It Isn't All About Canned Vegetables...{5}

Now, without any further ado, I give you chapter five! I hope everyone continues to enjoy:D

Oh, and I realized something. I have a minor obsession with the repition of creepy phrases. And another thing. I keep trying to add my little Project Fiction banner, but it hates me. Apparently I recently offended the graphics deity. So pretend you get to look at the pretty little picture, and then go to the website anyways and give the authors there some love:D

Chapter Five: September 21st, 2013

It had been over two months since I had faced down my fears in the restroom. I could feel the emotional high wearing off. The adrenaline that had been feeding my veins was slowly fading. After I conquered the mirror, I had set off determined to make my self-set expiration date, with or without my wits in tact. But the truth of the matter is, I could physically feel myself slipping. I could no longer sit idle and pass time. I had to keep moving. As soon as I sat down, I started to think, and thinking is dangerous.

I had already raided the prescription counter.

There was enough Xanax, Zoloft, and Prozac to render an army void of emotion. I hadn’t worked up the courage to take them yet. The last thing I needed, aside from my alcoholism, was a narcotics addiction that I can’t always feed. I had gathered them up and stuffed them in a black backpack that I had confiscated from the school supplies section. I didn’t want to use them, but I couldn’t walk away from them either.

The days passed so slowly and I was beginning to become restless. One can only stare at the same scenery for so long before they become bored and in my case, vastly lonely. Oftentimes I awake from a dead sleep and find myself crying. The nightmares never seem to subside. Sometimes I dream that Bobby is lying in bed next to me; his dead eyes glazed over. It isn’t easy being alone. I can remember bribing my roommates to leave the house, just so that I could get an hour’s worth of quiet solitude. Loners don’t really want to be alone.

Sometimes they just don’t know how to ask for friendship.

I was asking. I was on my knees, pleading. But no one answers. No one ever does.

***********

Today was particularly bad . The haunting images that my mind concocts while I’m asleep often prevent me from returning to slumber. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I haven’t got anything better to do with my time. But once I’ve been startled awake, I can’t lie still any longer.

Today was one of those days.

I climbed out of my makeshift bed, glided into a pair of slippers from the bath section, and started to walk. I passed my growing collection of belongings and hesitated next to my recently acquired backpack. I bent down and grabbed it by the top handle and pried open the top. There were more pill bottles than I could count.

I grabbed one label-less orange container and twisted the cap off.

With only a brief pause, I placed two small, white pills on the back of my tongue and swallowed.

What’s addiction without a doctor.

I put the pill bottle in my pocket and started to walk my usual course around the store.

Towards the back, in the midst of the shoe department, I stopped briefly to look at a pair of slate blue double doors.

Usually I don’t open doors unless I absolutely have to. After nine months of walking a planet full of corpses, I try to avoid deliberately crossing paths with them. Generally, I don’t have to see them. The smell of desiccated bodies faded a long time ago. Mostly, the only traces left are a few gleaming white bones that stick out like specters in the beam of my flashlight. These days, skeletons are categorized with rocks and sidewalk cracks. I suppose 150 degree temperatures are prime circumstances for quick decomposition.

Those unimposing little pills had worked wonders and with my anxiety sated for now, I could feel my curiosity grabbing hold. The doors were labeled ‘employees only’. I hadn’t bothered to venture back there. I hadn’t had a need. It was only a shipping bay and a storage section with a break room. The store floor was stocked well enough to last me at least another month or so.

But I was in a daze. And so I wandered past the rows of knock-off tennis shoes and animal slippers towards the foreboding doorway.

I approached the doors with less caution than I would have expected from myself. The metal hand guards still held eerie fingerprints of the store’s long deceased workers. I felt like I had stumbled onto a crime scene. I suppose, in some sense, it was. The doors were heavier than I expected. I had to lean my shoulder against the panels to pry them open, but I finally shoved my way through.

The first thought that flashed through my head was one of airy regret. I should have brought another flashlight. There was only one small window that allowed a glimpse of hazy daylight through. It wasn’t nearly enough to illuminate the vast warehouse that I was standing in. I could barely make out rows of metal shelving lining the walls, piled high with cardboard boxes and extra bicycles.

Despite the dry heat of the day, the air inside the cement and cinderblock walls felt heavy and wet. A feeling of claustrophobia tried to edge its way past the blockade that the pills had formed in my brain. I pushed away any growing feelings of unease and walked out of the entryway. Directly to my left was a whitewashed room with two darkened windows. I could vaguely make out the slatted blinds.

Break room.

To my right was a solid cement wall that appeared to be another room. I lit it up further with my dim flashlight. There was a poster about employee rights and sexual harassment, followed by one of those tacky inspirational banners. I walked forward about ten feet and turned right, intent on finding out what the room housed. Almost immediately, my flashlight reflected in the glass of a window pane. It was set into another slate gray door, but this one had a doorknob and a locking mechanism. I decided to come back to it.

I set off across the main floor of the vast storage area, towards what looked like garage doors. There was a faint hint of light coming from around their edges. To the left was a door that led outside. I walked up to it and grabbed the doorknob. I could feel the heat of the day through the warm steel handle.

Usually I don't open doors unless I have to.

I opened the door a crack, and peeked through the opening. There was a set of stairs leading off the loading dock and onto the driveway below, and standing on the driveway was…

I was shocked to see a face zero in on the sound of the door opening and subsequently meet my gaze. It was a man, probably in his late thirties, who was in possession of a very squat and piggy face. He had one hand raised to his mouth and was chewing on what appeared to be a large, fleshy chunk of meat, discernable by the red blood smears that covered his mouth and patchy facial hair. He wore the remnants of a tattered black t-shirt that concealed a slight paunch in his belly, which was exaggerated by his gut clenching jeans.

