Merchandise - A Short Story Read online

sole reason of keeping his word and keeping them away from his house, but it was what it was. He had said that he would stop by, and he had decided to do just that a few days later, clad in usual walking garb he started down the street in their direction.

  The cars had already generally dispersed, and the street was clear. He glanced down at his watch and saw that it was about lunch hour; most people were probably going to wait until after noon to hit the sale.

  The house was just as nice as when he had come to it before, the lawn was immaculate; the sign in the yard was perfectly straight and brightly printed. It was the just the thing you wanted to grab someone’s attention.

  Jim looked at the huge, white fence that was propped open, a Ford F150 was parked off to the side, and the white surface was incredibly reflective and clean. The windows were tinted to a deep, dark shade. He saw a small presidential campaign bumper sticker on the rear bumper of the Ford. Jim couldn’t help but smile, the candidate hadn’t won.

  The driveway crackled under his feet, loose pebbles scurried away from his Nikes—making a scraping, skittering sound that was varied only by the size of the pebbles.

  He stuffed a hand in his pocket and felt at the small Gerber pocketknife that he always had on him, the cold metal felt really good in his sun-warmed palm. The knife was thin, but a fair length. The blade was freshly sharpened, even the partial serration, he had made sure.

  He walked past the Ford through the entrance into the backyard. The mounting truck and fence passing him on the side.

  Good night, he thought, that fence must be eleven feet high.

  Not only was it tall, but also it was extremely thick, at least four or five inches. There were two layers to it, and what looked to be chain-link in between the layers. It had to be for weather proofing, but even with that explanation the fence seemed a little extreme.

  Well prepared.

  The yard behind the fence was a lot larger than he thought it would have been. It seemed to stretch for ages back out. The fence went all the way back, and he saw the tall barrier towering in the distance, past a couple of nice looking trees, and a shed that looked a little worse for wear. In the back yard were lines of tables that stretched half the length of the yard. On the tables were different plastic containers, each one marked clearly with a computer-printed label. Not surprisingly, there was a lot of junk shoved into them.

  He glanced around and saw a carport cleared out, in the carport was a small desk with a chair and a small laptop sitting on it. The screensaver was going, bubbles flowing around the picture, blurring the live feed of the screen.

  The only thing missing was people.

  Jim wandered into the yard carefully; the sneaking thought that he shouldn’t be there crept into his mind. There was really no basis for the thought, it was just there, if they didn’t want people show up they should put up a “lunch break, come back later” sign.

  The plastic boxes stared at him, beckoning him to come closer. Have a look inside; it will only take a minute.

  He walked down one of the three aisles, the labels screaming at him: BOOKS. MOVIES. MUSIC. OTHER. Various forms of merchandise glared at him, the rainbow mixture of colors swirled in his sweeping gaze.

  He stepped up the container on his closest right, filled to the brim with paperback books, the spines facing out so they could easily be seen. A pile of hardcover books rested in the container to the immediate left.

  He saw a line of pulp books sticking out, each one bearing different publishing labels, but all with the same basic cover art, something scary tucked on the spine with an eerie font used for the author name and title. Depending on the author’s popularity, the name sizes varied, sometimes bigger than the title, sometimes not.

  He glanced up at the sleeping rows and scanned for anyone nearby. The faint snore of distant cars on the main road was all that he heard.

  He picked a paperback out of the bunch, one that looked halfway interesting by an author he had never heard of and began to flip through it, trying to see if there were any flaws in the pages. There was that familiar smell of dust, and aging binding glue met his nostrils as he flipped the pages. The smooth ruffle of the pages as they scooted past the pads of his fingers was beautifully familiar. He hadn’t really noticed that feeling in a long time, and recalled how good it felt.

  “Paperbacks are twenty-five cents.” A voice said behind him.

  Jim nearly dropped the book as he swiveled around to see who was behind him.

  Bram stood a few steps away, dressed in khakis and an Izod polo shirt. He was smiling from ear to ear, pointing at the book in Jim’s hands. “Sorry, didn’t mean to sneak up on you or anything.”

