STORE 79

“Did we really have to haul everything out here? It weighs a ton.”

It was 5.45pm. The Sun was just about to set when we arrived.

“It’s perfect.” I said to nobody in particular. “Just how I imagined.”

The group behind me looked exhausted. I walked ahead carrying my backpack on my shoulder, but the rest struggled with large camera and light equipment. I held the costumes and makeup. Lea, the one carrying the video camera, collapsed by the roadside, right beside an old gas pump.

“When did this place close again?” Mike asked, throwing his rucksack on the ground.

“1979.” I said clearly. “Still looks the same as it did then, minus the smashed windows and debris”.

Being in the middle of nowhere, off the side of the main road, people never came to demolish the building, it was just left it to rot away.

The group toppled onto the kerb, reaching into their bags to grab their bottled water to drink. I was fine, I was too excited to care.

“This place would have been revolutionary in its time.” I said in awe, gazing up.

“It’s a supermarket.” Lea rolled her eyes, sipped her water, and jumped onto her feet.

“No, it was a superstore, the first of its kind round these parts.”

“Can’t say our town isn’t consistent, always been a pile of crap.”

“I think it’s awesome.”

Mike came over joined us. “And great to shoot a horror movie.”

“It had better be.” Lea said. “We’d better get an A+ for the hassle it’s been.”

“It will be.” I promised.

Lucy trailed behind. She was sweating by the time she arrived at the superstore entrance.

“Okay there?” I checked in with her.

She nodded, as best as she could while breathing heavily. “I will be, had to stop, my strap came undone.”

“The boom mics are still in there though, right?”

She patted her bag and tipped her chin, striding in front of us.

The large, seven-foot windows were covered in layers of dust, mould, and grime. Once, the doors opened automatically, now a broken chain bolted them shut. We could climb through the gap though; it was quite big and we were only skinny. We crawled through the bottom, our pants getting mucky on the shattered tiles, but we were in.

“Right then.” Lea said. “Where do we want to set up?”

Darkness engulfed the store. Apart from the Sunset providing the only light, we couldn’t see a thing.

“Well, first things first, we need these light boxes going up.” I suggested looking to Mike who was already lifting them out.

It wasn’t scheduled for bad weather, but a gust of wind from outside let itself in and slammed the door shut. It was so dark now; we couldn’t see anyone’s face.

“For Christ’s sake I can’t see anything!” Lea cried.

“Can you get it open?” I heard Lucy call out.

I rustled inside my coat pocket retrieving my phone. The haunting blue light from the screen shone. Everyone’s face lit up as if they were wearing halos.

“Whose light is that?” Lucy asked.

“Mine.” I said shifting the light towards my own face so now I glowed.

“I’ll look if the door opens.” Mike’s muffled voice answered, his footsteps loud and confident, swinging his phone with the light on.

I could see his hands angling the phone just right so that he could pull the door loose.

“That’s jammed, I can’t see a way through.”

“This is just great.” Lea’s voice hissed.

“It’s okay, if we just get these light boxes up, we can see what we’re doing.” I suggested, grabbing my phone to guide me towards Mike’s stuff.

We all helped, clicking each screw into place.

Lucy looked at her own phone. “Err, guys, I don’t want to worry you or anything, but there’s no signal here.”

I looked at my own, with the wallpaper of my favourite horror movie, Friday 13th. Jason Voorhees in his mask. Lucy was right. There was no signal, no bars, no Wi-Fi.

“Why did we have to come here?” Lea mumbled.

Mike switched on the last button on the back of the light, the strongest of them all. The superstore glowed in a warmish glow. Most of the shelves were bare. There was the occasional frozen meal left on the floor or lying on top of the chest freezers or canned tomatoes that probably expired in fifty years, but nothing of use. I consulted my bag, grabbed the storyboard sheets and scripts, and handed them around. Everyone took a copy reading them under the light boxes.

“We want to start at the top of page six. Do the fake blood scene, get it out of the way” Lea said turning to that page, skim reading her lines.

“Did you rewrite this part, Sam?”

I flicked to the page. One of the tomato cans that I had been staring at wobbled on the shelf, fell a few feet, and bounced off the tiles, rolling until it stopped by my feet. I crushed it with my weight and picked it up, the dent, obvious. The tin lid had been opened just enough that tomato juice slimed on my hands.

“Gross.” Lea smirked.

I wiped the excess on my pants. “I don’t understand.” I said. “It was on that shelf; I was looking at it and it never moved from that shelf until now.”

“It’s an old store.” Mike explained to me, as if I wasn’t the one who’d told them. “We disturbed the dust after so long, it’s bound to happen.”

I agreed, it was the easiest way.

“So, Sam? Did you rewrite this part or what?”

“What? Yeah, yeah, I did, I thought it needed more emotion from our victim.” I pointed to Lucy and smiled. “You up for it?”

“You know me, I’ll do anything.”

I threw her some old, ripped t-shirts I’d grabbed from my closet, and she wore them over her shirt. Dipping herself in fake blood, Lucy was now sticky. Red slimy corn syrup dribbled down the front of the shirt.

“Then I come in, with my mask on and pretend to stab you.” I said, holding the plastic knife in my hand. It was basic, cheap and rubbish. A cheap Halloween mask my big brother wore last year, a discounted hockey mask.

“The sound’s working.” Lea said, gesturing with her thumb, boom mic hoisted over her shoulder.

“And action!” Mike yelled.

I stood over Lucy pretending to swing my knife in her direction. She screamed at the top of her lungs as camp and as cheesy as she could.

“Cut, Cut!”

“What now?” Lea grumbled.

I helped Lucy to her feet and we gathered around the camera.

“Look at this, at the far back.” He said pointing to what used to be the staff room.

