• From the outside the general store looked just as peaceful as it always did, cars sitting silently in the parking lot, automatic doors sliding open to allow shoppers to either enter or exit the place they’d flocked to in search of valuable wares. From the outside the only thing that looked out of place was the rather large man leaning on the children’s horse ride smoking a cigarette. All was well in the great outdoors; the same could not be said, however, for the inside of the store.
    If you happened to enter the store on this calm, sunny day you’d realize something was wrong as those doors silently slid aside and the terrified screams of the once content shoppers thundered out of the store like smoke billowing from a chimney. Curious, you decided to venture forth into the seemingly dangerous unknown, as would the main character in a horror film. Suddenly gunshots mingle with the screaming, now you stop. While the screams may have enticed you in by creating a curiosity within you, the bullets stop you in your path. Up to this point your imagination had been soaring along, expecting some kind of monster who’s lair lay deep beneath the shops floors, a creature who’d come forth with a undeniable appetite for human flesh. And maybe, if you’re the imaginative sort, you already believed that you were going to be the hero in the end, you’d be the one to slay the beast. But now you have heard the gunshots, now you know that someone deep in this store is firing off, possibly at random, and you have willingly entered this mess.
    You tell your body to turn, to run away as fast as possible while using your voice to join the chorus of screams already raking the air, but you don’t move. You just stand there, frozen by terror and an unbelievable amount of curiosity to know exactly what’s happening.
    A man comes charging out of the aisle to your left, his light brown hair cut short, tee shirt and khaki shorts plastered to his body with sweat, and sneakers helping him run at his fastest. He’s shouting also, but the sounds he’s making don’t mix in the untellable blur that the other shoppers have created, his voice cuts through them all and you hear him perfectly fine.
    “Jesus Christ Rob, what the ******** are you doing?” He’s shouting these words to the man who is chasing him, the man holding the pistol.
    You can clearly see the pure, unfiltered terror in the man’s eyes before his hunter makes an appearance.
    “Quit runnin’ Tom, you cant keep goin’ forever!” The other man, the predator, was also shouting. He was wearing the uniform required by the manager of this little general store and the scene almost looked comical. You think to yourself ‘hey, he was stealing something and this guy caught him, nothing to worry about.’
    But then he shoots again.
    The targeted man, called Tom by his chaser, looks around frantically while keeping up his pace, he sees you. He sees what’s past you.
    He charges for the doors, the doors you are standing in front of.
    You dive out of his way in an attempt to remove yourself from any of the violence, whatever curiosity you once had is now gone and you are reacting purely on primal instincts. As the man with the gun tears past you think to yourself ‘Thank God I landed on the soccer balls, and not the floor.’ The doors slide closed.
    The peaceful lull is broken as the two men storm outside, the attacker fires a shot.
    He finally hits his target.
    The prey has fallen in a tangle of his own feet, blood oozing from a hole in his shorts, just above the ankle.
    By this time you’ve regained your confidence, and you’re standing by the doors, not close enough to open them but close enough to see what is happening outside. The man with a gun steps over the injured man, crouches down and whispers something in his ear. Seconds later he blows away half his face in one blast. You recoil, back away from the doors quivering and shaking your head rapidly.
    Then you look to your right and see a man standing beside you, he’s got a grin stretched from one ear to the other.
    He speaks and you recognize his voice, he’s the one who’s been narrating this whole episode.
    “Do you know the difference between you and that man out there?” He looks through the doors, looks at the dead man whose features closely resembles his, then shakes his head. The man laughs softly, then leans in close.
    “Nothing.”