Unpaid Overtime

by Anonymous

Summary:

Sam McLaughlin has managed to get their life back together after Gardenview Museum and Educational Center abruptly closed in 2002. They’ve done their best to put it all behind them and move on, but when an old coworker of theirs calls with the idea to go back, they can’t find it in themselves to refuse. Especially when they think about the toons they left behind.

——

A fic based on the thought: “What if some of the toon handlers went back to Gardenview?”

Notes:

I’d like to thank my wonderful amazing friends for beta reading this for me, they’ve really been my biggest cheerleaders in writing this whole thing <3

Chapter 1: A Phone Call

It had been a year. A year since everything happened. Nothing made sense at first, just an order to leave immediately for their safety. Only Shanon bothered writing a note to anyone. But they thought they’d be back within the week and with such a panic to go, surely apologies would smooth over any hurt feelings that happened from abruptly disappearing.

Everything blurred together after the tense train ride out. News vans, cameras, microphones shoved their way, shouts carrying demands of information. They all stayed quiet.
Arthur and Delilah intended to keep it that way. Termination, effective immediately. But a hefty chunk of severance pay would be granted to anyone willing to sign an NDA on their way out the door.

It wasn’t a hard decision for Sam. They took the money and left. Tried to put as much distance between themselves and everything that happened.

Times were tough for a while, but eventually they found a job and built a stable life away from Gardenview. It crossed their mind occasionally, idle thoughts of how the toons were doing. How Sprout and Cosmo were doing. They hoped that no fires had started in their absence, or if they had, the two at least learned how to put them out. They tried not to care, but it was so hard not to.
Which is why they didn’t turn down Shanon when she managed to get a hold of them.

When Sam got back home after work, they were exhausted. They groaned when they noticed the little blinking light on their landline cheerfully informing them a voicemail was waiting to be heard. With a sigh, they kicked off their shoes at the door and punched in the code which activated the phone’s tinny voice.
“You have… 1… new messages! Press “1” if you would like to hear-“

They pressed 1 before the machine had a chance to finish. There was a telltale click as it switched over to playing the voicemail.

“Hi! This is Shanon! Uh, Shanon Mendez. We worked together back before that educational center closed? I used to watch that little girl who was obsessed with dinosaurs! Anyways, I was hoping to get to speak with you. I assume you’re busy, so if you could give me a call back? My number is…”

Sam blinked in surprise as Shanon rattled off her number and the voicemail ended with a little reminder to call her back ‘as soon as possible’ and a click of finality. They stood there in utter shock with the receiver to their ear, unsure of how to process what just happened. Shanon had somehow not only found their number, but was interested in talking.

So they hit the button to make the message replay, digging out a piece of scrap paper and a pen to write it down. They stared at it for a while after saving the message considering what they should do next. Shanon had asked them to call as soon as possible, but at the same time they were still tired from work and that left them disinterested in a call with someone so high energy.

Curiosity got the better of them. They dialed the number written on the paper, and listened to the phone ring. It took three rings for someone to pick up.

“Shanon Mendez speaking!”

“How the hell did you find my number?”

A long silence fell over the call.

“Who is this?”

“Sam. Sam Mc-“

“Sam!” The relief in Shanon’s voice was palpable. “I was so worried you wouldn’t call back!”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Oh! Oh yeah, that… I looked you up in the white pages. Your name isn’t that common and I was hoping you hadn’t moved too far. I guess I got lucky!”

Sam sighed, leaning back against the wall.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Well… I’m gonna sound crazy for a moment, but I want to go back to Gardenview.”

“Isn’t it still a biohazard or whatever the hell? Why in the world would you want to go back?”

“…I’m worried about them, Sam.”

Sam didn’t need to ask for clarification. “How would you even manage to get in? I thought they locked it up when they kicked us all out.”

“They did, but they don’t have people watching over it anymore. I figured we’d hop the main fence then walk along the tracks until we got inside.”

“We?”

There was a nervous giggle, “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about. I don’t really want to go alone.”

