The black clouds drifted across the blood red sky, creating an eerie contrast that is rarely seen naturally. The chilly wind of autumn pierced through my costume like it wasn’t even there, so much so that I had to take a quick glance down just to be sure. I looked at the glowing sign of the supermarket, and sighed. Motioning my sidekicks forward, we headed towards Price Chopper without looking back.
We walked quietly through the near darkness, our minds too focused on the battle up ahead to even try to start a conversation. The three of us made our way across the somewhat busy streets, and around the few buildings that stood between us, and our destination.
After a few minutes, we stood just outside the range of the automatic door openers. Gazing inside, all looked normal. The food was sitting on their shelves, the cashiers checked out customers, and I couldn’t see any scientists. I took a step forward, and the doors slid to the side, letting the Chopper air warm up our cold skin. I entered the store, and stood just far enough in so I could see most of the store. A cashier glanced over at us, then ducked down behind the register.
“I don’t know where Akmed is,” she said with a trembling voice.
The other cashiers looked over, and ducked down behind their counters. At first I thought this was odd, then I remembered my battle here a few weeks before with the Supermarket Managers, “I’m not here to see Akmed tonight. Tonight, I’m after Bert.”
With a trembling hand, she pointed toward the back of the store. I walked to the back, and looked around, without finding any trace of the scientist.
“Let’s split up. I’ll go right, Adam, you can go left, and Condiment Cow, stay here and make sure he doesn’t come out from the back.”
“Sounds good,” said Adam.
“...” Condiment Cow replied.
I spun on my heel to the right, and walked down past the rows of cellophane wrapped animal flesh, and wrapped turkeys sitting in a bin to my right. As I passed the turkeys, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye.
I shot around, checking the foods to make sure none of them had come to life. The foods looked in their place, and I now wished I had paid more attention to where they were positioned on their shelves. I took a step back, getting ready to continue on, when something cold and hard rammed into the back of my leg.
Unprepared for the blow, I fell backwards, flailing my arms in hopes of finding something to catch myself on. Finding nothing, I twisted, and landed on my side, crunching my arm between myself, and the cold tile floor. I climbed to my feet, and saw one of the frozen turkeys running wildly around. With his lower leg amputated, he skittered around on his upper leg bones.
“Adam! Get down here!” I called, then ran up and kicked the turkey in the back. His frozen center sent most of the force back on my toe, and left me jumping around in pain, while he just toppled over. While I waited for Adam, the turkey jumped back on its leg bones, and ran down an aisle. A few seconds later, Adam finally arrived.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Find some knives,” I muttered through gritted teeth.
While Adam hunted knives, I hunted turkey. I crept around the towering shelves, glancing down the aisles, straining my eyes to see the little Butterball. A frozen thud came from behind, and I spun quickly to see what it was. Stretched out before me were the nine to ten turkeys that sat in the bin. They charged, and I jumped over them, then turned to watch them slide across the floor, and bounce off some guys feet. I looked up at the guys face, then down at his name tag.
“Ahh, Condiment Man, so we finally meet,” said the name-tagged one.
“Bert, your day of bringing food to life and having it attack people is coming to an end.”
“We shall see. Turkeys, go attack that Adam fellow. I have a big bird for you Condiment Man,” he cackled.
Seconds later, the big bird burst through the doors. The big bird stood at about seven feet, and was mostly plucked, except for a few yellow feathers that stuck out of his body.
The big bird scratched the ground, and looked down at me with its dark black eyes. The bird finally dug one foot in, and ran at me. When the big bird neared, I took a quick step to the side, then slammed my fist into the side of its head. The bird flopped to the ground, and let out screeching chirps as it scrambled to its feet. Once again upright, it came at me again, this time it stopped just in front of me, and dropped its head to the ground. Confused, I stood there and watched. The big bird then flung his head into my chest, and before I could react, I was sliding across the store towards the bakery.
