Bad Man: A Novel

Book : Part of: Blumhouse Books (7 books)

by Dathan Auerbach

Genres: Horror

Synopsis

Reddit horror sensation Dathan Auerbach delivers a devilishly dark novel about a young boy who goes missing, and the brother who won't stop looking for him.

Eric disappeared when he was three years old. Ben looked away for only a second at the grocery store, but that was all it took. His brother was gone. Vanished right into the sticky air of the Florida Panhandle. They say you've got only a couple days to find a missing person. Forty-eight hours to conduct searches, knock on doors, and talk to witnesses. Two days to tear the world apart if there's any chance of putting yours back together. That's your window.

That window closed five years ago, leaving Ben's life in ruins. He still looks for his brother. Still searches while his stepmother sits and waits and whispers for Eric, refusing to leave the house that Ben's father can no longer afford. Now 20 and desperate for work, Ben takes a night stock job at the only place that will have him: the store that blinked Eric out of existence.

Ben can feel that there's something wrong there. With the people. With his boss. With the graffitied baler that shudders and moans and beckons. There's something wrong with the air itself. He knows he's in the right place now. That the store has much to tell him. So, he keeps searching. Keeps looking for his baby brother while missing the most important message of all. That he should have stopped looking.

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Release date: August 7, 2018

Publisher: Vintage

Print pages: 387

Sample

Prologue: A Body in the Woods

At the sweltering height of a north Florida summer, a body was discovered by two boys playing in woods they’d always promised to stay out of. Thick and looming trees made a forest that could swallow anyone who didn’t know the way. But they knew it, the same way all young boys who grow up near woods know it: by trampling through the trees until they give up their secrets. Even that day they emerged safely, though perhaps a little different. The story that they would tell their parents later that day was a lie. They hadn’t simply seen the body.

The truth was that the older boy had been the one to find it, and he had found it not by accident but by violence. Directing his frustration with the world back on to itself, he would save his anger for the forgiving trees. The younger boy followed and watched, the sight as natural and turbulent to him as a thunderstorm; all you could do was stay back and hope not to be caught in its path. The older one would beat trees with their own limbs and toss saplings as far as his arms and gravity would allow—not in a mindless way or in a tantrum; it was somehow more methodical. Piles of dead leaves and anthills exploded on the toes of his swinging boots, while the two boys talked about calm things, happy things.

That day in July, they were debating how big they thought the neighbor girl’s bra must be, when the words stopped as abruptly as the boot did. Boots pass right through anthills. The dry ones feel like they weren’t even really there to begin with. There’s a soft, quick thud, and then it’s nothing but leather chasing sand. Wet hills are a little different. Those kick back a bit, up the leg and into the knee. You have to drive harder into those or else your boot’s just scooping dirt. And then what’s the point? The older boy had kicked hard, hard enough to pass right through, but his leg hummed like a bat against concrete.

It wasn’t until the younger one started yelling and pulling at the older boy’s shirt that he could begin to make sense of what had stopped his foot. He hadn’t kicked an anthill. The boy stood there dumbly for a while with his boot in the side of a collapsed face before his friend finally managed to wrestle him away.

The older boy got the switch, but it was the younger boy’s parents who had been the most furious. Their anger was tempered only by a kind of unclean relief tumbling over them in a muddy wave, as they learned that their son had wandered in and out of danger before they even had a chance to know it was there. The boy never really understood their reactions. He was fine. Nothing had happened. But he was just a boy. He couldn’t know how scary having a child could be, knowing there’s a piece of yourself out in the world that you can protect only with warnings and rules that could be ignored and broken; knowing that the connecting nerves are so long, any message of distress would take an eternity to reach its way back to you; feeling pain at the expectation of agony.

The parents of the young boy said much to keep that summer in his mind, as if he would somehow forget or even want to. He had to be more careful with himself, they’d say. Next time, something might find you. Their town, small as it was, was no different from any other—the well of ghost stories no less deep, and so they drew from it and served him stories about other children who had also been fine right up until the moment they weren’t.

less. Climbed in through a broke window twenty-five feet in the air, and then snapped both his legs when he fell from that platform. Lay there for damn near two days before someone found him.

And that little girl, the one who didn’t get off the school bus that one day because she didn’t never make it on? Heard her momma stood at that bus stop all afternoon figuring there had to be some kind of mistake. But the world don’t make mistakes, you hear me? What it makes are fools who think bad luck won’t notice them. Don’t matter who you are, or how old neither.