“And so you decided to drag me into your wild scheme?”

“Not just you! I’ve been trying to contact all of the other handlers.”

“And how’s that going?”

Shanon clicked her tongue and Sam could almost imagine the way she looked off to the side.
“Slowly. Veronica changed her cellphone number, I guess she took advantage of leaving her old one behind when we left. I couldn’t find her name in the white pages so I started leaving messages for any Hurley I could find. Which was a lot. And I had to do the same thing for Devan. Did you know there’s so many Reeds in the world? It’s insane.”

“And Austin?”

“I found his name, so now I’m waiting for a call back and hoping that was actually him.”

Sam sucked on their teeth while processing everything Shanon had just told them. She seemed to grow nervous about the quiet.

“You don’t have to come, you know. You could tell me to get lost and I’d never bother you again. It’s just something I wanted to do, needed to do, and thought, maybe, you’d like to join me? I know you cared about Sprout at least a little bit? I hope? I know the job was most important to you and he ran you ragged but…” She trailed off as more uncertainty seemed to set in.

Against their better judgment, Sam sighed and asked, “When were you planning on going?”

“I wanted to go as soon as I rounded everyone up! Or, well, actually as soon as I figured out who would agree to go with me.”

“I’ve got a new job, Shanon.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Does that mean you’re not coming?”

“It means we need to make this work with my schedule.”

“Oh! Okay! Yeah we can do that! Sorry, I guess I’m getting ahead of myself a little!” Shanon giggled on the other end.

“We should have a meeting with all of us too, so there’s a plan and we’re not just hoping for the best.”

“Yes! A meeting! Hold on let me-“ A muffled sound came as Shanon moved around. “When do you have off? So we can meet!”

“Mondays. I could make it after my shifts Tuesday or Thursday though.”

“What time do your shifts end?”

“9:00 PM.”

“Monday any time… Tuesday and Thursday after 9… okay got it! I’ll call you when I’ve got the meeting set up!”

“Okay. Talk with you then.”

“Goodb-“

Sam hung up the phone before Shanon could finish, pinching the bridge of their nose.
“Sam McLaughlin, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into?”

Chapter 2: Diner Talk

The meeting ended up being a whole month later at some shitty 24 hour diner half an hour’s train ride from Sam’s work. It was largely barren when they stepped inside, a random group of teenagers, a lone trucker, and Shanon excitedly waving them over as Austin looked faintly surprised at their presence.

“It’s so good to see you again!” Shanon said as they sat down.

Austin pursed his lips together, “You still look as tired as you did back then.”

Sam rolled their eyes while scooting their chair closer to the table.

“I didn’t come here for you to tell me I look like shit.”

“Woah, hey! No need for all that,” Shanon quickly butted in before Austin could respond, “We’re all here to work together!”

Begrudgingly he nodded. Sam chose to wave the waiter over using a menu, ordering a glass of water before looking back at the other two.

“Is it just us?” They asked, tossing a glance out of the window.

“Um, yeah. I was just telling Austin that Veronica decided she didn’t want to join us.”

“Because she didn’t want to go to prison.” Austin clarified.

“Mhm! And none of the Reeds I called knew a Devan, if they even bothered calling back. So that leaves just us!”

“Great.” Sam replied flatly.

Nobody spoke until after Sam’s glass of water was delivered to the table and the waiter was shooed off under the guise of needing more time to think about their order.

Austin broke the silence with a cautious, “So, what’s the plan?”

“Jump the fence and walk along the tracks until we’re there, according to Shanon.”

Shanon’s cheeks darkened with embarrassment. “Okay, that was… I hadn’t really thought about it before that, I was thinking on the fly!”

Sam hummed judgmentally, stirring their drink with their straw.
“So you’ve got a better one now?”

“Well… no.”

Austin sighed, propping his chin in his hand. “Whatever we do, we should bring bolt cutters.”

“What?”

“There’s gonna be locks all over the place, aren’t there? So unless you want to go all the way out to the center only to be thwarted by a padlock, we need something to get past them.”

