NaNoWriMo 2008 - Belated Chapter 3
Title: [unkonwn]
Author: verite-knight
Chapter: 3 / x
Part: 2 / 2
Words: 7300
Status: WiP
Benjamin looked at his employees and shook his head. As he moved behind the counter, his eyes resting on the phone before he looked at the girls again and then called to them and said, “Get this place cleaned up. We have lost enough business with this economy, we do not need this.” With that he saw the girls begin to divide the eight aisles up between the three girls for which aisles they were going to straighten up.
Benjamin turned his back to the employees and decided to clean up around the register. He started with things behind the register, putting the fallen items on their appropriate shelves. He picked up an amber coloured necklace off the floor and turned around to face the register, and stared at the necklace in his hand. The beads themselves were round and the smooth surface was cold from a lack of touch. However it was not the cool surface that drew his attention, it was the way that the light caught the see through beads: the sunlight caught the beads and gave them a lighter effect than where the light did not hit the beads. As Benjamin lowered his hand dropping the necklace in the box next to the register, his attention was drawn from the necklace as the phone rang.
“Hello?” He said into the receiver as his eyes ran over the employees who were cleaning up the aisles.
“Is this Benjamin’s General Store?” The female operator asked. It was obvious that her patience was wearing thin with whoever was calling.
“This is.” The short reply came from the store owner.
“Do you ace-“ Benjamin cut her off, knowing the routine already and quickly answered,
“Yes I do accept the call.” His patience was growing thin as he saw that his employees were slowly working together on clearing one aisle. As the door opened, the bell over the door made it’s high pitched sound and Helen went over to greet the customer, and recited the familiar saying that she had said when they were first opening up the store.
“This is Benjamin’s General Store. I’m Benjamin, how can I help you?” He said into the receiver, moving out of the way for Helen to ring the customer she had greeted earlier at the register. His eyes fell on the amber necklace that he put in the box earlier, and grabbed it out of it’s container and stared at the beads again while listening to the other side.
“I understand. When I see him next time, I will tell him. Thank you for letting us know.” Benjamin said as he closed his hand on the amber beads, while nodding as if the person on the other side were in front of him. Benjamin lowered the receiver from his ear, and stared at it, before placing it back on it’s holder. While he was lost in his thoughts, he faintly heard the familiar sounds of “Have a great day and come back soon to Benjamin’s store” being said in unison from the three girls.
He lifted his head to see that the store aisles and windows were cleaned up, and the store had it’s prestige looking side again, except for the area around the register. Helen moved from the register, and started to clean up the area, while Benjamin moved out of her way, with his hand tightened on the beads. As he looked at the employees and then turned his attention to the commotion outside. Outside the townspeople were running in all different directions, except from the far outskirts of town where the schoolhouse was. Benjmain took a step towards the door, leaving his store a competed mess, and stepped through the threshold to the outside.
He momentarily forgot about the unclean store and saw the townspeople running around. However the one thing that worried him was the fat that he saw Anne and the children hurrying down the road, in the other direction of the schoolhouse. Benjamin turned to the side of the town in which people were running from, and he saw the sky beginning to change colours. From it’s normal blue with fluffy white clouds was now becoming a green, yellow and black sky with the clouds starting to swirl together as if a tornado was going to appear. However, they were in the middle of Nebraska, and while it was not uncommon for tornados to come through the night, it was odd that a dust storm would catch them by surprise in the middle of the day.
Benjamin turned around and headed back into his store. It seemed like people were just taking cover, and none of the shops around him had decided to close up shop yet for the day. As he passed one of the neighbouring stores, he heard his name being called.
“Benjamin! C’mon in here for a minute!” The shopkeeper called to Benjamin. Benjamin stepped into the store for a minute. “It looks like it is gonna be a dust storm again.”
“I think it will be, yes.” He answered, before turning towards the doorway again. As he stepped out of the shop, he called out a “goodbye” thrown over his shoulder and stepped out of the shop. As he came to the edge of his store, he studied the sign that hung at the opposite corner of his current position, and noticed it was moving slightly in the wind.
As Benjamin got to the store’s doorway, he found himself looking at the store in a clean state and then stared back at his own area that he was standing in. He was at a loss, because no more than five minutes ago, he had a shop that looked like it was in disarray. A customer walked in, and it seemed like the girls had raced to get it finished by the time that Benjamin was off of the phone.
Benjamin looked at the three girls again, blinking at them, and then opened his mouth.
