Categories > Movies > Charlie's Angels
Graveyard Shift
0 ReviewsCreepy encounter behind a dumpster. Feral child, walking dead, or the Thin Man?
Author's note: This was written as a prequel to my story SHADOW OF THE THIN MAN. It takes place between the end of the first movie and that story, so you don't need to read SotTM to understand this.
The girl stands at the back door and lets the heavy plastic bag full of garbage drop. She peers out across the parking lot. The day had been warm and unbearably muggy, but a brief thunderstorm at sundown chilled the air, and now the lot is packed with cottonwool fog. She can barely see across it.
Her name is Melanie Rymer. Her dark blonde hair is pulled tightly back and fluffed out in an explosion of ringlets at the back of her head. She has been working the take-out window all night, so her butt is freezing from the air conditioning while the humidity is making her hair frizz. She wears a polyester shirt in unappealing blue and tan stripes. She'd put on Juice Bar Teddy Bear body spray that morning after her shower, but by now she smells like stale grease, like she always does after a full shift. When she gets home, her mom's dogs, Beau and Lilli, will follow her around, their tongues hanging out. There is a burn on her arm from the french fry cage.
"I hate this job."
She takes the pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket, taps out one, and then stuffs it in the front pocket of her shirt. That was the only reason she'd agreed to do a dumpster run. If she is fast, Bob will never suspect she is taking an unauthorized break. She does not realize it, but each exhalation is freighted not only with the nicotine and free fast-food dinner, but also the bitter adrenal taste of her fear.
The night manager, Bob, is afraid to go out to the dumpster, too. He offered her dinner if she would stay with him after closing while he counted the drawers. Bob is short, balding, forty-six and unmarried. Melanie has very little respect for him, and only a small amount of pity.
But she likes the idea that she is braver than him. She isn't scared of the Wild Man. It's an urban legend, like in that movie. Some homeless guy, probably, some schizo. There isn't really a man in black ghosting through the city killing people. He wasn't raised by coyotes out in the hills. Stupid. People at school can't stop talking about it, though, especially after they found that lady's body half-eaten on the beach. Everyone who retold the story would sum it up by saying, "And the bite marks weren't made by a shark or a feral dog . . . they looked /human/."
Utter and complete crap. And yet, she really, really doesn't want to take the garbage out to the dumpster tonight.
"Just like that episode of Spongebob."
Melanie is sixteen, smokes two packs a day, has a driver's license so new the laminate is still warm, and feels very mature. But she still watches Spongebob Squarepants religiously each evening. In the last episode, Spongebob took the night shift at the Krusty Krab. Squidward was telling ghost stories about the Hash-Slinging Slasher, and poor little Spongebob got so scared he was afraid to take the trash out to the dumpster. He ran out as fast as he could, threw it in, and ran back screaming and waving his arms. Eventually every thing scary that happened had a reasonable explanation, except for the flickering lights, which turned out to be Nosferatu.
"/Nosfer-AHtuuuuu/," she whispers, mocking the condescending tone the characters had used to scold the vampire.
She takes a last puff then tosses it away and lifts the bag again, leaning over to grab the cardboard box full of broken down boxes. Might as well get it over with.
Grunting and huffing, she drags her load across the lot through the orange-tinted fog. The dumpster and the cardboard baler are located inside a sort of wooden shed. Exactly why the restaurant felt the need to protect them this way is a mystery to Melanie. It was probably to keep homeless people out. She unlocks the door and backs in, dragging the big box.
The door clicks shut behind her. Which is wrong. The lot is on a slight incline, and the door always, always swings wide open.
Melanie glances up and sees: a tall, thin, pale-faced man dressed in black.
She sees Nosferatu.
She opens her mouth to scream, but the man is too fast. He leaps over the box and lands in front of her, twisting his fingers into her ponytail and forcing her face to his chest, muffling the scream. She struggles, but he only presses harder, mashing her nose down, making it impossible to breathe. She feels his heart pounding through the cloth.
He wrenches her head back, forcing her to look up at him. She takes a deep breath and prepares to scream again.
