Quote from Kaqurei on May 7, 2020, 9:47 am

Sabrina's features remained placid, though she watched every gesture and made note of every chord in Jackie's voice. Then her focus changed, just briefly, glancing up at the side widow by Jackie. She gave a brief nod and motioned to catch her eye.

Outside, Jerry stood, clutching brown paper bags and appearing about as comfortable as a mouse in a room full of cats. Perhaps he'd tried to get their attention earlier, but the car was just far away from the window as to make reaching out and tapping the glass a feat the short kid could not quite manage. Perhaps one of his co-workers might have stepped in to help. But they did not. So there he was, outside the building, outside his familiar safe zone, standing right outside the window of the beast looking as though tapping the glass still required more than he had in him, even if it was not a physical limitation now.

"I believe our food is ready," Sabrina surmised.

Quote from Indy on May 8, 2020, 8:28 pm

Jackie's attention shifted from one topic to the next, it was something like throwing a car from first to third in a single breath and praying something didn't break in the process.  Her eyes narrowed dangerously on the brown paper sack.  Then on its very unlucky wielder.  The window cranked down in a rapidly, it was a miracle the beaten Volkswagon didn't come undone at its seams.  The hand snaked through the window, followed by a a handful of loose coins and crumbled dollar bills.  From the haphazard way she'd deposited in the poor boy's hands, it seemed unlikely it was to the total due - but therein lay the deception she was a ravage beast on the kill, for somehow in the conversation she'd paid mind enough to ensure it was to the correct quantity give or take a few pennies.

She left Jerry, however, little to no time to confirm it. Once the paper sack and drink holder was safely in the maws of her grasp, she shifted the car to first and edged her way to the parking lot at the side.  She was practically salivating as she tore open the sack, not bothering to sort the contents as she grabbed the first of many greasy, greasy parcels.  Her senses took the assault like a live wire given a jolt of electricity.  She didn't even bother to remove the wrapper as her teeth tore into it...

... and there she tasted the dead, sad, greasy thing.  In one moment her senses had rejoiced, and in the next moment they were repulsed. Where was the sweet, succulent rabbit?  Where was the fresh berries and vegetables?  This was a dead thing nourished in the pits of despair.  The animal in her was repulsed.  The living creature in her, however, was too tired to care.  The first went down with only the slightest of a grimace.

As her hands went for the next greasy parcel of sadness, she shook her head in disgust.

"The rat would have been better," she reaffirmed.

Quote from Kaqurei on May 19, 2020, 11:54 am

Sabrina examined her own order like a rich aunt inspected your house; was there dust on the mantelpiece? A figurine turned two degrees too much to the right? The photos on the wall, were they perfectly straight? Even if the answers had been no, no, and yes respectively, it would not have eased the crease of disdain on her face. But she gave a satisfactory nod. There would be no pleasure in this. Thus it suited her.

She took a nibble of her own burger and dabbed some grease and salt from her lip with the provided paper napkin. She swallowed. Then she looked at Jackie. "Not like you remember?"

 

Quote from Indy on May 19, 2020, 10:58 pm

"No..."

She stared at the wrapper like a lost, old friend... like a friend she'd seen here and there, and then one day met again and saw a stranger's face. Fast food had been one of those guilty, constant pleasures in her life. When had it all gone wrong?  The beginning of the year, everything had changed then of course.  But even a few months afterwords, she recalled eating a burger and fries at the mall without the same affect.

The other change had been subtler.  She couldn't put her finger on it.

She crumpled up the wrapper into a ball, then reached for another.  The taste might be like swallowing engine oil, but her body needed calories or she'd eat a man alive. Probably.

The other went down and she crumpled up that wrapper.  She went for the Dino fries almost regretfully next, not prepared for the disappointment that was sure to come. She exhaled.

"No one writes a rule book to these things. I don't get it. Why now?  Why is everything different now?"

The Dino fries were down. She washed it down with the hot coffee.  She was only too grateful to find the flavor just as bitter and rancid as before.

Quote from Indy on June 12, 2020, 8:17 am

The car fell deathly quiet. Jackie waited a moment, the silence filled with words unsaid, her last question burning like a splinter in her mind.  The silence became a painful thing unto itself.  Bearing not a moment further of it, she sighed wearily and shifted the car's gears.  In another breath, the small Volkswagen exploded out of the parking lot and onto the main road!

The car zipped down the road.  Her greatest limit to shattering the posted speed limit was the car itself, which groaned under her assault. After a few minutes of this, her mind soothed and the seemingly random turns appeared to be taking them somewhere...

Melinda was a logical creature. Jackie knew this, as much as she was not.  While Jackie would possess any number of places to dispose or hide of a ruined car (a ditch, the bottom of a lake, an elderly man's garage, a very large shark tank...), her sister would have brought it exactly to the place one would expect.  And no one would find it unless they knew what they were looking for, because she excelled at hiding in plain sight.

Jackie pulled into a cracked lot.  Dozens and dozens of cars lay parked on the other side of a chain link fence as if held prisoner.  Jackie nodded, pleased, noting a small kiosk at the far end.

