Royals, p.1
Royals, page 1
Praise for Royals
‘A real page-turner of a book, full of vivid characters, intrigue and genuine warmth. The setting is so realistically unsettling, and the teenagers so likeable, that I was hooked from the beginning.’
Alice Pung, author of One Hundred Days
‘In Royals, Bennett Daylight submerses us in the otherworld of an empty shopping mall, where six teens and a baby are trapped without phones or internet and with an endless supply of fast food. This glorious fever dream of a novel with its cast of diverse characters who we grow to love, explores the limits of consumerism alongside the possibilities of human connection, all the while keeping readers on the edge of their seats.’
Erin Gough, author of Amelia Westlake Was Never Here
‘If Stephen King did The Breakfast Club it might turn out a bit like Royals. The creepily atmospheric premise sucks you in, but you’ll stick around for the lovable group of Aussie teenagers. A page-turning romp with a serious message at its core that absolutely should not be started unless you’re prepared to stay up all night finding out what happens next!’
Kate Emery, author of The Not-So-Chosen One
For Alice and Patrick, beautiful kids.
Where are we when the doors close for the last time? We’re everywhere. City Beach, trying to choose between crop tops. Hiding in the play-gym next to the food court. At the end of an aisle in EB Games. In a change room in Myer, wishing we had more money in Foot Locker, and finally, sitting on the floor at the end of a cleaners’ corridor with a pomegranate bubble tea, full sugar, half ice, black pearls, staring at the screen of an iPhone.
Part One DISAPPEARING
I noticed it but I didn’t think about it. It was kind of like the Plaza sighed. Later on I wondered if it was just the sound of all the doors pulling shut, like an intake of breath rather than a sigh. I only looked up for a second. Then back at my phone. I’d been scrolling through Instagram. Yaz had dyed her hair again. It had been all, Live your truth babe! and slay and Yaz was like, I don’t need a man to make me happy! Then I did that thing where you don’t realise you’ve got like four pearls in your fat straw and they shoot down your throat all at once. I remember my phone screen all splattered from the coughing fit. I wiped it with my t-shirt.
But then I couldn’t get past Yaz’s last post: Damn I miss the me with red hair. I tried to scroll down and nothing. I couldn’t even exit out of Instagram. My phone said 5:17 and it seemed to have plenty of battery, but it was frozen. I hate that.
I got up. Everything hurt. Sometimes it gets that way when I’m looking at my phone, I don’t move for more than an hour and then it’s like someone’s had me shut in a box for a week – I can’t see, I can’t walk, I have to remember to breathe. I stretched and blinked and took in a deep breath, and then I went down the corridor and out into the hall of shops, all flooded with light from the afternoon sun coming through the glass ceiling, two floors above. There was no-one, like no-one around. It was a Thursday, late opening, nearly summer. Had it closed without me knowing? It should’ve been packed.
I walked along trying not to freak out, looked into Shoes & Sox, then Specsavers and Lowes. Not even the shop assistants were there, though there was still music playing. In a worried voice, not quite freaking out, I called out into Lowes, ‘Anybody there?’ Nothing.
The fountain in the centre of the hall, under the skylight, was still running, water going blop blop.
My phone was still stuck on Yaz’s post, the time frozen at 5:17. I went over to the glass doors that led into the carpark and pushed at them, and then pulled at them, and then sort of rammed them with my shoulder, which hurt more than you’d think, but they wouldn’t open. I crossed back, past the fountain, tried the sliding doors leading out to the grass, but they wouldn’t open either.
Now I was freaking out. There were people out there, dotted around, eating, maybe waiting to see a performance at the theatre centre. A couple who looked a bit like Mum and Dad were together on the grass. The man had short silver hair and he was kind of thickset. Reliable-looking. His partner was lying on her back with dark glasses on, her face tilted up to the sun. She had longish brown and silver hair and was wearing a green dress and boots.