But the man lets out a rasping /shhhhhhhh/.
She nods and gulps, her breath escaping as a kittenish mew. The manstares at her consideringly, then nods back. He untangles his
fingers from her ponytail slowly, then jerks his hand away. She yelps and puts her hand up. That hurt.
The man raises the little tuft of her hair that he has pulled to his mouth and inhales deeply, his good eye fluttering shut. One side of his face is a wreck, crusted with dried and fresh blood, the lids of the other eye sunken as if there is nothing underneath, thick pus draining from between them. His dangling left arm is messed up, too, wrapped up in black cloth that looks like he'd torn it from his shirt, the fingers of that hand curled up in a paralyzed way. It looks like he'd gone three rounds with a Mack Semi and lost.
He rubs the tuft of hair over his cheek, a rapturous expression spreading over his cadaverous face. Great, a pervo.
The man is between her and the shed door. She backs away, trips over something, and lands on the bag of garbage. He's been in the dumpster, she realizes, eating out of it. There's a split bag on the ground, food and wrappers scattered everywhere.
Nosferatu takes a step towards her and gestures at her chest.
"Oh, god, no." It is her worst nightmare. Her breaths begin to come in hitching sobs. The man kneels in front of her and gestures again, letting his bony fingers trail down the front of her shirt, his sharp nails snagging on the cheap polyester.
"No, please, don't, please." She can't think of what to say. The man makes a peculiar, demanding whine deep in his throat, the sort of sound Beau and Lilli make when they want to go out. Suddenly, he grabs the front of her shirt.
She screams, and his hand whistles up and slaps her, hard. The scream cuts off, and she puts her hand to her jaw, feeling the injured tissue beginning to swell and throb already.
Nosferatu has backed away. He's got something small and white in his hand, holding it up to the dim streetlight. Her pack of cigarettes. She blinks away the tears. That was what he had been after. His lip flares in a sneer, perhaps he doesn't like menthol Virginia Slims.
But he taps one out anyway, and tosses the pack back. He kneels again in front of her, and she curls up like a salted slug.
The man holds the cigarette out to her.
"No, no, thank you," she says in a tiny whisper.
The man makes another impatient sound, then put the cancer stick to his lips and mimes lighting it.
"Oh! Oh, sorry, I didn't understand," she babbles, digging in her pocket. She fishes the lighter out and extends it, her hand trembling.
Nosferatu's good eye widens, and she sees it is a very pale shade of blue. He stares at the lighter and makes another odd noise, a sharp, querulous /rawk/. She realizes the man isn't trying to be quiet - he can't speak at all. Maybe he is the Wild Man. After all, if you're raised by coyotes, you can't very well learn to talk, can you?
"Do you like it," she asks. She recalls an article she read in Seventeen a few years ago, about what to do if you're kidnapped. Make the attacker think you're on his side, it said. Make yourself a person to him, not an object.
Quickly, keeping her voice low and soothing, she says, "You can keep it if you want. I was gonna get one that said 'the Big Apple' but all they had left were these American flag ones. I got it on our class trip to New York City. At the World Trade Center. I don't like heights, so I thought it would be pretty scary, but it was so high up it didn't look real, so I went right up to the glass - "
The strange man presses the tip of his finger to her lips, clearly wanting her to shut up. So much for that idea, she thinks miserably.
He stands up, leaning back against the dumpster and stretching one leg out to hold the door shut. They sit there in silence for several minutes as he smokes, letting the cig burn down almost to ash.
When he is finished, he takes his boot off the door and steps away, inclining his head to indicate she was free to go.
As she passes, he bends down very close to her. She freezes.
"/Thkssssssh/," the man hisses.
"You're welcome," Melanie tells him.
She steps out of the shed. And then runs, screaming and waving her arms. Just like Spongebob.
Bob refuses to go out to the shed, of course. When the cops come, the maniac is long gone. As for Melanie, she is just a little glad Nosferatu got away. She's got a great story to tell at school tomorrow, with the bruise on her jaw and everything to show for it. She went up against the Wild Man and lived to tell about it! They'll probably want to interview her in the paper.
