The Store

"Meeting adjourned," the mayor said.

Discussions in the parking lot afterward were loud and probably would have become violent had there not been policemen present. Forest Everson stopped a fight between a Store custodian and an off-duty firefighter. Ken Shilts stepped between two women before they came to blows.

Bill walked with Ben out to his car. "How can anyone support The Store after this?"

The editor shrugged. "The Store's our major employer."

"So?"

"It's the old A-Rising-Tide-Lifts-All-Boats theory."

"Analogies." Bill shook his head. "I hate analogies. What if I don't buy the idea that the economy is analogous to a tide or that people are analogous to boats? What if I don't think those are valid comparisons? Or what if I concede the tide but think that people are more like shacks on the water's edge that are going to be destroyed by a rising tide?"

"You can't use logic. Analogies aren't logical. They fool simpletons into thinking they're logical, but the only thing they're good for is transforming complex ideas into easily understandable scenarios for dimwits."

They paused next to Ben's car. "So what happens next?"

"I don't know," the editor admitted. "In a big city, the police and fire associations would be on this like white on rice. They'd be filing motions and legal briefs from now till Tuesday, trying to get the courts to prevent this from happening. In Juniper, our combined police and fire department is -- what? -- twenty men? Not enough power. Not enough leverage."

"But all the other employees --"

"People only care about police and fire. They're the PR gold. Everyone else is expendable. And my hunch is that since The Store is saying right now that they're all going to keep their jobs, no one's going to want to rock the boat. They'll all be too afraid of losing their positions."

"It's a fucking Catch-22."

"Yeah," Ben said. "It is." He held up his notebook. "But there's still the power of the press. 'The pen is mightier than the sword' and all that good crap."

"You really believe that?"

The editor shook his head. "No. But we have to have something to pin our hopes on."

Ginny was asleep when he got home, but Bill turned the light on in the bedroom as he undressed, waking her up.

"What happened?" she asked groggily.

He told her.

"The council has their heads so far up The Store's ass that their necks are being constricted by Newman King's sphincter and it's cutting off oxygen to their brains," he said, snuggling next to her.

"So what's next?" she asked.

He kissed her cheek, put an arm around her. "I don't know," he said. "I don't know."

2

Not a single customer stopped by the shop.

All day.

Doane read the Phoenix paper, swept the floor, inventoried a shipment of new CDs, stood behind the counter staring into space, sorted his mail, read a magazine, played his guitar.

He wasn't going to be able to last much longer.

He was losing the battle.

He walked to the front of the shop, looked up and down Main Street, saw no cars, no pedestrians. Catty-corner across the road, next to McHenry's electronics store, The Quilting Bee had finally given up the ghost, old Laura moving all of her stuff out yesterday. Word had it that she'd still be selling out of her house, but Doane wasn't sure. She seemed pretty burnt-out and bitter these days, angry at her old customers for not coming through when she needed them, still owing a month's rent, and he wouldn't be surprised if she just packed it all in permanently.

He knew how she felt.

All of the downtown merchants did. Members of the public always paid lip service to the idea of the small businessman and America's great entrepreneurial spirit. They bemoaned the loss of the corner store and complained about the impersonality of large corporations, the excesses of big business. But when push came to shove, they chose convenience over service, picked price over quality.

There was no loyalty, no real sense of community among people anymore.

Now the town was siding with The Store, with Newman King and his multimillion-dollar corporation.

And turning their backs on local businessmen.

Like himself.

Those were the breaks, he knew. And if he was merely a consumer, he might do exactly the same. But he couldn't help feeling resentful over an attitude that he saw as shortsighted and self-serving.

_Consumer_.

He had never realized before what an aggressive word it was. In his mind, it conjured up an image of an insatiable monster, eating everything in its path, its only purpose, its only reason for existence, to consume whatever it could.

He stared out the window and found himself thinking of that old Randy Newman song, "It's Money That Matters." It _was_ money that mattered, wasn't it?

He shook his head. Times had changed. Twenty years ago -- a decade ago, even a rich man spending millions of dollars to get himself elected to public office would have been looked upon with suspicion and distrust. But in 1992, the town had voted overwhelmingly for Ross Perot, either buying completely into his "common man" persona and believing that the billionaire was more like them than were either of his two opponents, or else respecting and admiring his enormous wealth.

Doane suspected the latter.

The priorities of this fucking country were screwed up.

Hell, after the council meeting the other night, an angry old woman had accosted him in the parking lot of town hall and called him an obstructionist.

"It's people like you," she spat, "who are trying to stop progress and ruin this town!"

By progress, he assumed she meant the extinction of his business and the demolition of downtown Juniper.

Because that's what was going to happen.

He moved away from the window, went back behind the counter, and spent the next hour looking at a music catalog, reading through a list of upcoming CDs that he wouldn't be able to order, before going into the back room and heating up a Cup O' Noodles for his dinner.

The hours stated on the sign in his window were 10:00 to 10:00, but it was obvious to Doane by eight-thirty that he might as well close up shop. No one had stopped in during the previous ten hours, and it was pretty damn unlikely that they were going to do so now. Especially with the street as dark as it was.

He glanced out the window. All of the other shops were closed, and his was the only light visible on Main. The town never had gotten around to installing streetlights, and while that hadn't made much difference in the past, particularly when Buy-and-Save had been open, it now made Main look like a ghost town. Sighing, Doane locked and double-locked the back door, put the register money in the safe, and switched off all lights except the small security bulb directly over the counter. He exited the store through the front, locking the door behind him.

And turned to see a line of tall men standing between him and his car.

His heart lurched in his chest, and there was a sudden feeling of cold dread in the pit of his stomach. He'd been jumped once by a gang in Chicago, saved only by the stiletto in his pocket and the provident arrival of two patrol cars, and the trapped feeling of fear he'd experienced when that gang surrounded him returned in a rush. The figures in the narrow parking lot before him weren't exactly threatening, weren't moving or making any overt noises or gestures, but there was something intimidating in their uniform stance, something aggressive about the way they were blocking access to his car.

He tried to ignore them but couldn't, thought of walking around them to reach his vehicle but didn't want to show his fear. They were wearing what looked like black raincoats -- long jackets made of shiny jet material that was deeper than the night, darker than the shadows, but somehow reflective of both.

He didn't know why they were wearing raincoats -- it wasn't raining, wasn't even overcast, and their choice of garb seemed not only odd but menacing.

He took a step toward his car.

The figures took a step toward him.

"Hey," he said. "What do you think you're doing?"

There was no response.

No word, no grunt, no chuckle.

Only silence.

"Get out of my fucking way," he ordered.

None of them moved.

He considered going back inside, calling the cops, but he'd have to find his key on the key ring and then unlock the door, and he did not want to let these creatures out of his sight for a second.

_Creatures?_

He noticed for the first time that he could not see the faces of the figures. They looked like indistinct white blurs in the darkness.

_Too white to be human_.

Now he was just being stupid.

The figures started to advance.

"What do you want?" he demanded. He tried to make his voice angry, but it came out frightened.

There was no response. The figures -- nine of them, he saw now -- kept walking silently toward him.

He wanted to run. The silence, the raincoats, the white faces, everything seemed crazy, spooky. But he didn't want them to win, didn't want to give them that satisfaction, and he held his ground, reached in the pocket of his pants for his jacknife.

The figures pulled out weapons.

Knives.

_Fuck it_. He turned, started to run. In the diffused light, the posters in his window looked eerie. Jim Morrison. Jimi Hendrix. Kurt Cobain. He realized for the first time that all of the musicians in the window were dead men.

He dashed as quickly as he could toward the side of the building. If he could make it around back, there was a deep ditch abutting the trees that wasn't visible in the dark. He could jump it before the rest of them rounded the building and they wouldn't notice it and would fall in and break their fucking necks. If he was lucky.

He was already panting, almost out of breath.

Who the hell were these guys and what the hell did they want from him?

Doane reached the corner of the building just as the figures reached him.

He rounded the curve and was promptly shoved into the wall, the abrasive brick scraping open the skin of his face. A knife sliced into his right side, and he screamed as he fell onto the dirt.

He was still screaming as he looked up into the circle of blurred white faces and dull silver blades that surrounded him.

The figures crouched down, their knives beginning their work, and as the blood began to spurt, he suddenly realized why they were wearing raincoats.

They were going to get wet.

NINETEEN

1

There was an employee meeting a half hour before The Store opened, and Shannon barely made it. She was the last downstairs, the last to arrive, and she saw the look of disapproval Mr. Lamb gave her as, huffing and puffing, she took her place in line.

Still, she felt good. She'd lost three pounds the past five days and had not even aroused her mom's suspicions. She'd decided to take Mr. Lamb's advice, pull the scarf-and-barf routine instead of skipping meals, and it was working like a charm.

If things continued at this pace, she'd reach her desired weight by the end of the month.

All of the employees on duty this morning stood straight, hands clasped behind them, feet spread shoulder-width apart in the official Store stance, as Mr. Lamb informed them that a new outlet was opening in Hawk's Ridge, Wyoming, today. This placed the number of Stores in the United States at three hundred and five. And three hundred and five, he said, was a very powerful and spiritually significant number.

Here in the Juniper store, he told them, there was going to be a one-day sale on baked goods in the Grocery department as well as a weeklong promotion on coolant and antifreeze in the Automotive department.

He finished his talk and then came the part Shannon hated.

The chanting.

Mr. Lamb stood before them, looking from one to the next, all the way down the line, then pointed to May Brown, in the middle. The line parted at that point, May and everyone to the left of her stepping to the opposite side of the concrete room, Mr. Lamb remaining in the center between them.

"Okay," he said. "Repeat after me: My loyalty is to The Store."

"My loyalty is to The Store!"

"Before my family, before my friends, comes The Store."

"Before my family, before my friends, comes The Store!"

Shannon could see her sister standing across from her, on the other side of the room, three people down. Sam was chanting for all she was worth, caught up in the moment like a Holy Roller at a revival meeting, and the sight of her sister getting so caught up in all this made her a little uneasy. Shannon herself did not enjoy chanting, had her parents' disdain for any type of groupthink, and the fact that Sam so obviously responded to this coerced excitement, this forced camaraderie, made her uncomfortable.

They ended with the traditional "Long live The Store!" and then they ascended to the floor in groups of five to prepare for this morning's opening.

It happened just before noon.

They caught her.

In a way, it was a relief. She'd spent every hour that she'd worked on the floor worrying about whether her mom or dad would walk in and see her. It hadn't been so bad when she was in the stockroom or one of the non-public areas, but ever since her first day of work she'd been living with a dread born of certainty that her parents would find out that she'd gotten a job at The Store rather than George's.

Luckily, Sam was with her when it happened. Her sister had walked over to borrow a quarter for the Coke machine in the break room, and Shannon was just starting to dig through her purse for coins when she looked up and saw her parents striding purposefully up the aisle toward her.

All traces of saliva instantly evaporated from her mouth.

Her parents stopped in front of her register. Her dad's lips were flattened into a grim straight line. "You lied to us, Shannon."

She didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do. Her parents had never hit her, had seldom even punished her, but she stood in fear of them now, afraid to face them. Why had she done such a stupid thing? What could have possibly possessed her? She stared down at her hands, which were not shaking only because they were pressed flat against the register counter.

"Didn't we talk about this?" her dad said.

She looked up, nodded meekly, dumbly.

He met her eyes, held her gaze. "I want you to quit." He glanced over at her mom, who nodded. "We both want you to quit."

"She doesn't have to," Sam said.

"I say she does."

"Why don't you ask her what _she_ says?"

Shannon stared again at her hands. She didn't want to stop working, but she didn't want to hurt her parents, either, and she could not reconcile the two. It was impossible. This was what it meant to grow up, she supposed, breaking away from your parents.

_Before my family, before my friends, comes The Store_.

"I like working here," she ventured.

This time her mom spoke up. "I don't like it," she said. "It's not a healthy place to work."

"It's evil," her dad said simply.

Shannon glanced around in embarrassment, making sure no one else had caught this exchange. "Jeez, Dad," she whispered. "Tone it down. You sound like a loony."

"Evil?" Sam laughed. "This is a discount store, not the First Church of Satan."

"You shouldn't be working here, either."

"Give me a break."

Shannon glanced uneasily from her father to her sister, not sure what to make of this exchange. It was Sam's militancy that was so surprising. She seemed to be taking all of this personally, and while Shannon was grateful for the support, she wanted to tell her sister to calm down, not take it so seriously.

It was only a part-time job. If she had to, she'd find another one.

The behavior seemed out of character for Sam, Shannon thought, but now that she considered it, Sam had been acting a little odd ever since she'd started working for The Store. She'd always been such a goody-goody, never getting in trouble, never doing anything wrong, and now it seemed as though she was bound and determined to break that image.

The trouble was, she didn't seem happy about it. It didn't seem like something she wanted to do. It seemed like something she was _compelled_ to do.

Now she was starting to think like her parents.

_Before my family, before my friends, comes The Store_.

"Look," she said, "I'm scheduled to work until five, and I'm working until five. Ground me, spank me, punish me, whatever. But I'm not going home until my shift's over. After that, we can talk about all this." She faced her father.

"Okay?"

To her surprise, her parents agreed -- although it was more her mom's doing than her dad's. He still seemed like he wanted to argue, wanted her to take off her uniform and follow him out of the store then and there, but he agreed to wait until tonight to discuss the situation, and he allowed himself to be led out of the building.

Shannon turned toward her sister. "Thanks," she said. "You really saved me."

"Yeah," Sam said. "Now how about my quarter?"

2

They confronted Shannon again that night.

She called shortly before five, explaining that the girl who was supposed to work the five-to-nine shift in her department had called in sick and that she had to sub for her. Bill was playing online chess with Street when she and Samantha arrived home, and by the time he signed off, got out of his chair, and made his way down the hallway to the living room, both girls were safely ensconced in the two bathrooms, bathing.

"Give them a little time," Ginny suggested. "Don't pounce on them the second they walk through the door."

"They've had all afternoon. We've put this off long enough. It's family discussion time."

Shannon went straight into her bedroom after her bath, closing the door behind her. They waited, gave her enough time to get dressed, but she did not come out again, and together they knocked on her door, then opened it.

She was in bed, lights off, pretending to sleep.

Bill flipped on the light switch.

Shannon pulled the covers over her head. "I'm tired," she complained.

"I don't care," Bill told her. "You're going to talk about this."

Sighing, she pulled the covers down, sat up. "What?"

"What do you mean, 'What?' You said you wanted to get a job this summer, and I said fine. The only stipulation was that you could not get a job at The Store. So what did you do? You got a job at The Store and lied to me about it."

"I didn't lie --"

"You told me that you were working at George's. That's not a lie?"

Shannon was silent.

"Why did you lie?" Ginny prodded.

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"You're not working at The Store anymore," Bill told her.

Shannon did not respond.

"I want you to quit. Tomorrow."

"I can't," she said quietly.

"You're going to."

"No, she's not."

Bill turned around to see Samantha standing in the bedroom doorway, legs spread, hands on hips, wearing only a white see-through negligee. "She's made a commitment. She's responsible for keeping it."

Bill tried not to stare at his daughter. His first instinct was to tell her to put some clothes on, but he didn't want her to know that he'd noticed.

Her breasts and pubic hair were clearly visible through the sheer material, and he felt embarrassed. He was not aroused, but he could not help seeing her in a sexual light, and he did not know what to say or how to react.

Ginny was not so circumspect. "What the hell are you wearing?" she demanded.

"A nightie," Sam said defensively.

"You put on some pajamas. I will not have you wearing something like that in my house."

"I bought it with my own money."

"At The Store?" Bill said.

"I got a fifteen percent employee discount."

"You wear pajamas," Ginny told her. "Or you put on a bathrobe."

Bill turned back toward Shannon. "You're quitting."

"Mr. Lamb won't let her quit," Sam said.

"Who's Mr. Lamb?"

"The personnel manager," Shannon said.

"He won't let her quit," Sam repeated.

_He won't let her quit_.

Bill felt a small shiver of fear pass through him, but he pushed it away, would not let it gain a foothold.

"I'll talk to this Mr. Lamb," he said. "And I'm going to tell him that neither of you are working for The Store anymore."

He was at The Store when it opened the next morning.

Ginny had wanted to come, but he thought it would probably be better if he went alone and had a man-to-man talk with the personnel manager. After speaking with the girl behind the Customer Service desk, he learned that Mr. Lamb was not in yet, so he wandered around the store for a while while he waited.

He'd been avoiding The Store lately. Not staying away from it entirely, but only going when there was something specific he needed to buy. The aimless browsing and impulse shopping of the first few weeks was long gone, and now he came here only when necessary.

It had been over a month since he'd just wandered through The Store, and as he walked down the crowded aisles of the toy department, he saw products that made his blood run cold. Klicker-Klackers. Sooper Stuff. Balloon Makeums. Toys that were supposed to have been taken off the shelves decades ago. Toys that had been banned for sale to children in the United States.

Dangerous toys.

On a hunch, he hurried quickly through the rest of the store. In Infants, there were no fire-resistant or flame-retardant baby pajamas available. In Hardware, there were no warnings on packages of toxic chemicals. In Pharmacy, there were no medicines with childproof caps. In the Grocery department, all the health food seemed to have been removed from the shelves. There were no fat-free or cholesterol-free items. There was a sale on bacon and lard.

He walked down the row to the left of the soaps and detergents. Weren't the shampoos supposed to be here? He looked at the products on the shelf in front of him: embalming fluid, suture thread.

"May I help you, sir?"

He nearly jumped at the sound of the voice, turning to see a young director smiling mockingly at him.

"Where's the shampoo?" Bill asked.

"Right over here, sir." The smirking kid led him around the corner and down the next aisle, and there were the normal products: shampoo, mousse, conditioner, Grecian Formula.

"Next time, please ask for help," the young man said. "Sometimes it's dangerous if you try to do things on your own."

Dangerous?

He stared at the back of the green uniform as the young man strode away from him. The more he learned about The Store, the less he liked it. He walked back to the Customer Service counter to see if Mr. Lamb was in yet.

He was.

The personnel manager was a slimy, unctuous man who fit the cinematic stereotype of a used-car dealer to a T. Bill hated him on sight. He remained seated as Bill entered his office, smiling insincerely and motioning for Bill to take a seat across the desk from him. "What can I do for you, Mr. Davis?"

"I do not want my daughters working for The Store."

"And your daughters are?"

"Samantha and Shannon Davis."

"Ah, the Davis sisters." Mr. Lamb's smile grew broader in a sly way that Bill did not like.

"My daughters are no longer working for The Store."

Mr. Lamb spread his hands apologetically. "I'd like to help you, Mr.

Davis. I really would. But both of your daughters are excellent employees and we have no cause to let them go. We are prohibited by company policy from terminating employees without justification."

"I'm not _asking_ you to fire them. I'm _telling_ you that they will no longer be working here."

"I'm afraid they will."

