The God Contest Regina

“Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.”

William Shakespeare

Every Saturday morning since she was four years old, Bethany would accompany her grandmother to their small-town grocery store, Flatland Foods. It was five narrow aisles of canned vegetables, boxed cereal, jams, detergents, and frozen food, with the far-left coolers dedicated to fresh fruits and vegetables. It was the type of store that felt crowded if there were more than five customers. It was owned by Mr. and Mrs. Wu, who lived in an apartment above the store and were its only employees. Bethany had a soft spot for Mrs. Wu, who always had odd jobs for Bethany. She would pay under the table and would never ask about her father.

A dozen Flatland Food stores could fit within North End Savers Superstore, with room to spare.

Bethany stood in the entranceway of the North End Savers, the automatic doors sliding closed behind her. She gazed up at the high ceilings that towered above her, its exposed rafters and aggressively bright light making it feel like she was in a massive warehouse. Aisle upon aisle of food rested enticingly on their shelves, stretched across a white flooring worn by heavy traffic. The back of the store was entirely meat and dairy, and there were entire rows dedicated to chips, pastas, international food, and more. The east side of the North End Savers sported separate pharmacy, clothing, toiletry, and cookware sections, making it a one-stop-shop for everything Bethany could ever want. Fifteen check-out counters lay ready to ring through customers, their tills active but abandoned.

“Where do people even start?” wondered Bethany. She laughed at her own amazement. Given everything that had happened today, a supermarket should be the last thing that surprised her. Yet she did not escape to Regina to fight monsters. She came to experience everyday moments like this. For a moment, she gave herself permission to enjoy the sight, forgetting the traumas of today and the days before. It was a little piece of the life she had been seeking, laid before her.

Rocky’s heavy footfalls carried across the supermarket and broke Bethany from her contemplation. The day's events flooded back to the forefront of her mind, and she quickly ducked behind a check-out to avoid being seen. Peeking out from behind the midriff-high barrier, Bethany saw Rocky waddling towards the entrance, his arms piled high with packages of toilet paper. It was stacked three layers above his head, and it looked like it could fall at any moment.

Bethany had to cover her mouth to stop her from laughing. His urgent waddle was not meshing well with his attempt to balance the load in his arms and the axe loosely resting between two fingers.

He almost made it. Another ten feet and his load would have landed in the back of their truck. Except there was a table set up in the middle of the entranceway that held enticing apple, cherry, and saskatoon berry pies. The resulting collision of man and display sent pies scattering to the floor, toilet paper flying thought the air, and one very large man sprawled out on his belly.

“Please, don’t let Emily see this,” Rocky whispered, mortified.

Emily arrived a few moments later at a full run. The concern on her face quickly transformed into a roaring laugh that made Rocky blush with embarrassment.

“You big lummox,” she said, a touch of endearment only half-hidden in her tone. “If you wanted pie that badly, we could have grabbed a couple.”

“I do like my pie,” replied Rocky, trying to sound nonchalant as he rose to his feet. He shook out his right knee and was rewarded with a satisfying pop.

Emily started tossing the scattered toilet paper into the back of the pickup truck. Then she carefully selected the last two undamaged pies and placed them in the back seat. “Just for you, gentle giant. Now, will you please grab a shopping cart? That’s what they are for.”

Rocky's smile told the story of the depth of their friendship. It was a smile reserved for only for a special few. The type of relationship that not even an apocalypse could break apart.

The two walked back into the aisles, now pushing shopping carts and playfully nudging each other as they walked side by side.

From her hiding place, Bethany settled in to watch the pair as they made trip after trip between truck and store, bantering as if the world was not crumbling around them. Soon, their truck was filled with canned vegetables and soups, cereals, powdered milk, processed meats, dried beans, peanut butter, fresh fruits and meats, and all manner of baking supplies. On their final trip, Emily arrived with a shopping cart full of frozen pizzas, despite Rocky’s protests that pizzas were not on his list due to its lack of nutritional value.

“There is no point in surviving an apocalypse if I can’t have my ‘za,” Emily insisted, and Rocky chose not to argue. The pizzas were stacked in the back of the truck beside the pies.

Bethany felt an urge to stand up. To make herself known. She wanted to be part of their banter. She wanted to feel safe in this world gone wrong. Only every time she tried to stand up, her fear would drag her back down.

"They could be just like Daniel and Becka," whispered Bethany. "They would betray me. You can't trust them."

“Alright Emily, we are almost done,” Rocky announced, forehead beaming with droplets of sweat as he checked off another item on his list. “We have room for one more trip, and the last thing on the list is pasta. Remember, only take whole wheat and high protein ones. None of the bleached variety.”

