Before the Storm

"So?" Madisen prodded, walking through the multitude of clothing racks that surrounded us. "What all did he say?"

I looked through a couple of articles of clothes myself, deciding what it was that I wanted to buy for her party tomorrow evening. The both of us had just gotten off of another strenuous day at work, and we had both decided to do a little bit of shopping at the mall in Atlanta to prepare for the following occasion.

"I mean, he didn't seem overly excited about it at first," I said, pausing to look across a couple racks over at her. "But, he said as long as he's able to have some space to actually enjoy himself, he'll come." Obviously I wasn't going to word it as harshly as Zack had done yesterday. That would have just been rude.

I saw her face light up and she became super excited, suddenly looking through the clothes on the rack a lot faster than she had been. "Oh, my God! This just became so much more stressful. Jaycee, what am I gonna wear?!"

I couldn't help but giggle at her sudden mood change. This girl was so head over heels for my brother, of all people. It was almost enough to make me sick. Not even because of the fact that it was my brother she was after, but because of mass amount of puppy love that was radiating off of her. I had never really been one to fall for someone so deeply. I don't even think I had been close to loving someone other than family and close friends in my life. The last boyfriend that I had was right after I had graduated high school, and that only lasted around 4 or 5 months total.

"It really shouldn't be too hard. You look great in everything." I said, mumbling the last part so that she couldn't really hear me.

She huffed lightly, looking around at all of the clothes in front of her and not finding anything she liked. I followed her towards the back of the store to a different section, this one being more made up of party dresses and skirts. Definitely not my thing. I was more of a jeans and t-shirt type of girl, no matter what the occasion.

"But this is a really big deal!" She squealed, earning the two of us a couple of odd stares from other customers around us. I felt myself sinking down into myself, not really liking the sudden unwanted attention.

I began searching the racks now in an attempt to help her. The sooner she found something that suited her taste, the sooner we could leave and the sooner I wouldn't feel so damn awkward.

After searching for a few more minutes, I came across a dress that she would most likely adore. "Hey Mad, what about this?" I asked, holding up a black thigh length dress with a cream colored pattern going across the entire top half.

She stopped what she was doing and glanced up at the article of clothing, cocking her head slightly to the left and eyeing the dress. "Hmm," She began, contemplating on what she wanted to do. "That just might work." She said, and walked around the clothing rack to get a better look at it.

"You'd look fabulous." I chirped, giving her a wide smile that showed off my pearly whites.

She looked it over a couple more seconds, running her fingers along the smooth fabric. She brought her lower lip in between her teeth and bit down momentarily, clearly thinking hard on her decision.

"I think I'll go try it on." She smiled, and grabbed it from my hand, heading straight for the dressing rooms.

As she did that, I took this time alone to walk across to the other side of the dressing rooms and take a look at what all they had as far as accessories went. I didn't really need a whole new outfit, after all. I could just wear something that I already had and just spruce it up with some new bracelets or a necklace. Who the hell was I trying to impress, anyway?

I grabbed a small pack of wooden bangles off the shelf, half heartedly examining the carved design around the edge and running my thumb over it. I glanced around the store that we were in and noticed that aside from a couple employees, Madisen and I were the only ones in the entire store, which I found very odd for it being a Friday afternoon. Normally, there would be an abundance of gossiping teenagers and rowdy children that had just gotten out of school and wanted to hang out with their friends.

"What do ya think?" I heard Madisen say behind me, and I turned around to see her twirling around happily, a smile on her face.

Just as I had thought, the dress looked amazing on her, hugging every single one of her curves and slopes perfectly. I smiled back at her. "You're beautiful, Maddy. You have nothing to worry about."

"Ya don't think it's a little too short, do you?" She asked, twisting her upper back slightly as she looked at herself in the full length mirror behind her. She smoothed her hands up and down on the ruffled fabric that was the skirt half of the dress, admiring herself.

"No, not at all." I murmured, only half way paying attention to what she was saying now. In reality, the dress was perfectly fine. The way I saw it, as long as her rear end didn't hang out when she bent over, there wasn't a problem. I knew that she was just over analyzing it because it was her party dress.

"Perfect!" She finally said, a wide smile gracing her features and she headed back into her dressing room to get her own clothes back on so that we could pay for our purchases.

Once we had our stuff bagged up and paid for, we exited the store and I became a little bit more uneasy when I looked around and saw that there was barely anybody in the halls, either. It was almost like everybody had disappeared completely within the twenty or so minutes that we were in the store.

"God, it looks like a damn ghost town in here." I said, mumbling slightly to her.

"Right? It's a little weird .." She replied, looking to either side of us.

I swallowed the lump that was beginning to form in my throat, trying not to automatically think of the worst case scenario like I normally would have. "Well, where would ya like to go now?" I asked.

"Uhm, to get food! Duh, I'm starving." She giggled and linked her arm with mine as we headed over towards the food court.

