Skyfall

When I spotted this image on Crispina’s
“Sunday Picture Post: City Limits”,
it called out for me to write a story.
Here where the image took me.

Investigative reporter DB Murphy was desperate for a breaking story; in fact, her job depended on it. When she got an anonymous tip about something going on at the old processing plant on the outskirts of town …. supposedly abandoned for three months …. she didn’t waste time checking it out.

As sky fell into darkness, and armed with only her cell phone, DB drove to the border and parked her car just far enough away to remain out of sight. It was a short but tedious walk through dense woods before the factory came into view. The huge metal fence rattled slightly as she pressed closer, her phone camera aimed through the chain-link diamonds.

Everyone believed the processing plant had been shut down but now she was staring at lights in the distance …. not security floods but something else. Blue-white flashes from inside the silos, rhythmic, almost alive. Her anonymous caller had mentioned something about possible asbestos removal, but cleanup crews don’t work at 3 AM. And they don’t arrive in unmarked vans with government plates.

Through the bare winter branches, DB could see them now …. figures in what looked like hazmat suits moved between the tanks, carrying crates that seemed to hum even from this distance. She began filming, hoping her videos would be good enough to use in her news report. Whatever was going on was big, she was certain of that.

As DB finished filming, her phone suddenly rang out, Adele’s voice breaking through the stillness. How could she have forgotten to silence her phone? Mistakes like that were exactly why her job was on the line. Cursing, she turned off the phone as quickly as she could, but too late; they heard. The figures at the plant turned in her direction, one raised arm pointing right at her. She could hear urgent voices followed by the sound of car doors slamming and engines starting. She had to get out of there!

DB stumbled backward, her phone slipping from her hands. “Run!” her mind screamed. “Get to the car. Get to the car and drive like hell!” She turned, tripping over branches, her heart about to burst out of her chest, and she ran blindly in the darkness. Just then, her car appeared in the pale moonlight. She bolted for the door and pulled it open just before everything went black.

This is “Undercover (Of the Night)” by the Rolling Stones

Sunday Picture Post: City Limits

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