IC 28-Days at S-Mart

PoliteSuccubus

Spinster Aunt of Lit
Joined
Nov 29, 2002
Posts
8,093
OCC thread

Cast:

Jay Williams Age: 28
Army/Car/Comic/Drinking issues

Alex Taylor Age: 32
Reporter/Music/Car/Sight issues

Brent Zalia Age: 21
Student/Wrestleing/Darts/Anger issues

Kiki Moss Age: 19
Cashier/Cooking/Gardening/Bad choice in men

Ruby Mills Age: 36
Pharm. Tech/Theater/Dance/Anxiety issues
 
Sheets of rain battered the small community of Victory Bay and knowing residents checked windows and doors, secured trash cans, and made sure that the lamps and candles were at the ready for the power outage that would strike. It wasn't a question of IF but when, though.

Flashing lights flickered red and blue at the local watering hole just after 10 PM as the officers, Knowles and White, took a suspect into custody.

"I don't know what happened," The bartender at the Whaler said. "He'd been nursing his beer for about two hours talking about these crazy folks who had attacked him in Portland, and all the sudden he launched himself over the bar and started trying to bite me."

Officer Knowles nodded as he took the statement. About eight people had jumped in to try to subdue the truck driver and gotten bit, scratched or otherwise injured before he and his partner had arrived and put the cuffs on him. They had to restrain his feet as well and shove him into the back seat. What they needed was a muzzle. Not the kind of thing you see in Roseburg.

"We'll probably find he dropped some acid or something with his beer and had a bad reaction." Knowles gave the bartender his card with the police report number scribbled on the back for the insurance.

Officer White was snapping pics of the injuries and advising people to go to the ER in Coos Bay. "A human bite can get nasty if not treated, so make sure you at least have your doc here in town look at it if you don't go in tonight."

Knowles was in the car and on the radio when White got in. Behind them the trucker was snarling and bashing his head against the window.

"Let's get him to county and hope that the weather doesn't get too much worse. I don't want him in our drunk tank, he's too violent." Knowles was telling dispatch.

"Ten-four, drive safe." The dispatcher's voice replied.

None of this affected the calm in S-Mart, however.

Three football fields worth of Low LOW LOW! priced items shone under white lights as peppy music played for the twenty odd people in the store; most of them staff, a few who had braved the storm for supplies.
 
Jay Williams

It had been a shitty Sunday for Staff Sergeant Jay Williams.

He had returned from Iraq less than a month ago, and was just getting settled back into a normal routine when the call came. Redeployment orders. He was going back. It wasn’t that he wasn’t proud of what he did, or the service he was providing his country, it was simply the line of work he found himself in once his boots hit the sand.

He had volunteered for the Explosives Ordinance Disposal unit back when he was still green. It sounded dangerous, and dangerous seemed like fun at the time. Who knows, he thought, maybe get to play with some robots, get to do a lot of SCUBA diving, and less danger than being at the front lines carrying a rifle. He had been wrong on so many levels. It was true that there was a lot of diving involved, but most of it in unfavorable conditions around boats and piers, places most divers avoided like the plague. There were few robotic aids. Most of the work involved being called out to some God-forsaken patch of road to disarm or destroy an improvised explosive device that had been made to take out convoys and cause disruption. It was hands on work, and he had seen more than his fair share of colleagues lose fingers, hands, or worse. Some of his close friends, men he had known since boot, were sent home in pine boxes, at least the pieces of them the Corpsmen could find and scoop into the body bags following the blast.

When he came home, the images of their blackened and mangled bodies haunted his dreams. They rose, pointed to him, and blamed him for their deaths. They closed in on him while cursing his name, the charred smell of their flesh still lingering in the air. Most of the nights since he had been home, he found himself waking in a cold sweat, his heart thundering in his chest. He had tried to find solace at the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels, but the nightmares kept coming.

Today was no different. Jay knew that they would come for him in his sleep, haunt him and remind him of his failures as their commander. Even though the rain outside was beginning to whip itself into a frenzy thanks to the oncoming storm, he knew that he needed something to help ward them off and decided to venture out into the storm.

