Talking doesn’t involve a car driving after me like some bat out of hell,” the woman retorted. Corrine took a breath and changed her tactic.

“I think we misunderstood each other, I’m Corrine,” she said, extending her hand.

“I know you fucking lying,” the woman said flatly, “Trying to run me over, following me everywhere I go, and now you want to sit here and go over introductions? I don’t think so.”

Corrine was getting frustrated and she looked back at the car. Greed was sitting inside, reclined in his seat as the radio played. She stood up,

“Look, I’m trying to help you.” she said. The woman scoffed and stood up,

“Help me? I don’t need help. What I need is for you,” she jabbed her finger at Corrine, “and that creepy ass man in the car to leave me alone. Got it?”

“You don’t have to struggle like this, if you help us, we can help you,” Corrine said, gesturing towards the car to prove her point.

“Struggle like this? Struggle like what?”

“You know, like this,” Corrine waved her hand around to indicate their surroundings and the woman laughed,

“So what? I’ve been struggling. I’ve struggled on these streets for years. Ain’t had a roof over my head since I was a kid. I don’t need your help, the time to help me is long past. Don’t act like you care, I don’t know what it is you want from me but I’m not buying your little let’s be friends shit.” She noticed the dark mark on Corrine’s arm, “And I definitely don’t want any part of that.” She turned and started to walk off. Corrine ran after her and grabbed her arm,

“Listen, you can have everything you want and need. Life doesn’t have to be hard for you anymore,” she said. The woman yanked her arm away,

“I have what I need and I’ve never wanted anything I didn’t earn,” she said.

Andrea felt a buzzing in her skull as she said those words to Corrine and she noticed the man in the car staring directly at her. He grinned hungrily as he stepped out of the car and walked over to her, staring down at her over the lenses of his sunglasses,

“Now we know how special you are, Andrea. Now we know.” he said. Andrea didn’t wait to hear an explanation before she sprinted away again with the electrical hum running down her spine.