It didn't take them long to actually get inside of the mall and they hadn't really seen much that caught their attention on the short walk to the door, nevertheless they still kept their heads down and tried to be as quiet as possible. When they actually got to the door and crept inside the smell hit Ethan straight away, he'd never smelt anything quite as bad before, he threw up almost immediately. Hunched over, Ethan took a second to compose himself, he wiped his mouth was the back of his hand then covered his mouth and nose with his other clean hand to try and hide some of the smell. Ethan had worked very close to sewers which were awful and had to deal with the smells there, but this was a hundred times worse. "That's the worst things I've... ever smelled." Ethan whispered in an out of breath voice, despite the smell, they had no other choice but to continue with whatever Ayla had planned. So far hadn't seen any signs of people living there or close by.
This part of the mall looked like it hadn't been touched in quite some time. There was the odd decomposed body scattered around the floor, obviously this was where the smell was coming from. After a few minutes Ethan moved his hand away from his mouth after getting used to the smell, well as used to it as you could get with it anyway. Ethan had always been a little sensitive when it came to smells. He could see something that was horrible to look at but would be fine, but with smells he would never do well with them.
Ethan stayed behind Ayla whilst she had the map and some kind of a knowledge about the mall from being here before. As they continued through the mall, Ethan had pulled out his hatchet and was killing a few Walkers that were so decomposed that they couldn't even walk anymore. [i]Find some peace.[/] Ethan thought to himself after he'd pulled the hatchet from their heads. He had no clue whether there was anything left of the person it once was but he disliked the thought of him wondering aimlessly around as a walker.
Ayla pointed to where they needed to go and gestured for him to go in front. It was a women's clothing store that they was entering so there wouldn't be much there for him. He was hoping to find maybe a walking store, that had some boots, he currently was wearing some trainers that were looking a bit worse for wear and some coats that were made for colder weather in case he ever headed north. All of he had left were the clothes he was wearing and a thin hoodie that was in his car. Ethan moved through the store quickly but stayed low. There was a few Walkers dotted about the place standing motionless. It was nothing the two couldn't handle.
They moved through the store silently killing any walkers that were in their way. The escalators finally came into view when suddenly a hand lurched out and grabbed Ethan's leg. By instinct Ethan wrenched his leg away but the hand still had a hold of him. Ethan tripped backwards trying to get away from whatever had hold of him from underneath the clothes rack. He pushed himself away from where the hand was coming from with the hand still clinging on to him. As he moved back even more a walker came out with its bottom half missing. Ethan kicked it in it's face trying to not let it get close to biting his leg. Without realising Ethan had backed up too much and knocked over a mannequin that crashed into the floor making a massive bang. Ethan finally managed to grab his hatchet and chopped off the hand that was holding on to him. He jumped up straight away and stamped on the walkers head crushing it. The hand was still holding on to his leg which Ethan quickly yanked off him making a disgusted face as he did it. Straight away he realised what he'd done and looked around and saw walkers moving to them. "Up the stairs, quick." Was all that Ethan bothered to say as he headed to them trying to get as far away as possible from where the noise was made.