by Michael Bray
“These pricks know as things stand they have us under control. We’re nothin’ to them right now but a bunch of frightened lab rats just waiting for them to finish us off. Course, the other problem is him.”
Lee nodded towards Bernard.
“You mark my words now, that wanker might yet cause trouble.”
“You don’t have to convince me, son. He hasn’t shut that mouth of his since you bloodied him up.”
“Arsehole deserved it. I’d do it again too.”
“I wonder what he could be talking to those people about now.”
“I bet I can guess,” sneered Lee, before finishing his drink.
“Wrath of god, end of days, beginning of the fuckin’ end. Usual shite that comes out of the mouths of people like him.”
“People seem to be paying attention.”
“Aye. I’m not surprised.”
Donald turned towards Lee. “What do you mean by that?”
“Well, fella, he seems to be the only person in here who has a plan. And even though he’s the biggest wanker in the building, he could be a problem because, for all his faults, those people are willing to listen to him if they think it might give ‘em a chance at getting out of here alive.”
“I’m not so convinced. They must surely see he’s babbling. Talking nonsense. Hell, I can tell from all the way over here just by the way his lips are moving.”
Donald said it more to try to convince himself, as he was afraid to consider Lee might be right. The brawny Irishman only grinned.
“Trust me, fella. When things get down to it— and have no doubts about it, they will— people will want to have somebody they can turn to, and if it’s a choice between a man with a plan and the rest of us…well you can guess the rest.”
Donald could only muster a nod, and the two sat in somber silence, stewing over the implications of Bernard leading some kind of fear led uprising. Helen returned and handed Donald his coffee. He sipped from the paper cup and winced, then set it down on the floor.
“Damn, that’s hot. Thanks, Honey.”
Helen looked mistrustfully at Lee and then back to Donald. “I’m going to see if I can find us some food. Will you be okay for a while on your own?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure? I can stay if you prefer?”
Donald smiled and took his wife’s hands in his own and looked her in the eye.
“Helen, please listen to me. I’m fine. I feel fine. I'm okay. What happened before may have just been a flutter, something stress related. You don’t need to worry.”
“I’m sorry for fussing,” she said, just about managing a weak smile.
“It shows you still love me after all these years if nothing else,” he replied, giving her hands a gentle, reassuring squeeze.
“Will we be okay, Donald?”
She was searching his eyes, looking for him to say the words she so desperately wanted to hear, but he couldn’t face lying to her again.
“I… I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “We can only hope.”
Her cheek trembled slightly, and she blinked away the tears which he knew from their years together were coming no matter how hard she tried to hold them back.
“I’ll go see about that food,” she said absently, then pulled her hands free and walked away.
Donald watched her go and realized telling the truth made him feel just as bad as lying to her. He promised himself he would make it up to her if— when— they made it to safety. However, that all depended on Garrett and his conversation with the manager. Donald turned his attention back to the door at the end of the market.
“Why did you do that?” Lee asked, taking a battered pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
“Do what?”
“Your old lady.” He took out a cigarette and offered the pack to Donald, who waved it away. “Why didn’t you just tell her it would be okay?”
“I couldn’t face lying to her, not again.”
“She didn’t know the heart attack was a stunt, did she?” Lee said as he lit the cigarette.
“No. She would never have agreed to it otherwise. Please don’t tell her.”
Lee inhaled deeply and then blew twin plumes of smoke out of his nostrils. “Hey, it’s none of my business, fella. I was just curious.”
“I’m not a bad husband,” Donald said, much more defensively than he intended.
“I never said you were. Truth be known I kinda see your reasons for keeping it from her. Relax, old man, before you give yourself a real dicky ticker.”
Lee smiled as he smoked, and although he was still tense, Donald was able to relax a little. They watched as one of the customers— the ones who were mentally broken and walking the store like drones— rounded the corner of the aisle and made her way into the next one. Her eyes were glassy and vacant, and her tongue poked out of her open mouth. It looked shriveled and dry as she shuffled past on her never-ending shopping trip. Her presence seemed to leave behind a heavy, depressing atmosphere and reminded the two men how dire the situation was. Donald took a careful sip of coffee, and then glanced at Lee.
“So what’s your story?” he asked pleasantly.
“No story, fella. Wrong place wrong time just like everyone else.”
“I mean why were you here, tonight?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we were in here trying the place out as we only live a few blocks away. Ray was doing a few errands for his wife. What about you? What brought you to this store, on this night with the rest of us?”
Lee looked at Donald, and the old man saw there was anger in his eyes and perhaps guilt. There was an aggression in Lee, and remembering he was prying into the private life of a virtual stranger, Donald wished he had never asked. He was about to change the subject to something less intrusive when Lee spoke softly.
“My kid. My kid brought me here.”
Donald realized it wasn’t anger in Lee’s eyes, but hurt.
“What happened?”
“That’s a long story, fella. A really, long story.”
“Way I see it, time is all we have now.”