All the poor guy wanted was a cigarette after dinner. She could relate.
The girl stands at the back door and lets the heavy plastic bag full of garbage drop. She peers out across the parking lot. The day had been warm and unbearably muggy, but a brief thunderstorm at sundown chilled the air, and now the lot is packed with cottonwool fog. She can barely see across it.
Her name is Melanie Rymer. Her dark blonde hair is pulled tightly back and fluffed out in an explosion of ringlets at the back of her head. She has been working the take-out window all night, so her butt is freezing from the air conditioning while the humidity is making her hair frizz. She wears a polyester shirt in unappealing blue and tan stripes. She'd put on Juice Bar Teddy Bear body spray that morning after her shower, but by now she smells like stale grease, like she always does after a full shift. When she gets home, her mom's dogs, Beau and Lilli, will follow her around, their tongues hanging out. There is a burn on her arm from the french fry cage.
"I hate this job."
She takes the pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket, taps out one, and then stuffs it in the front pocket of her shirt. That was the only reason she'd agreed to do a dumpster run. If she is fast, Bob will never suspect she is taking an unauthorized break. She does not realize it, but each exhalation is freighted not only with the nicotine and free fast-food dinner, but also the bitter adrenal taste of her fear.
The night manager, Bob, is afraid to go out to the dumpster, too. He offered her dinner if she would stay with him after closing while he counted the drawers. Bob is short, balding, forty-six and unmarried. Melanie has very little respect for him, and only a small amount of pity.
But she likes the idea that she is braver than him. She isn't scared of the Wild Man. It's an urban legend, like in that movie. Some homeless guy, probably, some schizo. There isn't really a man in black ghosting through the city killing people. He wasn't raised by coyotes out in the hills. Stupid. People at school can't stop talking about it, though, especially after they found that lady's body half-eaten on the beach. Everyone who retold the story would sum it up by saying, "And the bite marks weren't made by a shark or a feral dog . . . they looked /human/."
Utter and complete crap. And yet, she really, really doesn't want to take the garbage out to the dumpster tonight.
"Just like that episode of Spongebob."
Melanie is sixteen, smokes two packs a day, has a driver's license so new the laminate is still warm, and feels very mature. But she still watches Spongebob Squarepants religiously each evening. In the last episode, Spongebob took the night shift at the Krusty Krab. Squidward was telling ghost stories about the Hash-Slinging Slasher, and poor little Spongebob got so scared he was afraid to take the trash out to the dumpster. He ran out as fast as he could, threw it in, and ran back screaming and waving his arms. Eventually every thing scary that happened had a reasonable explanation, except for the flickering lights, which turned out to be Nosferatu.
"/Nosfer-AHtuuuuu/," she whispers, mocking the condescending tone the characters had used to scold the vampire.
She takes a last puff then tosses it away and lifts the bag again, leaning over to grab the cardboard box full of broken down boxes. Might as well get it over with.
Grunting and huffing, she drags her load across the lot through the orange-tinted fog. The dumpster and the cardboard baler are located inside a sort of wooden shed. Exactly why the restaurant felt the need to protect them this way is a mystery to Melanie. It was probably to keep homeless people out. She unlocks the door and backs in, dragging the big box.
The door clicks shut behind her. Which is wrong. The lot is on a slight incline, and the door always, always swings wide open.
Melanie glances up and sees: a tall, thin, pale-faced man dressed in black.
She sees Nosferatu.
She opens her mouth to scream, but the man is too fast. He leaps over the box and lands in front of her, twisting his fingers into her ponytail and forcing her face to his chest, muffling the scream. She struggles, but he only presses harder, mashing her nose down, making it impossible to breathe. She feels his heart pounding through the cloth.
He wrenches her head back, forcing her to look up at him. She takes a deep breath and prepares to scream again.
But the man lets out a rasping /shhhhhhhh/.
