The Store is a horror novel written by Bentley Little, and was originally published on January 1st, 1996.
The small town of Juniper, Arizona is suddenly set to become the latest link in a chain of retail stores simply referred to as ‘The Store’ which results in some disgruntlement among the locals, particularly one Bill Davis, who is openly opposed to the development, not least of all because it ruins the view of his morning jog. Of course, this becomes the least of anyones worries as construction begins, and people begin to notice some discrepancies, such as how the construction site more resembles a hole in the ground, or the piles of dead animals (and one human) that seemed to have converged on this one specific spot. Nevertheless, construction finishes, and The Store ends up being a big hit with the town for the simple fact that it seems to sell everything.
Everything.
It gradually becomes more and more apparent that something is deeply wrong with The Store and it’s employees, and the residents of Juniper find themselves in the position of wondering just how much they’re willing to take before they break down.
Or fight back.
The Store contains examples of:
- Ambiguously Human: Several examples, all relating back to The Store, but especially Newman King.
- The Night Managers are a special case as it’s made clear to both the characters and the reader that these things, with their pale skin and complete lack of humanity, used to be people it is not clear what they are now, just that you don’t want them to get their hands on you.
- Asshole Victim: Mr. Lamb spends the whole story being a smug sexual predator, so no tears should be shed when he drops dead after being fired.
- Newman King is the lynchpin for everything that goes wrong in the story, even going so far as to trick Bill into sleeping with his own daughter on tape. You will cheer when The Night Managers turn on him.
- Atrocity Montage: The whole book can be considered one of these, as many times the actual story is ground to a halt to demonstrate just one new horror The Store is bringing upon the town, from selling illegal products to literally stealing babies out of their mothers arms because of some new “policy.”
- Bad Boss: Mr. Lamb is a rude, unprofessional pervert who viciously insults his employees for infractions, is all but outright states to be sexually abusing Sam, and converts Jake Landley into a Night Manager for shoplifting.
- Big Bad: While he appears about once in the story until near the climax., Newman King is obviously the head honcho behind all the horrible shit The Store is getting up to.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Mr. Lamb is far more involved with the actual day to day operations of Junipers Store branch than King and seems to enjoy toying with people like he’s the one on charge despite not actually being the manager. He even has Sam murder the original manager of The Store so she can take over, which would likely just mean he has even more control. However, the moment King steps into the picture, he and his cronies are completely cow towed by his presence, and Bill ends up killing them by accident when he fires them.
- Big Good: Bill Davis grows into this as the story progresses, being one of the only people in Juniper willing to actually stand up to The Store, ineffectual it may seem. He manages to take down the whole company from the inside.
- Bittersweet Ending: At the end of it all, Juniper and the whole world are free from The Store and Newman King, seemingly for good at that. However, It is not made clear if Sam remembers sleeping with Bill, something which troubles him as they await her return, and Bill had to put down his friend Ben along with the rest of The Night Managers. Of course, even with that said, a place called The Market has just opened for business…
- Book Ends: The story begins and ends with an elderly couple coming across a store in the middle of nowhere.
- Boring, but Practical: The way Bill is ultimately able to take down The Store isn’t through some explosive feat of violence or an undercover expose like Ben tried, but by contacting the other store managers and coordinating them to undermine Kings policies.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Sam and Shannon Davis have shades of this, and only get worse under The Stores influence. Shannon less so, thanks to Sam in fact, who is shielding her from the worst of managements influence.
- Company Town: The fate of any place The Store inhabits, demonstrated to chilling effect when the Davis’ go on vacation and end up in one.
- Control Freak: As already mentioned, Newman King chafes under any notion of human decency, and he is also shown to lose his temper when employees don’t follow his orders fast enough for his liking. As far as he’s concerned, you’re going to do things his way or he’s going to destroy you.
- The Corrupter: The Store itself seems to be this to those who work there. Employees develop cultish doctrine, become blunt, rude, and perverted, and even make a sport out of hunting down and rounding up the local homeless population. Concerningly, it is not made clear if it’s actually The Store itself doing this, or just the work environment encouraging people to indulge themselves.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Newman King promotes a work environment of utter depravity and downright vile behaviour among his employees, and gets outright angry at the notion of basic human decency.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The Night Managers are all equipped with knives, and are rather partial to stabbing people all at once. Sucks to suck Newman.
