“Every big box store picks one up from time to time,” JM Caudill writes: a Gremlin, who stays off the security cameras, bedevils the loss-prevention associates, and lives off the cat food aisle. But in this beguiling story, the Gremlin has a little help from the inside.
Enjoy, and be kind to your cashiers.
-The Editors
The first time she heard about the Gremlin, Jane did not believe.
She was shadowing Mavis, the front-end supervisor, who mentioned the Gremlin as an afterthought.
“This place has two ears for every mouth, if you follow me. So, watch yourself, you’ve been warned. What else? Oh, if you see the Gremlin, just smile. He won't talk to you but he doesn't bite.”
“Come again?”
“The Gremlin. He more or less lives here. He knows how to stay off the security cameras so they haven’t caught him yet. Every big box store picks one up from time to time, usually for a few weeks until management catches wind and calls the cops. So, look, this is how you ring up bananas.”
During her first night shift, Jane was fronting one of the Paper Ware section endcaps when she looked up and noticed a hunched and disheveled man lumbering behind a sparsely filled cart on the adjacent pet food aisle. She watched him put several cans of cat food into his cart and was about to return to her duties when he looked up and caught her staring. He nodded soberly in her direction and continued putting cans in his cart.
Jane looked away embarrassed. She placed a few more rolls of Angel Wipe in symmetry with the edge of the shelf before curiosity compelled her to look again. The man was gone. She checked the next several aisles in both directions and finally returned to her endcap, breathless.
When she went to the Security Center to tell Steven, the loss-prevention associate, he groaned. “That's the Gremlin. He has a tendency to disappear. Congratulations on your first sighting. You’ve been initiated.”
“Into what?” Jane wanted to know.
Steven shrugged and returned to his security video.
___
During the calm weekend evenings, when the lines slowed down to a trickle, the Supercenter was like a city in repose. Wide avenues bordered by columns of cereals, crackers, and boxes of instant rice intersected at stately monuments to Kraft, General Mills, and Pepsi. There was the ever-present hum of the forced air unit; the timeless pathos of the frozen food aisle. The pixelated rows of fluorescent lighting overhead created no shadows on the shiny concrete floors below: it was always day inside the Supercenter.
The daily slide-show passing through Jane’s line became a grade-school memory game of recognizing the faces of the regulars. She had a mental inventory of the people who stood out—old ladies with warts and cat hair hitchhiking on their muumuus, lonely guys who stuttered and couldn't make eye contact, old acquaintance doppelgängers, thousands of anonymous families. The Gremlin was the great white whale. To make time pass during the long workdays, Jane would grill the other employees about their Gremlin sightings.
She gathered that he appeared most in the pet food area and along the outskirts of produce. She could never get a concrete description of his physical appearance or a consistent age. She’d even heard from some of the cart wranglers that the Gremlin was both missing an eye and “not even real.”
___
It was late in her shift and Jane was folding leftovers for restocking by the dressing rooms and humming along to the Shoop Shoop song on the radio. Her mind had drifted back to her honeymoon in Florida, dancing with Sam under the giant gulf sky on the boardwalk at Cedar Key when the Gremlin stepped out of the handicap stall on the end and their eyes locked.
He looked back down at the ground nervously, placing a couple of pairs of jeans on the returns cart outside of the changing room area.
“Do they not fit?”
The Gremlin started a few responses but they all seemed to get stuck behind his teeth.
“The jeans I mean. They don't fit?”
He wasn’t that old, she could see, maybe thirties or early forties. He didn't smell like a bum, at least from where she was standing.
“Yes.” He was trying to get away, almost painfully.
“You—you...” She didn't have anything. That was it. He looked at her right in the eyes, half-turned away.
He turned and disappeared into the steady throng of humanity.
Jane attached some nylon Ladies’ Swimming Bottoms to their hangers just long enough to decide she wanted to follow him.
