The Salvation Plague | Book 1 |The Turning

by Masters, A. L.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: Okay, I thought about it, and yes. You can take me out to the Roadhouse next Friday, your treat. I warn you, I’m not a cheap date. I expect a full meal and a good bottle of wine, perhaps some cake. Then maybe some form of entertainment. I don’t put out on the first date either, so don’t even think about it.

  She smiled widely at her phone then quickly caught herself and looked around to make sure nobody saw.

  Buttercup: See, I’m rethinking this whole thing now. Lunch at work just seems cheaper and less complicated.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: Ok, I’m not firm on the whole entertainment part. Or the good wine. Or the meal. I do expect at least some cake, and maybe some cheap hooch. And I can reconsider the whole not putting out thing if that’s a dealbreaker…

  Buttercup: Deal. You really are an excellent salesman. Very compelling.

  She took one last sip of coffee and got out, suddenly feeling much better and happier. She made sure she had her purse then locked the doors, clicking the remote four times to be sure. The temperature was perfect, and the air smelled fresh and clean. It really was a beautiful morning. The heat wasn’t oppressive yet, but it would be soon. She wanted to be back home by then, comfortably ensconced on her couch. Being boring.

  She pulled a cart from the corral and scanned her precisely ordered list. The ingredients for her weekly meals were there, along with the few extras she wanted to pick up. She liked the feeling of having food stored away for emergencies, so she made the decision after the last shopping trip that every time she went shopping, she would get extra nonperishable food to put away. She passed the water aisle and noticed the large packs of bottled water.

  She had a filter on her water at home, and only drank that. However, if something serious happened, like nuclear war or maybe a tornado took out the water treatment facility, then she wouldn’t have any stored. She decided to get a couple of cases of bottled water. Next time she may get some of the gallon-sized plastic jugs.

  She went through the aisles, gathering everything on her list…and quite a few things not on the list. And Jared’s butterscotch candy. She cringed when she estimated the final total, but her budget had a little wiggle room, and she wasn’t worried.

  “Nope,” she said quietly, popping the ‘p’ at the end. “Not worried,” she repeated aloud. She looked around furtively, then put a case of canned beans back onto a nearby shelf of oatmeal before anyone came down the aisle to berate her. She felt like she was breaking a rule.

  She had enough beans already anyway.

  She continued down the aisle, planning to grab some extra bread when she turned back and looked at the case of beans sitting on the shelf, forlorn and out of place. She pushed the cart back quickly and loaded them back in. Another case wouldn’t hurt anything. Canned foods last practically forever.

  When she got to the end of the cereal aisle, she was startled by an elderly woman bashing into her cart.

  “Watch out!” she said as the woman stumbled on unsteady legs.

  The cart careened off to the side, hitting a protein bar display. The boxes of protein bars and the metal shelf that had held them, tumbled into the floor with a loud crash. Anna stared at the mess for a moment, then frowned questioningly at the woman who had caused it.

  The woman had stopped her rapid stumbling run and was now staring down at the mess on the floor. Her shoulders were twitching and when Anna scanned her for any injuries, she was embarrassed to note that the woman had had an accident in her pants.

  “Are you alright?” Anna asked, taking a few steps forward, clutching her purse strap more tightly.

  A store worker had come around the front of the mess, presumably to yell at them for causing trouble.

  “I think something’s wrong. Maybe we should call…” The woman was throwing up on the pile of boxes. The hoarse, whooping, gagging sound echoed loudly through the front of the store and caused several elderly patrons to stare. She noticed that it was apparently loud enough that they even had to turn their hearing aids down a bit.

  Jared was right. This is like happy hour for the older folks. Maybe this kind of thing happened often?

  “Should we call the manager to…”

  She didn’t get to finish that sentence. The woman turned rapidly, shoulders heaving and head twitching. She was making an alarming grunting, rumbling sound from her chest. She faced Anna, and Anna completely froze. She felt like prey, which was really odd because this woman had to be about eighty years old and feeble.

  Except the look on her face said otherwise.

  The woman looked insane. Seriously insane. Her face, blank and slack when she turned, had suddenly morphed into a mask of exaggerated rage. She bared her teeth —the originals it looked like— in a threatening grimace. Her eyes were off. When Anna looked closer, she realized that the pupils had become somewhat cloudy, elongated, and thin, like slits.

  Anna knew the old lady was going to lunge a split second before it happened, and Anna dodged it, barely, and ran. She left the cart behind, hopefully forming a barrier between her and the psycho. She heard the crash as the woman collided with it, and ultimately pushed past it. Footfalls and grunts sounded behind her as the woman followed.

  Good Lord!

  Anna gripped her purse tighter and sprinted down the main walkway. She thanked God for her dedication to the treadmill and the elliptical. She realized it was quiet and turned and looked back right before she rounded the corner into the freezer aisle.

  There was nothing there.

