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DAY ONE

DAY ONE: WHAT’S IN STORE

The dollar store may not be glamorous shopping, but it’s hard to resist the allure of a bargain. And I consider myself to be quite the bargain hunter. Of course I know that it all evens out in the end. I always end up buying more than I want or need at these places because: “Ah heck, it’s just a buck!” Secretly, I know that most of the things in this store only cost them less than fifty cents to stock but in my mind I’m still getting a good deal. Well, maybe not that time I bought the hand cream that made me break out in hives. That was horrible and knowing what I know now, I would have paid $500 for hand cream that would have made the hives go away. Dollar store hand cream… never again.

So aside from the occasional bag of stale pretzels or gadget that only seems to work once, I love these places. Today is especially good because it’s my day off and the store is practically empty. No one to push past me or get in my way. And I believe I see a bin of clearance Easter candy. I feel like nothing could bring me down today.

In addition to being a bargain hunter… no, that should be huntress. In addition to being a bargain huntress, I’m also a people-watcher. I’ve always been the quiet shy type. That makes me think of the old quote, “You have to watch out for the quiet ones.” I let out a giggle, louder than I had anticipated and immediately I can feel my face burning red. I get embarrassed so easily. I look around quickly and no one seems to have heard me or probably more likely would be that no one cares. Either way, it doesn’t matter. I smile to myself but keep the giggles in check.

I see the lone cashier at the front of the store leaning against the counter reading one of those celebrity trash magazines. I’m sure there are other things she should probably be doing but like my uncle always told me, low pay equals low work, or something like that. He was drunk half the time and fell off the face of the Earth back when I was still a child. The cashier looks like she’s probably in high school or college. She’s pretty, of course, and obviously bored with life considering the way she rolls her eyes at half the things she reads and huffs in disgust at the pictures. I immediately envy her but I know it’s stupid. It’s been a lifetime ago that I was the ugly fat girl with braces, glasses and frizzy hair that couldn’t get a date if she paid someone. Not that she would have known what to do with a date if she had one. No, now I’m just an introverted slightly overweight woman who’s still too shy to talk to most people much less have a relationship. Probably the reason I watch people… kind of like a PG rated voyeur I suppose.

There’s also a young man who walks out from the back room carrying boxes every now and then. Probably a similar age to the cashier. I briefly wonder if they’ve ever “done it,” before I push the thought out of my mind. He’s nice and young and probably plays some sport or another for his school. He dropped two boxes in the aisle I was in earlier and asked me if I needed any help as he walked past. I mumbled negatively but it was so quiet that he probably didn’t even hear me as I looked away. Typical for me of course. I can’t even talk to some kid half my age without getting flustered. He seems nice though. I’m sure he is.

Another woman walked into the store a few minutes ago and started wandering up and down the aisles on the other side of the store while she talked on her mobile phone. I can’t hear her conversation but every once in a while she lets out the most annoyingly hideous laugh that can probably be heard in the quick-mart across the street. She’s not really buying anything; probably just killing time on her lunch while she makes plans with her secret lover. I imagine she’s married and has two kids but is having an affair with some power executive at her work. Or maybe the stock-man of some small store. Or maybe both. Either way, her and her shrill fake laughter are invading my domain and my peace while I continue to hunt.

Outside I can hear at least two cars honking their horns repeatedly. Probably at each other. I hear a few muted shouts and what sounds like the wheels of a car burning out and fade away. I’m glad I’m inside and can only barely hear the noise. I could go to the window to look but what good would it do. I just make my way towards the pet section in the back to distance myself even more from the outside world and the ever encroaching woman laughing into her phone. While I have my back to the world, I hear the door to the store open yet again. Someone else to watch. Someone else who will probably be annoying in some way. I don’t even glance back as I hear the excited squeal of the cashier and the flutter of the magazine hitting the floor. It must be her new boyfriend I’ve seen in here the past couple times I’ve been here this week. Again with the envy.

The endcap of the farthest aisle catches my eye and attention as walk up to it and see the sign saying, “Cat Toys! 2-purr-1!!!” Clever, I think to myself as I start to smile but muffled crying and then what almost sounds like an even more muffled shout of pain bring the annoyance of the world to my attention. I spare a quick glance up front to see the cashier and her boyfriend hugging each other passionately and can only assume that they must actually be making out right here in the store. So much for what I thought was crying. I don’t watch for more than a second. Just the idea of two people making out in public sends me into a torrent of blushes, heart flutters and embarrassment for even noticing. I do notice that the woman on the phone had gone quiet at some point and look up to see her walking out the door. As I figured, she wasn’t even shopping.

I look back down at the cat toys and reach out to pick up a little grey mouse with a long tail and two bells for ears when I stop to listen to the cashier and her boyfriend again. I’m all the way at the back of the store and I can still make out what sounds like an even more urgent cry which turns my blood to ice as it turns into a horrible scream. Not the kind of empassioned scream of two people making love or even the practiced scream of some tramp in a teen slasher movie. This was a wet sounding scream of absolute pain and terror. The kind of scream that forces you to look at what’s happening.

Even though only a few seconds had passed it seemed like the entire world had changed. All I can see is the back of the boy at first and the girls hands flailing wildly out past his back. He had his arms around her and she obviously didn’t want to be near him. They turn and I see the wide white eyes of the girl standing out vividly against the shredded flesh and muscle that used to be her lips and skin from her chin to the bottom of her nose. Our eyes locked for a moment as she seemed to reach towards me as far as his embrace would allow. Her exposed teeth parted to scream again and only the single syllable of HEL escaped her before the thing that used to be her boyfriend lunged at her face again. I can’t turn away before I see his teeth bite into the puffy flesh that made up her cheek. Her scream turns to agony once again as I watch him pull his head back with a large chunk of the left side of her face still in his mouth. One stubborn strip of skin still clings to her face and rips into her hairline before it finally tears free. And God help me if the thing wasn’t chewing and eating what used to be her pretty face.

