The Price Is Right
End of A Nightmare/Start of A Membership
It’s Saturday. You head into town to run some errands. Walking down a quiet street, you get a strange feeling. You turn around — a green Prius is following you. It glides on the tarmac, smooth and soundless. You quicken your pace.
Waiting at the bus stop, you hear a soft whirring and glance up as a CCTV camera rotates towards you. You avert your gaze and turn around to check your phone, but all you can think of is the camera’s unblinking eye boring into the back of your skull.
Your phone rings — unknown number. Your stomach churns as you take the call. “Hello?”, you repeat, three times. No answer, just the sound of heavy breathing. As you hang up, a man in a green suit bumps hard into your shoulder. Your phone drops and you stare in shock after the man, who marches off without a word. You pick up your phone — a fresh crack splinters the length of the screen. A group of teenagers laugh behind you.
You lose your nerve. You need to go home. As you rush off, the Prius is back. It crawls by the curb, matching your pace, its tinted windows reflecting your distorted figure. You veer off the pavement and take refuge in a shop. Your mind races as you try to compose yourself. The shopkeeper asks if you’re OK then points to a selection of drinks in a mini-fridge by the till. They’re on special offer, he says. You buy a Sprite and step outside. The Prius is gone. Walking fast, you drink your Sprite — it’s flat, and there’s a lingering, chemical aftertaste, but you’re too thirsty to care so you gulp it all down.
Turning off the main street, you leave the crowds behind. You start to calm down, and you slump on a bench to catch your breath, when a green van adorned with a large ‘M’ and topped with a megaphone rolls up. It parks right in front of you and cuts its engine. The air fills with a heavy silence, and for a long, tense moment, nothing happens. Then a horn blares out of the megaphone and you jump to your feet. You sprint off, your heart beating out of your chest. You throw a glance over your shoulder — the van stays put. Behind the wheel is a man with a neat beard and thick-rimmed glasses.
Reaching your house, you scan the neighborhood. The Prius is nowhere to be seen. You retrieve some mail from the letterbox — two letters and a postcard. You open the letters: you can’t tell what they say or who they’re from because all the text has been redacted. The back of the postcard is blank and on the front is a picture of a gravestone on a beach, with the caption ‘Wish you were here.’
You step in, close the door and lean back against it. Your face is drained of color and you feel sick. With legs like jelly, you walk to the kitchen.
Something’s different about your partner. She’s sitting at her laptop, her posture unnervingly straight, her skin glowing, her hair shinier than usual. She shoots you a smile, but her eyes are vacant. She turns back to her screen, and you approach from behind, peeking over her shoulder. You see her profile photo: framed with a green halo. Your eyes widen and you back off in a panic as your partner’s head swivels 180 degrees and says “What’s wrong, honey?” You run upstairs, lock yourself in the bathroom and turn on the tap to splash water over your face but thick green sludge oozes out. You stare in horror into the mirror. Your skin is grey and scaly, like a lizard. A forked tongue darts out of your mouth. You retch. The room starts to spin. The walls close in as you fumble with the lock and stumble out into the corridor, which warps into an endless, spiraling tunnel. Swallowing terror and bile, you hug the walls and make it to bed and bury yourself under the covers, scrunching your eyes shut and pressing your hands over your ears to mute the deafening screams coming out of your gaping mouth.
You wake up. It’s morning. Your throat is sore — the screaming carried on through the night until you passed out from exhaustion. This has been going on for days, and you’ve had enough.
It’s time you found peace again, whatever the cost. You log in and pay your five bucks.
