The Store

by Bentley Little

It was a scary thought, and they were all silent, thinking about it.

  "You think they'll run their own people?" Street asked.

  "Probably," Ben said. "But this gives us a chance we didn't have before.

  We can run _our_ own people. And the paper can get behind candidates who'll put the town's interests before those of The Store. I think we have a chance here to put this place back on track."

  "We might have the paper," Bill said. "But they have the radio station."

  "True enough. But I still think we have a fighting chance."

  "They have more money."

  "Money isn't everything."

  "Isn't it?"

  "Remember those television commercials in the seventies? Those beautiful scenes of wildlife and natural beauty that were sponsored by oil companies? We were supposed to think that the oil companies were not hurting the environment, but helping it. Nature was getting itself into all sorts of trouble and the oil companies were fixing it and cleaning it up. They spent millions of dollars on that ad campaign because they not only wanted us to buy their products, they wanted us to love them." He paused. "Did anyone buy into that crap? After all that money and propaganda and airtime, is there a human being in this country who thinks that drilling for oil is good for the environment?"

  "And you think the same thing applies here?"

  "Why not?"

  "I guess you're not as cynical as you pretend."

  Ben smiled. "It's all a facade. Underneath this gruff exterior, I'm Pollyanna."

  Bill stared out the doorway. "The Store still has a lot of supporters, though. It did bring jobs to Juniper."

  "And it took away just as many."

  A pickup truck sped by, a dented red Ford filled with teenagers that burnt rubber as it zoomed toward Granite. "Fuck The Store!" a boy screamed at the top of his lungs, middle finger held high in the air.

  Bill smiled. He turned back toward Ben. "Maybe you're right," he said.

  He should've finished the documentation a week ago, but he'd been stretching it out. Ordinarily, he liked to complete his assignments as quickly as possible, but this time he intended to wait until his actual deadline.

  He didn't want to help The Store any more than he had to.

  Bill closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair. He had one humongous headache. He didn't know if he was actually getting sick or if it was simply stress, but for the past hour, he'd been concentrating more on the thumping in his head than on the work in front of him.

  It was getting dark. The ponderosas outside his window had long since coalesced into a single jaggedly irregular wall of blackness, and the text on his screen had grown increasingly brighter as light drained out of the world around it. From the kitchen, he could hear Ginny taking plates out of the cupboard, and beyond that, the sound of the nightly news from the television in the living room.

  He saved his afternoon's work on a diskette and was about to turn off his PC when the phone rang. The sharp sound of the ring intensified the pain in his forehead, and he closed his eyes against the noise, waiting for Ginny to answer the phone, hoping it wasn't for him.

  "Bill!" she called a beat later.

  Damn. He picked up the phone on his desk. "Hello?"

  "It's me," Ben said.

  "Yeah?"

  "The mayor and the council. They're dead," Ben said. "All of them." There was a pause, and Bill could hear him exhale. "I've never seen anything like it."

  "Back up. Where are you? What happened? Were they killed?"

  "Suicide. I'm on the cell phone, and I'm looking at them right now. You've got to come out here. You've gotta see this."

  "Where are you?" Bill asked, though he was afraid he knew the answer.

  "The parking lot of The Store," Ben said. "Better hurry. The ambulance just arrived."

  He didn't want to go. Or part of him didn't. But another part of him had to see what had happened, and he grabbed his wallet and keys from the bedroom and told Ginny he was going out, he'd be back in a half hour or so.

  "Where are you going?" she asked. "It's almost time to eat."

  He didn't answer but dashed out the door, hopped in the Jeep, and took off. He was at The Store five minutes later, and he sped across the parking lot toward the flashing blue and red police lights until he was stopped by a cop putting up yellow crime scene ribbon to cordon off the area.

  Bill parked the Jeep, jumped out, and was almost stopped again by the same policeman, but Ben came to his rescue. "That's my reporter!" the editor yelled.

  "He's with me!"

