Murder Mystery in That Golden Summer

Another of my short stories has been accepted for publication.  It will be coming out in December in an anthology of very short Canadian short stories titled 'That Golden Summer' published by Polar Expressions Publishing.  My story is a 740 word murder mystery entitled 'Murder Mystery'.
The anthology is an annual compilation and I had a story published in last years edition.  I think it is a good venue for amateur writers like me; entering a story costs nothing, they offer cash prizes for the best entries, and publish about a third of the entries.
The only drawback is that the anthology is not widely distributed so stories don't get read by many people.  So, here for anyone who wants to read it, is the story I had published a year ago in 'The Sun Shall Rise'.

A Fateful Encounter

Alan Kemister

Amy waited in her wheelchair while the grossly overweight young man in front of her navigated the debit card reader.  The dishevelled-looking fellow needed a haircut and simultaneously disgusted and fascinated Amy.  She’d placed her items on the conveyer belt, and was searching for her Air Miles card when her grocery list slipped from her hand.  It settled at the fat man’s feet.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, pointing.  “Would you please retrieve that paper for me?”

He bent down, leaning heavily on the checkout counter to retrieve it.

He smiled as he passed it to her, and she realized he had an intelligent-looking face hiding behind the fat, and eyes that pierced right into her.  “Here you are,” he said.

Amy started daydreaming as Penny, the checkout clerk, and her overweight customer struggled with his transaction.  She imagined herself standing naked on the white sand beach at some tropical resort.  A tall, handsome, and equally naked stranger stood in front of her, holding her list saying ‘here you are,’ and smiling.  His voice and the features of his face were just like those of the man in the checkout queue, but there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him.  The list morphed into a cocktail glass, and he announced, “To us,” as they clinked their glasses together.

“Do you have your Air Miles card?” Penny asked, bringing Amy back to reality just in time to see the real-life version of her stranger on the beach pick up his four plastic bags of groceries, nod in her direction, smiling once again, and walk away.  Her few groceries had been checked through while she daydreamed and she only had to pay before Penny loaded them into the basket at the back of her chair.  She hurried, trying to catch up to the man, but the store was crowded and she couldn’t make haste.

Outside, she wheeled across the parking lot and onto the upward sloping sidewalk only to see him heading across the next intersection onto a much steeper section of road.  She stopped to catch her breath and watched him disappear.  He walked quickly with a jaunty sort of bouncing gait; the heat of the mid-summer day, and the bags of groceries, not slowing him at all.  He was obviously much fitter than he looked, and Amy proceeded home wondering about her enigmatic stranger.

That night, Amy dreamt about him.  Once again, she chased him up the street, but this time he was naked, and his jaunty gait caused all the fat to bounce and jiggle as he walked.  She called out, and he turned back toward her.  He now looked emasculated with his longish hair, breast-like protuberances from the fat on his chest, and genitals hidden behind the rolls of fat sagging from his stomach.  As he approached her, the grocery bags transformed into coils of rope.  She was terrified and unable to turn her wheelchair as he came up to her, his eyes like laser beams burning holes in her skull.

She woke in a panic and collapsed on the pillow gasping for air.

When her heart stopped pounding, she was hot and sweating.  It was a few minutes after six and the sun had just risen above the horizon.  Seven hours earlier, it was even hotter and she’d gone to bed wearing only an oversized T-shirt.  She’d stripped all the covers off the bed and left the windows wide open.  When she woke from the dream, the temperature had only dropped a few degrees and she no longer wore the T-shirt.  It was across the room, neatly folded over the arm of a chair.

Her reaction to the stranger generated many questions.  Why did she dream about that hippopotamus of a man?  Why was one or other of them always naked?  What did he intend to do with the rope?  And how did her T-shirt become folded over the arm of a chair ten feet from her bed?

Someone had sent a message and it didn’t take her long to decipher it.  It was time to shake off the lethargy caused by the freak infection that had taken her ability to walk, and stolen her interest in almost anything.  The man on the beach represented the challenge and the potential reward; and the one with the rope…the consequences of failure.  But what did the T-shirt signify?