“Can I help you find something, sir?” He looked like a good candidate for Employee of the Month.

“Yeah…” I said, operating on my eighth sense again, “fish food.”

As the clerk led me through hardware and housewares and electronics, I found myself gagging. And when I spotted a video display, I understood why.

Scowling on-screen was none other than the unfortunate fish head of Number 5.

And even more unfortunate, he saw me.

Number 5 scowled, and his image disappeared, leaving a prerecorded Rosie O’Donnell to talk about some titanium-plated sandwich maker. Maybe he’d spotted me from one of the overhead security cameras. Did that mean he was in the store someplace?

“Sir? Are you all right?” the clerk called back to me.

“Couldn’t be better,” I told him with a weak smile. “Are we there yet?”

“Almost,” he replied, as we passed an empty motor-oil section… and then his voice transformed into a hideously twisted gurgle, just like the infotainment announcer’s voice: “We’re going to Number 5.”

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Until I realized that smiley Mr. Employee-of-the-Month was heading toward a sign for aisle five-Pet Food. And he was soon surrounded by an enormous throng of pregnant women who stood slack mouthed, staring at some empty shelves where all the fish food had been.

I was just about to tell everyone to take their fish-food orders to a certain minivan in the parking lot, when World War III broke out in aisle four.

Chapter 7

GUIDED BY THE sound of explosions, falling shelves, and screams, I made a mad dash to the source of the chaos, leaping over people, dodging carts, somersaulting over cardboard display stands.