I slowly climbed to my feet, and tried to rub the pain out of my chest. I looked over toward my foe, who was again scratching at the ground, getting ready to charge again. Then something hit the ground behind me. I took a quick look back, and noticed a cake laying on the ground, slowly lurching toward me. Then the big bird decided to charge. As it quickly approached, I stood waiting. When it got within range, I grabbed it by the neck, and fell backward. Using my leg, I flung it over me, sending the big bird crashing down onto the cake. I rolled onto my stomach, and watched the bird struggle while the cake slowly devoured it. After the bird was gone, the cake stopped moving.
I looked toward Bert, then felt uneasy as he was laughing hysterically after I just whomped his big bird. Adam then popped out from aisle four, covered in pieces of turkey. He looked over at me, then his face went limp. I slowly turned around, knowing that this was the face of impending doom.
“Cookie monster!!” I screamed, then ran towards my sidekick. The entire cookie aisle had come together to create one mass of cookies, with one giant smily cookie as the face. “To the dairy section Adam!”
Adam was one step ahead of me. He stood with the refrigerator door open, holding gallon cartons of milk. As I neared him, he popped the caps off, and threw them at the monster. They spun through the air, then bounced off his chest, spilling their contents all over the floor.
I reached into the fridge, and pulled out my own gallon cartons of milk. The cookie monster was coming at us faster now, and my hands trembled as I popped the top off the cartons. I charged at the monster with the cartons raised high above my head, then slammed their necks into its shoulders. Slowly, the level of milk in the cartons went down, as it soaked into the cookie monster. Soon, the monster was a puddle on the floor, and the happy face slowly melted in with the rest of the mush.
“Pfft... that was one sad enemy Bert.”
“Hey, it’s tough making quality evil cohorts!”
“You’re next,” I said evilly.
“What the heck are you talking about?”
“Adam, bring me a pen,” I called.
Bert backed away from me, then charged. Catching me off guard, he easily slammed his shoulder into my chest. I fell to the ground with the wind knocked out of me, and I laid there for a bit trying to breathe again.
As soon as I caught my breath, Bert picked me up, then slugged me in the face. The world around me spun around a bit, then he tossed me to the ground. Again I climbed to my feet, knowing I might just be visiting the floor again soon.
Bert pulled a hard salami off of a nearby rack, and raised it high in the air. I jumped at him, wrapping my arms around his stomach, while he dug the salami into my back. Biting through my cape, I could feel tendrils of blood slowly trickling down my back. We fell to the ground, and he rolled us over. He knelt over me, holding my right hand to the ground, while I tried to fend off his salami with my left. The salami was positioned inches from my face, its mouth open wide, ready to take my nose off.
We were in a stalemate until Adam showed up, and kicked Bert off of me. “Here’s your pen.” Handing me a Dr. Grip, a smile crept across Adam’s face. I climbed to my feet, and clenched the good Dr. tightly. We circled around each other, our weapons held high in the air, ready for the other person to make a move.
A moaning from the back room broke the dead silence, and startled us both into attacking. The hard salami bashed against my left arm, and I shoved the Dr. Grip into his stomach. Bert stumbled back, and fell up against one of the shelves, dropping the salami to the ground.
“Adam, check out the back room.” I watched the scientist slump to the ground with his hands on his lap, and a blood spot spreading outward from the pen. “Huh, I forgot to click the tip out,” I said to myself, then walked up and pressed the end of the pen, causing the writing part to dig in a few millimeters more.
Bert whimpered, then went limp. I turned to see Adam helping Akmed out of the back room.
“This is gonna bug the scientists, taking out one of their big guys,” I exclaimed.
“Probably not,” Akmed said, “Bert was just a puppet. A normal guy they found on the street they convinced to play in their evil game.”
“Well, at least the whole food coming to life thing is done for good.”
“I donno, they still have the tech-”
“You’re ruining the moment Akmed!”