Stories Told in Empty Store Aisles

The crunch of gravel under Sarah’s boots was the only sound for miles. No cars on the road she threaded on, no talk, no laugh, no wind. Only cold. Shivering, frost-biting cold that was never normal in Arizona, her only relief was the lack of snow and the coat wrapping her body. Still, she walked, walked, walked down the long stretch of avenue, her steps echoing in the vacuum, wishing for the normal Arizona days with beaches and lakes, the scurrying reptiles she adored so much, the bustle of people, the warmth not from the campfire she sets up every night, but from the beautiful, blinding sun in an endless blue sky. She wished for anything but the desolate land of nothing only she inhabits. She hadn’t seen another soul in months, not counting the occasional body or two on her long walk. She hadn’t heard another soul in weeks, not counting the times when her beat-up radio picks up on the emergency broadcast every once in a while, but even the voices that play on repeat fade to static. She missed people. She missed not being alone, she really did. She missed life before the Syndrome, with friends and school and a home. Before her mother left her in Sonora to burn because she wouldn’t be able to handle her daughter getting her sick. Sarah didn’t miss her. She hoped she got sick on her own. Even if she didn’t, her mom wouldn’t contact Sarah, and Sarah wouldn’t respond if she did. For all she knew, Sarah was long dead, pecked to oblivion by vultures. Yet here she was, surviving, walking down a stretch to what she hopes will be some kind of relief, while others haven’t, like the man sprawled out on the side of the road, a pile of guts by his side but his exterior only lacking pigment, or the teenage girl, who couldn’t be older than Sarah, with her neck uncomfortable locked by a rope on a tree. She walked by, a silent prayer going out to them. A prayer to anyone who died in the visible plaza on the horizon, her new set destination. A prayer to the rotting, dark-haired husband and wife with locked hands who were shot at the back of a foodless signless supermarket. In the wife’s free hand is a torn family picture; the wife by the husband and a kid on the husband's shoulders. It’s ripped at the top, the missing half concealing the child’s face. A prayer for the faceless child. A prayer for someone to console her while she wept by the duo. A prayer for relief.

Why do I bother looking anymore? Sarah thought while dragging herself up and down the cleared aisle of another signless store. Empty cans and their corresponding foods litter the off-white tile. She was ashamed of how tempted she was to bend down and feast. Her stomach begged for sustenance and like a servant she obliged, searching high and low for a can of anything. Opening and slamming freezers in disappointment, reaching as far back into shelves as her short arms would let her. Even the back rooms were devoid of food. In the last aisle, between the back wall and an arts and craft aisle surprisingly, she finds a single can of corn, a rarity, and satisfaction fills her as she sped walks towards it, disregarding anything sprawled out on the floor. As she reaches her hand out for the can, from the shadows of the empty shelves on the back wall, a small hand grabs it and pulls the corn back. Out of pure shock, Sarah gasps and jumps back, not believing her eyes. Her heart is beating in her ears, she must have imagined the hand, and the corn too since it was out of sight.

“Hello?” she asks towards the wall, doubtful for an answer.

A weak inhale came from the wall, and Sarah questioned her mind.

“Hello?” she softly repeats, inching closer to the wall, so scared to scare what might be the only other person in the world, but is most likely a raccoon. Shuffling followed with her every step. “Is someone in there? It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

A pause.

“Are you real?” responded a hushed child's voice.

Just the sound of another person almost brought Sarah to tears. She kneeled in front of the shelves. “Yes,” her voice breaks. “Yeah, I’m real. Are you?”

Please say yes, don’t let this be fake. Please, please.

Silence.

Please say something, anything. I need this to be real. I don’t want to be alone anymore don't give me hope like this please just talk just breathe so I know I’m not crazy.

Sarah could feel her hope shatter when nothing followed. She lowered her head in shame and let her shoulders shake in desperation, how could someone be here, she hadn’t seen another person in months. Months! How could she give herself false hope like this? “Please be real,” she begged. She couldn’t do this anymore. “Please.” 

Silence.

The touch of a small palm on her forearm almost made her break down. It’s real, her mind cheered a living person, not some random voice from an unused toy, or a meager animal and an imaginary voice, or the ghost of a child lost in the store aisles. A person, a kid. Sarah cupped her mouth and let her tears choke her when a boy poked his head out the shelves, a confused look on his face. It hurt to look at him, his existence making her lungs burn. Was this her relief? A boy who can’t be more than 7-years-old? How had he survived? How long has he been here? What happened to his family? It pained her to think of what this kid had to go through, what he witnessed. Staring at her only form of contact in months, she wondered what the boy's wide, brown eyes had seen, and how in a time like this, how they still held hope, and if he could see the misery in hers.

