Bentley Little - The Store

She held Merilee tighter.

"Is that your new baby?" the Customer Service manager asked. He stopped next to her bed as the black-clad men kept circling around.

She continued to frantically press the call button with one hand while she clasped Merilee with the other.

Mr. Walker's fingers, strong and cold, pried hers away from the button.

"No one's coming," he said. "The hospital knows why we're here."

"Why?" She looked around the ring of faces surrounding her bed, saw only blank expressions on snow-colored skin.

"Several months ago, you and your husband bought a microwave from The Store using our very generous layaway plan. You took possession of the microwave, but you did not make the last two monthly payments."

Her voice was high, squeaky. "Clete lost his job! We were having the baby --"

"We are taking the baby."

Her heart was pounding as though it was about to burst. It suddenly seemed impossible to breathe.

"The baby is ours."

She was finally able to suck in air. "No," she got out.

"Yes," Mr. Walker said.

"No!" She screamed it, screamed again: "No!"

"It was part of your agreement. You signed it." He withdrew from behind his back a copy of the layaway plan and pointed to a paragraph of fine print buried in the middle of the page. " 'In the event that payment is not made on time,'" he read, " 'the signee's first-born child will be accepted by The Store as payment of the unpaid portion of -- ' "

"No!" She struggled, tried to sit up, but the men in black were suddenly holding her arms, pressing down on her legs, restraining her from their positions surrounding the bed.

Mr. Walker reached for Merilee, took her.

"Help!" Doreen screamed, struggling against the restraining hands.

"They're stealing my baby! They're kidnapping my baby! Nurse! Nurse!"

"It's a legally binding agreement," Mr. Walker said. "There's nothing any nurse can do about it." He passed the baby to one of the pale men.

"Clete!" she cried. Tears of anger and frustration were pooling in her eyes, overflowing onto her face, blurring her vision. "Don't let them take our baby!" She jerked her head toward the door as the men holding Merilee began walking away. Through her tears, she thought she saw white-robed doctors and nurses standing in the corridor, watching silently. "Take the microwave back!" she said. There was too much saliva in her mouth. She was spitting, her words slurring. "We don't want it! Take it back!"

"You should have made your payments."

"We'll send you the money! With interest! How much do you want?"

"We got what we want," Mr. Walker said. He nodded, motioned with his hand, and a doctor stepped in from the corridor. "She's hysterical," he told the doctor. "Sedate her."

"No!" Doreen cried, but she felt the sharp prick of a needle in her right upper arm, and her strength immediately began draining away.

The doctor stepped back, disappeared.

Her eyes were already closing, and she felt the pressure of the hands removed from her body. With her last bit of strength, she opened her eyes again, saw a blurry Mr. Walker follow the dark figures out of her room.

"Merilee!" she wanted to call, but she did not even have the strength to say her baby's name.

And then she was out.

2

Shannon walked up and down the aisles of the Garden department, intending to straighten the shelves before The Store opened. As always, many of the shelves were in disarray. She'd worked last night until closing and had straightened the mess before clocking out, but the cleaning people or someone must have come by afterward and moved things.

That really ticked her off.

She continued walking, then stopped. The cleaning people hadn't even done a decent job on the floors. There was a reddish brown splotch on the white tile next to the Italian flowerpots that hadn't been wiped up. It looked like . . .

Blood?

She frowned, bent down. The spot hadn't been there last night. She was positive of it. She'd been unwrapping a mint as she'd patrolled this aisle before closing, and the mint had slipped out of her fingers and fallen to the floor. She'd picked it up pretty close to where the spot was now, and she'd seen only clean white tile. It was possible, of course, that she hadn't seen the spot -- _the blood_ -- because she hadn't been looking for it, but it was pretty noticeable, and if she saw it now, she should've seen it then.

_It's built with blood_.

She stood and walked quickly down the row to the fertilizers at the end, then up the seed aisle back toward the register. Even in the daytime, even with the lights on, even with other people in The Store, she could still spook herself back here.

She wondered what it would be like in this windowless corner of The Store after dark. When the lights were off. When the building was empty.

She shivered, sped back to the safety of the register.

She wasn't the only one who had questions about what went on in here after hours. Holly had told her yesterday that she'd heard that Jane in Lingerie had accidentally left her purse in her employee locker overnight and that when she'd come in the next morning the two tampons she kept in her purse in case of an emergency had been taken out of their wrappers and were soaked with blood.

_Blood_.

She'd also overheard two women talking in the break room once, one telling the other that she'd been the last employee to leave The Store the previous night and that she'd heard the sound of muffled screams coming from downstairs, through the closed elevator doors.

And, of course, there were the stories about the Night Managers.

_The Night Managers_.

It was a subject that was not discussed among the employees. Not in the open, at least. But she'd heard whispers, hints, rumors of the Night Managers since her first day of work.

_Night Managers_.

Even the name was scary, and though no one could claim to have seen them, the Night Managers had a reputation. Shannon was not even sure they really existed. There'd been no mention or acknowledgment of them from Mr. Lamb or Mr.

Walker or any of the official sources. And, as far as she knew, only cleaning people worked after hours -- why would The Store need managers when it was closed?

But employees whispered about them after work, made furtive mention of them in the parking lot on the way to their cars. The Night Managers were supposed to keep tabs on all stock clerks and directors and salespeople, to inspect work areas at night, to go over register receipts and make reports.

And if they didn't like what they found?

Goose bumps popped up on Shannon's arms. Word was that a kid in Sporting Goods had disappeared. She didn't know who it was or when it had happened, but rumor had it that the clerk had been asked to stay after closing and have a chat with the Night Managers.

And had never been seen again.

The next day, someone else had been hired for his position.

She didn't know if the story was true. No one did. But whether the Night Managers were fact or fiction, they were like Santa Claus or the boogeyman, a force to be reckoned with. They wielded power, even if they didn't exist, and everyone was afraid of them.

Shannon opened her register and began counting out her bills. She'd finished the fives, tens, and twenties and was halfway through the ones when Mr.

Lamb strolled by, hands behind his back, smiling. He nodded at her. "Opening in five minutes," he said. "How're things in the Garden department? Everything neat and clean, everyone bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for another successful day?" Neat and clean?

She thought of the spot on the floor.

_The blood_.

She nodded, smiled at the personnel manager. "Everything's fine."

TWENTY-TWO