Page 5 of Senescence (Inferno World)

Well kept beard.

Straight nose.

None of it compared to his eyes though. There was something in them. Something feral, and familiar. I was looking into little tiny pools of danger, inviting me to swim in their depths and get lost in their murky water.

My hand stopped over the scanner, and to this day I will never be able to tell you what I was scanning. I watched as the man in front of me twisted up one side of his lip in a tight smile and felt my face blush immediately.

“How--how do you know my name?” I asked, setting down the random piece of grocery item onto the conveyor belt.

He pointed at my chest, “It’s on your nametag.” He seemed to be irritated at my question but slightly amused.

I had seen him before, hundreds of times, but never once had he come to my register. He only ever dealt with Bob in the past. I remembered asking my father once before, a long time ago, why this man always dealt with him, but was admonished for asking questions that had nothing to do with me.

“Oh, yeah. Right,” I nervously laughed. I picked up the next item on the belt and started scanning again. There was no one else behind Mr. Tall, Dark, and Broody, so I elected to take my time and enjoy this little birthday eye candy.

“How old are you?” He asked, tilting his head in such a way that gave me goosebumps down my spine.

“Umm, today is actually my birthday,” I laughed halfheartedly.

“That didn’t answer my question,” he growled, obviously growing impatient with me. Most people would traditionally respond with a birthday greeting, but apparently not this guy.

I shrinked back, not expecting such hostility from this stranger. He was kind of killing the sweet fantasy playing in the recesses of my brain.

“I’m eighteen,” I whispered.

The man nodded and continued watching me scan and bag his items. Half of me wanted to finish up his order quickly and get him out of my store. Something about him gave me chills that I couldn’t quite explain.

The other, and more dominant part of me wanted to drag this on. To find out more about this stunning being in front of me. It wasn’t often I was intrigued by someone who lived in this town.

“You from around here?” I asked, mentally slapping myself for the dumb ass question. Of course he was from around here. No one drove to our tiny podunk town just to go to the FreshN’Fast.

He nodded but didn’t speak. I took that as a sign that he wasn’t interested in chit chat, and I worked faster to get him checked out.

“Your total is ninety-five dollars and forty two cents,” I whispered.

“Call Bob about that,” he told me with an air of no nonsense about him.

Not asking any questions, I picked up the phone and called the manager’s office.

“What do you want, Lucy?” He asked, apparently not in the best of moods.

“There’s a man here who told me to call you about his grocery order?”

I could feel him rolling his eyes over the phone and he hung up without saying another word.

“He’ll be right down, sir,” I mumbled.

I watched the back door like a hawk waiting for Bob to appear. The door flew open and my father’s clunky boots sounded on the tile floor. He was looking down as he marched through the bread aisle. As soon as he got to the end and looked up, his irritated expression morphed instantaneously to one of fear and loathing. It was a dizzying change.

“Zero out his purchase,” Bob said through clenched teeth.

“What?” I asked, surprised as hell. I didn’t even get anything free and I was his daughter.

Bob grabbed the hem of my sleeve and pulled me in close. “I said zero out his fucking total little girl. Are you fucking deaf?”

My body shook, his rage transferring to me in the form of fear. Bob was normally cool and collected in front of people, preferring to take out his abusive agressions behind closed doors, but something about this man had tipped him over and Bob apparently didn’t care who saw what.

“Let go of her,” the man on the other side of my register sneered at my father. His eyes were alight with fury and the blackness inside of them threatened to swallow us whole.

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