Outbreak

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Summer had already passed this year and autumn was well and truly there to stay. Not that it mattered, this town only seemed to have rain, or slightly less rain as weather anyway. It was big news when they got a dry spell, meaning everyone seemed to take it as a sign to wear as little clothing as possible to get a little colour in their pale skin. Kitty Stein was one of those very people, though she saw little point to it. It would takes a solid week of warm weather just to get her particular skin to white. She had lived in this town her whole life and had accepted the fact she would never have the golden tan all the magazines advertised. The magazines were always trying to persuade young women like herself to try the latest self tanner, or skin smoothing face cream. She personally didn't put much stock in them, and she didn't have the money for them either. A waitresses wage, even when coupled with that of an occasional bar tender, barely covered her living expenses. The only people with money in this town worked at the factory that packaged the very creams women all over the country bought by the case. 
It was 7pm and Kitty was running late for work. She was jogging across town from her job at the restaurant to get to the bar to earn a few hours extra pay. Slender fingers were running through her plum coloured hair as she went, loosening out the bouncing curls that had been tied back all day. She stopped moving only long enough to apply black kohl to her pale grey eyes right there in the street before moving on again. Kitty was in such a hurry she didn't even hear the sound of someone falling into a row of trashcans a few feet away. by 7:15 the young woman had burst through the back door of the bar, somewhat breathless.

"When are you going to get it through that thick skull of yours? It was never your fault, Gracie. It's always theirs. But John..." The darker haired woman was frowning, wondering what prompted such behaviour.

"Jack, what the hell?" Terry, the ambulance driver, was standing in the door way. The middle aged man looked as if he'd seen better days. "I can't believe you're calling me here because of Big John. We all knew the bastard would..." He stopped talking when his eyes went from The sheriff, to the sobbing Grace, and then to the body of the man who was lying face first with a vegetable knife sticking out of his upper spinal cord. "What the hell?" He repeated, now focused solely on Jack.

"You really need to ask that, when you're in a room with her?" Jack snorted, nodding his head in Kitty's direction. "John was acting strange, she runs in and jabs a knife in his back, no questions asked." He left out the part, about leaving out lots of parts.

Terry sighed heavily, now turning his gaze on Kitty. "It's starting to feel like these two are running a scam. By the look of things Winston was luckier that you came along when did that night." He snorted. His hateful words only made Grace sob harder. "You do your sheriff thing and I'll get this cleaned up." He added with a loud sigh. "Geez. This is going to be a long night. All I wanted was a TV dinner and a damn beer."

"That all you deserve, you piece of shit!" Kitty roared, her grey eyes blazing with anger as they had the last time she had saved Grace.
"Alright, come on. I got a lot of questions for you two down at the station." Jack sighed, dragging both women up to their feet.

Grace refused to speak to Jack. The only thing she said was to Kitty, giving her several whispered apologies as they sat in the holding cell. She pulled her knees to her chest and stared at the wall. It was just like before. She had shut down.

"Grace..." Kitty breathed with a weary sigh. "This wasn't your fault, how many times do I have to say it? Something was wrong with big john... That had to be it. Whatever it is... They're not going to tell is a damn thing though."

"Jack is blaming us. Just like last time. I heard it in his voice." Grace said, her voice muffled by her jeans. "You'd think the bruises would be proof enough. John was...drooling...and making this noise. I'd never heard anything like it before. Jack heard it too."

"Jack hears what he wants to hear." Kitty warned. "He doesn't want to hear anything that might make more work for him, or cause him to ask questions he doesn't want to hear the answers to."

"What do we do?" Grace asked, lifting her head. "Judge asshole is going to have a field day with this. It won't matter that John was dead when Jack broke the door down."

"Dead? Sweetie, dead people don't try and rape young women. I agree, John wasn't himself, but where did 'he's dead' spring from?" Kitty asked as she lay down with her arms tucked behind her head.

Grace shook her head. "I can't explain it. You smelled the room, right? You remember when Arthur Sims died and we were the ones who found him? It was the same smell. It doesn't make sense though. He'd only been dead a few hours. And then..." She lifted her eyes to her friend, her nose bright red. "There was the fact that he had no pulse. And then his eyes. They were white, Kitty. Like something that had been dead a while. I don't know how the heck he got up. I would swear on a Bible that he was very dead."

"May as well swear on a unicorn." Kitty muttered. Their differing religious opinions were often a cause of contention, though it was Kitty's doing mostly. "Look, we don't know anything, right? Jumping to crazy conclusions, and spilling all this to your dearest Jackie is not the best thing to do right now."