He slipped behind the wheel of his 1969 Charger, one of the few things that helped him take his mind off of the shitty situation, and cranked over the massive 440 cubic-inch big block motor. As he maneuvered the black beast through the quiet Sunday streets of Victory Bay, he noticed that the police were out in greater numbers than usual. They usually didn’t come out this thick until the students came back and started clogging up the roads with their wayward ways. The liquor store was only a few miles down the road, and a nice fresh bottle would solve a lot of his problems. The store was dark as he pulled up, and he barely caught Clyde Jones before he locked the front door.

“Clyde!” Jay hollered as the elderly man searched his key ring for the store’s front door key. Jay jogged up to the shorter man and placed his hand on Clyde’s shoulder. “Hold on now, Clyde. I just need one little thing and I know right where it’s at.”

Clyde Jones eyed Jay suspiciously before nodding towards the door. He’d known Jay for years, and was saddened by the path he was going down, trying to find comfort in the spirits that lined his shelves. He had seen it before, and knew the results would be less than pleasant. And what he was doing out in the storm shopping instead of hunkering down with a good book and a warm blanket was beyond Clyde. Jay was in and out in a flash, two bottles of the amber whiskey tucked under his arm.

“Thanks Clyde, I owe you one,” he said, pulling two twenties out of his wallet. “Keep the change; I’m not going to need it for a while.” He waved to Clyde and hopped back into the idling Charger. He turned back out onto the main road, the wipers furiously trying to keep the windshield clear in the downpour. The rear wheels began to slip and lose traction on the wet asphalt.

“Man, fuck this,” he said, turning into the large, brightly lit parking lot of the S-Mart. “I’m not trashing the Charger just to try and get home. I’ll just wait it out here.” He pulled a heavy jacket from the back seat and slipped one of the bottles into the inner pocket before zipping it and striking out for the front doors.
 
"Will that be debt or credit?" Kiki asked, not even really listening to the answer. Around her shelves gleamed, the floor gleamed, the shit on the shelves gleamed. It gave her a headache.

"Thank you for shopping S-mart, drive safe." She told her last customer and waited for the next one. The one thing about working the night shift, the girl with the lip ring thought, was that there wasn't 12 other cashiers and that constent 'bleep bleep' of items over the scanners.

The canned music was doing something horrid to a song she almost knew, but couldn't; sorta like when you know something on your lunch tray came from an animal? but you didn't know which one.

Bored, she reapplied her lip gloss and stood at the end of her lane, to signal that she was open. It was like some horriable sexual metaphore.
 
Brent had really wanted to go with some of his buddies down to Florida, but he'd promised his parents he'd stay. They said they never got to see him anymore and it was true, but even still he felt trapped being here over break. He and his family just didn't have anything in common was the biggest problem. His dad was a chemist, his mom ran a beauty salon and his little sister was busy with high school life. What were they supposed to do together. Family togetherness time mostly meant awkward games of scrabble, since no one wanted to play and they'd all rather be somewhere else.

For now though he was running yet another pointless errand. His dad had been drinking a little and unlike any other drunk he knew, drinking meant his father wanted to do chores in the middle of the night. Brent picked up an extra large bottle of Tide and headed for the only register he saw open. A bored looking girl with a lip ring was manning it. “You look like you're having the time of your life,” he told her as he walked up. What he wouldn't give for something to spice up the night at this point.
 
As soon as he hung up Alex asked himself the same question, what the hell was happening and what was he doing out here. He knew that his boss thought it was a great story to run with, about how innocent people were going insane for some reason but he was not out here in this shit. He wanted to call his boss and tell him to come out here so he could be safe at the station. He knew though that it was the easiest way to get himself fired and for all his reason to want to do something so simple he knew that he needed the money.

For the millionth time he took his glasses off and started to clean them. He knew that he only did it when he was nervous and the truth of the matter was that he was as nervous as one thing. He had seen a young boy, he looked as if puberty had just hit him throw two police officers to the ground and try to bite them. The hospital lobby had broken out into pandemonium then. His boss had thought it was a great story, especially when Alex's camera man had shot the footage of one of the police men swinging his baton like a baseball bat into the side of the kid's head, only for the kid to get up and run at him.

Alex wanted to get out of that place as fast as he could. He knew that something was happening with this town, with this whole world. He knew he was the only one to report everything though, even if everything was going to hell in a handbasket. He laughed at that thought, making his cameraman look at him, a confused look on his face. Alex just looked at him, shook his head and said that it was nothing. His camera man knew it was best not to ask things, especially with everything that he had filmed this day.