Shanon shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she finally seemed to realize the weight of what they’d be doing. “I guess that’s smart.”

“It’d be easier to cut the fence and go through it anyway.” Sam chimed in, getting an odd look from the others they chose to ignore.

“What else should we bring?” Shanon dug a little notebook out of her purse, pulling out a pen shortly after. She opened the notebook to the first blank page, scribbled in the corner until ink flowed, then wrote down in her clean handwriting ‘bolt cutters’.
“Flashlights and extra batteries,” Austin said with little hesitation.

“Flashlights and extra batteries…” Shanon muttered as she wrote it down.

“First aid kit.” Sam added.

“Do you really think it’ll be that dangerous?”

“No, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Especially knowing who’s still there.”

Shanon simply nodded and added it to the list.
“Maybe we should bring something for the toons? I mean… we did up and leave without a goodbye.”

“God, I wonder if they’re eating,” Austin muttered.
Sam bit the inside of their cheek, feeling something tighten in their chest over the thought of dwindling food in the center. They didn’t have to eat, all of the handlers knew that, but it was a regular and comforting activity. Especially for Sprout.

“We’ll bring food then!” Shanon said with finality, writing off to the side and underlining it twice. She tapped the pen underneath it in thought. “What kind should we bring?”

Mindlessly, Sam began to rattle off a list they had heard perhaps a million times by now. “Flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs.”

“Eggs,” Austin echoed, “Really? Wouldn’t they just break?”

“And milk and butter would get warm.” Shanon pointed out.

Sam took a moment to think it over. “We can bring a cooler then.”

“I don’t want to lug around a cooler through that complex. Especially if we’re walking down the tracks. We should just bring snacks, stuff in packages.”

“No, that isn’t enough. I’ll carry the cooler if I have to.” Sam snapped.

Shanon gave them a sympathetic look, then added their demands to the list without further argument. Austin sighed in clear defeat.

“Maybe some canned things. Fruits, veggies, stuff like that.”

“You’ll be the one carrying them.”

Sam reveled in the way Austin’s face scrunched in annoyance.

“Deal,” he finally said, “That means you’re carrying the rest of the supplies, Shanon.”

“Fine by me!” Shanon wrote down the new additions and began to tap her pen again.
While they were all thinking, the waiter finally came back around to get their order and refill their drinks. Sam got a cheap basket of fries, Shanon ordered a milkshake, and Austin opted to not get anything. When the waiter left, discussion resumed.

“We’ll need to bring water. I doubt they still have anything running at the center.”

Austin groaned at the thought of carrying more things. “We can only take so much.”

“I’ll carry it too then,” Sam glared at him, “If you’re gonna bitch about it.”

“We could split the water between us?” Shanon offered in an attempt to deescalate.

“How so?” Austin’s voice was full of doubt.

“Okay, so, we all bring backpacks with us and fill them with water bottles. Sam’s got a cooler, you could probably bring another bag for the cans, and then I’ve got all of the other stuff in my backpack where it can fit. Then we should at least have enough water for them to drink for a bit?”

It took a moment for Sam and Austin to think over Shanon’s plan and nod in agreement.

“Write it down so Sam can’t get out of it.” Austin reached over and tapped the paper.

Sam frowned. “Hey, I said I’d do it, didn’t I?”

“You also said it about the founder’s photos.”

“That’s a low blow, you know how damn busy I was. You could’ve done it yourself.”

Shanon laughed nervously. “Okay, no need to bring up old work stuff! We’ve got other things to focus on.”

Reluctantly, Austin shifted the topic of conversation. “We should figure out when exactly we should do this.”

All three of them stared at one another as if expecting the others to come up with an answer. Eventually Sam thought of something.
“Christmas.”

“What?” Shanon and Austin said in unison.

“We should do it around Christmas,” Sam began to list off the benefits on their fingers, “We’d have time to collect everything we need, it’d be easier to get consecutive days off work, other people will be less attentive because they’re worrying about the holidays, and who’s expecting a group of people to go to an abandoned center when they should be with family?”

