Oriana

The snow melted off of my parka as I walked deliberately into the Market Basket, anxious from the tinny voices on my car’s radio telling me about the impending storm. Procrastination seemed to be a dragon which I could not slay. News of the “once in a lifetime superstorm” had been capturing headlines for a week, and yet my run for supplies coincided with the first heavy flakes of snow from an ominous steely sky, as the clouds churned rapidly, choking out the sun. I quickly grabbed the nearest cart to me and noticed that there was no dearth of them lined up neatly in rows at the entrance. Pausing for a minute and letting cold water drip from my curly black hair onto my face, I realized I couldn’t see anyone else in the store. 

I turned around a few times, rubbing my eyes and trying to spot someone. There were no sour cashiers drumming their registers, nor were there any managers casting sharp looks to customers and employees alike. There wasn’t even another shopper as late as I, which brought my thoughts back to my infallible procrastination. I walked by the registers, noting that the self checkout lanes were open and apparently functional. I glanced outside, watching the snowfall steadily increase by the minute. I noticed now that there was only one other car in the parking lot, on the opposite end and covered with a thin layer of snow. 

“Jesus,” I said nervously as I bit my lip, walking a little faster. One wheel on the shopping cart kept squeaking and turning around wantonly. “Okay, what do I need?”

I had compiled a short list of supplies in the most rushed form of my script, which now looked like a doctor’s prescription pad, but thankfully I was able to read most of it. I swiftly picked up eggs, milk, yoghurt, and several boxes of frozen food, in case the storm took a turn for the worse. My pace was increasing exponentially with every item I picked up, until, by the time I reached the paper products aisle, I was almost in a dead sprint, my cart yelping with what sounded like anger the faster I walked. 

After I stocked up on some paper products, I stared at my list. There was just one more item on it, and it was circled, which in my vernacular meant that it was quite important. Unfortunately, it was the one thing on the list I couldn’t read. I thought the first letter was definitely a “B”, until I noticed a little dip in the middle of its loop. Was it a D? My heart raced faster with each failed iteration on the letter, until I resolved to walk around the store a little, though I hadn’t the time, hoping that the item would come to me. I tried not to look out of the windows, where snow now fell steadily.

On I walked, my cart squeaking and creaking as I turned the corners. I noticed there was a dead silence in the store, save for my ill mannered cart. Normally they would have music playing in here, but given that it was just me and probably a manager taking a bathroom break, I supposed they had neglected it. I stopped by the vegetables, trying to think of one which started with a letter I had iterated on. No name came to me, so I continued walking.

I stopped suddenly at the frozen vegetables. Perhaps the letter was a hastily written F. I stared at the piles of beans, peas, and corn before me for some time, until the hairs on the back of my neck stood up in some subconscious response to an irksome sound. The second time it happened, I passed it off as my cart grating on my eardrums again. I squatted down to take a look at the frozen spinach when it occurred to me that my cart wasn’t moving; it was as still as a basking crocodile. 

I froze in sudden panic, which raced up my spine and into my heart, kicking the organ into overdrive. I listened carefully, and heard it again. It was the sound of a shopping cart with a faulty wheel, I was sure of it! The sound was so akin to my own cart that I had to check that mine was still next to me. I tried to get to my feet, but something screamed in my head to stay down - such a strong reptilian sense of fear that I had no choice but to obey it, though I knew in my rational mind that it was absurd. That was merely another shopper, with a procrastinating nature similar to mine. 

At last I got up and looked around, seeing no one but hearing the cart squeak in the distance. I decided then to abandon the last item on the list and leave the store. The snow seemed to be getting heavier by the minute. However, as I got to the end of the frozen aisle closest to the registers and turned right towards them, I saw a shadow move swiftly behind the aisle at the opposite end of the store, the whine of the other cart clearer than ever. 

Impulsively, I decided to follow that person. Maybe it was simple curiosity, or the search for a like minded individual. Or perhaps it was a more potent allure. The next thing I knew, I was racing around the store, trying to find this person, but all I ever saw of them was the flick of a coattail and a black shoe as they turned a corner. 

“Hello!” I called, “I can see you! Please, I just-” My sentence was drowned by my gasp. I saw them. Or rather, I saw one leg, sticking out of the aisle a little as the person stopped to browse an item at the end of it, but even still all I could see was a trenchcoat and a black leather shoe.

