Blogging is hard. Here's the start of the book I'm writing. Be Warned: I'll probably stop posting it at chapter 3.

Authors note: I'm posting it with the working title, this is not even half of the first chapter.

                A Mission From Death

            Thwack!          

            I am interrupted from marking down discounted soup by the force of a bean bag baby connecting with my cheek. I hear the sensible black dress shoes of my boss scuffle and squeak away as he scurries in the opposite direction. I hold out my pricing gun with both hands as if I am on a cop show and walk as quickly and silently as possible after him. Very carefully I round the corner. He is nowhere to be seen. No matter, this is a familiar game. I head quickly toward produce hoping to cut him off at the deli counter, knowing that any resultant mess of our exploits will be mine to clean up.

            Smack. The next bean bag baby hits me in the back of the head. I spin around and charge, but he is already rounding the corner of the aisle. I change my mind and direction and sneak quietly around the opposite corner. It is a good choice; Dave nearly backs into me and I use my gun to label his ear. A very fitting 89 cents.

            “All your base are belong to us!” Dave had lent me the original European, badly translated version of Zero Wing last summer. I blow on the tip of the gun.

            “Every time, Mitch.” Says Dave, resigned.

            “I’m too smart for you.”

            “Smart ass is more like it.” He pulls down the brim of my “Quick Mart” baseball cap, “It’s time for your break. Take it this time, won’t you?” I give him a mock salute and go to the staff lounge, picking up bean bag babies along the way.

            Dave is probably the coolest boss I have worked for and the grocery store is a big step up from the “Fried Chicken Ranch.” (That stale grease smell does not wash out of hair or clothes.) I usually work the closing shift because it allows me time to finish up my homework after school and still help my step dad, Phil pay the bills. I had just turned 18 and inherited the trust Mom set up for me before she died, but I try to stay away from that as much as possible, knowing that I will need it to move out, if I ever convince myself to abandon Phil. Maybe he is not the best step dad, but he has been here with me these past 17 years when he could’ve bailed, left me to be raised by the system. And I know he still loves my mom. He is my only, very tenuous connection. His drunken reminiscing of anthropology classes formed the only memories of a mother I’d never get to know. She had been studying to be an anthropologist; he had been filling a humanities credit for college, truly he had taken the class because he‘d known he‘d have help studying.

            There aren’t any snacks in the main lounge, so I walk into Dave’s office, through the open door and pick up a jumbo-sized bag of cheese doodles off his desk, an off-brand, and I wonder if, as manager of a store, you have to pay for your own cheese doodles. I take a handful and sit down in his leather office chair, looking at the security monitors. It is about 9:00. There is no one in the store, save us and there hasn’t been for at least an hour and a half. We are open until eleven. It has been raining hard outside for most of the day which is the cause of the barren aisles. When it rains in LA people lose their minds, sometimes I’m glad that I don’t have a driver’s license yet.

            Ten minutes pass and I am about to head back out to work when Dave comes into the office.

            “Hey Mitch, we’re going to close up early tonight. I’d like you to take advantage of this break in the weather and go collect the carts in the parking lot.”

            “No problem, boss.”

            “Wear this.” He tosses an oversized parka at me, “Just in case.”

            Dave would make an awesome father.

            The parking lot is downright creepy. Overhead lights are dim and two are flickering. I zip up Dave’s parka and steel my resolve. I am no little girl and there are no monsters waiting in the shadows.

            I walk through each row, gathering the few carts I find. There are three cars parked, which is strange due to our lack of customers. As I reach the end of the far-left corner of the parking lot, the overhead lights flicker once more and then gutter out. It is too dark. Clouds are overhead obscuring the moon; the only light comes from the window leading to a fire escape on the five-story walkup next door. There are backlit figures leaning on the rails. I hear the tinkling of breaking glass, and drunken laughter. I take a deep breath and make my way back through better-lit areas of the parking lot. The stacked carts squeak as I hurry. Almost back to the automatic sliding doors of the grocery store I slip, my hands can’t keep a grip on the cold, wet handle of the closest shopping cart and I land hard on my knee. I hiss in pain and use my hands to push myself back up onto my feet and stow the carts in their nook. 

            Dave locks the automatic doors behind me. I hand him his parka, shiver at the loss of its warmth, and he promptly drapes it back over my shoulders. Noticing the new rip in my black work jeans, he instructs me to sit on the top of the bagging station as he goes behind the counter for a first aid kit. I can’t scrunch the jeans up very high so I rip the hole a little wider instead, I can tell from Dave’s facial expression that he does not approve.

            “I have to throw them out anyway, can’t look like a ragamuffin at work.”

            He chuckles at that, finishes cleaning my skinned knee and covers it with a Hello Kitty Band-Aid. Before I can hop down, he seizes me and lifts my ankle.

            “You need new tennis shoes, the treads are worn out on these, and…” One eyebrow raised, he pries the obviously loose edge of the sole away from the shoe.

            I shrug, “Sentimental value.”

            I know that it will be a while before I will treat myself to a new pair of sneakers, I could go second hand from a thrift store just to get him off my back.

            “I have a bunch of groceries that have just reached their sell by date for you to take home.” I start to protest, but he cuts me off.

            “We’ll load your bike into the back of my truck and I’ll give you a lift.”

            “Thanks.” I am really not in a position to argue.

            I retrieve my stuff from my locker, place my baseball cap into it and don my hoodie. Now Dave can take his parka back. He shoves six grocery bags into my hands and we leave from the side door. Riding in his truck will be a lot warmer than my bike anyway