The Graveyard Shift

[Kazama]

A mature, gruff, but warm voice resonated from the radio,
"Good evening folks, it's Cliff Donovan once again and this is ASFM, Agave Springs' local, and if you ask little 'ol me, best source of news and music. It is 9:30 pm and it's looking like another clear night. A night that I hope you and I can spend together. Now to start us off for the evening is Gene Stevens with Them Big 'Ol Blues."

As a melodramatic tune came on, the van bounced as they hit a bump in the road. The beads that separated the front driver's and passenger seat area from the rest of the van shook and rattled. The van's floor was covered by a carpet, one of those fakes that were supposed to look Native American. The designs and earthy colors did a good job of hiding the desert dust. The back of the van had most of its seats removed. A few locked cupboards with their owner's clothes and valuables, and two seats faced each other along the walls, the only survivors of Stan's attempt to remove the upholstery to make space. They were comfortable enough, but lacked seat-belts.

Stan Kunitzski pushed his glasses up his pale nose as he drove. His long hair framing his thin face and his beard growing big enough to threaten to cover his mouth. He dressed the same way his van looked. Remnants of 70's hippie culture, thrift store sneakers, and an anti-war tie-dye t-shirt. He was around 27, and had owned this van for almost half his life. He had a tall, lanky build that worked well enough with the look he built for himself. The leather bracelet on his wrist was cracked with age, but seemed at home inside a van like this. On the dashboard, a tiny cactus in a pot soaked up moonlight.

In the back, a faint "Oomph" came when the van bounced and Sarah Duong, a young college student, held onto the sides of the seats to try and keep from falling off as the van rolled. She wore a blue tank top that exposed her tan arms and while her sneakers were also quite worn, they were warn from overuse rather than age. Her short hair was bobbed around her head as she gripped the seat and the small table that was bolted to the ground in front of her. At around 19 years old, she had an athletic build with legs built for running. She wore a satchel with a few books in it.

All three coworkers carpooled to work. It was simply easier, considering the gas station was almost half an hour from town. The stars were bright out here, dotting the sky with lights and shining a little bit of light on the dark desert landscape. A car passed them, Greg Davidson's car. Most likely carrying the members of the day shift. Is headlights illuminated the inside of the van for a second before it passed them. They'd closed up early again today. They were supposed to wait for the night shift to arrive, but as Greg had put it so many times, "That place gets waaay too creepy to stand around waiting at night."

It wasn't long before the station became visible. They'd left the lights on at least. There were no cars, just a bright TyCo sign lighting up their little patch of road and desert. The lights inside were on too. Stan parked beside the small building and turned off the van. Sarah was the first to hop off, her sneakers crunching the sand and rocks the wind had blown onto the concrete floor.

Stan turned to Roxanne and handed her the keys, "Do me a favor and open up. I'm gonna get some stuff from the van."

Sarah waited by the entrance to the gas station convenience store with her hands in her pockets. The gas station had a simple layout. Four pumps, a convenience store with a storage room, a bathroom, and a shed in the back with a few tools and a generator. The bathroom, to everyone's chagrin, was inaccessible from inside the gas station. It was physically attached, but its only door was outside, on the side of the convenience store. The lone light fixture on it held a light bulb, but had stopped working about two months ago. Opening the bathroom to either use it or clean usually entailed about two minutes of fumbling in the dark and with a crappy door lock.

The shed out back was a rickety wooden structure. They used it to store some of the more heavy duty tools, but the day shift had a bad habit of putting the brooms and mops in there, making night shifters have to walk out about 50 feet into the night time desert to get them. There was a single bare light bulb that lit up the inside and a light fixture that lit up the outside. The generator inside always chugged along, providing power to the convenience store and pump lights. Apparently, the station had power problems so the company had just decided to install a generator and be done with the problem instead of addressing it properly.

