The Big Night- Chapter 2- November 17th- 3:22 PM

It's time for Kyle to face the world of having a job, but does it go as planned?

            The store is a couple of minutes from my house so I can just walk to work. The store isn’t really a big store, but it has a huge parking lot. The store is right in the middle of the parking lot. Most of the people park in the front, but some people park in the back because there isn’t enough room in the front. The back parking lot is more of an employee parking spot, but some customers park there. It looks like there are woods in the back but it’s just a lot of trees.

            The sliding door opens, I stop. I breathe in and out. I walk in, and found my manager, Joe. I work in the front end, where all of the cashiers, baggers, and cart collectors work.

            “Hi Kyle!” He says to me excitedly. He seems excited to see me on my first day. We have met before at orientation a couple of days before. “First of all, let me show you where you clock in and out.” He tells me as we walk towards the time clock. I punch in at 3:28, two minutes before I was due for my first shift. “You will get real familiar with the store and how things are run around here pretty quick.” He walks to the checkout where he said I will be bagging for about a week before I am trained on the cash register. “Tonight, since you have a short shift, I will be training you on bagging and have you go on carts for a little while sometime tonight.”

            “Okay.” I smile. 

            “Bagging is pretty easy once you get the hang of it. Meat is always separate unless the customers says it is alright to put it in with other things. Boxes and jars can go together. Crushable items like bread, eggs, and tortilla shells always go last. Frozen items go together and warm items go separate. The customer may bring their own reusable bags, so you use them when they give them to you. If you have items ready to bag, and the customer hasn’t handed you their bags, you always assume to bag with plastic.” Joe tells me all the information. It is a lot to remember but I should be able to catch on. He bags with me for a few orders, but after that, he lets me do it on my own. I bag at the same register for about an hour and a half until Joe comes over to talk to me again. “Now, I’m going to show how to do carts. Yes, there is a proper way to do carts.” He says jokingly.

 

He takes me to a corner where we keep our orange vests and hooks for doing carts. “You always wear the orange vest while doing carts,” he tells me. “Even if it’s sunny and eighty degrees outside, you still wear the vest because the orange makes you more visible to others and people will stop their vehicles for you.” I nod as he tells me everything. “You’re only supposed to take five carts at a time, but if you have six carts in one corral then I would take the sixth one, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.” I’m surprised that getting carts even had rules! I’ve seen many people doing carts before, but I never knew it had rules. “Carts are pretty straight forward,” he tells me. “Any questions so far?” I shook my head. The job sounded simple. Joe had me go back to the checkout where he was and had me bag. I was scheduled from 3:30 to 6:30 for my first shift and it’s almost five o’clock, so I have an hour and a half left. Bagging went pretty smoothly and sometimes I would get behind because some of the cashiers are quick scanners, but they would help bag if I got behind. I didn’t expect everything to be perfect on my first day on the job.

            On a dead moment where nothing was happening, someone started talking to me.

 

“Hey, this your first night?” It was the cashier, his name was Greg. He was tall, skinny, had brown hair and a gleaming smile that lit up the whole store. Yeah, I found him a little attractive.

“Ye-yeah, it’s my first night.” I said a little hesitant.

“Yeah, I remember my first night, it was almost two years ago, and I was only seventeen. I remember I was wicked nervous the first time I walked in, but after the first time, I was fine.” I was intrigued of what he was telling me about his first night.

“So you must like the place since you’ve been here two years, right?” I ask him.

“I mean, it isn’t the best place in the world to work, but it gets the bills paid and I don’t mind doing the job, it’s easy. I’ve made a lot of awesome friends here.” As he finishes up talking, a customer comes by with a basket of groceries. I watch him as he handles the customer.

“Hi! How are you tonight, sir?” He asked the gentleman.

“Good and yourself?” he replied.

“I’m good. Did you find everything you were looking for tonight?” He asks while smiling. When he flashed his smile at the customer, I found it very attractive.

“I did, thank you,” the man told him. Jeff scanned very quickly, and I almost wasn’t able to keep up. As he finished scanning, he noticed that I needed some help bagging, so he started bagging while attending to the customer.