Sarah held back another storm of tears and gently placed her small hand on his smaller one. He’s so warm.

“Hi,” she whispered as if she was talking to an injured puppy.

“What are you doing in my store?” he playfully asked, like their interaction was one said when playing house.

Sarah was taken aback. He’s a kid, she understands that, but how is he so calm? Was she not the first person he’s seen? She looked past him into the small shelf that most likely used stocked toilet paper. A small throw blanket covered in wrappers of unknown treats laid atop the hard plastic rack, a browning pillow at one end, small shoes at the other. It’s as cozy as a store cupboard can get.

“I, um,” she began to stutter back, the child innocently glaring at her. She became anxious as if the boy would kick her out for trespassing as a joke and she wouldn’t put up any fight. His eyes pleaded with her to play along though. This is a joke, you should know that. Please stay, I want to be friends, his eyes said. She wouldn’t deny him that. 

“I’m just looking for a meal for me and-.” She hesitated at the word family. She knows no one else is around, or at least hasn’t seen them around, and she doesn’t know if this kid has; why give the kid false hope? “For me. Do you know if there’s any food in your store, mister?”

The boy looked offended. “Of course I have food! What store doesn’t?” he argued. Turning back into his makeshift home, he rummaged around into pockets of spaces Sarah hadn’t noticed before. Was there actual food back there? The kid's familiar dark hair was tangled and matted in the back, his blue t-shirt and basketball shorts old and worn out. A rip in his shirt exposed a long shallow cut running down his left shoulder blade, half-healed, half infected. He’s so small, she thought, as she reached out to touch the scar, jerking back when he made a sharp turn towards her.

“What are you doing?” he asked, slightly backing into his shadowy home.

“Nothing,” She tried to reassure. Had she ruined a conservation that had barely begun? “So, how long have you worked here?”

“I’ve owned this store for years, miss customer,” he exclaimed, completely forgetting their two seconds of tenseness. Sarah expected nothing less from a child, but she was still uneasy. “I put so much work into it. We’ve got toys,” pointing towards the small teddy bear behind his pillow, “games,” the board game Trouble that's missing all the red pieces, 2 of the greens, a yellow, and the die, “drinks,” 5 and a half-empty water bottles, “and food!” turning around to show the can of corn he stanched from her. “This is all the food we have, though.”

“That’s all?” Sarah asked. She felt selfish, but she was starving.

“I’ve been here years, lady. I have to eat sometimes.” replied the boy.

“Years?”

“Years.”

“And this is all you have left?”

“Yep.”

“And you’re giving it to me?”

“Uh-huh.”

Sarah looked down at the corn in the boy's hand, then to the boy's face, then the corn, then the boy again. His hair stuck up at every angle like he never uses the comb he dug out of the shelf. His warm skin had such harsh grey undertones, it was hard to tell he was a very tan white kid or a very pale Hispanic. Freckles dotted the right side of his face from the ends of his button nose to his temple. Rounded face, small lips, big eyes. A normal-looking kid.

“Years?” Sarah joked.

“Okay, maybe not years.” chuckled the defeated boy, putting the can of corn between them. “Weeks, a month?”

“Makes sense. For a second I thought you ate the whole store yourself.” She cherished this lighthearted banter, even with a child she doesn’t know the name of.

“I would have if there was food when I got here.” the kid scooched towards Sarah, turning and resting his head on his knees, like a puppy waiting for a command.

“What was it like when you got here, kid?”

“A mess. Food everywhere, people running and slamming into each other, even outside the store.” His explanation was accompanied by wild hand motions and fascinated expressions. “I’ve seen it in zombie movies, where like everyone's going crazy, but this was wild.”

Sarah leaned in, intrigued. “But how did you get here?”

“I was getting to that part. So there we are, me and my mom and dad in the parking lot with all the crazy people, and they're like, ‘Gabriel, mijo,’ by the way my name is Gabriel, I forgot to tell you that. Anyway, they were like, ‘Gabriel, mijo, sit in the car and don’t move until we come back,’ and I’m like ‘okay’ and they give me a hug and kiss and all that and go in and I wait.”

Sarah couldn’t wrap her head around the fact Gabriel was so calm about this. She felt a hard pang of pity for him, his parents probably went in to get him food, and that's the last he saw them? Did they abandon him? Did they die? Did he find the bodies? Was this his coping? Such a poor story but she couldn’t turn away, she just listened.