The station itself was about as big as one could expect, with four little lanes of aisles, a warm drink station, hot dog and nacho machine, and a refrigerator aisle at the back. The storage room held crates and boxes of products, mostly the things required to stock shelves, if such a need ever came up. But people almost never came in at this hour and the day shift workers usually stocked before leaving, meaning the crates and boxes just took up space. There was an old folding table and two plastic folding chairs back there, however. There was also a desk and chair that was supposed to be the manager's office. Paperwork was taped to the walls around it, with a few folders tossed about on it.

Sarah seemed to be staring at something out in the desert as she waited for the door to be opened. She rubbed her hands against her arms. While it was warm around here, the night still got a bit chilly.


@PoetLore

 

[PoetLore]

Roxanne had been doing much the same as Sarah during their ride to work. It was a pretty bumpy ride in any vehicle, but particularly so in Stan's. Smiling over at Sarah she gave her hand a pat and then went back to holding herself on the seat. She really did believe that it would be a far more comfortable ride if there were no seats at all and they both sat on the floor of the van, but a ride was a ride and she wasn't one to complain.

She frowned at the other car and sighed. Geez, they were irresponsible. She wasn't the biggest fan of day shift's work ethics, since they tended to make things harder on them and often times left extra work for them as well. Why couldn't they wait those extra ten or fifteen minutes? Just didn't make sense to her at all, but then she had old school parents who had instilled in her the old ways of taking pride in everything you did, and making sure you did more than was expected at all times. Unfortunately that created a major gap between her and most other people in her type of job as far as the amount of work she did, and how long it took her to accomplish it. Classic over-achiever...except in one thing, but she didn't think about that so much, or more appropriately she tried not to do so.

The van pulled into the station and she was about to get out when Stan handed her the keys, "Sure thing," she said as she slid over to the door. She had on blue sneakers, fitted skinny jeans and a yellow tank top. She also wore a necklace with a dolphin pendant, and a loose bracelet which was actually a watch. She approached the door and followed Sarah''s eyes to where she was looking out into the desert. "See something?" she asked and then jiggled the key until it slid into the lock. The thing was so old it never went right in. She pulled the door open and held it for Sarah while she jiggled again to get the key back out of the lock. Glancing over toward the van she called out, "Hey Stan? The key's stuck again...." she kept trying to jiggle it but it was just NOT cooperating.

@Sir Pinkleton

 

[Kazama]

Sarah narrowed her eyes but once Roxanne's question seemed to pull her back into the present. She looked at Roxanne, then back out into the desert, "Thought I saw lights, like a car or something." She shrugged, "It's gone now. Probably just, I dunno. Campers." She thanked Roxanne, walking in and placing her satchel on the counter. Sarah's parents were pretty well known in the community. An old Vietnamese couple that ran a small antique shop which made just enough to get by. Sarah was their only daughter and the first in her family to go to college. She still lived with her parents and commuted to class, but she always seemed to be tired of living among dusty old things. It came as no surprise to some when she decided to get a job outside her parent's store.

Stan came over and looked at the keys. He was holding a trio of folded up aprons in his arm. "You just gotta..." he trailed off in order to put the aprons under one arm and take the keys with both hands, "shake it around... a little." He shook it around, a bit violently, actually. The door shook around and the keys finally came loose and slid out of the lock, "There. Outta get that lock fixed at some point. Oh, by the way. Here's yours." He handed Roxanne her freshly dry-cleaned apron. It was his turn to get the aprons cleaned this month. He walked inside, "Sarah, here's yours."

Dark green aprons with the TyCo logo over the right breast pocket. They were required while manning the hot food grill, which was almost never needed at this hour, but they still somehow needed to be cleaned now and then. They also served as the gas station uniform, and so everyone tended to wear them when manning the register. Stan tended to keep his one, but Sarah always seemed to look for excuses to take hers off.

