Unexpected Item in Bagging Area

It happened on the night shift, like everything does.

The music on the speaker system was jumping more than usual. It was because of the blizzard: I knew that. The intermittent tunes combined with the rattling of the glass entrance still had me checking over my shoulder. I anticipated a ghoul around the corner of every aisle, for a monstrous tendril to reach out the freezer and grab my leg.

I was the last one left. I imagined my colleagues were home eating warm food, watching a movie, curled up with a loved one. Not me though. Well, not Barney either. He would have been getting high in his apartment like every other night.

No one liked the night shift. It carried with it a lonely vulnerability. Gareth should have been on duty that evening. He’d agreed to it at least a week prior, then it got to the afternoon and he’s all,

"Oh man I totally forgot! But see, now I have this [insert unbelievable excuse here]."

I couldn’t tell you this week’s excuse because I didn’t listen. I just waited for the,

"Hey Lucas, be a pal won’t you?"

Because then I had him. A deal was struck. I’d take his night shift if he would cover my holiday. As we shook on it, I knew he wouldn’t remember when the time came. But we cleared it with the manager so that wouldn’t be my problem.

The store lights were clinically bright. They insisted it couldn’t be night, that there was no time for rest. I chugged along placing can after can in my unnaturally nocturnal state. I could draw you a can of beans from memory, nutritional values and all.

When the shelves were all stocked, and a can of beans had been slipped cheekily into my backpack, it was finally time to go back to the apartment. To battle the dog for the best side of the sofa. To watch the news while he would try to nick my beans on toast. I switched off the lights and silenced the music.

Swirls of air and slurry ripped over the already fallen crystals. An airy sea of wonder and power. The usually dull car park had become a magical snowy wasteland. My car the only mount of white in the whole place. Shopping karts had been strewn chaotically by the wind, uncaring of my eagerness to get home.

But against the shrieking of the wind was something else. A sound that I became reluctantly aware of from inside the store. A faint cry in the dark. I stood in the doorway, artificial light behind me, cool free air in front. That beans on toast had never felt more inviting. I tried to believe it was the wind, or rats, or squeaky pipes. Gosh, anything I could have just left for the managers in the morning would have been great.

The doors had been locked all evening, there was no way anyone was in there. No, this was just a trick played by my own fears. Nothing to humour. But the wails increased in their volume and urgency. The cries of an infant. Scared, angry. Calling out to the emptiness and receiving no return.

Not the pipes then. Shit.

I patted along the wall feeling for the light switch. Imaginary monsters gallivanted in the dark, ready to drag me to some murky depth where I would never be seen again. They became more vivid with every pat on the wall which didn’t find the switch. I turned on the light and the store was as I had left it. But the cries continued – deep and desperate. I wanted to cry too.

Peering over the last checkout, I saw her for the first time. Nestled in a wicker basket between the checkout conveyor and the crowd of shopping karts in the corner. Kicking about in her yellow dress and shouting as loud as she could.

"Shh, shh, it’s okay," I spoke just about as calmly as she cried. "Please be quiet, it’ll be okay, please…" She just got louder the more I spoke.

What the fuck is the protocol for finding a baby on the shop floor?

I crouched and tried to work out the best way to lift her. I figured that’s what people do with crying babies: pick them up, cradle them. That sort of thing. But baby’s heads are so floppy and fragile. I couldn’t fathom a safe way to hold her.

It was best to leave her be. She seemed just fine snuggled on the sheets in her basket anyway.

She had tired herself out by the time I thought to call 911. While I waited to get through to the operator, I watched her. She stared so intently all around, trying to make sense of everything, especially of me.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"Oh, yeah, hi, I’m at sixth avenue department store and…"

"I’m sorry, could you repeat that? Your line is cracking up,"

"Uh, I’m at sixth avenue…" There was an abrupt tone and the line was dead. At the time, I thought it must have been because of the storm.

I think, given the chance, I was going to run her through my plan. She wouldn’t have understood but I needed that sense of assurance. To say it out loud and know that, yeah, that’s the thing to do.

But when I looked down, the baby was gone. Only a crumpled sheet was left.

It’s not like I was an expert on baby development, but she didn’t look nearly old enough to crawl. I checked the corner. I looked under the checkout. She was nowhere around, and that bright yellow dress would have made her tricky to miss.

