 |
Plots, Writing Sample
WRITING SAMPLE 
He was only an hour into the grave shift, but Caleb’s mind was already far from work and taking dark twists and turns. He slid the cold can across the grimy countertop, squinting at how bright the fluorescent lights made the vinyl.
He glanced at the clock–0245. Eh, he could get away with dimming the lights. He doubted the owner would care if he ever found out, and even if the guy had a problem with it, he could go f*** himself.
It was an aLlErGy LiKeLy pRoVoKeD bY mEdiCaTiOn. Or so he’d been told when he begrudgingly went to the clinic after his fourth straight day getting absolutely nuked by the sun.
The doctors were not only short on answers, they could not have cared less about the bubbling blisters on Caleb’s arms and forehead. Never mind that the meds he was prescribed went straight down the drain, and he’d been out of the mental hospital for two months.
So he was relegated to grave duty, not that he minded. However, even bright artificial light seemed to bother him greatly, and he could only withstand an hour or so before he was reaching for the dimmer.
That time was now; turning the half-hanging knob by the window allowed Caleb to see less of his reflection and more of the bright sign and trim that led travelers from the road to this little spot.
Behind him an entire city played; he was not in a completely desolate area. However, this was the ‘last stop’ before the state highway turned to trees for a long while, and that was his view as he peered out toward the gas pumps.
Rain shielded most of the surrounding darkness from his view. Caleb was still staring absent-mindedly out the window, his eyes soothed by the reduction in light, when a dark figure appeared. He jumped, only then noticing the parked bicycle in the handicapped spot. The Customer It was a customer. The glass door swung inward and Caleb expelled a breath, holding back a curse. His heart was beating faster than the rain against the window. Jesus, he scolded himself as he turned to face the customer, lay off the f***in’ energy drinks next time.
But the fear that he hoped to quell only grew as his eyes flicked away from the window and toward the man who’d stepped inside.
There was nothing remarkable about him; he was old, bent over, weathered. He wore a dirty, wet coat and had a beanie pulled over his head. The scowl on his face said he was used to others not wanting him nearby. Caleb wasn’t bothered by the guy’s homeless state; it was something else.
As the man shuffled away, grumbling, toward the liquor aisle, Caleb watched with trepidation.
He was…surrounded by death.
Some kind of aura. Caleb had been seeing them only a few days, and he didn’t know what else to call them. Hadn’t dared to speak of it to anyone, but took the problem to online message boards where others assured him that he was simply a medium seeing auras.
Well, why the f*** was it new? It wasn’t with everybody, but some people who came in had strange glows about them. Either a good glow or a bad one, but this was new. This was like the stench of rotten dishwater. Some kind of darkness, a void.
But did that mean that this man was going to cause death, or experience it? Caleb didn’t fear the guy, who was now grabbing several bags of chips with an irritated sigh.
It felt like the man was going to die.
He approached the counter with the same animalistic skepticism that Caleb himself usually felt; Caleb tipped his chin upward in what he hoped was a reassuring greeting. “Hey man. Anything else?”
The older man shook his head, his eyes down. Caleb pondered for a moment, hesitantly grabbing one of the bags of chips.
“You sure you wanna be out in this?” His baseball cap-covered head dipped now toward the window and rainstorm outside. “Feel free to hang out.”
The man’s acceptance of being hated seemed to lift a bit and he almost smiled, but then it turned into a scowl at the idea of sticking around. “Can’t do that.”
Caleb didn’t bother to ask why, but scanned the bag of chips. “2.13 man.”
The other’s eyes now absolutely lifted, his brows raising as he lifted a large brown bag of change to the counter. “Man, you f***in’ with me?”
Caleb had to smile; rarely did people accuse him of looking at one with the law. If the tattoos on his neck didn’t curl the lips of authoritarians, his pale, skinny form on a skateboard or in a nightclub sure did. Despite the still present vibe of death emanating from this man, he and Caleb shared a moment of mutual trust–they were both misfits, outsiders. The patron tossed down some coins, and Caleb scooped them up.
“Be careful out there.” He said it nonchalantly, but the strange sensation still covered the other man like a dark blanket, and that didn’t change as he shuffled out the door. Caleb ran a hand across his chin as if to shake the encounter as the figure returned to his bike, now merely a shadow in the sheets of rain. Lights Out What the f***, brain? He wondered, pulling the bill of his hat to scratch his closely-cropped hair.
Caleb had no interest in finding out if ‘auras’ were also an unwanted side effect of a ‘treatment facility’ that he had zero memory of. All he’d gotten were nightmares, paranoia, sunburn, and now this dumb sh*t.
As his thoughts threatened to spiral again his eyes flickered to the condensation on the can on the counter. His pale hand closed around the aluminum and just as he gave in to the craving of more caffeine, the lights of the building flickered.
He paused, can halfway to his open mouth.
Another flicker, and then they were out. He was a silhouette behind the blinds, turned toward the sign by the highway. It too flickered and then died, but returned a moment later. With the HVAC cut, the place was dead silent.
Caleb heard a distinct sound; metal slamming, maybe thirty feet north of him. The dumpster. Ah, sh*t. The lights returned a moment later, but he ground his teeth, forgetting the drink. He grabbed the black hoodie from its peg and headed out the front door, hands in pockets.
Maybe he should’ve taken a light, but the fluorescents were bright out here. When he took the trash out, he never brought a light.
The dumpster was against the north end of the parking lot, where the truth of the city twinkled in front of him. Light pollution kept the north side of the bin illuminated too.
Caleb didn’t sense an aura, didn’t have any supernatural insight, but the grim scene behind the dumpster was not a surprise to him. The man was dead, twisted like a pretzel, his bicycle nearby also looking like a wreck.
Blood smeared against the blue of the bin, and Caleb could see the broken Crown Royal bottle shining in the building’s lights.
Goddammit.
Nothin' to discover about this
The cops were as unpleasant as always, but Caleb hadn’t known what else to do. They at least moved back into the building to take his statement, and as he slid the paper back toward the bastards, he stared at them with a curled lip.
“So, what happened then?”
Red and blue flickered all around them; two patrol vehicles sat in the parking lot, warding off any customers for a very long while. The ambulance had already left, corpse in tow. They didn’t drive with their lights on. No need.
“What do you mean? Just a strung out dope head.”
“Lots of ‘em get high behind dumpsters. Must be some draw.”
Another one said, and all three pigs started laughing. Caleb gripped the counter harder than he should’ve.
“But his body was all broken. There was blood all over the dumpster.”
“Look, there’s nothin’ to discover about this, all right? Guy was a nobody. No big bad spooky monsters out there. Except maybe stray dogs.”
Their contempt was only elevated by his looks. He wondered if any of them knew him. Had any of them responded to the accident that put him in ‘mental care’? Had any of them responded to his parents' fatal accident? He glared, unsure what to say, worried he was about to get into a fist fight with four large, middle-aged bullies carrying guns.
Maybe they’d finish me off.
Before he could contemplate it much longer, one of the cops handed over a bloody, wet receipt.
“Looks like he ripped you off too, buddy. Paid for one bag of chips, we found several bottles of alcohol and more food next to the body. Might wanna let your boss know.” The cop wagged a leather-glove clad finger, as though this were groundbreaking and important information. Caleb literally bit his lip to stop himself from answering. What a f***ing wonderful service. Much protect. Wow.
And just like that, they were gone. The red and blue faded, the sound of rain returned as the loudest noise in the place, and Caleb plopped himself on the stool behind him, head in his hands.
The clock, when he dared to peek over at it, read 0325.
It was gonna be a long night.
|