It was silence after that and Sally's bright face fell gradually every second as deadly aura emitted and surrounded her.

'I guess we can afford dinner?' Dennis asked with a nervous chuckle.

Her deadly aura never stopped growing and intensifying to something more than terrifying. Dennis stood from the bench and took a couple of steps away.

'Hey, Mark, how much do you have?'

Mark shrugged. 'I don't know, not a lot for sure.'

They tried assuring Sally that everything will be all right, yet her mood never waned. Then they resigned themselves to get something for her from the convenience store to calm her down till they go home.

'I feel really bad now,' said Dennis as they left her on the bench.

'You should, she's going to rub this on your face for months.'

touche...

Dennis frowned at the turned off lights when they got in front of the store. The lights could be seen from the outside, thanks to all the glass windows and glass doors, but it was black.

'That's weird,' said Mark and Dennis snapped over to him. 'Do you think they have a power outage?'

Dennis shrugged. 'Let's see,' he said and marched to the door. He held the door knob and was surprised when the door opened smoothly. 'They probably do,' he said.

He let the door open and took out his phone from his pocket. After switching on the torch, he did it again and got in.

'Excuse me,' he called out, 'are you op-'

Dennis's eyes widened, and he got a gut wrenching feeling when the torch light revealed to him the old couple running the store knocked down beside the counter with blood trickling from their foreheads. There was also broken glass on the floor and broken electric lights, which was why the store was dark.

Dennis first impulse was to go and see what happened inside. He took a step forward when he remembered Mark and hesitated. The last thing he wanted to do was do close the door, but he did that.

'What was inside?' Mark asked.

'Nothing much,' Dennis instinctively replied.

'Something wrong...?

Dennis nodded.

Mark's stomach performed a somersault. 'It's not something I can see?'

He nodded again.

Dennis turned around to face Mark and his eyes widened.

A man, with a mad, wild face approached them from behind Mark. His clothes were ragged and didn't look for a second like something a sane person would wear. Mark furrowed his brows when he noticed Dennis's tensed body.

'Mark, behind-'

Both were late.