Austin slowly began to nod. “That’s true, people would be too busy to notice what we’re trying to do.”

“And it’ll be like the biggest gift of all!” Shanon smiled, clapping her hands together excitedly. “We could always figure out the exact timing when it’s closer to December, since we need our schedules to align, but that’s perfect!” She frantically scribbled down their latest decision towards the bottom of the page. “Anything else we need to figure out now?”

Everyone went quiet as they thought.

“Not that I can think of.” Sam finally said.

Austin drummed his fingers on the table. “Maybe who’s going to buy what?”

“We can do that later, we’ve got time.”

Both Shanon and Austin gave Sam a doubtful look.

“Fine. I’ll get the baking things and the cooler.”

“I’ll bring the canned goods and bolt cutter.”

“Then I can bring the water, flashlights, batteries, and medkit!” Shanon quickly wrote down who would bring what, then flipped to the next page to make a version of the list for Sam and Austin. She tore them out and pushed them across the table with a bright smile.

Sam took theirs and folded it up, tucking it in their pants pocket. They awkwardly looked between Shanon and Austin who also seemed to not know what to do now that they had figured out the details. The waiter’s timing was impeccable as they slammed down Sam’s fries in front of them and Shanon’s milkshake in front of her before disappearing. Shanon took a sip of her milkshake and let out a wistful sigh.

“Shelly used to like having milkshakes whenever I could get a long enough break around lunch to spend it with her. She’d be so excited, waiting for me at one of those little booths and ready to tell me as many dinosaur facts as she could think of.”

“I don’t think Astro would ever have been able to wait like that for me,” Austin snorted.

“Why, because he would’ve fallen asleep?” Sam asked in between popping fries into their mouth.

“No, because the milkshake would’ve been gone. You would not believe how bad his sweet tooth is, god.”

That got a laugh out of Shanon. “Really? That bad?”

Austin’s groan was bad enough Sam began laughing themselves. “That explains why he was always hanging around the kitchen when he could. And here I thought Pebble was the worst when it came to begging for treats.”

“Oh god, not Pebble!” Shanon squealed, clearly having her own memories of the pet rock up to no good. “Do you remember that time Dandy tried using him to get cookies off of a high shelf?”

The laughter that followed continued through the night as the group took the time to talk about their memories taking care of the toons. Some good, some bad, all equally cherished in their own right. For a moment it felt like when the center was in its early days and they weren’t all swamped with work and there was time to talk about everything the toons got up to.

It was almost eleven by the time they all departed, plans made and feelings light. Sam started the walk towards the subway with a sigh, shoving their hands in their pockets and mulling over everything that had happened. They were really going to go back to the center, after all this time. Hopefully Sprout would forgive them for being gone so long.

Notes:

I just wanted to thank y’all for all of the kind comments so far! I really hope this chapter meets your expectations!!

As a fair warning: it’s gonna be a few chapters before they get to Gardenview, but they will get there!

Chapter 3: The Drive There

About a week into December, they decided the day after Christmas would be when they actually went back to Gardenview.
The day of, Shanon came to pick Sam up in her car around ten in the evening. Austin had agreed to meet them a short distance from the center, but it was still an hour and a half drive to even get there.

“How was your Christmas?” Shanon asked as she popped open the trunk of her car so Sam could put the cooler inside next to cases of water.

They shrugged. “Fine, nothing special. How was yours?”

“Chaotic. I’m sure you can imagine how well it goes when a big family gets together and someone’s always getting into trouble.” She slammed the trunk shut with a dry laugh. “If only they knew what I was getting up to today.”

“I’m sure you would’ve been the main subject?”

“You have no idea.” Shanon shook her head and slipped behind the driver’s seat.

Sam got in the passenger’s seat, pulling on the seatbelt and appreciating the warmth the car offered compared to outside. Shanon put the car into drive and began heading down the street still decorated with an obnoxious amount of twinkling lights. Fewer lights could be seen as they left the city behind, eventually leaving them with only the headlights of Shanon’s car to light their way. Sam leaned their head against the window, watching as their exhales fogged up the glass.

