The blizzard leaned into the building, blasting it with snow. Peter dropped to his knees, pressing his back to a cabinet. Snow clouds hurtled over the building and the light and the dark swarmed across the ceiling.

It roared.

It blasted.

Outside, shopping trolleys hurtled past the front window, snaking out across the lot in their chain. The chain broke and the ones left behind clattered on to their sides, driving nose first into one of the cars. The sky over the parking lot was so luminous now that the snow appeared grey like ash inside it. Snowflakes as thick as leaves pummelled the glass, and soon you couldn’t even make out the cars on the lot or the little red-brick buildings of Mainstreet beyond. But just as quickly as the blizzard had taken hold of the supermarket, it stopped.

The cardboard stars spun violently in place. Round and round. Then nothing.

There was sudden silence. Snow continued to pummel the large front window, pushed by the wind, but the blast subsided and a moment later the clink of the beer bottles butting into each other stilled. Peter pressed his hands to his knees ready to stand when a tin can rolled out of the adjacent aisle and bumped into the base of the cabinet next to him. Peter leaned over to pick it up. The label on the front said it was one hundred per cent quality salmon caught in Alaska, and a natural source of omega-3, whatever that was. The pink salmon painted on the front of the label certainly looked one hundred per cent leaping over the mountains, but Peter wasn’t too sure you could say that about the poor thing squished up inside. Still, it must’ve slipped from someone’s shopping basket, so he made his way towards the next aisle when someone behind him cleared their throat. Peter turned. The two elderly women in the trapper hats were huddled into the corner at the back of the store. Peter offered a smile, glancing up towards the ceiling to reassure them that the storm was passing. But the one with the gruff face nervously shook her head to indicate it wasn’t the storm she was afraid of, but rather something else behind him. Peter looked round. There was nothing there. Just the empty supermarket. When he turned back, the two women had gone.

There were hurried whispers coming from the front of the store. The sound of people running on soft feet. The double doors opened. The cardboard stars stirred. People ran back out across the lot in hurried numbers and the doors closed. They didn’t move again.