The Store

by Bentley Little

  The girl's attendance had been sporadic for most of this semester, and for the past month she hadn't been in school at all. The rumor was that she wasn't going to be promoted from eleventh grade, that she'd still be a junior next year.

  Everyone felt sorry for Mindy because of what had happened to her father, but at the same time, she'd always been a bitch and no one really felt _too_ sorry for her.

  For the first time since it had happened, Shannon thought of her encounter with Mindy on the road home after school.

  _It's built with blood_.

  The two of them had not spoken since then, although they'd seen each other a couple of times in the halls, and Shannon had sort of assumed that Mindy had been embarrassed by her outburst and had not wanted to be reminded of it. She'd stuck to her nervous breakdown theory and figured that Mindy had merely been looking for a scapegoat for her dad's death.

  But for the first time, the thought flashed through her mind that maybe there _was_ something wrong with The Store. Maybe her dad and Mindy weren't so far off.

  She immediately dismissed that idea. It was stupid, childish.

  Diane moved forward, stepping out from between the cars into the open row of the parking lot.

  Mindy suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs and darted to the right, stopping next to the driver's door of an old Buick.

  "What's she doing?" Diane said.

  Shannon didn't answer. She watched as Mindy, still screaming, pulled a set of keys from her right front pocket and started sorting through them. Her unchecked cries had attracted the attention of a handful of other people in the parking lot and all were staring at her nervously.

  "This is spooky," Diane said. "Let's get the hell out of here."

  Shannon agreed, and they slipped between cars, moving around to the front of the building.

  From behind them came the unmistakable sound of metal on metal, and they turned to see the Buick scrape the side of a Volkswagen as it sped through the parking lot away from them, heading toward the highway. A second later, it rounded the far end of the row and sped half the length of the lot, turning down the aisle directly in front of The Store's entrance and immediately accelerating.

  "Oh, my God," Shannon said. "She's going to ram the building."

  The car gained speed, its engine racing loudly as it shot toward the front doors. Mindy was screaming, her face red and contorted, and even from this far away, Shannon could see the expression of fanatic determination on her features.

  The car hit hard with a noise that sounded like an explosion, a crunch that Shannon felt in her stomach and under her feet, like a sonic boom. The bumper and right front panel of the car smashed against the brick, crumpling instantly, but the rest of the car plowed into the doorway, glass shattering inward.

  There were screams from all around, inside and outside the store, seemingly everywhere, and Shannon was suddenly aware of the fact that she was running toward the accident, Diane at her side. Mindy was slumped over the steering wheel, completely limp, held in by a shoulder harness, and it looked like she was dead, but with one convulsive jerk she was moving again, and the car, whose engine had never stopped running, lurched backward, tearing free from the building with an excruciating squeal and nearly plowing through the gathering crowd behind it.

  From the side, Shannon saw Mindy's face, and it was covered with blood, but that look of crazed determination was still there, and she watched helplessly as the car backed up and then sped forward to make another run.

  This time, Mindy missed the entrance entirely and the Buick smashed against the brick wall, bouncing back. It spun once and came to a stop, engine steaming, pieces of metal continuing to fall from underneath the vehicle as it stood there. The air seemed suddenly quiet after the crashes, the cries of the crowd muffled, and Shannon looked through the car's broken window to see if Mindy was still screaming, but she could not see Mindy's face, could only see the stem of the steering wheel that had been embedded there.

  From somewhere came a policeman, a uniformed officer who pushed his way through the gathering onlookers and tried unsuccessfully to open the smashed driver's door of the Buick. Unable to budge either the driver's or passenger's doors, he pushed one burly hand through the glassless window, put a hand against Mindy's neck, feeling for a pulse. He looked back, shook his head.

  "Is she -- ?" Diane began.

  The policeman nodded. "She's dead."

  FIFTEEN

  1

  He heard the saws when he awoke. The saws and the earthmovers.

  The Store was expanding.

  Bill got up, put on shorts and a T-shirt, went for his morning jog.

  Construction had indeed begun on the recently approved addition, and an army of men and machinery were hard at work demolishing the stand of trees behind the building. These were obviously not local construction workers -- the customized state-of-the-art equipment told him that much -- but there was no site sign announcing the contractor's name. He jogged off the highway, into the empty parking lot, and as he drew closer to the side of the building, he could clearly see the logo on the side of a black bulldozer: a shopping cart filled with consumer products.

  And the words beneath it: THE STORE CONSTRUCTION COMPANY. A DIVISION OF

  THE STORE, INC.

  Ben was already at the site, behind the makeshift chain-link fence, taking photos for the paper. Bill saw the editor crouched next to a crane, camera pointed toward the rear of The Store.

  "Hey!" Bill called.

  Ben saw him, waved, and continued taking photos, moving around the crane to a tangle of fallen trees that were being cut into segments by ten or twelve men all armed with power saws. Bill stood outside the fence, watching, waiting.

  Finally, the editor finished his roll of film and walked past a tractor, through the gate, and out to the parking lot.

  Bill walked over to meet him. He had to shout to be heard over the saws.

  "Why are you out here taking pictures this early? I thought you left that grunt work for your underlings."

