Trust Me Too

by Paul Collins

  But after three weeks in hospital, the doctors said he should go home.

  Angel loved her new baby brother. He was like a living doll. But he just lay in his crib, staring up at her. He hardly moved. A doctor came every day to check on him.

  One day Angel overheard the doctor and her father speaking quietly in the passageway outside Michael’s nursery.

  ‘Is there any chance he’s going to make it?’ asked

  Edward.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ the doctor whispered. ‘It’s a miracle he’s survived this long.’

  Early next morning, when Hannah went to check on Michael, she found his crib empty. She rushed to get Edward and they searched the whole house. They looked in Angel’s room, and she was gone, too.

  ‘The studio!’ said Hannah, and they both started runnmg.

  Angel met them at the studio door. She was just coming out. Her sleeves were rolled up and there was a big smile on her face.

  ‘Fin,’ she said.

  Tom should have said no. He could have, but he didn’t. When Kyle and Amy pointed out that the party was running short of chips and Coke and suggested that Tom go and get some more, he could have said, ‘No, I’m having a great time. I think I’ll just hang around here.’

  Instead he grinned like an idiot and said, ‘Yes.’ That’s what he always did, and he was sick of it. Agreeable Tom. Nice Tom. Dependable Tom. Tom, the guy who won’t be missed if he has to duck out and do some shopping for everyone.

  One day, he’d like to use that word ‘no’ he’d heard other people use. It seemed to work for them.

  He trudged down the road at 11.30 at night, head ing towards the supermarket, with the small comfort of enjoying his own music instead of the gut-turning stuff they were playing at the party.

  The supermarket was new. It was one of those buildings that had gone up almost overnight. A vacant lot one day, a sign saying ‘Coming Soon’ the next, and then, pa-zow, a supermarket. It was probably built of plastic, Tom decided, as he made his way through the deserted car park. A few abandoned trolleys huddled, looking as if they wished they were somewhere else.

  Once inside, Tom shuddered. The supermarket music was sweet, soft and absolutely awful, worse even than the music back at the party. He fumbled for his earbuds and made sure they were well and truly jammed in. The soothing sounds of extreme thrash metal neatly drowned out the supermarket pap.

  A large, hungry-looking woman barged past him as he stood in front of the turnstile. She paused, shook her head slowly and stared around. Tom frowned as her gaze slipped over him and kept moving. Her eyes were strange. No, scratch that, her whole face was strange. Saggy, as if all the muscles had decided that it was all too much effort and it was time to give up. He shrugged. She probably just needed a couple of kilos of corn chips really bad.

  Then she grunted, loud enough to make Tom jump. She shuffied off, banged through the turnstile, eyes vague and glassy - a real supermarket-shopper stare.

  Tom waited a moment, giving her plenty of time to get well away, and then he picked up a carry basket, eased through the turnstile and went in search of supplies.

  He went past displays of dog biscuits and choco late biscuits, tinned spaghetti, fruit, cereal and coffee.

  As he made his way to the central intersecting row, he started to grow uneasy.

  At first he couldn’t put his finger on it. The place was nice and clean and all the shelves were well stocked; nothing wrong there. Then he realised what it was. He couldn’t see anyone else. From his position in the central row, he could see up and down each aisle. They were all empty. Plenty of orange juice, paper towels and cheese, but no customers and no staff No cleaners. Even the woman he’d seen earlier had disappeared.

  ‘Come on,’ he muttered to himself ‘How many people do their shopping at midnight?’ Then he started to imagine the sort of people who would. Loners. People who didn’t like mixing with others. People who preferred the night ...

  He shook his head. ‘Cut it out, Tom,’ he told him self ‘You’ve been reading too much. You should be spending more time in front of the TV’

  He snorted, upped the volume on his music, and marched to the chips aisle. He filled the basket, re membered he had to get soft drinks, too, put a few packets of chips back and piled the basket with Coke and lemonade. The bottles made the basket heavy and he had to use both hands to lug it along.

