“Stay close.” Loki commanded.
Hel held onto Loki’s hoodie. It stood by the freezers. Just one, standing inactive. You have to kill them without being noticed, otherwise all the others come swarming here. It stood with its back to her. They don’t see or hear especially well when not alert.
“Help me… help me…” it muttered. They’ve learned to mimic speech and even understand language but there’s no reasoning with them.
She gripped the knife tight and aimed it. With the palm of her other hand on the hilt, she pushed it in between the Monid’s shoulders. Destroying the brain of these undead did not work, that’s not what’s controlling the body anymore.
The knife sunk in deep, though soon it would be too dull to kill anymore. The Monid collapsed to the ground. If one of them dies without noticing it, they don’t alert the hivemind. Loki ripped the knife back out and wiped it clean on the Monid’s clothes before sheathing it. She pushed the corpse to the side with her foot and examined the contents of the freezers. Microwave pizzas, meat that’s lost all color. Last people here hadn’t bothered to close the lid after them. Assholes.
Along the walls stood freezers with dairy products, yogurts, cheese and the like. Maybe still good. There were some bags with potato chips left on shelves. That was about it for food here, aside from chewing gum and old chocolate at the check-out.
There was a fridge filled with soft drinks though. It looked rather well stocked still and Loki wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t locked.
“I could go for a drink. How about you, Hel?”
“Okay.” Hel still kept her eyes open for any new Monid’s to walk in. Usually they don’t walk around if they don’t have anything to chase though.
“What do you want? Apple juice? Iced tea? Oh, damn!”
“What?” Hel finally looked as Loki took out an oddly-shaped glass bottle with a blue liquid inside.
“It’s a Pixie Potion! Do you remember these?”
“No.”
“How’d the ad go? The fairy Albright, a pretty cute sight, she did what was right, and created that night, the sweetest delight, that everyone liked.” Loki sung. “Something like that.”
“Is that medicine?”
“No, it’s a soft drink styled like a magic potion. Wonder if it’s still good, they did some weird shit with it. They made it be kinda sludgy, I dunno what they put in to make it like that. Mama refused to buy it because-”
Loki froze for a second. She gave Hel the bottle of apple juice and took the iced tea for herself. They sat down on the conveyor belt of the check-out, leaning against the cigarette machine.
Hel unscrewed the bottle and sampled the contents. Loki just watched, feeling like she was just pretending to be alive like the Monids.
“Still good.” Hel confirmed.
Loki snapped out of it and opened the iced tea. She choked on the first gulp and doubled over coughing. Hel slapped her back. She was more careful with the second try.
“...Hey, I think there’s a toy section. Wanna go check it out later?”
Hel didn’t respond.
“Find something new to pass the time with? We could probably hole up here for the night.”
“Okay.” Hel finished the apple juice.
“Okay!” Loki finished the tea without issue and jumped back on her feet.
They checked out the personnel area. No Monids here, meaning the building was clear. Just in case, they could barricade the door to the store. There was an emergency exit that could only be opened from inside. Moldy coffee and half-eaten cake stood on a table. There was a calendar with a date marked with balloons. ‘Maria’ it said. There was a microwave with which they could try to heat up a pizza. Loki propped the emergency exit open with an empty carton and put the rotten stuff in a dumpster outside. Hel checked the cutlery drawer for new knives. Only butter knives here.
Loki then dragged Hel to the toy section. Mostly plastic dolls and action figures, some board games. A deck of playing cards would be easy to carry around. Some electronic stuff that would need batteries. Loki wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Close by was a shelf with pet food, leashes and collars. Loki picked up a plush crocodile, cheaply made since it was made to be ripped apart anyway. It squeaked when squeezed. Loki bit her lip to keep it from trembling. She placed the crocodile back down and then her legs gave in. She leaned her head against a sack of kibble and tried to breathe normally. She couldn’t move, her body refused her the strength. Hel put her arms around her. Loki tried to force herself back up but Hel pulled her back down. She lost the fight and her head sunk down to her knees. She loudly gasped for air and her face pulled itself into a grimace as she felt the tears drip up her forehead.
She cried until she was dizzy and her back and knees hurt. Hel said nothing and just stroked her back. She let Loki lift her head and she turned around to sit against the dogfood. Hel picked up the crocodile and put it into Loki’s arms. Loki made it squeak once more. This time it made her smile. She wiped her sleeve over her face.
Once her breathing steadied, Hel asked: “Why did mama not want to buy the potion?”
“...Too much sugar. The stuff is thick like fresh cake frosting. She thought they mixed a whole bag of sugar into it to make it like that. But they did something else, I don’t know. I was so pissed.”
“So you never had it?”