Just ask that one little boy, not that you could. Wasn’t nothin but a toddler. Just up and vanished into thin air. Poof.

For the parents, perhaps more disconcerting than the boy’s story was the fact that he wasn’t bothered by theirs. But young boys are hard to bother. They’re immortal by their own measure. Only as the years wear on do they seem to see that there are fewer and fewer ahead. There’s no telling when this realization will hit, but given long enough, Time makes you aware of itself. Glancing backward, we can see we’ve done some traveling, but at some point we all learn that the horizon ahead won’t keep pace with us forever. We can only hope that there’s still a ways to go before the edge sneaks up under our shoes. How far is anyone’s guess, but we’re gaining on it all the time. The young boy’s parents decided to rush that lesson in their son, and it worked, more or less. He still went out, but he looked back more often.

The two friends returned to the place a few months later, chattering the whole way through the woods about the things the young one’s parents had told him, adding their speculations and embellishments with each muddy footfall. They were talking about the missing toddler as they came to the clearing, but once they were in it the air turned as empty as the earth. They stood quietly for a moment, staring at the soil. There was only a smooth divot in the ground where the corpse had been, like the wet dirt underneath a pried-out stone. They knew the police had taken it; it had been on the news, after all. But neither boy said anything about that. Neither boy said anything at all, for that matter. They should have kept talking, though. There were few places on Earth where it would have been more appropriate to talk about that missing toddler.

But really there wasn’t much else for them to say. The young boy’s parents had told him what they knew, and that hadn’t really been all that much. What the parents recalled was that the boy had simply vanished one day, like cigarette smoke in the wind. What they didn’t know was that the little boy’s name was Eric.

They’d seen flyers for Eric here and there over the years. That is to say, their eyes had touched them from time to time, but that was as far as the image ever made it. They didn’t know because they never really looked. No one ever does.

They also didn’t know that Eric had a big brother named Ben or that they’d actually seen all 220 pounds of him twice before. The first time was at a craft store when he was walking with his baby brother. The second time was years later when he was out looking for him.

They might have known that’s what Ben was doing if they had slowed down to talk to him when he approached, but they hadn’t, so they didn’t. It probably wouldn’t have made any difference. Not because of what they didn’t know, but because of what Ben didn’t know. It wasn’t his fault, though.

Ben had no way of knowing that he should have stopped looking.

All told, there were only two people in the whole world who knew that.

 

1

“Ready or not, here I come!”

The front and back yards were off-limits. Eric knew this, but Ben still locked the doors when they played. Even three-year-olds know that the only true rule in hide-and-seek is: don’t get caught. Eventually, the boundaries of the game would expand. Maybe in a few years. Ben could only imagine the hiding spots Eric would discover once he was officially liberated from walls and rooms.

“I know all your spots, bud!” Ben taunted as he walked into the hallway that fed their bedrooms and bathroom.

A muffled giggle floated from Eric’s room. Ben doubled back in order to add a little more time to the clock. This was the fifth time they’d played this game in the last hour, which was about five more times than Ben would have preferred, but this game at least afforded Ben some time to himself. The longer he could draw out the hunt, the less frequent the screaming and laughing fits would be. It was a hard game to play for both of them. Their house was fairly small, and Ben was more than fairly large for a fifteen-year-old. There was virtually nowhere for him to conceal himself. But Ben’s turns as the hider were really only ceremonial anyway. Just a formality.

Eric’s giggles were the sound track of the game, growing louder and more uncontrolled the closer Ben got. Even without his brother’s snickering, Ben usually knew where he was hiding. Right now, Eric was in his bedroom. But Ben found Eric only some of the time. Most of the time, Ben let Eric sneak loudly back to the base.

“Olly olly oxen free!” Eric would call.

“Aw, dangit!” Ben would protest.

It was a fun enough game, but Ben’s enthusiasm for it wasn’t quite as strong as his brother’s. It seemed like Eric might just go on playing it forever if he had his way. Ben walked into his own room and slipped his shoes on. He’d have to leave for the store soon enough. Ben tapped his knuckles against the wall behind his headboard.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

No response. Eric was getting cleverer all the time. The hall perpendicular to Ben and Eric’s led to their parents’ room and was lined with family photos in cheap frames. “You over here?”