“You know I don’t like the whole wheat shit. Can’t we make an exception?” pleaded Emily as they rounded the corner.

Rocky didn't had time to respond. The moment they rounded the corner of the aisle, Rocky’s pained scream echo across the supermarket.

“What… what the hell is that?” Emily stammered.

Without thinking, Bethany leapt from her hiding place and sprinted towards Rocky and Emily, her ball-peen hammer gripped tightly in her hand. This time, she did not let her fear drag her back down. She wrapped it around her like armor, and let it propel her forward.

Bethany nearly tripping over Rocky sprawled on his back as she entered the pasta aisle. His shirt sliced open, he had a faint line of blood tickling from a newly opened wound. The shopping carts had been upended and Emily stood bravely between Rock and the crystalline orb that hovering in front of them. Its had a single shard that orbited around it, flecked with Rocky's blood.

The orb flashed red with an anger so thick that it felt tangible in the air around them. It was the same anger, the same hatred, that Bethany had felt in the park. These orbs were designed for one purpose. They were player killers.

“The orb is weak,” shouted Bethany, rushing forward to stand beside Emily. She raised her hammer to her chest, ready to swing. “It will shatter if you strike it.”

Emily glanced at Bethany in surprise, then glanced below at Rocky who was struggling to his feet. She gripped her metal pole tight. “I don’t know who you are, lady. But we appreciate the help.”

Emily thrust her pole towards the orb, a practiced motion that nearly connected with its centre. The orb shifted backwards, and Bethany watched as its color shift to a cloudy grey. The orb retreated to the middle of the aisle until it was surrounded by shelves of pasta on either side.

“I… think we should get out of here,” Bethany said, with a sudden realization of what was about to happen. The orb wasn’t retreating because it was afraid. It wasn’t retreating at all. It was getting its armor.

The orb’s shard began to spin wildly around it, slicing open every package of pasta within reach and spilling their starchy contents onto the floor.

The cloudy grey switched to a faint yellow, and the pasta rose into the air. It began joining together like a child’s art project with the orb at its centre. Only, unlike the leaves, it did not assemble into a man. It became a bull. A massive bull, with a body of macaroni, hooves of penne, and horns of linguini. Its carapace grew larger by the second as it pulled in every ounce of pasta in the aisle until it was as large as Rocky.

“Fuck, what the hell? What the absolute hell?” Rocky shouted as he watched the bull assemble itself.

“Run!” Bethany shouted, helping Emily pull Rocky to his feet.

They dashed down the aisle and turned the corner just as the Pasta Bull charged, its horns pointed forward as if it were trying to impale a matador. It missed them by a hair and crashed into a checkout counter across the main corridor. It thrashed and bucked wildly in anger, and within seconds had reduced the counter to a pile of broken wood and metal beneath its durum hooves.

“This is insane. This can’t be happening,” Emily shouted in disbelief.

The Pasta Bull turned its attention back to the three fleeing players and it charged, barreling down the corridor like an oncoming freight train.

Bethany looked over her shoulder. Rocky had started to fall behind, and his great footfalls and labored breathing had drawn the attention of the bull. He wasn’t fast enough.

“Turn into the baking aisle!” Bethany shouted as she grabbed Emily’s hand and took a sharp left turn. Rocky leapt into the aisle just as the bull thundered past them, unable to stop its charge in response to its target's sudden movements.

The bull crashed into a giant crate of cauliflowers in front of the supermarket entrance and proceeded to crush each one beneath its angry hooves.

“Shit, we need to get to our truck,” Emily whispered, trying not to draw the attention of the bull. “Shit. Shit. Shit. It’s standing right where we need to be.”

“Stay down. Let’s get to the other end of the aisle and circle around. Try not to draw it attention,” Bethany said, breathing deep to steady herself.

Bethany led them to the end of the baking aisle, then dashed across to the chest-high, open-air coolers that ran across the back of the store. They pressed themselves against the siding of the coolers and listened to the bull as it angrily charged across the store and down the aisles. Reams of groceries clattered to the floor in the bull's desperate search for its prey.

Bethany held her breath and tried to make herself small. She feared her pounding heart would give them away each time the bull grew near.

“Why did I run towards their screams?” Bethany asked herself, over and over. “I could have just left them. I could have stayed safe. What did you get yourself into, Bethany?”

She glanced over at Emily and Rocky. They were huddled together, the blood of Rocky’s wound staining Emily’s overalls as she held him tight.

"But could you have lived with yourself, if you had just let them die?" she asked herself.

The thought repeated itself in her mind as she listened to the sound of the rampaging bull out for blood. It was a question she could not answer, and that frightened her more than the bull.