"When did you get all this done?" He raised his eyebrows and gestured towards the now clean shop.
"When we saw the customer come in here, we found ourselves running to get it done, and wanting to show you that we were actually dedicated to you and that we could clean the store." Helen answered for her co-workers.
"But. . " Benjamin was at a loss of words as he sat there and stared at the women. However, any words he had were suddenly lost from his brain as Jonathon appeared at the beginning of the windows. Benjamin moved out from the register, and put the necklace back into the container next to the register, and awaited to see what was going on with Jonathon.
The door swung on it's hinges, being thrown back with enough force that the door hit the wall behind it. Jonathon stood in the threshold, panting and at a loss of his breath. His eyes looked towards the store owner, who had signaled his female employees to the back of the store, behind the register out of harms way.
"Jonathon, what is it?" Benjamin asked, coolly. He knew that the other male had just come from either the schoolhouse or the Smith house.
"No one is that the Smith house." He managed to get out of his mouth before he started gasping for air again. Margaret came over to his side and handed him a cup of water which he took and gulped down and then threw the cup into the trash can that was near him.
"What do you mean?"
"There is no one there at the house. It is empty, and it is not like Julia to disappear like that. Come to think of it, I have not even seen Ilse yet, which normally I see her somewhere in town." He said, before he moved closer to Benjamin, and lowered his voice so that he was not shouting.
"The house is empty?" Benjamin raised an eyebrow at the statement.
"Yes."
"Come into the back of the store, while you and I talk, alone. Girls, will you please take care of the store, as normal?” Benjamin asked the three girls, before the two men walked into a different, leaving them to speak with each other in private.
Benjamin and Johnathon walked into the back room, leaving the girls to tend to the customers. Johnathon looked at Benjamin whose eyes were staring out through a window.
“What do you think of the weather, Johnathon?” Benjamin asked.
“I did not come here to speak about the weather, Benjamin. What happened?” Johnathon’s patience was starting to wear thin.
“It seemed that the sky has changed colours from it’s normal blue colour to a green, gray and tornado looking sky.” Benjamin chuckled as he took a step towards the window.
“Benjamin, really, can you focus on something other than the weather changes?”
“What do you want to know, Johnathon?” Benjamin responded as his eyes were glued out the window.
“What happened to Juila and Ilse?”
“I would have to say that they left, since no one in the house.” Johnathon scuffed his foot on the ground, and took a step towards the shopkeeper.
“When was the last time you saw either one of them?”
“I saw Ilse earlier today, when she came into the marketplace and came into my store. She was picking up some items for her mother. Since I knew that Henry was out of the city, I decided that I would walk with Ilse taking the tab to Julia.”
“You saw them both today?”
“Yes.” Benjamin turned towards Johnathon with his lips pressed together creating a fine line.
“Did they say anything?”
“Julia seemed to be fine, but she was defiantly worried about something after she received a phone call.”
“A phone call?” Johnathon’s eyebrows rose at that statement as his voice was becoming less strained as he was getting answers out of the shopkeeper.
“Yes, a phone call. I do not know what the subject matter was, but she did want me to tell you and Henry, and I quote, ‘Tell Henry and Johnathon, that I have gone back to the original place, and I am sorry’, end quote.” He answered the other man.
“The original place?” Johnathon replied back, in a voice that was softer than his normal one. The tone was a questioning one, attempting to make sense of what exactly that meant.
“Do you know where Henry is?” Benjamin asked the other man. Benjmain had turned his body so that his eyes were looking into Johnathon’s confused eyes.
“He is in Lexington, why?”
“I would suspect that you would get that information in which we don’t know from Henry himself. If you have any means of contacting him, I would suggest doing so.” Benjamin took a step closer to Johanthon before walking past the other man. As Benjamin was about to reach for the door handle, the door came flying back into him and Benjamin took a few steps back to avoid getting hit by the door.
“Maragret, what is it?” Benjamin asked, as he was face to face with one of his employees.
“The - the - the tor-tornado warnings are going off.” His employee managed to get out between her gasping of breath. Benjamin barely understood his employee, as she was getting drowned out by the tornado warning sounds.
“Lock down the store, and get home as quickly as you can.” Benjamin’s curt response was before he, Johnathon and Maragret emerged from the back room. As the three walked into the main room, he saw that Dorothy and Anne had pulled down the shutters on the inside of the shop, and the two ladies were working on boarding the outside window with the help of some neighbouring shopkeepers.