“So there are I,” Gabriel continued, “waiting for hours maybe, and they didn’t come out, so I didn’t leave the car, cause I’m a good kid. They left the AC on and there was a bottle of water in the front so I was okay, but then I got hungry, so I thought ‘It’s probably okay to go inside. No ones acting crazy outside,’ so I do, and BAM!” He throws his arms out for added effect, almost swatting Sarah’s face. “Sorry. But BAM! I come in, food and ketchup everywhere, some people are still fighting. I yelled for my parents, but it was so loud I guess they couldn’t hear me, and I was still hungry so I looked for some good food and found an apple and I was about to eat it then BAM!” He swatted again, bopping Sarah in the nose.

“Hey!”

“Shh, this is the good part”

“I thought the last part was the good part.” Sarah grabbed the canned corn and started tracing the lid with her finger. She could listen to Gabriel babble for hours; he was so full of life.

“Well this is the good good part,” he assured. “So BAM! I grabbed the apple and some real big, real tall guy turned me around and was like ‘hey kid, gimme that apple’ and me, being the big strong guy I am, I'm like ‘no, get your own apple!” and he got all mad and pulled out this long knife and was like ‘give me the apple’ all mean like. And me being a big strong guy, I run. And he chased after me. Could you believe it? He tried to hurt me! A kid! My dad would have beat him up if he saw! Anyway, I got away, but he got my back a little.” He points to the tear of his shirt on his left shoulder blade.

“So that’s where that came from.”

“Is it cool? I can’t really see it?” Gabe twisted his body in an attempt to see his scarred back.

“It’s badass.”

“Awesome. And also, what’s your name?”

“Oh,” she forgot to introduce herself. “It’s Sarah.”

“Nice to meet you, Sarah, but always, I got away. So I’m eating my apple, looking for my mom and dad, but I don’t see them and I started getting kinda scared. Not super scared cause I knew nothing bad happened to them. If anything, Mom would have thrown her heels at a guy like the guy that cut me. She does that to Dad sometimes.” Sarah felt a frown deepen. “But they love each other. So I didn't see them, and I thought ‘should I go back to the car?’ and then I was like ‘no, I might see that knife guy again.’ so I walked around the store for a bit and I started getting tired, so I found one of these empty shelvy-things, grabbed a blanket I found on the floor, and waited for my parents.”

“So you’ve just waited for them for weeks” Sarah questioned. “I thought there was no food.”

“Yeah,” He grabbed his small bear from his pillow and held it close. “There was some food in the back, it’s all gone now.”

“Have you ever left the store?” This felt like an interrogation. It made her sick thinking like she was questioning a 7-year-old on his life leading up to him living in a rack, but she was curious.

“Kinda,” he muttered, “a few days after, when all the people were gone, I looked in the parking lot. My dad’s car was gone and no one came in here after that..” Gabe began rocking back and forth like he was trying to comfort the teddy bear cradled in his arms. Sarah’s heart sank when he looked up at her with wet eyes. “You don’t think they left me, do you?”

“Of course not, Gabriel,” soothed Sarah, dropping the corn and pulling the little boy into a hug. She could feel herself break at his quiet sobs. “They would never leave you, they love you.” She couldn’t tell if she was talking to him or herself.

“Then where are they?” he cried out, shaking under her grip. “Why haven’t they come back for me? Did you see them out there? Were they looking for me?”

“No,” she choked out. “I haven’t seen them, but they have to be looking. Maybe they went to another store. You said it yourself, this one was cleared out.”

“I don’t care about the food anymore, I just want them here!” his cries turned into wails so desperate, I brought tears to Sarah’s eyes. She felt so helpless, she knew his parents weren’t coming back, but how heartless do you have to be to tell a kid his dead parents' bodies are two stores over? She wasn’t that heartless, Gabriel was fragile enough, and she probably wouldn’t be able to get the first two words out.

“Then-then we’ll find them.” She tried to reason.

“How? This town is so big.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sarah clung onto him like a lifesaver, “We’ll find them, but first we need to eat.” In one quick motion, she released Gabriel, grabbed the fallen can, and turned to face towards the entrance, the last thing this kid needed was to see her cry. He needs someone strong, and Sarah would have to be that person, but right now, with her back turned towards him, she let her shoulders shake and tears fall silently down her face.

“Sarah?” The name felt foreign in his voice like a new kid said her name.

She didn’t dare turn around. “Yeah?”

Gabriel grabbed a small hand to hers. “Where are your mom and dad?”

She took in a deep inhale as her knees began to wobble. How this boy continued to bring her close to weeping with every question, she did not know. She let herself turn towards him, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “I’m not sure, Gabe. I’m looking for them too. Now.” she gave him a small pat on the head as they started walking out, “let's go. We’ll look for them tomorrow.” The air outside the signless store felt new as the sun slowly fell West.

“Where do you think they went?” Gabe sniffled.

Sarah was quiet for a second, staring at the store where Gabriel's parents lie. A silent prayer goes out for them. “They can’t have gone far.”