  Tom’s eyes opened wide when he reached the front of the supermarket. It was totally deserted. No bored workers at the cash registers. No custom ers standing waiting for help. ‘Hello?’ Tom called, wondering if he’d stumbled on a mass kidnapping.

  ‘Anybody there?’

  Tom was no fool. This wasn’t safe. He wasn’t sticking around in a place like this. First step was to get out of the place, then ring the police. Let them handle it.

  He left his basket at a checkout, wiped the palms of his hands on his jumper, bit his lip and hurried towards the doors.

  He nearly broke his nose when they didn’t open.

  He staggered back, swearing. His eyes were full of tears. Gingerly, he smeared the tears away with one hand, and tried the doors again, approaching very, very slowly this time.

  They didn’t move.

  Tom looked around. This wasn’t good. Bright lights, lots of colourful packaging and ‘Sale’ signs everywhere, but the supermarket had started to feel like a prison rather than a retail outlet. A very strange pnson.

  He hammered on the doors with his fist but they didn’t budge. He groaned. This wasn’t the sort of shopping expedition he’d been planning. Trapped in a supermarket? It sounded like the start of a bad joke.

  Tom felt a soft touch on the back of his foot and he whirled, forgetting about the pain in his nose - and saw nothing. Panting, his heart racing, he lowered his gaze and saw a lonely can of air freshener lying on its side, next to his sneaker. He stared, open-mouthed. Where had it come from? The laundry and bath room aisle was on the other side of the store!

  Tom scanned the empty checkouts, then shot a glance at the aisles. The pasta aisle was shuddering, as if an angry shelf stacker had shaken it. Then an aisle-end display of chocolate biscuits toppled and sent packets skidding across the floor.

  Someone was moving. Someone, or something. Tom wiped his sweaty palms again as a scatter of tuna tins rolled and skated out of the canned food aisle. His heart hammered and he backed against the stubborn doors.

  Out of the ‘Cake Mix and Sugar’ aisle lurched a tall, lanky figure - a man with a long, grey beard pushing a shopping trolley. ‘Hey,’ called Tom, and his heart backed down out of his mouth and reassumed its position in his chest. ‘Am I glad to see you! I thought I was the only one in this place. Can you give me a hand with the door? It seems to be stuck.’ The old guy stopped. He turned his head slowly in Tom’s direction - and Tom stared. The man’s mouth was hanging open, and his chin was slick with drool, which matted his beard. Even worse were his eyes. They were the stuff of nightmares. They were wide open, as if the lids had been stretched, and so bloodshot the whites were pink.

  Tom started to pull his earbuds out, but the awful supermarket music seemed even louder than before so he jammed them back in. ‘Hey, mister, I ...’ Tom gulped. The old guy was moving faster, building up a bit of steam as he pushed his trolley, but his gait was unnatural. He was walking strangely, all stiff-legged, almost rocking from side to side.

  Strange though his movements were, the old guy began to move faster and faster. Tom blinked as the trolley thundered towards him, clashing and snarling as it rattled along. ‘Hey! I mean, hold on a second!’

  The old guy didn’t stop. He rammed the trolley directly at Tom, never changing his vacant, drooling expressiOn.

  Tom yelped, hurling himself to one side and sliding across the slick new floor. The trolley crashed into the door and bounce
d back, leaving a crack in the glass that snaked from corner to corner. The old guy staggered a little, but he didn’t let go. ‘Hey!’ Tom said as he picked himself up, anger replacing his fear.

  ‘You could have killed me!’

  But the old guy didn’t seem to hear. He moaned a little, gave the trolley a few half-hearted shoves, then tried to back it away from the door, ignoring Tom completely.

  That was when Tom saw the others out of the corner of his eye. He turned and his stomach caved in. What had been an uncomfortable situation had just become a distinctly terrifying one.

  A squad of shopping trolleys was grinding towards him. Each one was pushed by an open-mouthed, drooling, pink-eyed zombie. Some were wearing staff uniforms, some looked like typical customers. Tom blinked when he saw the front of some of the trolleys were stained a dark red. It’s not blood, he told himself as he backed away. Not blood. Tomato sauce. Sweet and sour. Anything but blood.

