Nightmare Shift: Part 1 of 3 (criticism welcome!)

treklord

NIGHTMARE SHIFT
By
Andrew Brannigan

1

Jane Smith was having the time of her life. She was on a working holiday in New York with her best friend Elaine Gibbs. The two girls were as close as sisters. Some said that they even looked alike, so much so that could have been twins. The two girls had recently finished school in Ireland and had decided to take some time for themselves before going to college. First stop for them was New York city where they had managed to find an affordable flat together just a few blocks from O’Reilly’s Irish bar where they had been employed.

The first week passed in a blur of beer, cigarette smoke, drunken chat-up lines and laughter. They were only working at nights so they had the daylight hours to tour the city and see the sights. They had taken dozens of photographs of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and the spot where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre had stood until the terrorist attack of September 11 2001.

At night the girls worked in shifts that overlapped most nights. They each had one night a week off and this was used for dating. Sometimes they would swap shifts depending on the night that the other’s date had requested to meet. Tonight, Jane was covering Elaine’s shift while she went to a Broadway play with “Corvette Carl”. The girls had taken to nicknaming their dates by the cars they drove, such as “Lexus Luke”, “Honda Drew” or “Johnny Ford”. Their private joke was also a protective measure, as they each knew the make, model, colour and registration number of the other’s date’s car before they went out at night. These could be reported to the police if anything happened or if one of them failed to either telephone or send a text message to the other.

The night had started just like any other. Jane arrived for work a few minutes early and helped herself to a cup of coffee before starting. She knew it was going to be a busy night because their was a football game on the television and the bar was packed to capacity with supporters of both teams. Jane wasn’t into the American Football game between the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants, she much preferred watching her favourite soccer team, Liverpool, play in the English premiership. When she took her place behind the bar for her shift she was immediately deluged with orders for pitchers of beer. She never noticed the heavily lidded eyes watching her intently from the opposite side of the bar room. She did however notice a growing feeling of unease as the night progressed.
Eventually the game finished, Jane was amazed at how it could take sometimes as long as two hours to play the prescribed hour of actual play of American Football. The victors savoured their rival’s defeat and the losers drowned their sorrows in pitchers of Budweiser. Finally closing time arrived, none to soon for Jane’s aching feet, and the last of the patrons was ushered out the door. After a quick coffee break to rest their weary feet, Jane and the rest of the staff cleaned up the bar, washed the used glasses and pitchers, swept up the spills and cigarette butts from the floor, counted up the cash in the tills and got ready to go home.

The last thing that Jane had to do was to take the trash out to the dumpster in the alleyway behind the bar. She hated doing this because the light covering the alley had been broken for some time and the shadows that inhabited the area seemed as deep and impenetrable as black holes. Jane propped the bar’s back door open with a box while she went to the dumpster. This cast a paltry light out into the night that barely reached beyond the door. As she tied the tops of the trash bags to prevent the contents from spilling out while she carried them, Jane’s mind began to flash a Red Alert danger sign at her. Looking down the alleyway she saw nothing that would cause her instincts to flare like that. Twice before in her life she had listened to her instincts and they had saved her life on both occasions. Now though, looking around this empty alley she couldn’t understand why her instincts should be screaming at her. She nevertheless decided to be on her guard as she went to the dumpster.

To Be Continued

swimfan

continue, CONTINUE!

Shad0r

haha nice spot to put:
To be continued.