Stan took a look around the store while donning his apron, "Uhh, looks like shelves are all good. That grill's gonna be kinda gross though." Without saying anything else, he walked into the storage room and called out, "And somebody needs to check and see if we gotta clean the bathroom." He left to pretend to check the paperwork, but the truth was, he didn't want to be the one to sentence anyone with the fate of cleaning the hot dog grill. They'd have to figure that out themselves.

Sarah pushed her bag behind the counter and looked at Roxanne with a look that seemed to half want to save her from such a trial, and half want to give it to her to save herself. "Same way as always?" She held up a fist. Rock, Paper, Scissors. A true game of fate.

 

[PoetLore]

Roxanne looked out into the dessert but she didn't see anything, "Yeah probably just a camper..." she said but not too convincingly. Why would someone be camping out in the middle of the desert? She smiled, "You're welcome," as Sarah slipped inside. She held her foot against the door as Stan tugged and jiggled and about pulled the lock off the door, but did eventually have the key. "Maybe we should just stop locking it.." she offered, "get day shift to actually stay like they are supposed to." She smiled and took her apron, "Thanks Stan," she said and stepped inside. She put the apron over her head and tied it at her back and smirked a bit at Sarah but held up her fist.

"Rock paper scissors...shoot." she said and her hand was flat like a piece of paper and she looked at Sarah to see what she'd chosen. Somehow she more often than not cleaned that stupid grill. She wasn't sure how Sarah did it but sure enough there were the scissors. "How do you do that?' she asked and sighed, "Ok...I got the grill you check the bathroom."

She went over and made a face, "I don't think anyone on days watches this thing at all. it's not rocket science for Pete's sake." she unplugged it and went to get the scraper and the degreaser from the storage closet. One things about getting stuck with this job every night...she had it down to a science and had even taken to timing herself to see if she could set a personal best time. She slipped her hand into the glove she'd bought and left here. it was like a hotpad only it didn't slip off your hand. She took the grill apart and soaked the rollers in the degreaser. She then used the wire brush to clean the connectors carefully and wiped the glass cover with Windex and a paper towel. She used the Windex and more paper towels to clean the outside of the grill so it shined perfectly. She used the greenie pad to scrub the grease off the rollers and then dried each one carefully with more paper towels. She gently placed each one back into the grill and smiled at it's shiny cleanness. She looked at her watch, "Hmm...no new record but not bad."

She moved to the cappuccino maker and started taking that apart too. She looked out the window casually as she reached up to unscrew the top plate and frowned. She saw something red out there too. Hmm...

 

[Kazama]

The highway next to the station was little more than cracked, black tarmac with one lane for each direction and no form of barrier or fence whatsoever. If Roxanne wanted to walk into the desert, she'd simply have to step outside, walk past the pumps, across the road, and into the dark. The stars were bright out here, but the light from the convenience store darkened everything outside a small radius of the station. And then there was that little red light.

It burned somewhere on the other side of the road. It was either very far away, or very small, but it stood out against the blackness of the desert and the night sky. It glowed a reddish orange, then burned brighter and then dimmer with a rhythmic fashion, like someone puffing on a cigarette. Over and over. It was oddly mesmerizing, but in a way that felt feverish and almost encompassing upon the viewer. It was like a migraine, ebbing and burning, but focusing on the light felt necessary, as if looking away would conjure up a greater pain. The light glowed a little brighter... and brighter, and for a moment it became apparent that the light was just on the other side of the road, and it did so because it lit up part of a face with enough lines to look like it was wooden and the neck that attached it to a broad bare chest. Just enough to see someone holding a-

CLICK

"-is year's Summer Spirit Festival looks like it's going to be as lively as always. And now for some callers. Let's go to Norm Greene on line one; Norm, how are you plannin' on spendin' this year's festival?"

Stan had walked into the room while she had been staring off without her noticing. He removed his hand from the radio dial and glanced at her,

"Was kinda quiet in here. Y'know this place does get kinda spooky when it's quiet. Hey, you okay? You look kinda spaced out."