In the kitchen, Ben again ran his thumb down the itemized grocery list his stepmother had left for him. Deidra cooked well and often. Half the time it was tough for Ben to imagine how the ingredients could work together, but they always did. She was talented at just about everything she tried, and she tried a lot of things. The house was speckled with scraps of her hobbies, both old and new.

An ovular table connected the dining room and kitchen by virtue of the fact that it was too big for the small space. It was the nicest piece of furniture in the house, though it was surely better suited for one with more square feet. Ben jostled the drawers and cabinets of the small buffet piece in the dining room’s corner. “I’m gonna find you!” 

Ben’s left leg was weak enough that he was pushed off-balance. Ben’s hip struck the edge of the buffet, and a small Hummel figurine tumbled down from the mantel. Ben lurched and whipped his arms out, fumbling with the porcelain doll until it rested safely against his chest.

“Go easy,” Ben said, but Eric either didn’t hear or didn’t care; through chestnut curls, his bright hazel eyes smiled as he squealed and giggled around the table.

“You hide now,” the small boy said.

“Can’t and won’t.” Ben sighed, placing the figurine back on the shelf. “We gotta run up to the store, bud.”

“What for?”

“So you don’t starve to death.”

“I don’t wanna go.”

Ben rubbed his left thigh with the heel of his hand. “That wasn’t the deal, remember? We play for a while, and then we head on up to the store. Besides, I was gonna get you somethin, but I can’t remember what it is you like. Was it peas?”

“No,” Eric said, and laughed.

“Nah, I didn’t think it was peas. It’s mustard, huh? Big jar of mustard is what you was wanting.”

Eric shook his head. “Reesees Peesees.”

“Wrinkled pigs’ feet? You want some pig feet, bud?”

“No.” Eric laughed again and shoved his brother.

“Well, go and get your shoes on then, and you can show me what you want, because I can’t understand what it is you’re talking about.” Ben smiled as he watched his brother run to his room.

---

—

The air was stifling. Ben’s right hand returned repeatedly to the bottom hem of his shirt to adjust it away from his large stomach, but the attraction was undefeatable; the fabric pulled toward his body like a dollar-store shower liner. His other hand was full of Eric’s.

“Look both ways,” Eric said as they approached the main road.

“That’s right, buddy,” Ben replied.

As Eric surveyed the asphalt, he turned his stuffed animal in sync with his own movements, its black dome eyes reflecting and warping the world around it. A car whizzed by and Eric tucked the small rhinoceros under his arm. “Watch out, Stampie,” he said as dust enveloped the trio. Ben felt his brother’s hand squeeze harder as they stepped into the street.

Ben’s walk was more of a hobble as they moved along the overgrown grass shoulder between the trees and pavement. An old injury pestered for consideration with every step. The back of his right hand shimmered with a thin layer of sweat as he drew it away from his forehead. Shoulda gone sooner, Ben thought.

Eric took long, exaggerated steps as he kept pace with his big brother, his feet stomping on tufts of grass and dry clods of dirt that exploded in brown plumes under his small feet. A quiet song drifted through his closed lips, one no doubt inherited from his mother. Ben had once asked if she had a song for everything; she’d said that she was working on it.

Ben felt short fingers wrap around his wrist as Eric’s feet left the ground. “Don’t do that,” Ben said. He looked at his brother, who was hanging from his arm like a swing. Ben bent sideways to lower the boy’s feet back toward the earth. Eric laughed and then went limp, his hand

slipping out of his brother’s.

“Quit it…” Ben sighed, his back feeling like an old hinge as he moved his hands toward his brother. “You’re gonna stain your shirt.” Eric’s wrist felt thin and frail in Ben’s grip as he lifted his brother back to his feet. He spun Eric around and brushed the dirt and grass from his back. “C’mon,” Ben said, walking ahead.

Eric whined as he held his arm out. “Hold hands,” he insisted. Ben obeyed, pulling Eric along. After a few more steps, Ben felt his shoulder jerk as Eric suddenly dug his heels into the dirt, his hand slipping out from Ben’s grip once again. The boy tumbled backward into the grass, where he lay laughing, long blades of sickly green tickling against his pale skin.

“Gosh dangit, Eric!” Ben snapped. But Eric kept squirming, cackling each time he managed to slide his hand out of his brother’s and fall back into the boy-shaped impression in the dry grass. “That’s enough now!” Ben spat. He grabbed his brother’s wrist and pulled him upright. Eric sulked but accepted it after a while.