"No. They won't."

The personnel manager laughed. "Mr. Davis, this isn't nursery school. You didn't enroll your daughters here, and you cannot withdraw them whenever the whim suits you. Both Samantha and Shannon have an employment contract with The Store, and they are legally bound by the strictures of that contract."

"I'm their father. I know nothing about this so-called contract, and I did not give my consent."

"I understand that, Mr. Davis. But Samantha is eighteen. She is legally an adult. Shannon is not yet a legal adult, but she is protected under the umbrella of The Store from any attempt to infringe on her rights or civil liberties, whether that be from customers, coworkers, or her family."

Bill stood. "This is bullshit."

Mr. Lamb's eyes narrowed, grew hard. "No, Mr. Davis. It is business."

"I want to talk to the manager."

"I'm afraid that authority for all personnel-related matters rests with me."

"I still want to talk to someone above you."

"That won't be possible."

"And why not?"

"Our store manager has been transferred to another location and a replacement has not yet been assigned. Until we get a new manager, I am in charge of the day-to-day operation of this Store."

"Then I want to talk to your district manager."

"Very well." Mr. Lamb opened the top right drawer of his desk and withdrew a card. "This is Mr. Smith's business card. His telephone and fax numbers are listed on there." He paused. "But if you think that you can somehow bully or cajole Mr. Smith into releasing either Samantha or Shannon from their employment contracts, you are sadly mistaken. Like myself, Mr. Smith does not make the rules, he follows them. What I have stated to you is not my own personal decision. It is corporate policy." He smiled disingenuously. "If it was up to me, of course, I would not hesitate to release them from their obligations."

"Bullshit," Bill repeated. He started toward the door. "You'll hear from my lawyers. My daughters are not working here and that is that."

"That is _not_ that, Mr. Davis." The personnel manager's voice was authoritative, edged with steel, and Bill stopped, turned around. "The contract we have with your daughters is legally binding."

"A court will determine that."

"A court _has_ determined that. Ventura versus The Store, Inc. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1994. We won in a five-two ruling." Mr. Lamb fixed him with a cold stare. "I can provide you with documentation if you wish." "Yes," Bill said. "I wish." He believed Mr. Lamb, was sure the personnel manager was telling the truth, but he still wanted to cause that little prick as much inconvenience as possible, even if it only meant making him hunt up some Xeroxed copies of a legal brief.

Mr. Lamb opened another drawer, withdrew a sheaf of stapled pages, handed them across the desk.

Bill walked over, took them.

"Local law enforcement authorities have always been willing to uphold the law," the personnel manager said. "Simply stated, the police could make your daughters work. I don't think either of us want that, now, do we?"

Bill did not answer. If Juniper had had an autonomous police force, he would have told the man to fuck himself. But the fact was that with the police department privatized and The Store controlling the purse strings, the police probably would do whatever the hell The Store ordered them to do.

"I think our meeting is done," Mr. Lamb said, smiling again. "Thank you for taking the time to stop by. Have a nice day."

Bill looked it up online when he got home: Ventura versus The Store, Inc.

It had gone down exactly the way Lamb said it had.

He performed an online search for all court cases in which The Store was either plaintiff or defendant and came up with a whopping six hundred and fifty four suits that had gone to trial.

No wonder the country's legal system was so backed up. The Store was hogging half of the available court time.

He did not have the time right now to read the details of each suit, so he simply called up a list of the cases that The Store had won.

The company had triumphed in all six hundred and fifty-four.

An asterisk next to the case numbers indicated that twelve others besides Ventura had gone all the way to the Supreme Court.

How could he hope to fight something like that? He exited Freelink, turned off his PC, and walked dejectedly out to the kitchen. Shannon was lying on the living room carpet, watching a talk show. She looked up. "Do I still have a job?" she asked meekly.

Bill nodded silently, not trusting himself to answer without going on the attack.

"Told you so," Sam said from the hallway entrance.

He looked over at her, wanting to hit her, wanting to slap her.

She smiled.

TWENTY

1

An hour before the council meeting, Bill and Ben stopped by Street's house.

They did not play chess this time, merely drank beer.

According to Street, Doane was MIA, hadn't been seen for nearly a week.

And Kirby Allen, over at the Paperback Trader, was going to close his doors at the end of the month. Apparently, no one was interested in buying or trading used books anymore when they could get new books so cheaply at The Store.

"Whole fucking downtown's disappearing," he said.

"What about Doane?" Bill asked. "What do you make of that? It's not like him to just . . . vanish."

"Like Jed McGill?" Ben said softly.

All three of them were silent, the only sound the chirping of crickets somewhere outside.

Street started to say something, cleared his throat, then loudly slurped his beer, mumbling something incoherent.

"You think Doane's dead?" Bill asked.

Ben shrugged. "You think Jed's dead?"

"I don't know."

"What are we talking about here?" Street shook his head, slammed his beer can down on the coffee table. "You honestly think that in the United States of America, in the 1990s, workers at a discount store killed a grocer and a record shop owner so they could make a few more bucks?".

"That doesn't sound as implausible as you probably thought it would," Ben said.

"No," Street admitted. "It doesn't."

Bill turned toward him. "Have you been approached at all? Has anyone from The Store pressured you to quit or tried to put you out of business?"

"No."

"Not even any hints?"

"Maybe I'm just too dumb to get them."

"Your place might burn down," Ben said. "Like Richardson's."

"Thanks for the encouraging words."

They were quiet again.

"You realize what's happening?" Ben said finally.

"What?"

"For all intents and purposes, there's only one place to shop anymore. And I don't know if you've noticed, but our choices in products have been considerably narrowed since The Store's early days."

"I've noticed," Bill admitted.

"I call it corporate fascism." Ben stared into his beer can. "Juniper's turning into a company town, almost completely dependent on The Store, not only for food and merchandise, but jobs. We could shop somewhere else, we could drive to the Valley or Flagstaff or Prescott, but we're lazy and we don't. So we're forced to buy whatever The Store offers. The Store determines how we eat, how we dress, what we read, what we listen to, almost every aspect of our lives."

Bill shook his head. "It's not quite that bad."

"Isn't it?"

Street snorted. " 'Corporate fascism'? The Store's more like a corporate vampire. It's sucking this town dry and growing stronger from it."

Bill sighed. "So what are we going to do?"

Ben glanced at his watch, finished off his beer. "We're going to go to the council meeting." He turned toward Street. "You coming?"

Street nodded. "Yeah. Count me in."

"No," Bill said, "I mean what are we going to do about The Store?"

"What can we do?" Ben asked.

Street smiled wryly. "Pray?"

"Not funny," Bill said. "Not funny at all."

The council meeting was once again sparsely attended and, until the end, routine and uneventful. Then Hunter Palmyra, in a low, subdued delivery that was totally unlike his usual voice, made a motion to add an item to the agenda.

"I would like to make a motion that we add the following agenda item under 'new business,'" Palmyra said. He cleared his throat and read from a paper in his hand. " The council hereby revokes Resolution 84-C, which grants an open ended license to participating food growers to enable them to sell their goods at a so-called farmer's market. It has been found that said farmer's market violates county and local health regulations in regard to the sale of foodstuffs and does not legally constitute a business under Juniper definitions because of the absence of a single proprietor.' " Palmyra looked up at the mayor, nodded.

The councilman was unable to look toward the audience, Bill noticed. He was too embarrassed and ashamed to face the public.

"They can't get rid of the farmer's market," Street said, shocked.

"They can and they will," Ben told him.

"We shop there, too," Bill said. "That's where Ginny buys most of our vegetables. They can't expect us to buy everything at The Store. Their produce is even worse than Buy-and-Save's was."

The council voted to add the item to the agenda.

"They're trying to legislate away competition," Street said. "They're trying to outlaw small businesses in this town." He looked from Ben to Bill.

"I'm going to go up there and give those assholes a piece of my mind."

"All right," the mayor said. "I don't think we need any discussion on this matter. Let's vote. A motion has been made to revoke the license for the so called farmer's market. Do I hear a second?"

"Seconded."

Street stood. "Just a minute!" he called out.

The mayor faced him. "Sit down," he said coldly, "or I will have you ejected from these proceedings."

"There's supposed to be a chance for public comment."

"It was determined that there was no public comment," the mayor said. "You would know that if you had paid attention." He glanced to his left and right at his fellow council members. "Let's put it to a vote. In favor?"

All hands went up.

"Opposed?"

None.

"It is hereby proclaimed that local growers cannot sell their fruits and vegetables directly to the public at a farmer's market."

"I would like to add an addendum," Dick Wise announced.

The mayor nodded. "Yes?"

"Seeing as how this might create a financial hardship for some of our farmers and ranchers, I propose that we allow them to sell their products to a legitimately licensed business." He smiled broadly. "That way, the public could still have access to their delicious fruits and vegetables and they could continue to make a living."

"Seconded," Palmyra said.

They voted again, once more without allowing public comment.

The addendum passed.

"Very well," the mayor said. "It is hereby proclaimed that local growers cannot sell their fruits and vegetables directly to the public, but that they may sell their goods to The Store." He looked directly at Street, smiled mockingly. "I trust that makes us all happy."

"You trust wrong, asshole."

The smile remained on the mayor's face as he motioned for the policeman standing next to the door.

Street stood voluntarily. "I'm going," he said. "I don't want to spend another fucking second in this hypocrites' hideout."

The mayor turned toward Bill. "Friend of yours?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact," Bill said proudly, "he is."

The meeting ended a few minutes later, and they walked outside to find Street pacing the parking lot, fuming. "Bastards," he said.

Ben grinned. "Welcome to the big, wide, wonderful world of local government."

"This can't be real," Street said. "They can't get rid of the farmer's market just like that, can they? By a quick vote?"

Ben snorted. "Oh, it's real, all right. And, yes, they can. They just did."

"People won't put up with it."

Ben put a condescending hand on his shoulder. "Yes, they will. You want to know what'll happen? I'll write about it in the paper and everyone'll read about it and shake their heads and say what a shame it is, and then they'll go back to eating their cornflakes."

Street was silent.

"He's right," Bill said. "I've seen it happen before."

"I say we wait for those fuckers. Wait for them to come out of those council chambers and beat the shit out of them right here in the parking lot.

Teach 'em a lesson."

"I wouldn't advise that."

They turned to see a uniformed policeman standing behind them.

The cop motioned toward Street's car. "I suggest you all get out of here now and head on home. Show's over."

"What if we don't want to go?" Street asked belligerently.

"Then I'll cite you for loitering and haul your asses inside that building there and let you spend the night in jail. How does that grab you?"

"It doesn't," Ben said. He grabbed Street by the arm. "Come on. Let's go."

"All right," Street said, pulling out of the editor's grasp. He took out his keys and started toward the car. "All right."

The policeman smiled at them as they walked. "You all have a nice night now, you hear?"

None of them answered, and they could still hear the cop's mocking laughter as they got into the car and drove away.

2

Bill spent the morning working on documentation, but he was still restless, even after taking a break for lunch, and he decided to take a walk into town. He asked Ginny to go with him, but she was busy planting flowers on the side of the house, so he went alone.

Main Street was dead -- no cars, no pedestrians -- and as he walked along the dirty sidewalk toward the electronics store, he could not help thinking that if the town council had been made up primarily of merchants instead of real estate and construction people, the situation would be completely different.

A couple of merchants _had_ run last time, he thought, but he was pretty sure he'd voted against them.

Why hadn't he gotten involved in politics earlier?

He reached the electronics store, walked in. Street was playing Tetris on a green-screened Gameboy, leaning against the register, facing the door. There were no customers, and Street looked up hopefully as Bill entered the shop. "Oh, it's you," he said, disappointed.

"Fooled you. You thought I was a real customer, didn't you?"

"Don't rub it in." Street finished his game, then put down the device. "On your way to the farmer's market?" he asked.

"Very funny."

"Just came down for a little shopping spree in beautiful downtown Juniper, then, huh?"

Bill walked around the counter, pulled out a folding chair, sat down.

"Whatever happened to that recall effort?" he asked. "Weren't you guys going to get together and start circulating petitions?"

"Last I heard."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Nothing ever came of it. Pete was supposed to be in charge, but then he decided to sell his place, and it all sort of fell apart."

"Maybe we should get it going again."

"I was thinking the same thing," Street admitted.

Street brought out a pen and notepad from the back room, and Bill began writing the text of a petition to recall the mayor and all four council members.

They were on the second draft when the phone rang. Street went to answer it.

"Hello? . . . It's Ben!" he announced.

Bill stopped writing.

"Bill's here . . . Yeah . . . Okay . . . See you in a minute." He hung up the receiver, looked at Bill with raised eyebrows. "He's corning right over.

Important news, he says. Wouldn't tell me over the phone."

Bill stood, walked to the door, saw Ben hurrying across the street. "It must be important."

"Big news," Ben said, walking up.

"What is it?"

"The mayor's resigned."

Bill was stunned. He glanced over at Street, who shook his head in disbelief. "You're serious?"

Ben nodded. "The council, too. All of them."

"_All_ of them?"

"What happened?" Street asked.

"No one knows. Or, rather, no one's talking. But it's effective immediately. We're without a local government at the moment." He chuckled. "Not that I'm complaining."

"So, is there going to be a special election?"

"Of course. But candidates have to file, the logistics have to be worked out. It'll be at least a month or so."

"Weird coincidence," Street said. "We were just working on a recall petition."

"Well, you won't need that puppy anymore. They're gone, they're out, they're history."

"I don't understand why they'd resign," Bill said. "Especially all of them at once."

"It's a strange world."

"You think pressure was put on them?"

"By The Store?"

"Who else?"

Ben thought for a moment. "I'd say that's a good possibility."

"But why? The council was a rubber stamp for everything The Store wanted."

"Maybe they didn't go far enough," Street suggested. "Maybe The Store wanted them to do even more."

It was a scary thought, and they were all silent, thinking about it.

"You think they'll run their own people?" Street asked.

"Probably," Ben said. "But this gives us a chance we didn't have before.

We can run _our_ own people. And the paper can get behind candidates who'll put the town's interests before those of The Store. I think we have a chance here to put this place back on track."

"We might have the paper," Bill said. "But they have the radio station."

"True enough. But I still think we have a fighting chance."

"They have more money."

"Money isn't everything."

"Isn't it?"

"Remember those television commercials in the seventies? Those beautiful scenes of wildlife and natural beauty that were sponsored by oil companies? We were supposed to think that the oil companies were not hurting the environment, but helping it. Nature was getting itself into all sorts of trouble and the oil companies were fixing it and cleaning it up. They spent millions of dollars on that ad campaign because they not only wanted us to buy their products, they wanted us to love them." He paused. "Did anyone buy into that crap? After all that money and propaganda and airtime, is there a human being in this country who thinks that drilling for oil is good for the environment?"

"And you think the same thing applies here?"

"Why not?"

"I guess you're not as cynical as you pretend."

Ben smiled. "It's all a facade. Underneath this gruff exterior, I'm Pollyanna."

Bill stared out the doorway. "The Store still has a lot of supporters, though. It did bring jobs to Juniper."

"And it took away just as many."

A pickup truck sped by, a dented red Ford filled with teenagers that burnt rubber as it zoomed toward Granite. "Fuck The Store!" a boy screamed at the top of his lungs, middle finger held high in the air.

Bill smiled. He turned back toward Ben. "Maybe you're right," he said.

He should've finished the documentation a week ago, but he'd been stretching it out. Ordinarily, he liked to complete his assignments as quickly as possible, but this time he intended to wait until his actual deadline.

He didn't want to help The Store any more than he had to.

Bill closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair. He had one humongous headache. He didn't know if he was actually getting sick or if it was simply stress, but for the past hour, he'd been concentrating more on the thumping in his head than on the work in front of him.

It was getting dark. The ponderosas outside his window had long since coalesced into a single jaggedly irregular wall of blackness, and the text on his screen had grown increasingly brighter as light drained out of the world around it. From the kitchen, he could hear Ginny taking plates out of the cupboard, and beyond that, the sound of the nightly news from the television in the living room.

He saved his afternoon's work on a diskette and was about to turn off his PC when the phone rang. The sharp sound of the ring intensified the pain in his forehead, and he closed his eyes against the noise, waiting for Ginny to answer the phone, hoping it wasn't for him.

"Bill!" she called a beat later.

Damn. He picked up the phone on his desk. "Hello?"

"It's me," Ben said.

"Yeah?"

"The mayor and the council. They're dead," Ben said. "All of them." There was a pause, and Bill could hear him exhale. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Back up. Where are you? What happened? Were they killed?"

"Suicide. I'm on the cell phone, and I'm looking at them right now. You've got to come out here. You've gotta see this."

"Where are you?" Bill asked, though he was afraid he knew the answer.

"The parking lot of The Store," Ben said. "Better hurry. The ambulance just arrived."

He didn't want to go. Or part of him didn't. But another part of him had to see what had happened, and he grabbed his wallet and keys from the bedroom and told Ginny he was going out, he'd be back in a half hour or so.

"Where are you going?" she asked. "It's almost time to eat."

He didn't answer but dashed out the door, hopped in the Jeep, and took off. He was at The Store five minutes later, and he sped across the parking lot toward the flashing blue and red police lights until he was stopped by a cop putting up yellow crime scene ribbon to cordon off the area.

Bill parked the Jeep, jumped out, and was almost stopped again by the same policeman, but Ben came to his rescue. "That's my reporter!" the editor yelled.

"He's with me!"

The cop nodded, waved him through, and Bill followed his friend across the asphalt, between the ambulance and police cars.

To where the council lay.

He was not sure what he'd expected, but it had not been this. There was no blood, no guns, no weapons of any kind, only the nude bodies of the mayor and the other council members, lying faceup in a circle, holding hands. Their eyes were all open, staring upward, reflecting the light of the parking lot streetlamps.

For the first time in a long while, he thought about the deer, the animals, the transient.

He looked toward Ben. "Suicide?"

The editor shrugged. "What else could it be? Pills, I figure. Poison. They won't know for sure until they do the autopsies, though."

Bill shook his head. "I don't think it was pills. I don't think it was poison."

"Then what was it?"

He shivered. "I don't know."

Ben was silent for a moment. "It was suicide, though. This had to be intentional. Right?"

Bill looked at him. "I don't know."

On _20/20_ that night, there was a report on Newman King and his growing Store empire. There were token references to the rash of shootings that had been plaguing The Store for the past year, but the report was basically a fluff piece and King was portrayed not as a whacked-out loon but as a down-to-earth self made millionaire.

Or billionaire.

The exact numbers could not be substantiated.

King had not agreed to a sit-down interview, but he did allow _20/20's_

cameras to follow him around on a "typical workday," and the reporter went with the CEO to a series of meetings in the black tower, a surprise inspection of a Store in Bottlebrush, Texas, a tour of a factory that was making generic Store products, and a negotiating session with a textile manufacturer.

