Noah was going to just scare the boys, rattle them a bit for fun. All the lights went off in the store first to make things easier.
He started with Max. His two fingers poked him in the back, making the boy jump and yell, scampering over the store floor.
"What the hell? Don't touch me," Max sneered.
Leeroy frowned; both he and Tyler were in front of Max. He stared into the impenetrable darkness of the store. Over at the frozen section, some of the fridges were still on thanks to auxiliary power, so they had some light.
He couldn't see anything there.
"No one touched you. What are you on about?"
Max realized that the silhouettes in front of him were his two friends. He turned back and looked into the now eerie dark, shivering.
"We need to get out now," he said, immediately walking to the door. Leeroy and Tyler rolled their eyes but followed behind.
They all stopped dead when the door slammed shut with a clicking sound. The sound of Max hyperventilating filled the silence between the three of them, the shifting darkness suddenly felt crowded and the three boys felt their hearts pounding.
"Who closed the door?" Leeroy asked quietly.
"We're all fucking here," Tyler hissed, pulling the door hands hard. "It's locked"
They couldn't see anything standing there. But they all just heard the door shut and the sound of it locking itself.
The cashier was still gone, and now the store was fully dark and quiet, with only the passing lights of cars on the street providing the occasional flash of light.
Tyler was staring between the aisles, fully sure something was standing right there in the darkness. His voice choked itself when a light flashed through the room and he saw a headless person standing right there.
He turned to tap Leeroy repeatedly, eyes locked on the thing standing there, then the light faded, and it was gone.
"What the hell, Tyler, stop that," Leeroy complained. He looked over at what Tyler was silently pointing to.
"There was something just standing there," Tyler said; his voice was weak and fearful. "A man without a head."
Max and Leeroy didn't believe him. More cars passed the store, casting light into the dark space, but nothing was there.
"I think we're all a bit antsy," Leeroy said, chuckling nervously. "Let's call, like, the cops or something. Say we got locked in the shop by the crazy clerk."
He took out his phone, fumbling with the power button a bit. When the light of the phone came up, it was blocked.
By a disembodied hand.
"Fuck!" Leeroy screamed, dropping his phone. It fell on its face, and the light strangely went off immediately.
"What are you doing?" Max snarled, turning on his phone's torch.
"There was a hand over my phone," Leeroy murmured. Gulping, he reached down for his phone but found that it had been fully crushed.
All of them stared at the phone for a second, then stepped back. They looked between each other, then the glass door.
They all moved at once without a single word, determined to break down the door and escape.
Before they got there, Max's phone was suddenly slapped from his hand, plunging them into darkness. Tyler backed up first until something grabbed his arm and squeezed hard enough to make him scream.
The other two boys only caught a glimpse of the disembodied hand clamped on his forearm before it disappeared.
They both backed away, but the hand caught them too, searing pain into their arms like a branding.
A voice, raspy and completely inhuman, sounded behind them, sending ice through their veins.
"If I see you carrying this mark and moving through the night tomorrow," it said, "I will kill you."
The doors were unlocked and flung open the instant its voice faded. The three boys ran out without a moment of hesitation.
The store was silent and empty for a moment. Then disembodied laughter filled the place.
Noah reappeared, laughing uncontrollably.
That was fun, but he'd better go before they called the cops. He picked up some snacks for himself and dropped the cash in the register.
"I didn't even need to tell them to run. Good instincts," he mumbled to himself.
Then he walked into the back of the store and flipped the breakers to turn on the lights. Once they flashed to life, he walked to the bathroom door, unlocking it and dropping the store keys on the clerk's lap.
Before he left, he took a moment to tap the man a little. He had been sleeping when Noah arrived. The night shift must be tiring.
Once he was outside the store, Noah released a breath of relief. That should stop those three from following him around at night. He still had a plan to get back every dollar they conned out of him, but that would start once he got onto the basketball team.
There was a lot of work to be done; dealing with Leeroy and his goons was just the start. He needed to start studying if he was going to keep up the alternate Noah's academic excellence.
"Good thing I don't have to sleep." With a smirk, he pulled up his hoodie and stepped out of the store.
He only took a few steps before that sense of wrongness hit him.
It wasn't his supernatural sense. This was his own sense of danger, honed from years of putting himself in danger and stalking even more dangerous people.
On the corner, something caught Noah's eye. It was a man in a full suit, smoking a cigarette. He was wearing sunglasses at night and had slicked-back brown hair.
The man looked like something out of a spy movie. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, puffing out a ring of smoke as he walked towards Noah.
"Thanks for not killing them, I guess," the man said once in range. "Good evening, I am Keeper Hadrian of the Enforcement Division. Since you seem rational for a Phantasm, I am obligated to engage you with words first, according to Article One of the Code of Conduct."
Noah remained silent; his heart was pounding. This was one of the people that regulated the supernatural world.
"But I could care less about that shit," Hadrian continued, putting out his cigarette and throwing it aside. "You're a pretty powerful Wraith, so forgive me, but I'm going to have some fun before I destroy you."