"Welcome," she lifted an eyebrow to her passenger and half a smirk, "To where all good cars go to die".

The impound lot.

Quote from Kaqurei on June 17, 2020, 9:57 am

Sabrina hadn't answered the question, though why wasn't entirely clear. She hadn't ignored it. There had been some sort of visible change in her face when it was asked. But she merely ate her meal contemplatively and said nothing.

When they got to the lot, she crumpled the left over wrappers of her meal and shoved them into her coat pocket. She nodded to Jackie and opened the car door to get out. She paused a moment, buttoning up her coat. Even down in the valley, the night air had a chill. Somehow it seemed even colder in this abandoned lot.

"Right," she said as she got out of the car. She put her hands in her pockets and fiddled with the crumpled wrappers. "You've been here before, I presume?"

Quote from Indy on June 17, 2020, 10:07 pm

Jackie didn’t answer.  Her fingertips hesitated at the door of the handle, hovering between the comfort of the car and the unknown. It wasn’t like her to hesitate.  Nor was it like her to get overwhelmed at a drive thru… yet the sight of the sun glinting across the cars and the chain link fence caught her attention like a magpie’s, and without another thought she rushed out of the car.

The air was dead blood and earth, dust, and something else she couldn’t quite place.  There was nothing in it that captured her instincts, although she did roll up her nose to the overwhelming smell of rust.  So much of it.  She’d thought these cars would have been made car cubes by now, rather than occupying unneeded space.

She hummed voicelessly under her breath. Rather than approaching the front desk, she approached the chain link fence. She scanned the cars at the other side like a predator lying in wait among the tall grasses. Yet if there was an obvious clue to be had, she missed it.  Nothing screamed her sister’s name.  Disappointed, she broke away and started up towards the front desk.

 

---

It had been five minutes. She’d known, because she counted them, trying not to twiddle her fingers in irritation.  The batteries in his walkie talkie had died, so the middle-aged man at the kiosk insisted he would check his numerous files across the parking lot in a small, squat building to see if any record had been made for a “Melinda Channing”. He had not been seen for five whole minutes, and she was starting to wonder if the files had caved down on him and his body would be discovered in a week.  Her fingers flexed. She bounced on the balls of her feet.  People weren’t made to be waiting like this.

She went back to categorizing the different flavors of metal and dust.  Many of them she couldn’t place a name, yet among them she was certain was not her sister’s. That she knew. The lot was barren to her very presence.

She groaned to herself as an obvious fact struck her.

“Stupid,” she growled, “He’s checking under the wrong name…”

She sighed, squinting across the parking lot where the man had disappeared. It would take forever for him to return empty handed, and another forever to send him off again with a new name.

She turned towards Sabrina, half expecting her shadow to have vanished in the sunlight like the vampire she was, “Up for a bit of field work?”

Without waiting for a reply, she broke into a light jog towards the squat building at the far end.

Quote from Kaqurei on July 14, 2020, 10:42 am

Sabrina did wonder when Jackie sent the man off with Channing's rightful name. She supposed that, while the letter that spelled trouble to Jackie may have been signed with a code name, perhaps she would have left her real name here on purpose for Jackie to find.

Jackie continued to be tense, on edge, nervous. And after only a couple of minutes since the man's departure, she finally recognized the error of the name. Or perhaps it had not been in error. Maybe she had sent the man off on a wild goose chase on purpose. Could Jackie be so organized to have considered that far in advance? It seemed outside her capacity.

A reply was not waited for, and none was given. Sabrina merely nodded, hands still in her coat pockets, and followed after her.

Quote from Indy on July 14, 2020, 9:31 pm

Jackie bolted across the lot so forcefully it sent small spools of copper out from under her hat.  She turned her head downwards, as if this would make her all this less inconspicuous.  Her breath came up rapidly, more from anticipation than exertion, as her gaze narrowed in on the squat building.

She was certain the speed wasn't needed. She doubted her sister had left anything with an expiration, some invisible clock counting down a self-destructing message. The urgency came more from herself.  She was a creature of motion and action; do anything slowly, and she'd quickly find herself doing something else more her speed.

Her fingers found the front door, thankfully unlocked.  She gave a nod to Sabrina as if sending the parking lot attendant had all been to plan after all.  Then she slipped inside.

The office was small and cramped. It was less an office and more converted trailer. Faded carpet from decades long-past was tacked down, followed by rows of filing cabinets, a small desk, and another door for the bathroom.  She couldn't see the man ahead, although his scent in here was fresh enough that she supposed he was in the restroom.  The opportunity couldn't have been better.

She saw his keys glittering besides an opened cabinet.  She could see some records had been parsed through, but none of them would be what the man was looking for.  It couldn't have been.  She grabbed the keys in her palm and considered.

"Make yourself useful," she muttered under her breath, tossing the keys to Sabrina, "And look under that cabinet there".

She motioned to one marked 'Ra-Ry' on the outside.

"Try... Ryder... Nina Ryder".

Jackie stalked off to the other end of the room, her fingers gently brushing on the objects as she gently took in the scents of the room.  The air was stiff and stale here, the space enclosed. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. Surely, if Melinda had been here, she would be able to find it.