Finally, at the end of the day, King went home, but the camera was not allowed to follow him to his house, and the last shot of the report was of King getting into a chauffeur-driven limousine in front of the black tower.

He waved good-bye as he smiled folksily at the camera. "God bless America," he said.

TWENTY-ONE

1

Doreen Hastings closed her eyes as she held Merilee to her breast. The baby suckled happily, and Doreen thought how different this felt than when Clete did it. Of course, that was a sex thing and this wasn't, but the physical act was basically the same. Now, however, there was milk flowing through her nipple, feeding her child, and somehow that bond made the entire act more intimate, more satisfying, more fulfilling. Sex seemed juvenile compared to this, like child's play, and she understood that her relationship with Clete, as great as it was, could never be as important to her or as emotionally gratifying as her relationship with this baby.

She would never be as close to Clete as she was to Merilee.

She opened her eyes. It was late, after midnight, and the hospital room was dark. Even the corridor outside was dark, the fluorescent lights dimmed so as not to disturb sleeping patients. She heard no sound, but neither was there silence. Instead, there was white noise, the hum of the hospital's twenty-four hour activity: machines, nurses, patients, doctors.

She closed her eyes again, smiling as Merilee's little fingers pressed instinctively against the fatty flesh of her breast.

"Mrs. Hastings," a deep-voiced man said. "Room 120."

Doreen opened her eyes and looked toward the doorway.

Her heart lurched in her chest.

Outside, in the corridor, were five men dressed entirely in black, pale men who stared at her with blank, expressionless faces.

They were accompanied by Mr. Walker from The Store.

Mr. Walker smiled at her and strode into her room, flipping the light switch next to the door. The lights in the ceiling blinked on, but they did not appreciably illuminate the figures who followed the Customer Service manager toward her bed. Their garb was still blacker than black, their skin as pale as if they'd been dusted with flour. Mr. Walker himself continued to smile at her, but there was something in that smile that caused her to press the button on the side of her bed and call for the nurse.

She held Merilee tighter.

"Is that your new baby?" the Customer Service manager asked. He stopped next to her bed as the black-clad men kept circling around.

She continued to frantically press the call button with one hand while she clasped Merilee with the other.

Mr. Walker's fingers, strong and cold, pried hers away from the button.

"No one's coming," he said. "The hospital knows why we're here."

"Why?" She looked around the ring of faces surrounding her bed, saw only blank expressions on snow-colored skin.

"Several months ago, you and your husband bought a microwave from The Store using our very generous layaway plan. You took possession of the microwave, but you did not make the last two monthly payments."

Her voice was high, squeaky. "Clete lost his job! We were having the baby --"

"We are taking the baby."

Her heart was pounding as though it was about to burst. It suddenly seemed impossible to breathe.

"The baby is ours."

She was finally able to suck in air. "No," she got out.

"Yes," Mr. Walker said.

"No!" She screamed it, screamed again: "No!"

"It was part of your agreement. You signed it." He withdrew from behind his back a copy of the layaway plan and pointed to a paragraph of fine print buried in the middle of the page. " 'In the event that payment is not made on time,'" he read, " 'the signee's first-born child will be accepted by The Store as payment of the unpaid portion of -- ' "

"No!" She struggled, tried to sit up, but the men in black were suddenly holding her arms, pressing down on her legs, restraining her from their positions surrounding the bed.

Mr. Walker reached for Merilee, took her.

"Help!" Doreen screamed, struggling against the restraining hands.

"They're stealing my baby! They're kidnapping my baby! Nurse! Nurse!"

"It's a legally binding agreement," Mr. Walker said. "There's nothing any nurse can do about it." He passed the baby to one of the pale men.

"Clete!" she cried. Tears of anger and frustration were pooling in her eyes, overflowing onto her face, blurring her vision. "Don't let them take our baby!" She jerked her head toward the door as the men holding Merilee began walking away. Through her tears, she thought she saw white-robed doctors and nurses standing in the corridor, watching silently. "Take the microwave back!" she said. There was too much saliva in her mouth. She was spitting, her words slurring. "We don't want it! Take it back!"

"You should have made your payments."

"We'll send you the money! With interest! How much do you want?"

"We got what we want," Mr. Walker said. He nodded, motioned with his hand, and a doctor stepped in from the corridor. "She's hysterical," he told the doctor. "Sedate her."

"No!" Doreen cried, but she felt the sharp prick of a needle in her right upper arm, and her strength immediately began draining away.

The doctor stepped back, disappeared.

Her eyes were already closing, and she felt the pressure of the hands removed from her body. With her last bit of strength, she opened her eyes again, saw a blurry Mr. Walker follow the dark figures out of her room.

"Merilee!" she wanted to call, but she did not even have the strength to say her baby's name.

And then she was out.

2

Shannon walked up and down the aisles of the Garden department, intending to straighten the shelves before The Store opened. As always, many of the shelves were in disarray. She'd worked last night until closing and had straightened the mess before clocking out, but the cleaning people or someone must have come by afterward and moved things.

That really ticked her off.

She continued walking, then stopped. The cleaning people hadn't even done a decent job on the floors. There was a reddish brown splotch on the white tile next to the Italian flowerpots that hadn't been wiped up. It looked like . . .

Blood?

She frowned, bent down. The spot hadn't been there last night. She was positive of it. She'd been unwrapping a mint as she'd patrolled this aisle before closing, and the mint had slipped out of her fingers and fallen to the floor. She'd picked it up pretty close to where the spot was now, and she'd seen only clean white tile. It was possible, of course, that she hadn't seen the spot -- _the blood_ -- because she hadn't been looking for it, but it was pretty noticeable, and if she saw it now, she should've seen it then.

_It's built with blood_.

She stood and walked quickly down the row to the fertilizers at the end, then up the seed aisle back toward the register. Even in the daytime, even with the lights on, even with other people in The Store, she could still spook herself back here.

She wondered what it would be like in this windowless corner of The Store after dark. When the lights were off. When the building was empty.

She shivered, sped back to the safety of the register.

She wasn't the only one who had questions about what went on in here after hours. Holly had told her yesterday that she'd heard that Jane in Lingerie had accidentally left her purse in her employee locker overnight and that when she'd come in the next morning the two tampons she kept in her purse in case of an emergency had been taken out of their wrappers and were soaked with blood.

_Blood_.

She'd also overheard two women talking in the break room once, one telling the other that she'd been the last employee to leave The Store the previous night and that she'd heard the sound of muffled screams coming from downstairs, through the closed elevator doors.

And, of course, there were the stories about the Night Managers.

_The Night Managers_.

It was a subject that was not discussed among the employees. Not in the open, at least. But she'd heard whispers, hints, rumors of the Night Managers since her first day of work.

_Night Managers_.

Even the name was scary, and though no one could claim to have seen them, the Night Managers had a reputation. Shannon was not even sure they really existed. There'd been no mention or acknowledgment of them from Mr. Lamb or Mr.

Walker or any of the official sources. And, as far as she knew, only cleaning people worked after hours -- why would The Store need managers when it was closed?

But employees whispered about them after work, made furtive mention of them in the parking lot on the way to their cars. The Night Managers were supposed to keep tabs on all stock clerks and directors and salespeople, to inspect work areas at night, to go over register receipts and make reports.

And if they didn't like what they found?

Goose bumps popped up on Shannon's arms. Word was that a kid in Sporting Goods had disappeared. She didn't know who it was or when it had happened, but rumor had it that the clerk had been asked to stay after closing and have a chat with the Night Managers.

And had never been seen again.

The next day, someone else had been hired for his position.

She didn't know if the story was true. No one did. But whether the Night Managers were fact or fiction, they were like Santa Claus or the boogeyman, a force to be reckoned with. They wielded power, even if they didn't exist, and everyone was afraid of them.

Shannon opened her register and began counting out her bills. She'd finished the fives, tens, and twenties and was halfway through the ones when Mr.

Lamb strolled by, hands behind his back, smiling. He nodded at her. "Opening in five minutes," he said. "How're things in the Garden department? Everything neat and clean, everyone bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready for another successful day?" Neat and clean?

She thought of the spot on the floor.

_The blood_.

She nodded, smiled at the personnel manager. "Everything's fine."

TWENTY-TWO

1

Bill drove to the Roundup, parked his Jeep in the dirt lot on the side of the dumpy, windowless building, and walked inside, stopping just within the doorway to give his eyes a chance to adjust to the dim interior.

Ben was at the bar, where he'd said he'd be, a full shot glass and a half a bottle of J & B scotch in front of him.

Bill walked around the crowded pool table and past the jukebox, where a pair of cowboys were arguing over what song to play. The saloon was one of the few businesses in town that wasn't hurting. Of course, now that he'd thought that, The Store would probably apply for a beer and wine license, open up a lounge next to the sushi bar, and suck away the Roundup's life.

_A corporate vampire_.

Ben had called him, fifteen minutes ago, already half-crocked, and said he wanted to meet at the saloon. Bill had asked why, but his friend wouldn't say, would tell him only that it was "important," and though Bill hadn't wanted to go, had wanted to continue watching TV with Ginny, he'd sensed the urgency in Ben's voice, and he'd forced himself to get off the couch, put on his socks and shoes, hunted up his wallet and keys, and driven to the Roundup.

_Important_. That could be good or it could be bad.

Bill was betting on bad.

He stepped up to the bar, sat down on the stool next to Ben, motioned to the bartender for a beer. "So what is it?" he asked. "What's the big news?"

"I've been fired," Ben said.

Bill blinked dumbly, not sure he'd heard correctly. "What?"

"I've been fired. Terminated. Let go. Newtin sold the paper." He smiled wryly. "Want to guess to whom?"

"The Store?"

Ben poured himself another shot. "Bingo."

"But why? There's only one paper in town. He had a monopoly. Everyone had to buy ads with him --"

Ben waved dismissively. "That doesn't matter. There's no real money to be made in Juniper. It's a break-even prospect at best. Newtin's been trying to unload it for several years now." He shook his head. "I guess he finally found a buyer."

"How did you find out?"

"Fax. You think he'd drive all the way up to Juniper just to tell me that he's sold the paper and my ass is fired? Hell, no. Besides, that pussy's too chickenshit to face me."

"And they fired you?"

"First thing. Laura was promoted to editor; I was told to hit the pavement. Herb and Trudy and Al and all the production people were kept on.

Traitorous brown-nosers."

"You were fired? Not demoted?"

"Exactamente."

"Shit."

Ben drained his glass. "There goes the election."

"You think so?"

"As you said, they had the radio station, we had the newspaper. Now they have both."

"You think that's why they bought it?"

"No," Ben said sarcastically. His voice was becoming slurred. "They have no interest whatsoever in controlling the news and information in this town.

They want to sponsor and subsidize the fourth estate out of the goodness of their corporate hearts."

The bartender set a glass of beer in front of Bill, who dug the money out of his pocket to pay him.

He took a sip, turned back toward Ben. "So what are you going to do?" he asked.

"Hell. My little trailer is paid off. I can live for a while."

"But what are you going to _do_?"

"Freelance." Ben looked around, lowered his voice. "I'm thinking of doing a Store expose. I could probably sell it to the _Wall Street Journal_ or _Time_ or _Newsweek_. It's timely. It's of national interest. The Store's an up-and coming corporation, Newman King's a big mystery man -- and you know how the public is fascinated by that shit. I think it could be a really good article."

He smiled grimly as he poured himself another shot. "Besides, I have scores to settle."

They sat there for a while, drinking, not talking, listening to the self pitying songs the cowboys had chosen for the jukebox. Bill finished his beer, called for one more. Ben finished his bottle and plunked down bills for another.

"Take it easy," Bill suggested. "You're already two sheets to the wind."

"I'm going for five." Ben poured and polished off another glass. "We shoulda monkey-wrenched 'em," he said. "Shoulda spiked some trees, sabotaged some equipment, poured sugar in some gas tanks."

"The first construction workers were from Juniper," Bill pointed out.

"Fuck 'em. Besides, The Store woulda taken the financial hit, not our good oF local boys." He closed his eyes, continued to talk. "Local boys. There were trees on that property that were old when their great-greatgrandfathers were nothing more than ambitious sperm, you know that? That fucking hillock was probably millions of years old. And it was demolished by men born less than twenty-five years ago!"

"You're drunk," Bill said. "And you're getting loud."

"I don't care!"

"Come on. Let me drive you home."

"I don't want to go home."

The bartender walked over, confiscated his bottle and glass. "Your friend's driving you home. You've had enough."

Ben nodded docilely, got off his stool, almost fell, then, concentrating hard, walked toward the door. Bill followed him, ready to offer support if necessary. He didn't feel entirely clearheaded himself, but he wasn't drunk, and he led Ben over to the Jeep, buckled him in, and drove him home, making sure that he was safely inside the trailer before driving off.

The movie they'd been watching had long since ended, and Ginny had turned off the lights in the front of the house and was in the bedroom riding the exercise bike. She told him to get ready for bed, but he wasn't tired and he said that he had some work to do.

He walked back to his office, sat down in front of his PC, and accessed Freelink. He thought for a moment, then called up a global bulletin board and typed in the heading: "The Store." In the space reserved for message text, he typed: "Is there anyone else out there who's had problems with the discount retail chain The Store?" He gave no name but left his E-mail address, then went out to the kitchen, heated up some old coffee, and sat back down.

He already had five messages waiting.

His heart began to race. He'd gotten the coffee because he thought it might help him stay awake, but now he didn't even need the caffeine, and he pushed the coffee cup aside and called up his E-mail.

The first message was from someone calling himself Big Bob, and it described efforts to get a simple refund for a sprinkler as a cross between _1984_ and _Catch-22_. The second message was from an anonymous Hispanic woman who claimed that The Store discriminated against minorities and that not only had The Store refused to hire her, but it had banned her from shopping there.

The reason she could not give her name or the name of her town, she explained, was because she had filed suit against The Store and she had reason to believe that her phone lines were tapped, that The Store was listening in on her phone conversations and reading what she wrote online.

A chill passed through Bill as he read the woman's story. Under other circumstances, he'd probably consider her tale the unfounded allegations of a raving paranoid. But he believed every word she wrote, and he found himself wondering if _his_ phone lines were tapped, if The Store's security people were listening in on his conversations, reading his online messages. He looked around the room. His office seemed suddenly darker, filled with shadows, and he wished he'd turned on both lights instead of just the little desk lamp.

He called up the third message. This one was from a journalist, Keith Beck, who said that in his town The Store had not only economically decimated the area by killing off local businesses but had instigated feuds among local residents. The Store was a disruptive influence, Beck said, and was completely changing the character of the town. He added that The Store had constructed its building on an environmentally sensitive parcel of land, not waiting for the conclusion of an environmental impact report, buying the cooperation of elected officials.

It was Juniper's story exactly. Bill couldn't believe his good fortune.

This was what he'd been looking for, and he wished that Ben was here to read this with him. He printed out a hard copy, then sent Beck a message directly, typing out a description of The Store's doings in Juniper. He left out the weird stuff -- the deaths and disappearances -- but he described the arson at Richardson's store, and he explained the problems he'd run into trying to extricate his daughters from The Store's clutches. He also told Beck about what had happened to Ben.

After sending off the message, he printed copies of the rest of the mail in his in box, now up to eight messages. All were horror stories of dealings with The Store that had led to business failures or firings or lawsuits or other sorts of personal hardship.

Bill printed the last message, then checked his in box again. Sure enough, Beck had already sent a reply.

He eagerly called it up. The journalist expressed sympathy for Juniper's problems, said he understood what was going on, but he was not particularly encouraging about efforts to combat The Store.

"We tried," he wrote, "in our own little way, to fight The Store, but we were defeated. The outcome of our battle was a foregone conclusion. The Store is a powerful enemy."

Bill sent another message. "Any suggestions?" he typed.

The reply, when it arrived, was short and to the point: "Local, county, and state governments do not have the financial resources to fight The Store.

The federal government _should_ get involved, but interstate commerce regulations have been defanged over the past two decades and allocating resources to go after a major employer is not politically feasible in these antigovernment, pro-business times. You're on your own."

_You're on your own_.

The words jumped out at him, resonating in his brain. Beck had apparently tried going through the proper channels in his fight against The Store and had exhausted those possibilities, coming up a loser.

What was left? Using The Store's own tactics? Arson? Terrorism?

Bill stared for a moment at the screen. The journalist was obviously burnt-out and discouraged, but maybe there were other people out there, in other communities, with different backgrounds, who had ideas and suggestions.

He decided to try again, taking a different tack, posting another message on the bulletin board. "I am looking for information concerning activities and practices of the discount retail chain The Store," he typed. "Specifically, I am looking for ways to prevent The Store from completely taking over the town of Juniper, Arizona. If anybody has any ideas, please let me know."

He posted the message, the screen went blank for several seconds, then a one-line statement appeared: "This communication has been deleted."

What? He frowned. How could the message have been deleted? That made no sense.

He typed the words again, tried to post them on the bulletin board, and once more the statement "This communication has been deleted" appeared on his screen.

He thought of the Hispanic woman's claim that The Store was eavesdropping on her computer conversations, and he quickly fired off a note to Keith Beck, asking the journalist if anything like this had ever happened to him.

A new message appeared onscreen: "This communication cannot be transmitted. It is in violation of Paragraph 4 of your Freelink online service agreement."

Online service agreement?

He searched through the shelf above his desk until he found the box containing the diskettes and instruction book for Freelink. He took out the book, opened it, and before he could even find Paragraph 4, saw on the inside of the front cover, in tiny letters, words he had never noticed but that now sent a chill through his heart.

He immediately turned off his PC.

Mouth dry, heart pounding, he reread the notice inside the book's front cover: "Freelink is a subsidiary of The Store, Inc."

In his dream The Store was alive and sentient, walking around with giant brick legs, leaning over as it walked, looking behind other buildings, looking behind hills.

Looking for him.

2

There was a board meeting on Tuesday afternoon at five, and though Ginny usually attended meetings only during salary negotiations, word had come down that the district was going to be in dire financial straits next school year again -- and that layoffs were being considered.

Bill had been cloistered all day in his office, working, and she popped her head in and told him that he and the girls were on their own for dinner, she was going to the meeting. He nodded absently, and she wasn't sure he'd understood what she said, but she assumed he'd figure it out when his stomach started to growl, and she grabbed her keys from the bedroom and yelled an unanswered "Good-bye!"

The district offices were located in a flat stretch of weedy ground between the elementary school and the junior high. The small lot was already filled with other teachers' cars and trucks, so she parked in her usual spot at the elementary school and walked over.

The boardroom was crowded. All of the folding chairs were taken, and Eleanor Burrows and the other cafeteria and clerical workers were seated on too small plastic chairs that had been brought in from some classroom and arranged along the side aisle against the wall.

There were a few baby chairs left, but Ginny preferred to stand, and she moved to the left of the door, where two male high school teachers were already leaning against the cheaply paneled wall.

