At eleven in the evening, Sheena Fiore woke up on her bedroom floor with a sore hip and a headache drilling into her temple. Her laptop was still playing music at a low hum from before. It was a good song, she thought appreciatively. She sat up with a groan.

She fiddled with the laptop on her bed to play the music a little louder. The dulcet tones of The Misfits. The clock read eleven at night in the corner of her screen. Sheena clambered her way to her closet.

It was another boring night at her miserable job. Mid way through the summer, her parents pressured her into finding some work. Unfortunately for her, all of the manageable jobs were taken. Every ice cream stand in her small town was crammed with cheerleaders in their spandex, cow patterned dresses, all three restaurants in town were over staffed with waitresses and line cooks, and the mechanic shop only took trained young men.

All of these left her with a double shift at the gas station a couple of miles out of town, right off an exit ramp from I-44. From midnight to three in the afternoon she sat behind a old wooden counter plastered with cigarette ads for eight dollars and sixty cents an hour.

Every night she cursed her weak will. Why did she give in to her parents? She was eighteen, had her own place, and certainly wasn’t in need of anything but more time to herself.

She buttoned up her black Derby Gas shirt and pulled on a worn pair of Wranglers. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she ambled on through her living room to grab the keys to her pickup.

Her house was accordingly small for her age and current line of work. It had two bedrooms (one the size of a closet), a full bath, a kitchen equipped with only a mini fridge and a microwave, and a living room with a few couches and a television. The thing she was proud of most, though, was the fireplace.

Sheena had built the fireplace herself. It had a white mantle with ornate molding that she had whittled in the wee hours of her shift at Derby Gas & Convenience. It was set and inlaid with white polished quartz that she had ordered online.

The keys to her RAM were in a dish near the front door. She grabbed them as she head out, before remembering she left her laptop on, running back to her room to shut it off, and leaving her house a second time.

Nice one.

It was a twenty two minute drive to the gas station, fifteen if she speeded. The roads were lined with southern yellow pines under a canopy of open sky. Ink black shadows swallowed all but the reflective strips on the road in front of her.

Sheena switched on the radio. The local stations were usually supersaturated country and pop but it was a different story at night. MSU’s station, for example, had an ABBA power hour every morning at three. Sheena’s favorite station, though, was something called Radio JIM!, where a kid named Jim from in town played his own music 24/7. His playlists mostly consisted of a genre called ‘murder folk’ which fit her mood in these dark mornings quite well.

‘Shotgun pointed towards me’ The singer cooed, ‘trigger pulled and my body lying on the floor’

She absently wished she brought her jacket. A chill creeped across her skin like cold molasses. Unusual, considering it was early August.

‘Oh, what a talented wife’

Sheena whistled along with the tune and pretended it would keep her warm.