“Don’t worry,” he told me. “I always usually help baggers if they get behind. It’s easier to scan quickly than bag quickly. I got all his groceries into the gentleman’s cart, and he swiped his debit card to pay. Greg handed him his receipt.

“Have a good night, sir.” I told him as he passed me.

            “Not to get personal or anything, but if you have been here for two years, why are you still a cashier? Why aren’t you higher up, like in the service desk?” I ask him.

“I personally don’t know why, they have always just kept me here as a cashier, I’m guessing it’s because I’m a good cashier and I know what I am doing, unlike some other people here.” He whispers to me so not many people could here. We both giggle.

            As Jeff and I finish up our conversation, I notice Joe coming this way and he is heading my way. He waves to me and tells me to come over to the desk. I walk over there and greet him.

“So, how is everything going so far?” He asks me.

“Pretty good.” I tell him.

“Good, that’s what I like to hear. Can you go outside and get me some carts for a little bit?”

“Sure!” I tell him. I was glad I was going out on carts because it was something new to do. I grabbed my jacket because it started to get cold outside, I grabbed the orange vest, the hook with the rope and went outside. When I first got outside, I noticed that it was dark outside, so it had to be close to six o’clock. So, it was almost time to go home! I smile thinking about it. I looked out front and there was a few corrals full. Nothing more than a few cart loads. I went over to the first corral and it only had six carts in it. So, I decided to take all six. I bunched up all six carts so that they were all together and then I put the hook on the furthest cart away from me, unravel the rope and started to pull the carts. Then I had to turn them. I found out quickly that turning them was much harder than pushing them straight.        

            I finally got my first load inside the lobby and I pushed three more loads into the lobby and when I checked the time on my phone and it said 6:12 pm. Only 18 more minutes until I go home! I noticed I got all the carts from the front of the parking lot within fifteen minutes. So, I headed towards the back to see if there was any carts back there. I walked back there and there was about only one cart load. There wasn’t as many people parked back here. There are mostly the employee’s cars and a couple of customer cars. There was a white van with lettering of “Billings, Idaho’s Spa Treatments.” It was definitely an out of town and state vehicle. I walked over to the single corral in the back and there was four carts in it. I bunched those together, and just before I put the hook on the furthest cart, I notice a man walking back and heading towards the van. He unlocked the back and put his groceries in it. Being kind, I walked over, and I asked him if I could take care of his cart for him.

“Oh. Of course, thank you.” He said while smiling. I grabbed the cart, and turned around to head back over to where the carts were. But I didn’t get too far. I walked two feet, and I felt someone grab my shoulder very tightly.

“Don’t move!” I caught a glance of who it was and it was the man who I just collected the cart from. He quickly cuffed his hand over my mouth and grabbed me. I was panicking! I didn’t what to do. I tried fighting back, but he was too strong. He threw me in the back of his van. I smashed my head in the very back of the cab. He climbed in. He quickly such the doors. I was in a lot of pain from my head, I didn’t know what to do, or what just happened. He moved closer to me, I tried to get away from him, but he cornered me and took out a knife.

 “Stay still damn it!” he demanded. He quickly tied my hands behind my back. I tried to fight him, but I couldn’t. “You move one more time, I will slash your neck!” He grunted and then he tied my legs.

“What are you doing?!” I asked him while almost crying.

“Something you’re never going to forget!” He tells me while started to unbutton my pants.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I yelled at him and  he pulled everything off leaving me naked and exposed.

 “Here we go!” He whispered under his breath. I closed my eyes, and looked away, I could feel he was touching me. I could hear him grunting. The force he was using, I couldn’t help myself but get turned on because a guy was touching me, but I did what he wanted.

“Stop! Stop! Stop!” I begged him. I was crying because I couldn’t do anything else. After about five minutes of hardcore grunting and sexual abuse, I found myself ejaculating all over.

“We hit the mother lode.” He said. I felt so ashamed of getting myself into this. Finally, it was over. His last touching after I ejaculated lasted for two more minutes. He finally pulled my underwear and pants up and untied my handss. I tried reaching for his knife, but he caught me as I was doing it and clipped my hand with his knife.