The board wasted no time in getting down to it. Immediately after calling the meeting to order, Paul Fancher, the superintendent, announced that unless drastic steps were taken, there would have to be wholesale teacher layoffs from all three schools. "We simply cannot afford to continue on as is," the superintendent explained.

"There goes our raise," someone said.

Nervous laughter greeted the remark.

"Now, we have several options," Fancher said. "Everyone can take an across-the-board ten percent pay cut --"

A chorus of angry words erupted from the gathered employees.

"I know," the superintendent said loudly. "I don't think that's fair, either. But that's one option we're considering. Another option is reducing services. Eliminating bus service, for example, and forcing parents to provide their children's transportation. Or we could eliminate selective positions and double up the workload for senior employees -- without overtime or additional compensation, of course." He paused. "Or we could privatize and contract out all non-teaching positions."

People were yelling at the board members now, all of whom were sitting in smug silence, watching and apparently enjoying the commotion caused by their plans.

Fancher raised his hands for silence. "These are hard choices we have to make for this coming school year." he said above the noise of the crowd. "That's why we're here today."

Ginny felt sick. She glanced over at Eleanor, who was in her late fifties and had been working for Juniper Elementary School since its inception. Most of the board members, Fancher included, were in their early thirties and had only moved to Juniper within the last five years. How dare they eliminate the jobs of people who had given the best years of their lives to Juniper's schoolchildren?

There was another man seated to the left of the board at the table in the front of the room, a youngish business-suited man who stared idly up at the ceiling, obviously bored. She did not know who he was, but there was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, and she was pretty sure she knew whose interests the man represented.

Sure enough, after a heated discussion between Fancher, two other board members, and the most vocal employees in the audience, the superintendent called for order. He said a privatization proposal that should satisfy both sides had already been presented to the district by The Store.

Fancher introduced the man at the end of the table as Mr. Keyes, and Ginny watched as The Store representative stood, walked in front of the table, and addressed the assembled employees.

So this was the famous Mr. Keyes, she thought. This was the man Bill had ranted and railed against.

In a loud, clear voice, Keyes explained the privatization proposal. At this time, he said, only food and transportation services would be contracted out. And since The Store did not have any qualified employees of its own, it would keep on all existing school workers in their present positions. The only difference they would notice would be a technicality -- their paychecks would now come from The Store rather than the district.

The angry tone of the crowd's noise subsided.

Should the financial crunch continue, The Store had contingency plans to fund all district operations. But, he emphasized, The Store would only provide funding and would not attempt to influence classroom subject matter or dictate curriculum.

Keyes smiled reassuringly, and Ginny wanted to throw a tomato right into the middle of his smug, duplicitous face.

"What about pensions?" Ginny couldn't see the woman speaking, but she recognized Meg's voice. "If The Store takes over, will you still contribute money toward our retirement? And will it be the same amount now contributed by the district?"

Keyes's smile remained constant. "I'm afraid there will be no more pension fund. Those monies will be absorbed into our operating costs. We encourage all of you to open your own individual retirement accounts."

Debate started up again. Ginny listened for a few moments, then slipped outside. This could go on for hours.

And it didn't make any difference.

The board had already reached its decision.

Back home, the girls were gone and Bill was making Rice-A-Roni.

"That's the last straw!" she said, slamming her purse down on the counter.

Bill looked up. "What is it?"

"The board's talking about letting it take over the district!"

"It?" he said, though he knew exactly what she meant.

"The Store!" She opened the refrigerator, grabbed a Diet Coke, popped open the tab, and took a long drink. "Elections are coming up, and they're supporting this tax cut, which'll gut the district, and in order to save money they're thinking of contracting out not only transportation and food services but clerical and teaching positions as well. The Store, of course, has graciously offered to provide funding for those services, no strings attached."

His jaw tightened. "How's it flying with the troops?"

"It's being presented as the only feasible option. It's a done deal."

"Goddamn it. Park maintenance . . . street maintenance . . . fire . . .

police . . . schools. The Store owns this town." He shook his head. "That's it.

I'm running for council."

Ginny's heart rate suddenly accelerated. "No," she said. "Don't run. Let Ben run. Or Street."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid."

He was silent, looking at her, and she realized that he was afraid, too.

"We can't let ourselves be intimidated," he said quietly.

She put her Diet Coke down on the counter, moved next to him, and hugged him tightly, burying her face in his shoulder. "I'm getting so tired of this," she said.

"Who isn't?"

"There just doesn't seem to be anything we can do."

"Maybe there isn't," he admitted. "But that doesn't mean we stop trying."

"We can't let them take control of education."

"We won't," he said.

It felt good, standing here like this, hugging him. It felt reassuring, and she reached behind him and turned down the burner on the stove so his dinner wouldn't burn.

They were still hugging when the girls returned home.

TWENTY-THREE

1

SUPPORT THE STORE

VOTE LAMB-KEYES-WALKER

Ben tore the sign down from the telephone pole, ripping it in half before dumping it in the trash can in front of Street's shop.

That's what it came down to this time: pro-Store candidates and anti-Store candidates.

And most people seemed to be siding with The Store.

There'd been a sea change in American politics since the first time he'd run for council in the late seventies. He'd lost then, by a large margin, and that had kept him away ever since, but he'd lost to a man he respected, a man who had turned out to be a decent councilman and later a decent mayor.

Back then, people admired the citizen activist, were in favor of individuals getting involved with causes they believed in. But these days, that was looked upon with disfavor, considered an example of "special interest" politics, and the respect went to those who talked finances, not ideas.

Which was why The Store's candidates would probably win.

He couldn't understand why the prospect of having The Store control Juniper's government didn't scare people more. Sure, the corporation's big bankroll and the promises to cut taxes and fund programs with private rather than public funds sounded inviting on the surface, but even a casual examination of that revealed its flaws. Or at least it did to him. Because whoever controlled the money controlled the power. If services were financed with public funds, specific fees allocated for specific projects and decided upon by the people, the people were in charge. As they should be. But if The Store paid the bills, The Store got to call the shots.

That to him was truly frightening.

He was leery as well of this three-man council idea. The more diversity the better, he'd always felt. The more voices heard in a government -- any government -- the better the representation. But there'd been a town meeting at the high school last week, and by an overwhelming vote the attendees had decided to scale back the size of the council from five to three. At The Store's behest, the town charter had been amended for the first time in its history, and he did not see that as a good sign.

Ben stepped back onto the empty street and looked at the painted window of the electronics shop:

VOTE FOR A CHANGE!

ELECT ANDERSON, MCHENRY AND MALORY

TOWN COUNCIL

He smiled to himself. He'd come up with the slogan "Vote for a Change," amused by its double meaning, by its criticism of the town's apathy, and though Bill had not thought it wise to insult the voters they were trying to woo, Ben didn't think most of them would get it.

He still thought that.

Backing all the way to the sidewalk on the other side of the street, he continued to stare at the sign, trying to determine its efficacy. He walked from one end of the block to the other, glancing over his shoulder, pretending he was a driver in a car, then walked back across the street to the electronics shop.

He was pretty happy with the way the job had turned out. The paint on the window was bright, and against the dull drabness of the dying downtown, the message stood out forcefully.

The cardboard signs they'd nailed up all over town and on the highway also looked good, but Ben knew from experience that that wouldn't be enough.

The Store had the radio.

And the newspaper.

Even thinking about the newspaper ticked him off.

He walked inside the shop.

"How's it look?" Street asked.

Ben gave a thumbs-up sign. "Excellent, if I do say so myself."

"Think it'll help?"

"No."

Ben walked over to the register counter, picked up his cup of coffee from where he'd left it, and finished off the dregs. When he and Street and Ted Malory had decided to run as a ticket, The Store had countered, offering an alternate slate. He wondered now if it had been a mistake to run together. Maybe they should have campaigned separately, as individuals, not tied their fates so closely to each other.

"Do you think we have a chance?" Street asked.

Ben shook his head.

"Maybe it'll go two-one, or one-two. Maybe we'll at least get one guy on there."

"I don't think so."

"So The Store'll own the council."

"Again."

"It'll be even worse this time. They won't have to buy anyone off. They won't need a middle man to do their dirty work. They'll be in charge themselves and they'll be legitimately elected."

Ben nodded. "I know." He looked at the back side of the painted window.

"God help us all."

2

It was not going to be a victory party. They knew that going in. It was a defeat party, a commiseration session, a wake.

Still, the gym was more crowded than Bill had expected, and it kept alive a small spark of hope within him. Maybe more people than they'd thought had figured out what The Store was doing to Juniper. Maybe the citizens of the town were too smart to have been fooled by The Store's glitzy advertising and inflated promises.

He thought of the famous photo of Harry Truman holding up a newspaper with a banner headline reading: DEWEY WINS!

Sometimes the oddsmakers turned out to be wrong. Sometimes the underdog did triumph.

Sometimes.

He and Ginny walked into the gym holding hands, looking around. Whoever was in charge of the decorations definitely had a sense of humor. Black crepe paper hung from the bleachers and the blackboards, funereal wreaths of dead flowers were arranged in stands next to the appetizers and drink tables in the center court. There were quite a few people milling about: most of the downtown merchants and owners of the businesses that made up the chamber of commerce, displaced municipal workers, unemployed construction people. They were talkative, friendly, not particularly somber, but the overall mood seemed grim.

The other candidates were awaiting election returns and holding their party at The Store. No expense had been spared and the affair was being catered by The Store's in-house sushi and espresso bars, all-you-can-eat free food being offered to all supporters. The Store had closed at noon so that employees could set up the decorations and clear an area of the building for the celebration, and a live remote broadcast was planned for the radio station.

Ironically -- and irritatingly -- both Sam and Shannon were working the party. They hadn't volunteered, they'd been assigned, and Bill could not help thinking that that was intentional. The Store knew that, though he was not running for office himself, he was one of the architects of the opposition, and Lamb and his people no doubt wanted to rub his face in it.

He was still unable to understand why more people hadn't turned against The Store. It was obvious to even a casual observer that since The Store had arrived, downtown Juniper had become a virtual ghost town, unemployment had skyrocketed, and the jobs that were now available had sharply lower wages than their predecessors. The Store was sucking the town dry, yet far too many people either didn't notice or didn't care. Putting aside the mysterious occurrences that had accompanied its arrival, people should be rejecting The Store on a purely personal, selfish, economic level.

Yet they weren't.

And he could not figure out why.

Street wandered over. He had already been drinking heavily, and he gave Ginny a huge unwelcome hug and boozily clapped an arm around Bill's shoulder.

"Mayday! Mayday! We're going down!"

"You don't seem too broken up about it," Bill said.

Street shrugged. "At some point, all you can do is laugh."

Ben, Ted, and Ted's wife, Charlinda, made their way through the throng toward them. They talked for a few moments, then Ginny and Charlinda moved off toward the hors d'oeuvres and the men stood alone.

"How badly do you think we're going to lose?" Bill asked.

"We'll get our asses kicked!" Street yelled.

Bill ignored him, turned toward Ted. "What's your feeling? You know a lot of people in this town. You're not a pariah like Ben or a clown like Street --"

"I resent that!" Street said.

Bill grinned. "What's your bead on the situation?"

"I don't know," Ted admitted. "All I hear is doom and gloom from you guys, but everyone I've talked to seems pretty supportive. There's a lot of resentment toward The Store out there. People might be afraid to admit it, but most of them don't like The Store. I may be crazy, but -- knock on wood -- I think we have a fighting chance."

_Afraid to admit it_.

Bill licked his lips. "Why would they be _afraid_ to admit it?"

Ted shifted uncomfortably. "You know."

That was the problem. He did know. They all knew. And they faced each other, the knowledge in their eyes, until Street suggested that they all go over to the drink table and get something to wet their whistles.

The polls closed at eight, and counting began almost immediately. A team of election workers was at town hall, going through the ballots, and while tabulating results in big cities might take all night, the small number of voters in Juniper virtually assured that a count and recount would be concluded before ten.

The radio station had a live remote at town hall as well as at The Store party, and Street had hooked up a receiver to the gym's PA system so they could all hear the broadcast.

"How come there's no remote feed here?" Ben asked dryly, standing at the head of the drink table. "Aren't they interested in our reaction?"

Everyone laughed.

Bill listened only intermittently to the broadcast throughout the evening, but when it became clear that the counting was almost completed and that the winners would be announced shortly, he and Ginny gravitated with everyone else toward Street's receiver, which was sitting on an unadorned table next to the locker room entrance. There was no sound coming out of the receiver -- it was issuing from speakers hidden high in the rafters of the gym -- but symbolically this was the origin of the radio broadcast, and more and more people gathered around the black metal box and stared at the blue digital call numbers as announcement time approached.

Ben was describing for the hundredth time that evening, how different the outcome of this election would be if he was still editor of the paper, when people in the crowd began holding up their hands for silence, putting their fingers to their lips.

"Shhhh!"

"Shhhh!"

"Shhhh!"

Everyone leaned closer to the receiver, as though that would enable them to hear the results more clearly. Street turned up the volume. Bill winced as Ginny's hand tightened, viselike, on his.

"It's official," the radio announcer said. His voice echoed through the cavernous gym. "All of the ballots have been counted, and Mr. Lamb, personnel manager of The Store, is the top vote-getter and has been elected Juniper's new mayor. Mr. Walker, The Store's Customer Service manager, and Mr. Keyes, Store representative, have also been elected to the town council."

"Don't these assholes have first names?" Ben growled.

"Ben Anderson, Ted Malory, and Street McHenry have been soundly defeated," the announcer continued. "Final tally: Lamb, one thousand three hundred votes;

Walker, one thousand one hundred and seventy-two votes; Keys, one thousand and sixty votes; Malory, nine hundred and ninety-nine votes; McHenry, nine hundred and eighty-seven votes: Anderson, eight hundred and fifty votes."

"Low turnout." Ginny nodded. "Interesting."

" 'Soundly defeated?' " Ted said. "I thought we did pretty well."

"Let's hear it for our side!" someone yelled. "Hip hip hooray!"

The rest of the crowd joined in: "Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!"

On the radio, the feed switched instantly to the victory party at The Store. Even muffled by the gym's speaker system, the size and enthusiasm of The Store crowd was impressive. The cheers coming over the radio dwarfed the noise from their little chant and made their supporters sound tired and pitiful.

Sam's there, Bill thought. And Shannon.

People began wandering away, clapping sympathetic hands on the losers' backs, offering compassion and halfhearted promises to keep up the fight.

Several supporters headed for the alcohol, but most were already making for the exit, ready to head home.

Bill and Ginny stood next to Ted and Charlinda, Ben and Street, as Mr.

Lamb gave his acceptance speech over the radio. He began with an embarrassingly insincere acknowledgment of the commitment and good intentions of his well meaning but misguided opponents, then heaped equally insincere praise on the gathered supporters.

Huge, inappropriate cheers greeted his every utterance.

"I think I'm gonna barf," Street said.

"It is sickening," Bill agreed.

"No. I think I'm gonna barf." Street made a mad dash for the boys' bathroom.

Mr. Lamb was already talking about some of his plans for Juniper after taking office.

"There have been complaints recently about the freshness of The Store's produce," the new mayor said. He chuckled. "I've heard rumors of it."

The crowd laughed.

"Our first order of business will be to pass a resolution requiring all local farmers and ranchers to tithe twenty percent of their produce and livestock to The Store. This will ensure the continued quality and freshness of The Store's product."

"I wish he would've said this shit before he got elected," Ted said. "We might've won."

"AH town employees will now be required to wear a uniform to work. The Store has contracted with the manufacturer of _its_ uniforms to provide special municipal employee attire."

Big cheers.

"There will also be an increase in Juniper's sales tax."

Groans.

"I know, I know," Mr. Lamb said cheerfully. "We promised a tax cut, and I wish we could deliver on that promise, but this sales tax is needed to adjust an existing inequity in the system. As it stands now, The Store is providing funding for most of Juniper's day-to-day operation as well as for upcoming projects. The Store is happy to do this. As a corporation, we feel it is our obligation to support the communities that support us, and it's good for local economies if we put money that we earn back into the towns that we take it from.

However, it is unfair to expect The Store to shoulder the complete financial burden while other stores and businesses get off scot-free. Right now, the other businesses in Juniper are getting a free ride. We're paying their share, and we're getting punished for it. Therefore, the sales tax will be raised so that all local businesses can begin to contribute equally to the greatness of our fair town."

There was scattered applause, a few halfhearted cheers.

"The good news," Mr. Lamb said, "is that this increase will not apply to The Store. Since The Store is already shouldering most of the burden, it would be like taxing us twice if we participated in this revenue enhancement. Which is a fancy way of saying that other businesses may raise their prices, but The Store will continue to provide the highest quality products at the lowest possible prices!"

Cheers, clapping, ecstatic shouting.

Ben turned down the receiver's volume. "Propagandistic bullshit." He shook his head, sighed. "At least Ted almost made it."

Bill smiled. "And you have the honor of coming in last."

He shrugged. "Been there, done that. Nothing new."

"So what now?"

"What now? We stand idly by while more local businesses go belly-up and The Store takes over the entire goddamn town."

They were all silent.

Street came trudging up. "Did I miss anything important?"

"Only the final death knell of democracy and the legitimization of unchecked corporate power in Juniper."

Bill tried to smile. "You old hippie, you."

Ben met his gaze. "To quote the Jefferson Airplane, 'It's a new dawn.' "

TWENTY-FOUR

1

There were more vagrants on the streets of Juniper than there used to be.

There'd always been a certain number of ragged, wildly bearded men in town old prospectors come down from the mountains, bear hunters in for supplies but there seemed to be more of them recently, and he wasn't sure that these were people who were purposely making a lifestyle choice.

Bill drove slowly down Granite toward the highway, saw an old man sleeping on a filthy blanket beneath a manzanita bush, saw a young man sitting in the doorway of an empty storefront.

Juniper was a small town, but he still didn't know everyone in it, and since there'd been a lot of business closing, going bankrupt in the wake of The Store's arrival, it was conceivable that these were merely jobless people who were hanging around town in order to look for work.

Conceivable -- but not likely.

Most of them looked dirty and purposeless, and he suspected that they had no place to go.

Juniper had a homeless problem.

It was a weird thought. Homelessness was usually a big-city disease. Small towns had transients passing through, but they were essentially closed societies, where any change or deviation from the norm was noticed instantly.

They were not anonymous enough to provide a place for America's marginalized.

There were no streets for street people to live on.

Yet here they were.

Bill reached the highway, stopped for a moment -- though there was no light or stop sign at the intersection -- then turned right toward The Store.

His muscles tensed, his grip on the steering wheel tightened. He hadn't gone to The Store since the election, and even driving this small section of the highway made him feel as though he was entering an enemy camp during wartime.

Intellectually, he knew that it was merely a discount retailer, the place where his daughters and half the town worked, and that the wide, modern aisles would be filled with ordinary men, women, and children doing their ordinary everyday shopping. But he had so demonized The Store in his mind that, emotionally, he felt like he was preparing to enter hell.

