"You could have phrased that differently," I said as I took the last step off the stairs leading from the tower and found myself back on the showroom floor.
"Patterson, I have no delusion about our chances of survival, even if we succeed in restoring power, we'll likely be standing right underneath this creature when power comes back on." Allison said as she made her way onto the last step, one hand on her cane, the other gripping the handrail while Paul's keys, keys to virtually every lock in the building save the ones that could take the store out of Riot Mode, jingled in her hand.
A voice crackled on my hip.
"And that's why I accepted my role of disarming the giant gas bomb before Allison could drag me to my death." Hissed the voice of Arthur over the walkie talkie.
"Those are for official use only, Arthur, please refrain from..."
I reached down to my belt and turned the dial all the way down on the radio.
"So what, this is a suicide mission, we die so that others can live?"
"No, Patterson, we're going on a suicide mission because I'd rather have my neck snapped quickly then die gasping when Arthur fucks up and released the horrors of the Somme on the deli aisle."
"That's the spirit, dearie!" Said the kindly old voice, who had hurried up to stand between Allison and I as we walked.
"And did we really need to drag Maggie into this?" I spoke, gesturing in the darkness toward the elderly lady who had been a surprisingly spry and stubbornly insistent volunteer.
"You told me to ask for volunteers." Allison said.
"It's no worries dearie, I'll tag along, not sure how useful I can be, but I do still need to get my steps in, and I doubt there'll be much of that staying up in the break room."
I sighed and looked around. A well trained eye can adjust pretty well to darkness. I remembered as a child walking alone in the woods at night, holding a flashlight put certain things into sharp focus, but anything beyond the beam was hopelessly undiscernible. When I was twelve, I tried turning the flashlight off, closing my eyes, and letting them adjust. When I opened my eyes, I could see everything around me, the trees, the foliage, and since it was a path I knew, my mind could fill in the blanks. I started walking home at night all the time without a flashlight and would avoid any roads with streetlights so I could maintain my night vision.
Here, there was no starlight, no moonlight, no light pollution from a nearby city, and I'd spent so little time in here that my brain didn't know which direction I was facing, more a less what was around me, and we'd all but groped our way down the stairs after Arthur and Sam had left with the one working flashlight and two of the busted ones 'just in case' as Arthur had annoyingly insisted.
"We need light." I said "Allison, ideas?"
"Probably sporting goods." She said, “if we make our way there, we can find a flashlight and batteries."
"There's a flashlight on my phone if we can get to the breakroom at the front of the building," I said "Maybe Paul can give us the key."
Suddenly, a light flashed in front of me, and filled the aisle with light. I was surprised to see that Allison was still next to me and was also surprised by this sudden development.
"Oh, I'm sorry children." Maggie said as the light suddenly turned away, "I thought, sure, the powers out, but the mobility carts are battery powered, so maybe they still work, and they do?"
"How many are there?" Allison asked, lowering her hand from her face.
"Just the one here." She spoke.
Allison looked at me "I'll drive the scooter while you two walk besides me, we'll head to sporting goods and get the flashlights, then head to utility.
"What about our phones? There were also weapons in some of those lockers."
"The lockers are on a timer, they won't open until your shift is over, to many 'cool managers' with low standards and substance abuse issues, Paul's key won’t work."
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders.
"Okay, so why are you the one riding the scooter?"
"You think you should?" She asked.
"Maggie found it," I said "And she's old."
Allison tapped her cane.
"And I'm disabled."
"And I am still trying to get my steps in dearie."
"And besides," Allison said as she stepped over and slid into the newly vacated driver’s seat, setting her cane in the basket "If the creature goes back onto the hunt, she'll probably focus on whoever is closest to the light source.
"Okay, okay, you made your points." I surrendered.
Allison nearly, almost, possibly smiled as she pressed on the throttle and the little cart hummed past me. I fell in line behind Maggie as we made our way through the darkened store. We passed out of the ring road that made up the main highway through the store and exited into the stationary section. As we made our way towards Sporting Goods, I could see some light emanating from the towers in the distance. flashlights moving around, and what looked like a campfire burning on the tower that marked the border between auto parts and sporting goods. What amazed me was, with all the visual busyness of the displays darkened, and only the distant lights of the towers visible, I was really aware of just how large the store really was.
"How many of these are there?" I asked, then hastily added "Maggie, do you know?" Because I was starting to worry that Allison was starting to resent my loquacious curiosity, and I was running out of loveable qualities fast.
"A hundred, maybe more, I dunno?" Maggie shrugged.
"One hundred ninety three nationwide, more overseas." Allison said from the cart.
I scratched my chin in the dark and bit my tongue to not ask the follow up.
"I don't know exactly how many are overseas, no one really does, at least outside corporate. Walton's LLC is an American based company, but they have been known to operate stores or other facilities in parts of the world with economic sanctions."
"Like?"