  "Grunt work? This is what passes for a glamour assignment here in Juniper.

  They'll cover this afternoon's Little League game and tonight's school board meeting. I get The Store."

  "Dan Rather look out."

  "Eat me."

  Bill laughed, and the two of them headed slowly across the lot toward the front of The Store, where Ben had parked his car. Bill glanced to his right as they walked. The front entrance of the building had been repaired yesterday. By local workers, he had assumed at the time. Now he was not so sure. He gestured back toward the construction workers. "Are they the ones who fixed the front of the building?"

  Ben nodded. "Yep."

  "And they're doing the addition alone, with no help from any of our workers here?"

  "You got it."

  Bill shook his head. "The council could've at least insisted that they use local contractors. I mean, that's pretty crappy. Construction was the only business around here benefiting from The Store --"

  "Except for the paper," Ben reminded him.

  "Except for the paper," Bill conceded.

  "So much for the providing-local-jobs theory, huh?"

  "I'd say those people deserved it for being so naive and gullible --"

  "Especially when you warned them, right?"

  "-- but the rest of us have to suffer the consequences as well." He looked at his friend. "Jerk."

  "Come on, you don't think you're becoming just a little holier-than-thou on this subject?"

  "You're not?"

  "It's my job. I'm a journalist."

  They reached Ben's car. "You want me to give you a ride home?" the editor asked, unlocking his door.

  Bill shook his head. "That's okay. I need the exercise." He glanced back, saw only the edge of the construction fence behind the building on the south side. There was a loud crash as another ponderosa went down. "They're not going to be happy until every tree in Juniper is cut."

  "Jon
i Mitchell called it. 'Big Yellow Taxi.' "

  "Hippie."

  "I've already admitted that."

  They stood there for a moment, looking at each other over the roof of the car, listening to the sound of the saws.

  "There's nothing we can do about any of this, is there?" Bill asked finally.

  "It's progress. Hop on the bandwagon or get the fuck out of the way."

  Bill stared up at the clear blue sky, ran a quick hand through his hair.

  "Any leads on Richardson's store?"

  "What do you think?" Ben said.

  "Just checking."

  "Want my prediction?"

  "On what?"

  "The Buy-and-Save situation."

  "Not really," Bill said, "but give it to me."

  "I predict that its final demise will coincide with the completion of this food department here." He motioned toward the construction site. "It'll hold on till then." He looked over the car roof at Bill. "Want to give me odds?"

  "I think not." Bill took a deep breath, waved goodbye, and started running. He wanted to be angry and outraged, he'd settle for scared, but he felt only tired and discouraged, and he jogged out of the parking lot and down the highway, heading toward home.

  The sound of the saws followed him all the way.

  2

  Ginny usually spent recesses in the classroom -- they were only ten minutes long, which didn't really give her a chance to do anything -- but today she felt restless, antsy, and after leading her kids out to the playground, she hurried over to the staff lounge for a quick cup of coffee.

  The lounge was empty save for Lorraine Hepperton, who was sitting on the couch, humming to herself.

  Ginny smiled at the other teacher as she strode over to the coffee machine. "My, aren't we in a good mood today."

  Lorraine smiled back. "Yes, we are."

  Ginny laughed. She poured herself a cup of coffee, then walked over to the couch, sitting a cushion away from her friend. "So how're things going?" she asked.

  "Here at school or in my real life?"

  "Is there a difference?"

  "There is now." Lorraine rummaged through the purse at her side. "Want to see what I bought?"

  "Sure --" she started to say, but Lorraine had already found what she was looking for and held up a doll, an ugly, particularly nasty looking doll, an orange figure ostensibly human but with stiff bristle hair that extruded from the misshapen head in strange clumps and an off-center face comprised of black cloth dots connected by thread. The figure was nude, and an exaggerated vulva protruded from between its legs.

  Ginny grimaced. "What is it?"

  "A voodoo doll. I bought it at The Store."

  "Why?"

  "To try out. I figure it can't hurt." She chuckled. "I call it Meg."

  Ginny was shocked. "You're joking!"

  "No, I'm not." She glanced quickly toward the door to make sure there was no one else coming into the room, then withdrew a pincushion from her purse. She pulled out a pin, inserted it in the figure's left breast, pressing it all the way in.

  She giggled.

  A chill crept down Ginny's neck. She could not imagine any national chain store selling something like this, not even as a joke or gag gift, and she wondered where in The Store this creepy little doll was displayed.

  Lorraine inserted another pin in the doll's stomach.

  _The black convoy_.

  Ginny stood, moved away from the couch, feeling cold. She turned around by the coffee machine. "You don't think that thing really works, do you? You don't believe that stuff?"

  Lorraine turned the doll over, held out the tag. "Made in Haiti."

  She still wasn't sure how serious the other teacher was. Lorraine's voice was pleasant, her tone light, but she did not sound the least bit jocular or facetious. It was as if this was a normal conversation, as if they were discussing the fabric quality of a new blouse.

  Lorraine pulled out one more pin, pressed it directly into the oversized vulva, then put both the pincushion and the doll back inside her purse. A split second later, another teacher walked through the open doorway into the lounge.