The store was pretty much in the center of town, though the town was lopsided and sprawling, so its center depended on how it was measured. The company that built the store measured the center by population density. There were a fair number of neighborhoods near Ben’s, but beyond the store, the road and the town itself wound down into nothing.

Trees and fields. Fields and trees. Those things counted as nothing to Ben anyway, even if they did seem to eat up the whole horizon. Ben stared long into the distance as he and Eric walked through the store’s parking lot, a flat carpet of asphalt that shimmered like it was wet on hot days like this one.

There was nothing striking about the place other than how large it was. The enormous rectangular block sat in the flat town like it had been left there by mistake, dropped on the way to a larger, more bustling place. It was the biggest grocery store in town by far. 

against their frame. With great effort, the bottoms of the doors ground against the metal track, and the whole opening shrieked like a sideways mouth. Ben could feel the screech in his cheekbones. And as it lingered, it seemed to crawl through the rest of his skull.

“Jesus.” Ben ducked and turned his head. Even Eric seemed to notice Ben’s discomfort, though the boy looked at his big brother for only a moment before darting gnat-like around Ben as they entered the store.

Eric had set his own course, which Ben worked vigilantly to correct. “We’ll get your candy at the checkout, bud.” Ben reflected on the absurdity of having to make deals with such a small boy, and he regretted promising Eric candy of all things, but there was no other currency with which the boy would trade. He’d give the sweets to him once they got home. Before long, his parents would be back, and it would be their responsibility to contain this tiny whirlwind. “C’mon, bud. I need to get some water in me,” Ben said, gently guiding Eric by his shoulder.

Ben tugged at the bottom hem of his shirt again, trying to force some of the cool air between the fabric and his skin as they walked toward the back of the store. His headache seemed to grow worse with each step, like there was an invisible vise clamped around his skull, threatening to cave it in.

“Cookies,” Eric pleaded, pointing behind himself toward the bakery.

“Then no candy.”

The small boy mulled the choice for a moment, huffed, then marched back toward Ben’s outstretched hand.

Ben tousled Eric’s hair. “Stampie likes Reese’s Pieces better, I reckon.”

“Yeah.” Eric smiled.

The fountain was stingy. Without enough pressure to form an arc, the water seeped slowly down the metal bubbler. Ben placed his lips on the nozzle, the curved splash guard pressing against his cheek, and pulled the tepid water into his mouth. He put his hands on Eric’s waist and lifted him with a grunt so that the child could do the same. Water dripped down the little boy’s chin as Ben set him down. “You gotta use the bathroom?” Ben asked, gesturing toward the off-white door. Eric shook his head.

As they walked the aisles, Ben chased his headache with the tips of his fingers. It had traveled from just above his ears to his temples, which he now rubbed while watching Eric bounce from one side of the aisle to the other. Ben lifted a can of green beans off the shelf and herded Eric to the next aisle.

Ben’s arms were encumbered by the time they reached the checkout. Cans and boxes teetered and shifted in his crossed arms as they stood in the middle of a long line, the solitary cashier making polite chitchat as she swept barcodes across the scanner. Ben’s head split a little more with each piercing tone from the register, which only grew louder as the customers in front of him took their receipts. Eric reached up and tipped Stampie onto the conveyor belt among an elderly woman’s groceries.

“Sorry,” Ben said, lifting his occupied arms a little to show the woman that he was unable to retrieve the toy.

She smiled, plucking the rhino up by the horn. “Oh, bless his heart,” she said affectionately. “I reckon he better stay with you, sugar,” she said, bending down to hand him back to Eric.

“Thanks, ma’am,” Ben offered.

Eric pushed the toy back onto the belt as the line moved ahead. Finally, and with great relief, Ben let his cargo tumble onto the black conveyer belt. He snatched Stampie from the woman’s groceries and handed him back to Eric.

“Quit it, okay?” he said softly.

“I gotta go pee,” Eric whispered.

“No, you do not.”

“I do too.”

“I asked you not five minutes ago if you had to go,” Ben whispered.

“But I gotta go now,” Eric said, pinching and pulling the crotch of his pants.

The line moved forward while Ben looked from his brother to the people behind him. “You’re gonna have to hold it or else we’ll lose our place.”

“I gotta peeeeee,” Eric protested.

