31.3.202X - Escape From Rosewood

 

Chapter 1: A Broken Leg, Memories of Home, and Ill Tidings

Sayori laid in her bed. The rooms here were nice, nicer than she would have expected. Sure, there was the usual – now familiar – smell of chlorine and disinfectant, and the hum of the AC might have been punctuated by muffled moans of pain from the room a few doors down, but as far as walk-in clinics went, it could have been far worse.

Unlucky accident, all things considered. She'd been crossing the road, the one at the Muldraugh police station, on her way to pick up groceries and vegetables from the local greengrocer's, when tragedy struck, in the form of a Fiat Punto trying their best to run the red lights.

 

She should have paid more attention, of course – she was on her phone when it happened, sending pictures she'd taken to her friends back home, eyes on the screen and off the road until suddenly she found herself crumpled on the ground, a horrible pain in her right leg she was still too shocked to start crying over, her phone somewhere down the street...

She remembered trying to get up and her leg immediately buckling – not her knee – her leg, and then the pain really hit her and she fell on the asphalt crying and heard a car door slam shut and sudden yelling and...

The man behind the wheel was kind enough to realize his mistake. He called an ambulance, told her not to move, and when the police arrived in what seemed just seconds after he seemed to fully comply with them, as well.

Not that Sayori could hear much of it – at that moment she was strapped to a gurney, her right leg secured in place with some weird metal contraption, crying out about her phone and the pain and the unfairness of it all.

In the clinic – questions about medications, if she was on drugs, if she had medical insurance, some of the questions repeated because the doctors couldn't quite make sense of her accent, especially after administering Oxycodone.

A police officer came by later, after the surgery. He (Officer Callahan – if she remembered correctly) said that they had several witnesses including multiple police officers, which, considering where it happened, didn't really come as a shock to her.

He brought her phone back, as well, and it worked as well as it had before the crash – that is to say, quite poorly, and the newly-cracked screen didn't really make typing or reading messages much easier, but then again she preferred to save on mobile data as much as she could – the clinic had WiFi, sure, but she'd rather not pay for anything extra, and she'd hate to ask the nurses or doctors to bring in extra prepaid cards.

Anyhow, the explanation she got was pretty cut-and-dry, all things considered. The suspect pleaded guilty, offered to settle out of court. The mentioned sum entailed a gasp from her, but considering what she'd heard about healthcare costs in America, didn't seem all that unfair.

She briefly considered bringing up Louisville, and the rape what he did to her, but decided not to – the officer seemed busy, and it was weeks ago, and trying to prove it would be a nightmare, and...

 

So, instead, she just laid in bed after he left. She got more Prozac just by asking and showing her papers from back home, and if she mentioned the pain in her leg to the nurse doing the rounds she'd get more Oxycodone as well, and there were books to read and journals to write in, although she never really felt particularly inspired during her stay – she'd initially intended on writing out a bit of a travel guide-slash-diary about the different rural towns in Knox County, but being bedridden and heavily medicated put a bit of a stop to that.

So, weeks passed by, the days punctuated by medicine refills and terrible food and the occasional doctor visiting and telling her that she'd be able to walk soon, once even placing a pair of crutches next to her bed – probably to make her feel better, but it kind of almost had the opposite effect.

She'd nervously check her calendar every day, scratch the itchy cast on her leg, wonder if she'd have time to take one last look around Knox County before she finally left for Japan, most likely for good.
Her last year of high school was about to start in barely a month, and after that she'd most likely go off to junior college – her grades were alright, nowhere close to the more studious kids in her class, hovering around or below the class average – but still good enough to not have to do too much extra work.

So, last year of high school, then junior college – maybe something about nursing? She didn't know. Nothing particularly interesting sprang to mind, especially not here in Kentucky, lying on a hospital bed with a broken leg and rainclouds in her mind.

Last year of high school.
Last year of the literature club they still kept going.
Natsuki, Monika, Yuri and her.
Her closest, or perhaps only, friends.

Being an author would be the closest thing she'd have to a dream, but... perhaps it was best not to think about that. It was a pipe dream, at best – she'd written some things, short stories, occasional terrible poems she still cringed thinking about, futile attempts at longer stories that she never managed to finish...

 

Days went by, and weeks went by.
She'd turned off the TV in her room a long time ago, the sheer volume of advertisements annoyed her, and the upcoming election just made it even worse. At some point she took her first short, guided walk on her crutches. The pain had largely subsided, at this point, and her dosage was gradually cut in half. The food didn't really improve, although Kate (one of the nurses) seemed to take pity on her, and occasionally went out to pick up some fast food for both of them.

It kind of felt like she saw it as her own personal break time, as well – Kate was enamored with all things Japanese, a self-proclaimed otaku – Sayori didn't have the heart to tell her what the term implied back home – with a love for anime and a bubbly personality to match her brightly-dyed hair and multiple piercings.

