The first thing I noticed was that the Mustang was gone. I assumed it had slunk off on its own, lying in wait like a lion until it was needed again.
I made a quick stop before the supermarket, saw the oak doors were locked and read the plaque installed in the masonry. With any luck, it would be open when I was done with the shopping.
Shopping. It seemed impossible to be doing something so mundane when I had so much blood on my hands. Mass murderers aren’t supposed to casually head to the store for milk and Cheerios.
The Hannaford parking lot was almost empty. This time of day, it should have been at least half full. This was when the retirees came out to shop, and there were plenty of them in town to fill the aisles. I used to tell Candy shopping on a weekday morning was like being cast as an extra in The Walking Dead. Except the zombies in the show moved faster.
But this was no ordinary day. I’d passed several car accidents on my way to the store, no signs of drivers anywhere. Someone had driven a truck into the little Gazebo ice cream stand. The flavor of the day was dripping oil and radiator fluid.
I was punched in the nose by the stench of rotting fruit and vegetables the moment I stepped into the store. The produce section was right inside the front sliding doors. What little food was left on the shelves had gone to seed. Overturned boxes labeled for bananas and lettuce littered the floor. It was safe to assume they weren’t getting any new shipments and the produce manager had called it quits.
Turning to my left, I saw there was one person working the registers, an older woman with dyed red hair. A lit cigarette dangled from her mouth as she scanned the groceries for a nervous-looking couple. I heard her say, “I don’t even know why I’m doing this. It’s not like I’m going to charge you.”
The man replied, “Please, I want to pay for it.”
“Why bother? The charge machine has been down for days and my till has no change. People have just been taking what they want and running for days. I’m just here because it beats staying at home and watching the news.”
Pushing my cart past the empty boxes, I stepped in a black, mushy banana and almost took a header. How vaudevillian that would have been. I wasn’t amused.
The rest of the store was a mess. The shelves were pretty damn bare. All of the medicine and first-aid supplies were gone. I wasn’t shocked to see the wine and alcohol aisle had been completely wiped out. There wouldn’t be milk or any fresh dairy today. I grabbed whatever random cans and boxes of food I could find. A scattering of people did the same, leaning on their carts, shuffling as if in a dream.
I thought, this is what a market must look like the day after a bombing. Opportunists had stripped the place bare, and those late birds were left to wander around, too shocked to care that the only thing they’d bring home were canned beets and a jar of jellied gefilte fish.
As far as I could tell, the old redhead was the only one working in the entire store.
Coming to the small section dedicated to books and magazines, I had to stifle a laugh. Those shelves looked as if they’d been recently stocked. I shouldn’t have been surprised. People barely read anymore when times were good. Why escape with a book when you could be glued to the catastrophe on television?
I grabbed a copy of Highlights for Katie, along with a coloring book and a sticker book. My legs locked when I heard an ungodly scream from the next aisle over. A woman scooted past me, anxious to get away from the screamer. Maybe I should have followed suit, but I had to see what was going on.
A man lay on the floor, his body convulsing. Blood seeped from his eyes while white foam bubbled from his mouth.
“Aaaiiiiieeee, I’m burning! Somebody help me!”
Sweet Jesus, was this what the infection was like that was ravaging the country? I thought of my own condition, feeling as if I were on fire, passing out and convulsing that night in front of Candy. Was I a carrier? Or were my symptoms really the result of AO trying to keep me in line?
Either way, I couldn’t help him. Not if it meant bringing what he had back to Candy and Katie. I started to steer away from him as his back arched, hands thrown out at his sides. One of them flicked the bottom shelf, causing the lone bottle of ketchup to fall and shatter. The back of his hand impaled on the broken glass. I couldn’t tell where his blood began and the ketchup ended.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” I whispered, heading for the register.
I pulled up to the redhead. She eyed the meager contents of my cart.
“No sense taking them out, hon,” she said.
“There’s a man over there. I think he’s dying.”
She shrugged. “He’s not the first. Except I don’t have anyone around to clean up today. I guess there are worse places to go.”
Her cavalier attitude both rocked me and settled my frayed nerves.
“Should you call an ambulance?” I asked.
“No one’s going to come,” she replied, lighting another cigarette with the glowing end of her current smoke. “Or haven’t you seen the news?”
She handed me some reusable shopping bags. “Here, you can use these. I’m closing up here soon. I don’t think I’ll be coming back. My sister is in a nursing home over in Naples. I think I’ll go stay with her, if they’ll let me. You have family here?”
I slowly nodded. She saw the children’s magazine atop my tiny haul.
“You go home to your kid. There’s no sense coming out anymore. At least not until things settle down or the military comes in and gets things straight again.”
I gripped the cart’s handle until my knuckles whitened. “I will. And…good luck getting to your sister. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it very much.”
The woman took a quick drag. “She hasn’t known who I am for two years now. But I know my Linda.” Her gaze drifted off, staring out the front windows to someplace I’d never be able to see. “I know my Linda.”
I got to my car just as a black raincloud slipped over the parking lot. The ugly, pregnant cloud looked so out of place in the blue sky. There wasn’t another like it in any direction.
Balls of hail smacked the car as I pulled out of the driveway. The storm followed me all the way back to my next stop.