Death by Randomly-Spawning Vehicle (You won't read this chapter because it's too long :P)

Saturday, day two of this week’s weekend shift. A sunny day, just warm out, starting to head into spring temperatures.

Might as well have been hell.

“Wren! The order display’s glitching again!”

“Just keep using sticky notes!” I yelled back, throwing a glance out the front from where I was taking a break at the drinks station. Another family had just walked in, and Rafe was handling it. “Rafe, write them down when you get ‘em. Display’s carked it. Again.”

He threw a thumbs-up over his shoulder, already scribbling shorthand on the handy sticky notepads I’d had to run out and buy this morning, because somehow we’d run out of all the extras. Probably thanks to Jill scribbling cats and sticking them in the bottom of takeaway bags.

Just another extra thing to add to end-of-day inventory. And stupid things that would end my life early, if eating these burgers for lunch, tea, and break didn’t.

“I need more chips,” Lucia called from the tar pools.

I was done with the last drink for now, anyway. “I’ll get it.”

It was easier to keep track of stocks if I was the one handling them, anyway. Less work tallying it all up at the end of the day. Somehow I’d managed to develop the skill of memorising everything in the freezer and pantry, and how low we could get before things started looking hairy. A-grade levelling in useless, there, since it worked only at the shop, and nothing else in my life.

I carted a pair of bags back with me, slitting and dumping them in the chip pit with a flick. Might need one extra before the end of the day, but hopefully it’d last us.

The way things were going, the dinner rush might just wipe us out. Delivery had made a mistake, not giving us enough mix for the icecream machine, and from the looks of it every second kid wanted the double-choc O-O limited edition sundae. And they still hadn’t got back to me, the assholes. Any more of this and we’d turn into high-end Mackers.

“How much left in the milker?” I passed by Matt, taking a swipe at a spill on the bench left from when the barbie sauce bottle cap had popped off, before I sent Jill to drivethrough duty for some stress-relief. At least things were a little quieter now.

“’Nuff for about ten/twelve.” He slid another to the waiting line.

“Great. Shouldn’t have more than that for the next couple hours. Doesn’t matter if we run out a half-hour before close.” I took a look around the kitchen. Lucia was doing a great job multitasking on the cooking. She wouldn’t need any extra help unless we got another couple orders in the next two minutes, but this was usually a slump period in the evening. “I’ll go swap out Gordo for my ten. Let me know if things heat up.”

He threw me a thumbs-up, and I shed my plastic gloves as I headed for the nook at the back—a den of half cleaning supplies and half random extras. Right now, it was occupied by a raccoon-eyed teenager huddled over his phone. When I stepped in, he pulled a pair of earbuds out and looked at me with the thousand-yard stare of a true fast-food employee working a double shift on a Saturday.

“Your ten’s turned into a fifteen. Go man the drinks station.” I thumbed him out and hopped up on the back bench he left as he zombie-shuffled his way back into hell, finally able to toss my cap on a stack of old boxes and run a hand through my grungy brown hair, catching the dark circles under my own eyes in the little mirror on the wall that’d ended up shoved in here at some point. Should’ve shaved last night instead of collapsing after one-AM, too—I felt like I’d built up a day’s worth of itch.

I thumped my head back against the wall and let out a long breath. Just another couple hours. Rafe had to head out early, but the rest of us could get the clean-up done on time. I’d picked my weekend team. We could all last until Wanda came back on Wednesday, and then I’d get my two weeks off.

I could sleep for two weeks....

Ting

My eyes snapped open to a feeling like static electricity prickling over my skin. The hell...? Had I heard something—?

For just a second, the lights cut out. And it shouldn’t have been, because the days were starting to get lighter and it was still only twilight out, but it went completely dark, like a bloody void. Like for an instant I’d gone blind.

Except I could see a pair of glowing fiery eyes looking at me.

I blinked, and the lights had come back up, bright as they were just before. No weird eyes, no flickering, no concerned calls from outside—

What the hell had that been?

I squinted at the mirror, trying to figure out if there were any places a pair of LEDs could look like that. Problem was, there weren’t any on the wall around me or next to me. I even checked my own eyes like a paranoid idiot. Nada. Just dull brown. Slightly bloodshot. Not glowing.

Great, now I was having hallucinations. Must’ve fallen asleep and wound up with sleep paralysis or something. Maybe this was a sign I should lay off the caffeine.

“Hey,” I called out to the kitchen in general, spotting Jill walking quickly past. “Somebody playing with the lights?”

“No, why?”

“...They cut out for a second in here.”

“Well I guess you’ll have to call an electrician then. Have fun.”

