Chapter Text
Negan wasn’t sure why Simon was having him drive out to the middle of nowhere on what was meant to be a simple run. All he knew was that he was just itching to bash the man’s face in with Lucille, who in his confusion-filled exit of out of the Sanctuary, he had left behind. Not because he forgot her, oh no, but because when he got the uninformative radio call from Simon, he was busy with one of his wives - with Lucille resting peacefully in his bedroom.
“I’m going to fucking run his stupid ass over when I get there.” He mumbled, wringing the steering wheel tighter. His other hand was out the open window, tapping the side of the black truck door.
After an almost two-hour drive, Negan pulled up to the old mall he had sent Simon and his new crew to earlier that morning. He parked alongside the other trucks and sat there, slightly fuming, while he composed himself. There was obviously a reason Simon wanted Negan to go out there himself, he just wished the man had better timing. When he finally decided to step out of the truck he noticed something peculiar about the mall. They knew hitting the mall might prove useless - it’s almost number one on most everyone’s ‘How to Survive the Apocalypse’ manual, but it had to be done at some point – especially with Hilltop coming up short. The Saviors were also aware that people were either going to have picked it clean, or were calling it home. Nothing they hadn’t dealt with before, he had told Simon before they left, just had to give them the usual show and offer a deal if possible. What they hadn’t expected, and what Negan assumed was the reason for Simon’s call, was for someone to have managed to power up the building. Including a small, lit-up carousel, spinning in the front entrance. Negan gave a slow whistle as he waltzed up to a tense-looking Simon.
“You know, I was gonna do some extremely unpleasant things to you when I got here, but damn! I’ve gotta hand it to you Simon, this is a great surprise! Wish you had told me it was a date.” Negan laughed loudly, slapping Simon on the shoulder.
Simon let out a nervous chuckle, “Well, it wasn’t the carousel that I called ya out here for, Boss. Obviously the place is powered up, and that probably means whoever did that is inside, and based on these defenses, they might need more than a show.”
Negan looked towards the direction Simon was pointing and saw the wires laid out around the doors to the building. He took a step closer and could feel the static in the air – the wires were live, and chances are, those doors would electrocute anyone who touched them. Smart. However, Negan had a feeling whoever the people were that were set up here didn’t want to fry their own brains, which meant they were protecting some very precious supplies inside this place if they went through all this trouble to rig up the joint. As he was getting ready to search for another doorway, he saw a sign switch on inside the mall. It was a bright read LED sign, and scrolling across it in capital letters were the words ‘FUCK OFF PLEASE.’ Negan chuckled at the gall of whoever this was. If these people could rig up an entire mall, he could only imagine what they could do at the Sanctuary. His place could definitely use a giant sign that told people to fuck off.
“I’m going to assume you checked all the entrances to this place right?” Negan asked, walking back towards the trucks with Simon in tow.
“Yes sir.”
“Well. Only one other way I can think of to get in this place.” Negan pulled out a tire-iron from the back of one of the trucks and placed it over his shoulder where Lucille would normally rest.
Negan made his way back towards the large glass window encasing the carousel, the static in the air making the hairs on his neck stand up. Behind him, Simon was already giving out orders to the men – breaking this much glass would cause a lot of noise.
“Here goes nothing, boys!” Negan called out before chucking the tire iron forward into the window. He backed up, avoiding the ricocheting shards of the glass.
A few men immediately made their way inside, with Simon and Negan trailing in behind them. The glass beneath his feet crunched as he stepped over the wall, making sure to avoid the wiring that had fallen onto the floor. As he got a better look at the ride in front of him, Negan found himself highly amused at the sight before him.
“Oh I like these people already.”
Attached to the horses and various seats of the carousel were the dead – some still moving, and others with knives in them. It would seem someone was using it as a moving target practice, but Negan was mostly trying to decide if he should start thinking of a way to move this whole damn thing back home because this was beautiful. Simon and the rest of the crew scattered ahead of him, checking for people and searching the stores while Negan took his time to walk around the mall. There was very soft, old rock playing throughout the mall which Negan began walking to the beat of. He was really hoping whoever was living here wasn’t an absolute moron because he really liked them so far. As he walked into what was once the food court he began to really take in the surroundings. There was no sign of a large group of people living in this mall. There was no trash, no beds anyways, nothing. The food court, which he assumed would be where he would find at least some form of living situation was again, empty. As he was beginning to put this information together, the sound of feedback came over the speakers and the music stopped. Then, like the angels themselves, he heard what he would consider the most beautiful sound he had heard all day – the sound of an angry woman.
“Well that wasn’t very nice of you, handsome. It’s going to take me a very long time to fix that.”