“They’re going to be so upset.”

“Hm?”

“The toons,” Shanon said in a soft voice, “They’re going to be so upset at us.”

Sam straightened up and looked over at Shanon who was biting her lip anxiously.

“Of course they’re going to be upset. We just left them without saying anything.”

“I know! I know. It’s just… What if they’re mad at us?”

“Then they’ll be mad at us.” They shrugged.

“Oh come on, you know what I mean! What if they’re so mad at us they just tell us to go and this whole trip is for nothing!”

“Shanon, you know that isn’t what’d happen. Even if they are mad, they’ll get over it. Friendship first and foremost or whatever little kid bullshit they live their lives by.”

A dry laugh left Shanon as she gripped the wheel tighter. “That’s almost worse.”

“Almost.”

They stopped talking for a while after that. Shanon reached over to turn on the radio, cheerful Christmas music playing stubbornly despite the holiday already passing. It prevented the silence in the car from getting oppressive. Sam took the opportunity to go over their plan in their mind.
They would park in the woods at the very edge of Gardenview’s property and take a few minutes to distribute all of the supplies they brought along. Once everyone was set up, they would walk around to the side, cut the fence, then make the long trek over to the outside train. They’d let themselves into the station and take the tracks down into the center. From there, they’d have to take the stairs all the way down to the toon rooms where hopefully their trip would pay off. The thought of getting there and finding nothing, or something worse, briefly flashed through Sam’s mind. They shook their head to chase it away. All of the toons might be in rough shape, but they’d still be alive. They had to be.

The rest of the trip was admittedly boring. Music kept it from being a slog though, with Shanon humming along to carols on the radio until she reached over to turn it down so she could talk.
“You know, I brought a little something extra for Shelly.”

“Hm?”

“I know we decided on bringing food along as our gift to everyone, but I couldn’t help myself! She’s really such a sweet girl and I felt so bad about having to leave with only a note, she deserved better than that.”

“What did you get her?”

“One of those little self-help books. I read it all the way through to make sure it was appropriate, of course, and even added my own notes for extra encouragement. I thought she’d like something like that. It’s not quite a replacement for our chats, but it’s the next best thing.”

Sam couldn’t say anything about it when they’d spent over half an hour agonizing over which cookbook to buy for Sprout.
“And here I thought I was going above and beyond for buying Sprout a cookbook. Way to show me up.”

Shanon smiled. “He’d like getting a new one, wouldn’t he?”

“He used to read them with Cosmo when a new one got delivered,” Sam couldn’t help but smile at the memories. “It usually meant a full day where I didn’t have to worry about the place burning down.”

Shanon laughed at that. “Without you, I think Gardenview would’ve been closed within the first week of Cosmo’s introduction!”

“Tell me about it.”

Shanon waited a moment.
“Do you think Austin brought something for Astro?” She mused.

“If I brought something for Sprout, you know damn well he’s lugging something special along too.”

Shanon laughed again even harder this time, the car swerving slightly as she did so.
“I guess we’ll just have to ask him when we get there, won’t we?”

They reached the meeting spot shortly after, Shanon pulling her car as far past the tree line as she dared and turning off the headlights. She left the car running while she pulled out their phone and dialed Austin’s number. Sam was debating whether it was worth risking the cold to start packing their backpack when he finally picked up.

“Hey! Yeah we just got here. How far out do you think you are?” Shanon was quiet as Austin presumably gave his answer on the other end.
“He says he’s about ten minutes away,” She said, covering the receiver to tell Sam before going back to speaking with Austin. “Did you bring everything we needed? Okay, good! Oh! One last thing before you hang up, did you bring anything for Astro?”

Whatever was said had Shanon laughing all over again, barely able to relay the message to Sam. “He asked— he asked how I knew!”

