NYC - Natives, Yellow, Cookies

I dined with Joline that night. I'd knocked at her door, showed her the beans and proposed she come eat with me. She did. Both of us knew that there'd be more than just dinner. We were adults, come on. 

I decided it was most honest to tell Joline about my plans to leave NCY. I wasn't going to force her to come, I wasn't even going to invite her. I just wanted to know her opinion. To ask her if she though it possible to survive. I guess I was just lonely and looking for excuses strike a fucking conversation because what did I expect from a fucking whore? 

"Joline. I think I'm going to leave NYC." I said as I pulled my shirt back over my head. 

"Alright."

"I don't think it makes sense to stay here. I'm thinking about leaving in a few days. Maybe a week." 

"Okay."

"Alright then." 

"Yeah." She smiled and got up, drawing her robe more closely around her naked torso. "Good night, Mack."

"Good night Joline." I gave her a kiss on the cheek but didn't show her to the door. She knew my apartement in and out, and our relationship was fully sexual. No strings attached. 

I slept well that night. I didn't remember my dreams. I almost never did. What the fuck could I dream in a world like this?

I left in the early morning. I had a long day of looting to do in front of me. I started a few miles south where I was pretty sure one of the supermarkets hadn't been raided yet. I had passed by the place several times. The shelves had still been stocked half-full the last time I'd passed by. I'd never entered it because I'd always had a bad feeling about it. Why the fuck was all the food still there?  But my plan to leave NYC fueled me with courage and adrenaline. I finally had something to do, something to work up to. I didn't have to play it safe just to survive another fucking tuesday in that fucked up city. 

I stood in front of the big glass doors. My fist closed around the handle of the crowbar. My gut told me to turn around, that something was not just off about this, but very wrong. And very dangerous. There could be Narts in there. Maybe a whole nest of them. There could be another person in there, someone who'd be angry if someone tried to steal his or her provisions. 

Fuck it. 

I raised the tool and brought it down on the glass. It cracked. I smashed it again and again, creating a spider-web of cracks in the glossy door. Soon enough the whole panel shattered. I jumped backwards and held my hands in front of my face to keep any stray pieces of glass from cutting me up. Aside from the loud noice which would definitely attract someone  I'd done alright. I'd created a big enough hole to walk through without hitting my head. 

I picked up the crowbar and entered the store. 

It seemed alright. I headed straight for the canned food which was near the front. My plan was to grab some cans, drop my backpack outside a little ways away before exploring the rest of the store; just in case I needed to make a run for it. I couldn't afford to lose my backpack. Or my life. 

Getting the cans worked. I stored my backpack in an empty garbage can about two streets down. Then I returned to the haunted house.

I silently slipped in. Nothing had changed since I'd left. I knew it was probably just my fear telling me that something was terribly wrong but it couldn't have been just that, or all the food would have long been taken. 

I hopped onto one of the checkout counters and stood up to get a view over the whole market. I didn't see anything strange. There were no weird marks and no blood on the wall or on any of the patches of the floor that I could see. There was no way the place could have been infested with Narts. Narts make a mess out of a man. I'd never seen a Nart kill anyone in person, but I'd heard a fight on the street one night and when I'd gone walking the next morning the body was mangled. There'd only been half of it left. 

So if it wasn't the fucking Narts, what was it?

I hopped back off the counter. My gut told me to stop being a man and run out of there ASAP but I had started to feel like a main character from a godzilla movie. So I continued. 

I crept past the shelves, always checking no one was in the next row before turning a corner. I so badly wanted to pocket some more cans but managed to control myself. Discipline is the first thing you learn in accouting. 

A label caught my eye. Carrie's Cookies. I hadn't realized that I was in the Sweets, Candy and chocolate section. Carrie's Cookies were  my favourite store-bought chocolate chip chookies. I hadn't had them in years.

And then something caught my eye. I squinted to look past the bars of chocolates and bags of gummy bears. Something yellow was staring back at me. 

My heart skipped a beat. What the fuck was it? Whatever it was blinked. To my horror I realized it was an eye. A cloudy yellowish eye. And it didn't have a pupil. The eye was human-sized and had a very human form; an almond. The owner must have had asian roots. I took a very quiet step back and tip-toed back down the row, towards the front of the store; towards the exit. After a few yards I peered through the next batch of goodies. There it was again, the yellow eye. But this time it was further away. I could also one side of an upturned lip. Whoever it was, was grinning like a cheshire cat. It blinked again. 

I knew I had no chance against it, whatever it was. So I bolted. I'd gotten pretty fast from chasing goats and chickens at my uncle's farm in Ney York State. I heard the shuffling sound of shoes behind me but I didn't turn around. I raced for the glass doors, sailed through the door and sprinted out onto the street where I ran and ran and just kept running. 

Eventually I got so worn out my running turned to jogging. I dared a glance over my shoulder. The street was empty. My jog evolved into a walk. Then I stopped. I needed to go back to get my bag. That wasn't much of a problem, if whoever it was was prowling around the front of the Supermarket, they wouldn't see me anyway. I knew back alleys I could take to get my backpack and get the fuck out of there. The odds were on my side.

But one thing stopped me from going back immeditaly. When I'd jumped through the broken-down front door I'd see the reflection of the store in the glass that was still intact on either side of the hole I'd made. 

And there hadn't been just one man shuffling behind me in the reflection. There'd been a whole group.