"He's not going to help us." Grace sighed. "His version of the story will probably be that we drugged John so we could take over that nasty bar. Why didn't we just leave? Forget the money. We should have just left when we could."

"On the bright side... No community service tomorrow, I would guess." Kitty remarked with a snort. "But no fun at the lake either." She added with a rather deflated sigh.

"If it makes you feel any better I wasn't going to let us ditch." Grace said with a soft laugh. It wasn't long until she had fallen asleep, her head resting in Kitty's lap. However, as was the case every night, she woke up crying out for Jack after no more than a few hours. 
When this happened she was quick to sit up, giving Kitty a humiliated frown. "I'm sorry." She whispered, feeling as if there was nothing else she knew how to say. "You know, I just keep thinking. I should have let him finish and just shut up. If I had stayed quiet we'd all be better off. Look what it's doing to us now? What's it been...a year?"

Kitty was staring at the wall in front of them, not really knowing what to say. "Why should we feel like we are to blame for anything?" She asked finally. The darker haired woman hadn't slept at all that night. She rarely did, as there was no one to tell her it was only a dream when she woke covered in sweat and barely able to breathe.

"I shouldn't have screamed." Grace whispered, closing her eyes against the memory. The silence remained heavy for several more long moments. Finally she got to her feet and went to the door, giving it several sharp raps. "Give it up, Jack! We want to go home and you're not going to get us to lie about this!" She began to pace, tired now and ready to take a shower. "Did I tell you he had a bite on his arm?" She added, pausing to look back at her friend.

Kitty narrowed her eyes slightly, a silent warning to Grace to be careful about what she said.
"Your friend killed a man tonight, Grace! I don't think you get just how serious that is!" Jack shot back as he appeared by the bars.

"You're really going to throw us under the bus, aren't you?" Grace whispered, her eyes red rimmed as she stared at Jack. "What did I do to you? Tell why you've become such an ass."

"Sweetheart, I'm not the one who changed." Jack snorted. "You were just living in your own little world, like always." He added.
Behind Grace, Kitty was visibly bristling at the way her friend was being spoken to.

Grace cringed. "At least I am happy there." She whispered. "Or at at least I was." She added. "We're not going to tell you anything else that you don't know. You should let us go home. We have to be on clean up crew in a few hours anyway. Isn't your new girlfriend, deputy Shannon heading that up?" She asked, sitting back down beside Kitty and crossing one leg over the other.

"My deputy is doing her job and working with Terry to figure out what you crazy bitches did to big John." Jack snapped. "But fine." He shrugged his shoulders and suddenly koenee the holding cell. "Go ahead, it's not like I won't know if you skip town."

"It's surprising to hear you can get your head out of Judge Athen's ass long enough for that." Grace snorted, holding her hand out for the cross she wore around her neck. It had been a gift from her mother and she rarely took it off. Jack knew very well how much it meant to her.
Deputy Shannon picked that moment to enter the cells. She was everything Grace wasn't and she knew it. That's why she liked to flaunt the fact that she was now the one sharing a bed with the sheriff.  And like basically everyone else in town, Shannon Athens had it in for Kitty.

Jack hesitated slightly, betraying the fact that he had Grace's necklace right there in his pocket. "Get out of here before I change my mind." He growled, bitterly tossing the cross at Grace's feet.
As this was happening Kitty and Shannon was staring each other down, though the deputy was a head or two taller than Kitty.

Grace knelt to pick it up, trying to keep her chin from quivering. Jack couldn't have done anything more hurtful if he'd been trying. Shannon watched this out of the corner of her eye and smiled. "You think you two would get the hint and leave town sooner or later." She hissed. "You whores really are that stupid aren't you?"

"How can we leave town, when your man whore boyfriend just told us not to? Seems like he's the one who wants someone other than you around." Kitty replied with a smile that was so far from sweet it wasn't even funny.

Shannon tried to mirror the smile. "Why wouldn't he? At least one of you sleeps with everyone in town. It keeps the riff raf from getting bored. Offer them a night with little Gracie over there. It's not like she minds. And they wouldn't be the first."

Kitty didn't care what anyone said about her, but she never stood for a bad word against Grace. She was just about the swing at the deputy when Jack stood between them. "I'd get out of here before I add assaulting an office to your lost of crimes." He warned.

"I'm surprised you didn't because we hurt your feelings earlier." Grace muttered, gently turning Kitty toward the door. She was acting as if Shannon wasn't even there and it was clear that the other woman was furious. "Come on, Kitty. I owe you breakfast. You were right. Her ass is as flat as her chest." She added as the door closed. It wouldn't be hard for them to hear Shannon's threats to kill them both however.