An Original Work
***
Summary
Still working on it.
***
So this is another of those ambush plunnies....only this one's original! Woo!
It's inspired by the London Fog of the '50s, where a stagnant weather system trapped an increasingly toxic mist at street level within the city of London, England. Only imagine that times about a million. Like, disaster movie million....okay maybe not a million, but a lot....
It may only end up being a novella, but it's not going too badly...or at least, it wasn't.
***
Opening Excerpt
The lock stuck a little as she turned the key, but otherwise the door opened without complaint.
"Erin? How's it look? Does it look clean?" She nearly grit her teeth at the plaintive question.
"No, it looks like a crack den," Erin couldn't help but mutter under her breath as she stepped into the motel room. All she could think as she surveyed the space was that her friend was paranoid. It wasn't the nicest she'd seen, but it wasn't awful, either. Not even close.
"Erin?" Cass' voice was starting to rise, coming close to hysterical octaves.
"It's fine," Erin called back, glancing over her shoulder. "Hardly any bugs and only a few questionable stains."
"That's not funny!" It was a little.
"You make it too easy, Cass," Erin teased, shooting Cass a smirking grin before dropping her bag on the floor next to the nearest bed. Cass, meanwhile, still stood outside the door just in front of the car. Her knuckles were slowly making their way to white from the death grip she had on her travel bag. Erin sighed.
It's really fine, Cass. It's no five-star, but it's neat and it's clean. Get your butt in here!" Huffing, her roommate flipped the end of her ponytail over her shoulder before edging her way toward the door. Rolling her eyes indulgently, Erin began poking around the room, investigating the place they were going to be staying for the next couple days. Cass' mom was moving for work—again—and Cass had offered to drive out to help her pack up. Of course, since Cass didn't have a car, she somehow managed to enlist Erin in the process.
"You love my mom!"
Not untrue, Erin had to admit.
"It's a free trip, and we never get to go anywhere!"
Again, not untrue, as Ellen had paid for the motel room and had even declared she would reimburse Erin for the gas as a thank you. Plus, it was very true that neither of them got to go anywhere anymore. Freshly graduated, drowning in loans and finally getting their hands on an entry-level job apiece meant that travelling had been relegated to the distant 'someday' for both girls. As it was, Erin still couldn't quite believe she'd managed to get the vacation days for this trip.
And they were in a motel, which meant that she could almost pretend it was actually a vacation. A fairly decent motel too, she had to admit, poking her head into the bathroom; not even a skeezy prickle to her cleanliness spidey-senses—not that hers had any on Cass'.
A shriek sounded outside the door, nearly causing Erin to jump out of her skin. In an instant she was nearly skidding out of the room, eyes wide as they locked on Cass.
The brunette was staring, wide eyes at a spot just off the path leading from the sidewalk to their room, her face distinctly green and definitely traumatized. Following her gaze, Erin stepped forward to peer around the bush just beneath the front window next to the door.
She instinctively recoiled away from the very obviously dead squirrel. The poor little thing was laying on it's side right there next to the shrub, its beady eyes wide and glassy, a faint crusting around its eyes and mouth. While not irrationally grossed out by such things—she spent a great deal of time in the country as a kid, which helped—Erin couldn't help the way her stomach churned uncomfortably.
"I'll, um..." she glanced back up to Cass, only for her stomach to twist tighter as she caught sight of another dead squirrel five or so yards away...and another not far from that. Bile began to rise in her throat when a distinctly tabby-coloured tail and paw caught her eye just past the door two units down. She forced the feeling and the resultant expression away, turning back to Cass. "I'll just go let the front desk, now, shall I?" Still looking very green, Cass just nodded, her knuckles legitimately white on her bag, now.
"Go inside, Cass," she urged gently, giving her best friend a gentle push toward the door. But as Erin turned to head over to the Office, a surprisingly tight, nearly painful grip closed around her arm. She turned back to Cass, a frown creasing her brow.
"What happened to it?" There was an almost desperate edge to the brunette's voice, warring with her unease at spotting the tiny corpse. Erin's stomach churned again. She might not feel faint the way many girls—and guys, she knew from experience—might looking down at the dead critter, but there was something...wrong about it. It didn't look like it should be dead. There were no wounds, no injuries, no signs of starvation, no real look that it had suffered something fatal beyond the evidence that it was, well, dead...save that bit of dark crusting on its face.
Not that she was about to tell Cass that.
Cass was one of those girls.
She purposefully made herself give an unconcerned shrug.
"Probably got hit by a car or something," she said. Yeah. That was reasonable. Internal injuries didn't always show, after all.
But then her mind inadvertently turned to the other small, furry bodies.