Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcome stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. It's three seven a m. And
the flicker of the overhead fluorescent makes forty feet of
empty I'll look like a hallway in a bad dream.
Sam Greaves is halfway her scanning what's left of box
cereal when a small, shaking hand grabs his forearm. Missus O'Brien,
the local insomniac, the forearm rotasary chicken crusader, stares at him,
face damp with sweat, rosas in dry storage three. She whispers,
her finger nails dig in a little. Her eyes go
past him, searching the shadows where produced Kurt's pile up.
I saw her. She was helping a man back there
by that locked door. I swear, just now, just a
minute ago. Don't let him in. Sam has been on
overnight shift here too many years to panic. He tries,
gentle Missus O'Brien, dry storage trees locked up for the week.
Nobody's in there. He smiles, shows his key ring. I'm
the only one with the key. Even if Roza forgot
the fire door, she was in there. Miss O'Brien's whisper
is jumble with breathy, urgent stacatto. I know er Blue
Vess Harrop. She looked right at me, Sam, Crane's his
head fighting the urge to yawn. There's no one near
dry storage. The motion lets stay cold, gray and still.
He thumbs his radio. Hey, Lauren, anyone covering dry three
or back there? Just now? Crackle learn from checkouts, sounding irritable. No,
Sam Storage clear, I'm the only one on this half
the floor. Sam thanks her quietly. Eyes on, Missus O'Brien.
I'll check the cameras in a minute, he adds, just
in case maybe some one walked into her stock. People
are tired, but no one's allowed in there. Remember o K.
Missus O'Brien shakes once heart, then dabdos herself. You believe me,
don't you? Sam. There's something brutal in her request, as
if she's searching for permission to forget what she saw.
He leads her back to the main floor. The store
hums wax tiles, streaked by bare wheels, metal cots with
bent legs. At the end of Asle thirteen, a family
is haggling with the temp kecheur about the price of
the last five pound bags of flya. The end is
in the air. Mardl's Supermarket will shutter in one week.
Another discount casualty. Half the shelves are picked over half
a customer's prow for going out of business gold. Sam
resumes inventory, but as he is keep darting back to
the break room, chatter of the quick never shuffles by.
The tobacco counter. Frustration at the company is thick a
spilled mop water in every sidelong glance, in every rumor
about corporate observe his looking in the upstairs office, and
the constant rumors that maybe, just maybe martyrs when closed.
After all, he uses the scanners dim Screenlwer's cover, but
he can feel the knot of Missus O'Brien's worry settle
under his rops Rose's face in dry storage at this
ire impossible on every practical level, but Sam isn't sure
there's anything practical about this last dark week. On Aisle six,
labels curl away from half empty bottles and empty pegs
sorry out of stock, sign's blossom light mailed you. Sam
imagines the store is of Pip Caucus, and for a
moment he catches the urge to laugh. Everyone is waiting
staff for the severance regulars for the next rumor ghosts,
if there are any, for the coming dark routines. All
they've gone. He checks the tags, keys jangle in for
a sliver of calm. He recites the roll call under
his breath. Ros On Produce, Dave Ding Security, mostly Internet Pseudocu,
Lauren up Front, Tomas Overnight stock out is plugging away
with headphones and old punk snarling loud enough for everyone
to hear. Tonight, the energy is strange. Temp workers wander
their blue vests bright as wounds out back the corpora.
Guy fent and hovers over the bakeries, gribbling unreadable notes.
Sam finishes the shelf and knocks twice on the stock
room door to scold himself for superstition. His scanner pink
ping's the next sparcode. The break room not long past
once hosted birthday cupcakes, off key singing and coffee more
bitter than necessary. Early to night. Sam tries to quick
pep talk cleans into nostalgia, cracks a joke about how
in ten years you'll miss this place. Nobody laughs. Rosa
signds him a half grin, but her eyes dart to
her phone as of checking escape routs. Dave checks his watch.
Lauren rolls her eyes into her coffee and lets the
silence balloon. People whisper about pilfering, a pallid ofish soap,
vanished Tuesday drink, collers run light, and Sam's learn to
let it go when check out runs blind or staff,
a pocket snacks. Nobody is greedy, just grim, tired, and
desperate for something to call theirs before the doors close
for good. Sam unlocks the loading dock for the foreign
broad run and finds the driver asleep, face pressed to
the wheel. Nobody wants to be here. Everyone needs to
be somewhere else. In the aisles, the air turns thick
with effort. Someone pushes a broom in tightening circles, as
if the grime were resistant to all human hope. A
radio ab of the frozen foods asle fozzes then returns
to bland. Late night ballads cotts collect and awkward clustus
left behind by customers too tired to lift another can.
The never washed supermarket windows reflect only disappointing ghosts. His
own locker, a stash of untouched energy gum, a photo
of his old crew tip to the door rose, the
smile loudest in the center. Four of quit in a month,
washing out in silence or vanishing, the shift their departure
and remark except in snatches of gossip. The night limps
Sam's body buzzing with fatigue. He takes the lover is
off a clipboard, routes the tempt team to asle nine
cereals a warzone. He jokes, they do not laugh, and
loiters by customer service, listening in case Lauren needs back.
A woman in huws run down to Felt, asks Sam
for paper towels, then seems to forget why Laurence nicholas
tiny palm cross charm has been missing since early May.
It comes up every night and unacknowledged loss among hundreds,
tension sharpens every gesture. They all feel the invisible ticking,
the overhead light wink, a sneeze from the deli becomes
instantly comic, and the laughter dies too fast to night.
Sam thinks Missus O'Brien is the only real customer left.
The rest staff and rigulous cluster in routines hiding in
plain sight, saying nothing substantial. Sam checks the stores inventory
dashboard more voids than numbers. The only order to hear
is the order to choose to keep faking. He leaves
Lauren in front, hands her a tray of final markdowns,
and promises a pizza run soon. As the shift ends.
She rolls her eyes, but not unkindly. Out back, the
steel of the loading bay is sticky with last summer's heat.
The echoes off the concrete. Tough and tired. Quintc' door
alarms sculds himself for another flash of nerves and tells
himself again that it's all normal, just a long ending
slower than anyone needs a little beforefore Dave emerges with
a coffee, holds the door and speaks slow. Rose is
not back from lunch overtime by now. Sam grunts, tee
set you see her out front. Dave shrugs, not since
before break she said she'd grab a smoke up back,
maybe head upside, but her jackets still in the locker.
Lauren finishes a presh sheet at the register, then stops confused.
She holds up a page scribbled with familiar oopinscript. Two
dollars ninety nine cents, melons, one dollar twenty eight cents bagels,
The date in the corner reads last night, except Rosa
didn't work last night. Lauren stares its arm. You see
her fill this, it's her writing. Sam takes the page,
smells the faint sugar of the marker. Maybe she started
last year and forgot it. He's trying to keep the
moving parts together, trying hard. Lauren blinks. She wasn't here,
She whispers, voice nodded. The trade glance is uncertain, shivering
with new ties. In the lethel security office, Sam and
Dave hover over the monitor. The reaply flickers with cheap,
uneven lines. The cameras hate the dark and don't like
last minute improvisation. The queue up, dry, storage tree, dead hallway,
nothing but crate and mussy shadow. No one for ires
except a single blurry motion at two nineteen, chop astatic
before the recorder skips rewind. Sam's face appears, then peels
off to another aisle. Lauren in pale pink aired about
a dead register. Two thirteen nothing, two fourteen smudge along
the bakery window. Dave scrambles drough feeds this one, showing
the break room. Look rose there. Sanm squints but can't
find her. The last confirmed shot Rosa two seventeen. A
m with a broken deli cart rolling past frozen foods.