She was maybe the closest Sayori had come to a friend during her stay in Kentucky, and while their “Fast Food Fridays” – as Kate started calling them – largely consisted of Kate bombarding her with endless questions and Sayori trying her best to answer them, they were still a welcome reprieve from the usual monotony.

Sometimes they'd talk literature, but would rarely get very far – Kate waxed lyrical about learning kanji and kana so she could read Nishio Isin's works “the way they were meant to be read”, Sayori would find herself going on tirades about Thomas Pynchon – but as for actually discussing literature, whether it be works or authors...

It was rather just two people talking at eachother.

 

Since she'd turned the TV off, Kate was also her main source of news from the outside world, sometimes bringing newspapers, sometimes showing videos, sometimes just telling her straight-up.

There seemed to be some sort of new disease spreading through Kentucky. It had hit Louisville first – Sayori hoped that he would be the first to catch it – then to Muldraugh and West Point almost in the same day.

“Guess I got lucky with that driver.” Sayori said the second time Kate had burst into her room with news about the outbreak, weakly lifting her right leg with a slight smile on her face. “Silver linings, right?.”

Kate seemed worried, though – and with good reason, Sayori later realized – the day after she told her about West Point and Muldraugh she burst into her room again, this time far more serious and a medical mask on her face, proclaiming that there were scattered cases in Rosewood now, and that they'd already started taking in patients who seemed to be in critical condition.

Ah well.

They'd both lived through COVID-19 and it's mutations. This wasn't the first large-scale outbreak they'd see in their lifetimes, and most likely not the last. The government would have it under control soon enough. A bit of social distancing, masks on public transport, self-quarantining, the old familiar rumba.
As for Sayori – her only worry was how this would affect her coming back to Japan – sitting two weeks in a quarantine cell felt even less appealing after spending a month in a hospital bed.

Oh how wrong she was.
Oh how wrong they both were.

 

Chapter 2: Room 2

It was just before midnight, on the 31^st of March, that Kate burst into her room with panic in her eyes, her hair a mess and the left sleeve on her scrubs partially torn off at the seams. Interestingly enough, she locked the door behind her, but Sayori could see her hands shaking, even from her place at the bed.

As she fumbled her key into the lock, she started talking, a rapid-fire barrage in an uncharacteristically shaky voice.
“Sayori, you gotta get outta here. This disease – I don't know what it is – it's not COVID.”

“What do you mean? Of course it's not – we haven't had to worry about that in-”

“It's nothing like COVID! That's what I mean!” Sayori shirked back at the sudden outburst. Why'd she lock the door? What was she going to do to her?

 

“Those patients we took in – they're going crazy!” Kate approached Sayori's spot on the bed, the young girl suddenly feeling very vulnerable, pulling further away on instinct until her back was against the wall.
“James walked in to the room we've been holding them in, Mary was with him – they'd been hearing moaning and... screaming all night. I dunno if you heard it, they're a few doors down the hall, but...”

Of course she had heard it. That's why she was still awake. She couldn't stand hearing noises like that, of abject pain and misery and terror and

She wasn't ready for Kate collapsing. Nor was she ready for the loud, hopeless sobs wracking her bony little shoulders.

“They... they got up. The p-patients. And then...” Kate swallowed, drying her eyes on her sleeve, “t-they ate him. Mary s-saw it all, she t-tried to get them off him, but w-when one of them came lunging after her s-she...”

Kate broke down, completely, and Sayori decided that her leg had rested enough for now because Kate was her friend and you can't leave your friends crying like that so she tossed the sheets aside and got up and fell flat on her face, her legs still unused to carrying her weight after weeks spent laying around doing nothing.

Kate noticed and reached for her and Sayori managed to crawl towards her friend and held Katie as well as she could but her arms felt like spaghetti and her leg was still painful but i can't just leave her and Kate started bawling and sobbing and Sayori felt the tears staining the front of her hospital gown and soon she felt something in her own throat as well and a sick feeling in her stomach and she quietly sobbed into Katie's shoulder while holding her as tightly as possible because it hurts so bad when your friends are sad and i hope i can make her feel better somehow

“T-they... she... Mary, she s-shut the door, she l-locked it. She h-heard James g-gurgling and s-screaming and t-the sound... they were eating him, for fuck's sake! T-they were...”

Kate's sentence ended with a sob and a sniffle. Sayori didn't know what to say. Some of the kids in her school had jumped off the roof, before the board replaced the chest-high metal fence enclosing the rooftop with a 2-meter-tall concrete wall topped with barbed wire, and of course they'd all talked through every suicide with the class and the teacher during homeroom, but...

There wasn't really anything she felt like she could say.

“He's in a better place now”? After getting torn to shreds and eaten alive by “people” he was trying to help? “Life goes on”? What if it doesn't? What if the cannibals who ate James alive were coming for them next?

She didn't know what to say, so she settled on just hugging her, as tightly as she could.