Ben craned his head toward the back of the store, trying to estimate the time it would take to make it to the bathroom and back.

“You gotta go that bad? No foolin?”

“No foolin.” Eric squirmed.

“I can take him,” a man said through a beard so thick that Ben could see only hair moving when he spoke. He had warm eyes and a soft voice.

“No. No, that’s alright. Thanks, though.”

“No trouble in it, really,” the man replied, holding out two dollars. “Just get me this with the rest of your stuff?” He motioned to a loaf of bread in front of him on the conveyer.

“I sure do appreciate it, mister,” Ben said as he returned the grocery burden to his arms, “but I better take him. C’mon, Eric.” The two brothers slid past the snake of a line. Ben stopped to dump his groceries at an empty register.

“What about my Reesees?”

Ben exhaled heavily through his nose. A spike of pain surged from his knee as if it were reaching up to be with its mate in Ben’s skull. With uneven steps, Ben led Eric back toward the bathroom.

By the time they got there, Eric was bawling. The door opened with a high groan, and the smell of bleach overpowered Ben’s nose. A black scar of mildew outlined the chipped porcelain sink. The urinal sat too high on the wall for Eric to reach, so Ben ushered him into the lone stall. It was too cramped for both of them, so Ben left the flimsy door open while he helped Eric with the button on his pants.

“I can do it,” Eric protested.

“Okay,” Ben said as he retreated. “Go ahead.”

He glanced at the entrance to the restroom to see if there was a way to lock the door, but there was no bolt. Ben leaned against the stall’s frame. A man entered the restroom, nodded at Ben, pissed in the urinal, and then left without washing his hands.

“I got it,” Eric said, as he began urinating with his pants piled against his shoes.

“Good job, buddy,” Ben said. He turned the faucet on and splashed cold water against his face.

“Oops,” Eric yelped.

Ben stuck his head into the stall and saw Stampie floating in the dirty water. Ben sighed.

“I can get him,” Eric said as he pulled his pants up. He reached one arm toward the rippling water, but Ben seized it quickly.

“Go and stand over there,” Ben rumbled, pointing toward the sink.

Eric grabbed his own fingers awkwardly and took his assigned position while Ben gingerly fished the stuffed rhino out of the toilet. He held it aloft and watched as several streams of water merged into one. Continuing to hold it at arm’s length, he pivoted on his heel and dropped the toy in the sink before turning on the faucet. Ben’s large fingers slid into the metal box on the wall where the paper towels should have been but

found it to be only an empty shell.

“Stay here.” Ben pointed at Eric firmly and then pushed open the wooden door. As it swung closed behind him, Ben pulled open the adjacent women’s restroom door. “Hello?” he called. “Anyone in here?”

Hearing no response, Ben slunk in and quickly grabbed a handful of paper towels, kicking back at the door in an effort to keep it open. Paper towels in hand, he exited the room swiftly and again moved from one door to the other.

“All clean!” Eric exclaimed as Ben walked in. Clutched in Eric’s small hands was Stampie, whose large eyes and slanted smile now looked sad as his fur sagged with water—water that dripped all the way down Eric’s arms. There were wet spots on his pants and shirt.

“Jesus, Eric!” Ben shouted. Eric recoiled and drew Stampie in closer to his body. “No,” Ben said, snatching the toy from the kid’s grasp, “he isn’t clean, and now you ain’t neither.” The throbbing in Ben’s skull was pulsing audibly in his ears.

“Don’t hurt ’im!” Eric shrieked.

“I’m not gonna hurt him. I’m fixin to clean him.” He jammed the rhino aggressively against the soap dispenser.

“You’re hurtin him!”

“No, I’m not! He’s fine. See?” Ben snapped, pushing the toy in Eric’s face before moving it to the small waterfall in the sink.

“Lemme do it!” Eric said, reaching up into the sink. “You’re bein mean. Lemme!”

“It’s just a toy, Eric!”

“No, he isn’t! You said!”

Ben squeezed the water out of the creature and then wadded paper towels around it. Eric was still reaching up for the

 rhino when Ben struck the large silver button on the air dryer. The machine wheezed briefly before the steady whirr of hot air began.

“I can do it!” Eric nagged, pulling on Ben’s forearms.

“But you ain’t gonna!” Ben screamed. He could feel his headache in his teeth now. Christ, it hurt. This was taking so much longer than it was supposed to. Ben wondered if someone had put his groceries away by now. He’d have to collect them all again.