“I ain’t in the habit of talkin’ about stuff like this to strangers.”
“Maybe it might help? I’m not going to judge you. It seems fate brought us all together for a reason. Maybe the reason was for you to get whatever’s troubling you off your chest.”
“You’re a strange one, ain’t ya, old man?” Lee said with a half-smile.
“I just believe in giving everyone a fair crack of the whip. You don’t have to talk to me, son. I’m just saying that if you do, I’m willing to listen to you.”
Lee smiled, a regretful expression more than one of happiness. “All right,” he said as he took another drag on his cigarette. “I’ll tell you.”
Donald waited. Patient and attentive as Lee organized his thoughts.
“So my kid needs special attention. Around the clock care. Some kind of birth defect or somethin’. Anyways, long and short of it is, she can’t walk or do any of the stuff the rest of us take for granted. She…”
He flashed an awkward, pained grin, his throat bobbing as he tried to find the words.
“She…she shits herself. It’s not her fault. She can’t control it, and she cries when it happens. Really screams the house down… I think that’s the worst. When you look her in the eye, you can see she understands and can’t do anything about it. Let me tell ya’ that cuts me up inside. It just makes me feel so fuckin’ helpless. Anyways, things were going okay, right? I mean the three of us, me, my girl, and my kid moved over here from Ireland a few years ago now. We believed all that fresh start, new life shite. But things didn’t go as smooth as we hoped, right? But we were getting by. Then last year I lost my job. It was only a shitty bar job, and I hated it, but I did it because I needed to make ends meet. That’s what people do, right? They do what they have to. But see, one night my boss was on one of his power trips. He was in my ear all night, just w
inding me up, trying to get a rise out of me, showing off to his pals about how big and powerful he was, and how much power he had over his staff.”
Lee looked at Donald, a haunted smile forming on his lips.
“What it is, fella is that I have a short fuse. Nothin’ I’m proud of, but it’s just how I am. He kept pushing and pushing. And I tried holding it all together, and even though I wanted to bite his face off, I was doin’ okay. I was coping. I was tryin’ to think about my girl and my kid, about how important it was to keep my job for their sake. And then he pushed too far. I’ll never forget it. He said, ‘you are almost as dumb as that retarded kid of yours,’ and that’s all it took. I snapped, and I ended up putting him in the hospital for six weeks. I thought that would be it, and I’d be brought up on charges and deported back to Ireland. But the funny thing is he never did anything about it. I don’t know if he was scared of what I would do to him, or if he just knew it had been his fault, but for whatever reason, that was the end of it. Or maybe he knew the best way to get back at me was to fire me and watch me suffer. So here I am now without a job. We have rent. Back in Ireland, we had free healthcare. It ain’t like that here. We have medical bills to pay for the kid. We have to put food on the table. I tried, fella. I tried to get another job, but my rep worked against me. Nobody would touch me and so…”
He swallowed, and took a last long drag on his cigarette, then dropped it to the floor and stubbed it out under his huge black boot.
“I was left with no choice. They say it doesn’t, but when you are on your arse with no other choice, crime pays. I did a bit of this, a bit of that. Anything to scrape enough money to last for another few days.”
He turned to Donald, and opened his jacket, revealing a silver handgun strapped into a homemade holster.
“I was here tonight to rob the place, fella. I was here to put some food in my kid’s mouth, and if that meant pistol whipping some security guard and frightening a few shoppers, then make no mistake. I was prepared to do it.”
He closed his jacket and lowered his head.
“And then all this happened, and here I am— stuck here like everyone else. So go ahead and judge me if you want to, but I didn’t do anything I wouldn’t do again if it helped to keep my family together.”
“It’s not for me to judge you, son,” Donald said. “You did what you felt you had to, and I can respect that. As for what you just told me, it will go no further, unless you choose to tell it to anyone else.”
Lee looked Donald in the eye, his face a mixture of relief and gratitude.
“Thanks, fella. I appreciate it.”
He looked as if he were going to elaborate when he saw the door to Nicu’s office open. “Looks like our boy is comin’ back.”
Garrett walked slowly out of the office and began to make his way back towards the main group.
“Your ticker up for a stroll, old fella?” Lee asked with a half-smile.
“Just you try to stop me,” Donald said as he got to his feet, arthritic knees screaming in protest.
They met Garrett halfway down the store, and as they approached, Donald could see just how pale and tired he looked. He appeared to have aged impossibly since he first entered Nicu’s office.
“How did it go?” Donald asked despite the answer being written all over his face.
Garrett opened his mouth to answer and was silenced by a booming voice from behind.
“There they are!”
The trio turned around to see Bernard pointing at them. Accusing eyes stared from behind him, as a sick grin appeared on Bernard’s face.
“I told you! They’re scheming against us. Conversing with our captors, whilst we sit here waiting for them to fulfill their false promises.”
“Bernard, look––”Garrett began, but Bernard would not be silenced.