A scream ripped through the air and Alex put on his glasses, looking in that direction. What he saw chilled him to the bone. A woman was laying on the ground with what looked like a pack of hungry animals around her. Alex knew that she was screaming to her death. It was then that the camera man held the camera aside and started to vomit. Alex looked over at him, opening his mouth to ask what he thought was a simple question.

"They aren't animals. They are humans, why in god's name would human beings kill another like that?"

Alex took the camera and pointed it at the group. What he saw made him want to throw up as well but he held onto the camera. It was then that he saw one of the human's raise its head and sniff the air, its nose hanging at an odd angle. It was then that a scream was torn from its throat and Alex brought the camera down to his side. He turned to the camera man.

"Run. Whatever they are it looks as if they are still hungry."

He turned and started to run. He had seen too much fighting to know that when an enemy is running at you screaming you do not stick around. He looked to his side and it was then that he noticed his camera man was not with him. He stopped and looked behind him, hoping that he was catching up. Another, all too familiar scream came to his ears and Alex knew it was best not to stand there. He started to run again and when he came to his van he jumped in, pulled out the keys and started it.

As he hit the accelerator something slammed into the side of his van, making him want to stop. He pressed his foot down though and sped off down the street. As he did so he knew only one thing, his boss was going to pay for this.

Hours passed and he hoped that he was well out of toilet so to speak. The sign shone in the darkness then, offering hope and salvation. He knew that it was funny to think of a city limits sign that way.
 
Last edited:
Ruby sighed and looked at the clock. Way late. She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose and then put them back on again. Stupid report eating fax machine. Now they had to be regenerated and re faxed and while it wasn't really her job everyone else that worked in the pharmacy had left already and if the report didn't get to the home office ... well, yeah. Hell to pay.

She pushed back her dark hair and began to feed the sheets into the machine one at a time so if it was lost it wouldn't ALL be lost; her hair was so thick though it fell right back into place as if it'd never been moved which is why she wore it short.

From the office she couldn't tell how bad the storm had gotten, though it had been raining when she came in that afternoon, so she'd brought her raincoat and everything.

"All done!" She said as the last sheet went through and locked up to head out, taking a quick moment to pick up some Lean Cuisine dinners. Despite being 'on target' it didn't take much for a body like hers to look chunky.

She waited behind one of the students in KiKi's line, the only one open this time of night.
 
“You look like you're having the time of your life,” the brown haired guy with the Tide said as he came around the corner and up to her register.

"Yeah, that's me, thrill a minute girl." She shrugged with one shoulder. "You gonna do your wash in the middle of a storm?" She asked, one eyebrow raised. It'd taken her weeks to train herself how to do that, but like any bit of good art, practice made perfect.

"You know the power is gonna go out, and you'll have stinky clothes?" She scanned it, because that was her job and hit the total button as the chunky older pharmacy tech came up with her boxes of frozen dinners, diet ones, of course. Some people should just give up.
 
He did not know just how long he had been driving; he just hoped that he had left whatever those things had been far behind. As he stared into the storm the memory of Jimmy, the cameraman, his friend came back to him. It made him want to stop the car, get out and throw up but he knew it was the single most stupid thing he could do. Instead he just slammed his hands against the steering wheel and willed himself not to think about it anymore. The problem with that was, every time he told himself not to think about it he did and the nausea came back with it.

He looked around him but all he could see was the rain battering down around him, he couldn't even see where he was or any of the damn road signs. He wondered if he was dead then or if this was a dream. A loud honk from a car as it came towards him told him that it wasn't. He knew that he had to stop somewhere, if only to think.

It was then that the sign seemed to come out of nowhere. He looked at it and wanted to laugh. Of all the places an S-Mart sign would look good then it was here. He pulled into the carpark, got out of the van and walked into the building. The instant he got inside he realized just how desolate it was but walked further in anyway. All that he wanted was a coffee and someplace to forget.
 
Brent shook his head as he handed her the money. "Its my dad. He gets a little strange about house work when he's been drinking." He glanced at glass doors to see the rain. "It wasn't nearly that bad when I got here, was it?" He took the detergent out of the bag she'd put it in. It seemed kind of a waste take a bag just for this. He moved further down the lane to let the woman behind him start checking out, but he didn't want to leave yet, because of the rain if nothing else. "So how long are you here for?" he asked the girl. She was kind of cute and it was worth staying for the conversation even if nothing came of it.
 
