Good to Buy (PART 2: FINAL)

 

(continued)

The supermarket wasn’t as deserted as earlier. There were four employees in the store, one of them including his father, the new cashier, who had left for work earlier that morning. 

“That’s weird,” Lilli said, scratching her neck. “There’s supposed to be at least ten workers here.” She shrugged. “Maybe it’s not their shift.”

Timothy’s father waved through the window, indicating to enter.

“Let’s go!” Lilli said for the third time. Timothy opened the supermarket door. A wave of dry, acrid-scented air washed over him. It smelled weird, of decay.

“That your kid, Greg?” a worker asked Timothy’s father, interrupting his thoughts. The worker was tall and wiry, with wisps of hair on his head and a short, scratchy beard. He noticed a name tag on his uniform: Eugene. Timothy glanced up at his father, who was proudly nodding. Eugene smiled at Timothy (or at least he thought it was a smile), and he noticed Eugene was missing a tooth.  He chose not to discover how it got knocked out.

“I’m Timothy,” he told Eugene. Timothy glanced at Lilli. Was it just him or did she look slightly confused?.

“Nice to meet you, Timothy. You’re welcome in the lounge anytime,” Eugene replied. Then he got back to mopping the red-and-white tiled floor.

“Come on, Timothy,” Lilli said, sounding impatient. “Let’s go into the lounge.”

Why Lilli seemed so eager Timothy had no idea. But he followed her, and none of the other employees said a word. The lounge was deserted. There were two wooden tables side-by-side, covered in soda stains. There was an old vending machine in the back of the room, and the windows were wide open, but the room still seemed dark.

“I come here all the time,” Lilli proudly said. “It’s a habit for me to walk here whenever I’m bored.”

Timothy nodded as if he’d understood. But he didn’t. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to come into the old lounge of a rundown grocery store to pass time.

“You already met Eugene,” Lilli said. “He has a long backstory. He’s been working here for forty years.”

As Lilli continued to blabber about Eugene and the other two workers in the store, Timothy stared out the window, looking at a decent-sized purple house about twenty yards away. He’d seen the same house yesterday. It was also the same house Lilli pointed to, talking about the McGullicks.

Through the windows, all the lights were turned off. But the sunlight outside illuminated the inside of the house just enough so that Timothy could see what was inside. It was empty. The house was empty. There were no couches, no tables, no fancy vases with flowers inside. The house looked empty and sullen. There was no way a whole family was currently living inside the house. That’s when Timothy saw it. There was just one mirror hung on the wall, facing him. And through it, Timothy could just make out his own reflection. But that wasn’t what caught his eye. He could see Lilli sitting across from him. But her reflection wasn’t complete. It was almost as if she didn’t fully exist in the world, as if she was just an illusion. It was like she was… glitching.

That wasn’t possible. Timothy rubbed his eyes. The heat must’ve been teasing him.

“… so now he lives by himself because of the disappearance.” Lilli was saying, scratching her arms and neck harder than ever.

Timothy nodded as if he’d been paying attention to her conversation.

“Wow,” was all he said.

“Tim, it’s time for lunch. We’re closing the store for now,” his father said, entering the lounge. “Come on.”

Timothy and Lilli left the supermarket and took a shortcut back to his house.

Before Timothy could thank Lilli again for bringing him to the grocery store, she disappeared. He didn’t bother looking for her again.

Timothy’s father was already inside the kitchen, heating a can of soup for their lunch. “So, what did you think of it?” His father asked him.

Timothy nodded slowly. “It was… interesting,” he said, trying to find the right word.

“Oh, Tim!” his father said, taking a stack of papers from the kitchen counter, scaring away some of the roaches feasting on a few cookie crumbs. “I found these last night while you were fast asleep. They were in the kitchen cabinets.”

Timothy took the papers. They were newspapers, all dating back to 1924, nearly thirty years ago. Timothy ruffled through the headlines. They were all pretty much boring. Families moving in, stores closing, stores opening, managers retiring. Then he found something that caught his eye: Girl found dead in grocery store. Many employees to quit their jobs.

He scanned through the article.

“She was just lying there, motionless, so I called everyone else. She was confirmed dead from scarlet fever an hour later. Nobody knows how she died,” says Eugene Phillips, one of Good to Buy’s employees. He was one of the only employees who didn’t quit their job after this tragedy. One employee who did quit was the girl’s own father, Timothy Rust, also known as Good to Buy’s previous cashier.

Timothy winced at reading his own name.

“I had to,” says Rust. “I had to quit. My own daughter was found dead. What type of father am I to continue working here?” The girl, twelve, identified as—”

Timothy’s heart skipped a beat. The rest of the pages were ripped out. He  desperately wanted to know who the dead girl was. Then he saw the faded black and white photograph.

There was a body lying on the floor of Good to Buy’s lounge. It was a girl’s body, about his age.

It took a moment for Timothy to recognize the plaid pinafore dress over the white long sleeve shirt. 

Lilli. 

Lilli had been dead for thirty years.

Author's Note

Okay. I understand your pain right now, but this is it. There are no more parts. Enjoy the cliffhanger! :)