She was still giggly when she returned to talking with him. “What did you get? Oh that sounds so wonderful, he’s going to love that! Okay, I’ll let you get back to driving now, see you soon!”

Shanon snapped her phone shut and looked at Sam with a smile. “He bought Astro some audiobooks on CD, along with a player. I would’ve thought he’d bring some new books, maybe an astronomy textbook?”

“Well, he was already complaining about how much he has to carry, a few more books and he might end up turning around and going home.”

Shanon gasped and playfully smacked Sam’s arm. “Stop! He would not!” The smile on her face betrayed how she actually felt about the jab.

“I guess we’ll never know.” Sam shot back coyly.

It didn’t take long after that for Austin to arrive, mimicking Shanon by pulling his own car into the woods and parking it somewhat close to hers. Shanon turned off her car then twisted to fish a backpack out of the backseat, pulling it into her lap and pulling out a flashlight. She got out of the car and turned it on just as Austin turned off his car headlights and got out himself.

“We’re really doing this…” Shanon muttered as she popped open the trunk.

“Yep.” Sam replied as they clambered out of their seat and walked around to join Shanon in shoving water bottles into backpacks.

Austin moved to join them, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder that clinked annoyingly whenever he moved and a pair of bolt cutters in his opposite hand. He set the bolt cutters in the trunk and began filling his own backpack with bottles.

“Is it bad I’m starting to get nervous?” Shanon blurted out as they finished packing their bags. “I mean, wow, after all this time we’re really going back and it’s like we’re criminals instead of old workers.”

“We are criminals once we do this.” Sam pointed out as they lifted the cooler out of the trunk.

“Good old breaking and entering.” Austin chimed in as he shifted his bags around to the most comfortable arrangement for himself.

Shanon laughed nervously, picking up the bolt cutters and slamming the trunk shut. “Well, too late to turn back! Let’s go.”

Chapter 4: Breaking and Entering

Not long into the walk across snowy ground, Sam was really beginning to regret volunteering to carry the cooler. It dug into their hands despite the thick gloves they had on, and seemed to grow heavier with every step they took. A glance at Austin showed he was suffering with his own burden, rolling his shoulder every so often to try and offset some of the weight. Only Shanon seemed to be having an okay time with the bolt cutters in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

“Are we just walking straight the whole way there?” Sam grunted.

“Um, yeah, I guess so? Why?”

“I’m going to need to take a moment soon, this shit is heavy.”

“It’s almost like somebody warned you it was a problem,” Austin cackled.

“Shut up, I see you’re struggling too.”
Austin promptly shut up.

“It’s really not a big deal if you need a minute every now and then! We’ve got time!” Shanon looked over her shoulder with a smile.

“We at least need to get inside before sunrise.”
Sam glared at Austin. “It’s not going to take us six hours to get in because I needed to take a break from carrying this heavy ass shit.”

Austin shrugged. “We could’ve avoided the situation in the first place.”

In an attempt to stop a fight before it started, Shanon turned to Austin. “What CDs did you get Astro?”

“The History of Astronomy and a few on what’s new about space. I thought he’d find it interesting.”

“No books?” Sam asked.

“I could bring more using the CDs. You know he’d eat through a whole textbook in only a single day, especially without any responsibilities to pull him away from it.”

Shanon looked faintly shocked. “Really? I didn’t know he liked reading that much.”

“I don’t know how he found the time between all the naps, but he did. Maybe he’s read every book at Gardenview by now.”

“Maybe not him, but I’m sure Brightney could have! Goodness that girl was obsessed with reading! I know curiosity and learning was her whole deal, but she seemed to know the library better than any of us humans ever did.”

“Didn’t one of the twins like reading too?”

“Oh shoot, yeah! It was um…” Shanon bounced a little as she tried to think.

Austin thought of it first. “Dazzle. Had to have been. He and Astro were pretty close.”

“Between the three of them, there can’t be a single book unread in that whole building! We’ll have to ask what their favorites are! Maybe it’ll be something good.”