I took one step towards them, relieved the chase had ended, when I felt an abrupt fear, my throat tightening and my fingers constricting the handle on the cart as my knuckles paled. I realized that this person could see me. Even though they were behind a solid metal aisle stacked with items, I felt their gaze seize mine, rooting me to the spot. It was more than the odd creeping sensation one gets when they think they’re being watched. I felt from these eyes a fire which burned my soul, which saw every detail of my body in startling clarity which I myself had not previously been privy to, and above all, I felt in their eyes the pain of an eternity of death and anguish. I tried to move, but the world darkened around me, and I was thrust into a series of quick visions, though whether they were my own hallucinations or a torturous device of theirs I couldn’t tell. I saw a bitter wasteland, with snow covering the softened shape of ruined houses, some with frostbitten corpses on the porch, but before long, the coattail and the boot once again swished out of sight, though this time the cart did not squeak in accordance with renewed movement, and I was thrust into reality. 

I felt the sweat bead off of my face as my lip trembled. I couldn’t explain what had just happened to me. Rationally, I thought it was the anxiety of the last minute trip to the supermarket finally cleaving my psyche in two. The person wasn’t real. He, or she, was just a manifestation of my fear of being swept up in the storm as a result of my own inane planning. I finally turned to leave the store when I saw out of the corner of my eye a mark on the ground where I had seen the person. I tried to focus on it, but as soon as I realized that it was a footprint, a high pitched wail pierced my eardrums. It sounded so familiar that even before I had registered what it was, I was running towards it at full tilt, abandoning my cart where it stood.

Another screech, this time louder, which signalled to me that I was close. I turned the corner into the extra wide paper aisle and saw something small right in the middle, wrapped in pink blankets. A baby! I walked timidly towards it, wondering if I was dreaming.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, staring at the child, who was red in the face from screaming incessantly while I had approached it. I gingerly picked it up, afraid at every heartbeat that I would drop it. As soon as my hands touched the fabric of the blankets, the child stopped howling and looked at me with large brown eyes. I quickly checked under the blankets and saw that it was indeed a girl, as she was not wearing a diaper. As I unravelled the blankets a paper fell out, no larger than a business card. I quickly picked it up, hoping that it was a parent’s contact info. To my surprise, it was a scrawled note in a language I could not read, as it was full of straight lines and what looked like glyphs, all written minutely onto the small surface. I set her down on an extra large paper plate and turned the blankets inside out while she looked at me curiously. There were no other notes within them.

“You don’t have a name?” I asked her with a sigh. I clumsily wrapped the blankets around her once more and felt my pockets for my phone. It wasn’t there.

“What the-” I patted my coat, pants, my sweatshirt… everything. There was nothing there. I was sure that I had my phone with me when I left my apartment. I then remembered a dull thump while I was driving, which I had attributed to a pothole, but which must have been my phone falling into the crack between the seat and door of my car. I should have known by the lighter sound, and the lack of a jerk from my vehicle, that it was the phone that had fallen, but I was in such a rush to get to the store and back that my higher rational thought was wasted. I picked up the child and held her head against my shoulder as I ran to the front of the store. 

At first I thought the white outside was a reflection of the store’s harsh lights, but as I approached the windows I realized that it was the snow falling in great sheets, the sky now almost completely dark. I checked my watch. It was only 12:31pm. I debated running out quickly to my car and grabbing my phone… I could see the vehicle’s shadow just barely through the precipitation, but then the child made a slight noise in my arms, and I knew that I couldn’t leave it here in the store alone. What if I wasn’t able to get back in? Even if I had my phone and called the police or the fire department, it’d take them a long time to get to the store… 

“What do I do, huh?” I muttered to myself, holding the baby at arms length. She had a little tuft of black hair on her head, the strands sticking together in what looked to be a crude approximation of curls, though it certainly fitted her. She smiled as though she knew I was admiring her. I couldn’t help it - she looked so innocent, with her body cocooned in the blankets. She looked at me with pure joy and unconditional trust, such that only a baby can display. “What am I gonna do?” I repeated softly. Perhaps I could take her and run to my car… but what then? We wouldn’t be able to anywhere, seeing as the lot wasn’t cleared and the snowfall had already accumulated to over a foot. We wouldn’t be able to sit in the car for very long without getting carbon monoxide poisoning, and I shuddered to think of having an ultimatum like a dying battery dictating the length of my, and the child’s, life. No, we needed to stay right where we were. At least it was warm here. Now, if the power went out, then the car may be the last haven. 

