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[FICTION] Tales from Port Astor | Please be Kind

               The black, oozing mass undulated out of the crate, with horrid intent palpable in its writhing. Leonard, the clerk of this location of Astor Star 24, screamed in a low moaning fashion, and ran out of the store room, slamming the heavy door shut with force, panting and sweating. In front of him, an older woman, with glassy doe-eyes and clad in pink sportswear with text reading “PINK”.

            “H-hello ther-“ he stammered before being cut off.

             “I want smokes” the lady interjected sharply.

            “Oh, oh” Leonard began, and walked behind the counter.

            “W-wh-which—”

“What?!” the lady exclaimed sharply, “Speak up!”

   Leonard attempted to recompose himself, “Wh-w” he gulped “Whi-which—”

  “Stop stuttering!” she shrieked, “I can’t understand you; and speak up!”

                Leonard, red in the face and sweating, tried his best to not overtly glare at the customer, gritting his teeth. His eyes shifted over to the store room door, and his sweat almost foze upon him; the black sludge was slowly seeping from underneath the door, like magma emerging from the earth.

“Smokes!” the lady screamed, now pounding on the counter, shaking Leonard’s attention back to her.

                “Lady!” He yelled loudly and clearly, “You gotta go!”

                “Oh, now you can talk!” She proclaimed, head bobbing in dramatic fashion as she went. “I ain’t going nowhere until you” she gestured violently at him “give me my goddamn cig-gar-ettes!”

                In the corner of his vision, Leonard could see more of the mass had made its escape. In the filthy florescent lights of the convenience store, he could make out details; the oily sheen on it, and how there appeared to be small hard bits sticking out in some places and… hair? All moving with a wet vibration as it continued to pour out from the door.

“Oh, screw this!” He yelled desperately, and ran out from behind the counter to flee the small market. The lady moved herself in front of him: “Ooh no” she hissed “you’re not allo—“, now she was the one being cut off. The screams of Leonard reverberated in the space, as searing, burning pain engulfed him at the ankle, and was swiftly climbing; the black ooze had latched itself to his leg, and steam and the smell of cooking meat began to flood the senses.

                “P-please!” he pleaded, “help me!”, grabbing onto the lady as he began to falter. She, now panicking and yelling incoherently in her own terror, began to beat and hit Leonard until he released his grasp “Don’t you dare touch me!”. As the mass quickly consumed him, she stood there and screamed as she watched on, before fleeing the store herself into the red stained night of the Port Astor streets. On the flapping, swinging door left in her wake could be read a handmade sign: “Please be kind! We are short staffed”.

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