The Doors Aren't Supposed to Open

there's three of us overnight, stocking, and the store's dead quiet except the cooler fans and the floor buffer somebody's always running two aisles over. the front doors lock at eleven. nobody in, nobody out, you need a key. but the doors still have that chime, the two-note thing, ding-dong, that goes off whenever they slide open.

around 2:40 it chimed.

i was in dairy. i heard it clear, that exact little tune, the one that means a door that can't open just opened. i waited for marcus to say something on the radio, like a joke, somebody forgot to lock up. nothing. i radioed him. he's in back receiving. dana's on registers. neither of them was near the front.

we all walked up together, which is the part i keep thinking about, how none of us wanted to go alone. the doors were shut. locked. the little lot outside empty under the lights.

marcus said it does that sometimes. a glitch. a bug in the sensor. he said it in a normal voice and we all agreed too fast and went back to our aisles.

i'm in dairy again now. and the thing i can't put down is that the chime only ever goes off one way. when the doors open. not when they close.