“Don’t do that, I warned you!” I held my hand in pain. It was a deep slash. He untied my feet and I quickly rushed up to my feet. I tried to get out of there, but he had it locked still. He grabbed me by my jacket and I was worried about what he was going to do next.

“Do not, I repeat, do NOT say anything to anyone! Not even a mention, I will find out and will track you and your family down and do even worst things to you than I just barely did.” He told me in a strong sturdy whisper. “Now get out of here!” He opened the back door and shoved me out of there and I landed hard on the pavement.

            I was still crying and teary, but I got myself together and I checked my watch. The time was 6:26 pm. I had to hurry and I had to get the last five carts in. I pushed the carts together, and pushed them past the van, I tried not to look at the man, but I couldn’t help myself. He was just shaking his head and my whole body was shaking. As the doors opened and I put the remaining carts in the lobby, I noticed the van pulled away in a hurry. I checked myself over. I was still shaking and my hand was bleeding, so I wiped the blood off and the tears off my face. I feel so violated and weak right now.

            I slowly walked over to the coat rack and took off my coat and the orange cart vest. I was still teary. Nothing like this has ever happen to me before. I felt like I was on the top of the world just ten minutes ago and now I hit rock bottom. I’m scared and I feel like if I try to tell someone something, he will try and kill me. Or worse, my family. My hand was bleeding badly because of the slash, but I don’t want anyone to notice because someone will ask what happened. I don’t want to find out the consequences if I do tell someone. 

            I try to pull myself together before I go back into the store. I know I am at the end of my shift, but I don’t know if Joe wanted to show me anything else so I just act natural, like nothing happened. The sliding door opened and Joe was waiting for me to come back in.

“Kyle, you’re back!” He jokingly said.

“I am back.” I told him trying to keep a smile on my face and I just held my arms behind my back to hide the cut that was now dripping blood down my sleeve.  

“Follow me.” he tells me. I follow him into the service desk, which is right next to the checkout. He lets me go in first and he closes the door behind him. As he shuts the door, he gives me a strange look.

“What happened to your hand?” I was shocked. How did he even notice? I had my bloody hand inside my other hand, I thought it was covering it. He caught me off guard.

“Ummm...” I froze. I didn’t know what to say. Knots started to form in my stomach. I’m a terrible liar and people know when I lie, but I couldn’t spill my secret. “I was trying to take too carts at one time and I fell over and scraped my hand on the pavement” I blurted out quickly. So fast I didn’t even think about it, I just said it!

“Oh” he said. “Well, try to be more careful next time. Remember, only take as many carts for where you are most comfortable doing, okay?” I nodded. “Anyways,” he went on. “How was your first day here at Hill City Market?” I dodged a bullet it seemed like. I was still in shock that he didn’t suspect anything that I almost forgot that he asked another question.

“Oh” I tried shaking my head trying to brush off what had just happened. “It is really nice here. I like it.” Joe smiled.

“I’m glad you like it here. I could see you being here for a while and progressing through the ranks of the market very quickly. You have a good attitude towards your first day here and from what I have seen, you’re a natural with the customers.” Joe seemed fairly happy with my overall performance so far at Hill City Market and it seems like I made a fairly good impression. I tried to smile back, but all that came out was a fake one. Work was very minimal of my concern right now. But what Joe doesn’t know is that I am never stepping a foot near this market ever again.

“Have a good night Kyle, I will see you tomorrow.” He tells me and walks away. Yeah, you’ll see me"when I quit from this horrible place. I clock out and grab my jacket. I pass Greg’s register and I gave him a smirk as I walk out. Instantly, all of the burden of my past and the events that happened tonight come crashing out with tears. 

Reviews

[Maya Jane]

I was not expecting that. That was a very intense moment for Kyle and I could tell that he was hurt. Well, obviously but in a much bigger sense. I wish people would realize that it's not just women who get raped but men as well. This was very well written and I look forward to reading on.

[Stacey]

Wow, what a sad ending to a night that was supposed to be exciting. I feel so bad for him. He was doing so well, and this guy had to spoil it all for him. Well, very well written and I enjoyed reading. I'll read the rest of the book to find out what happens next.

Stacey