Sarah came in, dragging the yellow mopping cart she'd been using to clean the bathroom. She had to pull and lift it a bit to compensate for the fact that the store floor was a few inches from the station's concrete. She got the cart over the step and rolled it inside,

"Someone needs to fix that light out there, it's pitch black without it."

Behind her, the light in the darkness was gone. Replaced by empty desert and dry night air. Sarah pulled off a pair of rubber gloves as Cliff Donovan's voice continued to float out of the radio.

"-hanks Norm. You have yourself a great night. Alright night owls, let's go to Harriet O'Malley, callin' on line two. How are ya, Harriet?"

 

[PoetLore]

Roxanne watched at the tiny light grew a bit brighter and a tiny bit bigger and bigger until she saw a face, at least she THOUGHT it was a face but it looked wrong somehow. But in the odd light it was hard to be sure what she was looking at, and she had even resorted to squinting to get a better look. And then she was startled out of her deliberate focusing and let out the breath she hadn't even been aware she was holding.

"OH Stan," she said with a gasp, "You startled me..." She said looking back out the window, "Did you see that?' she asked as she squinted again but now saw nothing. Maybe whoever it was put out their cigarette? "There was a man...I think...standing right there...just on the other side of the road..." She turned back to Stan and raised her brows, "Did you see him? He was almost in the light..I thought I saw a face..."

She frowned at how quickly the man had disappeared. All he'd really have to do was put out the cigarette and step away from the light of the station and he would effectively vanish without needing to move very far, but still....The hair on the back of her neck was tingling like when she saw a spider across the room. Something was off about what she'd seen but she wasn't sure what it was. She huffed though, "I guess I was seeing things," she finally said. "Paperwork all done back there Stan?" she asked cheekily, knowing full well he did NOT do paperwork. Ever.

 

[Kazama]

Stan craned his neck to see around her and Sarah turned around to try and find this mystery visitor as well. Stan scratched his beard and Sarah gave up the search to focus on pushing the mop and its cart back into the store room. Its misaligned wheels rattled along the way.

"I didn't see any people or lights on my way in." Sarah mentioned as she passed by. After she entered the store room, she called out, "I mean, I think I saw some campers or something in the distance earlier. Probably just them."
"Or a hitchhiker?" Stan suggested with a shrug, "Oh, and yeah. Paperwork's totally done. Actually," he snapped his fingers, realizing he had to actually go check something within said paperwork that might be important. He hadn't even gone near the paperwork desk during his foray into the store room, "Be right back."

On the radio, Cliff Donovan's mellow voice had finished taking calls for now and gave way to yet another track of slow, swooning country music.

Sarah came out of the store room right after Stan went in. She pulled up the chair just behind the counter, crossing her legs when she sat, "Ugh. I've got to finish reading through this brick," she slapped her hand down on her book bag and a heavy volume responded with a dull thump, "in less than a week. I swear, it's like they think we're superhuman." She glared down at her book bag with disdain as she spoke, as if it it held something incredibly grotesque and possibly even dangerous. She looked over to Roxanne, "Sorry, I forget; did you go college?"

 

[PoetLore]

Roxanne kept looking out at the place just across the street where she'd seen the 'man' willing the person to reappear but ...nothing. She huffed when Stan said he had more paperwork to do , and watched as he disappeared into the back again. She had a small sink in the food area that customers used to rise cups, since they sold refillable mugs that saved the customer fifty cents per refill. She had it full of soapy water was was dropping part after part into the hot water as she disassembled the machine. What didn't come apart was cleaned with bleach wipes and then rinsed. It was a tedious job but not difficult.

Sarah began complaining about her book and she looked her direction, "What are you reading/" she asked curiously. Sarah asked her question and Roxanne just shook her head, "No...I got married right out of high school," she said and then turned her attention back to the machine before her. That hadn't been one of her wiser choices, but she didn't dwell on it too much. She'd go to school someday, and was looking into a few online school trying to find a good fit. "What's your major again?" she asked. Sarah didn't really strike her as someone who'd actually want to go to college, so it had surprised her to find out she was. However, Sarah's complaining about the classes and work didn't really surprise her.