  “It’s fine.” Jim replied. “I just wasn’t paying attention.” He dropped his arm by his side, still holding the book.

  “Anyway, they’re only twenty-five per. Or five for a dollar if you want.”

  “Awful cheap.” Jim said, looking at the books.

  “You should have seen what we got them for.” He laughed.

  Jim nodded and stared to peek through the paperbacks another moment, and spotted a Lovecraft collection that he hadn’t seen before, he grabbed it out of the box and looked at it a moment.

  “So, big reader?”

  “You could say that.”

  Bram moved a little closer, on the other side of the table, looking down the list of hardcover books, and stole a glance at the selections that Jim had made.

  Jim tried to ignore his stare.

  “Horror reader?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes. I don’t like to read a bunch of the pulpy stuff that gets published, but every now and then there’s something I like. Not much, though.” Jim slid the Lovecraft collection under his arm and started to glance around the hardcover bin.

  “Those are about seventy-five cents apiece. Or three for a dollar.”

  Jim nodded. “Okay.”

  Bram’s hands were resting on the edge of the plastic bin filled with hardcover books. The veins that ran out of his arms and into his knuckles, disappearing in his fingers bulged. The tanned skin looked stretched and thin. Jim noticed that the hands were completely hairless.

  “So what do you do for a living anyway?” Bram asked. His fingers began to lightly drum on the plastic rim.

  “I’m a writer.” Jim answered.

  “Really?” His fingers paused from their drumming for a moment. Jim noticed that the fingernails were perfectly trimmed and meticulously cared for. “What kind of stuff do you write?”

  “A bit of everything.” Jim selected a Steinbeck from the pile. “I’ve written thrillers, suspense, drama, a screenplay that I haven’t heard back on…”

  “You write horror?” Fingers drummed.

  Jim answered, “Not much.” He slid the book under his arm with the rest. “I had a horror novella that made it into a collection that was published. Didn’t make it too far though.”

  “Just wondering, what with your choices, there.” Bram flexed his fingers and removed his hands from the bin.

  “I thought about writing more of it at one time, but haven’t had any real good ideas. That and it’s one of those genres that you have to be careful with, otherwise you’ll just go and lose your mind.”

  “Guess I can see what you mean there.” Bram had his hands together; Jim could hear the sandy popping of his knuckles as the joints were pulled on. He wondered if the back of his hands were just as hard and sandpaper-like as the palms of his hands were.

  Jim tried not to stare at those hands, he tried to focus on the books in his hands, but it was getting harder and harder.

  He could hear someone coming down the walk and turned to see a younger looking woman, about late twenties, early thirties, running down the walk. She was wearing a sleeveless white shirt and some running shorts. He saw a mane of brown hair, the color of stained wood, tossed back into a ponytail. The white sweatband on her head was maybe a little much, but Jim was caught instantly in a gaz
e at her face. Her nose was slight, and extremely well formed. Her lips were full, but not to the point that they looked fake. What got his attention were her eyes, deep almond color that spoke deeper than any words.

  “Hey,” she breathed, her breath was shallow, as if she had been running full sprint for a while.

  Jim couldn’t help but think that she looked borderline perfect. She was something that stepped out of an enhanced picture in a magazine where they messed around with the picture to remove any of what they considered flaws, only she was real.

  Bram spoke quickly, “Hey, Linda. This is that guy, Jim I was telling you about.”

  She smiled. Perfect teeth as well. “Hello, Jim. See you finally got a chance to stop by our little business venture.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said, looking at the tables, “I think your sign is right, you sell…”

  “Anything.”

  “Anything.”

  “…anything.”

  They all said it in unison. Linda laughed, “That we do. I see you found some books?” She pointed.

  He nodded, “I guess that’s about one twenty-five?”

  Bram counted. “Yep.”

  Jim set the books down on the table and reached into his back pocket, and pulled out his wallet, dishing out the cash quickly. “Here.” He handed it to Bram.

  Bram handed it to Linda who took it back to the computer and typed in something and threw the money into a small metal box that had a padlock dangling from the small latch.

  “See anything else you want?” Bram asked, coming up behind him. His cologne