CHAPTER 9

  Do I look like food?

  “It’s creepy how they just watch me. Are you sure that they can’t get in?”

  [Due to the implementation of SAFE ZONE protocols, no live animals are allowed into the store. Steps have been taken to ensure that dangerous ############ cannot enter.]

  These blocked-out words had popped up a few times already when I was reading the responses from Wanma on the register screen. I assumed it was similar to the blank responses when we were talking. It was always something to do with the weird things that had been happening in the store.

  The strange energy field that prevented the frog monsters from even touching the glass was one of the bigger mysteries I wished I understood. I had never even heard of that kind of a security system. It seemed like something out of a sci-fi movie, and I was confident that it was not standard issue loss prevention equipment for any convenience stores.

  Still, why not amp the juice up to fry those things?

  No matter how hard the monsters threw themselves at the store, they didn’t leave so much a scratch on the windows, but at the same time, they didn’t suffer any adverse effects, either. Not even a bruise after running at the door full speed. Nothing happened to them, other than stoking their anger at me, anyway.

  They seemed to blame me for their inability to break into the store, and would stalk me relentlessly from the other side of the window. Whenever I moved around the store, at least one of them would mirror my movements, pacing back and forth as I swept and dusted. By the end of my late night shift, I was getting used to them. I’d check the magazine rack by the window, with a huge mouth full of what looked like thousands of razor-sharp teeth less than an arm’s reach from me. I tried not to pay attention.

  By then I was so exhausted I didn’t care. As I closed out my shift, I knew I should at least eat something, but I was too tired to think straight. Somehow I had managed to get through the double shift without too many deductions. Finally, my merit points were starting to move in the positive direction again.

  It’s easier to get through the night without having to deal with stupid customers, always messing things up and causing problems.

  After logging out of the register and waving my scaly friends good night, I went back into the back room.

  During one of my breaks, I decided to rearrange things a bit to make the back room a little more hospitable. The biggest change was the stacks of drink crates I had arranged against the wall. I had to push the break room table in front of the door to make room, but now there was a makeshift platform of boxes, roughly one meter wide, two meters long, and two boxes deep, coming just below my waist. I layered some collapsed cardboard boxes on top to flatten it out, and I now had a pretty decent bed. Well, it was better than sleeping on the floor at least.

  I pulled my messenger bag out of my locker and placed it at one end to use as a pillow. Then I grabbed my jacket to use as a blanket. I didn’t even bother turning off the lights. I was so exhausted that I was unconscious after just a few seconds lying down. I don’t think I dreamed anything, and I was glad I hadn’t signed up to take any extra shifts, since it was well past noon before I woke up.

  At first, I awoke both disoriented, and in pain. It was like the time I had passed out on a park bench after a drinking party with some classmates, a regretful experience that I swore never to repeat. My neck and back screamed and I was painfully dehydrated. The bright lights gave me a migraine, and it took a while for me to remember where I even was.

  It wasn’t a dream, or nightmare. It’s all real.

  I got up and stretched, trying to realign my back, and stuck my head under the sink to wash the sleep away. Then I downed a half liter of water from one of the bottles I had filled from the sink. I did it without thinking, as I had avoided drinking it the day before in case the water wasn’t clean. By the time I realized what I was doing, the bottle was already empty, but it hadn’t tasted off, and I felt fine.

  I guess I’ll find out if the water is okay sooner or later.

  I had asked Wanma about the electricity and water, but it had just responded with useless corporate talk.

  [All One Mart stores follow the strictest guidelines for conservation and green resource management. One Mart also offsets all carbon emissions through global nature reclamation projects and alternative energy investments. Please visit the One Mart Green Earth Commitment on the corporate webpage for more information.]

  There was no mention of extra water tanks, or a generator. Any more specific questions I asked were either ignored or came back with similar useless information, so I had given up on that line of questioning. I would need to come up with a plan for when these miraculous services stopped, but for the time being, I was happy to take full advantage of them.

  I made myself a breakfast of the last of the fresh fruit, an egg salad sandwich, and a carton of coffee milk. The food tasted so good that I almost felt guilty, but I felt that by now the expired foods were starting to get closer to the spoiled side of the spectrum, and I would rather eat them now than to have them go bad. The refrigeration should work to keep them edible a little longer, but I absolutely did not want to risk getting food poisoning.

  Freezing was unfortunately not an option. While the store had ample space in the refrigerators and freezers, there were strict rules against putting anything in them except products. I had come to grips with the fact that the fresh food would not last much longer. After it was gone, there was still plenty of shelf-stable food, canned goods, and frozen foods. For now, I would eat what I could, while it lasted. Rationing, at this point, was not a priority.