It couldn't be helped, though.

He needed printer ribbon.

He'd finished the manual.

The actual deadline was day after tomorrow, and he would be transmitting his work via modem to Automated Interface, but he liked to print out a hard copy of his manuals first and then proof them. He seemed to do a better job of copyediting if he worked off printed pages instead of a screen.

He pulled into the parking lot and was lucky enough to find a space near The Store's entrance. He'd known this was coming, and he should've bought ribbons last week when they'd driven down to Phoenix, but he hadn't thought about it and now he was stuck. The Store was the only place in town that sold printer ribbons.

Bill got out of the Jeep, locked the door. He felt a knot of dread in his stomach as he walked up the parking lot aisle toward the building. Neither Sam nor Shannon was working this morning, and for that he was glad. He stared at the windowless expanse of wall before him and could not help thinking that The Store saw him, that it knew he was coming -- and that it had something planned for him. He did not want his daughters to see that.

He walked inside, ignored the smirking director who offered him assistance, and headed directly toward the aisle containing computer, printer, and typewriter accessories. He glanced around the other rows as he walked. What had happened to all of the myriad choices The Store had offered? Where had all the products gone? The shelves were still filled with plenty of items, he noticed, but there was no variety. There were no nationally known names, no recognizable packaging.

There was only The Store brand.

For all items.

His feeling of dread intensified as he walked down the aisle where the printer ribbons were supposed to be.

Were _supposed_ to be.

Instead, the shelves were packed with small boxes and plastic bottles. He looked carefully at the products facing him: Sneezing Powder, Itching Powder, Magic Toadstool Dust.

Comic book products.

Masturbation Lotion. Hot Love Oil. Breast-enlargement Gel. Penis lengthening Creme.

He frowned. What the hell was all this?

"We're reorganizing."

He looked up to see the smirking director he'd bypassed on his way in.

"You'd know that if you'd accepted the help I offered you."

Was there belligerence in the director's voice? Was there a threat implied in his space-invading stance?

"You're looking for printer ribbon, right?"

How could he know that? Bill felt chilled, but he kept his face unreadable, met the young man's eyes. "No," he lied.

The director seemed surprised, caught off guard. "Then what are you looking for?"

"Oh, nothing." Bill smiled at him. "I'm just browsing."

Before the director could respond, Bill moved away. He did not know whether the young man was following him, but he would not give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing him check. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead, and when he reached the extra-wide middle aisle that dissected The Store and ran from the Automotive to the Lingerie departments, he hung a right and began walking purposefully toward the opposite end of the building.

In the center of The Store, where the two transverse aisles met, a booth had been set up, a flimsy, temporary counter with an overhead sign that reminded him of Lucy's psychiatrist stand in the old _Peanuts_ cartoon strip.

JOIN STORE CLUB, the sign announced.

Two people he recognized, Luke McCann and Chuck Quint, were standing before the booth, and Bill slowed down as he approached them.

"Store Club?" Chuck asked the salesman manning the booth.

The salesman nodded. "If you become a member, you will be able to purchase goods at cost, without paying any sales tax. There are also numerous other benefits." His voice lowered. "Improved health, greater life expectancy, increased sex drive . . ."

Bill moved away, not wanting to hear any more.

He took the opportunity to glance surreptitiously behind him. The director was nowhere to be seen, and he relaxed, looking around, trying to figure out where they'd moved the printer supplies. A freestanding sign on the edge of the aisle touted EXCELLENT DEALS! NEW AUTOS AT FLEET PRICES! Beneath a picture of a red Saturn taking a mountain curve, the text said that The Store would be selling cars-to-order through a new catalogue, agreements with all of the major automakers allowing the vehicles to be sold at outrageously low prices and delivered directly to the buyers' houses.

There goes Chas Finney's Ford dealership, Bill thought.

He looked on the back of the sign, saw an offer for The Store's Discount Travel Bureau.

There went Elizabeth Richard's travel agency.

There was still no sign of printer supplies, but from a row halfway down the center aisle emerged a boy holding what looked like a mouse pad, and Bill immediately headed in that direction.

The row did indeed contain shelves and stacks of computer and typewriter accessories. He walked to the end of the section and scanned the packages of printer ribbons hanging from pegs on a recessed display. All were the generic Store brand, but there was an accompanying book attached by wire to the center of the display, and he cross-referenced his printer to find the ribbon that would be compatible.

"Do you have any naked-children videos?"

Bill looked up, shocked.

"Videos of children playing outdoors and having fun in the sun?"

The voice was coming from the next row over, and he quickly moved to the end of the row and peeked around the corner to see who the speaker was.

Reverend Smithee, the Baptist minister, was standing next to a Store clerk.

Smiling, the clerk shook his head and clucked disapprovingly. "Reverend.

I'm surprised at you."

Smithee reddened but refused to back off. "I was told you did."

"Is that what you like?"

"No. I just --"

"Those videos are illegal, you know."

The reverend's face grew redder. "They shouldn't be. Everybody's naked under their clothes. It's natural. I've never understood why you can show people being killed, but you can't show a body without clothes. Killing's much worse."

"We have snuff videos, too," the clerk said.

Smithee licked his lips. "Snuff videos? Where?"

The clerk's smile broadened. "Right this way, Reverend."

"You're not . . . going to report me?"

"Our aim is to meet our customers' needs and keep them happy." The clerk walked forward, the reverend following. He smiled knowingly at Bill as they passed by, and Bill could not help thinking that The Store had _wanted_ him to hear the exchange, that it had _wanted_ him to see Reverend Smithee in this light, that it had arranged it all.

Feeling chilled, he found the right size of printer ribbon, picked up five of them, and hurried to the checkout stand at the front of the store.

TWENTY-FIVE

1

He usually enjoyed the free period between assignments, but this time Bill felt restless, stir-crazy, almost claustrophobic. Juniper seemed confining to him, and no matter where he went or what he did, it seemed that The Store was always there, looming in the background, monitoring his movements, watching him.

Even hiking, alone, in the forest, in the canyons, on the hills, he felt the presence of The Store.

He needed to get away from Juniper.

The idea that his documentation was now winding its way through the channels from Automated Interface to The Store's corporate headquarters, and was about to be filtered down to individual Stores all over the United States, made him feel supremely uneasy. There was nothing he could have done, no way he could have avoided it, but the mere fact that he had been indirectly working for The Store, that he had even in a minuscule way contributed to the efficiency of its operation, galled him.

They were lying next to each other after they'd quietly finished making love long after the girls had fallen asleep one night, and the only noise in the house was the low murmuring of the bedroom television. He rolled onto his left side, looked at Ginny. "I think we should go on a vacation."

"A vacation? What brought this on?"

"I just think we need to get out of here, get away for a while. . . ."

"Get away from The Store?"

He nodded.

"Where do you want to go?"

"How about Carlsbad Caverns?"

"Sounds fine to me. But what about the girls?"

"They're going with us."

"Sam won't go. And at this point, I'm not sure we can make her."

"Shannon's going. I guarantee you we can make her."

Ginny was quiet.

"What is it?" he said.

"What if The Store won't let her go?"

Bill shook his head, sat up. "We've been too soft on all this. That's our problem. We should've put more pressure on her. Or, hell, maybe we should've just talked to her like an adult, told her what's really going on. I think we're still treating her -- treating _both_ of them -- like they're little girls.

We're still trying to protect them from things --"

"That's what parents do."

"I know. But what I'm saying is that we should've tried to convince them to quit on their own. The Store'll sue us and come after us if we try to force them to quit, but if they quit themselves it'll let them go."

She looked up at him. "You really believe that? After everything that's happened?"

"I don't know," he said. "But it's worth a try."

"Yes," Ginny agreed. "It is." She placed a soft hand on his stomach. "But Sam probably won't do it."

"Probably not."

"And if The Store won't let Shannon go?"

"We'll take her with us anyway."

"What do we do if The Store comes after us?"

He looked down at her. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

They brought it up at breakfast.

Sam stated immediately and unequivocally that she had duties and responsibilities, that The Store put its trust in her and she could not let the company down. There was no way she could take any time off.

She walked out of the room without waiting for a response. "I have to get ready for work," she informed them.

Bill turned toward Shannon, who was sipping her orange juice, trying to look invisible. "You, young lady, are coming with us."

"Da-ad!"

"Don't 'dad' me."

She put down her orange juice. "I can't. I'll lose my job."

"You have to quit anyway when school starts."

Shannon stared at him, shocked. "No, I don't!"

"Oh, yes, you do."

"You're part of this family," Ginny said, "and you're going to go on vacation with us."

"I don't want to!"

Bill leaned forward across the counter toward her. "I don't care if you want to or not. You're going."

"How come Sam gets to stay home?"

"Sam is a year older than you."

"So?"

"So, she's eighteen."

"Big fucking deal!"

Ginny hit her.

It wasn't a hard hit, not a punch, but it was loud, a slap across the face, and they were all stunned by it, Ginny most of all. She had never slapped either of her daughters before, and Bill could tell that she instantly regretted the action. Still, she did not perform the cliched follow-up, did not immediately hug Shannon and tearfully apologize. She merely stood there, staring at her daughter, and it was Shannon who burst out crying and did the tearful hug, jumping off her chair, throwing her arms around her mother and apologizing.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry, Mom!"

Ginny gave her a quick hug in return, turned her about. "You should be apologizing to your father."

Shannon moved around the counter. "I'm sorry, Dad. I . . . I don't know why I said that."

Bill smiled. "I've heard the word before."

Shannon wiped her nose, laughed.

"But you're coming with us," he said. "We're all going on vacation. As a family."

This time Shannon nodded. "Okay," she said. "Okay."

2

Shannon approached Mr. Lamb with trepidation. She hadn't really spoken to the personnel manager alone, on a one-to-one basis, since she'd been hired, and she found herself somewhat frightened by the prospect. He was standing in front of the Customer Service counter, talking to a customer, and she waited for him to finish before approaching him, glancing nervously up at the wall clock above the counter as the minutes of her break ticked by.

She didn't want him to catch her taking a too-long break.

She watched the personnel manager as he talked to the woman. He had always seemed to her very intimidating, and he seemed even more so now, since he'd been elected mayor. He never mentioned his new office in meetings, and no one else did, either, but it was known and it was there, in the background, and it lent to him a power above and beyond what he already possessed.

At the party on election night, the victory party, The Store had provided free food and liquor, and more people had shown up for that reason than to celebrate the election results. She'd helped Holly pass out candy and mints, and the party had grown wilder and wilder as the night wore on, with Mrs. Comstock, the librarian, taking off her clothes and dancing naked in the Stationery aisle, Mr. Wilson, the postmaster, picking a fight with Sonny James in Boys' Wear, and a group of rowdy women puking on cue in Housewares. But Mr. Lamb had remained aloof and above it all, completely sober and in control, and Shannon's most vivid memory of that night was of loud, drunken, half-dressed men and women attacking each other while Mr. Lamb, smiling, looked on.

She hadn't told her parents what had happened that night, but she'd talked to Diane about it, and her friend had suggested that she quit her job at The Store. "You're only there because you're bored," she said. "You don't really need the money. Why don't you just find something else to do?"

She'd seen Diane less and less this summer, and it wasn't just because of their conflicting schedules. Working for her dad, Diane had developed an anti store attitude similar to her parents', and the same contrary impulse that had caused Shannon to defend The Store to her parents had made her do the same with her friend.

"I like working at The Store," she told Diane coldly. "I'd rather do what I'm doing than what you're doing."

Truth be told, she didn't like working at The Store. And she'd much rather be working for Diane's father than for Mr. Lamb. But for some dumb reason, she didn't seem to be able to admit that aloud. Not even to Sam, who had asked her point-blank about the subject more than once.

Which was why she and Diane were on the outs.

Which was why she'd fought with her parents about the vacation.

She looked up at the clock again, her hands sweaty with tension.

She wished she'd never applied for a job here.

Mr. Lamb finally finished with the customer, and as the woman walked away he turned, smiling, toward Shannon. "Shannon," he said. "You have exactly five and a half minutes left on your break. How may I help you?"

She'd practiced in her mind the words she would say, but all of her planned statements had suddenly fled. She could not remember what she wanted to say or think of how to ask him for time off. She stalled. "I, uh . . . could I . . . could we, uh, talk in your office?"

He looked her over and nodded. "Certainly. You still have four and a half minutes left."

Maybe she'd be lucky, she thought, as she followed him behind the Customer Service counter. Maybe Mr. Lamb would fire her.

Lucky? Would getting fired be lucky?

Yes, she thought, looking at the back of the personnel director's suit.

Yes, it would.

He walked into the small room, sat down at his desk, motioned for her to take the chair opposite him. She did so.

The door to the office closed behind her, and she turned her head to see who had pulled it shut, but there was no one there.

"What is it?" Mr. Lamb asked. The patina of friendliness that had been in his voice outside, on the floor, was gone, and there was a hardness to both his words and his attitude as he faced her across the desk. She was not just nervous, she was afraid to ask what she'd come here to ask, and she suddenly wished she'd tried to do this some other place, at some other time.

She cleared her throat. "I know this is kind of short notice, Mr. Lamb, but my family's going on vacation to Carlsbad Caverns next week, and I was wondering if I could take three days off. We'll be gone for five days, but I don't work Monday, and Gina said she'd trade with me for Friday, so I'd only need Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday."

He smiled insincerely. "Oh, you're going to be going on a family vacation."

She nodded.

His smile disappeared. "You lazy bitch," he said. "You lazy fucking bitch. You think you can just waltz in and out every time you feel like it while all of The Store's hardworking _loyal_ employees stay here and bust their asses to take up your slack?"

She was stunned, frightened, caught off guard as much by the vehemence of his delivery as the violence of his words. She shrank back in the chair, feeling deeply afraid as he leaned across the desk toward her.

"All of our rules and regulations, all of our work and responsibilities have to be altered and put on hold because one fucking little part-time slut can't do her damn job correctly. Is that what I'm hearing?"

Shannon shook her head meekly. "I . . . I'm sorry. I . . . didn't --"

"Quit your whining," Mr. Lamb ordered.

She shut up, and he leaned back in his chair, fingers pressed together, pretending to think. "The Store is not a charity," he said finally. "Give me one good reason why I should allow you to take off on a vacation, galavanting around the country when you're supposed to be working."

"There is no good reason," she said. "I'm sorry I asked. I didn't mean to disturb you --"

Mr. Lamb suddenly burst out laughing. He spun around in his swivel chair, pointed at her. "Gotcha!"

She blinked, confused. He was watching her, still laughing, and she tried to smile but was not sure why.

"I knew why you wanted to talk to me before we even came in here," he said. "It's all taken care of. Your shifts are covered for that time period. You may go on vacation with your family."

She shook her head. "How --"

"-- did I know?" he finished for her. "Your sister stopped by before her shift and told me _all_ about it."

"Sam?"

"Oh, yes," he said, and the playfulness was suddenly gone from his voice.

He was still smiling, but there was a slyness to it now, something unpleasant that made her squirm in her seat. "Samantha and I had a nice long talk early this morning before The Store opened."

He pulled from his desk drawer a pair of panties.

A pair of panties stained with blood.

Sam's.

Shannon recognized the pattern, and she felt as though her guts had just been scooped out. Grandma Jo had sent each of them underwear last Christmas, identically patterned h'oliday panties with holly and teddy bear designs. She hadn't wanted to wear them, had been embarrassed to let Jake see her in anything so goofy, but Sam hadn't minded, and she'd taken all four pair.

Shannon stared at the reddish brown stain obscuring the festively dressed bear on the French-cut underpants.

Mr. Lamb played with the panties absently, stretching them between two fingers. "She's a very good sister to you," the personnel manager said. "Very caring, very supportive. You should consider yourself lucky."

Shannon nodded absently, unable to concentrate.

What had happened? And why? What had he done to her?

_What had she allowed him to do to her?_

No. Samantha would never allow this sleazebucket to touch even the toe of her boot.

_Would she?_

Shannon felt sick. Hurt and angry and afraid all at once. She stared with hatred across the desk at the personnel manager.

He put away the panties, closed the drawer. "You can go on vacation with your mommy and your daddy," he said in a mincing singsong voice. Abruptly, his tone grew serious, his smile cruel. "And you can thank your sister for it. Now get your worthless ass back to work. Your break's over."

3

They left early, before dawn. He'd packed everything the night before, loaded up the car, set the alarm for four. They'd given Sam an extra key to the Jeep, as well as a copy of their itinerary: the list of motels at which they would be staying, phone numbers, and approximate arrival times.

"Be good," Ginny told her.

Sam seemed almost sorry that she was not going with them, an expression of regret on her face as she held her bathrobe closed and waved from the doorway, and Bill took that as a promising sign.

There was hope yet.

They stopped by Len's before they pulled out of town, bought a sack of donuts for the road, coffee for him and Ginny, hot chocolate for Shannon.

Then they were off.

He marked out their route on a map ahead of time, sticking to the blue highways, the scenic roads, as much as possible. Shannon fell asleep immediately after finishing her hot chocolate, lulled by the rhythm of the wheels, but Ginny, as always, remained wide-awake, and she put her left hand on his right thigh and squeezed gently as they traveled east toward the dawn.

Juniper's radio station faded out an hour or so later, and Bill twirled the dial, searching in vain for music, but all he could get was a syndicated early morning talk show out of Flagstaff and a Navajo station from Chinle, so he popped in a tape.

He felt good. Gordon Lightfoot on the stereo, the sun coming up over the mountains. This was what it was supposed to be like, this was the life he should be living.

Shannon woke up, started to take the last doughnut out of the bag, then changed her mind and simply stared silently out the window.

They passed through towns that were recognized as such by mapmakers only - wide spots in the road consisting of little more than old broken windmills and dirty little gas stations. The forest segued to farmland, the farmland to desert. There were no strict dividing lines, the boundaries were fluid, and the shifting landscape along the narrow, seldom-driven secondary roads was both beautiful and continually surprising.

They talked as they drove, not discussing The Store but just about anything and everything else: music, movies, world events, feelings, thoughts, friends, family, the past, the future.

Shannon was quiet at first, subdued, almost withdrawn, but she seemed to relax and open up the farther away from Juniper they traveled, first jumping into the conversation at odd and irregular points, then finally being drawn in.

Bill smiled to himself as he drove. God, there was nothing better than traveling. He loved everything about it. Not only did he enjoy seeing new and uncharted country, but, as he'd told Ginny last night, taking vacations together strengthened the family bond. The enforced intimacy of an enclosed car mandated greater interaction. In real life, Shannon had enough space of her own, enough opportunity for physical movement, that the boundaries of their relationship could be voluntarily controlled. But here, they were stuck with each other, could not get away even if they wanted to, and the traditional teenage distance she'd kept from them the past few years was gradually broken down, worn away. It was like she was a little girl again, a fully integrated member of the family, and that nostalgic familiarity felt good.