By the time she was out of the changing station the Gremlin was almost to foods, walking in and out of the crowds on the main aisle. She followed him past the bread and chips, through the frozen expanses of meats and seafoods, down the maze of clothing racks and the disorienting sensory assaults of the Electronics Department, towards the back of the store, weaving through multi-member families and over-burdened carts, pulsing between stands and promotional displays. The Gremlin approached the bathrooms at the rear of the store and stopped. Jane was right on him and when he turned to look at her, she skidded to a stop a few feet from him.
He was wearing an old pair of scuffed blue canvas KEDS. The left shoe was wrapped with duct-tape.
“Do you live here? Some of the people who work here seem to think you live inside the store.”
When he didn't answer she stepped closer.
“Where do you live?”
“I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“So you do live in the store?”
He looked down at his feet and shrugged. Jane moved up close enough to catch a whiff of sour milk and dried sweat. She furrowed her brow.
“I’m not a manager, so don’t worry. I can’t kick you out or anything. I was just curious how someone could actually live here and not get caught.”
The Gremlin turned around and went down the hallway. He stood outside the supply closet door and motioned for Jane to follow. He was looking at a large air-intake vent in the corner near the floor.
“In there?”
“Wait until there’s no one coming. The vent pops out.”
They shuffled over to the corner. Jane tried to grab at the edges but her fingers couldn’t get a good purchase. The Gremlin looked around and gave the vent a hard hip-check and it fell to the floor. He clambered inside, holding the vent back so Jane could follow.
She looked at the pitch-black maw and realized in a splash of adrenaline that she was terrified of following the Gremlin into his lair.
“I’m not going in there.” She laid her back flat against the wall, suddenly hyperventilating.
The Gremlin’s head peered out from the dark hole for a moment, his eyes wide and his beard bushy, and then was gone. The vent silently slid back into place.
___
Jane was standing at the end of her line the next day, waiting for customers, when Mr. Gandy, the Supercenter manager, walked up to her.
“Turn off your light please.”
Jane did as she was told. Mr. Gandy followed her and stepped in behind her so that she was wedged between the register and his fat gut.
“Jane. You're a good employee.”
“Thank you—”
“I'm not finished. You left your station yesterday for sixteen minutes.”
“I—”
“I'm not finished. I know you know where the vagrant is hiding. I watched the security tapes. You followed him to the back of the store. Tell me where he's hiding or you will lose your job.”
“He doesn't have anywhere to go.”
“That's not my problem. This is serious. You will lose your job. Look, I know you’ve been going through a hard time lately. Please don’t make me regret hiring you.”
There was something white on the corner of Mr. Gandy's upper lip that looked like spit or food residue. Jane couldn't look away, even though it made her want to vomit.
___
After her shift when she was walking back to her car she saw the Gremlin sitting at the edge of the parking lot on the curb. Next to him, a Sheriff’s department patrol car with its lights blinking. Jane rushed over waving her hands.
“What are you doing?”
“Ma'am, I'm gonna have to ask you to stay back.”
“He's not in trouble is he?”
“Ma'am—”
“Are you going to arrest him?”
The cop was wearing sunglasses. He sighed through his nose. “I don't want to. He's not leaving though and there’s not much else to do.”
“He lives with me.” The Gremlin looked at Jane. All she could picture was her tiny apartment, sitting empty and alone on the other side of town, the blinds pulled tightly against the afternoon sun.
The cop raised an eyebrow.
“You're willing to take responsibility.”
“Yes.”
“If I get called back out here, he’s going to the detention center. He’s got no ID and no money. County ordinance says you have less than five dollars in your pocket and no ID, I can arrest you for vagrancy.”
“I understand.”
“No second chances.”
The cop got in his cruiser and sat with the engine running until Jane and the Gremlin went back to her car. Several times during the ride across town, she tried to begin an explanation of why the Gremlin was discovered by Mr. Gandy but no words were spoken between them until the Gremlin cleared his throat and turned towards her.
“So, ah, where are we going then?”