  After my breakfast/lunch, I brushed my teeth, shaved, washed my face, and put on some fresh clothes and a uniform. It felt eerily normal, and by the end of my preparation, I was feeling pretty good. I was somehow adapting to my new situation, and considering the circumstances, I felt like I was doing surprisingly well. I had even decided to pick up a half-shift in the evening for some extra hours and merit points. I couldn’t move my regular hours, which meant I needed to keep my 9PM to 6AM shift, but I could add on the 2PM start, which gave me six extra hours.

  I wouldn’t get the late-night bonus for the extra hours, of course, and I expected my “friends” would be back when the sun went down, but it’s not like I had anything better to do. I was feeling a hundred percent better after sleeping, even on the cardboard mattress, and was contemplating doing a full double shift again the next day, starting at 11 AM again. Less than five hours of sleep might be tough, but it’s not like I was doing anything strenuous. For now, as long as the store stayed open, earning money and merit points helped me feel more secure.

  I spent some time organizing things in the back room, then I applied for the extra hours through the tablet. It felt wrong to be acting so casually when the whole world seemed to be turned upside-down, but to be honest, I was happy to just pretend that nothing was wrong at all. If I didn’t do anything to overtly acknowledge the things that were disturbing, it was easier to pretend that things were normal and I could fall back into familiar patterns, even if they were pointless, menial tasks.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  After logging on to the register and then running through the first inspection cycle, I settled into my zombie brain convenience store worker fugue, letting my mind wander as I stood at the counter, staring out into space. It had taken a while to get used to this, but with hours of nothing to do, and not even being able to sit down, I was happy for any way to make the hours go faster. The only thing that would disrupt this escape was…

  BING BONG

  I jolted to attention, my rehearsed cover action already in motion before I realized what had just happened.

  “Welcome to One Mart! Ummm…”

  I turned to the door, suddenly worried that somehow, the monsters had broken through the barrier. What I saw, was just as unexpected.

  A woman stood in the doorway. She had a confused look on her face, and seemed to be in some level of distress. I would have guessed her to be middle-aged, maybe in her upper thirties. It was a bit hard to tell as she was dirty, dressed in dust and dirt-encrusted clothing. She looked more like a hiker coming down from the mountains than a suburban mom in the middle of town.

  Her eyes were the most disturbing part of her appearance. She stared… glared at me with a mix of concern, confusion, and… anger. After a moment, she turned her head left and right while scanning the store, then she locked her gaze on me once again, and marched to the counter.

  “You! What… What’s… How? What is going on here?”

  She choked through her words, emotion filling the air.

  I half understood what she must have been going through. It had to be strange to see this store open and operational while the outside was all devastated. I didn’t know how to respond, so I just fell back on what felt natural.

  “Welcome to One Mart. The everything-in-one-place convenience neighborhood superstore.”

  My greeting was more than a bit forced, and I wondered if I would get a penalty for not having a big enough smile, or a cheerful tone to my voice. That was the least of my worries right now. I finally had someone in the store who knew what was going on outside. I’m sure she must have had questions, but so did I.

  The woman stared at me, seemingly shocked by my appearance and comically casual response.

  “You… are you screwing with me?”

  The words came out more harshly than her suburban mom’s face would indicate.

  I bet she was one of those Shibuya-style girls in her youth.

  “Look… you see—“

  She froze me with a withering stare, then her eyes suddenly shot open like saucers.

  “Dammit! The doors! You have to lock the doors! Quickly!”

  She ran to the entrance to try to look for a lock.

  BING BONG

  Her proximity triggered the automatic door, which then opened, causing her to emit a small scream, which she quickly suppressed, and then fall back.

  She turned to look at me with real panic in her eyes this time.

  “Hurry! They will get in. You have to lock the doors. Hurry!”

  “Customer, It’s okay. If you are talking about the monsters, they won’t come in. They can’t.”

  She stared back for a second, stunned by my words, as though was stupid, or I had spoken in a different language. Then she scowled, and looked back toward the door. She seemed to want to take matters into her own hands, but was scared that she might trigger the doors to open again.

  “Look, I have no idea what’s going on. I haven’t been outside of this store in two days, but trust me, those things can’t get inside. I’ve been watching them and they can’t get through the doors. Don’t ask me why.”

  She moved away from the door, but stayed away from the counter as well. Instead, she positioned herself in one of the aisles, hiding herself from view to the outside.

  “What are you talking about? You’ve seen those kappa bastards then?”

  At first, I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then I remembered the Japanese folk tale of frog-like monsters that lived by streams. I suppose that was a pretty accurate description of them.

  “You know what they are? Are they really kappa?”

  “How should I know? They just… I mean, they look like kappa, don’t they?”

  Okay, so maybe she doesn’t know anything.

  “Whatever they are, trust me, they haven’t gotten in yet, despite trying really hard. You are safe here.”

  For now at least.

