The Night Shift (3 page)

"Oh, Randy had a few problems with brining him here at first."

"Randy?"

"The guy who ran the place before Lisa did."

"Oh, right. Him. Why'd he have a problem with Nick?"

"Oh, Nick's just been known to be a bit aggressive at times. He's a good worker and I'm sure he's an excellent friend, but he sometimes gets a few "below-the-belt" hits on you."

"Hmmmm…I'm sure I'll get used to him by the end of the summer."

"Um…good luck with that!" Christine said as if she didn't expect that to happen. "I've known for him
two
summers and I
still
haven't completely warmed up to him."

There wasn't much for Collin to say to that other than, "Oh." And just like that, the conversation between the two of them ended and Christine walked away.

As she walked away, Collin stared down at the floor and thought to himself,
I wonder if…was it one of them?

Chapter 2

A Year Before

Collin remained staring around at the wooden shack around him. He turned around to see Lisa was standing there and looking at him as if she were expecting an answer to some unasked question from him.

"So, what do you think?"

"About what? Oh, the guys seemed great. I think I'm gonna really love working with them," he bluffed. He really hadn't put too much thought into any of them at this point.

"So, now you know where everything is? The pond, the meeting place, the warehouse, everything?"

"Yup. Every…wait. Warehouse?"

"Yeah. You saw the warehouse?"

"Actually…I don't think I did."

Lisa instantly seemed a little confused. "Really? Well, I'll have someone show it to you right away."

"You couldn't just show me?"

"No, I should be looking at a campsite where some condoms were allegedly left."

Collin was grossed out but did his best to hide it. He always tried to do his best to hide whenever he was feeling sick or uneasy.
Gross. What kind of people are coming here, anyway?

Lisa looked out one of the windows and saw Nick was still walking away. She stuck her head out the window and yelled, "Hey, Nick! Show Collin the warehouse, will ya?!"

Nick turned and there was little doubt that he was annoyed about having to what he was told, but he didn't really put up much of a fight. He reluctantly forced his way back onto the wooden flight of stairs leading right into the staff room.

"All right, follow me," Nick ordered almost instantly as he walked in, leaving Collin little choice but to do what he was asked.

Nick simply led Collin out a back door to the headquarters and over to another large building that was hidden behind the one they were just in. There were two large doors to it that were slightly parted open, so all Nick had to do was push them apart enough so that they could both get it.

The inside of the warehouse was fairly dark, only being lit by
a
few weak ceiling light bulbs. The entire room was hot and stuffy that was almost impossible to stand for more than twenty minutes on end. Piled up against the walls and on some cheaply built shelves were supplies like paint, more slabs of wood, and a few spare car parts just in case some of the vehicles needed some repair.

"All right, here's the paint," Nick said as he slammed the underside of his hand on a random paint can on the shelves. He wasn't staring at Collin as he was explaining this, nor did he put any more detail into his explanation of it than that.

Gee, never would've guessed,
Collin sarcastically thought to himself.

"Here's glue, emergency meds, spare two-way radios, and a bunch of other junk that we'll never use."

Collin looked around the room while trying not to let the thick, hot air get to him. As he scanned the large area, he saw something that caught his eye. "What's that?"

Nick looked to where Collin was pointing and saw what he meant. It was a large sign that had a map of the entire state forest on it, but it was covered in bright yellow graffiti that was starting to fade, as was the luster of the wood and image of the map. There were several tiny holes that were scattered all over the sign.

"I have no idea," Nick casually admitted. "About a year ago someone spray painted it and we had to take it down."

A suspicious look crossed Collin's face as he stared at the spray painted map as if it were about to come alive. "Anything else to look at?"

"Um…yeah, hold on."

Nick ran over to
a
corner and lugged out a metal detector. "You know what this is?"

"Yeah. Metal detector."

"Good. People are losin' their crap all the time around here. Car keys, money, jewelry. You name it, someone's lost it. Whenever you needa find something like that, just call headquarters and someone'll bring the metal detector. We'll find the thing that was lost and everyone goes home happy."

"Sounds like
a
plan to me."

"Seriously, dude, there's not a lot to see here. That's just about it. I don't know why Lisa made me show ya this dump."

Wow, he's got a really negative attitude.

Nick turned his stare to Collin and looked at him almost as if he could read what was going through Collin's mind. "You got something you want to say to me?"

"Wha?...no, no!"

"All right. Nothing left to see here. You should probably get back to the front of the office and see if Lisa's there."

"Why?"

"I dunno! She probably knows what to do with ya."

"All right, all right!"

