Aisle Thirteen

Chapter 6

"Hello, Micaela?" I said as she answered the call.

"Yes. Cal?"

"I need your help." I said desperately. I can't do this alone anymore. I think I'll go crazy anytime soon, if I'm still wasn't crazy right now.

"Help in what?"

"It's... hard to talk over the phone. Can you come over?"

"Of course. I'll see you in five."

After she said that, she dropped the call.

I need someone whom I can talk to regarding this without thinking that I might be crazy. I don't need judgments right now, I need answers.

True to her words, Micaela got here in exactly five minutes. I don't know if she's just nosy about what we're going to talk about or she's concerned or maybe both.

"What's the matter?" She asked as she closes my room's door.

"Can you sit on my bed first before firing me questions?" I said.

She sat on my bed, grabbed one of my pillows and placed it on her lap.

"What is it?" She asked impatiently.

"Promise me you won't judge me."

"I promise."

"Promise me you won't think I'm crazy."

"Well, you are crazy." She chuckled a bit.

"Micaela..." I said warningly. I need her to be a hundred percent serious about this.

"No, but seriously, what's the matter?"

"I... uh... I have a situation."

Then I told her all the details of the story. Starting from when I went to the grocery up to my recent nightmare, where the old lady is haunting me.

"Holy... cow..." Micaela said, thunderstruck by my current situation.

"Please, help me." I pleaded.

"Of course, I'll help you! What are friends for if we don't got each other's backs." She tapped my shoulder to show encouragement.

"Yeah. But how are we gonna solve this?"

"Don't you have any ideas in your mind? You're a creative writing student, it's uncanny if you ran out of it." She joked to light up the mood.

"I have one idea in mind."

"And what is that?"

"We need to go back to the grocery store and look for informations there."

"Right! Shall we go now?" She stood up.

"Are you crazy? It's late and it's closed for sure." I pull her arm and get her back to where she sat a minute ago. "We'll go there tomorrow." I said.

Micaela stayed for the night. I don't think I'm able to sleep alone after that nightmare. I'm scared.

"Hey, Cal! Wake up!" Micaela pinched my right cheek.

"Hmmm." I'm still so sleepy. Even when Micaela stayed with me last night, it's still hard for me to sleep peacefully.

"We're going to that one hell of a grocery store! Aren't we?" She asked. She looks so enthusiastic about going to that creepy grocery store.

"Yeah, but it's still early."

"I think it's better if we get there earlier than the other customers, right? So that we can investigate properly?"

"That grocery store is normally always lacking of customers." I said lazily.

"Cal! Do you want to find out about your situation or what?!" Now, she sounds pissed.

"Okay, alright. Chill, okay?" I said for her to calm down.

"Chill? Really, Cal? There's this old woman that God-knows-who-she-is that's haunting you and you have the time to chill?!" She sounded so angry.

Obviously, me trying to calm her down didn't worked. She's that worried about me. So even when my bed is still pulling me down on her, I pushed my body up and got ready. Micaela has always been the funny and jolly one, we don't want a grumpy Micaela. Especially in times like this, no.

We both got ready. We're both wearing casual jeans, shirts, and sneakers. I still don't have my car with me so we took a cab for us to go to the grocery store.

"Where's your car?" Micaela asked.

"I left it somewhere in Carmel street. We'll get it before we head home."

She nodded in response.

As we get nearer to the grocery store, I felt this strange feeling. It feels like someone is watching me.

I looked around and saw nothing strange for me to get scared.

"Are you okay?" Micaela asked again. Maybe she's wondering why I'm looking around.

"Yeah."

"We're here." She said and I didn't even noticed that we're already at the grocery store.

"Let's go." I said.

We entered the grocery store and it's empty. There's no other customers aside from us, well if we're still considered as customers even if we're not here to buy anything.

There's the same clerk I had conversed with yesterday.

"Excuse me? How can I help you?" He asked.

Maybe he noticed that we're not here to shop. I didn't know we're that obvious.

"Uhm. Do you know anything about this grocery store?" Micaela asked the clerk.

"Know anything like what?" The clerk looked puzzled. The same reaction he made when I told him about the aisle thirteen.

"Things like who's the owner of this building? History of the building? Who stays in the building aside from the staff? Or a woman who stays here, maybe?" Micaela tried to sound normal but the nervousness in her voice was slightly evident.

"I don't have any idea of those things."

"Even just one idea?"

"I really don't have."

Micaela and I faced each other.

"Let's go. We can't get anything from here." I said, disappointed of the outcome of the supposed investigation.

Micaela and I was about to leave the store when the clerk called us.

"Wait!" He said.

"What, now?" Micaela raised her brow, shamelessly showing off her annoyance towards the worthless (in the investigation) clerk.

"I might know a thing or two."