Johnathon locked the three back doors, and was right on the heels of the two ladies who were headed out of the front door. Benjamin moved to the register, took the key from the cash box bottom, and grabbed the pair of keys that were in his pocket, and moved to the front door. As he turned around, he threw the key into the lock, and turned towards his three female employees and Johnathon between the five split up into two groups, each one heading out of the city. Johnathon and Benjamin headed south while the three girls headed north, and none of them saying goodbye or goodluck.
Benjamin looked at the other male by his side and over the sounds of the tornado warnings, he told Johnathon, “You know, a Mr. Max McCahill called from Lexington today, to tell you that Henry still had not made it to Lexington yet.” Johnathon glanced at Benjamin, but opted not to say anything.
As the two men looked over their shoulders, the clouds were starting to create a funnel and beginning to descend towards the ground.
“Benjamin, it’s been great talking to you, and thanks for letting me know what was going on with Juila. Take care of yourself” was all that Johnathon said before he started to run up the driveway to his house. Benjamin on the other hand kept on running straight, and did not acknowledge that the other man had left his side.
Johnathon headed down a side street, that intersected with the main street, but as he was running, he could only focus on one thing: getting home to his family and getting the news out to Ruth. As his house slowly came into view for him, he urged himself to run faster towards his home. His home, was slowly coming into sight, and he caught his wife’s small form as she was screaming the names of her two oldest sons whose forms were slowly getting larger as they reached the house.
When Ruth saw her husband running towards the house, her eyes looked past her husband and she saw the tornado cloud for the first time. She turned on her heel, and started barking orders. Johnathon had stopped running and was walking briskly towards his house. However, when he got there, he noticed one additional car that were not his own and also another car that looked really familiar to him. He walked up to the cars, and peered into the driver’s side window trying to get a hint at who they belonged to.
He looked at the car that looked familiar to him, and he noticed it was a black car with a long hood and a grill with the design of an upwards “V”. As he walked around it, something caught his eye in the passenger side seat, and as he opened up the door, he reached in and grabbed the piece of paper. As he opened the folded piece of paper, he heard the front door open, and before it had time to close, he heard his wife’s frantic voice calling his name, saying “Johnathon! Get in here now!”
Johanthon folded the piece of paper back, shoved it into his pocket, closed the door then made his way up the stairs and into his house.
Type your cut contents here.
Author: verite-knight
Chapter: 3 / x
Part: 2 / 2
Words: 7300
Status: WiP
Benjamin looked at his employees and shook his head. As he moved behind the counter, his eyes resting on the phone before he looked at the girls again and then called to them and said, “Get this place cleaned up. We have lost enough business with this economy, we do not need this.” With that he saw the girls begin to divide the eight aisles up between the three girls for which aisles they were going to straighten up.
Benjamin turned his back to the employees and decided to clean up around the register. He started with things behind the register, putting the fallen items on their appropriate shelves. He picked up an amber coloured necklace off the floor and turned around to face the register, and stared at the necklace in his hand. The beads themselves were round and the smooth surface was cold from a lack of touch. However it was not the cool surface that drew his attention, it was the way that the light caught the see through beads: the sunlight caught the beads and gave them a lighter effect than where the light did not hit the beads. As Benjamin lowered his hand dropping the necklace in the box next to the register, his attention was drawn from the necklace as the phone rang.
“Hello?” He said into the receiver as his eyes ran over the employees who were cleaning up the aisles.
“Is this Benjamin’s General Store?” The female operator asked. It was obvious that her patience was wearing thin with whoever was calling.
“This is.” The short reply came from the store owner.
“Do you ace-“ Benjamin cut her off, knowing the routine already and quickly answered,
“Yes I do accept the call.” His patience was growing thin as he saw that his employees were slowly working together on clearing one aisle. As the door opened, the bell over the door made it’s high pitched sound and Helen went over to greet the customer, and recited the familiar saying that she had said when they were first opening up the store.
“This is Benjamin’s General Store. I’m Benjamin, how can I help you?” He said into the receiver, moving out of the way for Helen to ring the customer she had greeted earlier at the register. His eyes fell on the amber necklace that he put in the box earlier, and grabbed it out of it’s container and stared at the beads again while listening to the other side.
“I understand. When I see him next time, I will tell him. Thank you for letting us know.” Benjamin said as he closed his hand on the amber beads, while nodding as if the person on the other side were in front of him. Benjamin lowered the receiver from his ear, and stared at it, before placing it back on it’s holder. While he was lost in his thoughts, he faintly heard the familiar sounds of “Have a great day and come back soon to Benjamin’s store” being said in unison from the three girls.
