by Nathan Jones
The encounter reminded him that it might not be a terrible idea to check out blankets himself. With winter on the way they seemed pretty important.
The camping aisles were depressingly empty of things like knives, machetes, matches, flashlights, candles, lanterns, and charcoal briquets. He did find a few tarps, tents, and sleeping bags to toss into his cart, as well as some bug spray and mosquito netting, although he wondered if those last two were the most useful things he could be purchasing. There was also a display of slingshots that people had overlooked in favor of more obvious weapons and hunting implements, and like with the bear spray he emptied the display.
The next aisle was tools and hardware. Here, too, the things that could make potential weapons like hammers, sledgehammers, crowbars, and gardening implements had all been snatched up. The sight made Matt feel almost as uneasy as the empty gun racks. How else could he feel about a place where food was nowhere to be found and people were stocking up on improvised weapons? He did stop and pick up all the available boxes of nails and several measuring tapes, since they were small and useful, and almost as an afterthought grabbed a few empty gas cans and some plastic tubing. They'd probably be useless but he could store water in them if nothing else.
Then it was on to the sports aisle.
True to form baseball bats, golf clubs, hockey sticks, and even things like baseballs and golf balls were nowhere to be found. Matt couldn't see anything useful here unless he was trying to stave off sheer boredom, although he did empty a display of playing cards at the end of the aisle into his cart. That was one of the main ways his family had always entertained themselves on camping trips, so they seemed like a good thing to grab.
His cart was nearly full, so he decided he'd swing by the bedding aisle and then head for the checkout lines.
There weren't many blankets to be found, although he found some mattress pads and loaded them into his cart since they were basically the same thing. As he stood in the aisle debating whether to grab pillowcases for improvised carrying sacks sudden furious yelling from the back of the store not far away caught his attention, and he cautiously made his way to the end of the aisle to see what was going on.
That wasn't the shouting of disgruntled customers. It was the hoarse, top of the lungs, pissed off to the point of having an aneurism screams of someone who was either in the middle of a total meltdown or was about to start seriously beating someone.
He peeked around the shelves and saw that the noise was coming from behind a swinging door leading back to the stockroom. As he stared, tense, a sudden ringing made him nearly jump out of his skin. His phone. Acting purely on panic he reached into his pocket and shut it off before it could draw any attention to him.
When he'd silenced the call he peeked around the shelves again, just in time to see an employee stagger backwards through the swinging door. At first Matt thought the man was running away from something, but when he collapsed to the ground curled up in a fetal position clutching his face Matt realized the employee had been hit.
Only moments later several men about Matt's age or younger, carrying improvised weapons that might have been the missing merchandise he'd noticed in the aisles he'd passed through, burst out the door and began kicking the downed man. “You said there'd be food back there!” the same man who'd shouted hoarsely before yelled.
“I warned you we mostly just use that area for breaking down boxes and almost all our merchandise is kept stocked on the display shelves! I just said it's a big space and there might be some stuff hidden away and forgotten in a corner or something.” The employee screamed at a particularly savage blow to the head, curling up in a tighter ball. “Please, stop! I'm helping you.”
That invited a burst of profanity from several of the punks as one slammed his wooden baseball bat down across his victim's shoulders. “You're supposed to have groceries!” he yelled.
“What do you think you're doing?” an older man demanded, approaching. He wasn't wearing an employee uniform so Matt had no idea why he'd decided to intervene, but it immediately turned out to be a mistake as the enraged gang turned and rushed him with their weapons. In moments the good Samaritan was a bruised and beaten heap on the ground like the employee, while all around them customers began screaming as they fled in all directions, many abandoning their carts.
The hoarse ringleader made a beeline back for swinging door into the stockroom, pushing it open to shout through. “No food, no guns, nothing! Let's trash this place!”
In response dozens more college age men streamed out of the stockroom, most with their own weapons and a few even brandishing guns. They immediately began shoving over shelves and smashing displays, all the while making noises that sounded more animal than human, amidst some of the vilest language Matt had ever heard.
He'd seen enough. Actually too much, since if he'd had the slightest bit of common sense he would've run for his life along with all the other customers the moment he saw the employee being attacked. He ran to grab his cart and sprinted it towards the front of the store, as behind him the noise of destruction and unleashed fury continued. He kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to find the rioters chasing him down, but he seemed to have escaped their attention.
After a nightmarish eternity that couldn't have been more than thirty seconds he reached the front of the store. Once there he stopped, looking around helplessly. The doors were choked with customers streaming outside, pushing full carts of even carrying armfuls of stuff. All of it had to be stolen, since there were no cashiers behind the registers and what few employees remained had either fled or converged on the disturbance at the back of the store.
Which left him in a bit of a bind. He wasn't a thief and didn't plan to start now, but at the same time he really wanted the things in his cart. A lot of this stuff could make a huge difference for his family if trucks weren't bringing in necessities.
As he stood there debating ethics a bright blur of motion from the back of the store caught his eye, and he turned in time to see flaming rolls of toilet paper arcing over the aisles, burning tails fluttering like comets. Almost absurdly, as he watched the sight his immediate thought was that he should've picked up some toilet paper himself.
