insurance adjuster to come out and start a claim. You don’t happen to have a cell do you?” she asked me with hope in her eyes.
“No, sorry,” I lied. My cell was useless anyway. Time was running out for the day, and I needed to find a ride. After canvassing the store for a minute, I realized what type of shop it was. I was standing in the middle of a store that sold odds and ends of sorts. They had Route 66 coffee mugs, various Missouri sports team bobble heads, and tshirts with “real men wear camo” printed on the front. I wasn’t going to find anything that I needed in this place. I decided to walk along the strip mall and check out the other shops. I had already spent way too much time in one place and was losing daylight, fast.
The first two stores were useless, a candy shop, men’s wear, and the third was a novelty adult store, definitely wouldn’t be able to get any use of that. It wasn’t until I came to the fourth, and final, shop on the strip mall that my heart skipped a beat. It was a Yamaha motor bike shop. Something about the store struck me as odd. Not a single window was broken, not even a scratch. Every shop in the area sported smashed windows, and inventory that had been thrown around, except this one. Knowing the destruction wasn’t caused by a tornado, I couldn’t help but wonder why someone would destroy all of the other shops and not even come close to touching this one.
I pressed my face up to the glass and cupped my hands to the sides of my eyes to look in. The floor had a small show room, but there were three dirt bikes on display. On one of the bikes, I could see the key in the ignition. It was bright green, with a silver strip that ran down the entire length of the body. I had never driven a dirt bike before, but I was willing to fake competence in order to make it to Blaine in time. I looked around the parking lot. Across the lot, the little girl was playing on the sidewalk, her mother hauling buckets of broken glass to the dumpster. If I was going to make my move, I needed to do it now. Blaine had told me to do anything that was necessary to get to him in three days, and I was about to take him up on it. I ran across the lot and walked through the trashed store front of the gas station’s convenience store. “Hello?!” I called, making sure nobody was there.
“They aren’t here. They shut the station down last week. Getting ready to sell it,” called a voice from the other side of the lot. It was the woman, standing by the dumpster. She then turned and walked back inside, kid in tow.
Without responding, I stormed into the store, found a tire iron in one of the sale aisles and made my way to the Yamaha shop. When I was about three feet from the glass I gripped the tire iron like a baseball bat and reared back for a swing. As soon as I was close enough, I used all my strength and forced the rod through the plane of glass in the door. No alarm rang, I didn’t expect it to. With no power, even the best alarm systems wouldn’t work. As I was using the tire iron to scrape the sharp edges off of the sides, I heard a voice screaming from across the lot, “HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!” I looked behind me long enough to see the woman running across the lot, toward me. I ran inside and unlocked the large glass panel door, which they used to get the bikes through, shoving it open. Swiping a helmet out of the display case, I shoved my head into it. Just when I was mounting the green dirt bike, the woman came charging in, planting herself in the path of the bike’s front tire. “You can’t just break in and take this!” She was furious, but I could see the apprehension in her expression. She was frustrated that her store was destroyed, angry that I was breaking into this shop, and terrified that I might have a gun. Seeing that the sun was starting to set, I knew I needed to get out of here and find shelter for another night.
While flustering to figure out how to start
“No, sorry,” I lied. My cell was useless anyway. Time was running out for the day, and I needed to find a ride. After canvassing the store for a minute, I realized what type of shop it was. I was standing in the middle of a store that sold odds and ends of sorts. They had Route 66 coffee mugs, various Missouri sports team bobble heads, and tshirts with “real men wear camo” printed on the front. I wasn’t going to find anything that I needed in this place. I decided to walk along the strip mall and check out the other shops. I had already spent way too much time in one place and was losing daylight, fast.
The first two stores were useless, a candy shop, men’s wear, and the third was a novelty adult store, definitely wouldn’t be able to get any use of that. It wasn’t until I came to the fourth, and final, shop on the strip mall that my heart skipped a beat. It was a Yamaha motor bike shop. Something about the store struck me as odd. Not a single window was broken, not even a scratch. Every shop in the area sported smashed windows, and inventory that had been thrown around, except this one. Knowing the destruction wasn’t caused by a tornado, I couldn’t help but wonder why someone would destroy all of the other shops and not even come close to touching this one.
I pressed my face up to the glass and cupped my hands to the sides of my eyes to look in. The floor had a small show room, but there were three dirt bikes on display. On one of the bikes, I could see the key in the ignition. It was bright green, with a silver strip that ran down the entire length of the body. I had never driven a dirt bike before, but I was willing to fake competence in order to make it to Blaine in time. I looked around the parking lot. Across the lot, the little girl was playing on the sidewalk, her mother hauling buckets of broken glass to the dumpster. If I was going to make my move, I needed to do it now. Blaine had told me to do anything that was necessary to get to him in three days, and I was about to take him up on it. I ran across the lot and walked through the trashed store front of the gas station’s convenience store. “Hello?!” I called, making sure nobody was there.
“They aren’t here. They shut the station down last week. Getting ready to sell it,” called a voice from the other side of the lot. It was the woman, standing by the dumpster. She then turned and walked back inside, kid in tow.
Without responding, I stormed into the store, found a tire iron in one of the sale aisles and made my way to the Yamaha shop. When I was about three feet from the glass I gripped the tire iron like a baseball bat and reared back for a swing. As soon as I was close enough, I used all my strength and forced the rod through the plane of glass in the door. No alarm rang, I didn’t expect it to. With no power, even the best alarm systems wouldn’t work. As I was using the tire iron to scrape the sharp edges off of the sides, I heard a voice screaming from across the lot, “HEY! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?!” I looked behind me long enough to see the woman running across the lot, toward me. I ran inside and unlocked the large glass panel door, which they used to get the bikes through, shoving it open. Swiping a helmet out of the display case, I shoved my head into it. Just when I was mounting the green dirt bike, the woman came charging in, planting herself in the path of the bike’s front tire. “You can’t just break in and take this!” She was furious, but I could see the apprehension in her expression. She was frustrated that her store was destroyed, angry that I was breaking into this shop, and terrified that I might have a gun. Seeing that the sun was starting to set, I knew I needed to get out of here and find shelter for another night.
While flustering to figure out how to start
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