  “I don’t know what is going on, or how this works, but this store is open, and it’s some kind of safe zone. Maybe it was set up by the government. I have no idea. I’m just a temp. I just happened to be working here. But trust me, you are safe, just… there are rules. If you don’t follow them, you can get kicked out, and I don’t have any control. None at all. If anything, the store is holding me hostage.”

  The woman listened to me with a skeptical look on her face, but she seemed to relax a bit.

  “What rules?”

  “I know it is going to sound crazy, but they are all there on the monitor screens. I didn’t write them or put them there, they just showed up. It’s hard to believe, but they are real.”

  I pointed to one of the monitors along the back wall by the drink refrigerator. She slowly backed up and turned to look, keeping her body oriented toward me.

  As if I’m any danger to this gangster mom.

  After a minute, she turned back.

  “Waddya mean only two bottles? And thirty minutes? If this place is safe, why can’t we stay here then?”

  “I told you, I didn’t make the rules, and I am not the one who enforces them either. I really don’t know what is going on, but there were some kids before, and when they stayed here too long, they got zapped onto the street. Like a sci-fi movie. I swear, I have no control over anything. But it’s real. It’s like the whole world is going insane.”

  At that last sentence, she finally seemed to relax a little. A weird small smile appeared at the corner of her lips.

  “Well, that’s the truth at least. It’s all madness now.”

  She let out a sign, and I noticed the exhaustion on her face. She looked as tired as I had been the night before.

  “You can take what you want. I mean, only a few things are limited, and the fresh food is expired, so I can’t sell you that, but we still have tons of things. It’s just…”

  I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. It felt cold and ridiculously out of touch. She raised her eyebrow, but stayed silent, waiting for me to finish.

  “Well, you do have to pay for it…”

  The words dropped to a mumble as my face turned red in shame.

  “Huh? Seriously? The whole world is going to Hell and… It’s people like you! Scammers! Trying to take what you can from people who are suffering in a disaster!”

  “It’s not… I mean, I don’t wan… It’s the store! It’s alive or something, I don’t know. I’m not keeping anything. The prices aren’t jacked up or anything. It’s really not me…”

  I was babbling, and I suppose I looked pretty pathetic, since the woman seemed to take pity on me and let me off the hook.

  She let out a deep breath, then walked over to the counter, checking out of the corner of her eye to make sure there was nothing dangerous coming through the door.

  “Well, I can’t argue with that. I’ve been through lots of quakes before, but nothing like this. Now we have fairy tale monsters running through the streets, eating people. I guess it’s not that big a leap to have haunted convenience stores. You sure you’re not a ghost?”

  I felt the blood drain from my face at her words.

  Eating people?

  She reached into her coat and pulled out a fancy wallet, the kind old ladies keep in Japanese-style purses when they go out to the department store.

  “Look, I got money. Plenty. I can probably buy this whole store, for all the good it does me now. But I just need water. I got two kids and a useless husband, and everything’s shut off.”

  She slapped down three, ten thousand yen bills on the counter.

  “Just let me take what I can carry. This should be enough, right?”

  “Customer… The prices… I don’t set them. They are the same as before, but… the rules…”

  “Two bottles ain’t enough. I need more.”

  “I understand, but…”

  I pointed up at the ceiling.

  “I don’t make, or enforce the rules.”

  I tried to emphasize the last part, hoping she would get the hint.

  “You gonna deny a mother, getting water that we need to live, for her two little ones?”

  “We have a lot. You can come back later and get more.”

  “Do you know how scary it was getting here in the first place?”

  She roared. Then she switched tactics. She dropped to a crouching position, curling up into a ball. Suddenly the scary looking alpha mommy was replaced with a sad, pathetic-looking girl.

  “We don’t have any water, and my husband hurt his leg and can’t walk. I had to come outside alone to find something for my babies…”

  Wow. Now she is crying. What is this woman? A professional manipulator?

  “Trust me, you don’t want to try bending the rules. The store’s AI knows all. But… We still have running water. Bring back some bottles, and I will fill them up. I don’t know how much water is left, how long it will last, but—“

  “Waitaminute!”

  She rushed over to the drink refrigerators and placed her hand on the glass windows. Then she looked up at the ceiling.

  “You have electricity? And water? How?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know. It just… it’s just still working. I don’t know why. I don’t have any control.”

  “Can’t we stay here? Please? Here, you can have all this!”

  She pulled out a stack of bills from her wallet.

  I pulled back.

  “No! I… I can’t. It’s not me. I’m not in control.”

  I lowered my voice, knowing that the microphones could still probably pick up what I said, but it just felt wrong saying it out loud.

  “I can’t even go outside. The store is holding me here, making me work. It’s all the store’s AI, and it doesn’t know how to compromise.”

  I turned to look at the screen on the register. I could have sworn that the animated mascot was squinting its eyes at me as a cold sweat ran down my back.