BLACK FRIDAY: DOORBUSTERS
Where Family Traditions Meet Something Hungry
By Travis Brown
Candace and her mom, Cheryl, only had one sacred tradition.
Every Thanksgiving, after the plates were washed and the sweet potato pie had fallen into that perfect post-meal quiet, they curled up on the couch and watched Tyler Perry movies. It didn’t matter which ones—Madea, melodrama, all the heart and humor—they watched until they drifted into laughter-soaked naps and woke up again for leftovers.
Then, when the clock struck late, they got to work.
Because the Richardsons did not miss Black Friday.
Not for anything.
This year meant more than discounted TVs and air fryers.
Candace needed a laptop.
She was a senior at Roosevelt Park High School, buried under AP classes, college applications, and teachers who assumed she’d slow down like everyone else from her neighborhood. But Candace didn’t slack. She refused to. She wanted to finish at the top, the same way she started.
The laptop she wanted retailed at $900.
But Hewlett-Packard had a Black Friday special for $300.
When Cheryl saw the ad, she smacked the table.
“Shit, girl—I might have to get me one too.”
She meant it. She’d been saving to go back to night school after taking a semester off to care for her own mother. With Grandma improving, Cheryl felt like it was finally time—time to chase that real estate license she’d been scared to reach for.
“We’ll probably graduate at the same damn time,” she teased.
“Doubt it,” Candace said. “You’re way smarter than me.”
“Don’t ever sell yourself short. Especially not in this world.”
Candace knew exactly what that meant.
High school hadn’t been kind.
Girls she used to call friends had turned on her.
Smart wasn’t cool anymore.
Not wanting to chase boys wasn’t cool anymore.
Skipping the mall, the nails, the gossip—definitely not cool.
So she became an outsider.
But she didn’t mind.
She had bigger dreams.
So did her mom.
And maybe—just maybe—these laptops were the doorway out of St. Louis and into a better life.
They didn’t know that while they gazed at their future…
something outside was gazing at theirs.
Watching.
Waiting.
Choosing.
A tall, dark figure lingered beyond their window, peering into their warm, bright living room. The laughter. The hopes. The plans.
It studied them like prey.
Then slipped back into the darkness.
Candace headed upstairs to grab her bag before they left. Stacy—her best friend—was meeting her at Walmart. Stacy insisted they skip Circuit City unless absolutely necessary.
“They be hawkin’ folks at the door,” Stacy had said. “Everybody work on commission. Uh-uh.”
Candace agreed, mostly. But she still thought Circuit City had better odds.
As she turned off her bedroom light, a sound whispered from the window.
She peered out.
Nothing.
She shook it off, grabbed her bag, and didn’t see the shadow glide silently down the hallway behind her.
“Mom, I’m ready!” she called.
Cheryl already had her purse, her coupon folder, and her big leather coat.
“Let’s do this.”
They stepped outside and climbed into their pride and joy:
The 1996 Eddie Bauer Ford Bronco.
Dark hunter green, ragtop brown, still riding smooth thanks to Terrence—Candace’s late father—and Stefan’s Auto Repair.
The Bronco rumbled to life.
They didn’t notice they weren’t alone.
Candace flipped between stations—Christmas music everywhere.
“Dang, for real? Thanksgiving just ended like five minutes ago.”
“Girl, they been playin’ that mess since last week,” Cheryl said.
Two miles down the road, something thumped in the back.
“What was that?” Cheryl asked.
Candace shrugged. “Probably nothing.”
Cheryl pulled over. “Go check, girl.”
“I am not going back there.”
“Then I’ll throw your ass back there if you don’t move.”
Candace groaned but climbed out. She peeked through the windows.
Nothing.
She climbed onto the spare tire to get a better angle.
A crack snapped in the woods behind her.
She whipped around.
Nothing.
But while she looked away…
something pitch-black and shapeless rose silently from inside the Bronco, pressed a void-like hand across Cheryl’s face, and snapped her neck with effortless finality.
Her body slumped sideways.
Her eyes open.
Her mouth slack.
Her life gone.
“Mom?” Candace called, annoyed at first, then uncertain.
No answer.
“Mom!”
She ran to the front door, flung it open—
And screamed.
Cheryl lay there, head bent unnaturally, her warm breath gone.
Candace’s scream ripped through the cold night.
Then something slammed the door outward, smashing her to the ground.
A dark figure—tall, lanky, void-black—crawled from under the Bronco.
It moved wrong, like joints bending where they shouldn’t, like smoke trying to remember how to be solid.
It crept onto her legs.
Her waist.
Her chest.
Smothering her under its ink-black weight.
It opened like a shadow with teeth.
And poured over her.
10:25 PM
Stacy waited on her porch, stomping her feet in the cold.
“Where are they? We gone miss everything!”
Her mom called from inside. “Stacy? Come here.”
Stacy walked in and stopped. Her mother was on the floor, crying, holding the landline.
“Mom? What happened?”
Her mother’s voice trembled.
“Baby… I’m so sorry. Candace and her mama… they got into a car accident. They died instantly.”
“No…” Stacy whispered.
“You won’t be going to Black Friday this year.”
Outside, somewhere in the darkness, something unseen moved back toward Roosevelt Park.
Waiting for its next doorbuster.