Jane hadn’t thought that far ahead. At the next stoplight, she could see the ridiculous dancing cow that held up the Chuckburger sign.
“Are you hungry? Let me buy you dinner.”
“I could eat.”
“I wonder if they take EBT,” Jane mumbled absently while she pulled into the parking lot.
Inside, Todd the waiter sat them at the far corner, eyeing the Gremlin suspiciously during the entire course of taking the drink orders.
“What looks good?” Jane wanted to know after Todd was gone.
“That steak sounds mighty fine. I guess it’s all pretty good though.”
Jane looked desperately at the menu, deciding to order a small appetizer for herself instead of a meal. She still had some chicken salad leftovers in the fridge at home where she could eat for free. This meal was for the Gremlin, her new friend.
“I guess we should be formally introduced, huh? I’m Jane.”
“Nice to meet you.” His smile was minus several teeth.
“Do you have—what’s your name?”
“Don’t got one. Don’t need one. Don’t want one.”
“Well but what do you want me to call you?”
“Don’t they call me the Gremlin?”
“I—who?”
“Where is that Todd kid? I’m gonna start eating these jelly packets here.”
“No don’t do that, they’re no good for you. It’s just all sugar. Look—I think that’s us.”
Todd came back with their drinks and took their orders and a few minutes later returned again with a very rare steak for the Gremlin and a small salad for Jane.
The Gremlin ate like a starved dog. There was almost enough food in his beard and on his lap to make a second meal and he would have eaten more but Jane was already stretched pretty thin by the current bill and said as much finally while the Gremlin ruminated on dessert.
“Well I do appreciate the hospitality, Miss Jane.”
“Where are you staying tonight? You want me to drop you at the shelter?”
“Hell no, if you’ll pardon. Bunch of animals running that place. Figure I’ll just head back over to the Supercenter.”
“But—”
“I ain’t gonna stay there. I’m not wanting to spend the night at county neither. I still got some stuff in that vent though. Matter of fact, it’s all I own. So, I gotta go back. Least for my stuff.”
“Well I’ll go with you. I can probably sneak you in there and back out without any of the managers seeing.”
“What are they gonna do,” the Gremlin cackled. “Kick me out?”
___
The store was running a ghost crew at that hour. Getting to the vent unseen was not the problem. Convincing herself to step inside was the issue. She was set on keeping guard outside when she heard Mr. Gandy’s familiar nasally drone materialize over the omnipresent buzz of the forced air system. She looked at the hole and held her breath.
Inside, the space was surprisingly large—maybe eight feet deep where it separated into two smaller vents leading left and right. The duct was cold and windy and dark. There was the distant suggestion of mildew. Light spilled in through the vent in narrow sheets.
Along the far corner, the Gremlin had set up a small camp. Jane saw a dry-cell battery-powered lantern. A sleeping bag. A few bottles of Diet Mountain Dew. Hundreds of empty cat-food cans in the shadow of one corner. There was a flimsy paperback travel book splayed open next to the sleeping bag called Wide Open Spaces with a cover picture of a man and woman waving and smiling in front of the Grand Canyon.
“You live here?”
“I stay here. I've got everything I need.”
The Gremlin sat down on his sleeping bag.
“You don’t eat that cat food.”
“I do.”
“If you’re going to steal, why not steal human food?”
“Who says I stole it?” The Gremlin grinned.
“Well—did you?”
“I’ve been caught stealing cat food and I’ve been caught stealing a loaf of bread. Which time do you think the manager looked the other way and which time do you think he decided to press charges? Lady managers are particularly sympathetic to folks stealing pet food. Your old store manager was a lot cooler. Deb, I think.”
Jane could hear disembodied voices floating through the vents. “Maybe we should get going?”
The Gremlin had begun rooting around in his stash of food. He tore open a Slim Jim and started sucking on it like a Popsicle. The air was soon pregnant with the aroma of mesquite. “Nah. I’m gonna stay here. You should go though. And you should be more careful who you talk to. Two ears for every mouth in these places.”