I went to the switch board and locked the door. The blizzard wouldn’t be kind to anyone who wandered unknowingly into it, let alone something so helpless as her. From there the task was not so easy. It was a big store. There were jungles of furniture and caverns of clothing to entice the young explorer.

I spent more time than I’d have liked walking low and making the sort of cooing noises that get my dog’s tail wagging. This undignified display lasted maybe five minutes. Then I heard a soft voice. Her words rolled out of her as a happy stream of consciousness. I slowed as I got to the toy aisle and peaked around the corner.

A little girl was sat on the shop floor surrounded by scattered toys. She must have been about three years old. Her yellow dress matched that of the baby, and I theorised they could be siblings. She held toy animals in little fists. A goat in one and a t-rex in the other. The toys bounced happily up and down while they had a little conversation practically incomprehensible to me.

"Hi there, are you lost?" Her animals froze in mid-air. She looked at me slowly, scowling, and tilted her head. "Are your parents around? Your baby sister, maybe?" I crouched down several steps away.

She stared so intensely that I could feel the pierce of it. Frowning, processing. She turned her head away and continued the goat to dinosaur chatter. Her babbling slower than before. She watched me from the corner of her eye.

The goat had enough of talking to the dinosaur and both plastic friends were placed on the ground. I rose to my feet as she did, matching her slow pace. The moment made of glass. Any sudden move and crash.

Something about me seemed to resonate with her as she met my face with her gaze. Her eyes lit up. And then she laughed. She pointed at me and she laughed. It’s a great feeling, being laughed at, it took me right back to my teenage years. Melvin and Trent in the cafeteria, gravy covering my jumper.

Watching her walk through the store was like watching a tourist in your hometown. She marvelled at the most unextraordinary things, frequently glancing over her shoulder to check I was following. I let myself trail a little behind her. When she spun the corner to the home section, she left my sight. I kept the same pace, even slowed at the corner in case she had stopped to study a toilet brush or a lampshade.

I turned the corner and found her looking in a mirror. She had her mouth open, completely frozen in the moment. I stood beside her. Her focus did not break on the girl in the mirror. Instead, she traced the outline of her face with a finger.

But then I noticed something – off. Just a detail in the corner of my eye that didn’t quite gel with what was right and good. It played with my mind before I really knew it was there. I looked up to the mirror in front of me.

My beard was completely gone.

And that wasn’t all. My face was thinner, and my acne had returned for the first time in years. I was both myself and not. If you gave me a fringe and tie dye shirt, I’d have been the exact image of myself in high school.

"What the fuck," I said in an unbroken voice.

The kid had vanished during my panic. And I do mean vanished because I swear, I could see that yellow dress right until I looked down. Just a vague image in the rim of my sight. But there, nonetheless.

The night shift was one to play tricks on the mind, sure. But I had watched myself, what, de-age? Met infants who could seemingly walk through a glass door and disappear in a matter of a minute. This was way out of what Mr. Robinson was paying me for.

I ran through the aisles and past the tills, my feet slipping and squeaking. The air rushed past my now too naked face. I wasn’t too stupid to know I was too far into the deep end. Child or no child, it was time to get help.

I was a tall guy; not accustomed to standing on chairs or tipping my toes. But the switch board which usually came up to my chest was now above my head. I reached my fingers out but they were smaller than they should have been. Even stretching my arm up until my muscles screamed didn’t allow me to unlock the door.

It felt like drowning, I fought to reach the switch, so close to safety, pulled down by myself. Desperately grasping and finding no release.

"Where are you going, Lucas?" Her voice was calm, controlled. She had those same blue eyes and that damn yellow dress. But this girl was an older child. Perhaps a young teen.

It was curious, she and I were the same height. The same age, somehow.

"Who are you?" my voice shook, and she giggled.

"You’ll have to wait for your surprise!" She beamed, "let’s play, Lucas."

I pushed her away and ran. My head spun but I just kept going. No goal, just pure instinct. I threaded up and down the aisles, maybe I thought I could throw her off or that somewhere in that store I would find the solution to ending this nightmare. In the quiet corner where we kept the potted plants, I tucked myself away. Concealed in the leaves.

The outermost lights clicked off leaving the centre of the store glowing, trying to entice me in. Music flowed again from the speakers. The tunes were not intermittent now. I knew it was her doing, she was fiddling with the switches. If she could now reach them, then that meant – I looked at my body. It was smaller again. That of a helpless child.