"How far are we from the border?" Shannon asked.

"A hundred miles or so."

"I've never been to New Mexico before."

He smiled. "That'll only be true for another hour and a half."

The smile faded on his face even before he'd finished the sentence. Ahead, on the desert hillside, he could see the clustered clinging buildings of Rio Verde and, dominating the landscape of the town, The Store. It stood amidst the older structures like a rocket among biplanes, drawing attention to itself, its recently constructed windowless facade and bright shiny sign looking exactly like its Juniper counterpart, calling to him, mocking him.

He said nothing, did not point it out or mention it, but Ginny and Shannon could not help but notice the building, and they were silent as they drove through the town, not speaking until they had gone some miles beyond it and the low mesas of New Mexico were in sight on the cloud-crowded horizon.

Sometime after two, they stopped for a late lunch in Socorro, eating at McDonald's, a mile or two from the Rio Grande.

Socorro didn't have a Store, but Las Palmas, the next town, did -- a huge, conspicuously expensive building situated between poor adobe farmhouses. The town could not have had a population of more than a few hundred, but the gigantic Store parking lot was filled. All of the vehicles, he saw as they drove by, were old and dusty, and the men and women trudging into The Store looked discouraged, whipped, beaten.

Like a conquered people, he thought.

But he said nothing, kept driving.

He'd made reservations for the night at a Holiday Inn in Encantada, based on a favorable description in the _AAA TourBook_. Encantada turned out to be a one-street town on a flat plain at the edge of a massive oil field. Following the speed limit signs, he slowed the car to thirty-five miles an hour as they entered the town limits.

Immediately, the hair began prickling on his arms and the back of his neck. Shannon was asleep in the rear, but Ginny was wide-awake. and she looked over at him, fear in her eyes. "Bill," she said quietly.

He didn't have to be told. He could see it for himself.

Everyone on the street was dressed in The Store uniform.

The men, the women, the boys, the girls.

"My God," Ginny said. "Oh, my God."

Bill said nothing, slowed to thirty. In the window of the town's lone gas station, the attendant was wearing a Store uniform. An oil truck driver, jumping down from his cab, was wearing a Store uniform as well, as were the diners at the cafй to which the trucker was headed.

At the far end of town, just past the Holiday Inn, was the intimidating bulk of The Store itself.

"We can't stay here," Ginny said. "We have to stay somewhere else."

Shannon awoke in the backseat. "What is it?" she asked groggily. She sat up, looked around. "Oh," she said, and was silent.

"We have reservations here," Bill said weakly. "They'll charge us even if we don't stay."

"Let them."

He thought of arguing, then got out his map. "I guess we can go on to the next town, see if they have any place to stay."

"And we'll go to the next town if we have to. And the next. We'll keep driving until we find a motel." She looked at him. "You've been driving all day.

We'll switch off. I'll drive for a while."

He looked at the dashboard. "We need to get gas, though. We're almost out."

Ginny nodded. "Fine," she said. "Let's get it and go."

But the Store-suited attendant at the station informed him that the tanks were empty and the truck hadn't been by yet. A shipment was supposed to have been delivered this morning, but there'd been some sort of mix-up near Albuquerque and the driver had radioed that he wouldn't be in until late.

"How late?" Bill asked.

The attendant shrugged. "Ten, maybe. Midnight."

"We're screwed," he told Ginny, walking back to the car. He explained the situation, and after a brief discussion, they agreed to stay that night in the Holiday Inn.

The motel itself was nice. There was cable TV, a heated pool, a Jacuzzi, and there was nothing sinister or threatening about any of it. But every window in the place had a view of The Store, and even the maids and desk clerks were wearing Store uniforms.

They locked themselves in their room, pulled the drapes, and had a dinner comprised of the snacks they'd brought along with them: Coke and potato chips, apples and pretzels. Ginny lay on one bed, Shannon on the other, and he sat in a chair next to the curtained window as they watched a New Mexico newscast, the national news, and a syndicated tabloid show.

They didn't talk about The Store or the town, commented only on the stories broadcast on television. Shannon went to take a shower, and Bill moved next to Ginny on the bed. She snuggled next to him. "I'm scared," she said.

"I know," he told her. He was scared, too, although he told himself logically that there was no real reason to be.

He changed the station when Shannon emerged from the bathroom, switching to a movie channel, and they watched a bad John Candy movie and then part of an even worse Chevy Chase flick.

Shannon had already crawled under the covers of her bed, and Ginny was about to go into the bathroom and take a shower herself, when Bill made a big show of standing, stretching, and looking at the clock.

"I'm going to go get some gas," he said. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Ginny stopped cold, whirled to face him. "What?"

"I'm going to get some gas."

"You're not going out after dark," she told him.

Shannon pretended not to listen, kept her attention on the movie, and he walked over to where Ginny was standing. "What if there is no gas in the morning?" he said. "Are we going to stay here another day? The truck's supposed to come tonight. I'll fill up the tank and be right back."

"I don't like it."

He pointed out that the gas station was half a block away, between a Burger King and a 7-Eleven, in the opposite direction of The Store. "There won't be any problem," he said.

She looked at him, took a deep breath. "Make it quick."

He drove directly to The Store.

He'd been wanting to drive by ever since they'd arrived in Encantada, ever since he'd seen the uniformed populace, but he knew that Ginny would be against it and he hadn't even mentioned the idea to her. Now he drove into the huge parking lot and toward the entrance of The Store.

It was eerie, seeing the familiar building in these unfamiliar surroundings. He understood the corporate desire for uniformity, but there was something about the deliberately induced deja vu he experienced while driving through a parking lot he knew toward a store that he knew in a town that he'd never been in or seen before that was not only disorienting but disturbing.

It was after ten and The Store was closed. He'd expected to see a few stragglers, the cars of some late-working employees in the parking lot, but everyone must have bailed instantly because his was the only vehicle on the wide expanse of asphalt.

He slowed the car as he drove toward the glass doors of the entrance.

Inside, the building was fully lit, a lengthening parallelogram of light spilling onto the empty parking lot. Despite the absence of other vehicles, he thought he could see movement inside The Store, the silhouettes of several figures, and though the night and the darkness and The Store and the town all conspired to send a chill down his spine, he continued forward slowly.

This close, he could see a figure through the glass, standing on the other side of the door, waving at him.

The figure looked familiar, and at first he couldn't place why.

Then he turned the car slightly to the left and his headlights illuminated the face of the form.

Jed McGill.

He sucked in his breath, terror blooming full-fledged within him.

In his lights, the figure grinned.

Jed McGill.

It couldn't be.

But he didn't want to know for sure, and he sped by, turned around, drove back out onto the highway and to the gas station, where he filled up the tank.

He was still shaking when he arrived back at their room, but Ginny was in the shower and Shannon was asleep, and he quickly locked the door, turned off the lights, took off his clothes, and crawled into bed.

They left early the next morning, well before dawn, and while he tried not to think about what he'd seen last night, tried not to think about The Store at all, they had to pass it on their way out of town, and as the buildings gave way to desert, his headlights played across a series of billboards posted by the side of the road:

THE STORE WANTS YOU

NEW MEXICO IS STORE COUNTRY

ASK NOT WHAT THE STORE CAN DO FOR YOU

BUT WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THE STORE

None of them mentioned the billboards. Or The Store. They drove through the predawn desert in silence.

That night and the next were spent at a Best Western in White's City, near the entrance of the national park. They took all the tours, went on all the trails, but even with a day between Encantada and Carlsbad, he could not enjoy the caverns. None of them could. The caves were beautiful, spectacular, truly a natural wonder, but The Store remained in his mind, and he could not keep from thinking, irrationally, that everyone in Juniper would be wearing Store uniforms when they returned.

They skipped the scenic route home the next day, took major highways, and arrived in Juniper long after dark, tired and hungry.

"We'll unpack tomorrow," he said, getting out of the car. "Just leave it."

The house lights were all off, so Sam was either out or asleep, and Bill took out his house key as he trudged across the dirt up to the front door. There was a piece of paper attached to the door, but he couldn't read it in the dark and he opened the door and flipped on both the living room and porch lights.

It was a note.

Written on The Store's letterhead.

Heart thumping, he pulled out the tack holding up the paper and read:

NOTICE:

Shannon Davis, you have been transferred out of The Store's Garden department and are hereby ordered to report for duty in Housewares at 6:00 A.M.

Tuesday morning. By order of The Store, your vacation is officially over.

It was signed by Samantha M. Davis, Assistant Manager.

"Look's like Sam's been promoted," Ginny said.

Bill didn't respond. Neither did Shannon.

They walked into the house, closing the door behind them.

TWENTY-SIX

1

Monday morning. Shannon was up before they were, waiting for them in silence on the couch in the living room, no stereo on, no radio, no TV.

"Mom?" she said. "Dad?"

Ginny looked over at Bill. He hadn't slept well, and it showed. His face was wan, his eyes red and puffy. He met her gaze, nodded, and they sat down on the love seat across from the couch.

"What is it?" Ginny asked softly.

Shannon wouldn't meet their eyes, would only look at her hands, which were twisting an already shredded Kleenex in her lap. "I don't want to work at The Store anymore."

Ginny was filled with a powerful sense of relief.

"Thank God," Bill said.

"But I don't know how to quit." She looked up at them for the first time.

"I'm afraid to quit."

"There's nothing to be afraid of --" Bill began.

"Yes, there is," Shannon said. "We all know there is."

"What I mean is that I'll go in with you, if you want. We'll both go in and tell them that you're quitting."

"I have a better idea," Ginny said.

They both turned to look at her.

"We let Sam do it for you."

Bill was already shaking his head.

"She's assistant manager now."

Shannon was nodding excitedly. "She got me the job. Now she can get me out of it. She's the one who wrote the notice, anyway."

"Let me talk to her," Ginny told Bill.

Samantha had come home late last night, after they'd gone to bed, and she was still locked in her room, sleeping.

"I'll wake her up," Bill offered.

"No," Ginny said. "Let her sleep."

His jaw grew tense. "I'm not going to tiptoe around my own house, kowtowing to my daughter because she works for The Store. We're still the parents in this household. They're still the children."

"I know that," Ginny said patiently. "We all know that. And if you'd gotten a decent night's sleep, you'd know it, too. But since Sam is in a position to help her sister, I think it would be a good idea if we talk to her when she's in a positive mood."

"Fine," Bill sighed. He turned toward Shannon. "But if it's a no-go, I'll still go down with you to talk to that Mr. Lamb. If you need moral support, I'll be there."

"Thanks, Dad."

He got up, walked over to the couch, kissed her on the forehead. "And I'm happy you decided to quit," he said. "You make me proud."

Ginny decided to talk to Sam without Bill present. He'd only get angry, aggravate the situation, cause problems. She told him that, and he agreed reluctantly -- so she waited until he was safely ensconced in his office, playing with his computer, before collaring Samantha.

Shannon was in her bedroom, waiting, and Ginny gathered both girls together in the living room, sitting them down on the couch.

She came right out and said it: "Sam, your sister wants to quit. She doesn't want to work at The Store anymore."

Samantha's face tightened, her expression hardening. "She can't quit. She starts in Housewares tomorrow morning. I got her that job."

Shannon would not look at her sister. "I don't want it," she said quietly.

"Well, you've got it. I pulled a lot of strings to get it for you."

Ginny watched Shannon's face, saw an expression there she had never seen before and couldn't decipher. "You can't force your sister to work if she doesn't want to," she told Samantha.

"She was hired to work through October."

"I changed my mind!" Shannon said.

"The Store can terminate that contract. You cannot. For better or worse, you are a member of The Store Corps. Live it, love it."

A rush of anger coursed through Ginny. "Knock this off," she told Samantha. "Now."

"Knock what off?"

"Your sister is quitting, and that's it. Period."

"It's not my decision." Sam's voice had taken on a defensive edge. "I'd let her quit if it was up to me, but it's not. I'm just following policy."

"Then Shannon and your father will just have to have a talk with the store manager."

"They can't," Sam said quickly.

"We'll see about that."

"What if I just never show up again?" Shannon asked. "They'll fire me, right?"

Sam did not answer.

"Right?"

"Will they fire her?" Ginny asked.

Sam's voice was quiet. "No. They won't fire her. They'll come after her.

They'll find her. They'll _make_ her work."

Ginny shivered. A chill passed through her, and she looked over at her younger daughter, who had suddenly turned very pale.

"You can't fight it," Sam said.

"It's okay," Shannon said shakily. "I'll work."

"You don't have to --"

"I want to." She stood, hurried off, into her bedroom.

"Sam?" Ginny said.

Samantha stood, would not look at her. "I have to work," she said. "It's going to be a busy day."

"So how did it go?" Bill asked.

"It didn't."

"Then we'll force them to quit. Or at least we'll force Shannon."

_They'll come after her. They'll find her. They'll make her work._

Ginny shook her head. "I don't think it's a good idea," she said quietly.

"Why not?"

She told him about what Sam had said, the implied threat.

"So unless we're planning to move somewhere else, I think it's safer to let them work there. It's not causing any real problems. They work at cash registers, sell things, pick up their paychecks. But if they pulled out . . ."

She let the thought trail off.

"There'd be trouble," he finished for her.

She nodded.

"I thought Shannon wanted to quit."

"She changed her mind."

He laughed harshly. "Jesus. Employment by intimidation. What's this world coming to?"

She put an arm around his shoulder, rested her chin on the top of his head. "I don't know," she said. "1 really don't know."

2

Sam dropped the bombshell after dinner.

"I'm not going to college," she said.

Bill looked over at Ginny. It was obvious that this was the first time she'd heard these words as well, and he could see the anger settle upon her face. "What do you mean, you're not going to college?" she demanded.

"I'm in the management program now. They're sending me off to the corporate headquarters in Dallas for training. It's a two-week program, and after that, I'll be back in Juniper. The Store already found me a house over on Elm, and it's rent-free. They pay for everything. I can move in this weekend."

They were all stunned. Even Shannon was silent, and they looked dumbly at each other while Samantha smiled brightly.

"I know I was planning to go to college, but this is a great opportunity."

Ginny was the first to find her voice. "A great opportunity? Assistant manager of a discount store in Juniper? You can be anything you want. With your grades and your brains, if you graduate with even a bachelor's degree, you can write your own ticket. You can get a job anywhere, with any company. You can get a job like your father's, work at home."

Bill heard the hurt in her voice. Neither of them had ever imagined that their daughters would not go to college. It had never even been considered an option. Ginny, in particular, had had high hopes for both Sam and Shannon, and he could see from the expression on her features that she felt betrayed.

"College is a great experience," Ginny continued gamely. "Not just a learning experience but . . . a social experience. It's where you get a chance to grow, to learn things about yourself, to find out who you really are and what you want from life."

"But there's no reason for me to go," Sam said. "I don't need to 'find myself,' and I already know what I want from life. I want to be on The Store's management team."

Silence again. Shannon shifted uncomfortably in her seat, would not meet anyone's eyes. She stared down at her plate, pushing her rice with a fork.

Ginny looked to Bill for help.

"The Store will always be here," he said. "And you can always come back to it. But this is your only chance to go to college. These are the only scholarships you'll get."

"I know."

"And once you get caught up in the rat race, you won't go back to school.

You might tell yourself that college will always be there and you can enroll later if you want to, but the truth is that that very seldom happens. If you don't go now, you won't go."

"I don't need to go."

"We didn't raise you to be a dummy."

"I'm not a dummy," Sam said defensively.

"Then prove it. Go to school."

"I don't need to."

"Everyone needs to."

Sam stood. "The fact is, Dad, college _will_ always be there. I _can_ go anytime I want. But this position won't stay open forever. If I don't take it, someone else may get it. And they may stay until they retire. This is a once-in a-lifetime chance. And if I don't like it or it doesn't work out" -- she shrugged. -- "I'll go to college."

"So you want to move out?"

Samantha nodded, barely able to hide her excitement or keep the smile off her face.

"Over my dead body," he said.

Her smile faltered. "Dad --"

"Yes," he said. "I'm your dad. And I'm telling you that you can't do this."

"I'm eighteen, and I can do what I want."

"Bill," Ginny warned.

He ignored her. "Once you move out, you can't move back. Even if they fire you." Ginny stood, threw down her napkin. "Bill!"

"What?"

"You are over the line!"

"It is a little harsh, Dad," Shannon said.

Sam was smiling again. She looked around the table, beamed at them. "It may take a little getting used to," she said. "But don't worry. It'll be great."

She looked like a fucking Moonie, he thought. Like some brainwashed bimbo who'd been captured by a cult.

He turned away from her, unable to look at his daughter and contain his rage. He had always considered himself a pacifist, had never really harbored or entertained any violent thoughts or desires -- not even in regard to his enemies -- but his feelings toward The Store and its minions were invariably revenge fantasies, tinged with violence. And never more so than now. He imagined beating the shit out of Mr. Lamb and Mr. Keyes, physically injuring them, and the aggressiveness of his thoughts disturbed him. He wasn't sure where these thoughts had come from, or why he was stooping to The Store's base level of discourse, but he wanted to hurt those sons of bitches.

Especially for what they'd done to his daughter.

His daughters?

He glanced toward Shannon. No, he thought thankfully.

At least not yet.

He did not help Sam move out of the house. Ginny did, Shannon did, Sam's friends did, but he remained in his office, in front of his computer, pretending to work, as they carried the furniture and boxes out of her bedroom. He knew how he was behaving -- and he hated himself for it -- but he could think of no other way of demonstrating to her the depth of his disapproval.

It was ironic, really. He had always felt nothing but disgust for those hard-hearted fathers who kicked their children out of the house for some minor transgression, who disowned their own children and refused to see them or talk to them. He'd always thought those fathers stupid and shortsighted. What disagreement could possibly be so serious that it was worth jeopardizing the relationship between a parent and a child?

Yet here he was, acting the same way, doing the same thing. Not wanting to, but not being able to avoid it. Ginny had been as angry as he was, and even more hurt, but she was better able to adjust, to roll with the flow, to accommodate change.

He could not do that.

He wished he could.

But he couldn't.

And he stood alone in his office, in the silence, listening to the fading motors of the pickup trucks as his oldest daughter moved out of his house.

3

The mood of the town seemed different, Ginny thought as she drove to the salon. Either something in Juniper had changed during their absence, or her perceptions had been altered by what they'd seen on the trip.

The Store.

It was the last thing they'd seen as they'd left town and the first thing they'd seen on their return.

And it had taken Sam.

If before she had felt that The Store was an intruder in her town, now she felt like the intruder. A transformation had occurred while they'd been on their trip, and now Juniper no longer seemed like her town. It seemed like The Store's town. And she was the unwelcome guest.

She drove down Main. The library, she'd heard, was being privatized.

County funds had been slashed at the last board of supervisors meeting, and since Juniper's library was the smallest and least frequented in the county, the decision had been made to close it. But once again -- of course -- the heroic Store had ridden to the rescue and offered to underwrite the entire operation a proposal that had been gratefully accepted.