From the source of the thrown projectiles someone was gleefully shouting about toilet papering the place, and a few loud, high pitched yips of laughter followed the suggestion as more flaming rolls flew. As far as Matt could see no fires had started just yet, but even with plastic floors and metal shelves it was only a matter of time.
He pushed down his panic, and before he could think better of it ran his cart to one of the self checkout stations and began running everything over the scanner as fast as he could, stuffing it all into plastic bags. The small station was mostly meant for purchases of just a few items and the pile of bags quickly overflowed onto the floor, but he kept going with almost manic desperation, flinching at every shout and crash behind him.
Once again he found himself regretting that he'd left Nelson's gun behind in his room. Sure, carrying a gun around town was viewed as strange these days, but with riots breaking out all over the nation there was literally never a better time to open carry. As he was seeing for himself right this very moment.
Idiot! It was like he was still stuck in stolid citizen mode. Even while watching on the news as entire neighborhoods burned and state capitols were torn apart, and after deciding to leave the city before the chaos reached it too, here he was jaunting off to the grocery store to go shopping for a few things before hopping in his car and fleeing for his life. He was even paying for his goods while the store literally burned around him!
Finally Matt's patience ran out as somewhere in the store a woman's screams rose over the other shouting and yelling before abruptly going silent. He grabbed the most expensive item left in the cart and scanned it a dozen times, hoping that was enough, then with fumbling fingers yanked out his credit card and ran it, pounding out his PIN. It seemed to take forever for the card to autho
rize, and while he waited the deafening noise of rioting behind him continued and he actually thought he could smell smoke. A red glow was spreading from the back of the store.
The card scanner abruptly made a buzzing noise and text popped up on the small screen. “AUTHORIZATION FAILED: SERVER DOWN.”
“Are you kidding me?” Matt muttered under his breath. He'd definitely stayed too long now and he didn't have any more time to waste on this BS, so he tossed his credit card on the scanner along with all the cash from his wallet and began stuffing the full bags into his cart on top of all the loose items he hadn't been able to scan.
The doors were still clogged with fleeing people when he pushed his cart into line. From what he could see the doors at the opposite end of the front of the store were stopped completely by what looked like the beginnings of a brawl as the owners of two carts jammed in the doorway punched at each other while the crowd around them shoved wildly trying to force them through. For no reason he could see he watched a woman waiting behind the two fighting men abruptly jump on one's back and begin pummeling his shoulders and head, screeching, at least until they both went down and were swallowed up by the crowd behind.
Matt turned back in time to see a young man in the line ahead of him twist around and snatch one of the bags from his cart. “Hey!” he shouted.
The kid, who was around 14 or 15, sneered at him. “What, got a problem with me stealing your stolen stuff?”
He was about to protest that he'd paid for his things, kind of, but before he could the line in front of the door moved and they were both shoved forward, caught in the flow of panicking people struggling to leave the building. As he was pushed along Matt hunched over his cart to discourage any more would-be thieves, and after what seemed a nightmarish eternity of pushing and shoving he finally burst out into the afternoon sun, the crowd around him dispersing in all directions now that they were past the bottleneck.
Matt fled across the parking lot in the sea of humanity, while behind him he heard the deafening crash of glass breaking. He glanced back to see that the rioters had reached the front of the store and were throwing carts through the windows, while behind them a hellish red glow spread and wisps of smoke escaped into the outside air.
* * * * *
The crowd around Matt streamed off in different directions as he pushed his cart out of the parking lot and started up long hill that led to his dorm. Nobody seemed to be going the same way, or at least they didn't follow him up the sidewalk, which was a relief since it meant he wouldn't have to keep looking over his shoulder.
After a few minutes he decided he'd made it a safe distance from the store, so he pushed the front wheels of the cart off the edge of the sidewalk so it wouldn't roll away and pulled out his phone.
The first people that had popped into his mind after escaping the chaos of the supermart were his sister April, her husband Terry, and their two young sons. The family lived up in Midvale, nearly smack dab between Utah and Salt Lake valleys where trouble from either could spill over to them. He turned his phone back on to call her.
April answered on the third ring, and in spite of himself Matt was relieved to hear her voice. “You okay?” he immediately asked.
“Isn't that my line little bro? You're the one calling me.”
Matt wasn't in the mood for banter. “Listen, I just escaped a riot in a supermart.” He glanced over his shoulder. “It's burning behind me. With how tense everything is I'm afraid it might spread.”
“Wow, really? The fire or the riot?” Although April's words still seemed lighthearted she sounded genuinely worried.
“Yes.” It was a common game between them to provide two options and answer yes for both, but for Matt the response was almost automatic. “Are things quiet up there?”
There was a long pause. “Yeah I think so. We've spent the last few hours cataloguing our food storage so I haven't even checked the news. I don't hear shouting or sirens, though.”
That wasn't too reassuring. “Listen, I'm heading down to Mom and Dad's. I really think you guys should too.”
