They walked down the best-lit aisle toward the back of the store. After several feet, the light grew dimmer, and their aisle grew dark. There were no side aisles to turn down, so they kept walking. Jackie, a teenager herself, couldn’t help but run her hand over the tapes on the shelves. Most had stickers with handwritten titles. She did not stop to browse the selection, but she was certain that some simply had rows of Xs instead of titles or descriptions.

The dog, or whatever it was, was not visible through the shop window, but Jackie could still hear the hissing coming from somewhere. She hurried them down the aisle. It was too dark at this point to see the dead end until they were right up on it. Diane extended her hand just before running into the shelf. She expected her hand to hit a wall of tapes but instead felt something damp and soft and cold. It gave way slightly to her touch. Her jaw tightened and she pulled her hand away. It was wet, and in the low light she could see her fingers were covered in what looked like soil.

As they headed back to where they had entered, there was the hissing again in front of them, source unseen in the distant light or, worse, unseen in the nearby dark. Diane walked behind Jackie, Jackie’s hand on her own shoulder, fingers intertwined with Diane’s. As they walked faster, the hissing grew louder. Ahead was a deep shadow in the aisle. Neither could see anything beyond it.

Jackie’s left arm pulsed. Her body hurt badly. Her legs wobbled, and her eyes felt tender and loose in her skull.

“Diane,” Jackie whispered. The hissing was only a few feet in front of them. She heard the soft click of claws on the floor. “Diane. Grab those tapes.”

“What?” Diane was alarmed by Jackie’s alarm. Jackie was grabbing tapes off the shelf near her waist, and so Diane did the same.

The sides of the tapes were all marked with strings of Xs or Js or Ps or Us. As she pitched them to the floor, she felt the same cold dampness as before. The tapes came apart in their hands, falling away into soft clumps of wet soil. A long beetle crawled out of one and tentatively made its way across the pile they were forming.

There was another soft click on the wood floor as they tore away enough tapes to reveal an open passage to another aisle. Bright light poured through. The hissing stopped.

In the dark quiet of the store, Diane felt the wet tapes pool around her ankles. Jackie felt her atoms letting go of one another. They both watched the shadow where the hiss had been.

“Jackie.” Diane’s eyes filled but did not flood. She placed her hand on Jackie’s back.