“No, you look! First of all, you come to us with these stories of plans and seeking help, and in the next breath you slink away to have private discussions with those who keep us here.”
“You need to let me explain—”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Bernard bellowed, ejecting flecks of spittle onto his chin as he looked at the people, who were again gathered in a rough circle. He seemed to be thriving on the attention.
“You and your group are poison. You’re trying to infect us and gain our trust, and then when our backs are turned, you’ll hand us over to them,” he growled, pointing at the door to Nicu’s office.
“Hey, pal,” Lee barked. “Unless you want another bloody nose, I’d keep your mouth shut.”
Garrett expected Bernard to crumble at this, or at least lose some of his swagger, but instead he seemed to enjoy it. He flashed his twisted smile, a gesture only a whisker away from a horrified grimace.
“Intimidation. More threats of violence. Is this how it’s going to be?”
Bernard turned to the surrounding crowd, addressing them calmly, although he was unable to quite drop the too wide, too white grin.
“Are you prepared to accept this? Are you prepared to let these people decide our collective fate? Because I for one am not.”
“Then what do you suggest, son?” Donald asked.
Bernard grew serious. The attention seemed to have made him swell, to grow into a giant. He had become a powerful and intimidating presence.
“What do I suggest?” Bernard repeated smugly. “I suggest we stop waiting for those people to come and pick us off one at a time. I suggest we weed out the people who conspire against us and do what’s best for the greater good.”
He glared at the three of them: Bernard, Lee, and Garrett, and then flashed a wide grin.
“I suggest we offer to them those who would have done the same to us.”
Ice filled Garrett’s veins. Not only at the cold and emotionless tone in Bernard’s voice, but because those watching didn’t laugh him off, or claim him crazy. Instead, he felt dozens of pairs of eyes on him and a voice deep inside his mind whispered the words he already knew.
These people are considering it.
“Let me tell you this, fella,” Lee said, glaring at Bernard. “You can stand there in that expensive suit and spout as much shite as you like, but let me warn you or anyone else who plans to try anythin’ stupid, that I play dirty, and I play to win. You might wanna bear that in mind.”
Bernard watched, his smile wavering for a second. Garrett thought that under ordinary circumstances, he would have backed down, but he had an audience now. An audience that seemed interested in what happened next. Garrett had no intention of speaking and didn’t realize he was about to until it happened.
“All right, enough!” he said, looking at the ghostly, frightened faces all around him.
“You people have no idea what we are up against. Yeah, it’s true I went in there. I won’t deny that, but it had nothing to do with some stupid bullshit conspiracy like this crazy son of a bitch is claiming.”
A few of the watching crowd seemed less certain, and shot each other confused glances. But not Bernard. Still, he stood with that icy grin and unwavering stare.
“I went in there to see if I could negotiate a release, a release for all of us. You were all looking to me, and I didn’t know what to do.”
“So what happened?” said a leathery, bearded man dressed in khaki combat trousers and a grubby vest. Garrett licked his lips, trying to decide the best way to relay the next chunk of information.
“Look, I didn’t want to do this. I know this is going to make me sound crazy and make him look like the sanest person in here,” he said, nodding towards Bernard, who still hadn’t moved.
“This isn’t a hostage situation, and these aren’t just sadistic murderers.”
He hesitated, looking at the people who watched back intently.
“They’re vampires.”
An incoherent mutter rose, as people spoke in groups. Garrett noticed with dismay nobody had taken him seriously. Some had laughed, others pointed and whispered. Garrett stole a quick
glance at Lee, who also seemed to be struggling to hide a smirk. Only Donald remained impassive and watched the proceedings with a concerned frown.
“Why is it such a stretch to believe? Look what’s on the damn shelves!” Garrett blurted which even to himself, made him sound like he was a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
“And so, that’s our grand revelation!” Bernard boomed, his confident swagger restored.
“We are meant to believe we’re held here by the boogeyman.”
“Bernard—”
“No, Mr. Garrett. I think we’ve all heard enough. People are already frightened without you giving us some half-baked tale of monsters and things that go bump in the night.”
“You son of a bitch!” Garrett roared, and lunged towards Bernard, but Lee grabbed him in a huge bear hug before he could make any real progress.
“Leave it, pal. It’s not worth it,” Lee whispered to Garrett, who was straining to get to Bernard.
“I’m telling the truth, and that prick is putting everyone’s life at risk by laughing it off as a damn joke,” Garrett hissed.
Bernard was unwavering. He stood defiant and watched Garrett with contempt.
“Believe what you will, Mr. Garrett,” he said, shaking his head in disdain. “The rest of us— the sane and rational people— will discuss our real options regarding leaving here alive.”
Bernard walked away, and Garrett was dismayed to see almost everyone in the store went with him. Garrett stood alone as Lee released his grip.
“You okay, son?” Donald asked.
“Not really, but what else can I do?”
“You can start,” Lee said, “by telling us exactly what you found out in that damn office.”