“We've talked it over,” April answered, sounding a bit frustrated. “Terry hasn't been able to find any gas anywhere. He'll keep looking, but with enough food storage to last us through the winter we decided we should stay put and hope the government sorts this all out. We're on the outskirts of things so if we lay low we should be able to avoid any riots or other trouble happening in denser populations to the north or south.”
That seemed sensible, but after what Matt had just been through he had his doubts. “How are you set for water? Trev warned me that if the power goes out, which it almost definitely will, the water will stop flowing too. You should get as much as possible stored away while you still can, even if you have to fill your sinks and bathtubs. And try to get firewood too.”
“I know,” his big sister replied somewhat impatiently. “We've given a lot of thought to preparing for difficult times in the last year and I think we've got our heads on straight. To be honest I'm more worried at the thought of you stranded alone down in Orem, especially if you just escaped a r-”
“Sis?” Matt cut in quietly. “I'm going to need to call you back.”
Coming down the sidewalk towards him was a fairly large man in baggy jeans and a short sleeve black shirt with some metal band on the front worn over a long sleeve white one. But what immediately caught his attention was that the man had an aluminum baseball bat propped on one shoulder. That and he was staring straight at Matt with the sort of look that made Matt's instincts scream for him to run.
Matt slowly pocketed his phone, then stepped closer to his cart to provide more room on the sidewalk for the guy to pass. Seriously, was there a single reason he could think of why he hadn't brought the Glock? He had to be the biggest idiot on earth. “Hey, how's it going?” he asked, doing his best to sound calm.
The baseball enthusiast gave him a predatory smile and spun the bat in one hand as if limbering up. “It'll be great when you gimme that cart.” He sped up, closing the twenty or so remaining feet between them at a fast walk.
Matt stared at the guy, then at his baseball bat, and felt his temper snap. Was this a joke? He'd never been attacked or robbed in his life, and now he'd just escaped a riot in a burning store and this goon wanted to steal his stuff in broad daylight on the side of a major street?
Before the mugger reached him Matt leaned over and scrabbled around in the bottom of his cart until his fingers closed around a can of bear spray. The guy slowed, eyes widening, as Matt yanked off the seal over the trigger and pointed the nozzle at him. “You ever been hit with this stuff?” he asked. “It's for bears. Just imagine what it'll do to you.”
The mugger eyed the spray warily and started to back away, raising his hands in surrender. “Easy, man. I'm just going to wa-”
Mid-word the big guy changed direction and charged forward, the bat held over his head suddenly less about surrender and more about being raised to smash down on Matt's head. Matt was so surprised by the sudden attack that the mugger had nearly reached him before he pulled the trigger. The stream of bear spray hit the guy right in the center of his chest, and as the baseball bat started to descend Matt dove aside while at the same time guiding the line of concentrated pepper up into his attacker's face.
The mugger screamed and his bat nearly clipped Matt's shoulder as it went flying away. But the criminal had forgotten about Matt, his bat, and everything else in the world aside from searing pain as he lifted his hands to his face and crumpled to the ground, swearing profusely.
Even though he'd been the one shooting it, Matt had been close enough to the spray when it landed that some misted back at him, making him cough as he staggered away chasing after the bat. Just a whiff of the stuff was enough to make his eyes water and his nose start to run, and he didn't envy the mugger his experience. The guy's cursing had been replaced by phlegmy, wracking coughs that sounded almost like he was puking up his guts, and the few breaths he managed
to take were forced and raspy.
Matt picked up the bat and tossed it into his cart along with the bear spray, then grabbed the cart's pushbar and yanked it back onto the sidewalk, running it past the downed mugger while giving him as much space on the sidewalk as he could. Once he was past he still stared over his shoulder every second or so for the next few hundred feet to make sure he wasn't being followed.
That last thing he saw before he reached the top of the hill and its curve blocked his view of the attacker below showed the big man still writhing in pain, the noise of his wracking coughs reaching Matt's ears for a ways afterwards.
He glanced down at the bear spray sitting on top of the pile of grocery bags, feeling equal parts relieved and sickened by the narrow escape from a dangerous situation. Those rioters back in the store had been complaining about all the guns being gone, but not ten feet from the empty racks had been a less lethal weapon that could still do the job. He was glad he'd grabbed the powerful pepper spray and even more glad it had been handy when he needed to defend himself.
He was still so high on adrenaline that he actually jumped when his phone rang, although of course he should've expected it after hanging up on his sister. But it wasn't her name on the call it was his mom's: April must've called her.
“Matt!” she said, sounding frantic. “I finally managed to reach you! Your phone was ringing earlier but it suddenly went to voicemail, and then April said she talked to you but you suddenly hung up. Are you okay? Why are you at a store with rioters instead of on your way home like you said?”
“I'm fine, Mom,” he said quickly, deciding not to tell her about the mugger. She'd only worry. “Sorry about the phone. The riot was just starting and I turned it off so I wouldn't draw attention. But I'm fine, really, and I'll be on my way home soon. I just got delayed by things more than I expected.”
“You should've left already,” she insisted. “I thought you were leaving hours ago!” Matt started to answer but she kept going, almost frantically. “Have you seen the news? Riots just broke out in Salt Lake City, and now you're getting caught in them too. You've got to get out of there!”