My phone once fit in one hand, but now I held it in two. I fumbled over it and stretched my thumb to reach the buttons. A cross icon still replaced signal bars. All I could do was sit cross legged in the dark and stare at my lock screen. At the notification that my phone couldn’t recognise my face so could I please enter the pass-code. At the photo of my dog with a mischievous expression after he had stolen my cake and had frosting all over his chops.

I tried to conceal my sobbing, but the sniffs and sharp breaths pirouetted around me. They echoed off the smooth walls. I watched my childish face screw up and tears roll in the phone screen.

When she came around the corner, I watched her through the leaves. It was the yellow dress I saw first. It twirled around her legs as she danced to the eighty’s song booming around the building. Her outfit had, shall we say, updated. She had seemingly raided the clothing department and now wore a sandy sunhat and had a grey scarf tied around her waist. Many of her clothing choices were unusual. Like she had never dressed herself before but knew it was something people did.

"Lucas, where are you?" She dragged the last word out, playing with the tones.

I muffled my breath with both hands, they smelled of metal and sweat. I pushed harder and harder on my face as if it would make me disappear, send me back to my safe apartment with my dog and my couch and my comfort food. She was slowly getting closer. The doors were locked. My little legs trembled, and I had to hold them still with my elbows.

As she danced up towards my corner, she knocked flowerpots off the shelf with gentle taps. Leaving a trail of debris. She shattered the last pot in the row about halfway up the aisle, and she stopped in her place. A thick sludge of horror filled my stomach and my arms and behind my eyes.

Then she turned, suddenly, so she was looking me right in the eye. The sight of it punched me in the stomach. She grinned, holding a lollipop stick between her molars.

"There you are!" she said in a syrupy voice.

The crashes and cracks of tumbling pots saw me off as I bolted from my corner. I flashed past her, just a yellow blur in my side view. Only straight ahead was important as I tore through the store. Shorter legs meant a slower me. It was like moving on a leash, like the end of the store was running away from me.

The customer service counter was doused in light. I stopped fast as I caught sight of it, stumbled forward a little.

Running the desk was my first job at the store. Back when I still lived with my parents and my dog was just a puppy. I dealt with customer complaints (often being blamed for faulty products myself), made announcements over the speakers (usually calling for help because Gareth had jammed another till).

And I answered the phone.

I approached the desk like a young lion going for its first kill. Hastily but cautious. Steady but terrified. There was no sight of any rapidly ageing girls and it seemed she hadn’t given chase at all. I figured more fun for her that way. A game of hide and seek.

I wanted to kill her. I wanted to pull the life out of her and take it back for myself. I wish I had done it while I was still a ‘big boy’. Now I would struggle to even stab her in the knee. But the phone could be my one step ahead, my maths error in her calm calculations. If I could still talk then I could still rat her out. Cut her off.

Walking was becoming less intuitive with every step. When I could finally see the phone, I was just a nipper. I could nowhere near reach it. I threw my arms over the desk chair and pulled, heaved myself onto it. The wheels scraped as I pulled on the desk and lined myself up with the phone.  

"911, what’s your emergency?" I wanted to tell them that there was a burglar, that they had guns, something they would come out for. Rather than thinking some kid had got hold of the phone and was spouting nonsense about monster ladies stealing souls. And it was nonsense, but it was real.

My words and syllables tripped over themselves so that they were not words at all. Just sounds. I knew what I wanted to say but trying to say it only resulted in babbling. I knew sentiment, not words. I couldn’t remember how to talk.

A soft hand slid the phone from my weak grasp. She bought it to her own face, now the face of an adult. "Sorry, my little one got hold of the phone." Her laugh chilled me as she cut the call. As all hope slipped away. 

I saw only yellow as she pulled me close and cradled me. The world was so different now, big and busy. It was hard to focus. More than anything I wanted to leap from her arms and drive home. To use my legs, my voice, even my mind, properly. But all I could do was flail my limbs and cry till I was red in the face.

She placed me carefully down in the basket. My screams filled it up until I could suffocate in them. Her eyes held all the adoration of a mother, proud of what she had created.

"Shh, shh, it’s okay." I tried hard to stand, but my head was so floppy, I couldn’t manoeuvre it.

Before she disappeared into the storm, she took one last look back. And she smiled. Her dress dancing in the gale.

Days go by, and I remember less and less what it was like to be grown up. I fear that by the time I can talk, I won’t remember a thing. An unwanted new start. Lucas as good as dead.