His bushy eyebrows lowered down over his blue eyes as he focused on my face. Without thinking, I opened the door enough to expose my body in whole. My head was overwhelmed with the thought that I wasn’t alone. I felt sheer excitement rising up from within me. I wasn’t sure if the words that followed were sparked by my own genuine desire for companionship, or if it was the pills, but I spoke to him.

“Hello?” Months of silence left my voice cracked and dry. I tested the words on my tongue. “Hi, I’m…I’m Nik.” The man turned away and bent down, half concealed by the drop down to the pavement below.

“Hey,” I quickly threw out, walking out the door to peer down at him. Instantly I felt the heat of the sun glaring down on me, threatening to dry me up. But I didn’t have to worry about the sun for long. What I saw sent my thoughts into a twisted spiral.

The man was bent over what looked like the remains of a human corpse. But it wasn’t the corpse of someone 9 months dead. It was fresh and still leaking a dark stain of blood onto the beige concrete. He straightened up once more, meat bone in hand, and gave me a solid look.

Why hadn’t I seen the vapid expression in his eyes?

Why hadn’t I noticed the human arm clenched in his teeth? I stumbled backwards.

“Uhm,” I coughed down vomit, tripping over my own feet in a desperate attempt to get back to the door.

“I don’t,” the words left my mouth as the crazed man gave me a toothy grin. His glee was almost palpable. “Please stay away!”

My words fell on deaf ears as the monster took a step closer towards me. He reached one hand around behind his back and began tugging at something, but his eyes never left me.

“Come…food,” he tried to speak through the blood leaking out of his mouth, but he only wound up breaking out into a series of hysterical cackles. He started to slowly make his way up the steps to the door. He brought his hand back around, now occupied by a rusted and blood-soaked cleaver.

Fighting through borderline hysteria, I walked backwards until I finally felt the smooth doorknob in my palm. I quickly opened the door and slipped through, closing it behind me. I pressed my bodyweight against the opposite side, searching for a lock. I turned the deadbolt.

I turned it again.

It continually made 360 degree turns, never latching the bolt in place.

“No. No! No! Oh shit,” I started crying. My hands were shaking as I turned to press my back to the door. I frantically scanned the warehouse. The closest door was the one I hadn’t opened.

“Please, oh please,” my mouth kept repeating. My vocal chords were on autopilot as I tried to muster my courage for the dash across the warehouse.

Suddenly, with a loud crash, I felt a force slam into my back and I fell forward. My face greeted the linoleum so hard that I could audibly hear my head crack against the glassy surface. I lay still for a second, trying to get my bearings.

“Pretty…” the man leered from overhead. I glanced over my shoulder to see him standing just outside the door that he had busted through. The sun created a halo around his figure, adding a devilish appeal to his already bloody lips.

“Stay away from me!” I screamed, my voice cracking falsetto in my panic. I struggled to my feet, but the tiles offered lousy purchase for my fear-weakened legs. I dizzily stumbled forward and with the help of my hands, I launched myself towards the door. I heard the man yell something unintelligible, but I didn’t stop to listen. I reached the door as fast as my legs would carry me and I threw myself inside.

I braced my back against the panel and buried my face in my hands. Tears of sheer terror slipped through my eyelids as I squeezed them shut. I couldn’t even form the words to a silent prayer.

I could hear the muffled conversation that the man was having with himself. He was standing just on the other side of the door. I could feel the slight vibrations through the door panel as he ran his hands down its length. There were a few seconds of silence before a horrible screeching noise reverberated through the small room. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Or a butcher’s cleaver on a steel door. He repeatedly dragged the blade down the sheet of metal, hollering a myriad of guttural noises. Occasionally, he switched it up and slammed his fist against the door.

I could only be grateful that this door was holding up better than the last.

After I realized that my pursuer was going to have a tougher time making his way through this entry, I began to evaluate my surroundings. I tried to push away the vain hope that there would be another exit from this prison cell.

It appeared that I was in a small storage room. The walls felt metallic and the door was heavy. I couldn’t see very well. I reach around to pull my flashlight out of my back pocket. It didn’t immediately turn on, so I smacked it against my hand a few times. Finally, it put forth a faint beam of light.

Almost instantly, I regretted this decision. As my eyes took in my surroundings, my other senses began to kick in. The smell of rotting flesh had me turning to the side and retching. All of the sudden, the air felt too thick to breathe. It all felt toxic.

There, lying in front of me, were two poorly preserved human corpses. Their skin had turned a horrifying shade of green, and it glistened with the moisture of decay. Certain spots had caved in, as though they had been eaten away. Their bodily juices had leaked out onto the floor and created a fetid display. Both pairs of lifeless eyes were pointed in the direction of the doorway. The smell was putrid.

I was in the freezer. The airtight seal had prevented the bodies from drying up like the others.

I turned and vomited again, crying out loud. I could feel sweat glistening on my forehead as I tried to talk myself out of a panic attack. I slumped against the door again, shaking and unsure, and let my unoccupied hand slide into my lap. It hit something solid. Through blurred eyes, I reached into my pocket and leveled a look at what I found.

The pills.

A jarring thud hit the door, followed by a string of creative curses only a madman could conjure.

Another, and he yelled at the top of his lungs.

I pried the white cap off the pill bottle and poured its content into my wavering palm. I clenched my fist around the hoard and closed my eyes.

I wasn’t ready for this.

Even after everything, I didn’t want to make this decision.

I could feel the anxiety and fear pushing their way up, and my heart was racing.

I choked back a sob. This wasn’t a choice I should have to make.

It wasn’t fair.

I put the handful of pills in my mouth, tossed back my head, and swallowed.

The last thing I remember was darkness encircling the form of a man walking through a doorway.