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This isn’t so much of a first night story, as a first few days story. This was just something I did to while writing another story, as a distraction, and something fresh to keep from burning out. As for the e-mails this will undoubtedly receive about not being enough about the dead, sell stupid someplace else, as you can see, we’re stocked up here.

“Shit. Would you check this to make sure I’m right?”

“Hey, keep that camera steady Derek!”

“…said about seventy. Yeah. Okay, I’ll relay.”

“Skinner, we’re back in one minute!”

“Right, I won’t take that long…hand me that trashcan…hraugh…”

“There can’t be that many there! Check it again!”

“Good Derek, just hold it there.”

“We’re back in thirty, that’s thirty seconds!”

The newsroom was in chaos. Interns and crew ran around, trying to make sure everything was correct, and that the newscast held some semblance of order. But that was a lie. People were scared, and they were almost at the end of their ropes.

Scott “Skinner” Thorvaldsen straightened his tie, and cleared his throat. His eyes were bloodshot, and it hurt just to keep hold them open against the exhaustion that most of the night crew were feeling right now. They had been ordered to stay inside after the nightmare with the mobile unit, and tensions were running very high. He was worried about his family, who he hadn’t been able to contact in almost twenty-eight hours. The station manager couldn’t be found, and worst of all, the girl who did the weather was unconscious in the broom closet. She had bummed some kind of drugs from Erick before he left, and then took double handfuls of the stuff.

Scott had a feeling she was trying to overdose, but had instead went loopy, and torn most of her clothes off before passing out and falling off the news desk, quite unceremoniously. She had only been with the station for a month and a half.

The station, WRVQ, was based in southern West Virginia. Scott had come here from Idaho, and was pleasantly surprised that most people around here weren’t the toothless inbreeding cattle rapers he had feared. Sure, there were some parts of the surrounding counties that he’d just as soon not visit, but Mayer county, where the station was based out of, was one of the most pleasant places he’d lived since he’d graduated and first became a newscaster.

The girls were doing fine in school, and his wife Patty had been taken under her fellow female neighbors’ collective wing. Yes, things were going great.

Now this.

He shook his head sadly, and came out of his reverie when he saw the red light on the camera go on.

Then, he brought up the good old “I’m on top of things, I know the things that you wish you were privy to, and by God, I think I’ll spill the beans!” voice.

He read the teleprompter, automatically skimming, looking over the spelling mistakes, and reporting that which needed reporting.

The OEP had taken over broadcasts, and one of the “liaisons”, some kind of sergeant, or so he had claimed, nodded at Scott. Far back in his brain, Scott wondered just what would happen if he were to say that armed guards were at the station, monitoring what went over the air.

The night wore on. Reading became harder and harder. He looked forward to the network interruptions that came every forty-five minutes or so, because they lasted a good while, and it gave him time to rest. Coffee was being brewed continuously out of four machines, and everyone was wired again.

The news appeared to be good, at least that was assuming it was legitimate, and not something that was being fed to them by someone else.

It was finally five in the morning when the station turned over to the emergency networks again, and he looked forward to getting a few hours sleep. People were dragging again, and many were falling asleep on their feet. Others dropped out under desks, to get away from the buzzing fluorescent lights, or hunkered together, talking quietly.

He propped himself up against the wall beside the open broom closet door. The girl was still dozing very lightly, and he couldn’t help but notice her skin through the torn blouse.

“We’re being totally preempted? Can we leave?”

“Why aren’t the phones working?”

“Does anybody know what the weather is going to do today?”

“Yeah, I can give you a ride, but you’ll have to get ready fast.”

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