“Eventually. It was very aggressively marketed when it first came out but then it got quiet. Making custom bottles was rather expensive. I guess they may have miscalculated. The ads were pretty quality too. They did a whole animated short, with a whole cast of characters they also did merch off. Fully confident this was going to blow up huge before it was even released. The price was ridiculous compared to other soft drinks, so kids had to beg their parents to buy it and the marketing didn’t work half as well on them. But it was supposed to be actually good.”
Loki sighed, pulling her legs up and trapping the crocodile between her chest and thighs.
“One day mama brought some home to shut me up about it. It tasted good but I got tired of it after some months. But papa never quit it. He even went to finish the sticker collection book they had.”
“What’s a sticker book?”
“Each bottle had like, three stickers on them and this book is where you could stick them in to complete a scene or something. It doubled as a sort of lore book.”
“That sounds cool.”
Loki took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s collect anything useful and bring it to the personnel room. We can decide what to take with us in the morning.”
“Okay.”
“Stay vigilant.”
Loki went to pick out a pizza from the freezer and whatever else looked good enough to eat and brought it to their night shelter. Next she found a set of kitchen knives shrink-wrapped in that annoying plastic you could only open with scissors. Batteries and a new flashlight. Can opener. Set of ballpoint pens, lighters. Even if they still had functioning tools, it was better to switch them out for new ones when given the chance.
The sun set and Loki and Hel regrouped in the personnel room. Loki shoved the fridge in front of the door. It had been full of decaying food, so it was no good to store food anymore anyway. She got the microwave to work but it was too small for a whole pizza, so they had to cut it in half with the new knives, and cut it in half once more to share it. While they were waiting, Loki dumped her old knife into the sink and replaced it with the one she used for the pizza.
Hel also discarded her knife and picked up the biggest one from the set.
“You’re gonna have a hard time wielding that.” Loki said as Hel struggled to hold it steady. “You need to be quick and won’t have time to fight its weight.”
Hel nodded and picked a smaller knife that fit into her hand.
Loki hadn’t really paid attention to the things Hel scavenged from the store. As she was watching the microwave buzz and rotate, Hel put the stuffed crocodile into her hands once more.
“You like it, right? You should keep it.”
“We don’t have-” Loki looked looked into the simple black dot eyes. “Fine.”
Loki zipped up her hoodie and let the croc look out on top.
Hel dug up another piece of her loot. The pixie potion. “And papa loved this stuff?”
“Absolutely.”
Hel unscrewed the top and poured the thick liquid into her mouth. “Tastes like rainwater and eggs.”
“That’s not how I remember it.”
Hel reached the bottle over to let Loki try it.
“Hmm, it’s a bit stale but tastes like it used to.” Loki investigated the bottle in her hand. “It still has the stickers attached. Go ahead and open it.”
Hel received the potion and found the paper sleeve attached to the side. She ripped it off and figured out how she was meant to open it. She pulled out three paper squares and mumbled “Stickers.” to herself.
“Who do you got?”
“Frog. Frog with magnifying glass. Crow with a dog collar.” Hel gave her the stickers to see.
Pixie Potion characters were anthropomorphized in that they all walked upright but otherwise were cartoon animals.
“All the animals are actually hybrids. Lizzy was a frog and a lizard and Celize was a crow and woodpecker.”
“How does that work?”
“Just for fun, I guess. Shame you didn’t get Rose the possum-raccoon. Papa always said she’s most like you.”
“Why?”
“Not sure. I think you just made the same faces. Same impish smile.”
“We need to get the other sticker packs then.”
“Only one more though, let’s leave some for others.”
“Okay. Who are you most like?”
“Lizzy, allegedly. Maybe because our names are similar?”
“No, there’s more to it.” Hel decided. She held the two Lizzy stickers up with Loki between them. She discovered there was text on the back of the sticker and read it aloud.
“Lizzy is a very curious girl. She reads a lot and is always looking to find out how everything around her works. You’ll often see her experiment and watch for what happens. If you ever wonder about something, go ask her and if she doesn’t have the answer, she’ll find it out for you. Some say you can tell how hard she is concentrating on something by how far her tongue is sticking out.”
“I was never a book nerd.”
“You do that though.”
“Read?”
“You stick your tongue out when thinking.”
“I… I thought I stopped doing that.”
“You can have the Lizzy stickers. Do you have anything to stick them on?”
“I’ll find something.”
“You can have the goth crow too. I think I saw a spike collar just like that in the dog section. It’d look cool, right?”
“Could be useful if we get a vampire apocalypse next.”
“I’d much rather be a vampire than a zombie.”
“Gimme your plate, pizza’s ready.”
“Yay!”