The Supermarket Nightmare

• Isabella Herben, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2020

It seemed like an ordinary night for three friends, Archie, Jack and Harry. They almost fell asleep when Jack remembered they forgot to buy bread, milk and eggs, so the three of them drove to the first supermarket they saw at 11:00 pm. They walked in, focused on their quest. Harry and Jack had already found the milk and eggs and were waiting for Archie who was still looking for bread. Looking around they noticed that all the people at the checkouts were all only buying one item. “That’s strange” Jack remarked. “Yeah.” Harry agreed. They checked on Archie, unaware that everyone had left, including the workers, as it was weirdly silent in the supermarket. When they turned around, they saw that everyone had disappeared. “Where did they go?!” Archie cried. He ran to the doors but couldn’t open them. “We just got trapped in a supermarket overnight!” they all laughed hysterically. The next two hours they had fun riding trolleys, lasering each other with scanners and maybe pinching a little food, luckily the security cameras were off! At one point, Archie noticed a mirror on the wall that didn’t look like it belonged in a supermarket. He shrugged and left it there. Suddenly, the friends heard eerie scuttling sounds. They were horrified when three huge, ugly, green, centipede creatures scuttled towards them. “Run!!” Archie screamed. They ran to different areas of the supermarket. Just as they thought they were safe the creatures would appear out of thin air. “They must’ve teleported into the building!” Harry shouted. Jack ran from the creature chasing him, hoping it would go away. Instead it lunged at him, grabbing him with its legs. It almost bit him when Jack reached out, grabbed some cans and threw them at its head. Screeching, it disappeared. Meanwhile, Harry was frantically hitting his creature with meat packets. Then a nearby telephone caught his eye. Quickly tying the creature up using the telephone cord, he got a pen and stabbed it. It disappeared too. Archie lead his creature to the trolleys. Before it could attack him, he lifted it with all his might into a trolley. He poured an entire can of hairspray on it and lit a match, which he threw into the trolley. Exploding, the last creature disappeared. Still recovering from traumatic events, Jack, Harry and Archie walked over to each other, breathing heavily.
The mirror sat on the wall. On one side was the supermarket with the three friends, but on the other side was something else. People dressed in white were writing things down and staring at them. Studying them. A checklist in the hands of an important looking man had information on it:
? Take bread, milk and eggs from patient’s residence
? Set up fake supermarket
? Turn off security cameras
? Trap patients in supermarket
? Study them
Also included were profiles of the patients who were criminally insane. Underneath pictures of three different men were the names Archie, Jack and Harry.