Her eyes flicked towards the doors. "It's been pretty steady," she nodded and then began to scan Salmon with Basil and other such dinners. "You always get the same ones," She flickered a smile, not entirely sincere, at the older woman. "Must save time and dishes, though, huh?"

"So how long are you here for?" The student asked, leaning against the podium of the next register.

"Three." She said in a bored way, but looking at him again out of the corner of her eye. Just her type, which, of course, was a problem.

"Fourteen twelve, Ruby." She told the other woman as she put the last white cardboard box in the plastic bag.


(Personally, I like those dinners, even if my character doesn't *giggle*)
 
Ruby smothered a grin at the awkward mating habits of the American teen and got out her debit card to swipe through.

"Something like that," She agreed with Kiki. The girl always worked nights, always looked pale, always seemed to have a new hair color...which usually matched her nails.

The boy looked familiar, ah, yes, the Zalia kid. His father had been on topiramate for a while to help him stop drinking... then put himself in agony after applying a suntan lotion that contained alcohol which was absorbed into his skin. He gave up trying to quit, from everything she heard.

"I may need one of those bags for over my head," She said, looking out the doors to the sheet of water called 'rain' between her and her car.
 
Jay Williams, Just Outside S-Mart

Jay paused, just for slightest instant, as the headlights washed over him. He had to step back to avoid the splash of the van that raced past him as it parked. The water from the tires sloshed over Jay’s boots, and he could feel the water trickling down his legs, soaking his socks. Another shitty chapter in another shitty day.

A man stepped from the van and struck out towards the lit entry of the store. Jay’s mouth was opening, ready to let the distracted man have a piece of his mind when something caught his eye. The white van, complete with photographs of the news team plastered on its side, simply looked odd. There was something running across the photographs, something dark. Jay turned and moved closer to the side of the vehicle, his hand shielding his eyes from the pounding rain.

He stopped, his eyes widening when another car passed, its headlights brightening the side of van. There was no doubting what it was and Jay stepped back, slightly shaken by this thing that should not be found in Victory Bay, Oregon. He reached out gingerly and touched it, the sticky feeling between his fingers confirming what he saw. The bloody handprints were unmistakable, even as the rain pounded down, the droplets trying to scour them from the pristine white paint.

Jay pivoted quickly, catching sight of the man as the wide glass doors opened for him. What had he done? How could he be so calm? There were bloody handprints on the side of his van and he was going to S-Mart with so little concern in his body language that he could have very well been buying cookies for his mother. Jay leaned down and rinsed the blood from his hands in the water pooling in the parking lot and began to jog towards the front of the store.

The doors parted and Jay slowed to a quick walk, his eyes scanning the store for the man. He was easy to spot in the nearly-empty store. Jay walked towards the man, beginning to close the distance. He passed by the one open check stand, a few customers standing in line and chatting with the clerk. What the hell was going on? Between the torrential storm and the man with the bloody van, Jay wondered why he had even bothered to get out of bed today.

Could it get any shittier?
 
Alex looked at the man as he came closer to him and wondered why he had a cross between suspicious and having a really bad day written across his face. He knew that he could go up and ask him but all that he wanted was to find a place to sit down, forget what had happened to Jimmy and try and relax. When he looked out the big glass doors however he saw the sheet of water that seemed to be falling infront of it and with it the memories came flowing back.

He then looked down at his hands and noticed that they were shaking, "Come on Alex. Get a grip on yourself. You can't have seen what you think you saw and even if you did who the fuck would believe it."

He sat down at one of the tables and hoped that someone would come over to ask if he was okay and to ask if he wanted a coffee. The thought of a coffee right now was like heaven to him. It was then that he noticed the presence of a person near him and looked up to see the same man he had seen earlier standing there.

"I don't mean to be rude but what exactly do you want with me. I have had a pretty shitty night so far so if you have something to say please say it now."
 
Jay Williams, Inside S-Mart

“If you think you’re having a shitty night so far,” Jay said under his breath as he stood next to the man who came from the van, “it’s going to get a lot shittier if you don’t tell me how you got those damn bloody handprints on the side of your van.”