Collin turned and walked out of the warehouse and quickly walked back to the front of headquarters. Lisa wasn't there at first, but after he was kept waiting for almost twenty minutes, she pulled up in her car and parked it right in front. She stormed out and appeared as if she just had to break up a fight. There was a sour look on her face until she saw Collin; her expression immediately changed to a more pleasant one when she saw him.

"Hey, Collin. You see the warehouse?"

"Yup."

"Great," she responded as she walked up the steps and inside the building. She went into a drawer right by the sign-in desk and pulled out
a
fat, somewhat-thick book black book. Taped on the front of it was a piece of paper that had the words
LOG BOOK 43
printed on it. She pulled a pen out of her pocket and started writing down something furiously inside.

"What are you doing?"

"Writing in the log book."

As she answered that, she stopped and looked like she had forgotten to tell him something completely obvious. "Sorry, I forgot to mention one thing. Whenever there's an incident or something happened here, we write it down in the log book, all right?"

"Sure."

"If you ever need to write something down, you'll have to write down the time, the date, and a paragraph or so on what happened, all right?"

"Yeah. No problem."

"Good. I don't think you'll ever have to write something down in here, but if you do, you know what to do."

"Yup."

"Great." Saying this, she clapped her hands together and let out a slight hiss of air. "That's it. I think that's all you need to know for the job here."

"Awesome!"

"Great. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes. You. Will."

Collin quickly started walking to the door before he got stopped one more time by Lisa. "Hold on a second. I forgot to give you something!"

He turned around and saw Lisa was throwing him what appeared to be a dark green t-shirt. He caught it just in time and briefly looked down at it.

"That's your uniform," she said plainly. "Make sure you wear it in EVERY day."

Collin nodded. "Sure thing. Thanks, Lisa!"

"See you tomorrow!"

Without another word, Collin hopped in his car and turned it on. He pulled it out of the parking lot surprisingly fast as was soon back on the main road. As soon as he was out of sight from the front office, he grinned and cackled to himself.
"Awesome,"
he whispered quietly.
"Maybe I'll finally get a good night's sleep this summer!"

Several minutes later, he was driving into the parking lot of yet another place where he was a summer worker…one year earlier.

It was the town's police station, and Collin got a great sense of nostalgia just staring at the large brick building. But he didn't waste any more time before running into the station as if he was a little kid running onto a playground. He excitedly ran down the hall and gave quick nods to all the other officers patrolling the halls or sitting in their offices who happened to be looking out the window in their door at that time.

After a somewhat long power walk, Collin finally stopped in front of
a
door close to the end of the hall that had a thin bronze plaque on it that read
SGT. ROY TENEIRE
.

Collin knocked on the door a few times before a commanding voice from inside yelled, "Come in!"

After opening the door, Collin put a smug smile on his face and sarcastically said, "Sir, I'm under arrest for tipping a cow."

Sergeant Teneire looked up. He had a fairly short hair cut, but what hair he
did
have was fairly shaggy. At forty-nine, he was a twenty-five year veteran on the force and had earned the respect of almost all his fellow officers, despite the fact that he frequently got overly aggressive and worked his squads too hard in some dire times.

"Collin!" Teneire exclaimed happily with a slight smile forming over his face. He got up from his desk and promptly shook Collin's hand. "How've ya been, buddy?"

"Pretty good. Yourself?"

"Oh, the usual. So, how come you're not working here again this summer?"

For the past two summers, Collin had been
a
seasonal employee at the police station he was in now. When most of his friends said that they'd get jobs as a cashier in a supermarket or a fast food place, Collin opted to work as a "helper" at the local police station instead. Not only did he think it would give him really good insight to what really happened to criminals, but he also thought he'd be able to brag about working there.

"I…got a job at Arbur Winslow," Collin responded as he side-stepped the sergeant's question.

Teneire still retained his pleasant look, although it was obvious there was some disappointment in his eyes.

"Still can't get over that killing, huh? Is that the reason you're working there instead of here this summer, Collin?"

Collin's eyes drooped a little.

A year earlier, when Collin was working at that station and mainly helped officers filing paperwork or keeping the station clean, he was paying close attention to the cases some of the officers were dealing with. Most of them were things like robbery, drug busts, drunk driving, and other pains that the police had to deal with on an all-too-frequent basis. But at one time, something happened that peaked Collin's excitement: there was a murder at Arbur Winslow State Forest. It appeared to be pre-meditated, and the suspect was assumed to be one of the employees who was working there at the time. Investigators looked for any clues, but they turned up surprisingly empty. Still, Collin followed the investigation very closely and paid attention to how it was progressing, and he asked numerous times to even be part of it, despite Teneire's immediate refusal every time.