He lifted his head to see that the store aisles and windows were cleaned up, and the store had it’s prestige looking side again, except for the area around the register. Helen moved from the register, and started to clean up the area, while Benjamin moved out of her way, with his hand tightened on the beads. As he looked at the employees and then turned his attention to the commotion outside. Outside the townspeople were running in all different directions, except from the far outskirts of town where the schoolhouse was. Benjmain took a step towards the door, leaving his store a competed mess, and stepped through the threshold to the outside.
He momentarily forgot about the unclean store and saw the townspeople running around. However the one thing that worried him was the fat that he saw Anne and the children hurrying down the road, in the other direction of the schoolhouse. Benjamin turned to the side of the town in which people were running from, and he saw the sky beginning to change colours. From it’s normal blue with fluffy white clouds was now becoming a green, yellow and black sky with the clouds starting to swirl together as if a tornado was going to appear. However, they were in the middle of Nebraska, and while it was not uncommon for tornados to come through the night, it was odd that a dust storm would catch them by surprise in the middle of the day.
Benjamin turned around and headed back into his store. It seemed like people were just taking cover, and none of the shops around him had decided to close up shop yet for the day. As he passed one of the neighbouring stores, he heard his name being called.
“Benjamin! C’mon in here for a minute!” The shopkeeper called to Benjamin. Benjamin stepped into the store for a minute. “It looks like it is gonna be a dust storm again.”
“I think it will be, yes.” He answered, before turning towards the doorway again. As he stepped out of the shop, he called out a “goodbye” thrown over his shoulder and stepped out of the shop. As he came to the edge of his store, he studied the sign that hung at the opposite corner of his current position, and noticed it was moving slightly in the wind.
As Benjamin got to the store’s doorway, he found himself looking at the store in a clean state and then stared back at his own area that he was standing in. He was at a loss, because no more than five minutes ago, he had a shop that looked like it was in disarray. A customer walked in, and it seemed like the girls had raced to get it finished by the time that Benjamin was off of the phone.
Benjamin looked at the three girls again, blinking at them, and then opened his mouth.
"When did you get all this done?" He raised his eyebrows and gestured towards the now clean shop.
"When we saw the customer come in here, we found ourselves running to get it done, and wanting to show you that we were actually dedicated to you and that we could clean the store." Helen answered for her co-workers.
"But. . " Benjamin was at a loss of words as he sat there and stared at the women. However, any words he had were suddenly lost from his brain as Jonathon appeared at the beginning of the windows. Benjamin moved out from the register, and put the necklace back into the container next to the register, and awaited to see what was going on with Jonathon.
The door swung on it's hinges, being thrown back with enough force that the door hit the wall behind it. Jonathon stood in the threshold, panting and at a loss of his breath. His eyes looked towards the store owner, who had signaled his female employees to the back of the store, behind the register out of harms way.
"Jonathon, what is it?" Benjamin asked, coolly. He knew that the other male had just come from either the schoolhouse or the Smith house.
"No one is that the Smith house." He managed to get out of his mouth before he started gasping for air again. Margaret came over to his side and handed him a cup of water which he took and gulped down and then threw the cup into the trash can that was near him.
"What do you mean?"
"There is no one there at the house. It is empty, and it is not like Julia to disappear like that. Come to think of it, I have not even seen Ilse yet, which normally I see her somewhere in town." He said, before he moved closer to Benjamin, and lowered his voice so that he was not shouting.
"The house is empty?" Benjamin raised an eyebrow at the statement.
"Yes."
"Come into the back of the store, while you and I talk, alone. Girls, will you please take care of the store, as normal?” Benjamin asked the three girls, before the two men walked into a different, leaving them to speak with each other in private.
Benjamin and Johnathon walked into the back room, leaving the girls to tend to the customers. Johnathon looked at Benjamin whose eyes were staring out through a window.
“What do you think of the weather, Johnathon?” Benjamin asked.
“I did not come here to speak about the weather, Benjamin. What happened?” Johnathon’s patience was starting to wear thin.
“It seemed that the sky has changed colours from it’s normal blue colour to a green, gray and tornado looking sky.” Benjamin chuckled as he took a step towards the window.
“Benjamin, really, can you focus on something other than the weather changes?”
“What do you want to know, Johnathon?” Benjamin responded as his eyes were glued out the window.
“What happened to Juila and Ilse?”