She finished the machine cleaning and turned her attention to the individual parts scrubbing all the caked on mix from them. If people knew how disgusting these machines got in one day, they would never buy this stuff. She let the water out and rinsed each piece carefully and completely before setting them on a rack to dry.

She moved to the coffeemaker next and started the same process, "Anyone need coffee before I take old Betsy down?" she called out.

 

[Kazama]

Stan's voice called from the storeroom, "One for me, please." Sarah slid off the chair, "Yeah, me too." She adjusted her apron and answered, "I'm a medical student." Her tone of voice implied that hadn't been her first choice, but it had been the one she could find the most contentment in. She was about to say more when Stan walked back into the room. The envelopes in his hands were proof that he'd actually done paperwork this time. Or at least a little bit of it.

"Alright dudes," Stan was exactly the kind of person to refer to his coworkers as 'dude', "it's payday. Let's see here... One for Sarah," he handed an envelope to Sarah who placed it inside her book-bag without looking at it. She was a chronic complainer, but she was bright. Chances were, she already knew how much she was getting this month by putting her hours together in her head, "And one for Roxy." He held out Roxy's envelope with a small smile, "Spend it wisely."

The first customers of the day came in and the bells tied above the doors chimed them in. A young man and woman sand colored hiking shorts and backpacks. The young man's face was spattered with freckles as orange as his hair and his eyes looked a little bigger than they really were behind his glasses. His friend, or maybe girlfriend, looked a lot plainer. Blonde hair tied behind her head and a tight jaw. The kind that people who stress out over little details tend to have. She wore a pair of binoculars around her neck. No car had pulled; they'd apparently walked here.

Sarah greeted them in and there was a bit of an awkward as they roamed around. A jar of nuts and some beef jerky. While Sarah rang them up, the young man said, "We can see you guys from our camp, you know. Ya'll are the only light on the horizon, save for the stars."

Stan asked, "You guys are camping out here?"
"Yeah! About half up mile west of here, down the road. We're doing some geological studies out there. Gonna be a few days, maybe. Gotta admit, it's real nice to have a little light on the horizon." He gave a well meaning chuckle. The woman simply looked impatient.

While a camp would have been a nice explanation to the light seen earlier, the direction he mentioned was nowhere near where it had come from. The highway ran east to west, with the latter direction leading out into the desert. But the stretch of desert on the other side of the road which was even now visible through the glass doors as a rolling black expanse, was all to the south. But perhaps he knew more.

 

[PoetLore]

Roxanne was surprised and it probably showed, since she wasn't very good at hiding her feelings. "Medical student," she repeated, "What are going to specialize in?" she asked, though she did note that it didn't seem to exactly sit well with Sarah.

Stan came out with paychecks and she folded hers up and slid it into her back pocket. She knew how much it was, because it was the same every single week. Just enough to keep her head above water, with three dollars to spare. Her savings account was a bout to hear the jingle of a few more pennies, woohoo. Still, she was glad for a job, and a paycheck. She knew plenty of people with neither so she was grateful.

She poured two large cups of coffee and set them on the counter, "Two large coffees ready and up." she said in her normal sing-song sort of voice that she knew drove most people crazy, but which she could not seem to control. She was a happy kind of person, so it came out in unusual ways. She nodded to the customers and smiled a greeting as well, but continued cleaning the coffee maker. First shift was SUPPOSED to wife all the machines down about halfway through their shift, but as usual that had not happened. She listened to the hikers talk about a geological study and wondered why anyone would want to study the ground out here in the desert.

"What kind of geological Study are you doing?" she asked curiously, "They aren't going to put more oil drills out here are they?"