Jane squinted in the pale lighting of the vent. She couldn’t tell, but it seemed like the Gremlin was smiling.
“I’m gonna go. Will you be okay?”
“You’ve done enough already.”
“I was just trying to help.”
“Thank you.”
Jane lifted the vent back and ducked out as gracefully as she could.
___
After her husband Sam lost to cancer, romance was shed and discarded from Jane's life. Her days off were spent in solitude, cleaning, shopping, reading, and resting up for work. Her apartment did not allow dogs and she was allergic to cats. She'd owned a goldfish once. Sam had won it at the fair one weekend by throwing a ping-pong ball into a cup. It had cost him almost twelve dollars to win that fish. They named it Ishmael and kept it in an empty peanut butter jar. Ishmael was dead before the end of the weekend.
After long days, before she went home, Jane would stand by the fish tanks on the pet aisle, losing her thoughts in the murky water.
She wanted a fish. To bring it home in one of the special plastic bags and place it in a tank near her bed where she could lay and watch it swim as she drifted off to sleep. But she could never bring herself to buy one, too afraid of the responsibility and looming specter of death that came with owning something small and alive. They were like a flower with a pulse, fragile and brief.
___
When she woke up the next morning, Jane sat on her couch and looked around at the silent, empty expanse of her tiny home. A dog barked in the distance and for a moment, she cried.
After she roused herself, she drove down to the Supercenter, looking for the Gremlin.
At the end of the parking lot, there was a copse of trees and weeds surrounding a retention pond with cattails and a fence around a transformer. The Gremlin was sitting against the fence, eating Spam with a purple spork.
Jane rushed up to him. It was getting cold and gray clouds were rolling across the sky.
She didn't know what to say to him so she stood there. He looked up at her, his mouth still full of Spam. There was a piece of it on his beard.
“It's going to snow.”
The Gremlin chewed some more and sniffed the air. “It's too early. It hasn't snowed this early for as long as I can remember.”
“Why are you out here? You should be somewhere warm.”
“They found my stuff. Chucked it in the dumpster with all the old rotting meat. Thinking about moving on.”
“Oh?” She was embarrassed by the tears she felt building.
“I got a place out in the woods. It’s nice and open.”
“Do you need anything?”
“I've got some Spam.”
“What if there's snow tonight?”
“I'll be okay.”
“Please?”
“What?”
“Let me help you.”
“Look—I appreciate it. But it's not a good idea. I think we would both realize that within a few days. I'm fine on my own.”
He shoveled some more Spam into his mouth. Jane felt awkward standing there watching him chew so she turned and walked back towards her car. She stopped where the grass met the pavement.
“I'll bring you some blankets,” she called.
The Gremlin looked up and shoveled in some more Spam.
He nodded his head okay.
___
At home she gathered a quilt from the linens and one of Sam’s old jackets. She got a package of soda-crackers and some cheese and a few beers from a sixer and an old Reader’s Digest and she tied it all up in a big plastic bag and rushed back to the Supercenter.
It was past sun-down when she pulled into the parking-lot.
Jane pulled up to the edge where the pavement ended. She grabbed the bag and went into the stand of young trees. The ground was all tall grass and rusty pine needles. She walked to the edge of the pond. The basin was overgrown with puffed cattails but dry of water. A pigeon flashed into the sky as she approached. She was alone but for the buzzing traffic. The grass by the gate around the transformer was still smoothed down from where the Gremlin had sat. Further away, she found the purple spork, covered in ants carrying off Spam remnants.
Overhead, the sodium lights hummed in their roosts. The steely gray sky was moving east with a swift and bitter wind. Jane placed the bag under the trees. It was definitely getting colder.
-30-
JM Caudill is a writer, photographer, hiker, and cashier living in the Virginia Highlands. His story “The Woods” was nominated to appear in the Best of the Net Anthology. Other publications include Prick of the Spindle and Thread. You can read more at writingfromthethicket.wordpress.com.