Susan walked through the aisles at the supermarket and frowned. All the frozen vegetables were nowhere to be seen, just like the other shelves.
The panic over the world outside, had caused ‘panic buying’ but because she hadn’t gotten in on it, there was now nothing on the shelves.
Sighing and rolling her eyes, she pushed her trolley further down the aisle, hoping that the next freezer door held something on the other side. A wide smile spread across her face as she spotted it, the last bag of frozen peas. Excited, Susan leant down and yanked open the door, reaching deep into the bottom of the freezer. A woman with red hair beside her suddenly dove down as well, and grabbed the corner of the same bag.
“That’s mine! I saw it first,” The woman screamed, looking left and right. With no witnesses, she yanked at the bag. Susan refused to let go of the bag which was rightfully hers, “No you didn’t.” She said as she pulled back on the bag.
The woman scowled and pulled harder, splitting the bag open and allowing all the peas to clink onto the floor. They scattered along the tiles and the woman dropped the bag, shuffling her trolley away with a scowl, “You were right. It is your bag,” She said as she disappeared around the corner.
Susan exhaled and shook her head, still nobody in the aisle to witness the incident. She was sure the guys in the camera rooms were laughing, and were going to let her deal with it herself. The thought of leaving it for someone else to clean briefly popped into her mind, but she shook it loose and dropped onto her hands and knees, picking up as many peas as she could.
As she scooped up the last of the peas, Susan spotted a piece of another vegetable. It was red, and she reached forward for it, her fingers slipping as it made contact. It wasn’t solid; it wasn’t a vegetable. Soup. Someone must have dropped some sort of tomato soup, or sauce on the floor. She groaned and wiped the substance on her dark jeans, getting up onto her feet and putting the broken bag of dirty peas into the front part of her trolley. She’d hand it to a staff member and explain what happened. Maybe she’d mention the sauce stain while she was at it.
Steven took the bag of frozen peas from the customer and waited until she had disappeared into another aisle before he rolled his eyes and turned to Abigail.
“People are getting worse. This damn panic buying.”
Abigail rolled her eyes in return and nodded, “Yeah. But what can we do about it?” She pulled her restock trolley closer towards the end of the aisle and smiled, “Do you want me to check out the sauce stain?”
Steven shook his head, “Nah. Keep restocking, I’ll grab a rag and deal with it.”
He moved towards the frozen aisle with a small rag, his footsteps landing hard on the ground. He’d been on shift for seven hours already, and was almost finished. Then he could go back to his wife and kids. Although with the kids stuck doing school at home, maybe the extra hour would be a blessing in disguise.
As he reached the freezer, he frowned at the large puddle of what appeared to be tomato soup. The woman had only said it was a smudge, but this was a large puddle. He kept moving closer and checked for other customers. With nobody else around, Steven froze as he leant over the top of the freezer.
It had been emptied out of vegetable packets, but something else had taken it’s place. The woman was stuffed into the corner, a large wound on the back of her head. Her eyes were wide open, but no part of her was moving. Steven saw the blood trail leading to the puddle of what he had thought was soup and dry heaved.
Taking a breath, Steven slid the door open and reached his hand down to check for the pulse he was sure wasn’t there. Pushing back her hair he felt her neck, the cold already reaching his own hand. When he was satisfied that she was dead, he pulled is radio out of his belt and pushed down to talk.
“We have a situation in Aisle Seven with a red headed woman.”