After that, no sign. Dave type's rough, broad shouldered fingers.
Could she have ducked out a fire? I can check
alarms some size. The dry storage is locked unless she
has my keys. He touches his belt, weighing something old
in earth. He's lost count of how many nights he's
wrangled over time, broken up, small screaming matches, led the
lost and drunken out the slide indoors. But this is new,
Sam wonders briefly if assess of Brind's panic means anything
real at all. He bites his tongue before saying it aloud.
Venton appears in the doorway, sleeves roll, hair damp with
nervous sweat. Why isn't the staff checking up to date?
Mister grieves. Sam blinks, we're a running light. Lauren is
up front, Rosa would around some staff skip the scanner
when it's crazy. Fenton's eyes narrow, muff curling into a frown.
How do you expect us to maintain an oddit trail?
If staff can disappear from logs, The man's British temporarily
hide from corporate h hue for oversight, he smells out
theft with the energy of a terrier and the compassion
of a random code generator. We'll check, probably just stepped outside.
He'll check every entry since midnight, every camera angle. If
someone is walking out with insold products. Nothing's missing. Anyone
cares about Fenton. Sam Snap's too tired to hide it.
We'd notice Fenton's expression closes. See that you do. This
is still a business, He leaves, muttering into his phone. Outside,
the echo of Temperes is met by the hard complexity
of nobody knowing anything. Lauren and Dave trade looks the
store huddles in on itself. All's three through six are gloomer. Now,
night lights cutting harsh lines. Staff keep moving, but the
rhythm's wrong. Don't go lowin, Lauren says, half as a joke,
as if Rose is vanish, and gives them new permission
to fear. Two IROs crawl by palette, skitter on the
old tiles. There's always a reason, Sam murmurs to himself,
eyes tracking every shadow in the mirrored house of the freezer,
he finds Missus O'Brien again buying discount donuts on credit.
She's steadier now, hair smooth. Did you check for Rosa?
I'd know her anywhere. Just some confusion that Sam says gently,
we're looking sometimes the store well, people move through fast.
Missus O'Brien offers up a smile. I'll pray for her
for you too. Don't stay late tonight. Sam nods feels
the surreal, skin crawling pressure. What if he's talking nonsense
into a night only he truly knows. He walks the floor,
heels squeaking, The meek counter closes early, someone leaves a
warm soda under the simple table. By five, he is
assembling the staff. Lauren dave a half dozen tempts by
bakery for an neat hawk's safety check. He means to
search systematically, but everyone understands this is for Rosa. Lauren's
voice is low. We should call her phone. I already did,
straight to Vorsmell. They branched through the aisles. Sam lead
by example, prying open every break room freezer and shadowed
nook the staff joke nervous, she probably just quit early,
walked off. Good timing, really, but the laughter catches. No
one wants to look like they believe in ghosts. In back,
Lauren checks the staff lockers. Her purse is here, I
d still inside. Her voice is rough, faltering as she
holds up the battered bag. Deal shines his flashlight under
the break room couch. Just receipts, He mutters on the
staff table. A stack of abandoned price guns, one blinking
with a dead battery. A kid from Tim Staffing's side
up to Sam, Boss. Did you see these boxes near
the old freezers? Someone move them? Sam Franz pushes open
the loading door. Light flickers, palette scattered with abandoned stock.
There goes jokes Rise, skipping the edge of anxiety. Lauren,
elsewhere rifles through discount packs. She finds a note folded
inside a price gun tape under the shelf to Lauren,
in Rose's amiscible hand. Lauren hesitates, then reads it aloud,
quiet and shrill. Don't trust them. After closing, the date
is marked with next Sunday, two day ahead impossible. Sam
thinks Rose's handwriting, but meant for a day that hasn't come.
He presses the note into his shirt pocket, refusing for
now to believe it. Fenton sweeps in waving print huts
inventory discrepancies, entire shipments logged after close product cleaners, snack shows,
checked in with Rose's ID after her lost chemiciting. He
dressed the papers in Sam's face, eyes alight with accusation.
You're covering for her. Are you all in on this?
Lauren squares her shoulders. We didn't forge anything. She was
at her station, he saw her. Fenton scuffs the system
doesn't lie, Sam, weary people do, or techlitched, or he
stops glancing at the time, stamps one for tonight, one
for tomorrow, both signed in Roses distinctly be handwriting. This
is impossible, not unless someone's gone full mission impossible. Fenton
leans in, explain it, or the police come in. Lauren's
neck is lost for weeks, appears deep into the serial
display wrapped out around afresh, never a worn grocery slip,
Martl's discount dated to more. The air turns, then staff
back away, muttering behind hands. Someone quips maybe Roses a
ghost after all? The joke climbs hard. In the silence.
Sam scripts his palms against his thighs. Let's get lights,
run a real search. The power fluckers for a moment.
The whole floor dies in darkness, firge motos go quiet.
Security lights stutter for five or six frantic seconds. Everyone
is alone in a night that could go on forever.
The store feels so much smaller and so much more
dangerous in blackout. When the lights return, nobody is where
they started. The building is a maze, and everyone wears
the look of the newly lost. Sam heads for the
security room alone now Josse. He boots the monitors sits
hip to hip on a plastic chair, still warm from
Finton's presence. His scrolls he grabs. He watches iris disappear,
blurry figures, always in the corners between shelves, never caught
by more than one camera, A two sixteen on five
different feeds. A shape moves near produce, but never turns
its face toward any lens. He checks staff, check and
looks times. A river running two ways. Sam grieves entry
to break room two fourteen am, the entry to dry
storage two fifteen am, the exit en Slashe except Sam
never went in there. He remembers tracking peanut butter rist
stocking frozen peas. He does not remember opening dry storage.
Dave calls it someone screwing with the locks. The system
can hell, anyone who took that online am in training could,
Lauren accuses the new night shift, her voice breaking, you
said you've covered produce. She hisares Atomas, who jams his
headphones on tider mouttering about viruses and sabotage. Sam clamps
his teeth to stop from shouting. No more blaming, No
more stores than onet eyes on every door. He finds
Fenton in the staff office. The man's face is pasty
with adrenaline handshake as he checks system locks. Fenton levels
a flat look at Sam. The store is haunted, all right,
but by fraud, the old soft who have been hacked before,
but the sleeping enters, fake signatures. This is controlled methodical,
not staff, not with this precision, unless you're all in
on it, or unless you're projecting. Sam says, coolly, sacred tightness.
Corporate spend years covering its own mistakes. Fenton turns, gathering
his laptop. He's sweating beneath his nice jacket. Wellsie, who
gets blamed when the oddit's done, grieves. Sam waits until
the office empties, then presses his eyes into his palms.
