The rain pelted against the windshield. I twiddled with the wiper’s speed, not able to settle between the low and medium settings; one was too slow, the other too fast. It bothered me. Lots of things bother me.

“Honey, relax,” said Marie.

Marie bothered me. Her voice hurt my head, piercing into my ears. One week of officially going out and already I was tired of it. It was always asking, suggesting, and telling. If I loved her, I’d do this. If I loved her, I’d do that.

I didn’t love her. I loved her body. It was the one part of her that didn’t bother me.

Marie was a model. I once joked that she was a very bad model, because you wouldn’t want anything covering her up. And truth-be-told, by the end of her usual photo shoots, nothing ever was. I didn’t mind; I got it every night and from what she told me, it brought in the dough.

Not that I saw any of it. Marie kept a tight hold on her cash, always making sure she never spent more then necessary. She always went for the cheapest; the cheapest ride, the cheapest food, and always the cheapest clothes.

Especially the clothes.

That’s why we were out. The magazine was holding a party and she just had to get something new, she just had to, and I just had to drive her, I just had to.

So far, her usual haunts had been a bust.

The radio hissed the latest headlines. It was a slow news day; the grave-robbing problem made the cut.

“God, that’s horrible” said Marie. She wasn’t use to it, having only moved here recently. “Why would somebody do something like that?”

“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “Maybe they want to sell the clothes to Salvation Army.”

She slapped my arm and sniffed disgustedly.

“Actually,” she said after awhile. “Actually, that isn’t a bad idea, honey.”

“What?” I asked. “Robbing graves for clothes?”

“No!” she said with another slap. “I meant let’s go to the Salvation Army. They sell clothes don’t they? And it’s CHEAP!”

It bothered me how she enjoyed the word.

“Babe, I’m only half-joking, y’know?” I said. “Most of the clothes at the Salvation army ARE from dead people. Their families dump them there when they die. Actual dead people’s clothes, you understand.”

“Oh, they didn’t die in them, silly” she said. “Besides, I’m sure they washed them before they gave them. C’mon. We just have to find one, we just HAVE to.”

So we looked for one.

The search took us to a darker side of town. Black, stone buildings lined narrow roads. The lights only showed how dark the night around them was. I was about to call it off when Marie found the store.

“I saw it,” she said. “I saw a sign. Something-ation army.”

I parked the car down the street around the corner. She was ahead of me when I caught the sign she had mentioned.

“Baby,” I said. “It reads Damnation Army. We want Salvation.”

“Salvation, Damnation, what’s the difference?” she said “It says Thrift store. And honestly, honey, I think I am way passed Salvation.”

She headed into the store with me following behind.

We shouldered past this old tank of a hag shambling in front of the doorway.

“Huhhn,” she moaned. I ignored her.

Now I had never been in a Salvation Army before that day. All I knew about them was what I had told Marie; they sold old, dead people’s clothes for cheap. I wondered what I would find.

The place bothered me.

It was dead. Everything about the place was about death. The lights were bright too bright, like a morgue’s, making everything tired and washed out. The merchandise filled the place with a musky scent of age and failure. Worst, the other shoppers in the store had the same smell of rot. They bothered me the most.

Pensioners, I thought. I couldn’t see their faces, but I figured I was right given the way they dressed and moved so slowly and stiffly. They limped up and down the racks, a hand searching through the product, the other holding what they already found. Now and then, one of them would make a low groan of victory, slowly pulling out a moth-eaten prize to add to their collection. They would then return to the hunt. And fill the air with that awful sound of hangers squeaking and clicking. Squeak, squeak, moan. Squeak, squeak, moan.

Creepy.

Marie dove right into it. She was easy to track; she was the only shopper with any color or speed to her. Her sound rhythm was more like squeak, squeak, SQUEAL, squeak, OH-MY-GAWD-THAT’S-HOT, squeak, squeak.
Her ass is so sweet and tight, and yet she still managed to have it push over an old geezer as she power-walked by. He straightened up with a groan and made like he was going to grab her, but she was long past his reach. The poor bastard’s arm waved uselessly before he returned to the squeak-moan routine.

At least I gave him an “I’m sorry” as I squeezed by.

“Baby, maybe you should …” I began.

“Here,” she said. She dropped a mountain on me and turned back to haul out more. She paused and sighed for a moment but something caught her eye.

“Shoes!” she said and ran off.

Why’d she have to look so good?

“Excuse me,” said a voice next to me. I looked down.

