Way Down We Go

Chapter 1

Rory's back was breaking.

At least to her, the pain of carrying the pile of boxes up the old stairs was the equivalent of having a sadist shove knives between her vertebrae.

To be fair, the situation was partially her fault. She should have done the sensible thing and carried one or two of them at a time, but instead, she had six compact boxes, bursting with comics for the next new release day, piled in her arms. She didn't like having to do this job more times than could be avoided.

She made it to the main shop, gasping for breath, and dumped the boxes onto the ground. The sound made Carl, the shop owner, turn around and sigh at her.

"Rory, how many times do I have to tell you not to do that?" He asked, heading over to the pile and picking one up as she twisted from side to side, trying to crack her back.

"7,435 at the last count, I think," she said.

"You need to stop doing that. You're going to hurt yourself. You keep this up and I'm going to get Kevin to start doing all the lifting."

Rory tried to suppress a snort of laughter. "Yeah, Kevin, he is definitely the picture of physical strength. Besides, isn't he out sick again?"

"Yeah, poor kid's got the flu again. And anyways that's not the point. The humiliation of having to hand the job over to him would be enough to make you do it safely."

"That boy would last three seconds before he'd call me down to help him. Besides, I've told you that we should just move the break room down there and receiving up here, and it would solve the problem."

"And I've told you, no one wants to have their coffee break in a dank basement."

"It's coffee, Carl. Stick it in an IV and people will be grateful the caffeine gets into their system sooner." She picked a few of the boxes up again and followed him into the next room, setting them beside the break room couch.

"Uh-huh. Sort those out, will you? Then you can take off. Amy's finishing up a job too, so you guys can walk out together. You're in tomorrow morning, right?"

"Yup."

"You still haven't taken any vacation days this summer, do you want to get that sorted? You start classes again soon, don't you?"

"No, I'm okay. Morgan and Rachel are still off camping, having apparently decided that all of civilization is meaningless to them, so it's this or sitting around an empty house. I'd rather have the shifts." Rory assured him as she started opening the boxes, sorting out which books that had been delivered were back issues and which ones were bound for the new release shelf. She didn't mind working the closing shift. It gave her a chance to browse through the new stock, and it was nice and quiet after having to deal with teenagers and kids acting like idiots all day long.

The job didn't take long and soon Rory had clocked out, grabbed her bag, and heading towards the door. She and Amy waited for Carl to unlock the door for them, and then waved goodnight to him as they departed.

"You want a ride home?" Rory offered, "It's getting pretty late."

"Yeah, if you don't mind, rather not wait for the bus in the dark."

"No worries." She led the way to her car, a black Honda parked behind the store.

"So the housemates are still gone?" Amy asked.

"Yeah, they were supposed to come back this weekend, but then they apparently decided to go through Utah on their way home, because there are good hiking trails out there. I mean, to each their own right? I've got the pizza waiting for them when they come back." She shrugged, and Amy laughed.