48 Hour Short Story Contest

This was what always happens to cops. No matter how hard they try, it was utterly unavoidable: the dreaded security job. The old cops, the fake cops, the wannabe cops, they all landed security jobs. Janis Brown sighed, looking into the mirror of the museum bathroom. She was dangerously approaching sixty, and it showed. She had gained a bit of weight over the last couple of years, and her hair was rapidly turning grey.

At least I'm not watching a damn apartment building, like poor James was. Janis had been Head of Security at the Museum of Natural History for close to a year, working the all-important night shift. She had hated each minute of it. Insulting, that's what it was. Walking on the marble floor, her boots echoed through the short hall, an off pattern due to her limp. She went through a door and down the stairs to the basement. That's where her office was. She had gone from a well-respected policewoman, having spent over twenty-five years serving her community, to a basement office in a museum.

Janis pulled a large set of keys from her jacket and unlocked the office door. The ceiling was low and the room was always slightly colder than it should be. The office was as big as the bathroom in her apartment. How the hell have I put up with this for a year? The walls were poorly painted, with bits of sheetrock showing through, and she had barely put up anything to personalize the space. Her desk took up most of the office, and had on it only an old desktop computer, a cup of pens, and a picture of her two grown children.

The museum forced her to wear a jacket which resembled a police uniform, adding insult to injury. A name tag and logos were in corresponding spots. To the outfit she added the tools of her trade: nightstick, flashlight, gun. She grudgingly prepared to start her rounds. The night shift was eleven to seven. She arrived when the cleaning crew was packing up, and left when the morning museum guards showed up.

When she was a cop, she'd had a nice family. Nice until her husband left her. A workaholic, that was the name he'd yelled at her. She never had any time for her family, working the night shift. They rarely ate meals together, she was never awake to send her children off to school, and she and her husband rarely made love after their first two years of marriage. The words were all crystal in her mind, and that argument should have impacted her more than it did. Her children were good, they understood her job, but her husband had been a piece of work.

Janis paced around the perimeter of the museum, the familiar feeling of disgust rising in her chest. Not only were there no threats to the museum at night, but the contents of the museum were ridiculous. Animals which were dead and stuffed, with plaques a third-grader could understand. To make matters worse, the majority of the employees at the museum showed nothing but contempt for her. At her six month review, her boss told her she was too bossy, too demanding, and that her attitude needed to improve. The respect Janis had for her coworkers had been eroding slowly; they were all young and stuck up, lacking any real life experience.

When she was a policewoman, she put all of herself into her work. People relied on her to keep their children safe, to get drug addicts put away, and to prevent robberies. She was pressured to leave the force after she had suffered a gunshot to her thigh. Janis had recovered, but only after a month of disability leave. They pushed her into not coming back at all, saying she would be too weak. She thought that was code for "you're getting too old, you've been here too long."

Having finished pacing the first floor, she returned to her office. Unlocking the bottom desk drawer, she pulled out an old silver flask. It was the only thing she kept in the locked drawer, and it was full. Janis didn't make a habit of drinking on the job, but certain nights needed a bit. Just enough to make the uneventful night pass by. She never would have drank on the job as a cop, but this security guard job was a joke.

She took a large swig, and coughed as the cheap vodka stung her throat. Recovering, Janis tucked the flask into a convenient jacket pocket. She had looked in a mirror once, and the flask was not visible through the jacket. Not that it would have mattered, considering that not once had she encountered another human being during her shift.

Janis walked back up the stairs, and made her way for the second floor, which was more of a joke than the first floor. Goddamn rodents. Somebody had taken the time to make a modern campground scene - birds, squirrels, and a chipmunk. What a load of crap. She didn't even like this stuff a little bit; it was worthless. The rest of the second floor was not quite as bad, but in her opinion it was all a waste of space. Dead animals should be eaten, not stuffed. As for those rodents and birds, there was no point wasting bullets on them.

She looked down at her watch. The digital readout showed one thirty. She had only been able to stretch out a set of rounds for two and a half hours. If she was careful, two more sets of rounds should finish up her shift. Retreating to her office, she took another swig of vodka and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from the other pocket in the jacket. If they aren't going to show me any respect, then there's no reason I can't smoke in my office.