The Store now controlled the police department, fire department, all town services, the school district, and the library.

And Sam.

Ginny gripped the steering wheel more tightly. She shared Bill's anger and frustration, but she still saw their daughter as a victim, not an accomplice, and though her gut reaction was to slap the girl and ground her for a month, she realized that Sam was at the age where she had to make her own mistakes.

And learn from them.

She had enough basic faith in her daughter to believe that that would occur.

And she did not want to alienate her and push her away at a time when Sam might need her mother the most.

For things were getting rough out there. She herself was avoided, ostracized, whispered about. Ignored by her friends. The recipient of cold stares from coworkers and giggling derision from old students.

This must be what it felt like to have been a Japanese-American during World War II, she thought, to have been a civil rights activist in Mississippi in the sixties. She was treated not merely as a stranger or an outsider, but as a traitor living among them, as an enemy.

Because she was not a Store sympathizer.

There were plenty of people who weren't, she knew. The displaced workers, the unemployed, all of the people who'd voted against the current council. But they'd been marginalized, shunted off to the side, and they didn't dare express their true feelings. It was as if, overnight, everything had changed, and all of their allies had either gone into hiding or disappeared.

The Store was now organizing Neighborhood Watch groups. Juniper's crime rate over the past two decades had been nearly nonexistent, but suddenly everyone was concerned about drugs and robberies, gang activity and sexual assaults. Now people in one part of town were reporting people from other parts of town who were seen innocently walking through their neighborhoods.

And the police were responding to the calls.

The town was becoming fractured, fragmented, the larger community breaking off into smaller, potentially adversarial groups.

And The Store was reaping the benefits.

Yesterday's issue of the newspaper had a full-page ad for a weekend sale of home security devices.

Ginny pulled into one of the empty parking spaces on the street in front of Hair Today. A bearded, obviously homeless man, wearing torn jeans and a filthy flannel shirt, walked directly in front of her car, and she pretended to look through her purse, waiting until he had gone before getting out of the vehicle.

She was a little intimidated by the vagrants. Most of them simply sat in empty doorways or on raggedy blankets under trees, but the bolder ones staked out specific spots in order to ask passersby for money. She knew she should be more understanding, and in an abstract, intellectual way, she sympathized with their plight, but on an emotional, personal level, she was slightly afraid of these people. She did not like seeing them, was uncomfortable around them, and she did not know how she was supposed to act.

So she tried to avoid them as much as possible.

She was the only customer in the salon, and Rene was the only stylist, and the two of them coexisted in uncomfortable silence while Ginny's hair was washed, then cut and penned. She would have liked to have talked -- about anything -- but Rene was obviously in a bad mood, and Ginny let her be.

Afterward, she left an extra-large tip of ten dollars.

Rene smiled for the first time, touched her hand as she placed the bill on the counter. "Thank you," she said. "For everything."

Ginny nodded, smiled back.

On the way home, she saw Sam on the sidewalk, heading away from her new house and toward the highway and The Store. She stopped to offer her daughter a ride, but Sam looked at her and gave her a cold smile. "I don't accept rides from strangers," she said dismissively.

She kept walking.

"Sam?" Ginny called out the car window. She thought at first that it was some sort of joke, but when her daughter would not look back, continued on at the same even pace, she knew that it was not. "Samantha!" she called.

No answer.

Ginny moved the car forward, pulling next to her. "Honey? What's the matter?"

Sam kept walking.

"Get in the car. I don't know what the problem is here, but obviously we need to work it out."

Sam stopped. "There's nothing to work out. Fuck off, Mom."

"What?"

"Fuck. Off."

Another car drove by, and Samantha flagged down the driver. It was a man, someone Ginny didn't know, and before she could call out, before she could say anything, Sam was in the car and off to The Store.

She thought of following, did for a few blocks, but then she thought better of it and turned back toward home as the other car turned onto the highway.

She made it all the way into the drive before bursting into tears.

4

Shannon stood against the wall with the rest of the employees, legs spread to shoulder width, hands clasped behind her back in the official Store stance.

Mr. Lamb walked slowly back and forth in front of them. "The new uniforms have arrived," he said. His voice was low and seductive. "They are beautiful."

Shannon felt uneasy. She thought of the trip, of Encantada, of the people in that town all wearing Store uniforms.

Mr. Lamb smiled at her, and she thought of _Sam's bloody panties_.

She looked quickly away, feeling cold and sick.

"You are all going to wear your beautiful new uniforms today. You will wear them proudly. For you are the elite, you are the chosen."

He walked into the dark doorway of the small stockroom to the left of the elevator and emerged with one of the new uniforms on a hanger. It was leather, black leather, and shiny. Holding the hanger with his left hand, he used his right to pull off and display the uniform's top, a strange-looking article of clothing that to Shannon resembled a straitjacket. Next, he held up the pants.

"They're tight in the crotch," he said. "You'll love them."

There were a few nervous giggles from some of the employees.

There was a cap as well, a leather beret with a silver-studded insignia, and matching leather underwear: a codpiece for the males, French-cut panties for the females.

"And you all get boots," he said. "Knee-high storm troopers. They're perfect."

He stood there, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, looking up and down the line, grinning at them. Neither Shannon nor anyone else seemed to know what came next -- what they were supposed to do or say, how they were supposed to react -- and they stood there dumbly, looking at each other, looking at Mr. Lamb.

"All right," the personnel manager said finally. "What are we waiting for?

Strip!"

Shannon sucked in her breath, not sure that she'd heard correctly, praying to God that she hadn't.

Mr. Lamb clapped his hands. "Come on! Hop to! Take off your clothes! All of them! Now!"

Joad Comstock was next to her on the right, Francine Dormand to her left, and she didn't want either of them to see her naked. She had a big red pimple on the left cheek of her buttocks, and more pimples on her shoulders. Her breasts were too small, much smaller than Francine's, and despite all the dieting her stomach was still too big. She hadn't shaved her legs, either, not for over a week, and the stubble looked really gross.

She didn't want _anyone_ to see her naked.

Around her, the other employees were perfunctorily taking off their clothes: removing their shoes, unbuckling their belts, unbuttoning their tops.

"Throw your old uniforms into the center of the corridor," Mr. Lamb ordered.

No one was balking, no one was complaining, no one was talking. There were no jokes cracked, and even the youngest employees did not giggle as their coworkers stripped.

Jake was somewhere in line, Shannon thought.

"Shannon Davis," Mr. Lamb said loudly, warningly, staring at her.

She began unbuttoning her top.

"These are _our_ uniforms," Mr. Lamb stated. "They are the uniforms of The Store and they will not leave this building. You will keep them in your lockers, and you will put them on when you arrive and take them off before you leave. You will wear your uniforms only within the confines of The Store." He paused. "If you wear your uniform outside of this building, you will be terminated." He paused again. "If you are scheduled to work and do not wear your uniform, you will be terminated."

A wave of cold passed through Shannon as she pulled down her panties. Mr. Lamb's peculiar emphasis of the word "terminated" was extremely unsettling. She knew that was intentional, knew he wanted them to pick up on the double meaning of the word, but that did not make it any less upsetting.

Following Mr. Lamb's directions, they filed naked into the small, dark stockroom. They'd lined up alphabetically, and boxed uniforms with name tags attached were piled in the same order, illuminated by a single recessed bulb in the ceiling. Shannon kept her attention focused on load's head in front of her, not wanting to see his exposed back or legs or hairy buttocks, not wanting to see any part of any of her coworkers' bodies.

She hoped Francine was doing the same behind her.

Picking up the box with her name tag attached, Shannon carried it out to the assembly corridor.

No one was yet putting on the new uniforms. They all stood, holding their boxes, at attention. Somehow, in the few brief moments it had taken her to walk into the stockroom and out again, all of their discarded clothes had been piled in the center of the corridor.

"It is time," Mr. Lamb said, when the last employee emerged from the stockroom.

They burned their old uniforms -- and their underwear and their shoes and socks -- in a ceremonial fire. Mr. Lamb made them walk around the flames, holding hands, singing The Store's irritating commercial jingle.

Or, as Mr. Lamb referred to it, "The Store's Official Anthem."

Still naked, they were herded into the chapel, where one by one they were each required to kneel down before the massive painting of Newman King.

Shannon's body was covered with goose bumps, the chilled flesh of fear, not cold, and she watched the employees before her kneel down on the red carpet, bow their heads and give thanks to Newman King for allowing them to graduate to this new level. There was no way any of them could not know that this was wrong, crazy -- _evil_ -- yet none of the other employees seemed fazed. They were quiet, a little more subdued than usual, perhaps, but there was no opposition to what they were doing, no recognition that this was something an employer should not be able to demand, or even request, from an employee.

Shannon knew it was wrong, but she walked forward just like the others, knelt, gave thanks, afraid to voice her disapproval, not brave enough to refuse to participate.

She stood, walked out of the chapel. All of the shifts would go through this, she realized. All of The Store's workers.

Sam would go through this -- if she hadn't already.

"Okay!" Mr. Lamb said, clapping his hands, when the last employee had given thanks. "To the lockers! Put on your uniforms and be on the floor in five!" He glanced over at Shannon, smiled, and a hot flush of shame passed through her as she saw where his eyes were looking. "The Store opens in ten minutes! Be there or be square!"

TWENTY-SEVEN

1

He had stopped jogging entirely.

The streets were getting too scary.

It was not something Bill had ever expected to happen in Juniper. A year ago -- six months ago, even -- such an idea would have been unthinkable. But things were different now. The Store had recruited its own security force to augment the police department, and though ostensibly the reason was to combat the increased crime in town, the truth was that The Store merely wanted to increase its hold, to flaunt its power, to make sure that everyone knew that it was now in charge of Juniper.

Besides, although he could not prove anything, most of the crime, in Bill's mind, seemed to be committed by this new security force.

And the victims always seemed to be people who were opposed to The Store.

Which was why he no longer jogged.

He had not yet received a new assignment, his days were still free, and he now spent most of them hanging around Street's place. Ben hung there, too, and it had the feeling of one of those cinematic barbershops where a group of crotchety old man sat around, day after day, critiquing the world that passed by the windows.

Only there was no world passing by the windows.

There were only occasional cars driving past on their way to The Store.

Bill pulled up in front of the electronics shop and hopped out of his Jeep. There was something different about the street today, and it took him a moment to figure out what it was.

Multicolored flyers had been posted on the trees, telephone poles, and abandoned storefronts downtown.

He walked up to the closest telephone pole. No, not flyers. Announcements:

BY THE ORDER OF THE STORE, NO CITIZEN MAY BE OUTSIDE HIS OR HER HOME AFTER 10 P.M. UNLESS ENGAGED IN STORE BUSINESS. THIS CURFEW WILL BE STRICTLY ENFORCED.

"Do you believe this shit?" Street walked outside onto the sidewalk, Ben following. "A fucking discount store making laws and setting policy, telling me when I can and can't walk around my own town? How the fuck did this happen?"

"How did we let it happen?" Ben said quietly.

"Good point," Street said. He walked up to the wooden pole, pulled off the pink sign, crumpled it up, grimacing disgustedly.

"When did these go up?" Bill asked.

"Last night, this morning. They had kids from church running around putting up this crap."

"Church?" Bill said.

"Oh, yes." Ben nodded. "Most of our local clergy are big Store supporters."

"How is that possible?"

"Donations to their coffers, perhaps?"

Street laughed harshly. "I guess if The Store's on God's side, then God's on The Store's side. Kind of a you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours deal."

They walked into the shop. "That's what I've always hated about the religion/politics connection," Ben said. "These clergymen tell their followers who to vote for, what legislation to support, because this is what God wants them to do." He shook his head. "The hubris, man. Don't any of them pick up on that? They think they know the mind of God? Them claiming to know how God would vote is like an amoeba claiming to know what car I'm going to buy."

"So much for 'rendering to Caesar,' huh?"

Street tossed the crumpled announcement in a waste-paper basket and walked into the back room, returning a moment later with three beers. He tossed one can to Bill, one to Ben, popping open the tab on his own.

"During business hours?" Bill said.

Street shrugged. "What business?"

Ben was on a roll. "What really ticks me off about these religious assholes is that they always claim they're for less government, and they are when it comes to economics. But they're all for letting government regulate our social lives, our bedroom behavior, what movies we can see, what pictures we can look at, what books we can read."

Street took a long swig. "They want to tell me where I can and can't put my dick."

"Because they can't even use theirs," Ben said. "Those cows they're married to won't let 'em."

Bill burst out laughing. A second later, Ben and Street started laughing as well.

None of them went to church on a regular basis. Street used to go every Sunday, when he was married, but he hadn't gone since. Ben considered himself an agnostic and hadn't attended since Catholic school. In the fuzzy, evasive neuterspeak of today, he himself had what was called "a personal relationship with God." Which meant that his religious beliefs were privately held and were not sanctioned or reinforced by any church or organized religion. He'd always considered suspect the faith of people who had to go to church every Sunday. As an old college friend of his had said, once you got the Word, you got it. There was no reason to reinforce it every seven days unless you were so damn stupid that after a week you forgot everything you'd learned and needed to be reminded again of the basic tenets of your faith.

Street shook his head. "It's wrong using kids, though. If churches are going to get involved, let the adults do it. Keep the kids out of it."

"Amen," Ben said.

"So what are we going to do about this?" Bill walked over to the door, pointed through the glass at the multicolored announcements dotting the downtown. "You know damn well that people in Juniper, _most_ people, aren't in favor of a curfew. Adults don't want to be treated like children. And what about the bar? The video store? Circle K? There are a whole bunch of businesses that depend on people being out at night."

"Petition," Street said. "We start one to rescind this ordinance."

"Not a bad idea," Ben admitted. "People'd be in favor of this idea. It might give us an opening, a little chink in the armor we could exploit. I think we'd get quite a few signatures."

"If people weren't afraid to sign."

"If people weren't afraid to sign," Ben agreed.

Street finished off his beer, grinned. He moved around the back of the register counter. "Start thinking, boys. I'll get some paper and pens."

An hour later, Bill was at the park, pen, clipboard, and petition in hand.

They'd hashed it out quickly, he and Ben, then he'd rushed home, typed it on his PC, and printed it out, making multiple copies. Ginny had been in her garden, killing tomato worms, and he'd shown her the petition and left her a few copies.

"Just in case any of your friends come by," he said.

He dropped more off at the electronics shop, Street promising to hit up anyone he saw on Main, Ben vowing to take it to the source and camp out in The Store's parking lot "until they kick me out."

Bill brought his petitions to the park.

There were quite a few people here. Little League kids practicing, mostly.

Some old men. Mothers and small children. A couple playing tennis.

He approached the tennis couple first, explaining what the petition said and what they were trying to do, and the man seemed close to signing at one point. But he was wary of being the first signee, and his wife pulled him quickly away, frightened, nearly panicked. "It's a trap!" she said. "Don't do it. They're trying to trap you."

The couple hurried off, and he walked around the tennis court to the row of benches where several of the old men were sitting.

None of them would even hear him out.

The only signature he received was from a middle-aged woman watching her young daughter play on the swing set. She was nodding even before he'd finished explaining what the petition was meant to do.

"One of those announcements was nailed to our front door," she said. She seemed nervous, kept glancing at her daughter on the swing as if to make sure that the little girl was still there.

"We need to put a stop to this," he told her. "And we need your help."

"They're enforcing the curfew already."

"I didn't know that," he said, surprised. "In fact, I only learned about the ordinance this morning."

She glanced suspiciously around. "They're out after dark," she whispered.

"I saw them."

"Who?"

"The men in black. The Night Managers."

_The men in black_.

He thought of Encantada. Of Jed McGill.

Once again, the woman quickly looked around. Before he could say anything else, she grabbed the pen from his hand, scrawled a quick, indecipherable signature, and hurried away, grabbing her daughter.

"Thanks!" he called after her.

She did not acknowledge him, and he watched as she and her daughter practically ran to their car.

Jed McGill. He wondered sometimes if he'd really seen what he thought he'd seen. He'd been in such a hurry to get away, so desperate not to know, that even in his own mind there was no clear confirmation of the figure's identity. Even now, he still wasn't sure whether he wanted to know. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever, was so bizarre as to be incomprehensible, and the questions that it raised terrified him.

_The men in black_.

_The Night Managers_.

He tried to concentrate on the task before him, to think only about getting signatures for his petition.

On the street, in back of the woman's departing vehicle, a police car pulled up, cruised to a stop, and Forest Everson got out. Even before the policeman began walking across the grass toward him, Bill knew why he was here.

He stood his ground.

Forest looked embarrassed as he walked up to where Bill was standing. "I'm sorry, Mr. Davis, but you're going to have to stop with that petition."

Bill faced him. "Why?"

"It's against the law."

"It's against the law to get people to sign a petition? Since when?"

"Since last night. The town council convened in a special meeting, and they passed a new ordinance making it illegal to circulate a petition of any sort within a five-mile radius of The Store. I guess they consider it a restriction of commerce because they feel it impinges on The Store's ability to do business."

"Jesus."

"It's not my decision," Forest said. "I don't make the laws. I don't even agree with all of them. But I'm paid to enforce them, and that's what I do."

Bill was still trying to sort out the order of events. The council created the ordinance last night? He and his friends had only thought of the petition this morning. The council knew what they were going to do before _they_ did?

"This can't be constitutional," he said. "This is America, damn it. We still have freedom of speech here."

The policeman smiled wryly. "Not in Juniper."

"So I can't do this anywhere in town? I can't even have people sign petitions on my own property?"

Forest shook his head. "Not within a five-mile radius of The Store."

"The damn town's only two and a half miles long. That means there can't be any petitions anywhere in Juniper."

The policeman nodded.

"I'm not giving you my petition."

"I'm not asking you for it. Although the new chiefd have my ass if he knew that. He'd want the name and address of everyone on there. And he'd want you in jail." Forest sighed. "Go home. Take your petition with you. Lay low."

"Ben's at The Store, trying to get signatures."

"I'll try to head him'trff before anyone else does."

"This is wrong," Bill said.

"I know." Forest nodded. "But for now it's the law, and until things change, it's my job to enforce it." He started back across the grass toward his car.

"Thanks," Bill said. "You're a good man."

"And these are bad times. Go home. Stay out of trouble. Stay away from The Store."

He and Ginny were waiting for Shannon when she came home from work.

They let her go to the bathroom, get something to drink, eat a snack, then called her over to the living room.

She knew something was up, and she sat down across from them, sighing.

"What is it now?"

"The Night Managers," Bill said.

She paled. "Where did you hear about them?"

"I have my sources." He smiled, tried to keep his tone light, but was aware that he failed miserably. He gave it up, addressed her seriously. "Who are they?"

"More like _what_ are they," she said quietly.

His mouth suddenly felt dry. "All right, then. _What_ are they?"

"I . . . I don't really know," Shannon admitted. "I don't think anyone does. But. . . they're not good." She took a deep breath. "No one talks about them. Everyone's afraid to."