And that attitude was why she wasn’t anywhere in the running for a higher position. As if I was going to call a sparky to change a lightbulb, even if that was the problem. Which it wasn’t.

Damned if I knew what in hell the problem was in the first place. Me?

I pulled out my phone, and idly dug into my other pocket to finger the necklace that had wound up back there, some half-imagined tingle of static electricity snapping at my finger. I was probably just tireder than I thought.

~~~~~~ⴡ≽≎≼Ϡ~~~~~

“Why are you still here, Wren?”

I worked quickly and efficiently through the last table on Sunday night, wiping it down, the weekend finally almost over with only Monday to go. The dreaded last shift for my working week. “My shift’s not over.”

“I meant... here. At Flipped Up.”

I sighed, glancing over at Lucia as she worked on tallying the day’s sales up. “This again?”

“You could be in uni, you know. You’re smart, you’re driven. You work hard.” She didn’t look away from scribbling in the old workbook on the bench, the light from the POS shining on her face. “And you really want to work here, in fast-food, for the rest of your life?”

These tables weren’t going to clean themselves. “Pay’s decent.”

“Not enough for your own place.”

“I board with Mum and Dad because I want to.” I flipped the chairs up onto the table’s surface and moved on to the next. “I do my own chores and buy my own things. They’re fine with it, I’m fine with it. Jill’s a pain in the neck, but she spends most of her time in her own room.”

“You don’t want anything more than that?”

“I don’t need anything more than that.” I threw a brief wipe across the seats on this one. A few sauce stains had wound up here. “In a week I’ll be on holiday down in Tasmania with the mates and Wallo, and when I come back I’ll fill up the bank again.”

“Wow.” There was a world of flatness in there. “You have no life goals? Nothing?”

“Yeah, sure. Become a famous actor, travel the world, hook up with all the chicks.” I put a little American twang on chicks that would probably insult Mike as I worked. “Die at fifty from a drug overdose.”

“That’s a bleak way of looking at it.”

“Maybe. What are you planning on doing? Becoming famous?” I was fine with having my next goal in life be a simple “go home and eat two-minute noodles while playing HazChem 2”. You couldn’t get much better than that after a long day of work. If she wanted to bust her ass studying for some big university out in Queensland so she could burn money, she could go do it without projecting onto me.

“Doctor, actually. I want to be a doctor.”

Really? I paused and glanced up, catching her staring through the POS’s monitor. “You want to spend eight years in medical school just so you can get complained at for twelve hours a day?”

She rolled her eyes. “You must have a lot of experience. I want to help people, yes.”

“So that’s what you think I should be doing.” I polished off my table and snagged my little suds container, heading past her into the kitchen for the sink. “Spending my life on some great and noble cause. Yeah right. Tell me all about it once you make it somewhere in ten years.”

“You’re a right wet blanket.” There was some real annoyance in her voice this time, a bite that said I might’ve gone a little too far. “That’s not what I’m saying, I just... you know what, forget about it. It’s your life, I’m not poking in where I’m not wanted.”

I’d better backpedal before I shoved my foot in too far. She wasn’t usually this touchy. “...Being a doctor’s not a bad thing. It’s just not what I’d choose.”

Water swirled down the drain, and I wondered for a moment if I’d drowned her out or she was just ignoring me. She spoke up again just as I poked my head around the corner, her face turned away from me. “And I wouldn’t choose to work here for the rest of my life, I guess.”

Looked like we were both on different sides of the billboard there, then. I shrugged, rinsing out the cloth and squeezing it dry to hang on the tap. “Good luck with your doctorate.”

“Thanks.” I heard the click of a pen and the cash drawer snicking closed. “Well, I think we’re done here. No last-minute things today?”

“Just the garbage.” I rolled my shoulders and started for the back. “All of you can clock out and leave. I’ll do the locking-up. Jill’s catching a ride with her latest boyfriend so she won’t be waiting for me.”

“I don’t blame her. The nine forty-five bus is scary on your own.”

“Mm.” We’d only had five on duty today, and Gordo had only covered the morning shift, so it was just me, the girls, and Matt left. He had to have finished the floors already, and I could see Jill finishing the kitchen counters as I passed through the back to grab the rubbish trolley. At least I didn’t have to put the bin out on the weekend. Small blessings.

The wheels squeaked and the whole thing rattled like it was doing its best to fall apart as I pushed it out the swinging door at the back, trundling over to the skip bin nestled up in the corner where an add-on for the employee toilets had been slapped to the building. A normal Sunday night, dark, dingy, the carpark half-lit by streetlights and the couple working ones around the side, the security light shining up my destination in all its grungy glory.