  She stopped, quickly checking the other direction. When she turned back again the woman was at the far end of the aisle, sprinting toward her. She must have gotten sidetracked by something. Unfortunately, she seemed to remember that Anna was here.

  She heard shouting at the far end of the store, but she didn’t stop. She ran to the end of the aisle and turned and waited.

  What if she didn’t stop? What if nobody helped her?

  The end of the aisle remained clear. The endcap held a display of creamed corn and she grabbed a can tightly. She controlled her breathing, which was rapid —more from adrenaline than the exercise— and crept back toward the other end. She was certain that the woman was waiting right there for her, tricking her.

  She heard the squeaking of shoes on the floor, and when she peered around, she saw a man struggling with the woman.

  The man looked to be fit and fairly in shape, but he was having difficulty controlling the spitting, grunting woman. Her hands clawed at him as he twisted her arms behind her back. She twisted her body, growling like a mad dog, and tried to snap a him as he attempted to get her to sit down.

  Anna didn’t know whether to help him, or perhaps try and call the police. When she moved nearer, she heard sirens echoing in the distance, getting thankfully closer. The man was tiring, she could tell.

  Anna scuttled past her, intending to get back to her cart full of groceries. When she moved through the woman’s line of sight, Anna saw that the woman stopped fighting momentarily. Anna looked at her closely but saw no humanity in her eyes. Nothing suggested that she was conscious of her actions. This woman needed meds, stat.

  Anna trembled as she moved backward from the woman, never letting her guard down. The woman attempted a lunge, snapping her teeth loudly, and the man failed to anticipate her sudden movement. The old woman growled viciously as she reached out, gnarled hands jerkily shredding the air like talons. She didn’t even have time to make a conscious choice as the woman threw herself toward Anna’s face, teeth first.

  She swung her arm out in a wide right hook, forgetting that she held a can. The edge caught the woman on the jaw and Anna heard a crunch as it connected. The woman’s lower jaw distorted visibly, and she lurched to the side. She clumsily attempted to regain her footing, but her balance was off.

  “Oh my God,” Anna said, bringing her hand to her mouth as the woman went down hard, bashing her forehead on a nearby shelf in the process.

  She just killed an old wom
an in a grocery store. Sure, maybe she was crazy or had dementia, but still. She looked at the can in her hand and thought about putting it down but didn’t. The man she was struggling with knelt next to the body. He reached out his hands to turn her over, and Anna held her breath.

  The woman’s frail body showed signs of major damage. Blood and fluids leaked from her head, and her arms were turning purple where they had contact with the floor. She had lost a shoe, and Anna saw one foot twitch.

  “She’s moving!” she shouted and pointed to the jerking foot. The man turned back to look where she pointed then moved closer. That was a mistake. The woman lunged, crashing into him with an almost inhumanly graceful swoop upward.

  No old lady can move that way!

  He was lucky her jaw was broken, because she saw the woman’s jagged, broken teeth scraped against the man’s cheek. He yelled and grasped her neck, physically holding her off his face, but he was losing the battle. She inched forward again. Anna was about to bash her head in with the corn again when the cops showed up.

  Finally!

  “Please, get her! I can’t hold her much longer. She’s violent,” the man attempting to subdue her huffed out to the cops. He had a New York accent, the Bronx maybe, which was uncommon around here. She wondered if he was just passing through. Bet he was cursing this place now.

  They rushed forward, one pulling cuffs from his belt, and the other taking over for the tired bystander.

  “Ma’am calm down! We’re going to get you some help!” one of the officers tried to say. They gritted their teeth with the effort of controlling her, and she could see the smaller one’s face begin to sweat.

  “Relax your arms!” one of them yelled.

  Anna could have told him it wouldn’t work. She watched as they subdued her with some difficulty, using wrist and ankle restraints. One got perilously close to her mouth, and the other shouted as his partner almost got a vicious bite.

  “Watch out! She’s a biter!” the New Yorker yelled.

  Anna went to the man who had first stopped her and offered her hand. “Thank you for grabbing her. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.” She pushed her bangs behind her ear and noticed her bun was a loose mess from the vigorous running. Her heart finally started to return to its normal pace.

  “Honestly, I didn’t either. I just grabbed her from behind as she ran by. I’ve never seen anything like that before, and I’ve seen a lot of shit, you know what I mean? Strong too. I think it’s drugs. Has to be,” he confided without taking his eyes off the raving woman. “I guess that’s what this world is coming to nowadays.”

  Even trussed up she wouldn’t quit struggling. The small, mostly elderly, crowd of bystanders looked shocked that one of their own had caused such a scene. Their commentary faded off as the police officers basically carried her trussed up body to their patrol car. She dripped blood and bodily fluids the entire way, and her deep sputtering growls could be heard until the small automatic doors closed behind them with a soft whoosh.

  “Well, I appreciate it. I hope they get her some help.”

  “No problem,” he returned and just stood there resting, hands on his hips. “They’ll probably want our statements,” he said, and she sighed. That’s right, they probably would.