“Gimme!” Eric cried, now yanking on Ben’s shirt and arm.

“You’re not gettin any candy now.” Ben jerked his arm away and freed his shirt from his brother’s grasp. “Leave me alone!” Ben yelled.

“No,” Eric whined, lingering on the vowel.

With a click, the motor disengaged. Unable to tell the difference between dry and just warm, Ben had to wait a moment so the fabric could cool. He depressed the button again, the steady and boisterous hum of the dryer washing over his mind in the same way the air itself billowed and curled around the contours of his hands. He looked peripherally at his brother, who stood with a contorted and wet face in the exact spot where Ben had directed him.

Ben placed his forehead against the cold tile on the wall, ignoring the black veins of grout. Eric couldn’t be blamed. Not really, anyway. He was just a boy—old enough to have preferences and desires, but too young to be expected to control or manage them. Whatever person he would become was still very much a work in progress. Any discord between their moods or temperaments could only be Ben’s fault.

Ben forgot that sometimes. Too often he thought of Eric as being older than he really was, more in control.

A chill rolled across Ben’s back and neck, and he felt the pressure inside his skull ease further. Stampie’s black eyes stared

up at Ben, reflecting and distorting his own face. He looked older, heavier. His eyes were sunken and dark. A selfish forlornness tugged at Ben’s heart. He tried to place it, but he could not.

Ben pushed the silver button again, savoring the white noise. He’d apologize, tell Eric it had all been a joke. There’d be candy after all. Isn’t big brother so funny?

As the gale dwindled, Ben ran his fingers over the rhino. A faint mist launched from the ends of the fibers that he could only barely feel. “I’m sorry, bud,” Ben said, his words echoing. He rolled his head toward the sink. “Stampie’s just about—”

But Ben was talking to empty space.

“Bud?” he said, spinning around and pushing the door open into the stall behind him. Ben’s heart pounded and a warm wave crashed over the back of his neck. “Eric?”

With trembling hands, he set Stampie on the lip of the sink and flung the door wide open. His eyes darted and stalled awkwardly as he tried to take in as much as possible while still being compelled to scan slowly so he could actually see what he was looking at.

Disposable music leaked from speakers hidden in the ceiling. Ben’s feet moved briskly along the back aisle of the store, his head aimed unceasingly to the right, peering down each food-lined alley that whizzed past. His chest heaved.

He stifled an impulse to call out, to yell for his brother at the top of his lungs. Because it wasn’t real yet. There was still hope. Screaming would make it real somehow. The door would open, the wind would carry the words, and this would all become a part of the world. He paced the aisles three times before his voice cracked. 

“Eric!” Ben shouted across the puzzled faces of leering customers.

“Eric!” Ben shouted again, his pulse quickening, his mind doing its best to stave off disorienting panic. He’ll be down the next aisle, he reassured himself. He’ll be down the next aisle.

A game. This is just a game, he tried to tell himself. He loves to play, so why not here? Why not in this place?

“I’m gonna find you!” Ben attempted to yell, but only a whimper emerged as he shook his head.

More empty aisles. More gawking strangers.

Ben cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Olly olly oxen free!”

Nothing.

It’s okay. This was okay. Kids wander off all the time. “Eric!” Ben screamed.

Wet tracks ran down Ben’s cheeks, but he wasn’t aware of them, or maybe he just ignored them. They weren’t real anyway. This was a dream. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. More customers turned now, their conversations ceasing.

Ben found himself running, his stomach bouncing uncomfortably. His left knee burned and stabbed at itself, threatening mutiny. Gracelessly, Ben dodged one customer and then another. A shopping cart collided with his midsection; his hands gripped the edges and flung it out of the way. Indecipherable curses pursued him as he bounded his way toward the front of the store. Colorful packaging caught his eyes as he approached the first register. Candy. He left for candy! Lane by lane Ben moved his eyes over the displays, expecting to see a small boy kneeling down gorging himself, his face half hidden behind a shimmering and wrinkled wrapper.

At the end of the row, Ben found his groceries still spilled out across an unused conveyer belt. A sinking feeling took hold in his stomach. His eyes flashed from one end of the store to the other. Bakery. Frozen foods. Grocery. Pharmacy. From almost every section, eyes peered out at him, but none were the eyes that he wanted to see. ...