crimson, chapter five

The day was getting late and they were getting tired of driving, at first jack thought he was

hallucinating but when Pamela and martin also saw it he knew he wasn’t. They were in a small town in Tennessee and there were no crashed cars no abandoned items anywhere. “this must be it but it looks abandoned” said Pamela. They pulled up outside the sheriff’s station. Jack found no one inside, so they decided to look around. Pamela saw a young girl about seven or eight skipping outside the cafe. The blond haired girl stopped when she saw them, she ran inside the cafe shouting “people, people”. Jack and the others ran over to the cafe in time to see a man open the door and come out. A man in his late forties dressed in the sheriff’s uniform greeted them with his hand on his side arm. “Welcome, I’m sheriff frank Valent” was all he said, he had his right hand on his revolver ready to pull it in case of an attack. Jack too had his hand close to his gun for just the same reason, it seemed neither of them trusted what they were seeing. From inside the cafe jack saw many faces staring out at them. Jack took the lead and introduced them. “Hi this is Pamela and martin and I’m detective jack walker from Chicago”. The sheriff invited them into the cafe and took them to a seat. “Maggie, get these folk something to eat and drink please” the sheriff asked the red head behind the counter. The counter was left of the front door and had eight occupied stools in front of it; the rest of the room had tables and booths all of which were occupied by wary looking people. The décor was from the fifties but it was fresh and cosy. The little girl was sitting on a woman’s knee staring at them. Jack was the first to explain how they had arrived there. Once all three of them had finished they had coffee and a full English breakfast in front of them. Frank Valent then began telling the events that they had gone through whilst jack and the others ate. A cooked meal was so tasty to them after days of snack food and they tucked in enjoying every bite. Even martin enjoyed it and he was the picky type. He complained about everything, this is not cooked right that is still cold but he was just happy for a hot meal. Frank had received a call from the city early on Saturday morning. It was from a man claiming to be a sheriff there; he was rambling about a red mist killing people. Then he got panicked and dropped the phone. Frank could only hear him as he screamed then all went silent. Frank jumped into his car and headed out to the city which was an hour away. When he got there he found the same as what jack, martin and Pamela had seen and described to him. He returned to the town after searching for a few hours. The phone lines were down and the electric was out. Luckily the town was a popular tourist spot for camping and climbing in the hills and had an outdoors surplus supply shop. They took everything needed like gas stoves and lamps, setting up the cafe as a mess hall for meals for the town. He explained that he had found an old radio set up in the basement of the police station and had been using it every day hoping they were not alone. After chatting with the others a few hours had past and it was now dark. Pamela was chatting with the mother of the young girl and martin was spinning his government conspiracy theories to a few men. Jack had stayed with the sheriff. People were heading off to their homes for the night and the sheriff offered jack and the others the cells in the station for the night “they are not much but they have beds and you look like you need a good night’s sleep” he told jack. Heading across to the station jack and the others had been given a few lamps so they could find their way. It wasn’t cold in the cells but still jack got the shivers. He couldn’t shake the feeling that things were not as good as they appeared to be, he knew something was going to happen but not sure what.