Taking Life Seriously

-16-

 

There was a noise of a wet thing tearing and the alarm squealed. 

They ran then, all twenty six of them, Martin lagging behind because of the weight of Aileen Anders who was slung over his shoulders like a silicone mannequin. And then they were knocking on the stock room's metal door, furious, helpless, panicking. 

In their minds they could see those things coming, thousands of them, with laser guns and tinfoil suits, and teeth. In their minds they all had teeth.

They knocked, they begged, they prayed to be let in. 

'Please someone, anyone, anyone, oh god, anyone, open the door.' But no one answered. 

They screamed at the door, at each other, at their gods, but the gods were out that day surfing on the emerald beaches of some distant world and no one heard their promises to be better people, and to go to church every Sunday, and be kinder to their dear old mommies.

'Shit! Shit! Shit!' said Dean. 

'What now?' asked Anita.

'They're in there,' said Gordon. 'We have to get them to open the door.'

'The bastards!' said Dylan.

'No, wait, wait, they can't hear us,' said Martin panting. 'It's a fortified door, it's sound proof.'

'Ah right,' said Dean, 'you can't hear shit in there when the door's closed, that's how Donovan busted us when Anita was going down..'

'Dean!' Anita cut him off.

'Shit, sorry, babe.'

'Dumbass,' said Anita.

'In the stock room? Seriously?' asked Rajesh.

Dean shrugged and smiled.

'Ewww, I touch those boxes every day, you deviant. I swear if I touched a box that had any contact with your naked ass I will...'

'Never mind all that now,' said Gordon. 'We have to try and get hold of them.'

'The intercom,' said Martin.

The pack all looked at him. 

Dylan said, 'Fuck.'

The Savemore was built in 1978 by Switch Construction in coordination with the now defunct Everlasting Holdings Ltd.  It's total size in squared meters is 7530. It has an entrance atrium with an information and cellular telephone stand and behind it are 56 aisles, which since 2002 are organised alphabetically. 

There is a separate electronics and music store to the left of the supermarket. In the front are 24 check out tills, three of which are cash only. To the right of the store are the fitness, clothing and outdoors sections. There are two toilets. One is behind aisle 23 and the other behind aisle 50. The entrance to the employee section is behind the outdoors section, and is a long corridor which splits off to a T section, with the loading bay exit on the right. On the left are management offices, the control room, the employee lounge, a locker room, staff toilets and the stock room. In case of emergency the corridor functions as a fire exit and escape hatch. There was an intercom in the management office, but it had been broken on Friday evening by a malicious janitor that had been fired by Rogers for inappropriate use of a mop.

The only other intercom was at the information stand.

Dylan said: 'Fuck,' again.

Taking Life Seriously

-15-

At this point, dear reader, I'm sure you have a lot of questions.
'But La,' you're thinking, 'is this an isolated incident? Or is this happening all over?' and 'Why the bad costume design, La?' and 'Is Anita a real redhead?' But most of all, most of all you are thinking, 'Where are all the children in this story? Why are there no kids?'
So let me put your mind at ease here:
First off, although The Pack have no idea of what is going on in the world outside of the Savemore, this is in fact happening everywhere in the world. Yes, even in your home town. Yes, even in the countryside where nothing ever happens unless people are really massively drunk. At this moment hundreds of thousands of spaceships hover above the earth and platoons of soldiers dressed in bad tin-foil-like costumes are decimating the general population. They show no mercy and they do not take prisoners.
The good news is they can be killed as you've already seen. Come on, you can't tell me that you really believe this uber technology bull they sell you on the Sci Fi channel? like that aliens are the superior race with amazing weapons humans don't stand a chance against? Well, to be fair, they do have superior fire power, but only in the sense that the conquistadors had better weapons than the local population of what is today called the USA, so if you think about it, a well executed guerrilla resistance force can stand up to them with relative ease provided that they are well trained, well fed, and have, at least, a general knowledge of the area they have lived in their entire lives.
'So where is the army?' You're asking. That is a good question.
I'd like to point out that almost every army and police base in the world has just been blitzed. So they need a little time to get their shit together and let's cut them some slack here, because even though in times of peace all they do is brutalise and enforce authority, be it just or not, in times of war they are the first ones to get eaten. So that's all right then. Anyway, give them a couple of hours is all I'm saying.
So now the real tough questions:
Where are all the children? They're in school I guess, it's like one in the afternoon, where else would they be? Except for those two teenage girls who obviously cut class and would have been busted by their principal who was out shopping for lawn furniture with her boyfriend at Home Style, but who now is fortunately (for the two girls at least) lying face down in a pool of her own congealed blood just in front of Ahmed Falafel. Besides we all know it's bad taste to kill children for fun, so I'm going to avoid it if I can. And let's not have any more out of you on that one.
As for the costume choice, let's just leave that out for now. We'll get to that in a minute.
And that question about Anita, well that could only have been asked by a teenage boy, and to that I say: you should go out more, maybe take up tennis or something. 