He feels watched. He's done staring at shadows. Cursing softly,
he swings his keys off his belt, turning the jagged
edge brass key for dry storage tree. He waits for
Dave at the breakroom, wirless, and together they march into
the store, stitch together. Had The air near dry storage
is close and cold, traces of bleach clinging to metal,
and til the padlock on the door is untouched. Sam
slides the key in, listens for the tiny click, then
swings the door open. Inside the cold is immediate punishing
sack after a stack of unsorted cardboard squeezes the narrow
aisle to almost nothing. The dust is thick, broken only
by a tight recent trail of shoe prints. A radio
staff issue stickered Rosa lies on its side atop a
back of rock salt. Lauren comes over walkie talkie, Sam,
you need to see this. She found her phone wedged
in bakery stock screen open, a voice memo running. She
hadn't recorded anything. She plays it anyway, her own voice
echoing as if a cross water, quietly saying Rosa, you
can be here, not tonight. The beat a second voice
very much Rosa's whispering I never left. Sam frowns at
the receipt crowned into the radio sprin clip, all stamped
for tomorrow. On the price gun's log at least a
dozen new entries item old Star Special Order HASH nineteen
thousand eighty three process by R. Sanchez, Time to thirty
nine a m for SLUSS seven. Today's the fifth, the
seventh of future. No one has yet occupied. He pockets
the receipts, feeling a cave open in the pit of
his stomach. She's not here, Dave says gently now, but
neither man's sounds convinced. Lauren walks in, clutching a trembling
phone on the screen. Her own voice crackles through the recording,
but the background of fuzzy, shifting shadow moves just beyond recognition.
In the security room, the monitor's bubble was static, then
mole clear. Now footage cycles on loop last Monday's empty
eyles fused with Tonight's live feed, but neither show enough
of anything to anchor them in real time. Sam curses
someone's playing with the feats, maybe Rosa herself, maybe Fendin.
Maybe he stops. Unwilling to say something worse, He considers
helen the teen to go home, to lock the doors
burn the schedules, call the police and let the slow
moving horror presidious sword it all out. But he's never
let a shift collapse before. Now the stuff gathering rough,
nervous clusters. Dave checks to loading bay, tom As does rounds,
muttering about digital sabotage. Lauren, eyes wide and haunted, clings
to her recovered phone. A few want to call the police. Others,
trained and frightened, argue that bringing in outsiders means losing
what little control they have left. No one wants their
last week to find biscandal or shame. A temp worker
find a staff vest folded by the trash, price tags
still attach and laughs. The laugh dies quickly, a sudden,
complete blackout. For sixty seconds, nothing but breath. Emergency lights
snap rout, then blue, then white, sickling wildly, Nobody moves
for a terrifying instant Somewhere deep in the dark, the
p A system lutches to life, garbled static, then a voice,
sweet familiar, broken by taped glitches, lost orders, last orders,
Please bring all legends to the front. Sam pushes through
the loading bay, astrobing. Flickering flashlight dances at the edge
of vision. The only light dave at his elbow, wincing,
clutching a wrench down the bread aisle. A path of
stat boxes outlines away toward the stores rear, but the
rout is unfamiliar, almost mays like a turn leads to
double chalves. He doesn't remember stocking, and another spits him
out by the soor de fridge machines, humming just off
the beat. They split up without agreeing to somewhere behind
bulk cleaning. Lauren's radio sudders with her own name, Lauren,
help me, I'm here. Then again from the opposite wall,
Lauren bleed. Sam fumbles in the aisle. A laptop glows
a store should lenovo may be Fenton's, maybe not. The
screen is cracked, but running a mass diagnostic on store inventory,
a camera software batch scans. He catches the real time
footage in the display. His own face looking down shoulders
hunch lends over his shoulder shows the second figure blurred,
moving always a pace behind. He spins nothing but air.
The shelf spits out an old silver paper, clacking loudly.
The chaosk by the deli belches a print out hot
as a wound. New shift cinches are closing shift twelve
slash seven. Manager as grieves the date is after the
scheduled closure, after the lost shift's calculation impossible, Sam says aloud.
Lauren's voice cracks somewhere near by a scream or aply.
The overhead lights come on, then off again, all up
and down the aisles. The doors rattle into their locked positions.
A poll of staff and customers may be ate in
total cluster near customer service face is drawn hollow by
fearing confusion, Lauren pushes forward, clutching a crumpled note nearly
taped to the desk, brutally fresh in Rose's pen. Inventory
never ends. Fenton is gone. No one saw him leave.
Some wants to shout. He cannot name what exactly is
happening at theft break down, A perfect and deliberate manipulation,
a haunting that does much psychological supernatural. But he knows,
deep in the ugly heart of the store, under a
sealing fans turning too slowly, that nothing will end until
some one admits what's really being kept in stock. Outside,
It's still night crush, watchful waiting inside. Nobody trusts the store,
least of all the ones test to close it. Forever inside.
Nobody trusts the store, least of all the ones test
to close it forever. Dave is the first to break
the weird hush. Some one's got to check for Fenton,
he mutters, already angling his flashlight at the customer toilets.
There's a hitch in his stride, like every step might
spring a trap, a temp work, they call him. Eddie
stops pacing, fidgeting with his lanyard until it snaps off
and clatters to the tile. None of this is right,
Eddie says, too loud. I'm not staying. I'll leave my
paycheck to slep me out. Sam tries to speak calmly,
but the words jam lost against the drone from the
ventilators above. He looks once hard through the entry glass.
No headlights outside, no early morning bread truck, only the
muffled glow from abandoned cash registers in the shimmer of
fluescent between frozen blasts. Lauren drips close for phone worthless
in her Palmnow the signal dead. Warehouse doors are locked
up tight, the breakers out again, Sam, and as she shivers,
every time I go back there, it feels smaller. Dave
circles back service corps doors a dead end. I check
the doors. Fentin's probably in the corporate office, calling him
back up security or something. He never said a word,
Lauren says, he was right behind me before the lights.
She trails off, lips pressed in, unwilling to finish the sentences.
A customer, the old guy they all call mister Howard,
who only ever buys, and a soup council lies closer
to the group. He has a bleeding nick above his
left eyebrow, and notice until laur in her is to
dab it with the tissue found the bathroom's lock, he offers,
not quite meeting anyone's gaze. Someone's talking in there, but
it doesn't sound right, not like staff. The air is
drenched in the chemical hus shoved a blackout, seeing Finn's
shadow with delayed power. First blit, second Old Sam he
is is breathing in the whirr of one remaining freezer.
He turns to the others, counting, always counting crew and
customers alike. We stay together, Sam says. He sets his
jaw and tries to push the authority back into his voice.
No running, We search quietly, and we don't get split
up again. We keep our heads, or somebody's going to
get her. Nobody argues, even Eddie, pink faced and seething,
acts away from the exit doors as if they might
come alive. First, Sam continues, Fenton's gone, but his laptop's running.
Will check his office were group, then we look for
ros again. If she is still inside, we'll find her.
If not, we'll get through this shift. Like always. They
fan out in a tight cluster under the dead glow
security lighting. The store has shrunk ailes, folding in colored doors,
sweating in thick and natural fog in prody spins, overflow
with boxed apples that nobody remembers. Stocking, Lawrence snatches up
a plastic wrapped tomato and tosses a mottering old stock.
