Selma quickly looked around for a manager, leaning on the counter so that she could look around the end of the photo department and down the side aisle. She didn't see any, and there weren't any customers nearby. So, she slipped her left hand into the pocket of her slacks, and pulled out her cell phone.
"No signal?" she said to herself. She was sued to getting crappy reception. She worked in a big concrete and steel building. The radio waves that made cell phones work had a bitch of a time making it in. It didn't help that the Save-Co was one of dozens of stores, including another warehouse store, two home improvement warehouses, two office supply stores, and two or three dozen smaller stores and restaurants served by the same cell tower. But usually it was just one or two bars of service and a crappy connection, not and outright outage.
She tucked the cell back into her pocket and walked around from the counter to the photo printer. She removed the roll of negatives she had just printed, and swapped it out for a fresh roll. She quickly looked through all the pictures, smirked at the nearly pornographic nature of some of them, then left the machine to print in peace.
She looked beyond the photo counter now, out onto the sales floor of the Save-Co.
Like most warehouse stores it had all the high ticket electronics right next to the entrance, with a large open area in the center of the store for rotating clothing and media sales, and two large areas of shelves on either side of the center area. The photo counter was just off the electronics department, and so, if she stood at the farthest corner of the counter, could get a good view of the banks of high definition TVs that the Save-Co sold.
Right now all two dozen of them, at least judging by the dozen that were facing the photo counter, were playing through the generic loop that showed the various features of HD over the old standard-def TVs. It was something that she had seen hundreds or more times since she started working in the photo department a few months earlier.
As she looked, her gaze wandered to the other areas of the store, and she stood of straight. For the first time since she worked at the Save-Co, there wasn't any customers to be seen. Even when they were closing there was usually a straggler or two that had to be reminded of normal business hours, but never in the middle of the day.
"Hey, Rup," she said, addressing the greeter at the door. Rupert was an older man, working a job to pay for her retirement. Selma liked him, as they wold talk during the slow times of day, like they were now.
"Yeah Selma?" replied the greeter.
"You seen any customers?"
"Nah, last ones just left," he replied. He then gestured with his right hand, which was holding a simple thumb-operated counter, "Unless I missed one coming in."
"Never," Selma sarcastically replied. She then leaned on the counter, "I wonder where they all are. Maybe the world ended and nobody told us." She chuckled, then shuddered and a tingle ran up her spine.
Just then Selma could see a black SUV pull up in front of the entrance. And then a black cherry picker, like the phone company uses, pulled in front of it, blocking the entrance on the side of the liquor store, but leaving the side next to the tire center open.
"Whoa," Selma remarked. "Who do they think they are?"
As she said that, the doors on both the SUV and the cherry picker opened, and out stepped what looked to Selma like a a dozen ninja-mercenaries.
One of them, obviously a woman, walked from the SUV towards the door. She was wearing a black mask over her face, but as she reached the door she pulled it off. She was old, though not as old as Rupert, at least in Selma's opinion. She strode with authority, and reached into one of the pocket on her vest as she walked into the store.
"Welcome to Save-Co," said Rupert. "I'm going to have to ask you to put your gun back in your truck. We don't allow them inside the store." Always the professional, Rupert addressed the heavily armed woman like she was a customer not wearing any shoes, another thing not allowed at Save-Co.
The woman held out a plastic card, which had her picture on it, and the Save-Co logo. From her vantage point, Selma thought it looked like an employee ID card. "Melissa Eldridge, I'm from corporate. Can you get your manager?"
A man dressed in black like Ms. Eldridge walked past her and into the store. Rupert, knowing management when he saw it, let the man pass without comment. Selma watched the man walked towards the checkout lanes, and then towards the front wall. Only when the man stopped did Selma realize what he was doing. He was hitting the emergency shutoff for the gas station at the other end of the parking lot.
"Why did he do that?" Selma asked out loud.
"Because," commented Ms. Eldridge as she waited for the manager to arrive, "we're going on lockdown."
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