  The cop nodded, waved him through, and Bill followed his friend across the asphalt, between the ambulance and police cars.

  To where the council lay.

  He was not sure what he'd expected, but it had not been this. There was no blood, no guns, no weapons of any kind, only the nude bodies of the mayor and the other council members, lying faceup in a circle, holding hands. Their eyes were all open, staring upward, reflecting the light of the parking lot streetlamps.

  For the first time in a long while, he thought about the deer, the animals, the transient.

  He looked toward Ben. "Suicide?"

  The editor shrugged. "What else could it be? Pills, I figure. Poison. They won't know for sure until they do the autopsies, though."

  Bill shook his head. "I don't think it was pills. I don't think it was poison."

  "Then what was it?"

  He shivered. "I don't know."

  Ben was silent for a moment. "It was suicide, though. This had to be intentional. Right?"

  Bill looked at him. "I don't know."

  On _20/20_ that night, there was a report on Newman King and his growing Store empire. There were token references to the rash of shootings that had been plaguing The Store for the past year, but the report was basically a fluff piece and King was portrayed not as a whacked-out loon but as a down-to-earth self made millionaire.

  Or billionaire.

  The exact numbers could not be substantiated.

  King had not agreed to a sit-down interview, but he did allow _20/20's_

  cameras to follow him around on a "typical workday," and the reporter went with the CEO to a series of meetings in the black tower, a surprise inspection of a Store in Bottlebrush, Texas, a tour of a factory that was making generic Store products, and a negotiating session with a textile manufacturer.

  Finally, at the end of the day, King went home, but the camera was not allowed to follow him to his house, and the last shot of the report was of King getting into a chauffeur-driven limousine in front of the black tower.

  He waved good-bye as he smiled folksily at the camera. "God bless America," he said.

  TWENTY-ONE

  1

  Doreen Hastings closed her eyes as she held Merilee to her breast. The baby suckled happily, and Doreen thought how different this felt than when Clete did it. Of course, that was a sex thing and this wasn't, but the physical act was basically the same. Now, however, there was milk flowing through her nipple, feeding her child, and somehow that bond made the entire act more intimate, more satisfying, more fulfilling. Sex seemed juvenile compared to this, like child's play, and she understood that her relationship with Clete, as great as it was, could never be as important to her or as emotionally gratifying as her relationship with this baby.

  She would never be as close to Clete as she was to Merilee.

  She opened her eyes. It was late, after midnight, and the hospital room was dark. Even the corridor outside was dark, the fluorescent lights dimmed so as not to disturb sleeping patients. She heard no sound, but neither was there silence. Instead, there was white noise, the hum of the hospital's twenty-four hour activity: machines, nurses, patients, doctors.

  She closed her eyes again, smiling as Merilee's little fingers pressed instinctively against the fatty flesh of her breast.

  "Mrs. Hastings," a deep-voiced man said. "Room 120."

  Doreen opened her eyes and looked toward the doorway.

  Her h
eart lurched in her chest.

  Outside, in the corridor, were five men dressed entirely in black, pale men who stared at her with blank, expressionless faces.

  They were accompanied by Mr. Walker from The Store.

  Mr. Walker smiled at her and strode into her room, flipping the light switch next to the door. The lights in the ceiling blinked on, but they did not appreciably illuminate the figures who followed the Customer Service manager toward her bed. Their garb was still blacker than black, their skin as pale as if they'd been dusted with flour. Mr. Walker himself continued to smile at her, but there was something in that smile that caused her to press the button on the side of her bed and call for the nurse.

  She held Merilee tighter.

  "Is that your new baby?" the Customer Service manager asked. He stopped next to her bed as the black-clad men kept circling around.

  She continued to frantically press the call button with one hand while she clasped Merilee with the other.

  Mr. Walker's fingers, strong and cold, pried hers away from the button.

  "No one's coming," he said. "The hospital knows why we're here."

