Alice's POV:

I quickly ushered the Doctor into my office & shut the door. He took my seat behind the desk.

"What the hell was that?" I asked.

"Who's in charge here?" the Doctor asked, ignoring my question.

"Mr. Johnson." I said. "But I guess, in light of the circumstances, I would be next in command. I'm the assistant manager."

"So your computer would have access to all the important data." He shook the mouse to wake it up. "Has anybody else gone missing? Anybody not show up for work when they were supposed to?"

"Um...yeah, actually. I was put on the registers because we are short staffed." I walked around to my side of the desk, but the Doctor made no effort to get out of my chair, so I awkwardly leaned over him to pull up the attendance records.

"Jesse Harding & Mary Sue Campbell are out today."

"Is that unusual for them to not show up when they should be working?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, Jesse is a student, so this is his first job. He gets a little busy around exam time, sometimes forgets to let us know about schedule conflicts, but otherwise he does good work." I said. "But Mary Sue...she's probably one of our best employees. She's able to calm the most irate customers. She is both pleasant & charming on the registers. In the kitchen, she's quick & always makes every order correctly. She's trained in just about every role in our restaurant...Missing work without calling is very out of character for her..."

"People have disappearing from right under your nose. You didn't even notice."

I was about to defend myself when there was a knock at the door & Brody stuck his head in.

"Hey, uh...the registers are acting up again. Number 2 is frozen."

"I'll call IT, thanks Brody." I said. "Just open one of the others for now."

"Mind if I take a crack at it? I'm really good with technology." the Doctor said, standing up. He pulled out his psychic paper. "John Smith, code name: the Doctor. I'm with Health & Safety."

"Didn't know Health & Safety workers got code names." Brody said. "That's awesome."

"The Doctor's here because um...we have a rat problem in the ally with the dumpster, & there are some concerns that they may have been exposed to something...icky. Spread the word. Make sure nobody goes out there."

"What about the trash?" he asked.

"Just keep it inside. At the end of the day, we'll take it across the street to one of the other restaurant dumpsters."

He nodded, & left.

"Nice work." the Doctor said.

"Thanks." I said. "I just don't want them to panic."

"You've got a giant eel in your alleyway. Panicking is exactly what you should be doing."

The Doctor spent most of the day poking around the kitchens or sitting in the dining room, being more hindrance than help. At the end of the night, I went over to his table, where he was fiddling with his sonic screwdriver.

"Closing time, Doctor." I said. "I can't let you stay here overnight."

"Oh, I won't be any trouble. You won't even know I'm here."

I rolled my eyes. "I really can't. It's against company policy. You're welcome to come back in the morning, but as we say in the food industry, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here." We were the last ones to leave, & I locked the door behind us.

I headed for home. When I arrived, I noticed one of my neighbors sitting on the porch. She was an elderly woman, kind hearted but old fashioned.

"Hello, Ms. Miller." I said as I approached. "How are you this evening?"

"The graffiti problem is getting worse." she said. "There are brand new drawings all over the side of the building. It's a gang sign, I think. We're being overrun with hoodlums!"

"Just think of it as a public art display." I said, ignoring the bigoted undertones for now. I was far too tired. I had stayed late to cover the rest of Mr. Johnson's shift. "A little graffiti never hurt anyone." I started to walk towards my flat, but then the impact of her words hit me.

"Where did you say the graffiti was?" I asked.

"It's on the back of the building." She continued to complain about the state of things, as I ran around to the back.

The Mark of the Hunt was painted on my building.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post this chapter! I was so excited about this idea, that I started it right away…without loosely planning the plot. But, I have a pretty good idea of where we're headed, so updates should come more frequently now!

Next time, we'll start ramping up the action as the Doctor & Alice continue to investigate!

Please review!