before shift and all of her tats were covered.
“Fucking Ohio,” stated Kim, as she flicked her spent cigarette butt out into the parking lot in an act of immature defiance.
Stepping back inside, she saw Wes leaning over the counter and trying to engage a customer in conversation. He glanced over to her with a pleading look on his face. Brows creased, she walked past.
“What’s wrong?”
“Ah, I don’t even know,” replied Wes, clearly exasperated.
Diagonally, at one of the corner displays, a heavy-set man was digging through the candy bars. He made desperate wheezing sounds, punctuated by short whines. His frantic search grew more aggressive.
“Sir, can I help you find anything?”
His snapped up, rigid for a moment, then his head teetered like a bobble dolls’. Kim and Wes gasped in unison. His eyes were bloodshot and he had something that suspiciously looked like mucus running from his nose and mouth. When he opened his mouth to whine, they could see his teeth were just as grime-encrusted as the fingernails gripping handfuls of candy bars.
“Wants… you gots…”
“Sir, are… are you okay?” asked Kim.
He wheezed twice then whined loudly before shambling off quickly down an aisle still clutching a dozen candy bars. Kim and Wes stood frozen for a three count. Then Wes shook his head violently.
“Did you just see that?”
“We had an old lady earlier… listen, he’s gotta be sick or something.
Get Dwight on the buzzer. I’m gonna go find him.”
“You sure?”
Kim took off down through the store, hearing Wes yell
behind her. She passed along the front so that she could see down the aisles.
The store was essentially one big box, and the set up was designed to allow the employees a better way of keeping track of “customers’ needs.” This translated into shoplifters. Even though the second row of aisles were slightly off-angle… nothing.
“Where the hell did he go?” Kim murmured to herself.
So intent on her search down the aisles, she didn’t notice the little boy until she ran into him. Stumbling into a display table of donuts and other assorted pastries, Kim stood back and looked down to see him peering fascinated into a freezer unit. From behind him, she could just make out his reflection in the glass door. Words tried to tumble out at the same time she took in the blackened, filthy little fingers pressed against the cool glass.
“Meat!” came an itty-bitty voice. “I like meat. Mommy is meat, and Daddy is meat. And I like meat!”
“Where… where are your mommy and daddy?” asked Kim as she backed away from the boy.
“They’re meat!” said the boy, never turning from the freezer unit door.
Kim sped down the frozen food aisle. She spun around past the beer and wine and stopped short by the open door leading back to the stockroom.
She could hear Joyce and Dr. Homme babbling with Maria, the pharmacy tech, only feet away, but for some reason she hesitated at the dark opening.
She knew Angie was right through the short hall, working on pricing. She knew…
Something touched her shoulder and she screamed.
“Jesus, Kim! What’s with you?”
She stared up at Dwight’s pale, chubby face screwed up into a scowl.
Letting a sigh of relief that almost turned into hysterical laughter, she patted him on the arm. He flinched at the touch.
“Nothing, it’s… I’m sorry. There are some serious weird people in the store right now.”
He cocked an eyebrow high on her for this one. Dwight found her
“Goth” lifestyle quite high on his weird meter. He had made it blatantly obvious that he was both disgusted and freaked out by her – and disliked the fact that he had to answer to her as an assistant manager.
“There’s a… overweight gentleman. And a little boy. I think he’s sick. The man I mean, not the little boy. Just, shit, just help me find both of them, okay?”
“Help you find a fat guy and a kid?”
“Just… please, Dwight?”
Maybe it was the “please.” Probably it was the look on Kim’s face.
Dwight continued his bug-eyed examination of her for a few more seconds, then shrugged. He went off towards beer and wine with less stomping than he usually employed. Kim closed her eyes, dry washed her face and quietly counted to five. When she opened her eyes, she heard laughter ringing out from the pharmacy.
Moving along, she came to the pickup window and Joyce’s brightly smiling face. Kim had known Joyce most of her life, the older woman growing up with Kim’s mom. They had always stayed friends and Kim had looked on her much like a surrogate aunt. Her wavy brown hair had gone almost all grey, but Joyce refused to get what she called a “matron-cut.” She still wore it long and often in a ponytail.
“Hey Kim, what’s the word?”
“Hey Joyce, have you…”
The question drifted off as Dr. Homme strolled around the corner, giving her a cold glare.
“Hi, Melissa.”
“Kim,” she replied.
Kim tried not to grit her teeth when it became apparent Dr. Homme wasn’t going anywhere. “Have either of you seen, well… an overweight man or a little boy come past here recently? They may have looked sick?”
“A lot of people we see here look sick, Kim.”
Kim fought back the urge to jump the counter and strangle the pharmacist.
“As in the last few minutes?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Joyce.
Kim pondered this as Maria, the pharmacy tech, hefted an armload of paperwork past and gave her a boisterous greeting she hardly heard. When she thought about it, except for now, she hadn’t been away from the front registers in hours except to smoke – out front. She had never noticed either of the customers enter. In fact…
“What about an older lady?” Kim asked.
“Huh?”
“I… I saw an old lady earlier. She looked kinda sick, too. Same as the other two.”
“Sick
She tried to figure out how to explain it. “Um, red eyes and snotty.
Talking weird? Something wrong with their… mouths and fingers.”
“Kim, I don’t think…”
“Ewww! I saw some old dude like that earlier!” shouted Maria from the back.
“What?”
Maria sauntered her considerable bulk out from her cubby space, eyes lit and ready for gossip. “Oh yeah, tall and old. What’s the word?
Emancipated?”
“Emaciated?”
“Yeah! His fingernails and teeth were all black, like he’d been chewing on an ink pen and he was saying all kindsa nasty stuff. Somethin’
about killing dogs.”
Kim just stared at her.
“Freakazoid. Eh, it’s been a slow evening at least. Hey, I’m going to go grab me a diet shake… you gals want anything?”