Like everything here. At the central office, they find the
door barely propped open, with the shoe Fentin's black Oxford,
slicky and inexpensive. The musty air inside is supercharged with
the smell of burnt paper and disinfectant. The desk lamp,
plugged into a dying ups, flickers between life and death.
Sam pushes and first the laptop is still running diagnostics.
A rainbow of tabs stands open inventory software flickering different
colored air states. The screen keeps freezing and refreshing invalid
entry shift not found processing future date confirms slush reject.
Lauren picks up a handful of half burned schedule print
outs from the trash. Each lists a closing shift with
names re arranged in strange ways. Grieves. The slash sanches
are slash Davsey, slash Laurnen, some morked, complete on dates
that haven't passed yet, others pending on dates weeks ago.
The safe is wide open, empty but for a crumple
of paper a torn photo. All staff faces scratched off
with a thick, furious black marker, except when Neurose's staring
out like a survivor. Whope brings in this much planning
for a door that's closing. Dave breedes, thumbing through the
rest of the drawer. It's like he thought Martyals was
going to keep going forever. Sam leans over the looks.
It can't all be fentin. There's too much, no time
for one man. Rose's name is everywhere on the whiteboard
behind the desk. Someone escaled over old sales targets with
a fat black marker. Inventory never ends inventory never ends, inventory,
never until the Marcker died out to gray dust. Lauren's
phone pings just once, and she jolts so hard she
almost drops it. The lock screen pulses a tex no sendy,
just the preview of a single line check the deli.
She holds it up. Sam squints, probably Rose's number, right.
Lauren shakes her head, voice rasping over sudden panic. Her
phone's missing. We tried calling, remember. She stands there, terrified,
thumb pous to open the message. I don't I don't
want to see what it says. Without thinking, Sam reaches
and gently takes back the phone, slipping it into his
own pocket. The group, Lauren, Dave, the two remaining tempstaff,
Mister Howard and Missess O'Bryan, who appears suddenly at the door.
We gather outside the office. Dave chackx's walkie again, nothing
but fusspits out. Sam presses his ear beast, searching for
any anchor to normalcy. All the radios seem to want
to night is to spit up old static and catch
erran snatches of far away voices they can interpret from
down the halt. The piers still hisses softly and then unexpectedly,
a new message emerges, crackly, a woman's voice wavering in
pitch and rhythm, clean a bile three, Rosa. Please report
model's closing forever, please, we need it. The group freezes.
Eddie's eyes widen. It's her, He gasps, that's Rosa, that's
her voice. Lauren clings to Sam's arm. We have to
go to Delhi the message we have two ifi. She's okay.
Her voice is trembling, held together only by the force
of something desperate and raw. In a halting chain, they
said out. Each shadow along the lunoleum seems thick at
every pile of display stop, more like a crude sentinel
near frozen foods. Sem stops. He kneels beside a half
rolled palette of a valley, wipes, and finds another note,
freshly crease, slipped under the plastic crap. Samdoor codes, change tonight,
don't forget where you start. At twelve's last seven, he
runs his finger along the date three days past closure,
lobbed in Rose's hands, shop and urgent. Lauren look at this.
Her face crumples as she reads. Is she warning us?
Dave turns scanning produced with the light we can't reach
the Delhi directly. It blocked. They stack the bread ale. Remember,
Sam bites down a curse. He tries to lead through
health and beauty, but every deeter folds back toward al five,
where the detergent stocks are weirdly and touched and in
touched island in a ravage sea. Missus O'Brien and mister
Howard begin muttering about leaving, but no one makes him
move toward the exit again. Something in the air, electric
and predatory has shaken the false pravado from even the
most bullhead. As they approach the path to Delhi, the
store layout suddenly stops making sense. Racks double back on themselves.
All numbers are missing or swapped. The sail banners overhead
give off a ghostly blue tinge that wasn't there before.
It feels wrong, like they're moving in circles. That's not possible,
Dave whispers, holding his arm out to stop Lauren from
wandering off. You can't that was the frozen food section.
It's just a minute ago. Sam turns to the customer
service podium, looking for anything grounding, but finds only a
black checker terminal and a spool of receipt paper, hissing
out an never ending line of dashes and question marks.
Behind him, Missus O'Brien is reciting something under her breath,
hands casts so tight her knuckles Blanche Rosa, come home, Rosa,
come home, Rosa Come There's a sudden crash from near hardware.
The group lurches together, every muscle drawn taut. Eddie sways violently,
grabbing one of the cheap metal shelf brackets from a binner,
as if fit's a club. Dave Paul sam aside. His
voice is dropped to near whisper. We have to control
this if it's some tech thing like Fenton, said a
corporate pranker. Fenton doesn't have this kind of imagination. Sand
tried to laugh, but it comes out hollow. He makes spreadsheets,
he doesn't make nightmares. Lareen interrupts, pointing at a price
scanner plugged into a random end CUPT flashing weirdly. That's
not supposed to be here. It's running something. Sam unplugs it,
but the screen still closed, blue looping ere a future
date entered as signing shift inventory in progress in progress.
Arren turns it off twice, but it turns itself on again.
After a few seconds, Sam's done playing gentle everyone. Delly
now ignored the aisles as forward. It almost works step
by step wall to walk. They pressed down the left
hand wrap past dairy toward the wide glass of the
deli coolers. Half the hanging meats inside a slip from
their hooks lying in pink edge heaps the entire glass
fogs and wood from the store side is slow gathering
cold that makes everything feel underwater. Day points at the
inside of the glass, where condensation covers the surfaces except
for one brief strip clear as day. Someone's pump print
next to it, ridden backwards as though from within up
to forty three in Sam's pulse jumps high in his throat.
Check Both sides don't touch anything unless unless it no
one finishes. Lauren braver than she knows, knocks in the glass,
brosso her whisper barely registers. Her phone from Sand's pocket
chimes again. The new message is even shorter, two words,
find ledger. He hands it back in Terence, scanning for
anything that qualifies a binder, a tablet, even the battered
spiral note by they use when the system was down
last month. None of the food cases open from the front,
not without a key. Day fetches the spare from the
managers ring. Sam coun't recall giving him the ring, but
there it is in Day's hand, cold and greasy in
the middle. The case crackles as it pops. The cold
is like a punch inside Wage. Between drip trees of
dyed ham and half rotted letters. There is a cheap
blue composition book, soaked at one corner with sailing brown.
Sam yanks it out on the cover. Some one has
scolds over layers and layers of faded numbers, a ledger
dun't file keep here, do not update, and beneath check
to morrow. The cess of Ryan gasps a little, whereas coats.
Those are her codes. Lauren opens to the first dry page. Columns,
item by item, date by date are listed with initials
for every staff member, every shift for months but past
last week. The interest jump backwards, then forwards. There are
ships listed for every person in the group, marked future overpast,
some atimes, the cross midnight, others underlined with the word
failed in red. Sam flips to the final page. There
is a scrawled note jacked from shaking hands Inventory Reconcile
twelve s last seven manager s, G closer R s
and i'fe always knight, final order, do not let them
leave until done. He feels the world slope sideways. Something
in the stores being engineered, a system, a process, a
perfect storm of old guilt and future dread, A distant crash,
and a sputter from the pi Agnrus's voice less clear,
less confident, Choplin looped Martles never closes, bring order, count everything,
start again, Start again. Lawren SAgs against the display, the
notebook slipping from her grip. Dave helps her up as
the other's huddle tighter. Did she do this to herself,
Lauren says? Or did Fenton do it to all of us?