  "Why?" She looked around the ring of faces surrounding her bed, saw only blank expressions on snow-colored skin.

  "Several months ago, you and your husband bought a microwave from The Store using our very generous layaway plan. You took possession of the microwave, but you did not make the last two monthly payments."

  Her voice was high, squeaky. "Clete lost his job! We were having the baby --"

  "We are taking the baby."

  Her heart was pounding as though it was about to burst. It suddenly seemed impossible to breathe.

  "The baby is ours."

  She was finally able to suck in air. "No," she got out.

  "Yes," Mr. Walker said.

  "No!" She screamed it, screamed again: "No!"

  "It was part of your agreement. You signed it." He withdrew from behind his back a copy of the layaway plan and pointed to a paragraph of fine print buried in the middle of the page. " 'In the event that payment is not made on time,'" he read, " 'the signee's first-born child will be accepted by The Store as payment of the unpaid portion of -- ' "

  "No!" She struggled, tried to sit up, but the men in black were suddenly holding her arms, pressing down on her legs, restraining her from their positions surrounding the bed.

  Mr. Walker reached for Merilee, took her.

  "Help!" Doreen screamed, struggling against the restraining hands.

  "They're stealing my baby! They're kidnapping my baby! Nurse! Nurse!"

  "It's a legally binding agreement," Mr. Walker said. "There's nothing any nurse can do about it." He passed the baby to one of the pale men.

  "Clete!" she cried. Tears of anger and frustration were pooling in her eyes, overflowing onto her face, blurring her vision. "Don't let them take our baby!" She jerked her head toward the door as the men holding Merilee began walking away. Through her tears, she thought she saw white-robed doctors and nurses standing in the corridor, watching silently. "Take the microwave back!" she said. There was too much saliva in her mouth. She was spitting, her words slurring. "We don't want it! Take it back!"

  "You should have made your payments."

  "We'll send you the money! With interest! How much do you want?"

  "We got what we want," Mr. Walker said. He nodded, motioned with his hand, and a doctor stepped in from the corridor. "She's hysterical," he told the doctor. "Sedate her."

  "No!" Doreen cried, but she felt the sharp prick of a needle in her right upper arm, and her strength immediately began draining away.

  The doctor stepped back, disappeared.

  Her eyes were already closing, and she felt the pressure of the hands removed from her body. With her last bit of strength, she opened her eyes again, saw a blurry Mr. Walker follow the dark figures out of her room.

  "Merilee!" she wanted to call, but she did not even have the strength to say her baby's name.

  And then she was out.

  2

  Shannon walked up and down the aisles of the Garden department, intending to straighten the shelves before The Store opened. As always, many of the shelves were in disarray. She'd worked last night until closing and had straightened the mess before clocking out, but the cleaning people or someone must have come by afterward and moved things.

  That really ticked her off.

  She continued walking, then stopped. The cleaning people hadn't even done a decent job on the floors. There was a reddish brown splotch on the white tile next to the Italian flowerpots that hadn't been wiped up. It looked like . . .

  Blood?

  She frowned, bent down. The spot hadn't been there last night. She was positive of it. She'd been unwrapping a mint as she'd patrolled this aisle before closing, and the mint had slipped out of her fingers and fallen to the floor. She'd picked it up pretty close to where the spot was now, and she'd seen only clean white tile. It was possible, of course, that she hadn't seen the spot -- _the blood_ -- because she hadn't been looking for it, but it was pretty noticeable, and if she saw it now, she should've seen it then.

  _It's built with blood_.

  She stood and walked quickly down the row to the fertilizers at the end, then up the seed aisle back toward the register. Even in the daytime, even with the lights on, even with other people in The Store, she could still spook herself back here.

  She wondered what it would be like in this windowless corner of The Store after dark. When the lights were off. When the building was empty.

  She shivered, sped back to the safety of the register.

