Through Ghost Country

Page 1

The clock. The clock.

Why was she looking at the clock?

'11:57. Ok.' she thought, not even blinking. The clock became a white blur against a slightly less white wall. Forcing herself to close her eyes, Carrie looked around the store.

"9/11," she said aloud, with nobody to hear. "home of the soulless teenage delinquent." Swiveling her head to the window, Carrie realized there was rain. She didn't remember the last time she'd felt rain. The 7/11 sign flashed, the ridiculous gas price disappearing and reappearing. 11:59. Her back ached, and her legs were lead as she trudged through the automatic doors into the downpour. She wanted a cigarette, but she knew it would get put out with all the water. 'Maybe I should quit..' She blinked, and ran her hand under her eye, fingers coming away black with kohl pencil.

'Nah. How else would you be able to leave 9/11 this many times a day and not have anyone call bullshit?' 

'True.' Water dripped onto Carrie's already soaking black-and-red uniform. She squeezed the water from her sun-bleached brown hair and tied it in a bun.  

12:01. Carrie grunted as she noticed the time. Cautious, but not overly suspicious, midnight, she had decided, was not a good time to be at the convenience store, in her ill-fitting polyester 7/11 uniform,  soaked with rain, and needing a smoke. 'Why the hell do we need to be open this late anyway? It's not like there aren't twelve more in the same city.'  She opened her backpack behind the counter, pulling out a towel, and remembering Ford Prefect's words of advice in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy'. Carrie wheezed out a half-hearted noise that almost passed as a laugh. "Never forget your towel, kids." she muttered, rubbing herself dry. Once she was less than soaking, damp, maybe, but not dry, she rolled up the butter coloured towel and stuffed it into her backpack. Rising up from behind the counter, scratch ticket filling her view, Carrie sighed, shrugging on a sweater. Her asshole manager, Greg, would've yelled at her for a 'uniform violation' but he wasn't around, so she couldn't care less. 

Through the rain-streaked glass of the sliding doors, she could see a man staggering up the asphalt, narrowly avoiding a gas pump outside. 'Oh, fuck.' Carrie nearly whispered 'Oh, fuck. He better not be drunk. Oh, fuck.' As the doors slid open with a silent 'whoosh' she could see him clearly now. He was tall, and lanky, with hair buzzed so close to his skull you could barely tell what colour it was. He had strong, high cheekbones and a thin nose. Most importantly, from said nose, was dripping a concerning amount of blood, and when he opened his mouth to speak, blood came out as well. "Holy shit, oh my God!" Carrie nearly screamed "Are you alright?" 

He looked her square in the face, his eyes a strangely calming shade of greenish blue. 

"No." he said, the one simple word pouring blood down his shirt. Then, in a rather  unceremonious manner, he hit the floor with an unnaturally loud 'thud'.