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THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE DARK: DARKENED SHOPPING

  By Eduard Joseph

  Published by Eduard Joseph

  Copyright 2015 Eduard Joseph

  This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are

  not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. Any resemblance to any person or

  persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  All Rights Reserved

  The right of the writer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him under the South African Copyright Act of 1978 (as amended).

  We stood in front of the canned fruits and I despite closing time just around the corner, I found myself stuck in an inner battle as to whether we should take canned peaches or guavas. I liked both, but did we really need both?

  I could tell from Stephen’s demeanour that he was getting fed up with me and my indecisiveness, so I grabbed three of each and dunked them into the shopping cart as he gave me that look – that look he always got when he was just biting his tongue to say something he might regret later.

  “Happy?” I asked with sarcasm.

  “You always do this.” He said annoyed, “You wait until the last second to do something. Take shopping for example; you wait until just before closing time to do shopping and then you take your sweet time to get what we came for.”

  “We already got what we came for.” I corrected him, “I’m just looking for some munchies… you know how mom gets.”

  Sometimes I forgot that I was the eldest when he treated me like a child – something that really worked on my nerves, but I know that he always meant good.

  Stephen looked down at his wristwatch and sighed with frustration

  “Will you calm down?” I assured him, “We’ll be fine. So we’re cutting it a bit close. It’s not like we haven’t cut it this close before.”

  “That’s just it.” Stephen said, “Cutting it close. What do you think will happen when we cut it too close? What then?”

  “Relax.” I said, “We have another couple of minutes.”

  I glanced down at my shopping list to make sure we got every that was on the list; corned meat, canned vegetables, maize, sugar and coffee – something which was in high demand these days, but very hard to come by. I found the Nescafé Coffee tucked away behind some biscuits in isle four – probably hidden away by someone who wanted to come back for it later… but, if you snooze you loose, right?

  “Can we hurry this along?” Stephen moaned again.

  There was still one item on the list we had to get – toilet paper. I pushed the cart along isle six and turned down isle seven and glanced up at the flickering florescent light overhead and wondered whether it would go out while we shopped. I hated flickering lights – not only did they have an ominous feel to them, but they could plunge you into darkness at any moment.

  Stephen noted the flickering light as well and hurried me along by taking over the cart. He was more afraid of the dark than I was – probably because he was younger and still believed that the monsters in the dark could get to him. I, on the other hand, knew that if you treaded carefully you could survive anything.

  Stephen kept staring back over his shoulder at the flickering light as I dropped three toilet rolls into the cart and then smiled at him – signalling that we were done with our shopping.

  “All done.” I gloated.

  “Thank God. This place gives me the creeps.”

  We made our way down the isle and I spotted a promotional poster hanging from the side of the shelf that depicted a blonde girl eating a cracker with the heading, “Crackers love cheese”. Despite the girl on the poster looking like she was in love with the cracker, I couldn’t help but think that it was a tad racist.

  We walked past the express till which I always thought was ironic as they always placed the slowest check-out cashier at the express till just to annoy shoppers into changing queues to one they think might move faster – only to realize that the queue they were in is now moving faster than the one they are in now.

  Stephen grabbed a chocolate bar from the shelf at the express till as we walked on by towards the exit – passing all the abandoned tills.

  As we got to the glass sliding doors that were riddled with bullet holes, I fidgeted with keys and unlocked the chain that kept the doors together. Stephen glanced down at his wristwatch again as I pushed open the doors and the cold of the night rushed in.

  The lampposts in the parking lot shed light on the dark concrete like stepping-stones of light that led to our car standing at the end of the parking lot.

  “Why did you have to park so far?” Stephen sighed.

  He already knew the answer – I liked the thrill of it all.

  Somewhere in the dark we heard the faint, but ominous echo of a tornado siren as it tried to climb out of the throat of the darkness that swallowed it, and then a moment later the siren next to the flood-light of the store started hollering.

  “Closing time.” Stephen said.

  We both stared at the car and readied ourselves to run like hell – to outrun the darkness as it closed in on us. The flood-light behind us shut down and the store along with its hollering siren disappeared into the darkness.

  “Run!” I yelled enthralled.

  We both ran towards the car as fast as we could – Stephen pushing the cart with its left front wheel twirling as it sped across the parking lot.

  The distant holler of a siren still echoed in the night as the lamppost nearest to the store shut down and disappeared into the dark, followed by the next one and the next one – each one just a few feet behind us as we ran across the stepping-stones of light.

  We reached the car and started throwing our groceries onto the backseat as the lights of the parking lot all around us shut down and surrendered to the dark.

  “Hurry!” Stephen cried as we got into the car.

  “Relax.” I assured him.

  As I turned on the ignition, the flood-lights I installed on all sides of the car lit up and illuminated the direct vicinity around the car just as the last parking lot light shut down. Stephen let out a sigh of relief and locked his door.

  “That was too close.” He said with a shivering voice.

  “Stop worrying.” I said, “We get one hour of amity a day and I tend to make the best of every minute.”

  An impetuous roar in the darkness to the left of the car made Stephen turn to his window with a jerk. He hated the sounds the creatures made – especially the big ones. We’ve never seen any of the creatures that took over our world five years ago, but after hiding in the light so long one could easily tell the size of the creatures just by their growls and roars.

  “I always get you home safely after we go on a food run.” I reminded him.

  The car vibrated to a tremor as one of the creatures stepped closer to the car. Though we couldn’t see it, we knew it was there. They wouldn’t dare getting too close to the car as the light weakened them and they couldn’t kill the lights of the car. For some reason I don’t really understand, they’re only able to control grounded lights.

  Nobody really knows where they came from or how many people died when the darkness took over our world, but we’ve haven’t seen the sun since the invasion. Some said they were aliens and some said they were beings from another dimension that used the darkness as some kind of portal to enter our world.

  Something else nobody understands is why we were allowed to roam free for one hour every day without them trying to eat us. Each day all th
e grounded lights lit up at 19h00 and shut down at 20h00; allowing us to hunt for what little food was left before our world disappeared into their darkness again.

  You don’t wanna get caught in their darkness – not even for one second because time moves differently in their darkness. One minute of our time is like ten years in their dark universe. Joey from down the street was caught in the darkness for about thirty seconds or less and when his wife jerked him back to the safety of their porch light, he had a full grown beard, scars and had aged nearly a decade.

  “We should get going.” Stephen said, “Mom’s probably worried sick by now.”

  I nodded and released the handbrake. Our illuminated car drove out of the dark parking lot as if floating on nothing and we made our way back home. Where was home, you might ask? An underground bunker with generators and about ten flood-lights that kept us lit up 24 hours a day.

  What I wouldn’t give to see another sunrise again…

  The end

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