Fermentation Station

Chapter 2

When the cars had all pulled out of the driveway, Dan, then Phil, slid off the roof and climbed down the crates back to the concrete of the wharf.

"Where are we going to spend the night?" Dan asked again.

"We'll think of something," Phil answered.

Dan stomped a foot. "No, Phil, now. Where. Are. We. Sleeping?"

Phil looked around.

"You got us into this mess, I wanted to go home, what do you expect us to do, chase a serial killer? We're busy, Phil, we have our own lives, I mean, we don't even live here, and you want us to what, catch a serial killer? Why? How on earth are we going to find anything that the police haven't found. We're kids. We're trying to go to university, so we can have a future."

Phil let Dan ride out his storm, and when Dan had somewhat calmed down. He was right, really. What could they hope to accomplish that the police hadn't already or wouldn't accomplish? They were just kids, trying to live their life by going to school and working jobs.

"We just need to find a place to stay for the night and then we'll go home, Dan." Phil promised.

Dan sighed and adjusted his newsboy's cap. It was getting dreadfully cold out.

"Let's look around."

Dan followed Phil as he wove his way around the wharf and the streets that led up to it. Every few buildings Phil would try a door, only to find it locked, until they came to a large warehouse with a busted window above a dumpster.

"Look, there," Dan pointed it out.

"I don't know-"

"It's been half an hour. I'm tired Phil," Dan whined. "Let's at least settle down someplace and then we can properly talk and think about what we've seen."

"Okay," Phil agreed, and Dan started to climb up the dumpster. Pulling his sleeves over his hands, Dan grabbed the shredded wood windowsill and managed to pull himself up so he was sitting in the window. While holding on to the sides, he slid his legs out from underneath him and slid off the windowsill, bending his legs as he landed.

A cloud of dust rose from where Dan's shoes hit the concrete, and he carefully stepped away from the window so Phil could follow him, leaving footprints in the dust.

Dan watched Phil climb through the window and jump down, a smaller cloud of dust appearing where he landed.

The two of them looked around in silence, assessing.

The walls were made of concrete bricks, what they called "mafia blocks", as it was often what the mafia used when they wanted to weigh someone down and throw them in a body of water to hide the body.

The ceiling was made of what seemed like some sort of wavy material, but it was hard to tell in the dark. Up against the walls were stacks of wooden pallets. Besides that, there wasn't really anything else.

Dan could hear the scurrying of seaside rats, and his face morphed into a grimace.

"Thoughts?" He asked Phil.

Phil continued to look around.

"Why don't we move some of the pallets to the middle of the room?"

"Alright."

Dan followed Phil to the nearest group of stacked pallets, and chose the shortest stack to start removing and re-stacking in the middle of the room.

When they had a stack of three pallets, they considered it done, and then climbed up and sat on the side facing the window they'd climbed through.

"You really want to go through with this?" Dan asked.