It glitched.

Like some crazy Arachnid-Worlds shit, things half spazzed-out of existence. For half a second, I saw double, and not. Like someone had taken a copy, half-smashed it, and done a bad overlay.

I was left standing there, wondering what the hell had just happened as it flicked out as soon as it’d come, when I heard it. That was the roar of a truck or a ute or something, in the distance, on the street, turning in to the carpark. The same growl of an engine as the one the other day that’d tried to run me and Jill over. I could’ve sworn it was exactly the same.

Shit. None of this was normal. None of this was anything except freaky as shit—

I dumped the rubbish on top of the skip and bolted back into the building just as bright beams stabbed at the fence around the back of the carpark like the fires of hell. The doors slammed shut behind me, blocking it out, my heart pounding like crazy for no reason. It was probably just trying to cut the corner and head down the side street on our other side. There was no reason to freak out over a ute—

“...Wren?” Matt poked his head around the nook’s corner, squinting at my panting ass as I rested my forehead against the trolley’s handle for a second. God I felt clammy. The hell was wrong with me?

I forced myself to push up and shove the trolley back in its corner, doing my damndest to ignore every hair on the back of my neck and arms goose-pimpling like I’d just had a ghost give me a massage. “I’m fine. Just a scare over some bloody traffic-cutter. It’s nothing.”

He gave me another look, shrugged, and disappeared again. “Sure thing, mate.”

Yeah, sure thing, mate. I took in a breath and blew it out, taking my cap off to rake a hand through my hair. It was still shaking. Shit.

When I came back into the kitchen after locking the back door, Jill was just talking to Lucia as she clocked out. Something about her LatePhoto page. I didn’t care.

Lucia took one look at my face and frowned. “Are you okay, Wren?”

“Yeah.” I threw my cap under the counter with the receipt paper rolls and junk.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Jill flicked the clock-out indicator and snorted. “He’s just a wuss.”

I dragged a hand down my face. “I’m fine.”

“And he always likes to act tough and manly about it. You should have seen him throw me on the lawn the other day because he thought there was a car trying to run us over.”

I grunted, stepping up to the tablet taped on the wall and reaching around her to tap in my employee code. “Move.”

“Was there a rat in the skip again?” Lucia asked lightly.

“No, it’s nothing.” I hit “clock-out” and flicked off the light-switches just as Matt joined us, plunging the rest of the shop into darkness. There was enough light from the street slanting in through the windows to see by. “Last one out the door sets the alarm and locks up. I’ve already done the back.”

“...Okay.”

I could hear the frown in Lucia’s voice. I shrugged. “I know I said I’d do it, but you took too long. Have fun.”

“Well, it’s not gonna be me. See you Tuesday.” Jill skipped out with her bag already slung over her shoulder for the car waiting on the side of the street.

I passed through after her, headed for a trip on the bus instead. Lucky me. At least I had ten minutes to reach my stop, and only half an hour to walk if it didn’t show up. Again.

Times like these I wondered if it would’ve been better just to use my car....

Especially since it was meant to rain sometime this night. I pulled out my plastic raincoat, the kind that folds up and you can stick in your pocket for a rainy day. Works about as well as a fancy oilskin, though if Wallo ever heard me say that he’d disown me.

Hopefully it’d hold off till I got to the bus. I could already feel the moisture in the air just walking down the street, the lights of Jill’s boyfriend’s car flashing past me. I didn’t bother waving. She’d be yakking his ear off or staring at her phone, anyway.

My own pinged in my pocket. Weird. Pulling it out just as a couple raindrops pattered down—and disentangling the stupid necklace I kept forgetting to toss somewhere in my room and forget about— I caught two words, no context.

Behind you~

...What the hell? The hairs on the back of my neck prickled, and I pulled my hood up to stave off the rain. It wasn’t Jill’s number. It wasn’t anyone’s number. Was this some kind of prank? If she was borrowing her boyfriend’s phone to pull this on me, I swear—

Watch out, little wren ;)

I felt the rumble before I heard it. Oh shit. Not this again.

This wasn’t happening. Anonymous texts from a creepo, ferals haunting me. What next? Zombies? I braced myself, forcing a look over my shoulder. Headlights at the end of the street, glinting off the thickening rain. The kind you’d get on a ute or a semi driven by a psychopath.

Yeah nah, I’m outta here.

There was a narrow alleway just here. I ducked in, sidling past a skip. This should lead over to the next block, and then I could work my way back. Might have to jog to get to my stop in time, but—

I stumbled away from the skip as it glitched out in shattered-glass pieces. “Shit—” And nearly tripped over a bloody cardboard box stacked to the side, all half vibrating inky shadows. “What the f—”

