Part 17 – Further Education

Just my luck. First, I stub my toe. Now, I have to babysit the new girl.

Lucy watched as Kat strode in through the front doors of the convenience store, her blonde hair fluttering almost in slow motion as it caught a beam of sunlight. It was as if some sick god wanted to capture the moment in an act of voyeuristic sadism.

She got it: Kat was perfect. Now fuck off with the runway show.

“Hi, Lucy,” Kat said with a quick wave.

Her pace increased as she walked towards the Pizza Stack, giving Lucy barely enough time to register the look Daisy was giving her. It was that ‘be nice’ look she’d seen many times before.

She wasn’t worried about being nice. Nice was for politicians, CEOs, and con-artists. She tried to be kind, when someone deserved it. Anything else was just lying.

Lucy nodded to the new girl as she finished closing distance.

“Hope Tom showed you the ropes,” Lucy said, pretending to busy herself with the spinning sunglasses display. “It’s going to be a busy night tonight and we’ll need you to be on point.”

Kat laughed, but her face sunk when no one joined her.

“Wait, you’re serious? Why tonight?”

Lucy thought she deserved sainthood. Or whatever pagans get for abject and all-consuming patience in the face of ignorance.

“It’s Friday. The pizza orders are going to be off the walls.”

Kat’s pretty, simple face registered some level of understanding, and yet, somehow, a question still formed at the corners of her lip-gloss covered smile.

“How can I help with that? Tom did show me how to make pizzas.”

She smiled apologetically, but it only made Lucy mad—niceties and nothing else.

“That’s okay, dear,” Daisy spoke up, her kind sunken eyes sparkling as they met Kat’s. “You can work back here with me, and we’ll cook the pizzas while Lucy mans the register.”

Lucy sighed.

“I guess that works. Give me a hand stocking before the rush starts.”

Lucy started walking towards the back room when a man in ballcap entered the store. She frowned and turned toward the register.

“Don’t worry,” Kat said tapping her shoulder. “I’ll help them and then meet you in the back.”

Lucy nodded before turned back towards storage. When she was safely in the back, she let out a silent scream, fists clenched and eyes shut. She felt silly afterward, but shaking out some of her energy was necessary if she was going to make it through the end of her shift.

She’d be gone in a couple of hours. Just the beginning of the pizza rush, then she’d be out of here.            

She remembered when she first started and how crap she was at making pizzas. But Rodney had shown her how to do it. Creepy as he was, he was exact and precise. A good teacher.

She shook her head. Why hadn’t Kat been taught? What the hell were her and Tom doing all night?

An image of the two of them making out among the store shelves cut through her. Forcing it out of her mind, she grabbed a box of jerky from the shelf. It hadn’t been sorted.

Nothing. They’d done nothing.

By the time Kat made her way to the back, Lucy had nearly finished sorting those disgusting meat sticks.

“I guess Tom didn’t show you this,” Lucy said to her without turning.

“Oh, sorry, did we miss something?”

Lucy scoffed and handed her the box.

“Among other things, we try and open all of these up and sort them as they come in.”

She pulled a box cutter from her pocket and tore into a fresh box, revealing an assortment of salty meats.

“They things come from the manufacture in a variety of flavors, all packed in one box together.”

“Okay,” Kat responded, “And you pre-sort them?”

Lucy rolled her eyes. She didn’t get it.

“We try and keep the shelves in the front fully stocked. It’s an optics thing. But you rarely need to restock every flavor, so we keep boxes off each type back here to make it easier to grab what we need.”

She pointed to a bunch of labeled boxes.

“For example, I need some turkey, but that box is currently empty,” she said tossing a fistful of turkey sticks in, leaving three in her other hand. She waved them at Kat. “This is all I needed.”

Kat frowned, which further irritated Lucy. She had such an expressive face, like she had practiced every emotion in the mirror or something.

“What are you worried about?”

“Well, don’t we have to worry about expiry dates.”

“For this shit?” Lucy asked with a laugh. “They’re desiccated meat chunks, it’ll outlast all of us.”

She wiped her eye, but needed to added a note. “Though most perishables should be arranged with the newest stuff in the back and oldest in the front… like you noted yesterday, I guess.”

A one trick pony.

“Is there anything else like that?” Kat asked.

Lucy nodded.