She thrashes wildly against her attacker and swings her head violently trying to get away. All she manages to do is spray the foil balloons and the potato chip display with her own blood. The counter is already covered in it. I’m suddenly sick and retch into the cat toys. I look up again to see a section of her upper arm being violently removed after she must have gotten it free. I scream in unison with the girl and hide behind the display of paper towels.

We’re still screaming as the stock boy tentatively sticks his head out of the back room door which is only about ten feet from me. All the color had drained from his face as he saw what could only be an even worse scene than what I saw before hiding. The girl stopped screaming as the boy stumbles back from the door and I hear his lunch come up. Without daring to look at the cashier counter again, I sneak a peek at the front door to see if I can get out. If he could do this to his own girlfriend I can’t imagine what he would do to someone that he doesn’t even know. Someone like me. I look at the door and see that it’s clear. I start to come around the corner of the aisle to run towards the door when I see a man fall backwards from between two cars and into the lane dividing the closest rows of cars. As I watch him scramble backwards I see another person, a man I think, clutching the first man’s ankle and dragging themselves toward him. I scream again as I see the silent struggle through the glass doors. I scream because the other man had gotten close enough to grab the fallen man with both hands and bite into his calf. The pants leg around the bite quickly turns the jeans black with blood. I could barely hear the scream of the man through the glass as he uses his other leg to repeatedly kick at his attackers head. The attacker doesn’t even seem to notice.

The sound of something crashing in the back room brings me out of my fixated stare. I suddenly remember the stock boy and that there must be a fire exit or loading dock in that storage area. If someone is getting attacked right out in the middle of the parking lot, I definitely don’t want to go that way. Leaving my cautiousness with the mess I made on the cat toys, I run the short distance to the swinging door and push the door open past some cardboard boxes that had fallen to partially block the way in. I can hear what sounds like sirens coming from the street. Maybe the police had been called but I couldn’t tell from the windowless back room.

It’s darker back here compared to the bright store lights and the sunlight shining through the windows but there’s enough lighting once my eyes adjust. Just as I can get my bearings and take another step an alarm starts ringing loudly. For a moment I actually wonder if my coming back here triggered it but then I see a rectangle of sunlight growing larger and the silhouette of the stock boy pushing out the fire exit door. I start in that direction as my only visible means of salvation from this nightmare. I stare at the glowing rectangle of near blinding sunlight in this area as the door slowly starts closing and the rectangle gets thinner and thinner. My mind conjures up the comparison of the stories of people “going towards the light” after they die. But I’m not dead I tell myself and I sprint for the door. I run as fast as I can, panic takes over and makes me feel like if the door closes on me, I’ll never get out. I have to get out.

It’s then that my leading foot lands in a puddle from an overturned box of dish-soap. My ankle twists sharply in the slick liquid and I nearly do the splits before I completely lose my balance and tumble onto my right side with my knee crashing against the concrete floor. I have to get out is still the only thought in my mind as the opening turns into a sliver of blinding light and then darkness takes over again until my eyes adjust. My ankle throbs as my panicked mind switches into full-on despair. The alarm is still blaring away as the tears start streaming down my face. I know that I can still reach the door and open it just as easily as the stock boy had. It being closed doesn’t mean anything. It will open again. I start to pull myself together mentally as the idea of slipping in soap nearly sends me into a fit of crying and laughing at the stupidity of it. My bruised and swelling knee sticking out from my soap covered skirt doesn’t seem too bad at all. And when I look at my ankle, I realize that my knee is the least of my concerns.

The pain in my ankle suddenly turns from a dull throbbing to sheer agony as I try and move my foot. I see the small bone sticking out the side of my leg near my ankle but I don’t completely comprehend the meaning as I try and move my foot again. That’s when I see that same bone sticking out now move instead of my foot. That same bone that is supposed to be inside my body but now is causing me the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. I collapse into a sobbing mess as I realize that those last twenty or so feet to the back door could take forever. Or it could only take a lifetime, I think to myself as I hear the swinging door being pushed against the cardboard boxes behind me. I try to look behind and am only rewarded with more pain for my effort. I hear a low guttural moan coming from the doorway as the boxes are slowly swept aside. I can’t see it, but I know it’s one of those people who attacked the others out there. And here I lay in dish-soap and a small pool of blood at my foot with nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.

A certain calm comes over me as I realize this. I have two options: I can either lay here and hope I don’t get attacked or try to get up and make it to that door. With a newfound resolve I’ve never known in my life I choose the latter. I use the shelving next to me to try pull myself up on my good leg. The pain in my broken leg is nearly unbearable and I feel as if I will faint as soon as I’m fully upright. I spare a look behind me and see the boyfriend shuffling towards me. I don’t even recognize him. His face and clothes are covered with blood and gore and I can see what looks like a horrible wound in his left shoulder. Panic and terror shatter my resolve and I take a step forward. Blinding pain and the swimming feeling of fainting are the only things I feel as I collapse under the weight of my body on my broken leg. The last thing I feel is my head crack against the concrete floor as my vision dims into a slowly fading tunnel focused on the shape of the boyfriend still shuffling towards me.