When I Met the Doctor(1)
I leaned against my till on the verge of falling asleep from exhaustion despite the cold. Sully left that damn window opened again and I was freezing my butt off, but my eyes drooped and I could feel my body weakening into a paralysed state even so. Screw the possibility of hypothermia, I was bloody tired.
'Miiia!'
Was that Sully's voice?
'What have I told you about leaning against the till like that?' Sully sounded really aggravated, but also sort of ……… sympathetic? I rose from my stupor and tried to shake the sleepiness out of me, and was only partially successful. Working two jobs was really wearing me thin.
Sully was holding a bright orange jacket in his left hand and I knew that I was going to have to go out and do a trash walk. I thought it was mean of him to insist - it was still snowing outside after all. And it had to be at least minus five degrees out there.
I decided to just go ahead and do the darn trash walk. The coldness out there might wake me up a little bit, and besides, Sully was making my shifts really horrible lately. The guy was three years older than me, you'd reckon that he'd know to act a little more maturely about matters. I could understand why he was annoyed with me - really, I could. But to go out of his way to bug the hell out of me and make me hate my job even more all because I wouldn't go home with him seemed particularly low. I took the jacket and my chance to get away from him for a little while and headed for the dark, wintry night outside.
If I had been a couple of years younger, I would have been very scared to prowl around outside McDonalds doing a trash walk and laying grit on a Friday night. And with good reason. Lanarkshire is not a very safe place to live.
I guess that's why when I sensed some minor movement behind me, a chill gripped my body that had nothing to do with the cold. I froze, fear coursing through me but never the less still somewhat under control. I heard soft footsteps on the untouched snow directly behind me, and heavy breathing. Very hot, heavy breathing on the back of my neck.
I spun round, fear evaporating instantly. I knew then that it was only Sully, but hell, he'd still given me the fright of my life! I wondered briefly how I hadn't heard him going out of the heavy steel back door, and I knew that I had meant to give him a piece of my mind, but I was feeling kind of dizzy. Kind of…….distracted . I knew the feeling. I knew it was a feeling I didn't want.
Sully stepped closer to me and suddenly the terror became real. I had never had a man near my lips before.
Adrenaline made me shake with nerves, and I couldn't relax at all. I could feel my heartbeat drumming in my ears, and my breath caught in my lungs. Any minute and I might just choke.
Sully knew I was shy, but he didn't know just how terrified these situations made me. He didn't know that that was one of the bigger reasons why I hadn't recuperated any of his feelings before now. He pressed his lips against mine and for a moment I completely stopped breathing. My heart was beating painfully. I felt awful. And I was very immobile.
I was relieved when Sully seemed to finally sober up and took a step back from me and my ugly, stiff kiss. He looked as though he didn't know whether to shout at me or start crying. I felt really terrible for being so socially inept, and wondered whether or not I should just tell him how much of a loser I was.
But whatever Sully was about to say when he parted his lips I will never know.
McDonalds and the land around it was suddenly plunged into darkness. It was like a blitz, I couldn't see a damn thing. I could feel Sully, alarmed, grabbing onto my waist, a sound of shock escaping from his mouth. Sully's touch distressed me much more than the power cut, and I jerked awkwardly, tripping over a stone and almost falling to the ground. In the night's silence I could hear a siren in the not-too-far off distance.
It should not have been silent though. Where were the cars at the drive thru window? Where was the noise from my co-workers squabbling with each other? Why had no-one come outside to check that me and Sully were safe? The silence just seemed so eerie.
I figured it was now time to go back inside.
I reached for Sully's hand but only found some part of his arm. I tried to move, and steer us closer to the door. It was extremely difficult. My eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, and I could make out the silver fence around McDonalds' entrance.
Sully was just no help at all. His lack of manliness was quite a turn off. I mean Jeez-Louise-
A flame ripped across the sky, lighting the scene up for a moment. Sully looked even more scared than I had thought he was, and he clung onto me tighter. I couldn't really understand why the current situation was not scaring me so much but I couldn't stand a little kiss and fumble with Sully in the dark.
It seemed that as soon as the flash of fire had lit up the sky it went out, leaving us in the dark again. The little spurt of light had shown me how to get to the front door of the store, and I got me and Sully there in an instant.
Weirdly, as soon as I opened the front door, the lights came on again inside.
And the place was empty.
The oil vats had came back on and the coffee machines hummed into life. The light on the security camera blinked its hello, and I noticed an abandoned mop left out on lobby where Helen had been cleaning up before. There was no-one behind the counter, and the tables which had recently been full were vacated.
I had a very bad feeling about it all.
Sully didn't seem able to register that all of his staff and customers had disappeared. He moved amongst the tables and behind the counter, as if everyone was simply hiding out of sight. When he was satisfied that there was no-one there, he approached me, looking whiter than white.
'Oh my God. What am I going to do? What am I going to tell Andrew? How am I going to explain no customers and no staff?!' Sully's hair was stuck to his head with sweat.
I lost a little respect for him in that moment. I, personally, was much more concerned with what had happened to everyone and whether or not they were okay. There was, after all, low enough temperatures outside for a person to freeze to death.
Sully and I then did what all people do when they are baffled. We made up improbable explanations for an impossible situation. Perhaps everyone had simply treated the power cut as they would have done a fire drill and left? But they would be outside across the street. Maybe they were playing a trick on us. Maybe the other employees had just taken advantage of Sully's brief absence and had decided to close the store early?
Sully made a couple of phone calls trying to get in touch with someone who might know what had happened, but the abandoned mobiles rang out to us from the staff room. When everyone had disappeared, they had left their phones behind them.
'Oh Sully, maybe we were robbed! Maybe we were robbed and the people who did it just forced everyone out! It would explain why people had left all of their things behind.' Yeah, it would sure explain that. But it wouldn't explain how we hadn't noticed a significant amount of people leaving the store in the brief time that we had been outside. Still, as long as there was money missing - any amount of money at all - I was prepared to believe something as ridiculous as the trite I had just come out with.
It seemed that Sully and me shared this sentiment, as he swiftly moved to check the safe. This might take some time. I sat down on the hard floor and held my knees against my chest. I hadn't felt this much like a child in quite a while.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
I stood up so quickly my knee made a cracking noise and I thought my leg was going to give way. Sully dropped the safe keys and for a moment a look of shock and fear passed over his face. I was quite scared myself. After all, if we had been robbed and the robber was still inside….
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
'Where do you think it's coming from?' I whispered. 'Do you think they know we're here?'
Sully pressed a finger to his lips to indicate that I should be quiet, and calmly moved silently towards the kitchen area of the restaurant. I thought he must have gone mad. How can a man afraid of the dark go so willingly towards one who may be dangerous? How can he be prepared to just walk straight into the grasp of a suspected robber who must have some sort of weaponry with him?
I must have gone a little mad myself because I followed Sully without openly questioning him. As if I had a life to spare or something.
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
Suddenly I just wished I'd let Sully kiss me properly. It would have been a nice way to end my time on earth.
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
I hadn't even gotten to say goodbye to my family.
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
The freezer door was being battered with such force it looked set to
pop open at any moment. It seemed as though there had to be the strength of at least three men behind it. I flinched with every kick the door endured, as if I was suffering each blow myself.
I had had no idea what Sully was going to do, but if I had expected anything, this was definitely not it.
He pressed the green button at the side of the freezer door. I failed to hold back a gasp.
All at once, the thumping noise stopped and there was the clicking sound of the door unlocking. I took a step back, almost tripping over my own feet as the door swung open.
And from inside emerged a man whom I had never seen before.