  The old guy behind him was still trying to back his trolley out, still with the vacant expression on his face. Tom darted around him, took two long steps, and vaulted over the turnstile - only to find himself on the same side as the approaching zombies. They shuffled to face him, but he was already moving toward the closest vacant aisle, panic adding to his speed.

  He ran past the soup, while behind him a massive trolley snarl erupted as the zombies all tried to ram through the same checkout. Tom knew that wouldn’t hold them for long, and he frantically searched for a way out. As he ran he dragged cans and bottles off the shelves, hoping to slow his pursuers down. Oil, flour and sugar crashed to the floor, but he didn’t stop to see the results.

  Sliding around the end of the aisle, Tom lost his footing and slammed against the bread rack. Crumpets and multigrain bread rained around him, and at that moment one of his earbuds popped out. Immediately, the awful supermarket music poured in, rich and sweet and sickly. He staggered away, panting, putting a hand to his head. He tried to run, but his feet felt as if they weighed a few tonnes apiece. He slowed. He shook his head and tried to clear it. His eyes were sore and itchy, and his mouth started to droop.

  He shook his head again, wondered where the fog had come from and numbly decided it was inside his head rather than outside. Then, with a huge effort, he raised a hand and slapped himsel£ The pain was sharp and stinging, but it worked. His head cleared a little and, automatically, he jammed his dangling earbud back in his ear.

  He straightened. The fog disappeared. His eyes stopped itching. He could move again.

  The shopping trolleys were getting closer, but Tom knew what he had to do. He braced himself and pulled out an earbud. Immediately, worse than ever, the music flooded into his head, numbing his thoughts. He barely had enough will to slip his ear bud back in, but once it was in place he was normal agam.

  It was the music. Something in the music was turning people into zombies. He knew supermarkets tried to control their customers, but this was ridicu lous! Just to be on the safe side, he turned up the volume on his life-saving music player to make the most of a fifteen-minute guitar solo.

  A trolley rattled out of the end of an aisle. A man in a boiler suit - or what had once been a man in a boiler suit - was pushing it. When he saw Tom, he moaned loudly and others picked up the sound. It echoed from aisle to aisle, penetrating Tom’s earbuds. A hunting call.

  Tom backed away, turned, and sprinted.

  At the back of the store, he found a door. STAFF ONLY Without thinking, he raced through, slammed it, hit the lock and stood with his back to it. A few dirty mugs and a half-eaten pie sat on the grey table. No other doors. A blue couch beneath a small, locked window with no key. He leapt on the table and peered through the glass. The carpark.

  He glanced back at the door and saw it shake on its hinges from a massive blow on the other side. He swallowed and fear was a tight knot in his throat.

  He was trapped.

  The door shook again, but Tom hardly saw it. Instead, his gaze was locked on the rack on the wall next to the door - a rack of keys.

  He leaped off the table and bounded toward the door, which burst open as he grabbed the keys. He screeched when a mob of zombies stumbled through the doorway, tripped, and sprawled on the floor. Tom had to prance and hop to avoid their clawing hands, then he danced around the table while trying to sort through the tags on his handful of keys. He was torn between this task and keeping an eye on the zombies who had blocked the doorway in their clumsiness, tangling themselves up in their efforts to get to him.

  The zombie jam, and then he found the tag marked

  ‘Window’. He snatched a sugar bowl from the table, bounded for the couch and was grateful when the key worked smoothly. A split-second later he was outside. Gasping, he turned and flung the sugar bowl at the window. The glass shattered and the mad ringing of a burglar alarm cut through the night. ‘Perfect,’ he said, and he disappeared into the night.

  Tom had to drag the others back, even after he told them everything. ‘You have to come,’ he said. ‘You’ll kick yourself if you don’t.’

  As they drew closer, the blue and red flashing lights of police cars made the parking lot look like a theme park. Tom noticed a few ambulances. He wasn’t surprised.

  ‘What’s going on, officer?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Nothing much. Just a break in.’

  The officer went to move off, but Tom wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. ‘Can we see?’

