The Zodiac Schmodiac Story Cycle

This Close to Dying

Yvonne Zeng was running late again. She had to make four more deliveries before lunch, and there was no way she could make it. Each of the convenience stores she was supposed to visit were in high traffic areas, and sometimes just pulling the delivery truck back out into traffic took five minutes. She'd never finish in an hour.

As she wrestled the truck through traffic, she thought that she shouldn't have stayed up to watch the movie last night. Cape #9 was still playing in theaters, but someone at work had slipped a disk in her locker back at the station and she had stayed up late to watch it. Everyone was talking about it, it was supposed to be the pride of the island, the movie that would bring Golden Palms and Oscars home to Taiwan. It was OK, not one of the best movies she'd seen, but of course she wouldn't be telling anyone that. It was a point of pride to stick up for Taiwan, she just wished she'd have waited until the weekend to watch it.

She pulled up to her next stop and got her hand truck ready. One of the new workers in the store ran out and offered to help her unload, and she smiled at him and agreed. That would save her almost ten minutes, maybe she would make it before twelve.

The next two stops were smooth, and Yvonne started to think that maybe this was her lucky day. The last store had a really persnickety manager who nagged unless you got there on time, but it looked like today she'd be spared his complaints. She pulled up to the store at 12:05 and started to unload. 

The manager nodded his head at her, but didn't stop to talk. He was reviewing some of the video from the store's security cameras, it looked like. Well, the fact that he was busy just made the possibility of complaints less.

The store had been selling a lot of drinks lately, and as she wheeled the last cart full of bottles in she felt tired to the core. She'd never fallen asleep while driving before, but this just may be the day. She unloaded the cart in the back room and went back into the front end of the store. Maybe she should buy a drink, it could help to pep her up. 

She looked at cold case filled with sodas and teas. Along the top shelf of one case was a row of energy drinks with stupid names, Wild Bull, White Horse, and Leopard Tooth. Who came up with these names, anyways? She opened the case and picked up a bottle of Wild Bull. It had a strange little sticker on the outside, it looked like it was hand printed. It said "I am poisoned." What a strange way to promote your product, she thought. She put it back in the case and turned to the next case and got out a diet Coke. She'd take a 10 minute nap in the truck after she ate lunch, that would do the trick.

She paid for the Coke, made sure the clerk scanned the delivery invoices the right way, then waved to the manager and headed back to her truck. Yeah, a ten minute nap would do the trick.

~~~

The evening news had a big story that night. The "man with 1,000 faces" had put poisoned bottles of Wild Bull all around the Taipei area in convenience stores, and 10 people had died after drinking them. The police were asking for the cooperation of everyone, particularly the convenience stores, to take all Wild Bull off the shelves and turn security tapes over to the police so they could get more information on who had placed the poisoned bottles. The manager of the store called the police to report the strange man who'd come in and stayed by the cold cases for a long time, then left without buying anything from the cases. He was asked to bring the tapes to the police headquarters as soon as possible.

Yvonne didn't see any of the excitement that night, she was already asleep with a promise in her heart to not watch movies on weeknights ever again.