This isn't a true story. It happened to a friend of a friend of mine
"Some wack shit happened." he declared, intense gaze cast upon his makeshift audience. Our amused silence prompted his continued narrative. "It was dark that night." he began quietly, voice no more than a hoarse whisper. "It was as dark as it gets..." As the tale began, all background noise began to vanish, disappearing into the vacuum of our involuntary fascination. "I was working my check-out counter when it happened." he continued solemnly, voice rising slightly in dynamic. "It had been a normal night. Until THEY came in." By this point, his voice was the only audible sound in a block's radius. Even the wind had ceased, as if to accomodate his tale. "There were three of them, an Asian family, huddled together in refuge from the darkness outside. When they came in I said hello...the store expects us to be courteous. The parents just ignored me, but their daughter...she stared up at me with a wide grin on her face. And in her eyes was a darkness, one that eclipsed that outside by a wide margin: where there should have been white and the spectral hues of the iris, there was just a cold black. If the eyes are truly the window to the soul, hers was composed of shadows and cobwebs. I stood there, transfixed in fear as she was dragged away by her impatient parents. I prayed they wouldn't come back to my checkout, palms clenched in appeal to a God I thought I'd abandoned. And it would appear that this desertion was reciprocated, because to my horror, they returned, each brandishing three cactusi." We were too engrossed to correct his grammatical error, instead puncturing the silence only with our shallow breaths. The hair on my neck stood up as he continued his horrifying recollection. "So they stood there, expectantly, looking at me with those granite eyes, cruelly imploring me to attend to their needs. The daughter smiled again, her teeth filed to razor edges. I was a sentinel, standing obstinate in the face of true evil and the spiny horticultural implements it hoped to procure. Mustering all of my resolve, I met their gaze, glaring as I slid their ilicit goods across the scanner. 'That'll be $26.50' I said, hoping my voice wouldn't betray the absolute terror that sought to paralyze me. 'Do you have a points card?' I asked, doubting that they had points cards in Hell. The father's negative response confirmed my suspicions. 'Will that be all for you?' I asked, the inquiry marking the end of my ritual interrogation. 'No,' said the mother, her obsidian pupils twinkling with sinister delight 'we'd like you to bag them for us as well.'" There was a collective gasp...surely this couldn't have happened. But sure enough, the man before us began to weep uncontrollably. "How you finna put a cactus in a bag?!" he howled in desperation, shaking wildly. "How you gonna do it?!" His voice rang out in a ragged echo, a question with no answer swirling through the empty air. With that he left, slumped in dejection, haunted eyes burning in our minds. However, as the last echo of that damning inquisition was stolen by the whispers of a returning wind, I could've sworn I saw his eyes enveloped by a darkness I could not comprehend. His humanity was evident in his defeated frenzy, but once I saw him blink for the last time, it was gone. Only darkness remained.
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