  ‘No,’ the police officer said quickly. ‘There’s been a gas leak, too. It’s dangerous. In fact, they’re going to have to do some work on the whole building. It’s a real problem.’

  ‘No zombies, then?’ Kyle said, grinning.

  The police officer narrowed his eyes. He moved closer. ‘And who said anything about zombies?’ he said softly.

  Tom took a step backwards. Behind the police officer he could see a handful of paramedics talk ing seriously and pointing at the supermarket. Two workers were nailing a ‘Closed for Renovation’ sign across the entrance. Watching them were two men in suits, both carrying briefcases, standing next to a black van with ACME SUPERMARKET MUSIC CO written on the side. The cool, business-like attitude gave him the chills. Where were the screams? The panic? The shouts of ‘Look out! Zombies!’

  Something was wrong.

  Tom took Kyle’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about him, officer. He thinks he’s funny when he’s not.’

  The police officer studied them carefully. ‘I see.’ He reached out. Tom flinched, but all the police officer did was brush his shoulder. :A bit of broken glass. Could have been dangerous.’

  Tom nodded, but wondered if the police officer knew just how dangerous a time Tom had had.

  ‘Thanks.’ He turned to his friends. ‘We should be going. Come on, guys.’

  He herded them off. Tom looked over his shoulder to see the police officer had gone to the black van. He was talking with the briefcase men, and Tom felt cold when the police officer pointed directly at him.

  ‘Come on, guys,’ he said urgently. ‘We’d better go.’

  ‘What?’ said Kyle. ‘Don’t you want to stick around and see what happens?’ faced men in suits. ‘You’d better believe me when I say no.’

  Kyle and Amy were puzzled, but Tom wouldn’t argue. He led them away, making a long detour around a solitary shopping trolley abandoned in the gutter. A shopping trolley with a large red stain on the front wheels.

  Jarn is yanked from sleep by the sound of his phone.

  ‘Whoisit?’

  ‘It’s Hari. You awake?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Guess what?’

  ‘Can’t this wait till after the sun comes up?’

  ‘Leni rang. He’s gone fishing with some mates. Says he saw a UFO.’

  ‘Your brother’s full of it.’

  ‘Seri
ous. He said it fell into the trees out past the recycling centre. Reckons it’s either space junk or a meteorite. Either way he can sell it for heaps on eBay. He’ll cut us in if we go find it.’

  Fully awake now, Jarn sits up and rubs his eyes.

  ‘That’s a pretty big area to search. Even if there is something there, we’ll probably never find it.’

  ‘Leni knows where it went down. ‘Sides, got any thing better to do?’

  Jarn has to admit he doesn’t.

  ‘It’s just after six now,’ Hari goes on. ‘Meet me outside the recycling centre at eight.’

  ‘I’ll give Adam a call. He’ll -’

  ‘No way!’

  ‘Adam’s all right. You just need to get to know him,’Jarn says.

  ‘Forget it.’

  ‘If Adam can’t come you can search for the UFO by yourself.’

  ‘Aw man! Okay. But he’s not getting a cut of the money.’

  Jarn has been trying to get Adam and Hari to like each other since Adam moved to their school two months ago. But for some reason putting his two mates within sight of each other has them facing off like a pair of pit bulls.

  Jarn hangs up and rings Adam.

  The recycling centre is a five-kilometre ride from town. Despite the cool autumn morning, Jarn is lathered in sweat by the time he gets there. Adam and Hari are already waiting, trading insults and air punches.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Hari snaps asjarn’s bike rolls to a stop.

  ‘Get off his back,’ Adam growls.

  ‘Make me!’

  Adam takes a threatening step towards Hari.

  ‘Bring it ON!’ Hari bounces on his toes, fists up.

  ‘Stop it!’ Jarn yells. ‘Or I’m outta here!’

  Hari drops his fists. ‘Leave the bikes. We’ll walk from here.’ He shoulders his backpack and stalks towards the scrubland bordering the recycling centre. The land has been earmarked for a housing estate. For now, though, it’s home to nothing but insects, reptiles and a roo or two.