I stepped onto the escalator stair next to her as we headed down to the lower level of the mall, and it was then that I started noticing a few other people here and there, and they were all heading in the same direction in a hurry. My eye brows knit together and I looked over to Madisen in confusion. She just shrugged her shoulders, obviously not knowing much more about it than me.

Once we rounded the corner to the food court, it was then that we noticed a rather large crowd gathering around a few tables in front of the many restaurants. I noticed my pace begin to quicken as I hurried to get over to the crowd to see what was happening, my curiosity quickly reaching it's peak.

Once Madisen and I had gotten closer, I noticed that there were a few police men and ambulance paramedics among the crowd, the police officers were doing their best to keep the crowd at bay so the paramedics could do their job properly. I began to wonder what exactly had happened here. Had there been a fight? Did somebody choke on their food? So many possibilities.

As I pushed my way through the crowd to try and get a better view, I began hearing random comments and statements from all of the other people around me.

"She has the fever?"

"She just began hyperventilating all of the sudden!"

"I saw her begin to choke up blood!"

Was this an actual thing that was happening right now? Was this a real life thing? There was really someone with the sickness right here in front of me. I was actually seeing this instead of just seeing it on a television screen. I had finally managed to push myself to the very front row of people, Madisen falling behind me a little bit but still relatively close to me.

"She hasn't been moving for a few minutes now." A guy who looked to be around his mid thirties said over to me.

Laying on the ground a few feet away from where I was standing was a rather beautiful young brunette woman, maybe a couple years older than me. Her face was deathly pale and she had a thick layer of blood streaming down from her mouth, a bit of spray off being quite evident on her white tank top. What had happened to this poor girl?

The paramedics were rushing around her to try and help her as best as they could. They were speaking loudly to her, trying to get her attention and get her name, but to no avail. Her eyes were closed and she was completely motionless.

I watched as one paramedic took the girl's pulse, keeping still as he concentrated before looking up at his fellow co-workers and shaking his head from side to side, a grave look on his face.

"I'm going to need all of you to back up away from the scene!" A male officer with a big, booming voice yelled to all of us. Because I was closer to the front, his voice actually made my ears hurt because of how loud it was.

He stuck his arms out on either side of him and began walking towards us all and it was almost like a force field was pushing us backwards all at the same time. He never once laid a hand upon anybody, but we all move back in perfect sync. I found myself standing up on my tip toes to try and get a glance at everything happening over the officers shoulder.

I didn't see a whole lot because of all of the commotion and people moving around me, but what I did see was the paramedics begin to place a white covering over the girl's body, and I immediately felt my heart drop and my hand shot up to my mouth that had dropped from utter shock. This girl was lying there, in the middle of the Atlanta Mall, dead.

I felt someone grab hold of my wrist and when I looked back to see who it was, I saw that Madisen had a look of displeasure and I could tell she was more than uncomfortable about the situation. "C'mon, let's get outta here." She said, just loud enough to be heard over the chattering of the crowd.

I nodded my head and forced myself around so that I could push and shove my way through the crowd again so that we could leave. I'm fairly certain that Madisen had lost her appetite, and who could honestly blame her. My mind was reeling over the fact that I had just witnessed a dead body in public. She was just there one minute, alive. From what I had gathered from the gossiping group of people, she had the sickness that was going around, but she was still alive. Then the next, she was just gone.

I knew that I would never be able to get that image out of my head, and this memory would probably always linger in the back of my mind no matter what happened. Madisen, still having a tight grip around my wrist, led the two of us out of the main front doors and out into the parking lot. We walked directly passed the ambulance and a couple cop cars, and I noticed that a couple of news vans were arriving on the scene, probably to cover the entire story and put it out there to people.

"I can't even wrap my mind around what just happened." Madisen finally spoke once we had reached her navy blue Chevy Malibu. I just nodded my head, opening up the passenger side door and slumping down into the seat, the bag from my purchases resting on the floor at my feet.

"This is getting so out of hand." I mumbled, surprised that she had even heard me in the first place. I mean, I knew that a couple of people had come down with the sickness and were being taken care of in the hospital, but none of them had actually died from it.

How sick could she had possibly been to have died so fast like that? And if she really was that sick, why was she even here in the first place? Why wasn't she in the hospital? There were so many questions whirling through my mind at such a fast pace that I was beginning to feel dizzy and nauseous.

I turned my head to look at her and she just had a blank expression on her face and she was staring out the windshield at nothing in particular. She had her hands resting on the steering wheel and she wasn't saying anything. If I hadn't of known any better, I'd say that she wasn't even breathing. She was as still as could be.

"Are you gonna be okay for tomorrow?" I asked quietly.

She nodded her head slowly and returned my gaze. "Yeah. Y-yeah, I'll be fine." She then fully snapped out of her trance like state and put the key into the ignition, bringing the car to life and backing out of the parking spot.

My guess is that we were headed back home, which was not going to bother me one bit. This day started off okay, but it just took a turn for the worst. I sat back in my seat and looked through the rear view mirror, watching as the ambulance and police cars faded out of my view. As we went to turn the corner, the doors that we had just exited through burst open, and the people from the group had began running outside, screaming in terror.