She gave a second of thought that this could ahve been who and what she saw, but they were from the other direction and neither of them smelled of cigarettes. She was sure she'd seen a cigarette lighting those odd features. But then, who would believe her if she said she saw a man smoking a cigarette who looked like a walking piece of wood? No one, that's who. She had to give these two kudos though for camping in the desert alone. Little bit too spooky for her, but then, she was always working at night, so camping out for her would be a totally different experience.

She finished cleaning the coffee maker, and smiled at the two, "Fresh coffee will be ready in less than a minute if you'd like some." She pushed the brew button and then started tearing apart the nacho machine, her least favorite and definitely the grossest job of them all which was why she always did it last. She pulled the can of cheese out of the base with pot holders to protect her hands, and set it on the counter. She dumped the water out into the sink and then scrubbed the inside free of any cheese and paper from the outside of the can. She took apart the spout and put the pieces into the sink. She looked at the cheese in the can and sighed. It was over half gone, but she was not allowed to throw any cheese away. Sometimes that sat in there for days, and seriously grossed her out. This can was officially four days old, because she was the only one who ever replaced anything. She dried out the base and filled it to the line with clean water and then dropped the can back in and plugged the base in. She went tot he sink and filled up a small plastic container with hot water. She put the base of the pump into the water and than pumped on the handle until all the cheese was forced through and only clear water flowed through the pump. She filled the sink then with hot soapy water and washed the lid, the pump and rubber seals. She put everything back together and then put the lid on top of the base and can of cheese. Knowing how foul all this really was, made it easy to stick to ehr diet while at work.

 

[Kazama]

Sarah was about to answer her, but Stan cut her short with his arrival and his bearing of gifts. Once Roxanne had finished the coffee, Stan offered to take them, keeping his own in one hand and gently passing the other to Sarah.

The young man gave a light-hearted laugh when she asked about oil. He shook his head and spoke again with that faint wisp of a Southern accent tailing his voice, "No, no. We're doin' studies for a university. Study for the sake of study. We've been looking at rock formations and sediment layers in area. Probably doesn't sound to thrilling, at least not to someone who isn't as hopelessly interested in geology as I am."

Stan said, "Hey well. Y'know, rocks can be cool. I guess if you know enough about 'em... n' stuff." He'd been going somewhere with that, but had realized halfway through his sentence that a friendly attempt to relate over rocks was beyond his ability and settled for a shrug that was as good natured as a shrug can be.

The young man beamed at Roxanne as replied, "We'd love some coffee, thank you. We don't mind waiting for it." His friend kept her arms crossed and her jaw tight. She kept looking out the window and tapping her foot. She'd looked at him when he'd accepted Roxanne's offer of coffee and had looked like she was about to argue, but she just closed her mouth and wound jaw a little tighter. She resumed her stiff posture, every now and then glancing around the store.

Sarah leaned on the counter, "So, are you guys from one of the universities around here or..."

"We're from out of state, actually," replied the young man. Before Sarah could ask where, he snapped his fingers and said, "Do you all mind if I ask you a favor? Now, feel free to shoot me down. I know you've got a business to run and all. Firstly, you wouldn't mind selling us a few things by the crate, would you? We'll gladly pay full price and then some if we have to."

Stan looked at Sarah and Roxanne before succumbing to his duty as manager. He crossed his arms and exhaled, letting his cheeks puff up, "I don't know... I mean, we've never really... done that," he bit his tongue but in the end... "I guess I don't see why not. Show me what you want, I'll see if we have boxes in the back room."

"Fantastic!"

Stan began walking around the store with the young man, leaving Roxanne and Sarah alone by the counter with the woman. Sarah tried to ask, "So uh... you guys are students?"