Jay didn’t sit next to the man, but stood a half-pace away, his shoulder slightly skewed back from the sitting man. Jay didn’t know what to expect, so was preparing for the worst. He could be some sort of psycho, just ready to strike again, or he could just be an oblivious son-of-a-bitch.

Jay wasn’t going to take any chances with this one until he got a straight answer.
 
Alex turned his head to look at the man, thinking that he was insane. It was then that he wondered if he was the one going mad, especially with what he had seen. He shook his head to clear it and took a couple of deep breaths before answering.

"I don't know anything about any bloody handprints on the side of the van. All I know is that I have driven through that storm to come to where ever this is because I saw my close friend and camera man get brutally murdered and torn to pieces by people."

He knew then just how odd that sounded and remembered that he had the camera with him. He looked at the man, stood and handed him the camera.

"If you don't believe me then you can check it out for yourself. I have most of the footage I took on it last night; including my friend's murder. The only thing is that you have to go out to the van to watch it."

With that he sat back down and waited for the man's reply. He knew though that it might not be pleasant.
 
They'd gone for a nice night out; some dinner, some dancing, drinks with friends. Then he had to go get caught up in that fight at the bar. Damn fool.

Shivering Nattie got into bed and pulled the covers on. Probably from shock, these chills, she thought to herself as she drifted off to sleep. Ben had gotten bit and rather than go to the doctor he was treating it himself out in the kitchen. When he finally did come to bed the storm had knocked out the lights, so she couldn't even tell what time it was.

He began pawing at the covers. "Ben, if you think you're gettin' any tonight, you are sadly mistaken!" She said, slapping his hands away. It was the last coherent thing she said.

_______________________________

"Be advised, patrol car found empty in ditch, assume suspect escaped and officers in pursuit... keep an eye out, those boys are out of radio contact for some reason."

_______________________________

"Here Woofie! Here Woofie!" Teddy March called out into the yard as the wind whipped the trees into a frenzy of falling pine cones and small branches. In a flash of lighting he saw their neighbor, Derrick Bass, out by the garage.

"Hey, Mr. Bass! Have you seen my dog?" He called out from the safety the door way. Mr. Bass turned around and dropped what was left of Woofie in the mud and raced towards the house. Teddy slammed the door shut and locked it before the bloody man began to assault it with his fists.

________________________________

At S-Mart, just as the cashier tore the receipt off the register... the store went black. Immediately the emerency lights clicked on, and a few moments later the generator did as well.

"Attention shoppers, if the power doesn't come back on in fifteen we will be putting the store in lock down until the power does come back. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Security will be posted at the doors, please have recepts for all merchandise. Thank you."
 
Tamra looked up and sighed as the cool, neutral voice of the announcer came over the mall intercom after the power died. This was most definitely not what she needed right now! First, her car breaks down in this shithole of a town. Second, her team needed her in Detroit by tomorrow, and lastly, the bathroom seemed even smaller in the dark.

She made her way out into the central area. She could make out a few dim silhouettes near the registers, so she went towards then, avoiding tables and chairs. She bangs into a chair and knocks it down with a large clatter. "Hello?" She calls out, nearing the standing people. She gives them a cursory glance. There is the pharmacy technician she saw earlier along with the bored looking punk girl with the dyed hair.

"E-excuse me, do you know when the power is coming back on?" She says with a catch in her voice.
 
Minorin

The squeal of the Ducati's tires could barely be heard over the pounding rain as a the black bike with its equally monochromatic rider came to a stop in front of the S-Mart. Silver stripes on the rider's backpack were the only color the rider, her snug fitting bike suite solid ebony.

The store was the only thing that even looked alive in the rain-darkened town and so that's where Minorin had headed, cursing a stead stream at the rain the entire way there from the freeway. Hopefully she'd be able to get directions to a hotel and wait out this sudden storm system.

Parking the bike under the store's over hang, not caring if she got a ticket, the petite half Japanese, half Caucasian woman strode into the store as she pulled off her helmet. It was a typical box-mart type store, all bright lights, shiny floors and aisles upon aisles of useless crap everyone had to have.

Before Minorin could ask one of the clerks directions, the store's lights blinked out due to a power outage and then flickered back on under generator power.

A frown crossed her delicate features as she looked around at the odd variety of people in the store. It looked like a fight was brewing and with nothing better to do, she leaned against a display rack to watch. No way am I going back out in that, she thought. Almost got plowed over twice without the rain.
 
Back
Top