Nobody has a good answer. They stand uncertain, the clatter
of their hearts as loud as a hum of back
up generators. Sam has led them here. There is evidence everywhere, receipts, schedules,
pomp prints, electronicalize, and no path back to anything, remotely saying.
They wait for the power to resolve, for the courage
to name what's happening, all the while, the note in
Sam's pocket burns a hole at his hip. The inventory
never ends, and somewhere in the dark past the dely
case and the crumpled schedules. The shadow of movement slides
behind the racks, just outside the arc of every remaining camera.
The store holds its breath and waits. Laurent's back is
pressed to the cold glass of the deli case. Nobody
speaking now somewhere up by checkouts, the automatic receipt printer
spits out a steady stream, fluttering paper onto the dusty til.
Dave checks his watch, but the face is blank. It ticks,
but the hands don't move. Missus o'brine mumbles softly, her
voice losing the rhythm of even her old prayers. Nobody
is gone and nobody is found, and Sam stands with
Rose's battered leisure in his hands. It's water swallen, spine,
prickly and cold. The doors haven't opened since the last blackout.
The air is sharper, each breath edge with electrical ozon
and freezer chill. Sam tries the main double glass doors,
yanking so hard the entire frame rattles still stuck. Eddie's
knuckles bleed from pounding. All exits locked jammed a block
from the other side. Day's flashlight picks out shoe impressions
on the matte fresh dustless leading nowhere. The store feels
wrong in ways that grow each minute. Ileslap freezer cases
appear in the wrong places overhead, thank you for shopping.
Signs double back on themselves, so he's not sure which
direction leads out. Sam takes mental attendance. Lauren shicken but
with the hand on thes cess O'Brien's arm. Dave glaring
into the returns bin. Eddie's silent except for the whites
of his eyes. Mister Howard clutching his bleeding brow. Two
temp stuff pressed tight near the coin counting machine. Sam's
voice emerges flat. We group up, We move. Dave, get
walkies and check the breaker room. Lauren sort receipts for
anything strange. Eddie Howard stick close, temp crew, get flashlights
if you find them, don't don't split an stand. No
one says a word. Sam tries the radios again for
back up. This screech feed back, then go dead. The
pia crackles once more, with Rose's voice Colm, this time
infuriating the ordinary night shift. Please restock, nightshift, Please restock.
Lauren chokes out a nervous law, her tone verging on hysterical.
She is not even on chift. Sam, She's not here right.
Sam forces out a nod he doesn't feel. He takes
two steps toward the customer service desk, ledger tucked under
his arm, everything in him straining for a decision. No
moscle memory helps. He's lived fourteen years on these tiles,
but the rules keep winding and spoiling behind him. Missus
O'Brien slides into his path, clutching a batter coupon book.
You need to find her, she whispers, Horse, she's waiting.
She wants someone to see. Dave sweeps up with an update.
Breaker rooms blown panel melted down to soot, the smell
bitter and sharp. All battery lights have an iron tops
if that every outside door bolt is few shut, melted,
not just locked. Sam scans through the receipts. Lauren hands
over every third, the carrs a future date, all with
manager s grees closer, Ah Sanchez and in the margins
inventory never ends looping like a name or password. Diff
walks his radio against his stye, Frustrated, nothing's getting through
the static. If there's anyone listening, help, maybe corperate, maybe
the cops. I don't know. It's not going anywhere to night.
He looks to Sam. Joe sat, worry. Do we start
some glances around, gripping the ledger until his knuckles ache.
Fenton's lastnome was his office. If someone's running all this,
that's the hub. If he's pulling strings or roses back,
their rancers are in that office or nowhere. Lauren, despite everything,
finds her center. She touches Sam's elbow. Okay, but you're
not going in alone. They gathered the little cluster, moving
tight as a drop box of cans. Up front, every
shadow feels like a trick. Banners hang lower, their edges
curled up like tons. Through the trembling offices, the airwarp,
storm maps taped to the walls, every one slightly off layout,
out of sink, staff names layered and crossed at near
Fenton's door. De paulls He's nowhere to be seen and
is Shah. She was still jammed under the frame, but
the GAP's now barely enough to slip a hand inside
Sam's shoulders in ignoring the electric prickle on his skin inside.
Monitors flicker at the feed show every aisle at once
olaid with looping static feedback blip blipping hastily open safegates
wide and empty. The air is thick with the old
copper tang of blood, though there is no sign of
a struggle. Lawrence sifts drew a disc pile, coming up
with another hand at a note dated two days from now,
Rose's wild looping script. Don't let them clock out tonight.
Dave points at the monitors. Watch the back aisle movement.
They see themselves, tiny pixel wash walking through the frozen
food section. Lom repeat, always three steps ahead of where
they actually are. But in the back corner dry storage
three of fagus stands half in shatter. Impossible to tell
Brosa or just the bad pixels. Whatever it is, it's
waving them forward. Sam teeth clamped, moves to the main system.
They'd only take Fenton. Ever trusted, He cycles through error messages.
Every third pop up asks for manager confirmation of ride
cycle closing shift twelve slash seven. Try the Admirnt Cogieu's
for holiday payroll, lawn whispers, try anything. Sam keys it
in and Martiello las twenty ten. Nothing a new screen,
shift and complete a sign closer Lis staff present first
flit second. Sam swears a screen tights on its own,
listing Dave lorn Sam Rosa Fenden. He stabs ye see twice.
The screen goes blank, then flares into a blinding sheet
of white. A tone or prompt inventory never ends. Below it,
a tiny red note flickers up. Come to the dely isle.
No one leaves without reconcile. Dave crabs Sam's shoulder. You
see that, right? You seeing this? I'm seeing it, Sam
says he can hardly breathe. I wish I wasn't. A
scraping noise in the hall behind the group wheels every
neck craned. Rose's voice, clear as a bell, now drifts
out of the PI. A final sweet pile twelve. Eddie
passed his limits, sprints away down the bread isle. Sam shouts,
reaching too late, but Eddie vanishes between Raxin doesn't answer it.
When cold the res squeeze together, helpless, Lauren's hands are
shaking the ledger, the ledger. We have to finish it,
she left instructions final order. That's which she is waiting
for Sam. Sam's body moves on its own, crowding with
a group back toward the heart of the store. The
air gets colder and wetter by the time they hit
the deli, the floor shopping streaked with black icy fluid.
Inside the Delhi cases a mountain of receipts, schedules, sticky notes,
all in Moses's hand, all marked with future dates, present dates,
name cycled and scratched out, including Sam's lorens and uneasily
his own. A low, grinding grown thunders from the darkness
behind the meat counter. Misses O'Brien huddles close, whispering, are
we supposed to sign out? Is that what she wants?
The radio on the counterburst a life, no hands touching
it now, screaming static, then resolving into a single clear phrase, inventory, reconcile,
one item left. Sam stares into the glim of the
back kitchen, knowing some other the last item is not
a can or cut, it's them. Dave tries the breaker again,
finds every switch fused. Lauren passes the ledger, hands flicking
over wet sticky notes, muttering names and dates. Sam listens
as Laurence starts to count people quietly by hand. Six
staff enter tonight, one rosa disappeared, now when molready gone.