"Yes." Her answer was curt and she didn't meet Sarah's eyes when she spoke. She kept her gaze locked on... something, just above the corner of the store where they kept the frozen foods and yogurt. Her voice didn't have the same trace of an accent as her partner's. Sarah was visibly annoyed and even a little creeped out, so she dismissively said, "Okay then." and walked over to Roxanne to pretend to help with the coffee. She looked over her shoulder and whispered to Roxanne,

"I don't wanna sound paranoid... but she keeps looking at our cameras," Sarah, realizing this was something that was likely to get Roxanne to stare, "Don't look. Just... hang on." She looked left and right, then pretended to plug in the coffee maker by shifting it to the side and fumbling around behind it. Its reflective left side was left with a good view of the woman behind them. Her reflection was blurry on the tin, but it was easy to tell she was looking over at another corner, just above the magazine racks. They both knew that corner had a camera. Come to think of it, above the frozen food corner, there had also been a camera. In the reflection, the woman looked away from the camera above the magazines to look out the window again.

Sarah glanced over to Roxanne, not really knowing what to do with this information now that she'd presented it. Down the aisle, Stan's voice floated over with the young man's. They, at least, seemed to be getting along.

 

[PoetLore]

Roxanne smile, "I'll let you know when it's ready then!" she replied cheerfully. She could tell the woman was not nearly as happy to be there as the man was, but she wasn't as bothered by the woman's curt manner as Sarah had but. That is, not until Sarah made her way over to where she was cleaning and started acting all suspicious. She looked at the reflection in the aluminum side of the coffeemaker and lifted a brow. Hmm, curious.

She looked at sarah and whhispered, "What if the guy is just a diversion to get Stan away from the register area?" she asked. She tapped her finger to the countertop as she thought. They needed to get this message to Stan somehow, but how? On the best days Stan was a little bit cloudy of mind. Would Stan even know what to do? She wasn't at all sure. She motioned for Sarah to stay there and went past the woman to where Stan and the guy were. "Hey Stan," she said as she approached them, "I'm sorry to interrupt but can I borrow you for a second? I can't get the roller off the weiner roster. It's stuck again." She gave the guy an apologetic smile and shrug, hoping she looked casual.

She glanced up at the mirror that showed the cook area to see Sarah just standing there. She wasn't sure why Sarah wasn'y attempting to look busy, but she wasn't. She shifted her feet a bit and could then see the woman was once again looking at the cameras. She was attempting to be nonchallant and casual in all her looks and movemets, but whether or not she was pulling it off was anyone's guess.

 

[Kazama]

Stanley had his hands in his pockets as he walked behind the young man. Back near the front of the store, the blonde woman had begun wringing her hands. Her expression had gone from irritation to looking like she was waiting to receive a particularly painful injection. A grimace and a reluctance to look here or there. Stanley turned around at the sound of Roxanne's voice,

"A roller? Uh, let me finish up here, I'll help you in a sec."

Behind them, Sarah was still hovering over the coffee maker. She caught Stanley's eye, nodding over her shoulder and adding an usual urgency to the issue of a stuck roller that got Stanley to follow Roxanne back over there. The young man had been speaking, not realizing that Stanley had been stopped until Stan said,

"Uh, gimme a moment, man."

He followed Roxanne over to Sarah, looking at them both, "What's up with that look, you see a ghost or something?"

 

[PoetLore]

Roxanne Made her way back to Sarah and was just about to apologize for having failed to get Stan's attention when she heard his voice behind her. She turned and grabbed his arm and pulled him over to the hotdog machine. She pretended to show him a problem but whispered, "The woman with that guy is acting very weird Stan," she said, "She keeps looking at the security cameras and well...she looks nervous and yeah...I thnk we are being robbed or something..."

She looked at Sarah for back up, "Sarah noticed it first," she said as she made eye contact with the Sarah before turning back to Stan, "What do we do? Is there a procedure?" She asked, "You know...one that doesn't involve us all being murdered in the desert?"

 

[PoetLore]

Roxanne glanced out the window for a second and almost swore she saw that same eerie red glow, but when she looked back it was gone again. She didn't know what was worse, the strange thing she'd seen or the people inside the store that seemed like they were trying to rob the place.