  Anna pushed her cart to the self-checkout lane. She didn’t want to make conversation with the girl behind the register. She was worried that the dairy products had been out too long, but they still felt cold to the touch. She would just have to get them home right away. Honestly, she didn’t think she had the energy or the will to go exchange them. She just wanted to get out of here.

  As she was loading the groceries into her car, the policemen brought the woman out of the cruiser and put her in the back of an ambulance that had shown up a moment ago. They strapped her head down to the gurney first thing, which was probably a wise thing to do. Anna shook her head in tired disgust, trembling from the aftermath of the event. The ambulance pulled away and one of the officers came over with a small notebook. She watched as the other one, the bigger one, went inside, presumably to find the man who helped her.

  “Ma’am, I need to ask you a few questions. When did you first see the woman who attacked you?” he asked, readying his pen and squinting in the strong sunlight.

  “About thirty minutes after I entered the store. She ran right into my cart. I thought she was sick at first, maybe dementia or something.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “She lunged toward me and I ran toward the back of the store. She followed me for a bit, stopped, and found me again. That guy grabbed her from behind, trying to stop her, but she was really strong.” The officer nodded and wrote steadily. He had firsthand experience of that, she remembered.

  “Go on.”

  “Well, she got loose and started after me again. I hit her and she fell. I think…I think I broke her jaw. And she hit her head when she fell. The man went to check on her, then she started fighting again. It was crazy!”

  “You hit her once and broke her jaw?” he asked to clarify. Anna started to sweat nervously. She did nothing wrong, and yet talking to the cops always made her feel like a criminal. If Jared were here, he’d no doubt have some smartass comment that would make her feel better.

  “Well. I hit her with corn.”

  “Corn.” He raised an eyebrow and waited for her to continue with an intense expression on his face.

  “A can of creamed corn. I picked it up when she was chasing me, I don’t know why really. Anyway, when she lunged I just kind of…hit her.”

  “Mhmmm.” He paused and wrote quite a bit in his little notebook and she wondered if she was headed for jail.

  She idly wondered how she would tell her fellow inmates that she was in the slammer for assaulting an old lady with a can of corn? Would they try to beat her up for it? She would just have to find the biggest woman there and take her out right away, then maybe they’d all leave her alone. Or maybe they wouldn’t even ask. Didn’t they have a kind of code of prisoner ethics thing, where they didn’t ask about their crimes? Maybe they’d think she was crazy. It worked in the movies, and it kind of made sense.

  “Your name?” he asked, and she cut off her train of thought.

  “Oh, uh, Anna Car…Collins.” Geez

  “Anna Car Collins?” he asked skeptically.

  “Just Collins, Anna Collins. I’m still a little shaken up, sorry.”

  He asked for her address and phone number, and she gave it. He told her that she wasn’t in any trouble but to stick around in case they had any further questions. She was relieved that she wasn’t going to have to fight to keep herself from becoming someone’s prison bitch. At least not today.

  She went home and promised herself to never shop on Saturday mornings again.

  ◆◆◆

  That afternoon, after she had put the groceries away and taken a shower, she sat with a fresh cup of coffee and texted Jared.

  Buttercup: I was attacked at the grocery store.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: What? Is this a joke?

  Buttercup: It was weird. This woman ran into my cart then started chasing me around the store. She was insane or on drugs or something. Some guy had to hold her down until the cops got there.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: Are you okay?

  Buttercup: Yeah, I’m just a little shaken up.

  Buttercup: I hit her with corn and broke her jaw.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: That is a sentence that I have never, ever heard anyone say. Was it a fresh corn cob, or what?

  Buttercup: This is serious.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: I’m sorry, I know. I’m glad you’re okay.

  Buttercup: Me too.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: Seriously, what kind of corn was it.

  Buttercup: Canned corn. Creamed.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: That’s vicious. And a little bit badass. You’re living the thug life now, I see.

  Buttercup: She was an old lady! And she was sick! I feel bad about it.


  Mr. Carson-Collins: Well, she attacked you right? It’s self-defense, either way. Shit happens. But just in case, I think we should come up with some cool prison nicknames. I already have a list if you want to borrow it…

  Buttercup: Not funny…and that is kind of weird.

  Buttercup: I kept thinking about that video you sent me. Really, I think she was just crazy though.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: Did she say anything? What did she look like?

  Buttercup: It was super strange. She didn’t say a word. She just growled and snapped her teeth, like a rabid dog. She wet her pants too and threw up all over the place. Honestly, it was really creepy.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: That sounds bad.

  Buttercup: It was.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: Do you have a weapon? Besides canned corn, I mean. Maybe you should start carrying one.

  Buttercup: You mean like pepper spray or a knife or something?

  Mr. Carson-Collins: Yeah maybe. Or a pistol.

  Buttercup: I don’t know. I’ve never use one before.

  Mr. Carson-Collins: I could teach you. Maybe you could teach me your canned corn technique in return.