Post by CLEA GIVENS on May 3, 2021 16:17:24 GMT
Grocery bags hugged against her chest, Clea tried to slam the car door shut with her hip. It clunked uselessly, swinging back towards her. Ugh. It was one of those days, had been since she’d gasped herself awake at 5am. She gritted her teeth, raised a foot instead and used it to mule kick the door shut. That time it held.
She adjusted the bags in her arms, started the waddle up the walk to the house. Maybe she should’ve tried to make up for that dream and the nightmarish shift after a little less but standing in the grocery store it had felt almost cathartic to just fill the damn trolley. It wasn’t like it wouldn’t be eaten eventually. When you went from living on your own to having two teenagers in the house the food bill sky rocketed. Cupboards seemed to empty themselves over night, the requests for stuff for be brought home lighting your phone up at work. She’d be the first to admit she hadn’t anticipated that part of it but Clea knew she wouldn’t swap having Cassie and Craig here for the world. They’d brought life to a house that felt like it hadn’t had made for well over a year.
Last night when she’d sat there on the edge of her bed, her heart fluttering in her throat, her hands gripping hard at the sheets, it had been the sounds of the two of them that had helped calm her. Life held on in those four walls even if death had filled her head again. A jogger in the woods at dawn, something barrelling out of the woods towards them. A scream, the feel of claws raking flesh. Clea had found herself staring out of the thin gap in the drapes in her bedroom, the moon, still only three quarters full almost mocking her. She still had time to stop what was going to happen to the man. If she could figure out who he was and why the hell he’d be out there at that time of day, knowing just how many had died in those woods lately.
Clea had squelch the shiver that tried to roll through her. She’d pulled herself out before she had seen the thing attacking him but since the moon had been full she’d been able to guess. Her entire shift afterwards, the one she’d worked her way through over tired and cranky, had been spent studying those who came through the door, hoping for some sign of the guy, but no one who matched what she remembered of him had pushed the door open. At one point the bell had sounded and she’d glanced up to see a giant form in a suit shouldering his way through but that had been a disappointment too. He’d been a red head, far too young to be Damian. A shame.
At the door she juggled the bags, lifting a thing to support one while she tugged her keys out of her pocket. Aiming them over her shoulder she beeped the remote to lock the car. Then it was a balancing act, curses slipping from her lips as a bag of chips slid off the top of one of the bags and hit the mat. Clea jammed the keys in the door, got it open and then shuffled in, kicking the bag of chips with her as she went. Closing the door and getting the keys free was gonna have to wait a minute. ”I’m home!” she called up the stairs, continuing towards the kitchen with as much grace as the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. ”I bring food, finally! You guys home?” Clea dropped the bags on the kitchen counter, blowing escaping locks of hair out of her face as she did so.
Finally. She caught her breath for a moment, bent to snag the bag of chips and dropped them on the counter as she rose. Pushing her hair back with her newly freed hands, she made her way back towards the front door. She tugged the keys free and dropped them back in the bowl by the door where she always left them. Clea bumped the door shut, glanced up at the stairs as she toed off her boots. Usually the call of food had feet thundering but it was oddly quiet this afternoon.