The Store

A malevolent presence has come to a small desert town, and the customers of this "superstore" may get more than they realized, in this bloodcurdling entry from horror expert Bentley Little.

Juniper, Arizona, is an off-the-map desert town the retail giant called The Store has chosen for its new location. Now everything you could possibly want is under one roof, at unbelievable prices. But you'd better be careful what you wish for. This place demands something of its customers that goes beyond brand loyalty. At The Store, one-stop shopping has become last-stop shopping.

Bill Davis is the only one in town who senses the evil lurking within The Store. But he can't stop his two teenage daughters from taking jobs there and falling under the frightening influence of its sadistic manager. When Bill finally takes a stand, he will get much more than he bargained for. . . .

Leseprobe:

1



Bill Davis quietly closed the front door of the house behind him as he stepped outside. He walked off the porch and stood for a moment at the head of the drive, doing knee bends and breathing deeply, the air exhaling from his lungs in bursts of visible steam. When he reached the count of fifty, he stopped. Standing straight, he bent to the left, bent to the right, then walked down the drive to the road, where he inhaled and exhaled one last time before beginning his morning jog.



The dirt changed to asphalt at the bottom of the hill, and he ran past Godwin's meadow and turned onto Main.



He liked running at this time of morning. He didn't like the running itself-that was a necessary evil-but he enjoyed being out and about at this hour. The streets were virtually empty. Len Madson was in the donut shop finishing up the morning's baking as the first few customers straggled in, Chris Schneider was loading up the newspaper racks, and here and there individual trucks were heading off to construction sites, but otherwise the town was quiet, the streets clear, and that was the way he liked it.



He ran through downtown Juniper and kept going until he hit the highway. The air was chill but heavy, weighted with the rich scent of moist vegetation, the smell of newly cut grass. He breathed deeply as he jogged. He could see his breath as he ran, and the brisk air felt invigorating, made him glad to be alive.



On the highway, the view opened up, the close-set trees that had been lining the road falling back, making visible the sloping landscape. Ahead, the sun was rising behind broken clouds that floated, unmoving, over the mountains, the clouds silhouetted against the pale sky, black in the center, pink-orange at the edges. In front of the sunrise, a flock of geese was flying south in a morphing V-formation, the shape of the flight pattern varying every few seconds as a different bird mov ed into the lead and the other members of the flock fell in behind it. Shafts of yellow light slanted downward through the clouds, through the pine branches, highlighting objects and areas unused to attention: a boulder, a gully, a collapsed barn.



This was his favorite part of the jog-the open land between the end of the town proper and the small unincorporated subdivision known as Creekside Acres. The dirt control road on the other side of the Acres that looped back to his street was wider and more forested, but there was something about this mile or so stretch that appealed to him. Here, the tall trees ringed an overgrown meadow that sloped up the side of a low hill. An outcropping of rock on the south side of the meadow stood like some primitive idol, its erosion-carved facade giving it the appearance of something deliberately sculptured.



He slowed down a little, not because he was tired but because he wanted to savor the moment. Glancing to his left, he saw the brightening sunlight captured and amplified by the brilliant yellow aspens that were interspersed among the pines. He shifted his gaze across the highway, to his right, toward the meadow, but something here was different, something was wrong. He couldn't put his finger on it, but he noticed instantly that there was an element in the meadow that was out of place and did not fit.



The sign had changed.



Yes. That was it. He stopped jogging, breathing heavily. The weatherworn sign announcing "bayless! opening in six months!" that had been posted in the meadow for the past decade was gone, replaced with a new sign, a stark white rectangle with black lettering that sat solidly atop twin supports sunk deep into the ground.



THE STORE IS COMING

FEBRUARY



He stared for a moment at the sign. It had not been here yesterday, and something about the cold precision of the type and the flat declarativ