She nods and gulps, her breath escaping as a kittenish mew. The manstares at her consideringly, then nods back. He untangles his
fingers from her ponytail slowly, then jerks his hand away. She yelps and puts her hand up. That hurt.
The man raises the little tuft of her hair that he has pulled to his mouth and inhales deeply, his good eye fluttering shut. One side of his face is a wreck, crusted with dried and fresh blood, the lids of the other eye sunken as if there is nothing underneath, thick pus draining from between them. His dangling left arm is messed up, too, wrapped up in black cloth that looks like he'd torn it from his shirt, the fingers of that hand curled up in a paralyzed way. It looks like he'd gone three rounds with a Mack Semi and lost.
He rubs the tuft of hair over his cheek, a rapturous expression spreading over his cadaverous face. Great, a pervo.
The man is between her and the shed door. She backs away, trips over something, and lands on the bag of garbage. He's been in the dumpster, she realizes, eating out of it. There's a split bag on the ground, food and wrappers scattered everywhere.
Nosferatu takes a step towards her and gestures at her chest.
"Oh, god, no." It is her worst nightmare. Her breaths begin to come in hitching sobs. The man kneels in front of her and gestures again, letting his bony fingers trail down the front of her shirt, his sharp nails snagging on the cheap polyester.
"No, please, don't, please." She can't think of what to say. The man makes a peculiar, demanding whine deep in his throat, the sort of sound Beau and Lilli make when they want to go out. Suddenly, he grabs the front of her shirt.
She screams, and his hand whistles up and slaps her, hard. The scream cuts off, and she puts her hand to her jaw, feeling the injured tissue beginning to swell and throb already.
Nosferatu has backed away. He's got something small and white in his hand, holding it up to the dim streetlight. Her pack of cigarettes. She blinks away the tears. That was what he had been after. His lip flares in a sneer, perhaps he doesn't like menthol Virginia Slims.
But he taps one out anyway, and tosses the pack back. He kneels again in front of her, and she curls up like a salted slug.
The man holds the cigarette out to her.
"No, no, thank you," she says in a tiny whisper.
The man makes another impatient sound, then put the cancer stick to his lips and mimes lighting it.
"Oh! Oh, sorry, I didn't understand," she babbles, digging in her pocket. She fishes the lighter out and extends it, her hand trembling.
Nosferatu's good eye widens, and she sees it is a very pale shade of blue. He stares at the lighter and makes another odd noise, a sharp, querulous /rawk/. She realizes the man isn't trying to be quiet - he can't speak at all. Maybe he is the Wild Man. After all, if you're raised by coyotes, you can't very well learn to talk, can you?
"Do you like it," she asks. She recalls an article she read in Seventeen a few years ago, about what to do if you're kidnapped. Make the attacker think you're on his side, it said. Make yourself a person to him, not an object.
Quickly, keeping her voice low and soothing, she says, "You can keep it if you want. I was gonna get one that said 'the Big Apple' but all they had left were these American flag ones. I got it on our class trip to New York City. At the World Trade Center. I don't like heights, so I thought it would be pretty scary, but it was so high up it didn't look real, so I went right up to the glass - "
The strange man presses the tip of his finger to her lips, clearly wanting her to shut up. So much for that idea, she thinks miserably.
He stands up, leaning back against the dumpster and stretching one leg out to hold the door shut. They sit there in silence for several minutes as he smokes, letting the cig burn down almost to ash.
When he is finished, he takes his boot off the door and steps away, inclining his head to indicate she was free to go.
As she passes, he bends down very close to her. She freezes.
"/Thkssssssh/," the man hisses.
"You're welcome," Melanie tells him.
She steps out of the shed. And then runs, screaming and waving her arms. Just like Spongebob.
Bob refuses to go out to the shed, of course. When the cops come, the maniac is long gone. As for Melanie, she is just a little glad Nosferatu got away. She's got a great story to tell at school tomorrow, with the bruise on her jaw and everything to show for it. She went up against the Wild Man and lived to tell about it! They'll probably want to interview her in the paper.
All the poor guy wanted was a cigarette after dinner. She could relate.
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