If this is inventory, it's a thinning out, not a count.
A sudden rush of cold air whips through the Delhi.
Lauren yells someone's behind the meat oven. Sam grabs cast
iron bread pan and leads boots, sloshing water. He rounds
the edge, swinging wildly. Nothing, no one except another walky
talkie screen light. The last ten log inches of reading
entry surenches are the times all impossibly future or past? Dave,
stripping off his vest infistration, discovers a staff line nerd
inside his breast pocket to name tape peeled off, replaced
with vows. Here the handwriting is not his, nor Sam's,
nor lawns. Behind the bread slicer, a phone buzzes, fentans,
its screen pulses, recording a live video, bling ceiling tile,
then shifting, then snapping frames that appear to be swarming
with ghostly vest clad workers walking aisles in this match
time flickering in and out of sight. Sam pulls open
the dell's side exit, expecting a wall. Instead a narrow
and finished service wholly gos away in the wrong direction,
ending in a scratch up fire door on the door
written in pencil, not an exit. End of shift. Only
a rising panic overtakes Lauren. This a last here every
chef every staff in this section for final close out
names us all of us, as if she holds it
up her hand starters, as if we already did this
months ago. A sudden, violent shudder sets the overheads quivering.
The lights urge, lights pop, and then the pier launches
again with overlapping busses. Now Rosa and Fenton fighting to
draw each other out their arguments, mangling their regular closing
announcements into a chat counted all signed the sheets, don't leave,
don't go, don't Dave shoves a meek case off its moorings,
searching for the source of the voices. Sam feels his
stomach flip as the walls of daily flex bending, so
the ceiling cracks in the sound intensifies. Lauren grabs the ledger,
flipping to black pages, jabbing her finger at the last
open date, post closing review, final audit manager as grieves
closer are sanches the line beneath his blank in the corner,
mister Howard is trembling, blood running freely from his eyebrow.
Now it was never supposed to end, he whispers. Sam
clamps the ledger shut it's pulping under his fist. Check
the staff room, He decides voice horse, if there's anything
left to find, it's there. Dave kicks open the swinging
staff door, his temper gum bridle. The temp crew, however,
dizzy from the cold and damp in terror, they push
into the stalk quite light of the staff room. Every
locker is a jar inside Sam's his jacket, but also
a fresh stack of schedules, all printed for dates in
the coming weeks, a grand reopening. Martyal's staff lists attach.
Rose's name is circled and underneath his. Lauren's own locker
is empty, but for her missing necklace, now wound tight
with a new badge never issued that proclaims her cash
coordinator Mardel's two point zero. Missus O'Brien, clutching her purse,
begins to weep, Let us out, she blurts, voice high
in paper. The main monitor in the corner snaps on
live feets strobing loop in a stuff huddle at night,
faces each by sleeplessness and fear over laid with gray
scale static. Every ten seconds, the group assolves, replaced by
a single figure sweeping the floor vest Blaird, always from behind,
Sometimes Rose's sighs, sometimes not Lauren sits breeding hard, and
buries her face in her hands. I keep getting texts.
She breaths every night since closure week started. Leave something
behind where no one will think to look. If she's alive,
Why is she doing this to us? Dave Neil's knees
cracking with fatigue. She blew the whistle on that temporial thing. Remember,
got herself demoted and iced out this. If it's revenge,
it's too much. If it's not, he trails off, staring
into the humming fan above the lockers. Sam pulls at
the next drawer finds a flickering old bockerhard scanner left
on its record showing fresh entries every hour for Daisy.
Inventory added two fourteen a M two fifteen a M
two sixteen a M. Closer are as half a dozen times,
over and over. Laurence DoD is the scheduled notes or
voice settling. If someone wanted to haunt us, they'd have
the whole system inventory schedules, the our lives. Dave punches
the locker, making his hand bleed. What do we do? Sam?
Finish her book or torch the place and hope it ends.
Sam opens his mouth to answer a ringing clatter interrupts
as a heavy object's launds the main staff door. On
the other side, a face is pressed to the wire.
Gust pail iesering the dark croser or something close staring
out from between smears of blood and grease. She mouths
something wordless. Sam can't move. The world stops. The pa
whales behind them. Night Manager, Please proceed, reconcile or remain.
Lauren cracks rushing to the door. Sam tries to hold
her back. No force on earth will keep her. She
tugs the latch. The hallway beyond is empty, just a
trail of dark liquid leading down past the frozen foods.
Deve picks up a steel mop pandle this ends now.
Dell is a dead end. Staff room loops us. We
check Fentin's last. They charge out, drawn by adrenaline, an
animal panic down wrong. Engele dials past freezer cases with
doors missing, through endless stacks of old bread. The drowning
feedback in the ear grows A hundred off kilter intero
comes bent into a single tone. Near the office. The
smell grows west bleach, a molden something metallic, an empty
suit jacket draped over a chair. Fentins marked with a
giant yellow sticker, void shift, another sheet, nearly printed, inventory completed,
staff present zero. Lauren shoves it aside, scanning the remaining
computer on the desktop. Audiologus hundreds. Each named is a
debate between e Rosss and Peter Fentin. She plays the
most recent. Their voice is spiral, fragmented. Rosa defending, closing
out in Peter, pleading no, don't make this a story.
They can never leave the office. Printer spits out a
final dirty page, inventory zero, staff zero, farewell shift, mortals
is always here. Dave curses. The PA launch is a
final chant, come to Delhi and transmission. Lauren reaches for Sam.
He gathers a remaining staff, hurting them tired. Shock to
the Delhi one more time. The room feels colder and
sharper than ever. Emergency floods, paint warp shadows on the linoleum,
the glass, deli cases pried wider, overflowing. The scraps in
Rosa's hand, names, times, warnings, lists of losses, future dates
well up in ghostly columns, closing shifts for weeks ahead,
staff no longer alive, Manager code scrambled Lauren's hands dick
feverishly through the slips. It's all here, all our losses,
stolen things, missing, Badge's memories, with a stock We're what's left.
The group watches as the voices on the PA over
lapanger regret, beg for an end, count it, sign it, Bristock,
don't close, Rosa pleads. Fenton's voice is frayed, scared, laid behind.
Let it go, Rosa. He can run a store with
nobody left. Dave, grouping Sam's sleeve, hisses they can't both
be running this. Fendon's dead weight, and Rosa, if she's
even real, wants us to finish her list or never leave.
The Dali lights die one by one. Sam desperate jams
the ledge of flat What if this is it? If
we clock out somehow somewhere, maybe this all ends. Lauren
finds a time clock card marked voided var s still
warm to the touch. She slaps it on the ledger, sobbing.
If she want a closure, this would do it. A sudden,
hissing pulserge is through the PA. All screens go white,
The store shakes, freeze a cycle down, the living sound
of everything stopping. The glass Deli case is lit from inside,
blinding blue white something. Someone moves behind the fogged glass,
pressing upon to the interior surface, matching every staff member
finger for finger. They've grabs the fire axe and swings
splinter in plastic ice and glass. The deli case erupts
in a flurry of re seats and schedules. In the center,
Ros's staff line out a notebook page showing twelve slash
seven end shift, all counted on the wall. Fenton's laptop
project still images a staff group, then a slow live feed.
