Section C in Aisle Two of Rusty’s Tractor Mart and Value Bonanza is affectionately known as Shovel Paradise. The entire thirty feet on the right side consists of a display, every type of shovel of all sizes hanging in front of a mural depicting where each one would best be used and for what. Some of the older customers argue over it at times, especially the post-holer crowd. They argue that it is not a shovel and should be displayed in aisle five section B with the specialty tools. If a post-holer is a shovel, then scissors are knives. One time, the argument between two farmers became so heated that the owner himself had to step in. “If you don’t like where I put merchandise in my store, you can move it when I die.” Whether or not that really happened is debatable. Legend has it that the altercation took place back in the 1980s when Rusty first opened the shop. He is still feisty as ever, living in the Happy Springs Senior Home, but he lives so the post-holers stay where they are.
Logan furrows his brow as he looks at the framed quote from said time, hanging over the tools in question. There are three different sizes and two of each of different materials. They aren’t what he is looking for, so he just shakes his head at the strangeness of the older generations and reaches for the shovel he needs. The circular handle feels odd in his hands, but somehow more stable. Maybe he’ll be able to use it for a long time without weird movements causing more blisters to show up on his palms. His dad is insistent that he finishes removing the gnarly old shrubs next to the barn over the weekend. He started it the weekend before, but the roots were strong and deep, and he was not ashamed to admit that he was beaten thoroughly by them. With the right shovel though -
To the right of where he is looking at the wall of digging implements, a sudden, loud noise erupts from the front of the store. He looks around, confused. There is still at least a half hour before the store is supposed to be closing, but it sounds like someone yelled to close the door. A second later, he can see the customers in the line at the cash register pushing past each other to get out of the way and running toward the other end of the storefront. The employee, a boy from his school, is staring after them with eyes so wide that Logan sees their whites even from the back of the store.
Logan doesn’t like Marcus’. He isn’t sure if anyone does. Mostly they all just stay away from him when they can. It isn’t easy to completely avoid someone in a small town. Their entire graduating class only has two homerooms, everyone sees everyone over the course of the day. The best they can do is ignore him, which usually works. If he is nearby they walk away. But nobody ever screams as they run away from him. One woman is doing just that. Her scream is continuous as she drags a small child after her, throwing the things in her arms to the ground. She passes out of sight, running past the other registers, he guesses. More voices raise, yelling about something. Or at something. He isn’t sure. His eyes meet Marcus’ and even from the distance, he can see the boy is paralyzed in fear.
The lights cut out. For two seconds, he is surrounded by pitch black, too far from the front windows to have the glow from the parking lot lights to see by. The sun has set too much for light to come in from the occasional skylight overhead. Then, the darkness is cut by emergency lights scattered across the ceiling and over the doors, both interior and exterior ones. A rattle and a heavy thump echo through the space, drowning out the terrified yells from ahead. Logan turns to the back and runs toward where he knows Stacy and Izzie are. He can hear Stacy’s chirps of distress. She hates the dark.
“Are you guys alright?” He skids to a stop next to the metal pen holding dozens of terrified baby chickens. Stacy falls into his arms as if it is the most natural thing to do. Maybe it is, for her. She is his girlfriend of two years, best friend since they were too little to understand what that meant. They belong together. She looks up at him, blue eyes a muddy color in the emergency lighting.
“What was that?” She squeaks, craning her head to see toward the front of the store while still burrowing into him. “ What’s going on?”
Another voice speaks up from behind her, a deeper voice with a hint of gavel. Logan pulls Stacy into his arms and looks over her head at Joseph. The other boy nods towards the front. “That rattle was the gate going down in front of the doors I think. Something’s wrong.”
Logan nods at him, then realizes the boy probably can’t see him. “What do we do?”
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The screams begin again at the front end of the store, both masculine and feminine voices crying out in terror.
“I think we better get somewhere with a door,” Joseph says as he bolts to the first aisle in a sudden burst of motion. Izzie runs around Logan and Stacy and joins him, turning the corner in an instant.
“I want to leave,” Stacy whispers into his neck. He can feel her shaking, but not from the cold this time. Logan grabs her hand and pulls her after the others. When they turn into the first aisle he can see the front doors in the distance. A gridwork of shadowed lines is in front of it, extending almost to the bottom. Halfway down the wall, Joseph is opening a door and waving Izzie inside before frantically gesturing at the both of them.