I banged on the glass to get their attention. They didn’t look over. I shouted. I kicked the door. I shouted again, ‘HEY! I CAN’T GET OUT!!!’ but it was as though I wasn’t there. Last of all I tried flattening myself against the glass like Peach in Finding Nemo, and I made the most pleading face I could, but the couple got up, the man holding out his hand and helping the woman to her feet, her brushing grass out of her hair, and disappeared into the theatre centre. Not one glance back at the Plaza, not one glance in my direction.
I turned around, still no-one there. I crossed over to the carpark doors again. People getting into their cars, loading their boots with shopping. Feeling stupid, I knocked on the glass like it was someone’s front door. Then I kicked it. Banged it with both fists. Shouted. No reaction.
I turned back, breathing hard. I walked towards the theatre centre, calmly picked up a chair from the cafe next to the fountain, swung it over my head and charged at the door, smashing the chair down onto it. I stood back to see if I’d cracked the glass but I hadn’t, and then I was bringing the chair down again and again and again, and all it did, in the end, was break the chair.
I was supposed to be meeting Liam, my brother. My twin brother. We were meant to be buying presents for our parents. They have this thing where their birthdays are like three days apart, and it’s sort of a tradition, me and Liam go and shop together. Almost the only thing we do together these days. When we were younger Mum and Dad would give us money and put us on the train down to the Plaza. Now we get on the train on our own, pay for the presents ourselves. Unless Liam’s run out of money.
Suddenly seeing Liam was the thing I most wanted to do in the world. I was freaking out that he would be trying to find me, trying to get into the Plaza. He’d be late, but he’d be snapping me from the train and I wouldn’t be replying. I was always on time. In fact, I was always early. He would be relying on me. I went and sat down on the edge of the fountain, alternately stabbing and swiping at my phone and pushing tears away with the back of my hand.
Was I having a panic attack? It’s sometimes hard to tell, random things make me anxious. This was definitely random. And I was definitely anxious. But there’s a difference between being scared shitless and a panic attack. I thought about Dad’s instructions for anxiety. I put down my phone. I took a deep breath. And then I just sat there, kept wiping away the tears, tried to just look around me and notice things, say their names to myself, one after the other. I let myself cry, because I wasn’t at school and there were no mean girls around to fake concern, no Oh, Shannon, have you been crying? We’re so worried about you. I waited until my breathing slowed down and I’d stopped crying and then I looked at my phone again.
Still 5:17. Still Damn I miss the me with red hair and Yaz’s photo of herself in the long gilt mirror she has, looking out under her new green fringe. I couldn’t message anyone, couldn’t call anyone.
It felt like a lot of time had passed but how was I meant to know? It was just so quiet, the kind of quiet that happens right before a jump scare. I swallowed more tears. I wanted Mum and Dad and Liam. Right now.
Then I stood up. I needed to know if I was the only person still inside the Plaza, although I also really didn’t want to find out. I decided to just go in a straight line, walk up to the food court. It had tall windows looking out onto the train lines and the street, which might give me a clue about what was going on.
I kept checking behind me as I walked, my heart letting go a torrent of beats, rapid, making me breathless. I kept to one side of the mall.
The jump scare hit me so hard it was like being punched in the chest: out of Myer came a boy in a wheelchair, and he got as big a shock as I did.
‘Shit!’ I said as he said, ‘Fuck!’ I was actually gasping.
‘Sorry.’ Naturally it was me who said that. We stared at each other.
‘Are we locked in?’ I said. ‘Do you know what’s happening? Have you been here the whole time?’ I was gabbling.
He glanced behind him. ‘No clue.’
I looked up and down the long, empty mall, the escalators rolling. We could hear a puppy yelping in the pet shop. Can you be absolutely terrified and have an awkward silence at the same time? Apparently you can.
‘Did you see anything?’ It always seems to be my job to break the silence. Yaz says it’s cos I haven’t got the endurance. I can’t wait it out like she can.
He shook his head. ‘I was in one of the change rooms. I heard this weird sound and when I came out everyone was gone.’
