Snippet #2365092

Tuesday, 3 September 2013

Wesley Distribution Center: 4:10 PM

Logan grabbed shrink wrap off of the shelf on the wall, tying it to one of the bottom corners of a pallet stacked high with grocery merchandise. At the DC, they mainly helped ship supplies to retail stores throughout the region. The merchandise ranged from TVs and air-soft rifles to toys and frozen juice. The juice of course, going in a refrigerated unit.

There were dozens of employees at large, all of them little worker ants shuffling away. Logan put the repetitiveness out of his mind, wiping his brow of sweat. He worked his ass off to do good work, to impress his bosses and hopefully get better raises. A lot of the jackasses working there fooled around much of the time. Some worked slowly, others took long breaks, and a few would attempt to steal merchandise. Those that stole didn't last long, the DC had cameras covering every angle of their work floor.

When he first started the job, he found a kindred spirit in Oscar Gutierrez. An equally fit guy, without the convict status. He used to be a cop but wouldn't play ball with them, or so he claimed. He said they found a way to fire him when he wouldn't take dirty money. They both shut up and produced results at their job, stacking and placing product at a fantastic rate.

"What are you doing Thursday night man?" Oscar asked, as he started stacking another pallet while Logan circled the one they had finished, tightly wrapping it with the shrink wrap. The rotational shift they were on gave them September 5th off.

"Pushups, situps, pull-ups . . . then I'll probably stare at the ceiling of my room before blacking out."

"Sounds exciting. The NFL season kickoff game is then, Ravens versus Broncos. Should be a great game, even without our Packers playing." Oscar was actually from Wisconsin; feeling an ownership over the team in his state. Logan had been into football years back, holding season tickets to the Miami Dolphins. Most games he was so out of his mind on drugs, he had little recognition of the games. "I didn't know if you'd want to go to a sports bar and watch it?"

Logan thought about it. "Yeah, that sounds good. It'd be even better if the Dolphins were playing, but the season opener is usually a barn-burner." It did sound like a good time. He needed to start making more of a life for himself, and not be hanging around Ramos's place all the time. Quick, pounding footsteps came up beside them as Logan finished wrapping the pallet, tearing the shrink wrap, and placing the roll back on the shelf. Raymond Fields cleared his throat to get their attention, a kid half their age, recently graduated from some University. Fields was a grade A dick. He thought his education made him better than all the grunts.

"Can you guys drop what you're doing and come do a little project for me?" Oscar and Logan acquiesced, knowing better than to argue. Fields took them toward the back bay dock; one for smaller deliveries that rarely saw use.

"We've got a special delivery on this trailer. I need the two of you to unload it, and take it back to the old mission room where they held safety meetings while we were renovating the other side of the building. Got it?"

The two of them nodded.

"And don't be fucking around with the package at all. Leave it in the room, untouched. There's a lot of money riding on that trailer. I don't want so much as a scratch on it." Fields unlocked the bay door and rolled it open, then he marched off, barking orders out and getting a few guys to finish up the work he had pulled them away from.

Oscar looked at Logan, "This is strange. We never get special deliveries. Well, I guess there was one time a few years back we got a truck loaded with alcohol. The DC Manager was throwing his son's graduation party." They were working out of most peoples' line of sight, opening the truck and sliding the lip of the bay connector onto the floor of the truck.

The interior of the truck was truly dark. Oscar grabbed one of the overhead bay lights, flipping it on. He shined it into the truck and it burnt out immediately. Thinking nothing of it, Logan grabbed the light on the opposite side, shining it in. In the trailer sat a sealed plastic crate, about seven feet long. It was barely half as wide as its length, sideways and vertically. Logan tried to find a flatcart they could lift it on to transport it more easily. With none in sight, the two of them lifted it up from opposite ends.

"Damn, this is pretty heavy. Think we can manage it?" Oscar stated it more like a rhetorical challenge than a question.

"We can manage." They carried it without too much hassle down to the far end of their work station, then through a small hallway of back offices that were hardly used. The last door on the left was already open for them. Oscar backed in holding the other end of the crate, stumbling through the doorway on an absorbent pad for spill cleaning. His hand got caught between the crate and the doorway. As he wrenched his hand away to avoid it being pinched, he lost control of the crate and it fell to the floor with a thud.

"You alright Oscar?" Logan continued to hold his end of the crate up. He felt a weight inside the crate shift down toward Oscar, they had moved whatever was inside, slightly.

"Shit, yeah. Just cut myself on the end of this crate." It was a shallow cut with a few splinters, some of his blood had stained the side of the crate.

"You ready to finish and go to break?"

Oscar grunted, picking his end back up. They moved it into the room without further incident. Oscar laughed, noting that he had banged up the crate when he dropped it. "Fields would be pissed, we scratched it!"

"Forget Fields, he won't be checking on this. He's too busy running around making sure we all do our jobs so he doesn't have to be here all night." Logan looked around the room, wondering why the crate was being left here. The walls were bare, with a few tables and chairs strewn about. No camera in this room either, he noted, looking to each corner where one usually sat. On the far wall of the room there was a large window, holding a view of the woods off in the distance. It was the only redeeming value the room had.

"Lets go lock that bay back up and go to break Logan."

"Yeah." He wanted to know what was inside, it was an awkward looking crate. Awkward meaning that there was definitely no retail product inside. Logan shut the door behind him, halting his curiosity. He didn't need to get on anyone's bad side around here.