"There's a Walton's knockoff in Russia that bears an uncanny resemblance to the typical Walton's World layout, and some of the supplies of raw materials or manufactured goods that go into the company’s proprietary store brand products have supply chains that are," She paused "Of suspect nature."
"All products sold within Walton's World are within acceptable deviations when it comes to involvement in humanitarian atrocities." Maggie said, "At least, according to the logo on the back of the box."
"Allison," I said, choosing to address her directly, "Are we evil?"
"Didn't you go through orientation? They make you sign a waiver stating that you won't be evil." Allison said, again, I couldn't tell, or remember, if she was joking.
"I heard that the whole thing was a rip off of the old Google motto, but I still thought it was a fun way to break up all those boring intake videos." Maggie added.
"I mean, the company. The Company is evil." I insisted.
"Almost certainly," Allison said, "Although, I'll bring this back to the way you asked the question at first, are we evil."
"Well, just because we work for the company, that's why I said ‘we’."
"Oh, I know I'm evil." Maggie chuckled, "I've got the paperwork and everything." She cooed in her matrilineal warmth.
"I don't think working for an evil company makes you evil." I spoke.
"You've worked here for a full hour, and..."
"Yeah, I know, let the psychopath in, can we drop that."
"That's not what I was getting to." Allison said "Paul said we weren't closing for another fifteen minutes, he told you to turn anyone away who was coming in."
"And?"
"Did you ever question that instruction?"
"Well, I mean, the doors slam shut at 11."
"The in-door slams shut." Allison said "But the outdoors stays open an extra 30 minutes."
I gaped at the realization, of course it would. I'd even been standing right there, and in my recollection, it hadn't closed. Maybe if there hadn't been an iron fence in the way, maybe I could have made my escape.
It'd surely be closed by now.
"Okay, but that's not evil." I said, "This store is full of nothing but useless crap as far as I can see, who even needs this stuff?"
"Patterson, there is a pharmacy here."
My stomach sank, remembering the woman talking about needing 'just one thing'.
"You were given a simple instruction, and you followed it uncritically." Allison said, "The same could be said of anyone who simply follows orders."
"Okay, okay, I get it." I said "You don't have to spell it out."
"Ha!" Maggie croaked "I did Not See that one coming." She spoke.
"So I'm going to put the question back to you, are we evil for working for an evil corporation?"
"But isn't this corporation evil because it's trying to push random crap on people who don't need it, because they treat their employees inhumanely, because they arm the security cameras with guns and take our phones away."
"Those things are all evil, yes, but it's not just one person sitting behind a big evil desk pulling all the strings." Allison said, "It's a bunch of people sitting behind small desks, like Paul, sitting in his tower, following instructions written by someone else, someone who will never be called up to carry out that order. The checklist says open at 5 because we need to make money, so we have to fix the fridge overnight, so we have to close early, but we can't close early because we have to make money, so he asks you to stand there and turn people away. You made the company a liar, made them say we were open while you're there telling everyone we're not, and enforcing that, with what? If she hadn't attacked, if she'd needed her meds, if she'd tried to push through, what would you have done?"
I got really quiet.
"Man, Peterson, from the way she talks about you, forget retail, you should have joined the mafia!" Maggie cackled.
"So wait, is all of this to say that I'm evil?"
"I'm telling you what every college student learns, either in class, or at the student loan office when they learn what their monthly payment is, money is the root of all evil."
It was that comment that got me thinking again, and hoping that, maybe, I could draw the conversation in a different direction.
"Oh yeah, what did you study in school again?"
The mobility scooter stopped. Allison, the back of her head silhouetted against the light from the scooter, didn't look back.
"Sam mentioned he was a professor at the college, and that he knew you, I was just...asking..." I trailed off, "You just seemed to know a lot about Chemistry.
"Do you hear that?" Allison said. I hadn't, but now that I wasn't talking, I thought I could.
murmuring.
"Where is that coming from?" I asked.
"All around us." Allison said, she reached forward and turned off the scooter, casting the aisle into darkness. Suddenly, my memories of walking alone in the woods flooded back, the headlight had been covering certain details, like how the light from the tower had gone away and moved to the aisles around us. Looking up, I could see that there was a soft warm light coming from above the stacks on either side of us. Moving through the upper reaches of the shelves, where the silhouettes of men holding sticks and other bladed weapons in their hands.
"What do we do?" I asked.
"HEY!" Maggie yelled, "You assholes, what are you doing sneaking up on us like this!"
"Maggie!" I said, "What are you doing?"
"These are, presumably, our coworkers, Patterson." Allison said, "It's reasonable to assume they're not hostile, but maybe couldn't make us out with the bright scooter light on.
Allison grabbed her cane from the basket and stood up from the chair.
"Do any of you know where I could find Mr. Gallagher? He's the department head for Sporting goods, I need to talk to him about getting some supplies to get the power up and running again."
Allison waited for a reply, it finally came, in the form of an arrow, whizzing through the air, and embedding itself in Allison's cane.
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