She pulled out another cigarette, and another match. The first match didn't light, so she struck another one. The tobacco burned red, and the match slipped out of her fingers onto the floor. It landed on an old piece of paper which had missed the recycling bin. The smoke detector was too sensitive, and went off. "Damn!" She stumbled toward the fire extinguisher, hung on a hook near the door.

There was not anything else nearby for the fire to catch to, so it was extinguished in a few seconds. In a quick but clumsy move, Janis ripped the detector down and threw it into the hallway, causing it to smash. Her office now reeked of cigarettes, fire, and the chemicals from the extinguisher. Her dislike for her pathetic office grew. She had not anticipated that there could be anything to make her dislike the office more. Likewise, she was almost surprised that her mood had been able to further deteriorate.

Janis sat down at her desk and booted up the computer. The reflection in the monitor showed a woman she barely recognized. She was old, there were lines around her eyes, and around her mouth. The woman in the reflection was faded, worn down. Everything in this place was deteriorating. The old monitor blinked to life, beginning the slow process of loading the programs. Worthless junk. She pushed back a thinning strand of grey hair, and shrugged out of her uniform jacket.

When she was a policewoman, even at the end of her career, just a year or two ago, she never looked so old. Her face never had such vivid lines, no matter how difficult the day had been. The extra weight had come after she was forced out, too. She had not been a bitter person; she had been as forceful as the job called for.

She clicked an icon and the word processing program opened, as slowly as the rest of the computer had turned on. She let out a deep sigh, her breath smelling strongly of vodka and cigarettes. Should've done this months ago. I should never have worked here at all. Writing the letter would only take seconds:

"To Whom it May Concern:
I am writing to inform you that I am resigning from my position, effective in two weeks.
Sincerely,
Janis Brown"

No, I don't have any money, I can't quit. She shut off the computer, leaving herself with the reflection in the monitor. The vodka is talking. Putting her jacket back on, she was about to start another set of rounds, but heard heavy footsteps above her. Frantically, she looked for her weapons, but the scissors in the pen cup were closer. She held them up like a knife, preparing herself to stab whoever came down those stairs.

She looked up and was temporarily blinded by two strong lights, "Police! Put the weapon on the floor!"

"I'm one of you! What are you doing?!"

"Ma'am, put the weapon on the floor slowly," a man's husky voice said.

Janis stopped in her tracks; she recognized the voice. It belonged to somebody she used to work with. Of all the people who could have come to find her in this humiliating position, with her luck lately, of course it had to be John Banks. She could not think of a worse person to see her like this. John Banks was full of himself, and would stop at nothing to move up in the police force. Slowly, she set the scissors on her desk and brought her hands back up.

"Janis? Is that you?" The young but burly man stepped forward, his partner remaining outside of the office.

"Yes, and if you'd get those damn lights out of my face I'd appreciate it."

"You work here?" Lowering his light, he made a poor attempt to hold back a snicker. Janis had been a police officer for longer than this man had been alive. One day he would realize that the world was bigger than he was.

"Yes, I'm Head of Security, thank you," the vodka had decided to hit her just a few minutes earlier, and harder than she thought it would.

"What happened here tonight?"

"Smoke detector went off."

"Nah, that's not what I'm talking about. The front door was unlocked, the security system went off."

"That's impossible, I already did a round, and I checked all those damn locks."

"You drinking on the job, Janis?" John Banks' voice was full of judgment, his nose picking up the scent of the alcohol.

"No, Jonathan, and if nothing is wrong here, can I get back to my night?" She pursed her lips and bit her tongue to avoid cussing him out.

"John, we just got a call about a double homicide," the second cop finally spoke.

The two policemen left; murder was more important. Janis didn't feel the need to bother with walking them out. John Banks was a jerk, but he wouldn't do anything but leave, especially when he had a murderer on the loose. She didn't even think about locking the door behind him.

Janis leaned against the back of the door. She had dedicated her life to being a policewoman, and had been reduced to a security guard. This was what she had succumbed to, and it sickened her. Her watch read three o'clock - she had four more hours left of the shift, and it was only Monday.

Word count: 1895

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