  "Hello, Meg," Lorraine said sweetly.

  SIXTEEN

  1

  "The school year's almost over," Ginny said.

  Bill glanced over at her. "Happy?"

  "Yeah. I am. It's been a long year."

  "Any more voodoo dolls lately?"

  She shook her head.

  "Witches' sabbaths? Satanic rituals?"

  "Not funny," she said.

  He sighed. "No. I guess it's not."

  They were silent for a moment. The house was still, quiet. Both Sam and Shannon were gone, out with their respective friends, and the only noise was the muted hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

  "She'll have to quit after summer," Ginny said. "Once she goes off to school."

  "I wasn't even thinking about that."

  "Bullshit."

  "You're right." Bill leaned back on the couch, stared up at the ceiling."Maybe she can get a summer job on campus, leave early."

  "She hasn't even decided where she's going. She has to pick a college first."

  "It depends on which one offers the best financial aid package."

  They were quiet again, and Bill closed his eyes. He felt tired. He'd been tired a lot lately, though he wasn't sure why. He hadn't been getting any less sleep or doing any more work than usual. Stress, he supposed. He'd had a lot on his mind. Too much.

  "We never sit outside anymore," Ginny said out of the blue.

  He opened his eyes, turned his head toward her. "What?"

  "We never sit outside anymore. Have you noticed that? We never sit on the porch together. You're always in front of your computer and I'm watching TV."

  "We sit together. We're sitting together now."

  "But not outside. We used to go outside after dinner, look up at the stars, talk. Remember that?"

  "You're the one who doesn't like to go out at night. The bugs eat you alive."

  "That's not the point." She moved closer, put an arm around his shoulder.

  "We don't spend as much time together as we used to."

  She was right, he realized. He hadn't thought about it before, but despite the fact that he worked at home and she usually came home from school before four, the only quality time they seemed to spend together was in bed. It was as if they lived two separate existences under the same roof. It hadn't always been this way. Once upon a time, they'd spent every free moment together. As she'd pointed out, they'd sit on the porch, cuddle, talk about the past, plan for the future. It was partially the girls, he supposed. When they were around, it was pretty hard to be intimate.

  But he couldn't blame everything on them.

  "You're right," he said. "We should spend more time together."

  "It's almost summer. It's warm enough to sit on the porch."

  "You want to go outside? Look at stars?"

  She kissed him. "There's hope for us yet."

  "Did you ever doubt it?"

  "No," she said slowly, and her voice was surprisingly serious. "I never did."

  2

  They all had to attend Sam's graduation.

  As a family.

  Shannon had wanted to sit with her friends, who were clustered in the right front corner of the bleachers, near the gate through which the graduates would walk, but her parents said this was a family event and the family was going to celebrate it together.

  Her grandparents had come over for the occasion, and she sat between her two grandmothers on the hot metal bench. Her father was manning the video camera, and she had been given the Nikon and assigned to take still photographs.

  At least it gave her something to do. She loved her grandparents and all, was glad to see them, but it was kind of uncool to be hanging with them while her friends were on their own and had the run of the field.

  She saw Diane hop over the rail of the bleachers and dash over to Zona Marsden, who wa
s in the band, seated to the right of the empty folding chairs set up for the graduates. The two girls talked for a moment, heads huddled together, then both burst out laughing. Diane sped back across the athletic field and disappeared around the side of the bleachers.

  Shannon thought of asking her dad if she could go with Diane, prepared to argue that she'd be able to get better pictures of Sam if she was down there with her, but at that moment, the band started up, playing some anonymous march, and red-jacketed ushers began leading teachers and school administrators to the first row of folding chairs.

  "Make sure you get Sam when she steps onto the field!" her dad called, moving to the bleacher aisle and starting down the steps as he turned on the video camera.

  "I will." Shannon stood, moved past her Grandma Jo and Grandpa Fred, and followed her father down the metal steps to the edge of the bleachers in order to get a better shot.

  The adults were seated and the first graduates filed onto the field. They were doing it alphabetically, and the graduating class wasn't very big, so Sam would be near the beginning. Shannon took off the lens cap and adjusted the focus on the camera so she'd be able to just point and shoot when Samantha walked out.

  "Here she comes!" her dad called.

  Shannon snapped a photo as soon as Sam and her paired partner stepped through the gate, another as she approached the folding chairs, another as she sat down.

  She'd be going through this herself next year. She wouldn't have the extra yellow tassel probably -- her grades weren't as good as Sam's -- but she'd be graduating. She glanced back at her grandparents. All four of them were smiling, and she knew they were happy, but the smiles seemed strained, as though they were in pain and had to force themselves to be cheerful. It suddenly hit her how old and frail her grandparents were, and the thought crossed her mind that they might not all be here for her graduation next year. She instantly pushed the horrible thought away, afraid to even think it, worried on some superstitious level that simply acknowledging the possibility might make it a reality.

  She moved back to her seat for the remainder of the ceremony, putting warm hands on her grandmothers' cold, thin arms as prayers were said and speeches were read. Her dad remained in place, videotaping.