The chest freezer on display is enormous, big enough for the two of you to lie down in, and your only chance to make it out alive. 

Minutes ago you walked into the big-box hardware store, holding hands, not because you’re elated to stop off on your way to a Memorial Day cookout to see if you can find an on-sale fridge with a working icemaker, but because the kids are in the van, happy to play on their tablets while you enjoy a tiny, thrilling bit of alone time.

You saunter past the light bulbs, the paint chips, unhurried for the first time in over a decade, almost recalling what it was like when you were young, when your bodies were taut, and the sentence I’m tired, maybe tomorrow never formed in your mind.

You slide open the freezer on a stainless steel number, its soft, suggestive lighting more appropriate for runway models than ground beef and waffles. You’re imagining the perfectly shaped ice cubes that will regularly tumble into the deep, wide plastic bin, when the noise starts.

Your brain seizes up. The sound is more straightforward than you expected, sharp, insistent, a simple statement of fact repeated over and over and over, no variation in cadence or tone. Gunfire. 

Your spouse materializes thank Christ and grabs your hand and pulls you toward the chest freezer. You heave your body over the side, thudding against the bottom, unaware of pain or even mass. Your spouse comes tumbling after. You are face to face, pelvis to pelvis, like sex, except this is the opposite of that. The door seals shut with a hiss.

It’s pitch-black and stuffy. Your heart is bashing, your breath shallow. Your under-oxygenated brain produces a pointless question: Who needs a chest freezer this big?

Your body is hot with fear, your mind cold with worry. Several hundred feet away, your children are glued to their screens, swiping and pressing. Your legs pulse with the urge to run for them, but your mind overrules, picturing your body sprawled and bleeding out next to the display of grills.

The shooting continues, like balloons popping, overlaid with screams and shouts, objects crashing. Random memories start surfacing. Last Thanksgiving at your house, your parents, in-laws, and siblings around the table, everybody stuffed and pleasantly dazed while the kids played in the den. Your eldest’s first birthday party, the solitary candle, another parent softly toasting you for keeping a human alive for a whole year. And then, from deep in the vault, that time way, way, way before kids, you spent the whole day in bed, so consumed with each other you forgot to eat. As the sun sank that night, you dragged yourselves to the fridge and stared in, naked and ravenous. 

That’s who needs this freezer: a hunter. A skilled, conscientious one who eats everything he kills, withdrawing one sealed plastic packet at a time from this cold cavern. 

Your spouse grabs your sweaty hand and squeezes hard. You remember the small creatures your children once were, sweet and dirty animals who gave sticky hugs, their adoring breath rancid in your face. You squeeze back, all your anguish in this twisting grasp.