Ganama

Day 8.

By the time I had finished working on my ads, It was already a little past noon. I drove around placing them on any pole I could find, and still had a large sum left over after my two hour stop and go drive around town. I doubted I could return used paper, so I decided to keep them in case they were taken down for any reason.

Driving home I decided to stop somewhere and get some food. There was no way I was going back to the diner, so I stopped by a grocery store to buy some "hot'n'ready" food. Once I had the food I would feel obliged to leave the place, so I took it upon myself to walk through the aisles first.

I held a basket as I walked up and down each aisle. I walked up aisle 4 and placed some spaghetti in the basket, and down aisle 5 and took some brown sugar. I picked a great day to go shopping as there was almost no one but me and the employes in the store. I turned the corner to aisle 6 and found someone standing in the middle of the aisle looking at the food like the price would lower if they waited. She was an old short lady that wore a large white snow coat giving her the shape of a snowy pine tree. I thought to myself "dumb bitch" as I shuffled by the dumb bitch. Although beside her was a sale on canned soup so I took a can and felt my basket gain weight.

I was switching my basket from my tired right hand to my left hand as I walked into aisle seven. The plain white tiling on the floor made the odd dark red puddle halfway down the aisle stand out. I kept walking forward, changing balance from my right leg to my left to accompany the basket as I noticed the white figure standing in the middle of the puddle, blending into the floor behind it. It stood motionless in a slowly growing puddle of pure red blood, coming from a large cut that went from its left cheek and up its right cheek. Because of this cut, its lower jaw hung much further down than it should, with its chin almost touching their chest. Besides it's snake like mouth, it was perfectly in tact and as pale as chalk, besides the bright red stripe leading from its hanging jaw to the darker red puddle on the floor. It's eyes fixed on me as I stared back, unable to move or make a sound of any kind. My chest felt like it had been turned to stone and was imploding, as I recognized the face on it. He was the policeman that was on the news years back. He talked about how he was going to find the people that went missing in the forest.

As the cold feeling of impending death slowly moved towards my hands froze with open palms, and the basket fell out of my hand. The loud clack of the basket hitting the floor jolted me back into the moment, and I deeply inhaled after holding my breath for at least ten seconds. Then it was gone.

I ran just like I had after my first encounter, passing through the doors, sprinting with tears running down my face to my car at the parking lot. I kneeled over and started to hurl. I felt the pain of my dry throat rubbing against itself and the sting of my stomach contracting. After I had stopped, I sat in my car until the tears went away and I could see again. I passed a police car and an ambulance making their way to the store as I left.

That night I laid on my couch with the tv and radio on. I laid there for hours, in fear and terror. I finally passed out after hours of waiting.