A group in the Delhi overlaid. Another figure pieces in
a background, pausing behind sound, then fading. Laurence hobs in
the glare, clutching the linard, voice torn raw. She wants
us to count her, sign her out, that's all. Sam
rips a pen through the final page, reconciled, all present,
and the lights blast back in a rolling wave. Pa
howls and dies. Security shutters begin to cough upward, slow
and uneven. In the hush, Dave stands tall, covering the
gabble of customers and staff. We finished the last walk
and we're done. No more ghosts, no moralists. Lauren lays
the ledger on the plastic deli tray, pushes the line
out to the front. Everyone touches the page. Missus O'Brien
Bleak wipes her eyes, moaning she let us go. The
storer is empty. The looping sounds, the black colors, the
rong aisles all fade. Only the debris and the ledger
remain pulped and cold atop the broken glass. Emergency buzzers
are up from above. Street lights spangle the dark lot.
The entry doors finally grind open, slow as sunrise. Some
stuff run, some cannot. They simply sag and shiver, eyes
wide as windows. Sam hang on Lauren's shoulder, watches Dave
Neil gasping the way drowning men gas, eyes brimming with tears.
One by one they slip out, cradling was left of themselves,
pushing past the coal. The puppy notes the drunk case
and the fissing fails ganners outside. The police finds nothing
but water, glass and chaos. No proof, no bodices, no explanation. Sam,
Lauren and Dave are care for by E and T.
The light and mottos flicker, then fall loutterly silent. The
next morning, the police statement is filed, Corporate refuses comment,
staff dispers most, vowing never to speak of the night again.
Sam cannot sleep for days, hunting olf records, following names online,
searching for any real trace. When the call comes, a
new supermarket opening manager's name already printed on the schedule,
half the old staff pre approved. He cannot shake the
sensation that Rose Its signed his name there. Final action
on his last walk through models. Three days before demolition,
Sam poleses by his locker inside a freshly minted lanyard
night manager Mardell's grand reopening seven slash twelve post it
notes lined the back wall, every one in Rose's hand
inventory never ends twelve slast seven. He peels the lineard
from its hook, closes the locker with a shaking breath,
and walks outside, never once looking back. Sunrise catches the
store's dark windows. For a moment, some thinks he sees
someone moving one last time behind the glass, arranging boxes
just out of sight, and then he turns toward the
parking lot, leaving the store finally and completely behind. Behind him,
the parking lot is already bright with the morning's first light,
dabbling the puddles left by the fire hoses, illuminating the
old signages. If it had never flickered neumbly through fourteen
years of damp night. Sam holds the line a tight feeling,
the ridged edge of the id badge bite into his palm.
He can still smell martle stale bread fruit, wrought chemical tang,
rolling out of the doorway with every breath of wind,
as if the store itself refused surrender. There are voices
muffled behind the glass. Police still sweep the aisles with maglights,
but they walk with normal feet, now, boots landing in
real space, no longer slip insideways downe haunted geometry. They
treat him, and Lauren and Dave too, with that careful,
officious blankness that says they've already written the story in
their heads. System failures stress may be carbon monoxide, almost
certainly a break down hastened by the pressure to close.
No mention of ledge, as nobody remembers filling or strange schedules,
or staff who vanish and tone up again in line
for final pay. Lauren sits on the curb, knees pull
to her chest, mascar dried in thin frids under her eyes.
She watches a paramedic rap Dave's knuckles flinching with each
stab of hot antiseptic. Did you ever did you actually
see her? Lauren asks, not move her head, barely enough
voice to be called a whisper. I saw her, Dave mutters, then,
as where I saw something? Shoes everywhere and nowhere. I
don't remember opening that freezer, don't remember half the night.
He drops his wrist, flexing the thick bandage they've given him.
Sam looks from one to the other and feels a weird,
floating clarity, the way he sometimes did driving home after
a seventy I a week, A sense that the world
shape is warm, and everything outside this parking lot can't
possibly connect to what happened to the circles and lists
that still chase each other across the inside of his skull.
The temp crew keep their hoods up, exchanging no names,
waiting solidly for their rides. Missus o'brinds it's further off,
still clasping her kopen book to her chest, rocking and humming.
Mister Howard accepts a juice box from an EMT with
the blank gratitude of a man who's just exited a war.
A detective with the clipboard stands of o Sam, waiting
for him to finish filling the company statement. You're saying,
no sign of theft, no bodily injuries after the blackout,
just confusion and that inventory discrepancies stretching back how long?
Sam shrugs, then hands the clipboard back. It's all in
the system, if if you can pull it out of
those old terminals, he forces, a quick, awkward smile. Numbers
always add up right. The detective accepts this or gives up, caring.
She has other stores to check, other mornings to finish.
Behind her, the rumble of the model server truch echoes
and fades by Niun Corporate has dispatched a van full
of lockwooxes and tops. The windows go gray and a
new paint, as if erasing the inside by darkening the
outer shell. A handful of reporters arrive, take a few
sullen furtos, and leave. When it becomes clear nobody will
talk about what really happened last night, Lauren rises to
her feet at last, brushing off her palm's shoulders hunch
too close together. I'm sorry, she says, not to anyone specific,
maybe not even allowed. Then she walks away, back toward
the bus stop. Not looking over her shoulder. Sam watches
Dave Ague with a suited loss prevention investigator. He's loud
enough now that two police glance over, but nothing in
Dave's faces. Rage. It's too tired for that, just hollow
strip down disappointment. If Dave once tried to be disto,
his conscience last night made him give that up. Good
flagged outside Mardle's hang at half mast, a coincidence of timing,
national tragedy unrelated older by IROs. But Sam half expects
to see Rose's hand scroll on note beneath even that
clock out by order of management. He can't raise a laugh.
He stands in the bite of early summer when burning
his eyes, and wonders if he'd know the difference if
she was standing next to him now for two days
he gets maybe in iris, sleep at a time, catatonic,
haunted by the pattern as ringing of the stores into calm,
by the clack of schedules he never saw printed every
now and then text bocket his phone mostly spam once
on unfamiliar dress with a string of numbers seven slash twelve,
his birthday and the supposed grand reopening date printed on
his relic bat. He nearly deletes it, but Habit makes
him save it, tuck it among the phones other ghosts
they've leaves town after filing a medical complaint. Lauren gets
offered a cash office job two hundred miles away and
never answers his calls again. Missus O'Brian is never seen
around as part of the city. After the store closes,
half the tempt crews show up as no shows. When
he passes by a new deep discount outlet opening up.
Will Emmon's hardware used to be the old Martyr's as silent,
its interior blue blackout paint just visible if you stand
on your toes at the right angle ands goin pass
the boats. Sam tells himself his record is clean. He
reads the emails like prayers just in case. No lawsuits,
no insurance claims, nobody blaming him, nobody blaming Rosa or
Fenton any more, ventand apparently is on medical leaf hospitalized.