“Something’s going on, baby, we need to get somewhere safe.” He pulls her toward the door, eyes looking frantically to the side as they pass the first of two cross aisles. Those aisles reach all the way to the other side of the store. He rarely goes to that side of the store, but he knows there is a large opening leading to the showcase floor and another exit. He sees human shapes in the very last aisle running back towards that opening. Logan falters for a moment, wondering if they should run that way as well, but then screams begin from that area and he picks up his pace.
Stacey squirms in his arms, pulling out of his grip and nearly losing her balance. She doesn’t fall, nor does she stop. In fact, she begins to run.
“No, I need to leave!” Her voice is rising, panic thick in her words. To his horror, she doesn’t stop at the waiting door but sprints past it. He knows immediately she is hoping to get under the narrow gap between the grate and the floor. How she plans on opening the doors before sliding underneath he doesn’t know. Swearing, he starts after her. Ahead, already thirty feet from him, she approaches the foreward most of the crosspaths and he knows he isn’t fast enough to catch up before she reaches the grate. After football season is over, most of the cheerleaders are on other teams. Stacy is the star of the track team. She is faster by far than he or his teammates when she goes all out. Even in her short-heeled boots, she is still leaving him in the dust. Normally he would feel pride in that fact, but at the moment all he feels is fear.
“Stacy, no, come back!”
His words turn into a strangled yell when a dark shape barrels into her from the heavily shadowed break in the aisle to her right. She screams as she hits the ground, struggling with whomever it is. No, he thinks to himself, the shape is wrong. Not a person. Her screams stop, but the ragged motions of whatever is on top of her don’t.
Joseph grabs his arm as he runs past and he jerks backward, his feet flying out from beneath him. He yells and scrambles up, tearing at the fingers holding him in place. The words being yelled at him barely register.
“We have to get inside and close the door, Logan!”
Arms wrap around his chest and, with their combined strength, Izzie and Joseph pull him into the room, kicking the door shut as stumble into a small break room. The door stops at the last second and swings open again, a trembling older man outlined in the doorway. Time slows. Logan watches as the man’s foot raises to cross the threshold. Something large and shadowy hits him from the side, the impact sending the both of them out of sight. Logan struggles forward when Izzie lets go and screams. If whatever it was is occupied by the old man, he can get to Stacy-
Time snaps back to its proper speed. Joseph shifts him around lets go long enough to slam the door. Then, his arms are wrapped around Logan again, joined once more by Izzie’s. They pull him farther away from the door, bouncing off of one of the break room tables and falling into a painful heap on the floor. The screams of the elderly shopper cut off abruptly. Logan falls to the side, despair clouding his mind. He barely registers Joseph and Izzie throwing chairs to the side and forcing one of the massive concrete tables to its side, and the scraping sound as it is pushed against the door doesn’t make it over the ringing in his ears. They back up as soon as it is in place, their bodies shaking from fear and exertion.
Logan doesn’t notice their efforts, though. His mind replays the scene out in the aisle over and over, a 30-second repeating loop of horror. How her body buckled sideways when she was hit. Her hands swinging at whatever was attacking her. The moment they lost strength and fell feebly to the side. The glow from the emergency lights ahead outlines her as a short, curved snout jerks backward, pulling something from her with it.
Something hot and wet trails down his cheeks, and he tastes salt as it drips between his parted lips. His brain tells him that he is crying, but he can’t feel it. The pain and fear he felt just moments before is gone, replaced with a feeling of numbness in his chest. A loud clang rings in his ears and he looks to the ground next to him. The metal head of the shovel in his hands has slid off of him and hit the floor. He wonders if it was in his hands the whole time.
Feet move around him, carefully stepping over his jelly-like limbs on the ground. Izzie’s light purple Sketchers stop just past his head and a door opens. He can tell the two are talking but their voices sound like they are speaking through fans. There is no yelling or screaming, and getting up seems like it will take more energy than he has. No, he should stay where he is, with his shovel, in case they need it and his strength later.
Logan closes his eyes, the circular handle in his grip the only solid thing around him. He sees Stacy knocked to the side, but he is right there, swinging his shovel like a claymore. The blade cleaves through the creature and its body turns to smoke, swirling up through the air. He reaches down and takes her hand, pulling her up and into his arms. They run through the doorway flanked by his teammate and his good friend before shutting the door firmly. There, in the festive orange light, he holds her tight to his chest and keeps her safe.