Sam couldn’t hold back a snort. “I don’t know if I’d trust their judgment about what makes a good book. They’re pretty sheltered.”

“Oh come on, give them a break! I know for a fact there’s more than just little kiddy books on the shelf because Shelly was always finding more dinosaur textbooks. Real ones, not the simplified ones.”

“Whose idea do you think that was? Arthur or Delilah?”

“Had to be Arthur’s,” Sam said, “I don’t think I ever saw Delilah actually care about anything but her little projects and you know how Arthur was when it came to trying to please everyone.”

“I’m sure she cared in her own, special way!” Shanon declared.

Everyone was silent for a second then burst out laughing.
“Hell no.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, she really didn’t.”

By that time the trio had made it around to the side, Sam was more than ready to drop the cooler at their feet. They did just that as Shanon and Austin inspected the chain link fence. Austin whistled as he eyed up the entirety of its ten foot height.

“I can’t believe you ever wanted to try climbing this thing.”

“Hey!” Shanon’s cheeks darkened and she looked away. “That’s why we had that meeting.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hold my flashlight.” Austin allowed his own bag to drop into the snow, swapping his flashlight for the bolt cutters in Shanon’s hand.
He cut methodically through the fence, a simple line of snips up through the links until there was enough room to crawl through when it was pulled back.

Sam and the cooler went first. They crawled through, ignoring the discomfort of snow melting through the knees of their pants. The cooler was yanked through afterwards and shoved off to the side so they could take the flashlights from Shanon. She crawled through next, looking just as uncomfortable in the process. Austin came through last, pushing the duffel bag ahead of himself then setting the fence back in place as much as he could manage. He took back his flashlight and slung his bag over his shoulder as Shanon took back her own.

“Okay, we shouldn’t be that far from the parking lot…” Shanon muttered as she stood up and dusted snow off herself.

Sam took a moment to squint off into the distance while they picked up the cooler. “The train station is that building right there.” They gestured with their chin.

The other two pointed their flashlights in the indicated direction, the light just barely managing to reach it. Austin couldn’t cover his sigh.
“I wish they built this place closer together.” He grumbled while starting to head towards the station.

“I don’t think they really built it for people to be breaking in.”

“How inconsiderate,” Sam spat, earning a snort from Austin.

The walk to the train station from the fence was comparatively short, but brought the exact same amount of relief when Sam could drop the cooler at their feet. In front of the three stood the employee entrance, locked when Shanon tried the door. She frowned at it and tried again as if that might change the outcome.

“Shoot. Should we break the knob with the bolt cutters?”

“Give me a moment,” Austin said, putting down his duffel bag and unzipping it. Inside was a decent amount of canned goods, a portable CD player, a CD case, and for some reason a crowbar.

“God Austin, why in the hell do you have that?” Sam asked as he handed off his flashlight to them.

“Because I was thinking ahead,” He snapped while getting himself into position. “I wasn’t going to come all this way and be stopped by a locked door.”

“At least you thought of it,” Shanon said weakly.

It took a minute for Austin to actually manage to break open the door with Sam and Shanon awkwardly watching the whole time. When the door finally gave way, a thin sliver of light spilled out from inside. Everyone froze.

“The lights are on.” Austin breathed out.

Sam stared in disbelief. “Shit.”

“Do you think someone’s in there? Did we get caught? Oh god I’m so sorry, this is all my fault!” Shanon began hyperventilating, looking around frantically in her panic.

“Stop that, it’s not going to get us anywhere if you freak out.” Austin grabbed her shoulder. “If someone is here we need to find a place to hide before we get caught.”

Sam took the opportunity to carefully open the door, peeking their head inside. The place was empty at first glance and a layer of dust covered the hall. Nobody seemed to be running to come get them so they stepped back out and picked up the cooler.

“Sam, what are you doing?” Austin looked confused.

“Heading inside.”
With that they ducked inside and began making their way through the building.

“Wait! Wait for us!” Shanon stage whispered, frantically urging Austin to gather his things as she ran after Sam.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Bribes’ Dandy Fics