Sam's sure, though corporate says nothing about where. He mails
the shirts of Fenton's old schedule to a post office
box for ongoing audit never hears back. One morning, he
wakes to an envelo upon his mat slid through some
time before dawn. No return address Inside a single shifts
schedule printed in Martle's old type face, his name and
badge or hire Night Nannager Martle's grand reopening, Seven's last twelve.
His handshake as he traces the dates, list the old names,
all marked approved of Rosa's circle twice in blue pen.
That afternoon, a phone call. There's a new store, a
clean stop. We'd like to bring you on. Several of
your former team vouched for you, said he kept things running,
that he always made sure everyone felt safe. Bright played
hr Vorse, insistent, would you be interested? Mister Grief's full time,
full benefits, security and cloder. He waits before answering, checking
the lineyard again, looking for signs of prank or set up,
finds only the slick print the hard edge. Roses go
slooping inside his grip. He almost says no, almost, but
the fear of the gap, of not having anywhere to
clock in pushes him over. I'll come by, he agrees,
at last, Just send me the details. The new supermarket
shares nothing with Martles but its squire, blank walls, glowing screens,
the same plunging cold in the back holes on walk through,
he finds himself mapping the aisles by reflex tracing phantom
shells and double checking every eggs or twice new staff,
new prices. But when the manager hand him a set
of Keith Brass familiate warming to his skin, he wonders
how they came to fit so perfectly in his palm
again for a week's strange patterns that could behind his
eyes as soda misplaced, sacked in a place nobody admits
to stocking a frozen piece slip left and signed just
one letter are in a hurried hand, He shrugs it off.
He tries not to count the re seats. Some nights
he dreams of the store Martals, but with ceilings too high,
products stacked forever, endlessly, rotating schedules, pinned corkboards all down
the back hallways. Rosa is there, always, working, voice echoing
from the frozen case. Count everything she instructs, then go home.
He always wakes before he can answer. When Sam picks
up his final envel of months later, on the last
dark sweep through the ruined martles, he finds behind his
old jacket the Lionard waiting night manager Martal's grand reopening
seven slash twelve sicky notes line the locker's interior. Inventory
never ends, twelve slash seven, inventory never ends. Rosse's s
grit true as ever, looping across the gloss plastic in
a hand that's pot Dratt Part apology. He stands quietly,
stirring into the dark of his old domein locker, swinging
gently Pierre with spring static just out of earshot, register
lights long since powered down. It almost peaceful now, but
he doesn't trust the calm. Sam pockets the lionardsmooths down
the notes and swings the locker closed. He listens for
any lost sant Rouse's voice, the printer's whine, Fenton's nervous shuffle,
but their zone, the tick of the wall clock clicking
toward a time he doesn't have to punch any more.
He does not look back, not even when the automatic
entry door's flutter in a cross wind and briefly let
in a breath of stale call. There outside the city
waits the day at the future, even a new name
on a new badge, But Sam hesitates on the curb,
last man out, Marhal's echoing behind him through every inch
of glass. Sunrise pulls across the empty parking slots. He ceases,
just for a second, and perhaps always had a forem
in red vest, shifting boxes at the farthest end of
a forgotten aisle, just beyond the blue tinted glass. He
blinks and she is gone. Shouldering his bag, Sam walks
into the light, and the doors lie quietly, peacefully shoot
behind him. There is nothing to carry, no register, light
left to check, no last announcement crackling in the rafters.
Sam's footsteps hit the asphalt, and the glass doors side
closed so gently it might have been the wind. He
stands for a moment, as if waiting for someone to
run after him, as if a voice will call him
back to check one last dial. His hands still tremble,
he pushes them into his jacket pocket, hearing the dry
scrap of the brand new line out tag badge call
and and familiar against his rest. The sky is huge
and unbothered by anything as small as one supermarket's secret
across the lot. The police have already begun to then
out ambulance is gone. News Van's trailing away in second
guessing circles. Martel's is just another lost cause. He almost
expects a pause for surviving, but he gets only the restles.
Skulls overhead in the traffic, growing loud as a weekday wakes.
Dave stands by the curb, patched hand on his keys,
staring at the boarded store front. He getting any sleep
to night. Sam gives a small honor shake, words stick,
I don't think so. Lauren drifts behind him, expression flat,
fun cluss like a life line. Her screen flat is
a hundred and red messages, most of them logistics, numbers, tasks.
She deletes them one by one. Can't go home anywhere.
My apartment smells like lemon fall cleaner. Ghost don't belong
in apartments. A rusted cart rolls down the garter for
a second, the high wheels sketch two shadows over the
black top. Dave's squint says of judging the trajectory, then snorts,
maybe they'll build us a place early. You hear that.
Sam lessens inside the store. Beyond the painted of her panels,
there is a strange mechanical writting, a final ristock or
a shelf collapsing. Impossible to say. He looks away, No,
not any more, A hondo with last years, then stops
in front of lurin. Her sister leans over for her,
face just visible, pale with worry. Lauren holds up a
hand that the faint is good bye. She's gone, and
that feels like another part of the store closing forever.
Sam and Dave remain a moment longer, sharing the sort
of silence that can only exist between people who almost
didn't make it out together. Dave breaks it with a grunt,
looking at Sam's badge. You goin to take the offer
the new place, Sam shrugs, Maybe for a paycheck, but
there's terror in him that he'll be handed a ring
of keys already worn smooth, or find his name at
the top of a schedule in ink that isn't his.
Some one from Corper crosses the lot, carrying oil off
tops and an armful faded, crumpled help wanted posters. She
waves without recognition, then and locks the outside door with
a practiced motion, as if the store has never closed.
I for a still inside, counting down the aisles, keeping
the inventory perfect. Sam walks Dave to his car. The
sky is old blue glair, now, the lot almost empty.
Don't let them get you back inside. Dave mutters, there's
a hardness to his voice. You start doing inventory, you
never stop. Get a job at a bookstore, maybe something
with less ghosts. Sam laughs, a real sound for once,
no more can ham, I promise. Dave gets in and
drives away without looking back. The engine rattles away, and
Sam stands in the daylight, watching his friend shrink down
the street, one of the last believers in what happened.
One more name off an endless, shifting roster. A truck
with the new supermarket's logo pulls in, idling beside the
shuttered Mardel's entrance. Sam sees his own name once on
a roster clung to the dashboard. You can just make
out the column of initials beneath, familiar and not like
someone's memory tried to reassemble their old team but got
the details just a bit wrong. Sam lets the badge
rest in his hand for a minute, index finger tracing
the thick block letters, too sharp, too fresh. Part of
him makes to go home, but a zepopot wants to
see the inside of the store one last time. Proved
to himself that the aisles will be empty, lifeless, that
nothing will echo, accept the tap of his shoes. Instead,
he puts the badge in his bag, locks a zipper,
and walks along the new strip's board until he's only
a figure among hedges and chain link. He doesn't look back.
He knows the store won't call him again, not now.
If the inventory system wants him, it'll have to reach
him out here in the weekday sun, where phantom schedules
and coded announcements can't get a foothold. He turns the
next corner, breathes out, and feels the air at last, free, unnumbered,
and sword behind him. The door is never quite closed
all the way. A single sticky nook curls above the glass,
half blur yellow Sindar sanches reading only count complete, Go home.
Sam walks on and never looks back again. And that
is the end. Thank you for listening, and I will
see you in the next one.