Sam recoiled in what he thought was the direction of the exit. Instead he stumbled backwards over a display of Oreo cookies, sending cream-filled cookies scattering across the floor. The old man just stood where he was and waited, something like a smile on his face.

It wasn’t enough of a smile to make him wait, so Sam scrambled to his feet only to find his way out blocked by an old woman, old but by no means did she seem frail. She kind of reminded him of his Uncle Gary in the flashlight’s eerie light. Uncle Gary was kind of creepy.

“I did say we’ve been waiting,” came the old man’s voice from the darkness. Shuffling footsteps now came from each of the small store’s three aisles. Sam’s panicked brain couldn’t even guess how many pairs of feet, nor could his starvation strained faculties of reason resolve how this all seemed familiar, aside from the the Uncle Gary similarity. That had been a bad summer and his uncle’s.

Why had he come back to this town, he cursed himself. Why now? Why for her?