The air inside the co-op clung heavy, damp with mildew and faintly metallic, like pennies left too long in a jar of rainwater. Their boots pressed grit into the linoleum, each step loud in the cavernous dark. Somewhere in the rafters, a bird fluttered, startled by intruders who still carried warmth in their blood.
Margo raised her fist. Everyone stopped. The silence came back like a tide. Gavin tilted his head and realized the quiet wasn't empty—something breathed in it. Slow. Patient. The kind of sound you hear when someone rehearses not breathing until you leave.
Riley thumbed the strap of the brick bag but didn't reach in yet. She whispered so soft her lips hardly moved: "Shelves."
Madison squinted into the gloom. The aisles stood upright like ribs, their metal uprights scarred by years of stock carts. But what unsettled him wasn't the emptiness—it was the fullness. Boxes still lined the shelves. Bags of seed, propane canisters, pallets of bottled water, tins of lamp oil. Not all gone. Not stripped bare.
"That's bait," Madison muttered.
"Or grace," Margo said. She touched a can with two fingers. It rocked, then stilled. "Question is who set the table."
They moved aisle by aisle. Gavin took point, cleaver low. Riley counted under her breath, lips shaping numbers as if tallying the distance between danger and exit. Madison kept rear guard, every few steps checking over his shoulder at the door that gaped wider than it should.
The shelves whispered. Not literally, but their spacing, their clutter, the way bags bulged and sagged—it made sound in his head, a susurrus of invitation. Take me. Open me. Stay long enough to believe in plenty again.
At the end of the second aisle, they found a hand-lettered sign pinned to a post: WE DON'T STOCK WORDS. DON'T ASK. Under it, in smaller script: SOUND KILLS.
Riley touched the paper with reverence. "They knew."
Margo's eyes stayed on the shadows beyond. "Some of them always know. Doesn't save them."
They reached the center of the store. A checkout counter slouched with its register gutted. Behind it, a whiteboard leaned against the wall, streaked with ghostly marker residue. Gavin wiped at the grime until faint words surfaced: REMEMBER THE RHYTHM. Next to it, crude notches marked in groups of four.
"Practice," Riley whispered.
Her voice seemed to land wrong. The shelves answered. Not with echo—echo was honest. This was mimicry. A plastic bag rustled two aisles over, in time with her whisper, as though it had learned the shape of air and wanted to try it on.
"Static," Margo hissed.
Riley slid a brick from the bag and turned the dial. Hiss poured out, soft, oceanic, swallowing the wrongness. The bag stilled. The shelves hushed.
But Madison's jaw tightened. He lifted his knife and pointed—low, steady. At the far end of the aisle, a shape stood.
It wasn't rushing. It wasn't swaying. It was still, head tilted, watching them over a stack of fertilizer bags. Pale skin caught the faint light leaking through the plywood. Its mouth opened slowly, teeth parting.
And then it tried.
"Please."
The word came out strangled, a syllable broken on gravel, but clear enough. It wasn't Margo's voice this time. It wasn't anyone's they knew. It was borrowed language, spoken back like a child trying a new toy.
Riley sucked in air. Margo caught her wrist hard. "No," she mouthed.
The thing tilted its head farther, as if waiting for applause. When none came, it lifted a hand and tapped its knuckles against the metal shelf—three times, rhythm precise. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The shelves answered back.
Not with sound from mouths, but with movement. Boxes shifted in their plastic. A can rolled two inches and stopped. Another fell, the clatter muffled in carpet of dust, but timed perfectly to the taps.
"They're rehearsing," Gavin breathed.
The shape took a step. Not a sprint. Not a lunge. A deliberate step, heel to toe, the way a man in church might approach an altar. Behind it, two more shadows straightened from crouches between aisles, heads cocking in unison.
Margo shoved the radio brick into Gavin's hands. "Leave it. We go."
"But the shelves—" Riley started.
"Shelves still talk," Margo snapped. "That means they're already listening."
They backed toward the exit. The brick hiss filled the aisles with false ocean. The shapes didn't follow. They only watched, then tapped again, and again the shelves obeyed.
At the threshold, Madison risked one last glance back. The nearest shape had reached the register. It bent at the waist, slow, mimicking. Its hand hovered over the empty till drawer, then pressed flat inside it, exactly where a cashier's hand would go. When it lifted its palm, dust clung in the shape of coins.
Madison turned and shoved the door open.
The outside air hit them cold and fierce. The chain still clicked against the gate, measuring seconds. Above, the sky had thinned toward gray. First true light was minutes away.
Margo pulled them to the fence, ducked through, and led them across the lot to the shelter of pines. "We don't stop here again," she said, voice raw.
"They had words," Riley whispered, as if naming it gave it permanence. "They had rhythm. They had—"
"They had us," Margo cut her off. "Every word we say is another lesson plan."
Gavin looked back once. Through the plywood-covered doors, faint as memory, came the sound of knuckles tapping metal: three beats, steady, patient.
The shelves had learned the chorus.