"I don't have a mouth hole—" Baz's comment was interrupted by Nemo's booming laughter.
"Har har, try the drink. Tell me if it's worth peeling my mask up for a sip," he told Nemo while I began throwing loaves of bread in the cart. Maybe Nemo could help me keep us safe and together. Other than a little panic attack and eating a man, he seemed fine…
I looked at the pile of bread. Did we even have money?
A shocked wheeze made me jerk around to see Nemo recovering from his sip of energy drink.
"My gums are vibrating," he said.
"That sounds exciting." Baz snatched it back, peeled the mask over his jaw, and gulped half the can in one go. He handed it back to Nemo, who finished it off quickly. Then, to my horror, Baz pulled two more energy drinks from his pockets.
"Uh," was all I got out before they each popped one open and chugged. When they were finished, he produced two more.
“Guys, that’s not really … suggested.” They stared at me a moment before chugging those, too. Then they stood catatonic, looking like wax museum mannequins with a small collection of crumbled energy drink cans littering the floor near their feet.
"Are you two okay?" I asked.
"I might be telepathic," Baz said. I sighed and pushed the cart towards the water aisle. They shuffled behind me, their entire bodies shaking violently as they went.
"I’m having a heart attack," Nemo said nervously, his eyes jerking back and forth, sweeping the grocery store.
"Have you ever had caffeine … or sugar? Also, can you put some water in the cart before your heart stops?" I asked. He lifted a couple of 48 packs of bottles and dropped them on top of the bread, smashing it all.
I stared at it, then decided I didn't care and moved towards the self-checkout. I was beginning to realize that, maybe, we weren’t going to make it out of this. I blew out a breath and tried to ground myself. It'd be smart to get some food for myself, too. I didn't want to. I wanted blood. That was why I was going to get these two fat on smashed bread and then break open their veins for a snack.
All the people near the checkout were making my developing migraine worse. The smell of barely contained human blood teased me relentlessly. The registers beeped in mismatched unison, stabbing at my brain. It was getting hard to think. I needed out of here.
On autopilot, I went through the motions of checking out while waiting for Orson to arrive.
"They're all looking at me," Baz hissed, grabbing hold of my arm tightly with both hands.
"You don't know that. They could be looking at him," I said, throwing a thumb over my shoulder at Nemo.
"Why would they look at me? He's the freak wearing a mask," Nemo dismissed.
"You aren't wearing a shirt," I said, manually scanning a smashed bread loaf.
"There was blood all over it," Nemo said with a shrug. A man walked by us with a bag of food, and upon hearing Nemo, he tripped over his own feet and landed sprawled out on the floor. He popped back up, looked at us with wide eyes, and then scrambled from the store without the peanut butter that hadrolled from his bag. We’d definitely overstayed our welcome.Where was Orson?
Baz and Nemo didn't react either time people ran from us, so I focused on that, instead of the dread that Orson had abandoned us.
"That's not normal, you know?" Were they reallythisclueless?
"What's not?" They asked in unison, looking like a pair of murder fuck boy twins.
"People falling over and running in fear."
"Seems pretty normal to me," Nemo commented apathetically.
"What are you looking at?" Baz snapped at an older woman with white hair. She averted her wide eyes and quickly moved from self-checkout to the cashiers on the other side of the store. I sighed.
"Can you two not get the cops called on us?"
"Here are my things," Orson said, coming from nowhere.Thank god.He began handing me an item at a time to scan. Duct tape, a knife set, a five-gallon bucket…
"Well, if we didn't look weird enough."
"Whatever do you mean? It's just some household items," he chuckled and flashed a smile at the self-checkout employee. He then slid a couple of children's tablets to me. That was a weird choice. Was this for Baz and Nemo?
