There was a surprising amount of light in the building it looked like there was an emergency lighting system which was still in operation. There must have been some kind of generator onsite.
I reached the back of the store where the baby formula was usually stacked. Scanning down the aisle I froze, the shelves in front of me were bare. There was not a single item left on the whole aisle. “Fuck!”
I started up towards the other end, checking again as I moved along the row. Caring less now about the noise I was making, finding these items for Rosa was essential for our survival. I moved to the back of the store.
I found what I was looking for and slammed through the double doors. In here it was pitch black, this was the storeroom, where they wheeled out cages full of food to be stacked on the shelves in the store. I felt around in my backpack for the torch and keeping it pointed at the floor it lit up the room. Crap, it was much brighter than I had expected, I just hoped it wasn’t drawing the attention of the group in the carpark. I was relieved to see that at least in here there were still some items left in the cages.
I moved from section to section looking for the baby formula, passed a cage on my right filled with what smelt like soured milk. Another stood beside it filled with flowers which had once been fresh and beautiful but now were dry and crisp, their beautifully coloured blooms now a mouldy brown. I passed more empty cages, once they would have been piled to the top with boxes of food. I spied a stack of cardboard boxes which lined the rear wall of the store.
“Ok, now we’re getting somewhere!” I ran over to the section nearest to me and began scanning the labels with my torchlight. Toilet rolls, Tea bags, Tunnocks Teacakes. What! Ok, that’s the first bit of food I’d seen, I’ll just take a small box out to the car if I didn’t find anything more nutritionally balanced. Then it dawned on me. I was looking in the section that starts with T, they’ve been stored in alphabetical order.
I kept scanning through the boxes of produce, which were for the most part non-edible. I kept moving along to my left praying that there was a baby section in this stacking system. Almost when I was on the opposite side of the store I came across a box which said Heinz Baby Biscotti, and my hopes started to build. About 10 seconds later I found one which read Aptamil baby formula. I could have kissed the ground where I stood. I was over the moon. The box said it had twelve cartons of formula and it looked like there were two of them left. That was enough if properly rationed to last us the better part of a year.
The first thing I would do was get this into the car then I could always come back to look for food, lifting the box up balancing the torch on top I made my way out of the storage area and back down to the front of the supermarket. When I got to back to the car and had the box of formula safely on the back seat I dared to look over at where I had seen the group of teenagers earlier. There seemed to be less of them now, huddling around the fire they sat in pairs quietly talking among themselves.
Feeling bolder this time I jogged back to the store and equipped with an abandoned trolley started moving down the aisles to see if there was anything worth taking. This store had been hit quite badly by looting that was easy enough to see, most of the shelves were totally bare and the ones which weren’t held things which were no good to me.
There seemed to be an abundance of cleaning products and bin liners. I had to chuckle at that, the last thing we were likely to do when someone tells you the world is ending is the spring cleaning.
Finding nothing of any worth in the main store, I turned my attention back to the storeroom where I had had some luck earlier.
“These teacakes can come home with me.” But what I really needed to find was some tinned food or jars of baby food. Anything which was sealed would be safe to eat and could last long enough for me not to have to do this mission again. Maybe if I found enough we could make it last us until Matt came home. Combing through the boxes in the storeroom I didn’t have much more luck, apart from a couple of rogue tins I had found on the floor which must have fallen and been missed during the looting I had nothing in my trolley but the box of baby biscotti and Tunnocks teacakes.
I was just about to turn the corner to leave the storeroom when I heard a couple of the kids from the carpark entering the building. I could hear them, two boys. They were arguing with what sounded like a much older male voice. Something about not watching the shop entrance properly.
“What’s the point in putting you lot out here if you’re going to let people wander in and take what’s ours eh? You’re useless. Piss off and leave this to us. Looks like they must still be in ‘ere Jack ’cos their car’s still outside.”
Oh crap, they’ve found my car. They sounded pissed off. They’d seen the box, the one I’d just stolen on the backseat. I needed to get out of here and back to the car, but how was I going to manage that? They could be watching the car. I left the trolley and turned off my torchlight. I could just about make out two beams of light darting across the ceiling near the entrance of the shop. They were looking for me. Looking around for a way to divert them away from where I needed to be I slammed the doors which led to the back storage room and silently ran to the front of the shop.
“Jack, they’re in the back of the store, that was the doors shutting behind them. Go and take a look, give me a shout if there’s more than two of ’em and I’ll get Andy to come and give us a hand.”
With that, I moved as fast as I could in the darkness. I managed to slip past the burly guy stood in what was the fruit and veg section. He was busy shouting orders to his mate at the back of the store. When I got outside I crashed straight into two young boys who looked almost as petrified as I was. They were two of the kids I had seen earlier from the carpark. In a whisper, the smallest of the two started to speak
“Run quickly. He’ll kill you if he catches you. We won’t say anything, just don’t come back. It’s not a safe place for a woman on her own.” The tall one hissed something at him. I didn’t wait around to hear what it was, my keys were already in my hand and I was backing out of the car park by the time I saw the fruit and veg guy run out into the moonlight. I rounded the corner and once I was a sensible distance from the shop I pulled over and burst into tears. I couldn’t go home, I didn’t even have any water. The formula was useless without clean water. I had left the only food available back in the trolley when I had to make my quick exit. I punched the steering wheel in frustration!
“Shit!” Feeling like a failure was not something I was used to. I didn’t like it. I used to pride myself on being able to face things head on and most of the time I could do what needed to be done. But this. This was something else.
The country has gone mad, gangs of people laying claim on a whole supermarket. One with barely any food inside and forcing young kids to keep watch, beating each other up over a box of baby formula. I wondered just what sort of scenes I’d been lucky enough to miss whilst we had been safely holed up in our shelter for the last month. It didn’t appear to me like many people had taken that advice. If they had, how had they formed gangs so quickly? Questions, without answers, swirled around my head so quickly it almost made me feel dizzy.
Giving myself a stern look in the rearview mirror, I was fleetingly reminded of my mother. I wiped my face and started up the engine keeping the lights off. I needed to move to a different part of town. I knew there were other places I could look. I wouldn’t allow myself to be scared off. I must find water before I could go home.
I looked down at the clock on the dashboard. I had been out of the house for almost two hours already. Silently I prayed that my daughter was still at home asleep. Safe.