“Most of this stuff gets processed in the morning, but when we have time…” she walked Kat over to a pallet of cardboard boxes, “We open and sort anything new…making sure anything perishable is arranged properly.”

Kat nodded, before turning to look back at the long claustrophobic room.

“Must be a hit creepy at night… working back here, I mean.”

Lucy shrugged. It was, but she wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

“Not really. Just try to forget you’re on Birch Island. Pretend you’re on the east coast. Like you’re in some little fishing village in Maine and not working right on the artery servicing the capital of weird.”

Kat tried to laughed it off.

“It was a good ghost story, but I’m not scared of an urban legend.”

“Well, you have plenty of other ones to choose from. The Black Stone and Charity are just a couple of local ones.”

“What else is there?”

“Take your pick,” Lucy said, trying not to sound sarcastic. “A quick search online will show you we have dozens. But my favorite is The Devil’s Glade.”

Lucy glanced at Kat and saw another look of confusion. “Christ, you’re sheltered. The Devil’s Glade is west of here, past Hermit’s Cove and on the way up to Creek Water. It’s a glade in the middle of the woods, hard to find but easy to recognize.”

“What does it look like?”

“About a thirty-foot-wide clearing, smack in the middle of the thickest forest you’ll ever see, with one dead, gnarled tree at the center.”

“That actually sound kind of pretty,” Kat took out her phone and started flicking away. “But there are no pictures of it?”

Lucy gave Kat a knowing smile.

“You can’t film out there. Electronics don’t work.”

Kat rolled her eyes.

“That’s convenient.”

“It really isn’t, actually.”

“You’re saying you’ve been there?”

“It’s a long hike, but yeah,” she said, remembering the journey. It wasn’t supposed to be alone, but her friends bailed on her. Like they usually did. “You kind of have to feel your way there. Let yourself be led.”

“Led by what?”

Lucy ignored the question.

“They’ll show you the stonework first… the foundations of the abandoned town, left to be reclaimed by the forest. Then, if they want, they lead you to the center of their universe, the glade, and the tree.”

She paused, less for effect and more to slow her own heartbeat.

“It’s not just a clearing, you see. It’s all dead. The ground is barren and dry around that tree. No grass, no bugs. It’s dry and desolate. But if you meditate there, listen to the wind in the branches around you. You can hear them.”

“The ones who led you there?”

Lucy nodded.

“The damned, as they scream in torment!”

She slammed a fist down on the metal shelf.

She got Kat that time, but the new girl laughed it off.

“You’re really good at that, you know.”

“Good at what?” Lucy asked, genuinely confused.

“Story telling. You should write a book about the island or something. Tell your stories, they sound true they way you tell them.”

She was sure they did sound true, even if she was lying.

The voices didn’t scream. They were calm, consistent. They didn’t try and scare her, but they needed her. Intimately. They talked about Tom, and all the things he could do to…

She felt herself blushing.

“There’s no point, already a stack of books about this place anyway.”

“Oh, don’t be a pessimist. Always room for one more.”

“Room on a dusty shelf with a dozen unread books. No thanks, no one gives a shit about this place. It’s like the rest of the world can’t even see us. Doing anything here is a waste of time”

She’d pushed back too hard. Kat’s friendly eyes turned away.

“I better go check the register–”

But she turned to close the shelves, her arm caught on the corner of the shelf and…

Blood.

“Oh shit,” Lucy said reaching out.

Kat pulled her arm away but said nothing.

“I’ll get a bandage,” Lucy said.

She sped over to the first aid kit, considered its contents before deciding to take the whole thing.

She had told Bradley the shelves had those sharp corners! She told him someone would get hurt!

She would absolutely blast him tomorrow.

When she returned, Kat didn’t seem shocked anymore, but she stared down at her arm with a disquieting, placid expression.

She didn’t stop Lucy when she wiped away the blood. Revealing a deep cut running along her arm horizontally.

As she cleaned the wound, Lucy noticed the new cut ran straight through what looked like a long scar.

Kat noticed her staring and shrunk away. She grabbed some gauze from the box and walked away.

“I’ll wrap this up and go help Daisy.”

Kat closed the door behind her, leaving Lucy alone.

There was no whisper, no noise at all. She was alone with her curiosity, her conscience, and regret.

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