‘Same. I was over there at the end of the corridor.’ I pointed.
‘What are we meant to do? Do you think we just wait till someone comes?’ He was glancing up and down the hallway too.
‘I don’t know. I couldn’t get the doors open. Not from this floor. I haven’t tried the other floors yet. There’s people outside but it’s like they couldn’t see me.’ Then I said, ‘I was going to the food court. Maybe someone else will be there? We could see out into the street?’
‘Yeah, ok.’ He had a kind of expressionless voice, flat. I could hear my own voice going all over the place, high with panic and with the effort to sound friendly. He made me think of Hailey, who was so sort of frozen when I first met her that I just thought she hated me. Then I found out she was shy. Terminally shy.
I said, ‘
We went along a bit not talking and not seeing anyone. I kept trying to walk beside him like I was used to walking next to people in wheelchairs, but I also tried to get out of his way and of course I kept getting in his way. He didn’t say anything. Again. We got to the automatic doors opening onto Riley Street, the laneway that divided the Plaza in two, which was how I normally got across to the food court. Of course they were shut. I tried to get them open but it was exactly the same as before – I pushed with my hands and my hip and pressed the emergency exit button and nothing happened. There were still people passing on the street. I shouted and waved and banged on the door, but nothing. I stared out at the people with my forehead pressed against the glass. Then Jordan said, ‘Let’s go upstairs and cross over the walkway.’
I turned round to look at him. He didn’t have legs, or not all of them, not much past the tops of his thighs. I said, ‘But we can’t get across unless we go up to the second floor. Up the escalator.’ And then I didn’t say, And how are we meant to do that?
But it was like I’d said it anyway. ‘In the lift,’ he said, and I could feel the rising heat of one of my wild blushes, what Luke calls my full-body blush. I go bright red, all over. I can get one any time, even if someone just glances at me on the train.
I didn’t know where the lift was, I’d never had to use it, so I just followed Jordan, keeping out of his way this time. I actually had to jog a bit. He was pretty quick when I wasn’t tripping over him. He had huge biceps, I guess from all the pushing. He’d already pressed the button as I was stepping into the lift, and the doors nearly closed on me.
Awkward lift silence. I wondered if we were the only two people stuck in the Plaza for the night, and I wondered what that would be like.
Then the doors opened and I followed him out and I didn’t have to wonder anymore. There were two girls standing outside City Beach, one about my age and the other much younger. They had their backs against the glass shopfront. I knew how that felt. They stared at us and we stared at them. Then the younger one called out, ‘Where is everybody?’
Before we could say anything a tall and super buff eshay scared the shit out of us by appearing round the corner. The first thing he said was, ‘What the fuck?’ And then, ‘Thank god!’, one hand against his heart, which made me like him.
It didn’t look like any of us were murderers, so we pulled together in a circle, all talking at once, except Jordan, who kind of hung back. We compared phones. Everyone’s said 5:17. Everyone’s was frozen. No-one could message or call anyone, no-one’s Instagram or TikTok was working and that was – terrifying. Because it was so weird. Because it was like the world had stopped. The older girl started to cry. That made me feel slightly better. I wasn’t the only one.
‘Here,’ I said, and I put my hand in my jeans pocket and found a tissue. Mum training. I always carry a few. I gave it to her and said, ‘Want to come to the food court with us?’
‘It could be, like, an evacuation point,’ said the younger girl. ‘Maybe everyone’s there.’
‘We’d be able to hear though,’ said Jordan. ‘If there were a whole lot of people there.’
We all turned to look at him. He didn’t say much; it was like he was watching us, sizing us up.
‘Let’s go anyway,’ I said. I didn’t want to stand still any longer.
The older girl said, ‘I need to get out.’ She was so pretty, with long black hair and high cheekbones, and beautiful eyes even though her mascara had run. She took a shivery breath. ‘I’m meeting someone.’ Then she did that thing that real girls do – she ran a finger under each eye to tidy up her mascara.
‘Me too,’ I said.
