Aisle Help You
Going to the hardware store always made Aletta feel lost. She must have stood out very much, being small and soft-handed and staring at the hanging signs for directions. It wasn’t a huge deal. Sometimes people brought their dogs with them, and that was nice.
With Rodger in town, she was back to running (some) of his errands. Going out wasn’t always the easiest for him. She’d picked up some materials that he would morph into something useful for a current project and decided to push her cart toward the wall that had all the bird feed on it.
There was also a snowstorm coming up. Lance had mentioned stocking up for the birds, so she thought she’d go ahead and do them a favor. (She also sure as hell wasn’t going to drive in it if she could help it.) Wrinkled shopping list in hand, she scanned the metal racks for the right name.
Someone else was in the aisle with her. A flash of color caught her attention, and she made a double take when it was not something she could easily ignore. Most visitors to the store were human. Spotting a vampire wasn’t so unusual in Maroa, but this person--very tall, looking away from her with long unwashed hair--their aura was different. Bright and dark reds mixed like water and oil, flapping like a ragged flag. A tinge of black, somehow glowing, continuously ate at the reforming edges, like an invisible fire.
Aletta turned her head another direction and blinked hard at the birdseed. She didn’t know this person. She took one step, her cart rattling gently toward the end of the aisle. She didn’t know Lane or Skipper or Isfet either. Why was she here if she wasn’t going to try helping anyone?
She reversed direction and pushed her car past the stranger, stopping on their other side. She pretended to look at the birdseed and glanced at their face. “Hi,” she said, in her most friendly voice. “Getting ready for the snow?”