Bill grimaced. "You're gross."
"Thank you."
Outside, the night was warm. The moon was out but not yet up, hovering somewhere beneath the level of the ponderosas, its light diffused in the eastern sky. Ben had walked but Bill had driven, and neither of them spoke as they headed out to his Jeep across the loudly crunching gravel of the driveway.
"We really should try to help him out," Ben said once they were in the vehicle.
"Yeah," Bill agreed. "We should."
They drove the rest of the way in silence.
As predicted, The Store was the main topic of conversation at the meeting.
There were only two people in the audience other than themselves, and though the Planning Commission met in the council chambers, it could have just as easily convened in a small conference room.
Fred Carpenter, the commission chairman, read aloud the text of the proposal to allow The Store to construct an addition to its existing structure in order to open a grocery department. The Store's property was currently zoned only to allow the selling of nonfood items, and the land would have to be rezoned to accommodate the proposed change in usage.
The chairman finished reading the proposal. "We will now open the subject up for discussion," he said.
Leander Jacobs raised his hand.
"The chair recognizes Commissioner Jacobs."
"I do not believe we should grant this rezoning request. Obviously, The Store intended to sell groceries all along. Decisions such as this are not made on the spur of the moment. They're made far in advance, back at the corporate office. The commission and the council should have been told of these intentions at the beginning. I feel that we were deliberately misled, and I do not think that we should rezone the property at this late date."
"That's all well and good," the chairman said. "But as you know, we've been given an ultimatum. If we don't rezone, The Store has threatened to leave town."
Bill's heart speeded up.
"Let 'em," Jacobs said.
The chairman looked at him. "Are you serious?"
"They won't leave. They have too much invested here. Call their bluff."
Yes, Bill thought. Show those bastards for what they are. He glanced over at Ben, caught the editor's eye. Ben was in his objective reporter's mode and looked noncommittal, but Bill felt unreasonably excited. For the first time, there was opposition to The Store by the powers that be, and he sensed an opportunity here. They might not be able to make The Store retreat, but maybe they could stop its progress.
Graham Graves raised his hand.
"The chair recognizes Commissioner Graves."
"I support the rezoning proposal. Allowing The Store to expand is in Juniper's best interest. This new grocery department will bring in fifteen new jobs. Five of them full-time."
Jacobs snorted. "And it'll take away thirty. Come on, Graham. You know as well as I do that it'll put Jed's market out of business. Buy-and-Save can't survive that kind of competition."
"Then he'll have to lower his prices. If his groceries are cheaper, people will shop at his store."
"First of all, you should excuse yourself from this vote. You've had it in for Jed ever since he broke up with Yolanda."
"That's a lie and you know it --"
"Gentlemen. Gentlemen!" The chairman banged his gavel. "We are not here to discuss prices or marketing strategies or personal affairs. We are here to address the question of whether or not The Store should be allowed to sell groceries."
Bud Harrison, the Planning Commission's quietest member, spoke up. "Can we look at the schematics for the addition?"
"I was just about to suggest that." The chairman stood and walked around the dais to where an overhead projector sat on a movable stand next to the wall.
He wheeled the projector around, plugged it in, and motioned for Graves to dim the lights. A schematic drawing of The Store and its property was projected on the opposite wall.
Carpenter glanced around the council chambers as if searching for someone, and at that moment the door to the room opened. A young man dressed in an expensive three-piece suit strode down the main aisle of the chambers, nodded, smiling to the chairman, and pulled a pencil from his pocket. Carpenter returned to his seat, and the man, identified as "Mr. McBride, a representative of The Store," spent the next half-hour going over the schematic and explaining The Store's expansion plans.
"Thank you, Mr. McBride," Carpenter said when the Store representative had finished answering questions from the commission.
Mr. McBride nodded, bowed, and promptly walked out of the council chambers.
"Isn't he even going to stick around and see how it turns out?" Bill whispered.
"Weird," Ben admitted.
Carpenter looked at his fellow commissioners. "We've heard all the information we need; I suggest we put it to a vote."
Bill stood. "Aren't you going to open discussion to members of the public?"
The chairman stared at him. "I didn't think there'd be any discussion from members of the public."
"You thought wrong."
Carpenter's jaw tightened. He started to mouth a rebuke, then apparently thought better of it and nodded. "Very well, Mr. Davis. You have three minutes."
Bill glanced down at Ben, who shot him a look of encouragement. "From those plans," he said, "it appears as though the new grocery addition is going to be built behind the existing building."
"That is correct."
"I thought The Store backed up to national forest land."
"It does," Carpenter agreed. "But as part of the federal land exchange program, we traded forty acres of BLM-surrounded land we owned by Castle Creek for sixty acres adjacent to The Store's property."
"And now we're going to sell it to The Store?"
"No. In exchange for The Store's generous offer to provide park maintenance and to take over funding and organizing of the youth recreation programs, the town plans to donate the land to The Store corporation."
"This is outrageous!" Bill glanced around the room, looking for support.