“I would have to say that they left, since no one in the house.” Johnathon scuffed his foot on the ground, and took a step towards the shopkeeper.
“When was the last time you saw either one of them?”
“I saw Ilse earlier today, when she came into the marketplace and came into my store. She was picking up some items for her mother. Since I knew that Henry was out of the city, I decided that I would walk with Ilse taking the tab to Julia.”
“You saw them both today?”
“Yes.” Benjamin turned towards Johnathon with his lips pressed together creating a fine line.
“Did they say anything?”
“Julia seemed to be fine, but she was defiantly worried about something after she received a phone call.”
“A phone call?” Johnathon’s eyebrows rose at that statement as his voice was becoming less strained as he was getting answers out of the shopkeeper.
“Yes, a phone call. I do not know what the subject matter was, but she did want me to tell you and Henry, and I quote, ‘Tell Henry and Johnathon, that I have gone back to the original place, and I am sorry’, end quote.” He answered the other man.
“The original place?” Johnathon replied back, in a voice that was softer than his normal one. The tone was a questioning one, attempting to make sense of what exactly that meant.
“Do you know where Henry is?” Benjamin asked the other man. Benjmain had turned his body so that his eyes were looking into Johnathon’s confused eyes.
“He is in Lexington, why?”
“I would suspect that you would get that information in which we don’t know from Henry himself. If you have any means of contacting him, I would suggest doing so.” Benjamin took a step closer to Johanthon before walking past the other man. As Benjamin was about to reach for the door handle, the door came flying back into him and Benjamin took a few steps back to avoid getting hit by the door.
“Maragret, what is it?” Benjamin asked, as he was face to face with one of his employees.
“The - the - the tor-tornado warnings are going off.” His employee managed to get out between her gasping of breath. Benjamin barely understood his employee, as she was getting drowned out by the tornado warning sounds.
“Lock down the store, and get home as quickly as you can.” Benjamin’s curt response was before he, Johnathon and Maragret emerged from the back room. As the three walked into the main room, he saw that Dorothy and Anne had pulled down the shutters on the inside of the shop, and the two ladies were working on boarding the outside window with the help of some neighbouring shopkeepers.
Johnathon locked the three back doors, and was right on the heels of the two ladies who were headed out of the front door. Benjamin moved to the register, took the key from the cash box bottom, and grabbed the pair of keys that were in his pocket, and moved to the front door. As he turned around, he threw the key into the lock, and turned towards his three female employees and Johnathon between the five split up into two groups, each one heading out of the city. Johnathon and Benjamin headed south while the three girls headed north, and none of them saying goodbye or goodluck.
Benjamin looked at the other male by his side and over the sounds of the tornado warnings, he told Johnathon, “You know, a Mr. Max McCahill called from Lexington today, to tell you that Henry still had not made it to Lexington yet.” Johnathon glanced at Benjamin, but opted not to say anything.
As the two men looked over their shoulders, the clouds were starting to create a funnel and beginning to descend towards the ground.
“Benjamin, it’s been great talking to you, and thanks for letting me know what was going on with Juila. Take care of yourself” was all that Johnathon said before he started to run up the driveway to his house. Benjamin on the other hand kept on running straight, and did not acknowledge that the other man had left his side.
Johnathon headed down a side street, that intersected with the main street, but as he was running, he could only focus on one thing: getting home to his family and getting the news out to Ruth. As his house slowly came into view for him, he urged himself to run faster towards his home. His home, was slowly coming into sight, and he caught his wife’s small form as she was screaming the names of her two oldest sons whose forms were slowly getting larger as they reached the house.
When Ruth saw her husband running towards the house, her eyes looked past her husband and she saw the tornado cloud for the first time. She turned on her heel, and started barking orders. Johnathon had stopped running and was walking briskly towards his house. However, when he got there, he noticed one additional car that were not his own and also another car that looked really familiar to him. He walked up to the cars, and peered into the driver’s side window trying to get a hint at who they belonged to.
He looked at the car that looked familiar to him, and he noticed it was a black car with a long hood and a grill with the design of an upwards “V”. As he walked around it, something caught his eye in the passenger side seat, and as he opened up the door, he reached in and grabbed the piece of paper. As he opened the folded piece of paper, he heard the front door open, and before it had time to close, he heard his wife’s frantic voice calling his name, saying “Johnathon! Get in here now!”
Johanthon folded the piece of paper back, shoved it into his pocket, closed the door then made his way up the stairs and into his house.
Type your cut contents here.