So now, where were we? Oh yes, the alarm jut went off.

Taking Life Seriously

-14-

Twelve minutes later they were all huddled together on the couch in the employee lounge of the Savemore, Dean hugging Anita fiercely, Martin looking at the floor and fiddling with his thumbs.

They had closed the shop's metal shutters and activated the alarm as soon as they all made it back, so they were locked in, safe, for now. Then they tried the TV and the radio hoping to get some idea of what was going on, but there was nothing, only white noise on all the frequencies. Then they listened to what was going on outside. There were a few isolated zaps, and some screams. Once there was the sound of feet shuffling and someone trying the lock. Then everything was quiet.

'What now, Oh Glorious Leader?' said Dylan.

Gordon frowned, he always frowned when he was thinking, except now that he had shaved the frown looked deeper, and had somehow encompassed his entire face. The others watched him in silence. 

Rajesh got up and examined his ruined goatie in the mirror above the microwave.

'Tom Seleck,' he said.

Anita looked around. There were twenty seven survivors including The Pack, all huddled in small groups on the other two yellow couches and the black plastic chairs in the lounge. A man in his late twenties was giving out water and people were mumbling thanks, too stunned to form whole sentences. The two teenage girls Rajesh and Martin had found were crying and their excessive make up had smeared so that they both looked like members of a Kiss cover band. And there was Aileen Anders, the only person to actually fight one of those things, still unconscious.

Dylan lit a cigarette.
'Ahem,' said a woman in a pink sweater.
Dylan ignored her.
'Ahem,' she said again.
Dylan sighed. Then he put on his best smile and said: 'Why, whatever is the matter?'
'Do you mind not smoking? Only there are children present.'
'Hmm,' Dylan looked at the cigarette, then back at the woman and said, 'Let me get this straight, you have just survived what appears to be a terrorist attack led by members of the Lady Gaga fan club, and what you are in fact worried about is second hand smoke?' 
'Erm...' said the woman.
'Right. Kindly sit down and shut your cake hole, Madam.'
The woman left.
'The shutters won't hold them for long,' said Anita.
'It's going to be okay, the army will come and get us.' said Martin.
'You don't know that,' said Dean, 'you don't know anything. What if it's like this all over the world? What if...'
'Shut up Dean,' said Dylan, 'let's let the man think.'
'Hey,' said Gordon suddenly, 'where is everyone?'
'What everyone?' said Dylan.
'Hello, the Savemore has some staff other than you right? Sixty something, no? And that prick Rogers. They couldn't all have died, I don't see any bodies here, do you?'
'No,' said Dylan.
'So where is everyone?' said Rajesh.
'The stock room,' said Gordon.  The pack all turned to look at him.
'Of course, the stock room, it's brilliant. They must all be locked up in there. It's got that huge metal door and the strong bolt, and enough food for a year's siege.' said Martin.
'Yes! it's brilliant, let's get everybody down there.' said Gordon.
'Nix not carrying the passed out lady,' said Dean, Dylan, Rajesh, Gordon and Anita.
'Seriously?' said Martin.
'Sorry, buddy,' said Dean and clapped Martin on the shoulder.
Martin sighed.

It took them a while to get everyone ready to move. Some of the older people looked like they were in a state of shock and needed a lot of help. Two people were wounded, one had sprained her ankle while running and the other looked like he had a broken arm. The Pack gave instructions, they brought back medical supplies and food from the shelves, and then they got everyone up and moving, well except for Aileen Anders, who Martin was carrying over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.
They walked down aisle 24 to the corridor that led to the loading bay and turned left toward the stock room.
Then the store's alarm went off