Ben was furiously writing in his notebook. The other two people in the audience were staring blankly at him. He once again faced the commissioners. "You mean to tell me that Juniper is deliberately helping The Store at the expense of Jed McGill and then telling Jed that he should lower his prices if he hopes to stay in business?"
"Not at all," Carpenter said.
"But you're giving The Store free land, you're going to rezone its property, and like Leander said, there're going to be no repercussions for keeping their plan secret and not telling you their intentions in the first place. Jed's been an honest local storeowner here for . . . for as long as I've lived in town, which is longer than most of you, and now you're going to give him the shaft."
Carpenter smiled indulgently. "Is there any valid point you wish to make, Mr. Davis? What specific legal objections do you have to the rezoning plan?"
"I don't think The Store should be given special privileges."
"The Store is threatening to leave Juniper --"
"Like Leander said, let them."
" -- and The Store is our town's major employer. You are reacting out of personal bias, Mr. Davis. It is our job to examine our building codes and zoning ordinances and determine from that what is in the best interests of the entire town, not just a few specific individuals." He nodded at Bill. "Your time is up, Mr. Davis. Thank you for your input." He glanced around at his fellow commissioners. "Gentlemen, I suggest we put it to a vote."
By a vote of four to one, the Planning Commission agreed to rezone The Store's property to allow grocery sales.
"Big surprise," Ben said on the way out.
"I see an editorial here," Bill told him.
"There will be. But you know how well my editorials go over. People threaten to kick my ass and cancel their subscription." He grinned. "Luckily, we have a monopoly here."
"Have Laura write it."
"She's more popular than me?"
"Isn't she?"
"Yeah, but I hate to hear it."
"What about Newtin?"
"What about him?"
"He's not making you kiss The Store's ass anymore?"
"I think that still is our official policy, but I haven't been following it lately. And I think as long as the ad space keeps selling, he doesn't really give a damn what's in the articles."
Bill drove his friend home. "Doesn't all this just piss you off?" he asked as the editor got out of the Jeep.
"It not only pisses me off, it scares me," Ben said. He started up the path to his trailer. "Later!" he called, waving.
"Later."
Bill drove off.
_It scares me_.
It scared him, too, and he turned on the Jeep's radio so he'd have noise instead of silence on the dark trip home.
In his dream, The Store was expanding its parking lot so that it covered the entire town. The forest was gone, the mountains and hills were bare, and there was not enough asphalt to pave over the cleared land, so an asphalt-maker, a machine that looked like an oversized thresher, was inching forward at the edge of the parking lot, a relay-line of uniformed Store employees passing forward the bodies of townspeople, throwing them into an open scoop on the machine, as a mixture of powdered bones and tar was excreted from a series of nozzles at its rear. He was standing on the highway, watching, horrified, when he saw Ginny being passed froward, the girls following her. Sam was still wearing her Store uniform, but that had not exempted her from her fate, and she was handed from one employee to another, toward the open mouth of the asphalt maker.
Bill started running across the parking lot, toward the machine, but his feet became stuck on the gluey pavement.
Ginny was thrown into the scoop.
Shannon.
Sam.
Black bone-based asphalt emerged from the rear nozzles.
"No!" he cried.
And the machine continued on.
3
Jed McGill was awakened by the doorbell.
He sat up, then stumbled out of bed, aware that the doorbell had been ringing for a while but not sure for how long. The sound had been incorporated into his dream, and reality sounded like an echo to him as he groggily reached for his bathrobe. He glanced at the clock on his dresser.
Two a.m.
Who would be coming over at this hour?
_Ring_.
Yawning, his eyes still half-closed, he felt his way around the doorjamb, using the wall as his guide as he moved through the hallway toward the living room. _Ring_.
He rubbed his eyes, opening them wider. There was something about the unhurried insistence of the ringer and the even intervals between the door chimes that set off his radar. Even in this sleep-numbed state, he recognized that whoever was outside had been there for quite some time, waiting far longer than any ordinary person would have, and was still at the door, patiently pressing the button every thirty seconds.
_Ring_.
He approached the door warily, feeling oddly nervous. Juniper wasn't exactly New York, with psychos and criminals and gangs prowling around at all hours of the night. And he wasn't a ninety-eight-pound weakling. He was six three, two hundred pounds, and he pumped iron. He was in good physical shape.
Still, he felt apprehensive, almost jumpy, as his hand touched the door handle. It was probably just someone whose car had broken down, someone wanting to use his telephone to call for a tow. He leaned against the door, peeked through the peephole.
It was a man in a three-piece suit.
That should have settled his nerves. It was not a thug or a loony but a businessman. For some reason, however, seeing his visitor made Jed even more uneasy. Why would a businessman be standing on his stoop and ringing the doorbell in the middle of the night? It made no sense. The man didn't look harried enough or annoyed enough for his car to have broken down, so that theory went out the window. But if he was here to talk business, it could have waited until morning. And he should have called first.
Something about this didn't feel right.
The man calmly pressed the button next to the door.
_Ring_.
