The October Malice ༄ (gxg)

three, hallucination

The light green lights of the corner store blinked with her every step.

The rubbery soles of her combat boots suddenly squeaked, prompting her to crane her neck to the floor behind her where she saw a black scuff mark that she had left behind. A flash of guilt flooded her for marking up the floor, but as her eyes took in the rest of the linoleum tiles, she saw that they had already endured years of scuffing and stains that were never cleaned, especially a suspicious light red stain that shadowed a shelf of canned goods.

Her eyes lifted down the aisle that seemed to be the longest one in the little local grocery store. She could also see right down the next aisle across from it and right to the front glass door where the sun was setting and leaving a light yellow tint in the darkening sky. Like everywhere else, the store was quiet.

A sudden noise startled her, and she abruptly turned her head forwards to see an elder woman pushing a cart past her aisle. She was hunched over, clouds of frizzy, dark grey hair surrounding her wrinkled face. She looked older than the store itself, and a faulty wheel on the cart accompanying her turned about violently as if fed up with how slow the woman was pushing it. It squealed its impatience right into Opal's ears, but the woman apparently did not hear a thing.

Opal watched as she rolled past, feeling invisible as the lady did not even look at her though she was standing only two feet away. But then, right as the elder began to disappear past the shelf, her head cocked around faster than it should have, foggy grey eyes beaming right into Opal's like headlights blinding her. She could have swore she heard the old lady say something, but she was gone before her drooping lips even moved, off to scour the only other aisle to the right which was the medicines.

Somewhat stuck by the brushing of the older lady's presence, Opal stepped forward hesitantly towards the meat counter lining the very back wall of the crowded store. The air around her grew colder as she neared it, icy fogs being pushed from the surface of the packaged meats laying strewed in the tub of a counter.

Her mom had wanted her to pick up some chicken legs for dinner. She looked down the counter, eyes scanning red meats that looked too pale to be counted as red meats. Paler green eyes finally landed on the few packages of frozen chicken legs laying in the center of the counter, wrapped in tight saran on rectangular yellow pads.

Her hipbones pressed against the icy metal counter as she reached her hand forwards into the chilly cloud towards the chicken. It was almost painfully cold on her numb fingers as she picked up the moist and slightly slimy package of chicken. Turning it around, she looked at the back to see that a layer of ice had dried on the back of the packaging, signaling that the chicken had been there for a while.

Figuring that the rest of the chicken legs there were no fresher than the ones in her hand, she turned to walk towards the front counter to check out, but she only made it halfway down the aisle when the feeling of movement in her hands made her stop in her tracks.

Frozen in the aisle, she slowly looked down to the even more frozen package in her hands, eyeing the four chicken legs pressed so tight under the clear plastic wrap. Maybe the movement she had felt against her fingers had just been the dried ice slipping off the package, she mentally assumed.

Her assumptions proved fallacious when the plump round of the center chicken leg suddenly pulsed like an alive heartbeat, only twice, but it was enough for her eyes to widen.

Cold fear, colder than the meat counter, invaded her veins like a rush of a blizzard even though it was only October and mildly cool in the local grocery store.

The rectangular light above her, a green paler than the irises whose pupils widened in fear and confusion, blinked again, and so did the chicken in the form of a slimy throb.