The snarl of an engine shook the glitching rain and the cracked walls doing their best impression of a haunted funhouse. I spun just in time to get blinded, the bloody ute/truck sitting right there at the entrance like some kind of wild dog waiting for its meal to come running out.

Screw that. Jill could call me a wuss for the rest of my life. I ran. I sprinted for the other end and didn’t look back, lunging around the corner and racing across the back-end of a carpark at Smithies, raindrops stinging straight into my face. What the hell was going on? This wasn’t normal. Had someone put magic mushrooms in those fries I’d eaten earlier?

I huffed for breath, taking stock at the corner under a security light. All I could hear was water beating on my hood. It hadn’t followed me. Of course it hadn’t followed me. It couldn’t fit in a space like that. I leaned against the wall for a minute, my heart still pounding in my ears. Bloody hell.

I needed the police, maybe Wallo and his mates and an armoury or two. Fumbling my phone out of my pocket, I hit the emergency call button and rang up 000.

The call screen flickered out before it even dialed.

What the—

A text popped up. Tut tut tut. I’m disappointed in you, Wren :(

How the hell—? He must’ve hacked my phone somehow. I gritted my teeth, typing back. We’re not on a first-name basis, dickhead. Get out of my phone

Making for the footpath, I flicked the tab away, bringing up contacts and stabbing the first name on the list before he could reply. Which turned out to be Jill. Crap. Hopefully she’d listen to me, I just needed a couple seconds to convince her to report this, or even swing back and pick me up if I was that desperate. It seemed like I’d lost the ute of doom for now, but—

VRRRRR!

No. Oh hell no.

I ducked back, slamming into the glass front of the store, and whipped around. Right there, roaring down the street, another one. Who the hell were these people?!

“Wren? What, did you miss the bus or something?”

A puddle shattered into glowing light motes as I sprinted over the dog’s-leg road into the gap between another department store and some kind of printing shop. “Listen, don’t hang up on me I’m being chased by a— shit— some crazy driver’s trying to run me over. I need you to call the police—”

“Bruh. What?”

“I’m serious!” I’m tripping balls. I skidded around the department shop’s corner, lights stabbing past behind me, and flattened myself against the wall for a second. “I need you to call the police right now.”

“Yeah, nice try, mate.”

“Jill— Jill!” She hung up on me. She fricking hung up on me— “You little b—!”

A honk straight from hell drowned me out. Shit, I needed to move. If these lunatics found me I had a feeling I was minced meat. There had to be somewhere I could hide or lose them.

This has to be a frigging nightmare. I darted for the chained fence at the back of the building blocking off the supply depot and industrial skips, the slick metal rattling almost loud enough to drown out the roar of an engine. If I could just hide there long enough for it all to blow over, maybe call Lucia instead, because she’d listen— Come on wake up. Wake up you son of a—

A beam of light caught me just as I tensed to haul myself over the top, and I twisted around to see...

Yep, the feral bent on murdering me.

Shit. I ground my teeth, throwing it the finger as it turned in and the light slid over the tarmac through the rain, making more puddles jump like they were made of crystal and fairy dust from hell. “Go to hell!”

It just revved and started moving faster, because of course it bloody did. Yeah, don’t insult the bloody ute, Wren. I hissed between my teeth, clambering messily over the top and dropping with a splash on the other side. Get the hell out and live to swear it black and blue another day.

I stumbled up and took the shortcut, jumping up on the edge of the skip and vaulting over, a flash of pain bolting through my knees at the impact. Should’ve rolled. Shit. I hobbled back into a limping run, blinking away rain and panting like I’d never done parkour with Wallo in my life, cursing myself out for skipping my daily run for the last couple weeks with work kicking my ass. I was about to die to some crazy gang because I had the stamina of a fat gull, had just killed my fricking knees, and no one would know because it was apparently a ghost-town right now and the police were out snoozing somewhere. How was this the way my life ended?

I snatched my phone out of my pocket again as I ran for the road, flashing through contacts and somehow managing to stab Lucia’s number, someone actually useful. Unlike my idiot sister.

“Hello—?”

“Call the police!” I practically screamed at the phone. “I’m about to get run over!”

“Wait, slow down, what? Where are—?”

A click abruptly cut her off just as a blinding light appeared on my left and filled my whole vision. The last thing I heard was a chuckle that sounded like the cackle of a strangled teapot. “Crikey, ain’t you a stubborn one?”

Fairy-glitter glitchy stars exploded in my vision just as the air smashed out of my lungs, and everything went black.