This guy stood next to me. He was thin, like he hadn’t eaten for days. Dark circles surrounded his tired, red eyes. I figured him for a store employee, as he wore a red vest over a simple white shirt and black slacks.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Excuse me,” he said again. “Your friend and you … you’re disturbing the others.” Ugly teeth and a thin mouth whispered this sharply.

I looked about. A number of the fogies were looking our way. None of them were close enough to get a good look at but I could feel a weak tension in the air. It was bothering me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ll try to calm her down.”

The employee shook his head in frustration.

“You don’t understand,” he said. His head nodded towards the shuffling geezers. “These clothes are theirs. They come back for it all the time. They cant let go. They need it.”

His eyes squinted and stared at my leather coat.

“Do you need it?”

He was ticking me off.

“Hey, I need it, I need it!” I said. “Now back-off, we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

I stomped off to Marie.

“Baby, hurry up, will you?” I asked. She sighed looking over a pair of pumps, but put them down.

“Yeah, let’s see what we’ve got.”

I spent an eternity outside the changing rooms. An eternity listening to her sighs and ooohs, mixing up with the squeaks and moans of the oldies’ hunt. I tried to stare a few of them down, but still couldn’t get a good look.

Suddenly I felt a tap on my back.

“Oh, honey,” said Marie. “I think I found something.”

“Good,” I grunted. “Let’s buy it and get out of here.”

“Well, why don’t you step in here, and see it first?” she whispered hotly.

Her voice bothered me, except when it had that tone. I turned, smiled, and walked through the curtains.

That body of hers pressed against the walls. It was fully clothed with what little she had on when she first came in. A leg began to brush along the inside of my thigh.

“Im wearing it,” her lips promised. “Find it, and win a prize.”

I leaned in and began my own hunt. She provided the squeaks and moans.

A big guy like me filled most of the changing room, so I felt it when some one started pulling open the curtains. I reached back to wave them off.

“Taken,” I shouted before filling my mouth again with her neck. The movement behind me stopped.

Then it started again.

“I said TAKEN,” I bellowed. The movement didn’t stop, and I felt a hand pawing my back. That tore it.

“Hey!” I roared and pushed out of the room, throwing my groper to the floor. She was a hag. A stubby, gray hag trying to push herself up with stubby, gray arms. A wet, muddy pool formed around where she lay, and that stench of rot was thick in the air. And SHE had just been touching me!

“What the hell do you think …”

“Sir,” the employee came running over. “Sir! Sir! I must ask you to leave!”

“But she came in …”

“You attacked another customer, sir. I’ll call the authorities!”

The hag groaned.

“Listen here I didn’t …” I said.

“Honey,” said Marie. “I think we should go.”

We got out of there and back under the rain. It must have been steaming off of me. I marched to the car in silence when Marie suddenly laughed. It bothered me.

“What’s so funny?!?” I yelled.

“Well, honey. You never found what I was wearing. And neither did the sales clerk before we left!”

She said it slowly, as her hands unbuttoned her blouse. Her chest sprung free, supported by her prize; a lacy, racy corset.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

I didn’t have time to answer her before hands grabbed her from behind. She screamed.

I charged forward and pulled her away, tossing her towards the car. I turned back to her attacker.

It was the hag from the store, howling and clawing towards Marie.

“You bitch,” I said. I threw her down. “Back off! I’m warning you!”

She got up again, slouched over on one side. I grabbed her.

“I said,” I began. And the lightening flashed. And I finally saw her face.

There was a reason she smelled of death. She was dead. Eyes milked of a soul. Face mud-sliding down the left. Skin frayed and punctured all about. Worms, maggots, and other critters were the only things alive on it.

I felt her hand grip me, and I looked at it. A few fingers were nothing but bone.

She easily shoved me aside. I banged straight into a wall and slid down, dazed

The hag hobbled towards the screaming Marie. The corpse-hag fell on top of Marie, pinning her in place. Those boned hands worked over the chest, pulling on the corset. It came away with a rip. I was sure Marie’s flesh was next.

But no.

With the corset in hand, the hag got up and began to shamble away. A quieter, sickly mewling came from her. She passed by me. I pulled myself up and turned to face her.

“No, honey, no,” Marie was crying. “No please, get us out of here. Please, don’t leave me.”

I went to her, and held her in the rain. But my eyes followed that thing striding into the night.

I thought of what I had seen out here, and what I seen in that store. And I thought of where the clothes came from and about the grave robbing. I thought about what the sales clerk said with his sharp teeth and tongue, and I thought about the sign over the store.

It bothered me.