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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Watus" data-source="post: 1527354" data-attributes="member: 14589">Update no.2, wherein our intrepid heroes receive a nasty shock.  Er… several nasty shocks.James groaned as the lights, and his laptop, flickered and then died.  “Awwwww crap,” he moaned, flopping back into his chair.  The prospect of a long and cold night in the pitch black and stranger-filled donut shop held little appeal.  “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”He was reaching into his bag for a battery he knew wasn’t there when he was startled by a tremendous crash from the direction of the lobby – loud – the sound of shattering glass and shrieking metal.  The wind thew open the doors of the little donut shop, filling the room with bitter cold and stinging snow.  For a moment, James thought someone must have driven into the building.  But then came a feeling in the pit of his stomach, unfamiliar and unpleasant, as though someone had pinched his navel and was attempting to pull it violently backwards through his spine.  There were whispers in the wind in a thousand languages, alien or dead, full of grief and fear and foreboding.  Something nearby was out of place.  Something was very, very wrong.As quietly as possible, James slipped under the table.****BANG* *BANG* *BANG*She recognized it immediately as gunfire.  There was a woman somewhere out in the darkness yelling in an authoritative voice, but the words were lost to the wind.  “Must be that cop,” Mary Katherine thought.  She couldn’t ever remember having been grateful to have one around before.  She was on her hands and knees under her table, wrapped in the blanket she’d been trying to sleep in and fighting off waves of nausea and terror.  At least someone seemed to be handling this.She could feel the quiet priest beside her on the ground, but couldn’t see anything – wouldn’t have even known that her eyes were open, but for the wind stinging them.  She was shivering uncontrollably and didn’t know if it was from the sudden cold or that horrible feeling in her stomach.More crashing from outside, and more yelling: a man this time.  She closed her eyes and slipped her hand into her pocket, squeezing the swithblade she’d carried since forever.  Not much good in a gunfight, let alone against whatever was out there, but the feel of it in her hand was familiar, comforting.  She squeezed, and came as close to prayer as she had in years.Yesterday she’d understood her life, and then today, everything – everything – was upside down.***And then silence.Andy hadn’t had time to move, and was still frozen on his stool.  He carefully placed his half-eaten donut back onto the plate he knew was in front of him and exhaled for the first time in what felt like minutes.  The feeling was dissipating.Ahead of him, in the darkness, he could hear the waitress quietly weeping on the other side of the door to the back room.  Under her breath, she was uttering words he wouldn’t have guessed she even knew.A minute passed in near absolute silence, and in the back of the restaurant, a flashlight snapped on.  The wind had died down, but it was still cold in here.  Not that the cold bothered him.  It didn’t.  It was that vagrant that had the flashlight – the old guy with the guitar.  He’d set it down beside his bag on the table and seemed to be packing up his stuff like he was getting ready to leave.  Where he thought he was going on a night like this, Andy didn’t have the feintest idea.He swiveled slowly on his stool, peering behind him in the flashlight’s half-light.  Terrified faces peered out from underneath nearly every table.  Quietly, the others began to crawl out.  Another flashlight snapped on – the little guy who’d been staring at him all night.  Andy did a quick head count as everyone got their bearings.  Everywhere, frightened eyes were meeting briefly and asking each other the same silent question:“What in the hell just happened?”Andy came up three short..</blockquote>

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