“What am I looking at?” Lea scrunched her face.

“That door, it swings open and then shuts. Look closely.”

We watched our amateur acting abilities. Lucy’s screaming, my obvious pretend knife swinging and, in the back, just as Mike had said, the door opened and closed.

“It’s the wind.” Lucy stated.

“No, look closely, that’s not the wind, wind can’t do that.”

“Can you see I wasn’t making it up now?” I told them.

“It’s shut now.” Lea indicated to the door.

“Exactly, it’s not doing it now, but it was, there’s you proof.”

“Fine, go and check it out then.”

“All of us? Who’s going to look after our stuff?”

“Sam, chill, there’s nobody here.”

“You think? I really don’t...”

Lea had already disappeared with her phone light shining. Like lemmings, we followed and I flung the mask on the ground.

“See? It can’t have been, it’s locked.” Lea tried pushing the door handle up and down. She peered into the dust covered window, wiping it on the back of her hand. “It’s just an empty room with chairs and a coffee table and what looks like a broken vending machine.”

“There’s no way to open it?” Mike pushed through and pushed the handle back up and down, with no luck.

“No, why don’t you believe me?”

“I’m not making it up Lea, you definitely saw the film.”

Mike kept rattling the handle. more desperate with every push.

“It’s locked, okay?”

“Maybe we should go, find another location…” Lucy mumbled tasting blood drips on her chin.

“No, it will be fine. Let us all get back and shoot this quickly.” I advised them. It was getting darker now outside and it felt colder.

“Besides.” Lea said. “Getting out is going to be another problem. We’re gonna have to break the windows, aren’t we?”

I didn’t want to think about that, not just now. I’d rather not spend my night in hospital because we’d all cut ourselves on shattered glass.

“Come on.”

The lights glowed brightly, reflecting the superstore in the dirty windows, which made the place look bigger than it was. The corn syrup had left smudges on the tiles, where it had dripped from Lucy’s t-shirt and beside that, there was now no mask.

“Who picked up the mask?” I asked voice shaking.

Everyone shook their heads.

“You had it, didn’t you?” Mike gestured to my bag. “It’s in there isn’t it?”

“It’s not…” I ruffled through my backpack. All that was inside was spare makeup, wipes, and spare clothes for emergencies.

“Well, none of us picked it up. Perhaps you dropped it.” Lea looked vaguely around the top shelves.

“I didn’t, I left it right here, and anyway, why the hell would I casually hide the mask up there.”

“Dunno, just trying to be helpful.”

“You’re not.”

“Stop it you two, there no point in bickering” Mike interrupted.

“I don’t like this, I’m getting outta here.” Lucy raced towards the entrance. We all followed her like trying to catch a whimpering dog at the vets.

“Lucy…” I called.

She didn’t listen she stared at the dirty windows, her hands shaking. Lucy looked up and down, side to side as if assessing the best way to escape. We crowded around her, as corn syrup dripped on the shattered tiles.

“Come on Luc, let’s get back to filming- “Mike tried to herd her back.

It could have been a rat or mouse scurrying behind me. It could have been, but I knew better. I spun around to see a distant sheen casting shadows on the floor.

“There’s something there.” I muttered.

Everyone looked the way I had turned. Now, silence.

“Sam, come on, we’re trying to make her feel safe not paranoid.” Lea spat.

“I’m not being paranoid.” Lucy murmured. “This place, I just don’t want to be here.”

The rustling and scurrying sound of something running behind me started up again. It ran through both ears and out again. Everyone followed the sound.

“You heard it that time, didn’t you?” I murmured.

They nodded.

Before we could react, Lucy fell to the floor in a pile. Her legs giving way, bleeding from her knees, screaming out in pain. A pool of her blood grew around her. We didn’t catch a good look at the figure that struck her. One moment a flash of black, with my mask clearly visible on their face. They sped down the aisle towards the locked door.

Lucy bled out quickly, the corn syrup mixed with her own blood. She was getting paler, weaker and we couldn’t do anything.

“Get back here you coward!” Lea yelled racing after them.

We couldn’t stay with Lucy; she was dying anyway.

“Come On.” I said to Mike. “We can’t leave Lea alone with them.”

We took one last look at Lucy taking her last breath, then hurried after them. The door was wide open, we persued Lea.

The room was as dark and as damp as the rest of the superstore. My phones light cast a blue light on the vending machine, broken in a corner. A leather sofa which had seen better days, and dust all over a blue fuzzy carpet. Lea sat on the floor, out of breath with bloody fingers.

“I couldn’t catch them.”

“You’re bleeding!” Mike cried out grabbing her hand.

“It’s not mine, it’s...” Lea looked towards the door. “Is she, you know?”

“There was nothing we could do.” I said.

We sat in a huddle on the floor, our phones providing a little light.

“They were wearing your mask.” Lea finally said.

“I saw.”

We helped Lea to her feet, in the rush, she had twisted her foot. One on either side of her, we helped her to walk. The door had locked behind us. Mike tried frantically, pushing the handle up and down, until I reached out my hand and stopped him.

“It’s locked, must have locked automatically.”

Lea looked less convinced. “You really think that?”

Like a shadow, the figure swept through the superstore. I didn’t get a chance to see who wore the mask, I just knew they were tall, as tall as I could have imagined. The hockey mask shimmered, casting shadows on the floor.

Everything happened within seconds. The window smashed in our faces, shards of glass hurtling towards us. One large, pointed piece landed in Lea’s eye, and she shrieked out in pain.

We dropped her, all falling to the floor. We were hit with some kind of gas canister, that quickly filled the room in thick layers of smog.

The last thing I remember, was hearing coughing. The last thing I remember seeing, That god forsaken mask.