‘I checked every exit,’ said the eshay. He reminded me a bit of Liam. Couldn’t keep still, kind of bouncing from foot to foot. ‘Every single one. I couldn’t get any of them open. I kicked them and everything.’
I saw myself smashing the chair down on the glass. ‘No-one can see you or hear you,’ I said.
‘Fucken terrifying,’ said the eshay.
* * *
Our house in the mountains is opposite a little preschool – the preschool I went to, actually. It’s a nice place. Simple. We didn’t learn French or play with those whatever rods so we could get ahead in maths. On hot days Jeanine and Cathy emptied the big rectangular buckets we kept the toys in, brought them outside and filled them with water and little plastic boats and fish and crabs and sharks and divers and seaweed. They called it water play. We all got soaked, making our divers dive for treasure, sinking our boats and rescuing each other. On cold days we still went outside, and sometimes we’d walk down the street to the park at the end. There wasn’t any equipment or anything at the park. We’d have a couple of balls and kick them around. We’d play chasings. If it snowed we had the best fun ever, except we weren’t allowed to throw snowballs at each other, only at trees and stuff. Instead we made snowmen. And snowwomen.
My bedroom window looks onto the preschool, and the kids still come out on cold days all bundled up with beanies and mittens. They look so tiny to me now. And they don’t walk in line, they walk in little huddles and bursts, like sheep, with Cathy and Jeanine herding them away from the road.
I knew that was what we looked like right now, here in the Plaza. We kept bumping into each other like we were walking in the dark. The eshay grabbed the back of my t-shirt and then shouted when Jordan’s wheels rammed him in the ankles. The older girl gave this little screech when we passed Honey Birdette. One of its mannequins was posed in the doorway and all of us thought it was a real person.
Well, the food court wasn’t an evacuation point. Because there was no-one to evacuate. Funny the sounds you can hear when there’s no-one around. Fridges humming, fryers bubbling, the creak of the yeeros turning at Ali Baba. We stood there in our little huddle.
The eshay said, ‘What’s everyone having?’
‘Is it allowed?’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘Who’s gonna stop us?’
Ok, so it was scary. But it was also great. We fanned out. The lights were on although the sun was low in the sky, and all the fast food was just sitting there. We could have whatever we wanted. The eshay went straight for Macca’s. The girls too. Jordan sushi. I started towards Ali Baba, thinking, kebab. Then I was embarrassed and turned towards Sumo Salad. Then I thought, who cares, and turned back to Ali Baba. I skirted the bain-maries and slipped behind the counter. My heart beating hard again I forced myself to check out the stockroom in case someone was hiding. But there were only fridges and boxes and rosters on the wall and drinks in pallets. I found the knife for slicing the lamb. Liam and I had been getting the Greek lamb since we were really little.
Back out the front of the shop I checked to make sure I could see everyone, make sure they hadn’t disappeared. The lamb was turning and it was hot, and I was suddenly so hungry I felt sick. The bread was all in a pile. I did the tzatziki on a round of bread first with the back of a spoon, then piled on the feta and the salad and heaps of onion, then a whole lot of lamb. I rolled it all up and then I slid it into the sandwich press thing and pushed it down until it smelled cooked. I looked around for the paper, and that was the bit I didn’t do well, accidentally unrolling the bread, then messily rolling it up again, then trying to get the paper round it so I could still eat it. Got myself a plate because I knew bits would be falling out all over the place. Opened the fridge, hesitated between the water and the Coke, got a Coke.
Everyone except Jordan was at a table with burgers and fries spilling all over a tray, and Cokes. We told each other our names – the bigger girl was Tiannah, her little maybe sister was Grace, and the eshay was James. Jordan came back with a box of sushi in his lap and also a Coke. Everyone was a bit shy about eating except James, who was already shovelling fries down his neck. Jordan still wasn’t saying much and I could see the girls doing that thing of not wanting to look at him too often and make him feel weird. I was doing it too actually. James wasn’t. He took a piece of Jordan’s sushi without asking.