- Darkest Hour: When Bill gets back from Dallas, his plan to lessen The Stores hold on Juniper takes a drastic turn for the worst when King shows up to blackmail him with the revelation that he tricked Bill into having sex with his own daughter, and will mail a tape of it to his wife if he doesn’t tow the company line. This leaves Bill a wreck until he musters up the courage to tell his wife a half truth about what happened.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Mr. Lamb is the most active and prominent antagonist in the book for the first half, stonewalling Bills efforts and leading the takeover of the town despite ostensibly being a middle manager. Then Newman King shows up with a newly hired manager in Bill and the conflict shifts drastically after that.
- Ephebophile: Mr. Lamb is pretty obviously grooming Sam throughout the book, and not just for management.
- Establishing Character Moment: Bill Davis is the first character we meet outside of the couple in the cold open, and the first thing we see him do is become agitated over the idea of a nice looking patch of land being bulldozed for The Store, after which he attends a town council meeting to voice his complaints, showing the reader a trait that is going to carry on for the rest of the book.
- Mr. Lamb gets a really gross one when he shows a prospective employee (a teenager by the way) the security room, and then places special emphasis on the fact that some of the cameras are in the womens change room as a selling point.
- Faux Affably Evil: Newman King seems to have a good enough public image that people don’t question much of what he does, but all it really takes is a passing glance at him to realize his true nature. It’s never made clear how he’s able to get away with so much, so it’s either supernatural in nature, or his PR team is just that good.
- Subverted with Mr.Lamb and his cohorts in Juniper, as while they (barely) act civil with the townsfolk, the only people who actually trust them at all are the people they’ve already brainwashed, and even then it doesn’t take much for that trust to wain.
- Fetish: Disturbingly, the uniforms for Store employees are made of pure leather, though it isn’t clear if this is the managers doing or Mr.Lambs, considering the implied power imbalance between them. Even grosser, King actually tries to make this a selling point while recruiting Bill.
- At one point, a Store employee convinces a customer to buy two pairs of sandals by sucking her toes.
- Foreshadowing: In the middle of the book, while Bill and his wife are arguing with Sam about her outfit, the narration goes into a weird amount of detail about how Bill is uncomfortable with his daughters blooming sexuality. Bill is later tricked into having sex with Sam in Dallas.
- Here We Go Again!!: At the end of everything The Store is reduced to rubble both financially and literally, but, up in Alaska, an elderly couple come across a place called The Market, which sends them running for the hills.
- Humanoid Abomination: The Night Managers, in spite of their former status, are impossibly pale, completely silent, and move with a robotic precision that makes it abundantly clear that these are not natural creatures
- Newman King is described as having waxy skin and red eyes, and we later learn that he has telekinetic powers and his life force is directly tied to The Store as business. All of these reasons make it abundantly clear that he is only human shaped.
- Jerkass: What The Store turns people into, and seemingly the only kind of person they employ. The overall behaviour escalates as the story goes, which may take it past this into more straightforward villainy.
- Karmic Death: Newman King spends all of his scene time being a spiteful, controlling jackass to everyone around him, so it’s only fitting that he ends up getting killed when The Night Managers, which have no autonomy of their own, reject him as their master in favour of Bill.
- Nothing Is Scarier: As is traditional with Littles works, the reader will be left without answers to many of the questions they have, such as:
- Why was there a body in the construction site?
- How is The Store allowed to stock all of the illegal products it has?
- Where did The Store even come from?
- How much influence does The Store actually exert over people?
- What is Newman King?
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The Store, seemingly universally, sells products that both tip the line of decency (like dildos and a video game called “N*ggerkiller”, which is not censored) and are just outright illegal (like fireworks banned by the state of Arizona and Child Porn! ) Then, of course, we have their stance on homeless people…
- Mr. Lamb and Newman King seem to have pretty disgusting attitudes towards women, if Lambs treatment of Sam and Kings intent of putting a brothel in Juniper are anything to go by.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Surprisingly for a character so focused on human suffering, Newman King can be considered an example when he invites Bill to Dallas to both offer him a job as manager under the pretence of making friends out of enemies (something that King implies is standard practice.) and to trick him into molesting his own daughter Sam, just so he could have blackmail material (which is also probably standard practice).
- Slime Ball: Seems to be a prerequisite for anything above grunt work, as all of the middle managers we see project an air of smug, false friendliness, with Mr.Lamb being the worst of them if for no other reason than the clear sexual bent he has to many of his scenes.