Jed threw the dead bolt, unlocked the door, opened it. The man stood on the stoop, smiling at him, and Jed didn't like that smile.
"Hello, Mr. McGill."
Jed stared at him dumbly.
The man pushed past him, uninvited, into the living room. "Nice place you've got here."
Get out, he wanted to say. Get out of my house. But he only turned and watched as the man maneuvered around the couch and the coffee table and sat down in the easy chair facing the television. The man was still smiling as he motioned for Jed to sit on the couch, and now Jed knew what he did not like about the smile. It was fake, yes, but that's not what unnerved him so. It was the hint of a threat behind the smile, the belligerence backing it.
He should not have opened the door, he realized. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen. It was too late to stop it.
Whatever was going to happen?
He looked at the smiling business-suited man on the couch.
Yes.
He wished he'd brought his shotgun out with him, but it was still in the bedroom, leaning in the corner by the dresser. His rifles were in the gun case.
"Have a seat," the man said.
Jed walked slowly forward, stopped in back of the couch. "What do you want?"
"I just want to talk, Jed. Is that all right with you?"
"Not at two o'clock in the morning it's not."
"I stopped by your store today. Buy-and-Save. Cute name. Cute store."
Jed stiffened. "I don't know who you are or what you're trying to do, but I'm not going to let you barge into my house in the middle of the night and make fun of my store --"
"Calm down, Jed. Calm down." The man's smile was wider. "I'm not criticizing your store. I liked it. It was a nice place." He paused. "While it lasted."
"What --"
"The Store is going to be selling groceries," the man said. "As of tonight, Buy-and-Save is out of business."
Jed walked around the couch, advancing on the man. "Listen to me," he said angrily. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but I can't be threatened and I can't be scared off. You get the hell out of my house right now or I won't be responsible for what happens."
The man stood, still smiling. "Jed, Jed, Jed . . ."
"Get the fuck out of my house!"
"I was afraid you'd take it this way."
There was a noise behind him, and Jed turned to see other men entering through the open front door. Tall men, pale men, dressed in shiny black leather, wearing jackboots. Their faces were blank, devoid of expression, and there was something inhuman about them. Vampires, was his first thought, but that didn't seem quite right.
It was in the ballpark, though. It was definitely in the ballpark.
The men continued filing into his house.
Six of them.
Eight.
Twelve.
He ran across the room, toward the gun case, but the black-garbed white faced creatures were already there and in front of him. He whirled around. They were in back of him. To the sides.
He was surrounded.
"The Store is going to be selling groceries," the man repeated. "As of tonight, Buy-and-Save is out of business."
"The fuck it is!" Jed yelled at him.
The man pushed his way forward. His smile was now a full-fledged smirk, and the hostility was evident on his face. "The fuck it isn't," he said.
He faded into the background as the others closed in.
Jed did not even have a chance to scream.
4
Ginny awoke late.
She stretched, sat up, saw that Bill was not in bed and, hearing noise outside, peeked through the bedroom curtains. They'd talked last night before going to bed about cleaning out the garage, donating some of their old furniture and bric-a-brac to the Baptist rummage sale, throwing away the
useless garbage that they'd accumulated over the years so they could actually walk into the garage, but they'd talked about the same thing a million times before and hadn't done it, and she hadn't expected them to follow through this time. Bill was already awake and dressed and outside, though, and when she peered through the window, she saw several boxes on the dirt drive and saw him carrying yet another one out of the garage. She tapped on the glass, and he waved at her, pointing to an imaginary watch on his wrist to indicate that she was late and should get out and help.
Ginny pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and walked out to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. Sam was already gone, at work, and Shannon was stretched out on the floor of the living room watching TV, an empty orange juice glass beside her.
"Why aren't you out helping your father?" Ginny said.
Her daughter did not even look up. "Why aren't you?"
"Smart-ass. I find anything of yours in the garage, I'm donating it."
Shannon sat up. "You better not!"
Ginny grinned.
"Dad!"
Laughing, Ginny walked outside. Bill was wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "About time," he said.
"I was getting my beauty rest," she told him.
He grinned. "Didn't work." He held up his hands to protect himself as she advanced toward him across the gravel. "You set yourself up for that one."
She punched him lightly on the arm. "Geek."
He drew himself up to his full height. "Computer nerd, if you don't mind."
Ginny glanced around at the array of boxes. "So what's going, what's staying? Have you found anything you're willing to part with?"
"Quite a bit, actually." He motioned toward a box next to a manzanita bush. "There's some of your stuff in there. I didn't know what you wanted or what you didn't, so I figured I'd let you sort through it."
Ginny walked over, looked into the box, saw an old PTA plaque she'd gotten when Sam was in elementary school, a jewelry box Bill's mother had given her that she'd never liked, a folded red-and-white-checkered tablecloth. She squatted down and started sorting through the items, pushing things aside or moving them around but taking nothing out. Sandwiched between a Betty Crocker recipe book and a 1982 Sierra Club calendar, she found a single photograph, an old Polaroid shot. She . pulled it out. "How did that get in here?"
The Store Page 15
