The Store by Bentley Little

Author:Bentley Little [Little, Bentley]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror, Fiction
Publisher: Signet
Published: 1998-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

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-comer 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 comer 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

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