Original Fiction: JACKED! The Origin Dime Chronicles, bk 1 Episode 1

Jack sat staring at the screen of the drive through monitor.

It had been over three hours and not a single customer had rolled through. It was nearly 12 AM. A huge, fat cockroach lazed across the camera lens outside. It was broadcast onto the screen, taking on prehistoric proportions as it waddled across.

The cockroach stopped, then turned and ran back the way it came. Too late! A giant thumb crushed the bug against the lens.

Jack sat up straight on his stool, unsure what the hell had just happened. He rubbed his eyes and looked back at the monitor. The remains of the murdered insect were still smeared across the lower half of the screen. And then he saw him, crouched down near the menu sign.

He stared straight at the camera, as if he could see through it, or sense Jack watching in some way. He was licking the cockroach from his fingers.

The man was pale, and thin as a crack whore. He had long, stringy, dark hair and eyes that looked like solid black orbs on the monitor. He gave the camera a fierce smile and raised a handgun. Jack felt, as much as heard the shot, then the monitor went black.

Jack's head turned to the drive through window, but he was too late. The man pushed his snakelike fingers through the crack between the halves of the drive through window. He threaded his impossibly tiny head through the gap.

Jack sat pinned in terror to the stool.

It took less than fifteen seconds, from the time the thumb hit the lens, until Jack lay at the foot of the stool. He was looking up at the last face he might ever see. The man appeared even more ghostlike this close up. His rail thin arms swung loose at his sides. His right arm tensed.

He pointed the barrel of the large automatic square between Jack's eyes. Jack closed them tight.

“Open your eyes,” the man hissed. Jack did. “Get up” the man waved the gun to indicate that Jack should stand. “You alone?”

Jack stood, and nodded. He felt the hard steel as the man pressed the gun against his spine. Jack's arms rose until his hands were even with his head, fingers spread.

The man laughed. “Why do people do that? I never tell them to do that, they just do!” He wormed around Jack, swooping low to look up into his face. “Why?”

Jack swallowed, hard. The man peered up at him, raising his eyebrows, as if to say “Well?”

Jack cleared his throat, “I don't know, you don't want me to?”

The man waved Jack toward the office. Jack stepped forward, letting his arms drop a little. He moved them back up as he felt the pressure on his spine increase.

The office was at the back of the kitchen down a grease spattered, plywood paneled hall about eight feet long. Open storage shelves overflowing with straws, Styrofoam containers and ketchup bottles lined the hall.

The office door was closed. The man reached around Jack and tried the knob with his left hand. For a split second, jack considered grabbing the arm. The thought of seeing his own guts sprayed over the office door stopped him.

“Unlock the door, Jack” the man hissed in his ear, his cold breath was unnerving.

Jack fumbled at his belt, his fingers brushing past the holster of the mace can he always wore, for just such occasions. He found the bulky keyring. He pulled the office key upward on its spring loaded lanyard and unlocked the door.

It swung inward and Jack stumbled into the office.

The tiny room was a converted broom closet, four feet square, with a built in work station. Shelves lined the wall, floor to ceiling. Stacks of Safety sheet binders, brochures, and unread self help books filled every surface.

The man slid past Jack leaving a cold, slug-like trail of sweat that soaked instantly through his thin uniform shirt and lay clammy on his skin. The man leaned over the desk, and moved aside a stack of manuals to reveal a wall safe. Jack had never seen the safe in his entire six year career in this place.

Needle thin fingers, turned the knob and the door of the safe swung open. There was a single thumb drive in a clear, plastic sandwich bag inside. The man trembled with anticipation as he picked it up, “You know what this is?” with a fierce whisper. His voice rattled in his throat as the words slid out.

Jack shook his head, “No.”

“What?!” it was the first time the man had used more than a hiss and it came out as a shriek. Jack covered his ears. The man chuckled, dangling the bag from his fingers. He swung it, pendulum like, inches from Jack's nose.

“It's the key to the universe.”

The man smiled, unzipped the bag and swallowed the drive in one gulp.

The man slid past him, dropped the baggy to the floor and moved out through the door. Jack hesitated, then turned and opened the door. He followed the man, who seemed not to notice.

Jack sank onto the stool, gulping breath after breath. He looked down at his hands and checked himself all over for unnoticed damage. He removed his headset and looked at himself in a small mirror over the sink. He seemed okay.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! Rapid pounding came from the back door, down a second hall on the opposite side of the kitchen from the drive through. This was his thanks for pulling this extra graveyard shift. Corporate demanded it, the crew hated it. It always cost the franchise money, always! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Jack moved to where he could see the security monitor his hand shook. There were two large men in suits, with a cop like demeanor, glaring up into the camera. The robber was nowhere to be seen.
Jack moved toward the back door, the pounding continued.

He took the key from a hook, over the door and inserted it in the lock, putting one eye up to the peep hole. One of the men had his face almost pressed to the hole on the outside. The other stood staring off into the darkness. Both appeared to be packing, it was Jack's night for firearm encounters, apparently.

The lock squeaked and Jack pulled the door in. One of the men, the one with his eye to the peephole, flashed something that Jack assumed was ID.

“Are you Jack Kelly?” He asked, brushing past and into the restaurant.

Jack nodded, weakly as the second man brushed past him as well. They seemed to know where they were going. “Do you know why we're here?” The second man asked, peering at Jack w.

“Um, not exactly. Does it have anything to do with the weird thing, or guy, or whatever who just crawled in through the drive through?” Jack asked.

The men walked in and through the kitchen, not even pausing. They headed straight for the office as if they had been there a million times. Jack's head was clearing from his near death experience. The two men were becoming more different from each other with each observation.

For one thing, the first guy was tall, really tall, must have been 6' 8'. The odd thing was, he was still perfectly proportioned. This made him seem even larger. The second man looked like a bowling ball on legs.

He was having a tough time squeezing into the hall to the office.

In his head, he determined to call them Thing One and Thing Two.

Thing one had a glistening black head of hair held in place by something that looked like an antique pomade. He had sparkling white teeth, and old fashioned movie star good looks. Coupled with his size, it gave him an extremely creepy air.

Thing Two was bald as a brick, and looked like he knew how to make you talk. Or at least, how to order other people to make you talk. He was wheezing just rolling around the restaurant. Jack did not think he would survive anything more strenuous than carrying a sack lunch to work.

Thing one was in the office. Thing Two was right behind Jack in the narrow hallway and coming fast. He pressed Jack up against the back of Thing One. He somehow managed to get the door closed behind them.

Thing one reached into the back of the now empty safe and pressed against it. The room spun, like a bookshelf in a castle out of some old movie, halfway around and stopped.

A yellow light filled the room, it was blinking. Jack peered over Thing one's shoulder. He found himself looking into a concrete chamber. It had a thick, industrial metal rail around it. In the center was a round staircase going down. Thing one lifted the desk top to the left. It flipped up and out of the way.

“Thing two, you stay here. We're going down.” Thing one said.

Thing two settled into the desk chair. He produced a huge sandwich and newspaper out of his inside suit jacket pocket. He came prepared.

You may be wondering what the hell you just read. Buckle up, there's a lot more where that came from and it only gets weirder from here! Welcome to the Origin Dime!

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