I stalked back to the paper aisle and realized she needed a diaper. She was dry as of the moment, but she wasn’t going to stay that way forever. After I had done her up to the best of my ability, I walked around the store with her, gathering some supplies. I found several flashlights, a little camper’s stove with some fuel, and of course a lot of food. If I were more pragmatic, I would have picked the food sure to spoil sooner first, but I walked back to my miniature camp with some cans of tomato sauce, pasta, and baby formula for her, which I would heat up in a pot I ripped from the shelves. She drank it up like she had never eaten in her life, and then stared at me with her doe-like eyes. 

“When’s this snow gonna stop?” I mused as I looked at her. Suddenly a thought popped into my head, Not for years. I chuckled. “So, you really don’t have a name, do you? Well… what should I call you… I know! Oriana!” I didn’t know where the word came from, or if it was real, but I knew somehow that Oriana was her name. Her eyes brightened like she accepted it. 

After my lunch I decided to regularly check on the snow, and each time the sky was darker and the snow heavier, until at last it drowned out the streetlights outside as well, and I could no longer even see the faintest outline of my car. 

“They weren’t joking on the news…” I hiked Oriana up on my shoulder, where she sat quite still. I had never given much thought to having children, but I always assumed they fidgeted and squirmed a lot, not to mention the copious amounts of high pitched noise they issued. But since Oriana’s initial bout of crying, she hadn’t so much as sobbed, and aside from a few small jabs with her little fists, she hadn’t moved either. I grew concerned at this abnormal behavior at first, but she ate plenty when I fed her and smiled at me ethereally, so I dismissed it.

The time slipped on, and I began to feel drowsy. I checked for a phone in the store, but found only an intercom. I realized I was going to need to spend the night. There were no sleeping bags in this store, nor any blankets. For a pillow I pulled the softest bread I could find from the bakery, and decided that a bed of some bags of rice would have to do. I was worried that Oriana would bewail the meager arrangements, but she seemed overjoyed, and as soon as her head hit the elongated loaf, her eyes closed. 

“What a weird kid,” I whispered so as to not wake here. I wasn’t able to access any of the lights, so the place was as bright as ever. I tried closing my eyes, and found that sleep came quite easily to me, especially with the soft, steady breathing of my new companion. 

When my eyes opened, I found her staring patiently into them. I checked my watch. It was 5:30am. I was never an early riser, but the bright white lights and painful bedding made me appreciate getting up. After a few stretches I gathered Oriana up in her blankets and went over to the window. It was now pitch black outside, but if I looked right out of the doors I could see at least five feet of snow already piled up. I shivered reflexively and yawned. After a cup of warm coffee for me and formula for Oriana, I took a walk around the place, partially to search for more supplies, but mostly to stretch my legs.

While I roamed, there was a shadow lurking in the abscesses of my conscience. The man, or rather the thing, that I had seen just before I met Oriana. Was the other car in the lot that I had spotted his? Was he still in the store, lurking beneath a display? I found that hard to believe, as if he had wished me ill he could have killed me in my sleep, but the thought of him quickened my heartbeat. Oriana tapped my chest uncharacteristically.

I held her at arm’s length and asked, “When is this storm gonna end?” Again, I thought, Not for years, but dangerously certain this time. There was a perceptive quality in her eyes which I hadn’t noticed before. A few things clicked. “You’re a special kid, aren’t you?” She nodded slightly. I blinked a few times, realizing my situation. There was no car or home left for me, nor for much of mankind. She had appeared before me, and I was charged with her protection. Oriana was important in some way which eluded my narrow perception of the universe, though I did feel that our fates had become intertwined purposefully. I knew that I loved her like the daughter I didn’t have, and that we would survive here as long as was necessary. I blinked and I saw the cold, hellish vision again and realized the storm couldn’t just be the work of atmospheric forces. In another time, they might have called this the wrath of God, and I wondered then, as I looked into her eyes, if Oriana was truly angelic. My jaw set. Let that wretched creature slink once more out of the shadows. Her life was all that mattered to me now.