Merchandise - Part 4

 IV

OVER THE next few days Jim began to notice more and more how things had been changing around the neighborhood. It started in simple ways, there were more people walking around—but then he noticed where they were going.

Then they started coming back with armloads of stuff, stuff that was really only junk that had been resold to them at a bargain price. He knew where it came from, and he didn’t want to think about it.

He saw a man walking down the road wearing a backpack one day. The man seemed in a bit of a daze, as if he really didn’t see anything going on around him. Jim was sipping a cup of coffee at the time, watching the man walk. As he watched him a few moments longer—the zombie like expression never leaving his face—he noticed that the backpack the man was empty. The floppy folds of it fluttered slightly in the wind, the backpack was slumping down on the man’s back, serving him no purpose whatsoever—but Jim knew why he had the pack.

He waited for the man to come back down the road, and sure enough the backpack was full. There were several odds and ends sticking straight up out of it, he saw the ears of a stuffed rabbit in particular, somewhat dirty from use. Why a grown man had bought something like that was beyond him. He watched until the man disappeared down the road, walking slowly, his face expressionless—robotic.

Jim had gone to bed that night, but didn’t get much sleep—all he could think about was the man with the backpack. When he did sleep, all he saw was a face, screaming and angry, that had two protuberances sticking distinctly out of the skull.

The next day he sat in the same chair in his living room, by the same window that looked out to the street, where he had seen the man with the backpack. The book he had bought a few days ago was in his hands, and he was trying to focus on the pages in front of him, but was having a real hard time paying attention, every few moments his eyes would drift upwards and he would find himself watching—waiting for the man with the backpack.

He had seen several people go down in the direction of the sale, a woman in a white Tahoe had driven down there, and when she came back he could see that her back seat was loaded down with all manner of stuff. The windows were cracked, and a single sleeve from the pile of clothes on top flowed out, reaching into the breeze, trying to escape—

Help me.

—out the window.

Jim watched it disappear and turned back to his book, realizing that he had no idea what was going on in the plot, he had just been grazing through it the whole time. He glanced at the road and thought about that voice he had heard the last time he was at the sale. He thought about the girl—Beverly—who had been yelled at, and that cobalt misty look to her eyes that had been there when she looked at him. That desperation when she had looked at him floated around in his memory, like a ghost that had found the perfect abode in his mind. He didn’t know why she had looked so distressed, aside from Linda firing off at her the way she did. He supposed that Beverly was an employee there, what with all the sales they were making, Bram and Linda probably needed to get some staff. He wasn’t sure what to make of the desperate expression on her face, or the voice—help me—that he was sure was hers. There had to be more to it, he knew that much, there simply had to be more to it.

He looked out the window again, giving up completely on the novel in front of him, setting it down on the coffee table next to him. An untouched cup of coffee that at one time had been steaming, sat next to the novel. He remembered that he had only taken one sip of it; he had been so busy staring out the window at all of the people walking around.

He saw another group walking by, this time they had a child, a little girl, with them. They had packs on their backs as well. They didn’t have the same zombie expression on their faces, he noticed that immediately. They were concerned, the look on their face was one of wariness, as if they were afraid of being seen—embarrassed.

Jim looked at the father immediately, and the little girl seemed to be very close to his side, as if she were hiding on that side of him. Jim really couldn’t get a look at her; only the father and his wife were walking. The father glanced in the direction of Jim’s house, and once Jim knew what he was looking at he took a quick step away from the window.

His breath caught, and the coffee table bumped as the back of his knee came in contact with it, jarring it, sloshing the coffee so it formed an uneven circular wave in the cup, just kissing the rim, just enough to expel a couple of drops of the thick, blackish liquid onto the table top. Jim didn’t notice.

The novel that had been so uninteresting for the whole morning was christened by the coffee, and thick, black drops oozed down the cover, as if the cover itself were weeping—the figures in the illustration an expression that the book had made of absolute despair.

Jim took another step back, and his leg did not bump the table that time. He looked at the man going up the street who had turned his head facing forward, walking with his family, each one of them carrying empty backpacks—heading to the sale, the one where they sold anything.

Yes, anything. 

Jim sat back down quickly, watching the family disappear down the street, the little girl, just about as typical as little girls could go, walked with a slight limp, like she had hurt her ankle or something. The mother was right by her, her hand on the girl’s shoulder. The mother was really quite plain seeming, at least as far as Jim could tell, average height, a good build, very fit. Everything that was quite typical. The father was walking with them, he had a strong, muscular build, a good protector for his family, watching over them with a benevolent eye—strong, angled chin, good overall face structure—the other half of his face had a few small patches of hair that seemed to be remain, but the rest was shiny and red, almost the whole half of his face had been burned off. Red ridges of irritated flesh, spotted with pink patches of new skin. It was poorly bandaged, and obvious that it was somewhat recent, how he was already home and walking around was a mystery, Jim had a theory, but he didn’t want to consider that at the moment. His eye wandered around in the socket, filled with not sadness, or curiosity—but hunger. The look was all too familiar—he was going to buy stuff, not because he needed it, but because he had to.

End of Part 4