Vengeance Is Sweet
Chapter One – The Night Shift.
"You don't mind taking the night shift do you Kim?" my manager, Kyle, looked at me sternly as I was about to make my way out the door, his glare told me that if I took another step he would fire me without hesitation, there and then.
I had just finished my twelve hour day shift, my coat on with my bag resting upon my left shoulder and car keys at the ready, I was exhausted and finally ready to go home, then he just had to ask. I wanted nothing more than to go home, have some dinner and relax in front of the television for a couple hours before going to bed. But me being me, I turned on my heel to face back into the store.
People tell me that I'm a people pleaser; I always do what I can to make other people happy even if it means setting aside my own happiness to make their lives easier. I just have trouble with saying 'no'. Whenever someone wants something done, they will always come to me without a second thought, because without a hint of hesitation, I will do it, no questions asked.
"No, I don't mind." I sighed while making my way to the back room, returning my coat and bag to the hook they were resting upon just a minute ago. I don't know why I agreed, of course I didn't want to do another shift, but because I'm not one for confrontation when it could cost me my job, I had agreed into another twelve hour shift, stupidly leading to a twenty-four hour continuous shift. In the couple minutes it took me to put my stuff away and walk back onto the shop floor, I noticed Kyle had already left me to it, seeing his car exit the garage.
"Some manager." I mumbled to myself, he was meant to be doing the night shift and he's left me here without so much as a thank you.
The graveyard shift at this garage is always quiet, situated on a side road about half a mile from the nearest town puts us on the verge of being in the middle of nowhere. Occasionally there are a few late night travellers just wanting to fuel up, and more often than not there are the drunks who can barely stumble their way through the door because we are the only place open at 4am still selling alcohol. Other than those exciting moments, this job is frustratingly dull at night. Don't get me wrong, this job is also boring during the day, but at least there is normally a flow of customers to keep busy.
It was approaching 2am, no customers had turned up for what must be three to four hours, the last being an elderly gent who stayed for roughly fifteen minutes telling me about his week since he'd last seen me, it was weird that he always arrived at about 10:30pm, but who was I to turn him away, it kept me company for a short while. As a matter of fact, I hadn't noticed any vehicles drive by for a long time either, this is certainly turning into a long and quiet night.
Looking at the clock on the back wall it read 1:56am, just over five hours till my shift ended. I'd finished all of my main duties within the first couple of hours; stacking the shelves, stock checks and cashing the tills. Having nothing left to do I could feel the tiredness seeping in, working for what was approaching nineteen hours really does wear you down, everything was done and it was a quiet evening, unable to resist temptation I rested my head against the cash desk, it can't hurt to catch a few winks, the jingle alarm the door makes whenever it opens would surely wake me up if anyone needed serving, and surely Kyle can't expect me to stay awake and work for twenty four hours without rest, he's crazy if he thought that.
He wouldn't find out anyway, he runs this place so cheaply that the CCTV cameras are dummies, all except the one which looked out over the fuel pumps so we could report anyone who done a fill-up-and-dash, even then it is only activated when someone uses the pump, to save on tape space. Just to be on the safe side I set my phone alarm to go off every thirty minutes, just so I didn't get too comfortable sleeping.
2:30am, on queue the alarm on my phone filled the shop floor with an annoying beeping noise, reaching under the desk I pulled it out and turned the alarm off, those thirty minutes passed by far too quickly. Nonetheless I got up and scoured the store, everything was still in place and no one had been in from what I could tell. Yep the place is still deserted. With my phone still in my hand I tapped the games icon on my screen and loaded up Sonic 2, retro games on my phone always proved to be a good time waster, however, with my tiredness it took all of fifteen minutes before I ran out of lives and continues.
Defeated I reset my alarm to go off again in another thirty minutes, there's nothing else to do so I may as well try to have another quick nap. I place my mobile back into my front jeans pocket and rested my head against the counter once more. Nothing more than a couple minutes passed when I was disturbed by a car pulling into the garage.
"Finally a customer." I murmured to myself as I sat up behind the counter, due to the fuelling area being dimly lit it caused difficulty in being able to see what the person who arrived was doing, not that it was any of my business, so long as they came in to pay then my job was done.
Over five minutes passed and still no movement came from the vehicle, maybe they just pulled over here for a driving break. Bored of waiting for someone to come in, I got up and grabbed a magazine from the shelves then perched myself back behind the counter to have a read. Fully engulfed in what I was reading I just barely caught ear of the jingle above the door sounding, I didn't look up, I was too intrigued by the article – Another celebrity arrested in a drug raid – this is how dull my life is, resorting to celebrity gossip.
My lack of attention only got worse, I didn't notice that someone had approached the counter; they easily could have just grabbed what they wanted and left without paying the way my attention span was going. It was only when the magazine was ripped from my hands and sent flying across the store did I even remember someone had entered.
"A simple 'excuse me' would have got my attention." I retorted sarcastically as I watched what I was reading fly to the other end of the room then diverting my gaze to the offender. Seeing the person before me made me wish I hadn't said anything, in fact it made me wish I'd been more observant when they entered the store so I could run, or hide, something. The person was fully dressed in black with a ski mask covering their face; all I could see was their hazel eyes. From their appearance I assumed the person was a male, he was clearly muscular and easily over six foot tall, even with the counter between us he towered over me. It was upon seeing the ski mask I knew I was in trouble.
Just want to quickly say, sorry for taking this down previously, but I really didn't like the way the story was going and felt it was missing some details in some chapters and giving too many details in others. So I've had a good look at this story so far and I'm much happier with it now, to me it seems to have better direction other than 'go go go' like before. Meaning once it's up, it's up forever. Chapters also won't be added as quickly as before either, because I want to make sure they are right before they go up, but I'll still try to upload once every one to two weeks (personal life permitting of course)
Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed the first chapter. Don't forget to review if you think there is anything I could improve on, or just to let me know what you think of the story so far, it really is inspiring to know that people take the time to give their feedback.