Homewrecker

02 - 𝓻𝓲𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓭

Girls started screaming from somewhere in the dark as all the lights in the gas station went out, and Sandy and Kingston jumped away from the doors. "Is there anywhere we can go?! There's glass everywhere."

"We need a bathroom!" a man yelled. "They have most reinforcement, or a stairwell."

"We don't have one," Sandy called out. "They make us walk to the Burger King on our breaks!"

Behind me, a person quietly snorted, sounding way calmer than I was. Or high. "That sounds illegal."

"The beer cooler!" Kingston called out, his arm grazing my shoulder as he pointed to the beer cooler just barely visible through the darkness. That same person behind me let out a loud sound of agreement in response. "No, the beer cooler, it's sturdier. People hid it from a tornado on the news once!"

"Isn't that more dangerous?" Sandy shouted, even though she was searching through the pockets of her apron for the keys, people already beginning to crowd around the actual beer cooler, like they thought they had to pull out the beers and the shelves to back there.

Kingston shook his head. "No, that's the underpass. The underpass is more dangerous." Then he looked over at me, nudging me toward the door with EMPLOYEES ONLY stamped over it, shooting me a look. "At least, I think."

"Do you think my mom was awake? Did you see her at all today?"

Hail was still pounding against the roof, metal was scraping against the building, and branches were colliding against the windows but none of them had broken completely yet. Sandy was pushing through the people who were shoving up against me, pressing me into Kingston's chest, feeling his every breath rise in his chest as he looked down at me.

"I don't know, Bronwyn!" He was shouting, and even though our chests were literally touching, it was still like I could barely hear what he was saying. "I wasn't paying attention, just get in the cooler!"

"Did she—?" I was jolted forward before I could finish my sentence, although not by Kingston but by someone else behind me, taller and wider than me, my sneakers squeaking against the tiles in front of the beer cooler as Sandy unlocked the door and threw it open.

The customers crowding around the aisle rushed for the opened door, sweaty arms and t-shirts colliding against me as I was all but shoved inside. It was still a little cooler in there, despite the power having gone out, and the hail was still thundering against the roof, winds bracing against the walls outside.

Stacks of cardboard boxes, some with obvious labels and designs on them and others just regular cardboard with a white sticker over the side, made the room seem smaller than it actually was. Through the cinderblock walls, I heard metal crashing against metal, crunching. Glass shattering.

The glass doors to the cooler started flapping open, thrashing back and forth as everyone inside crouched low to the ground, covering their heads with their arms or their hands. My ears were popping as the roaring, almost thunderous winds launched debris through the storefront window, flashes of green bursting through the aisles and shopping bags in between strands of my hair blowing over my eyes when I opened them for a split second.

Then it was deafening, so horrendously loud I thought the sound alone would pierce through my eardrums. Plastic was screeching across the floor, glass was combusting over the counters, the doors on coolers on the other side of the store with the sodas and fruit juices were slamming open and shut too. Merchandise was being crushed under the weight of debris hurling into the store through the shattered windows, the doors completely torn from the structure and gone. The register on the counter flew backward, smashing the ice cream freezer which kept drifting closer and closer to the fire exit.