  She wasn't the only one who had questions about what went on in here after hours. Holly had told her yesterday that she'd heard that Jane in Lingerie had accidentally left her purse in her employee locker overnight and that when she'd come in the next morning the two tampons she kept in her purse in case of an emergency had been taken out of their wrappers and were soaked with blood.

  _Blood_.

  She'd also overheard two women talking in the break room once, one telling the other that she'd been the last employee to leave The Store the previous night and that she'd heard the sound of muffled screams coming from downstairs, through the closed elevator doors.

  And, of course, there were the stories about the Night Managers.

  _The Night Managers_.

  It was a subject that was not discussed among the employees. Not in the open, at least. But she'd heard whispers, hints, rumors of the Night Managers since her first day of work.

  _Night Managers_.

  Even the name was scary, and though no one could claim to have seen them, the Night Managers had a reputation. Shannon was not even sure they really existed. There'd been no mention or acknowledgment of them from Mr. Lamb or Mr.

  Walker or any of the official sources. And, as far as she knew, only cleaning people worked after hours -- why would The Store need managers when it was closed?

  But employees whispered about them after work, made furtive mention of them in the parking lot on the way to their cars. The Night Managers were supposed to keep tabs on all stock clerks and directors and salespeople, to inspect work areas at night, to go over register receipts and make reports.

  And if they didn't like what they found?

  Goose bumps popped up on Shannon's arms. Word was that a kid in Sporting Goods had disappeared. She didn't know who it was or when it had happened, but rumor had it that the clerk had been asked to stay after closing and have a chat with the Night Managers.

  And had never been seen again.

  The next day, someone else had been hired for his position.

  She didn't know if the story was true. No one did. But whether the Night Managers were fact or fiction, they were like Santa Claus or the boogeyman, a force to be reckoned with. They wielded power, even if they didn't exist, and everyone was afraid of them.

  Shannon opened her register and began counting out her bills. She'd finished the fives, tens, and tw
enties and was halfway through the ones when Mr.

  Lamb strolled by, hands behind his back, smiling. He nodded at her. "Opening in five minutes," he said. "How're things in the Garden department? Everything neat and clean, everyone bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for another successful day?" Neat and clean?

  She thought of the spot on the floor.

  _The blood_.

  She nodded, smiled at the personnel manager. "Everything's fine."

  TWENTY-TWO

  1

  Bill drove to the Roundup, parked his Jeep in the dirt lot on the side of the dumpy, windowless building, and walked inside, stopping just within the doorway to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the dim interior.

  Ben was at the bar, where he'd said he'd be, a full shot glass and a half a bottle of J & B scotch in front of him.

  Bill walked around the crowded pool table and past the jukebox, where a pair of cowboys were arguing over what song to play. The saloon was one of the few businesses in town that wasn't hurting. Of course, now that he'd thought that, The Store would probably apply for a beer and wine license, open up a lounge next to the sushi bar, and suck away the Roundup's life.

  _A corporate vampire_.

  Ben had called him, fifteen minutes ago, already half-crocked, and said he wanted to meet at the saloon. Bill had asked why, but his friend wouldn't say, would tell him only that it was "important," and though Bill hadn't wanted to go, had wanted to continue watching TV with Ginny, he'd sensed the urgency in Ben's voice, and he'd forced himself to get off the couch, put on his socks and shoes, hunted up his wallet and keys, and driven to the Roundup.

  _Important_. That could be good or it could be bad.

  Bill was betting on bad.

  He stepped up to the bar, sat down on the stool next to Ben, motioned to the bartender for a beer. "So what is it?" he asked. "What's the big news?"

  "I've been fired," Ben said.

  Bill blinked dumbly, not sure he'd heard correctly. "What?"

  "I've been fired. Terminated. Let go. Newtin sold the paper." He smiled wryly. "Want to guess to whom?"

  "The Store?"

  Ben poured himself another shot. "Bingo."

  "But why? There's only one paper in town. He had a monopoly. Everyone had to buy ads with him --"