Bentley Little - The Store

She stood, watching, as he ran across the lawn and tackled the man. He had no baton, but he began beating the surprised derelict with his fists, shouting joyfully while the man bellowed in pain and vainly tried to ward off blows.

This was wrong. She didn't know whether or not it was legal, but it was wrong, morally and ethically over the line, and she felt queasy as Ed stood, hauled the man up by the collar of his coat, and she saw the bright red blood streaming down his face.

Grinning hugely, victoriously, Ed dragged the man toward her.

"Stay away," she warned him.

"You're supposed to be helping me, Shannon. You're not much help so far."

"Knock it off, Ed."

He was close to her now, and he pushed the bloody man in her direction.

She ran. She heard Ed laughing raucously behind her, and then she was at the edge of the park, panting, feeling nauseous, feeling faint.

She bent over, gulped air, and promptly threw up into a bush.

Then Jake was there, leaning over her, and there was malicious glee in both his voice and his expression. "Get back in there, Davis."

She wiped her mouth, hand shaking. "I . . . I can't do it, Jake. I can't -"

"How the fuck did I ever go out with you?" He straightened, moved away.

"Get busy," he ordered. "You have a quota to meet. And you'll be out here until you reach it."

Behind her, Ed continued to laugh. "Yeah!" he yelled.

Shannon closed her eyes, tried to stand straight, tried to walk away, but almost immediately she saw the derelict's gashed and bleeding face, and she doubled over again, heaving into the bush until there was nothing left in her stomach to throw up.

2

There were no vagrants on the street.

Ginny noticed it for the first time, although she had the feeling that that had been the case for a while and she simply had not registered the fact.

She looked up Granite as she pumped gas into the tank of the car. She had not liked seeing the homeless people, but there was something even more ominous about their absence. The streets and sidewalks looked clean, even the empty buildings appeared freshly restored, and she found herself thinking of _The Stepford Wives_.

That was it exactly. There was something artificial here. Clean and wholesome, yes. But not in a good way. In a creepy way, an unnatural way.

The pump stopped at nine dollars and eighty-nine cents, the tank full, but she topped it off until the counter read ten dollars, then walked into the office of the gas station to pay.

Barry Twain was working this afternoon, and he smiled at her. "Hey there, Ginny. How goes it?"

"Could be better."

"But it could be worse." He squinted at the fuel monitoring box next to the cash register. "That'll be ten dollars."

She handed him a twenty, and he gave her back two fives.

"How are things with you?" she asked.

"Not good. I heard The Store's going to start selling gasoline."

She stared at him, shocked. "What?"

Barry laughed wheezingly, pointing at her. "Gotcha!" he cried. "Gotcha good that time!"

Against her will, she broke into a smile. "That you did."

"You bought it! Hook, line, and sinker!"

"It's not that far-fetched."

Barry's smile faded a little. "You're right."

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't mean to --"

He waved her apology away. "Don't worry about it. Gasoline's one thing that can't be sold inside a store. And even if they do build that auto center and eventually decide to sell gas, I'm not worried about it. I've built up a lot of customer loyalty over the years. And I have a lot of friends in this town.

Like you."

She smiled at him. "Barry, I'd still keep coming here even if your gas was two dollars higher than theirs."

He cackled. "Hell, maybe they _should_ come up against me. Then I'll be justified when I jack up my prices, and I'll make a fortune."

"I'll go to Texaco." she said.

"Traitor!"

She laughed, waved, walked out the door. "Later, Barry!"

"See you, Ginny!"

On the way home, she did see a homeless man. A big, burly, bearded guy in a dirty fringed jacket.

He was being shoved by a group of uniformed Store employees into a black Store van.

She drove past quickly, not wanting to see the faces of the Store people, not wanting to discover that her daughters were among them.

She told Bill about it when she arrived home, describing what she'd seen, and he nodded, admitting that he'd witnessed a similar scene the other day.

"But these homeless people," she said. "Where are they taking them? What are they doing with them?"

He shrugged tiredly. "I don't know."

"Our daughters are involved in this."

"How does it feel to have members of the Hitler Youth in your own family?"

"This isn't funny."

"I'm not joking."

They looked at each other.

"Doesn't it feel a little Red Guardish?" he asked. "What if we do something that ticks Sam off? Is she going to turn us in? Is The Store's gestapo going to come after us and load us into vans?"

"Stop it," she said. "You're scaring me."

"I'm scaring myself."

She confronted Shannon about it later, after dinner that evening, and the girl burst into tears, running from the room. Ginny told Bill to stay out in the front, and she followed her daughter back into her bedroom.

"I'm sorry," Shannon sobbed, throwing her arms around her mother as she sat down on the bed. "I'm sorry."

Ginny held her. "Sorry for what?"

"There was nothing I could do. They made me go on the sweep."

"What happened?"

"I didn't help. I just stood there. I just watched. But I . . . I didn't do anything to stop it. I just stood there. I just watched."

"What happened?" Ginny repeated.

"They . . . beat them up. The homeless. They beat them up and put them in vans and . . . drove them somewhere."

Ginny felt cold. "Where?"

"I don't know. They didn't tell us." She started sobbing again. "Oh, Mom, it was awful!"

"It's okay." Ginny held her tightly. "It's all right."

"There was nothing I could do!"

"It's all right," Ginny said again.

"I wanted to make them stop it, but I didn't! I couldn't!"

"It's all right." Ginny hugged her even harder, a tear squeezing out of the corner of her own eye. "It's all right. It's all right."

3

Ginny emerged from Shannon's bedroom a half hour later.

"So?" Bill said.

"She was there, but she was just a witness. She refused to help."

"Help with what?"

"She doesn't know much more than we do. Apparently, The Store's forcing its employees to volunteer for what they call morning sweeps. They're trained by a cop, and they're sent out to, quote unquote, clean up the streets. When Shannon went out, that meant that they beat the homeless men with fists and batons, and threw them into vans. The vans were driven away and none of the homeless men have been seen since."

Bill pounded his fist against the counter. "_Goddamn_ it!"

Ginny put a hand on his arm. "She wants out."

"And we want her out. But what the hell can we do about it?"

The pipes shuddered as Shannon started the shower in the bathroom.

"She has something she wants to show you," Ginny said. "She's going to bring it out after she takes a shower."

"What is it?"

"I'm not supposed to say. She wants to show you herself."

"Come on."

"All right. Don't tell her I told you. It's _The Employee's Bible_."

"_The Employee's Bible_?"

"She had to smuggle it out of The Store and she's really nervous about it.

I guess it's a book they're given when they get hired. It's forbidden for outsiders to see it."

Bill felt a rush of excitement. "It probably explains all about The Store," he said.

Ginny nodded.