Black Friday-
Summary: Newkirk has a frightening dream about a shopping holiday.
…
Newkirk settled into bed, the mission he had earlier really tired him out. The others were going to stay up until lights out but they promised to be quiet for him.
He rolled over to face the wall and drifted off into sleep rather quickly.
…
Newkirk opened his eyes. He was standing in line. Why was he standing in line? He was surrounded by women. Hey, that's not bad, right? He looked around him. It was dark out, the middle of the night? Did the sun just set? He glanced to the right of himself. Carter was standing next to him with a flyer in his hand. He was reading it casually a soft smile playing on his lips. Newkirk looked over the young man's shoulder.
The leaflet read:
BLACK FRIDAY SALE! STORE OPENS AT 5:00 AM.
"Five in the morning?" Newkirk was in shock. "Who opened a store at five in the morning for a sale? Is it really that big of a deal?"
Carter looked at him. "Yeah of course."
Newkirk looked at his watch, it was gone! He tapped Carter on the shoulder, "What time is it?"
Carter looked at his watch. "It's five to five." Then went back to the sale paper.
Newkirk looked on with Carter at the paper. They had all sorts of merchandise for sale. Prices were good too. Very good! Was a sale like this even possible? Was it too good to be true? This was incredible. It looked to him like a great idea! What could go wrong?
"Attention customers!" A man's shaky voice over a loud speaker resounded outside the store. "The store will be opening in two minutes."
People began to cheer and the next thing that Newkirk knew was he and Carter were being pushed forward by people behind them. The line was condensing and everyone was getting closer together. Newkirk was very close to the door. He could see inside the glass. The employees of the store seemed nervous.
Why would they be nervous? Newkirk was getting a bad feeling about this.
He realized that people were getting too close to one another. He felt crushed; claustrophobic. Now he knew how Lebeau felt.
People started counting down around him. He looked back behind him. There was just a crowd behind him, he couldn't see the end of it.
People began getting impatient as they got to the single digits.
Newkirk looked into the store, the employees looked panicked, they had their hands on the door to unlock it. It looked to him that as soon as the door was unlocked they were going to run for it.
"Four!"
The employee inside held his breath.
"Three!"
Newkirk held his breath
"Two!"
Newkirk and the man made eye contact and in that split second they understood each other.
"ONE!"
The man ripped the lock off and ran into an alcove. The people burst through the doors. Slamming them against the walls.
Newkirk was shoved inside and he quickly looked around him. One was liable to get trampled if he wasn't careful. 'Where's Carter?' Panicking, Newkirk tried to spot the young man. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his face. He broke through the crowd and grabbed the man by the arm. "Carter, stay with me, you'll end up getting trampled."
Carter nodded and the two were pushed inside. Newkirk could see people running as fast as they could across the store grabbing things off of shelves and cramming them into carts. Newkirk dragged Carter over to a secluded area. "You alright?"
Carter was watching everyone with an excited look on his face. "Yeah." He looked over at Newkirk. "Are you? You look like you've seen better days."
Newkirk gave him a dirty look and looked around. He saw woman running over to a display of cooking pans that were on sale. The women over there wouldn't let her through, she tried to reach for just one set but they wouldn't allow it. He looked over to where she ran from. Her cart was there filled with sale items. Another woman ran over, made sure the other woman wasn't looking and stole items out of the cart.
Newkirk could not believe what he was seeing. This was no sale, it was a looting. He looked next to him Carter was gone.
"Andrew?" He looked round him calling out the name. "Andrew?" After seeing he was no where to be seen he began to trace the store. He ran by the woman, who had gone to try and get the pans, to see that she was trying to tear it out of another woman's hands. Newkirk was going to try and calm them down, but when a fight broke out he thought better of it. He had to find Andrew before anything like that happened to him.
He ran by the front door and saw an ambulance outside carrying a man out on a stretcher; he'd been trampled!
Terror filled Newkirk as he searched for Carter.
He ran past many fights and looters, along with crowds of loud shouting people. There was a child crying for lost parents. People were too busy with their shopping to care. Newkirk couldn't just stand by and watch the kid could be taken or trampled or something. He went over. "Hey there little fella, what's yer name?"
He sniffled, "Johnny."
"Well, Johnny, I'll tell you what, I'll take you to the front of the store so that the employees 'ere can call your parents over the loud speaker, okay?"
The kid nodded, still crying.
Newkirk picked him up and took him to the front of the store, explained the situation to the employees who were more than willing to help. Once the kid was safe Newkirk kept running to try and find Carter. 'Where would he be?' Not by the cooking products, or the children's section… no he might be there. He looked all through the children's area and asked people but they hadn't seen the young man.
Newkirk did nothing but run across the store searching and calling out his friend's name. However he received no response. He made it back to the front of the store. The lines at the cashiers were atrocious. They were thirty maybe forty people long and there were at least twenty rows of cashiers and all were open. Then he caught a glimpse of a man.
The man was standing on his toes trying to see past the people in front of him.
"Andrew!" He ran to the man's side.
"Hey no cutting!" An angry woman called from behind them. Other women began to shout in agreement.
Newkirk put his hands up in defense. "I'm with 'im! I'm not buyin' anything'!"
The women let it go for now, but there was no way Newkirk was going to stick around. What kind of sale was this? A looting sale? Newkirk and Carter were standing in line for nearly an hour before it was finally their turn. All Carter had was a tool kit. He paid and Newkirk tore him out of the store so fast Carter almost didn't have a chance to grab his item.
Newkirk ripped him out the door and saw cars whizzing past them all headed to the same direction, Newkirk looked, it was another store with a long line in front of it. Carter, not paying attention walked out into the traffic heading for the same destination.
Newkirk nearly had a heart attack. He went to grab the young man before he was killed in a traffic accident but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't grasp him.
…
Newkirk bolted up right in bed. The men at the table looked at him. Carter stood from where he was playing cards and went to his friend. "You okay?"
Newkirk looked down at him then around himself. 'What a dream.' he put his head in his hands. He felt a tap on his shoulder, Lebeau was offering him some water. He took it gratefully.
Hogan, who had quite a worried look on his face, asked, "You alright? Do you want me to call Wilson?"
Newkirk shook his head, "It's just me nerves, Sir."
"Bad dream?" Carter asked.
Any other time Newkirk would have found it a ridiculous question but not this time. He nodded. "You have no idea!"
He told them the story.
"What a stupid holiday." Carter said after hearing the dream. Newkirk was thankful that the young man wouldn't take part in it.
"Yeah, who would be dumb enough to go on a holiday like that?" Kinch asked.
Newkirk nodded his head. "Yeah, that's what I thought. But you should never underestimate women."
All the men agreed in unison.
"Still I don't think a store would want to do that! I mean its more trouble than its worth!" Hogan said shrugging.
Newkirk nodded. "Lets hope I don't have another dream like that."
The men all laughed, not sure where the dream came from, but glad that Newkirk was over it.
They all headed to bed, and Newkirk prayed that the world would be smart and never invent such a holiday, especially after another holiday like, Thanksgiving or something.
…
I figured since Black Friday was yesterday I ought to write a fic about it. And since it is a dumb holiday and a dangerous one. I thought it would be fun to write this. I'm sure its not like laugh your gut off material, but maybe a smile here and there.
I hope I didn't offend anyone who partakes in Black Friday. Please R&R.
Also I know England doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.