"But there are rumors."

She nodded. "There are rumors."

"Like what?"

She licked her lips. "That they kill people."

"Do you believe it?" Ginny asked.

She nodded.

Bill looked at her. "Someone said that they're the ones enforcing the curfew. She said she saw them."

"I don't think so," Shannon said.

"Why not?"

"Because no one's ever seen them. And I don't think anyone outside The Store has even heard of them. I think . . . I don't think they ever leave The Store."

"They never leave The Store?" Ginny said.

"I don't think so."

Bill nodded thoughtfully. "They never leave The Store. Maybe we can use that."

"How?" Ginny asked.

"I don't know," he said. "Not yet. But every little bit helps. Knowledge is power, and we have our own little spy within the organization."

"Me?" Shannon said.

"You."

"What . . . what am I supposed to do?"

"Just keep your eyes and ears open," he said. "And look for weaknesses."

TWENTY-EIGHT

1

They were on to him.

Ben didn't know how they'd found out, but The Store's officials knew that he was working on an expose.

And they were after him.

He'd called earlier to get a standard party-line quote from The Store's manager, and had talked instead to Lamb. He'd explained to the personnel manager that he was a freelance journalist, working on a feature article for a national magazine, but the man had cut him off. "_Feature_ article, Mr. Anderson?" The personnel manager's voice was snide. "You're writing a muckraking piece, a sensationalistic piece of shit, you cocksucking son of a bitch."

Ben had been shocked into silence.

"We know who our friends are. And we know our enemies."

There'd been a click after that, the hum of a dial tone, and though Ben had been a reporter for the past twenty-five years, had dealt with confrontation many times over, his hands were shaking, his heart pounding.

Something about those Store people spooked him.

But he'd been given a break. Someone within The Store's organization had reached out to him, provided him with a tip, given him a lead. And it had been confirmed by Bill and Shannon.

There were people within the organization who were unhappy and dissatisfied.

That was a good sign.

That was a very good sign.

_The Night Managers_.

He didn't know who they were, but it sounded promising. The concept itself was pretty damn creepy, but it also seemed unethical, immoral, illegal. And in a spectacular, media-friendly way. This was what editors liked to buy and readers liked to read. This was what brought down giants. This was the stuff of journalistic wet dreams.

Even without the Night Managers, it was going to be one hell of an article. He'd talked to Jack Pyle, an old buddy of his in Denver, who'd promised to send him a ton of info. Jack had been working on a similar story, inspired by his son's recent involvement with The Store, but he'd chickened out at the end, afraid that The Store would retaliate against his boy if the piece got published.

"It's a cult," he said. "And if one of their own breaks ranks, breaks that wall of silence . . . God help them."

"You have documentation?" Ben had asked.

He could almost hear Jack nodding over the phone. "Oh, yes," he said. "Oh, yes."

Another week of waiting and researching, a week of writing after that, and this puppy was ready to be sent out and shopped around.

But he needed another angle, some personal involvement between reporter and story. That was the trend these days. That's what people liked. Hard research and solid quotes were fine, but the news-hungry public now wanted more than that. They wanted an element of danger. They wanted a tale of intrigue and infiltration.

Which was why he was going to spend an entire night in The Store.

And see the Night Managers for himself.

He'd been planning the stunt for the past three days, and he was pretty sure he could pull it off. Just before closing, he would go into the rest room, hide in one of the stalls, crouching on top of the toilet so his feet could not be seen in the gap beneath the stall door, and wait until everyone had gone.

It was a risky plan, of course. For all he knew, The Store might make its employees conduct a thorough search of every nook and cranny within the building. The door of each toilet stall might be individually opened and checked. But he was betting that on Friday, at the end of an ordinary, uneventful week, such precautions, even if in effect, would not be followed to the letter.

Besides, he had a head start going in. Despite the appalling number of security cameras all over The Store, there were no cameras trained on the men's room door.

It was something he had checked, double-checked, and rechecked.

The Store did not keep track of who entered and exited the men's rest room. Of course, the perverts had a video camera inside, on the wall opposite the urinals. But he'd come up with a way to take that camera out without being noticed and without making it seem suspicious.

There was an element of danger to this. He knew that going in, and he didn't want to involve anyone else. But he needed help. He needed someone to drop him off at The Store and act as lookout while he secured his hiding place.

Bill was the logical choice. He'd hated The Store since the beginning since _before_ the beginning -- and he was both reliable and trustworthy. But he also had a family. And his daughters worked for The Store. Bill himself worked for a corporation that was supplying computer software for the chain, and Ben didn't want his friend to lose his job if they got caught.

Lose his job?

The Store would do worse than that to them if they were caught.

No, he thought. Bill had too much to lose. Street was the better choice in this instance.

He started to call Street, then put down the receiver and drove to his house instead.

Never could tell. The phone lines might be bugged.

Probably were.

Street wasn't too thrilled with the idea. He agreed to go along with it, had no problem playing his part, but he didn't think there was any need to spend the night in The Store. "It's stupid," he said. "It's a fucking Hardy Boys plan.

Something Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn would do. Not the way a respectable journalist would get his story."

Ben laughed. "Since when have I been a respectable journalist?"

"Good point."

But Street remained troubled, and Ben had to admit that his friend's reservations were valid. He began having second thoughts himself. But even as he inwardly debated whether or not he should go through with this, they were doing what they were supposed to do, taking the actions they'd planned and coordinated, and before they knew it, they were in the empty men's room, Street locking the door and pretending to take a piss while Ben used his cover to sneak under the video camera and, with the help of some handy-dandy tools, disconnect the video feed.

"What time do you have?" Ben asked, walking over to the sink to check his appearance in the mirror.

"Almost ten."

"They'll be closing," Ben said. "You'd better hit the road."

"In a minute."

"Now."

"I really do have to take a leak," Street told him.

Ben laughed. "Sorry." He leaned over, pretended to peek. "Wow! You have a big dick!"

Street grinned. "But of course."

There was a knock on the rest room door, and they both froze.

"Is anyone in there?" someone called.

"I'll be out in a minute!" Street answered. He flushed the urinal and ran the sink tap. Covered by the noise, Ben locked himself in the far stall, crouching on the toilet seat.

"I owe you," he whispered.

"Check in with me when you're finished. I want to know that you're safe."

"Will do."

Street unlocked the door, stepped out, and Ben heard a Store employee say, "Is there anyone else in there?"

"Just me and my diarrhea," Street announced cheerfully.

"That door's supposed to remain unlocked during business hours."

"Sorry," Street said. "I just don't like people to hear me making disgusting noises."

The door closed, and it did not reopen. Ben waited. Fifteen minutes, a half hour. An hour. The lights did not switch off, but no one returned, and when he checked his watch and saw that it was nearly midnight, he realized that they'd gotten away with it.

Carefully, quietly, he stepped down from the toilet, nearly falling from the sudden shift of weight on his cramped, weakened muscles. He stood in place for a moment, stretching, then walked across the tiled floor and pushed open the door to peek into The Store proper.

The building was silent.

All of the lights were still on, but The Store appeared to be empty.

He walked out carefully, practically tiptoeing, listening for noise but hearing nothing. Even the air conditioner had been shut off. There might be a security person around somewhere, maybe someone monitoring the other video cameras, but there was no one else around. No one could be this quiet unless they were asleep.

The other video cameras. He'd forgotten about them. He should've brought a mask to wear, something to hide his features so they wouldn't be able to identify him on videotape There was the sound of an elevator door opening.

Ben's blood began racing, his adrenaline pumping. He ducked quickly behind a shelf of CD players and adjusted his angle so he could peer through the stacked merchandise to the source of the sound.

They emerged from the elevator and the stairwell next to it, one after the other, a line of whey-faced men dressed entirely in black: black shoes, black pants, black shirts, black jackets. They moved silently, and there was something about the absence of sound that bespoke danger.

The Night Managers.

The elevator and stairwell were only a few yards down from the rest rooms, and he realized that if he had waited a few moments longer, if he had spent even another minute stretching his cramped muscles, they would have caught him.

But what would they have done to him?

He didn't want to find out. There was something terrifyingly unnatural about the appearance of those blank white faces, and he suddenly wished that he had heeded Street's advice and given up on this whole infiltration idea.

Of course, now that he was here . . .

He checked the miniature tape recorder in his shirt pocket, took out the tiny camera with which he planned to surreptitiously photograph the Night Managers.

The lights in the building winked off.

He jumped, startled, and nearly fell, almost knocking over a CD player. He caught himself before anything happened, and the only sound was a slight click as his hand steadied the stereo component, but even that noise seemed outrageously loud in the stillness, and he remained tensed, unmoving, waiting to see if he'd been caught.

The lights came back on.

He was safe. The Night Managers were walking up and down various aisles, robotically, in groups of three, not looking around, not stopping, not slowing, simply pressing onward, like unstoppable windup toys. They did not even know he was here.

He moved away from the CD players, saw three Night Managers moving down an aisle away from him, and he quickly snapped a picture of their retreating backs.

To his left, two rows over, three others were passing by, not looking to the left, not looking to the right, facing straight ahead, and he took a profile photo. The lights went off again.

He didn't panic this time, simply waited. This was obviously part of some standard chain of events, some sequence that happened nightly, and he stood in place until the lights came back on.

A hand fell on his shoulder, gripping him tightly.

He dropped his camera, startled, and turned to see one of the Night Managers.

Grinning at him.

They'd known he was here all along.

They'd been playing with him.

No, he thought. Not playing. The Night Managers of The Store did not play.

The others surrounded him, their trips up and down aisles all ending at precisely the spot where he was standing.

"I can explain . . ." he began. He trailed off, expecting to hear a "Shut up," or a "There's nothing to explain," or some other such order, but there was nothing, no noise, only silence, only those grinning white faces surrounding him, and it was the absence of noise that scared him more than anything else.

He tried to break away, tried to run.

The grip on his shoulder kept him from moving.

"Help!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Help!"

A cold white hand clamped around his mouth. Over the white knuckles that covered half his face, he saw the other Night Managers all withdrawing knives from somewhere on their persons. Long, shiny knives with sharp, straight edges.

He tried to squirm away, tried to kick, tried to lash out, but he realized that all of his limbs were now being held, and then he was lifted into the air and then he was dropped flat on his back on the floor.

Something snapped in his spine, and suddenly he couldn't move, and the hand was still over his mouth as the knives began carefully entering his flesh, cutting his skin.

He prayed for unconsciousness from the depths of his screaming agonized mind, and when he finally felt himself slipping away, he was flooded with an overwhelming sense of relief, grateful that the end had come.

But it was not the end. He regained consciousness sometime later, in a dark room in one of the basements, and he learned that it was nowhere near the end. It was only the beginning.

2

From the first, there seemed something wrong with the deal. Night Managers or not, there was no reason for Ben to sneak into The Store and spend the night.

It was not necessary for the article and, as far as Street was concerned, it was unnecessarily dangerous.

He told this to Ben. Several times on the way over. But Ben was in his Woodward-and-Bernstein mode and nothing could dissuade him from what he perceived to be his higher calling, his mission to uncover The Truth.

Ben told him to hit the road after leaving him in the men's room, to get out of there, and The Store director who caught him coming out of the bathroom had been a pretty good impetus to do exactly that, but he couldn't simply abandon his friend, and he left The Store lot and parked along the edge of the highway instead, waiting.

He waited for nearly an hour, but then the lights in the parking lot went out, and when they turned on again a few seconds later, they were pointing not down at the parking lot but out toward him, trained on his truck like searchlights, and he quickly turned on the ignition, put the truck into gear, and took off.

_Maybe they'd gotten Ben_.

He didn't want to think about it.

Arriving home, he was still shaken. He picked up his phone, tried to dial Bill, but the line was dead, no dial tone even, and he immediately turned on his PC to check whether it was the phone or the line.

His monitor brightened into existence, but the screen, instead of displaying his usual menu, showed row after row of the same sentence, the same four words, moving up from the bottom of the screen and disappearing at the top:

THE STORE IS COMING

He closed his eyes, hoping this was just some sort of hallucination, a panic attack, but when he opened his eyes and looked at his monitor the words were still there, scrolling faster than ever:

THE STORE IS COMING THE STORE IS COMING THE STORE IS COMING THE STORE IS

COMING

Suddenly the scrolling stopped. The last appearance of the sentence remained at the top of the screen, followed, halfway down, by two new words:

FOR YOU

They knew! They'd captured Ben and now they were after him! His thoughts were racing a mile a minute, his mind filled with conflicting options and contingency plans, but his body was listening to some rational, logical section of his brain, and even as he tried to figure out what to do, he was turning off the PC, unplugging it, rolling up the cables and power cords.

He had to escape, he had to leave, he had to get out of Juniper.

After that, he could figure out what action to take.

He picked up his PC and, struggling mightily, ran with it out to the truck.

3

Street was gone.

Bill had wanted to meet with him and hash out what they could piece together about Ben's disappearance, but the shop was closed, and when he arrived at Street's house, the truck was not there, the front door was open, and his friend was nowhere in sight.

And Ben's car was in the driveway.

He walked slowly through the empty house. There was no sign of a struggle, no indication that anyone had broken in, and it was Bill's gut feeling that Street had simply panicked and fled.

But why?

Because he'd seen what had happened to Ben?

He walked into Street's bedroom. This was Juniper and not New York, so even though the door to the house was wide-open, nothing had been stolen or vandalized, but in a way that made it seem even more disturbing. He moved on to the guest room. Ben's disappearance, like most of the others recently, seemed to him a legitimate missing person case. But Street's truck was gone, and that said to him that Street had taken off on his own. Someone may have been after him, but he'd hightailed it out of here before they could catch him.

It was still strange that Street hadn't made even a token effort to get in touch, though. That was the only thing that worried him. Of course, he hadn't bothered to take his clothes or personal belongings, either, so maybe he simply hadn't had time.

_Maybe they'd captured him and taken him away in his own truck._

He didn't want to think about that.

Not yet.

He walked into Street's den, and the first thing he noticed was that the computer was gone. And the modem.

That made Bill feel better. Those were Street's priorities. He might not have had time to pack clothes or family photos, but he'd taken his computer.

Bill stared at the empty space on the desk for a moment, then turned around, walked out of the house, and headed over to the police station to file a missing persons report.

"Do you think we'll ever find out what happened to them?" Ginny asked quietly.

Bill shook his head, closing his eyes against the headache that had kicked the asses of four aspirin tablets and had been with him all afternoon.

"What about the police?" she said.

"What about them?"

"Aren't they supposed to be investigating this?"

He nodded. "_Supposed_ to be. And I'm sure they're going through the motions, filing all the paperwork, dotting every _i_ and crossing every _t_.

But, let's face it -- they're working for The Store."

"Can't we go above their heads? Talk to . . . I don't know, the FBI or something?"

He sighed tiredly. "I don't know."

She sat down on the couch next to him. "There's going to be no one left in this town pretty soon."

"Except Store employees."

She did not respond.

"Maybe we should move," he said. "Get out while we can."

She was silent for a moment. "Maybe we should," she said finally.

After dinner, while Ginny did the dishes, he snuck back into his office and checked his E-mail.

There was a message from Street.

It was what he'd been hoping for, and he excitedly called it up.

A message appeared in the center of the screen:. "Pages 1 and 2 of this message have been deleted."

Shit!

He scrolled forward, to the end, saw only half a page of text: ". . . So that's what happened. I know The Store owns this shitty little online service.

So I'm not sure if they'll even let this through. But I had to contact you and tell you what went down. I won't be able to do it again, and it may be some time before I see you, so I just wanted to tell you to keep fighting the good fight.

I'll miss you, good buddy. You're one of the true. To quote the mighty C. W. McCall, 'We gone. Bye bye.' "

He stared at the screen, unmoving, and it was not until Ginny came into the office, calling his name, that he realized he was crying.

TWENTY-NINE

1

Shannon arrived early for work. She walked into the locker room to change into her uniform and saw on the bulletin board a new notice:

KEEP OUR STREETS CLEAN!

VOLUNTEER CREWS NEEDED

FOR SATURDAY MORNING SWEEPS.

PARTICIPATION MANDATORY.

SIGN UP IN PERSONNEL.

She stared at the sign as she pulled down her pants and slipped off her panties. Above the row of lockers, she heard the click-hum of the security camera as it adjusted to her movements. She quickly put on the leather Store underwear, covering what she could. She pulled on the tight pants of her uniform, sucking in her stomach so she could fasten the snap.

She wondered if Jake was the one monitoring the cameras that videotaped her dressing.

She wondered if he was the one who monitored the cameras in the bathroom.

As quickly as she could, she took off her blouse and bra and slipped on the leather Store bra and uniform top. She glanced again at the notice on the bulletin board as she sat on the bench and pulled on her boots.

_Morning sweeps_.

She didn't like the sound of that. And the fact that participation was mandatory for a "volunteer" crew didn't set well with her, either. Of course, it could be totally innocent. Maybe The Store was promoting environmentalism. Maybe these cleanup crews would simply walk along the highway and the roads, picking up the trash and debris that ignorant drivers tossed out of their vehicles.

Maybe the vigilante overtones she was reading into the notice weren't really there.

Maybe.

But she didn't think so.

Putting on her Store hat, she walked out of the locker room and onto the floor.

Shannon showed up early for the sweep. Holly was there already. So was Francine. And Ed Robbins. The three of them stood in the parking lot at the designated meeting place, trying to keep warm. Summer was winding down, and the mornings and evenings had started to get chilly, a foreshadowing of fall.

"Should've made us some coffee," Holly said. She smiled at Shannon. "Or hot chocolate."

"And brought some doughnuts," Ed said.

Francine rubbed her arms. "Anything sounds good to me."

They kept their conversation light, trivial, purposely avoiding the reason they were gathered here this morning.

It was exactly what Shannon had feared. They'd had training on Wednesday evening, from a policeman, and he'd shown them how to work in teams of two to subdue a person, how to load a recalcitrant subject into a police van, how to manacle an individual if necessary.

They would be "sweeping" Juniper of the homeless.

They would be keeping the streets "clean" by removing people who were unemployed, whom The Store had rendered jobless.

"We got a lot of them with the curfew," the policeman had told them. "But there are still quite a few out there. Hopefully, you'll be able to clean them up." Clean them up.

She hadn't told her parents about the sweeps, although she wasn't sure why. Embarrassment, she supposed. Shame at taking part in anything this inhumane -- even if her involvement was coerced.

More people were arriving now, and soon there were a dozen of them waiting for their sweep leader.

Jake.

She didn't know until he announced it that he would be in charge of the sweep, didn't know until she saw him that he would even be here.

Her heart was pounding in her chest as she stood next to Holly, watching him. Even after all this time, he still had an effect on her. She didn't often see him in The Store -- like most of Security, he remained in the monitoring room, invisible -- but she was always aware of his presence, he was always there in the back of her mind.