I dare you to drink it / see if it gets you fucked, he goes, pointing to the blood blushing the floor of Aisle 7. Some kids had accidentally knocked over a bottle of vodka crated in the half price display and got down on their knees the second after it split, slinging their swollen tongues along the floor. One had cut themself on some of the broken glass and the ambulance was on its way. Bet he did it justa get offa class. Wasn’t even blarin’. Nearby cars were busy crashing. Customers had been warned to keep to the other aisles, but the translucent red river ran all the way down to the tills, so’s the outside became a squelch of scarlet footsteps leading from door to car.

In line, you overhear her say, This kind of thing never happens around here and now two in one week? Her ponytail swings like a hammer to the head. Over one shoulder the shop assistant rearranges the Smirnoff Ice display, looks at you and mouths, Seriously? Where’s she been living? Batteries hang like sleeping bats in the rack above her head. Outside, things are as they seem. Blood collapses into mud, mistakes itself for something other than red.