The Supermarket

 

Chapter 2

The Supermarket

 

Once in the store he eyed his surroundings. The store is as it would be in any other normal day. The store is lit up with long rows of florescent lights as if the designer of the structure was afraid of vampires or something. The aisles are like any other supermarket, long rows stock full of all kinds of food products. The floors, an antiseptic white that would make any hospital proud and the walls lined with windows.

 

Moving his way from aisle to aisle he still sees nobody else around. The store itself appeared to be open for business so he knows there should be someone around, whether alive or not. Optimism is getting harder and harder.

 

Grabbing a cart he heads down the canned goods aisle where he spots the first item on his list. Canned tuna. A sure bet when it comes to surviving world war 3 with the undead.

 

He grabs an arm full of cans and threw them into the paper sacks he lined into the bottom of the cart to facilitate a faster getaway in case one of those puss-heads makes it in here.

 

Ten minutes later, and no trouble in sight, he has everything on his list and in good time too because a low groan starts up a few aisles down. More of a sexual moan in nature if you had to put a name to it, but finding good adjectives at this point is moot since the creator of the noise seems to be closer than he would like. 

 

He leaves the cart pointed towards the front of the store and moves toward the end of the aisle to peek around the corner and the expected ghoulie. 

 

Peeking around the corner he sees a clear way to the darker hallway that allows passage to the back stock rooms and the bathrooms should a market shopper require the need to go pee. Fortunately the desire isn’t hitting him at that moment.

 

He moves further into the open and around the corner to the next aisle and again the coast is clear. Just seemingly endless stock of box goods turned out to be there.

 

The next aisle proves to be more treacherous however. He spots the aforementioned ghoulie on all fours seemingly devouring something that he can’t quite see. No matter, the thing is there and it was time to move out smartly. The things clothes were spotted with patches of blood and dirt. I guess the undead have no hygienic desire to stay clean. Its hair was matted and stringy and long. What skin could be seen was a mottled grey color much like what you would expect a dead person to look like, minus the blood. 

 

Snapping back from his critique of the creature, he steps back around the corner and to his dismay knocks a can off the shelf and winces at the seemingly shotgun blast sound that it makes as it strikes the ground. He glances back at the thing on the floor and he comes eye to eye with it and he sees now that it is a woman. Was a woman would be more to the point but who cares. He could tell that the hair is blond, well used to be blond and is now more of a reddish mauve color probably because of the dried blood encrusted within the strands. Then he recognizes the disfigured face and realizes it’s the hottie that doubles as the stock girl and the check out cashier, that he flirts with, shamelessly one might add, when he is here on a normal day.

 

She bares her teeth and gets back to her feet and moves toward him in that trademark zombie walk you see in the movies. Not so much a Lon Chaney Mummy but more of a Boris Carlof Frankenstein…on acid.

 

Seeing her move and hearing the now louder guttural shrill coming from her got his heart beating faster, as if that was even possible, and he moved out smartly past the rows of meat that lined the back wall of the store. The meat gave him an idea and he grabbed a pack of prime choice ten pound ground beef and rips the package open and threw it over his shoulder at her.

 

Once back at the cart he chances a glance back at where he threw the meat and he found hottie stock-girl back on her hands and knees clawing at the meat. He held back a laugh and continued his way back to the front of the store.

 

Back at the front he spots his car and thankfully no more ghoulies are scrambling to get in the store, but he does see them meandering around in the parking lot. Damn.

 

He thumbs the bottom on the keyless entry controller and the doors click indicating that they are unlocked. He swings the passenger side door open and throws the bags in the back. Once all the bags are in the car he turns and pushes the cart away back towards the checkout counters. Coming down the aisle was the not-so-hot anymore ghoulie. Guessing she was done with her appetizer of raw meat and looking for something more filling he jumped over the center consul and behind the wheel. Gunning the engine hard he spins his way out of the parking lot just as the first of the parking lot smoozers noticed he was there.

 

Once out of the parking lot and back onto the highway he realized that he was holding his breath and with a long sigh, released it.

 

 

Author's Note

This is not a complete chapter. I will be including more detail but I wanted to get it in here in order to get some critiques.

Reviews

[cavscoutgh]

Yes, sorry, I worked on this years ago and then it kind of fell off my radar. The plan is to pick it back up later but time will tell.

[Leumas Relwood]

Not as much on this one as the first chapter: It depends on what type of story you are shooting for, but I don't care for a lot of modern-day-slang type stuff (stuff that you would say when talking to some buddies around a lunch table) in a piece of writing. I like to see more professional and thoughtful words and phrases. However, if you are trying to get the "check out what happened to this guy the other day with zombies!!!" effect, you are doing pretty good with it.