 

“I'm s-sorry, Katie. I'm so, so, sorry.”

“Don't be. It's n-not your fault. It's those s-stinking cannibals that I blame, not you.”

 

Whether Kate had actually calmed down or was just putting on a tough front was unclear, but when she got up from her spot at the foot of the bed, Sayori followed suit, leaning on her friend for support.

“Sorry, it's my leg – it's still not...” Sayori winced.

“I know. But we h-have to get you out of here. To the police station, or... or something. Out of town, maybe. Lay back down or sit somewhere, I'll t-try to get the cast off. You s-should be mostly healed up by now, it wasn't a bad fracture, barely worse than a hairline.”
Sayori obliged and sat down on the bed, and Kate took off towards the locked cabinets on the far end of the room, her key chain jingling with every determined step.

“I'll get that cast off and splint your leg. You should be able to walk alright and upright, but I wouldn't start running anywhere yet, if I was you. Still,” the cabinet door creaked open, “I'm no doctor, but we would have discharged you by the end of the week, anyhow.”

An uncomfortable thought entered Sayori's head. Perhaps it was because nightlife in Rosewood – while calm at best – still entailed some kind of noise filtering in through her window. Revellers singing, the occasional police or ambulance siren, the smack of an empty beer bottle breaking on pavement...

 

“Katie,” when did I start using pet names? “w-when did you start taking in the first “critical cases”?”

Kate froze completely. She still had her back turned, but Sayori could see her shoulders tense up, even from here. Any semblance or pretense of looking through the cabinet for supplies was gone.

“A week ago.” Her voice was steely, cold. “Two weeks after we got you here. Why?”

“It's quiet outside. Normally, this time of night, you'd be hearing some nightlife outside, even on a Wednesday. You don't think-”

“Oh, Christ. Oh my fucking God.” Kate turned around, and now the panic was obvious. She'd taken off her medical mask, and her face was pale, her green eyes wide open, parted lips showing clenched teeth, shoulders set with an almost rigor mortis-like stiffness. 

 

“Kate?”

“W-we need to get away. Right now.” Kate resumed her hurried rummaging, but Sayori couldn't help noticing that she'd grabbed a large first aid kit and an EMT backpack from the depths of the cabinets. “M-maybe there's a curfew in place, one that we haven't heard about yet? M-maybe there's... there's... s-something..." 

It was hard to tell which one was less convincing - the words or her tone. Sayori grabbed the crutches leaning on her nightstand and held them tightly, hoping with all her might that they were sturdy enough to repel a potential attacker.

“Kate, where's my clothes? I need my shoes, I c-can't go barefoot, I need my jeans and my-”

“Just s-shut up for a momen...” Kate took a deep breath, her voice hollow and hoarse. ”Somewhere in these cabinets. I think it's the one to the far right. I'll unlock it for you.”

 

Sayori wasted no time in hobbling over. After a quick, cursory search, she found what she was looking for – her old banged-up red Converse, a gray beanie, a pair of faded jeans, her underwear, a white “I <3 KY” t-shirt she'd planned on bringing home as a souvenir... all neatly packed inside of the backpack she'd bought just a few days into her trip.

For some reason, her hoodie, her scarf and her jacket were nowhere to be found. Luckily, her jeans still had the red friendship bracelet from junior high attached to the keychain, and whoever was in charge of stripping her before surgery had decided to put her old wristwatch into one of the front pockets. It might have been a childish decision, but she decided to wear the bracelet on her wrist as well, as a kind of lucky charm, or something to that effect.

Getting the cast off wasn't particularly difficult – a few snips and it was over. Sayori wasted no time in scratching her right leg raw from thigh to ankle, as Kate looked on with barely masked distaste.

“Good thing it was just a back cast.” She said while pinching her nose. “Would have had to saw it open otherwise.

No wonder – the stink was something else, and her fingernails had amassed quite the collection of dead skin on their brief adventure. A quick wash with a wetted sponge and the usual unscented hospital soap took care of most of it, but Sayori made a mental note to change out her socks as soon as possible.

Still, the splint fit well, and while she wasn't going to be running track any time soon, she could at least kind of keep up with Kate.

 

They were out of her room, now, first aid kit and crutches in tow, heading for the reception, both of them quiet, trying to make as little noise as possible.

“What about the rest of the people in here? Mary, the other employees, the patients?”
Sayori whispered, trying to keep pace as well as she could. “Are we just going to leave them?”

“They left us.” Kate replied, her voice flat. “The moment Mary came back into the break room and told us what happened, they... they just left. We don't have other patients, either. You were the only one here until we took in those infectees. As you can probably guess, it's not exactly the biggest clinic in the world.”

Kate suddenly stopped and hushed, getting down on one knee, beckoning for Sayori to follow suit. Despite the ache in her right leg, she tried her best, gripping one of the crutches for stability.

 

“See that? That's Room 2. That's where they are.” Sayori stole a quick glance at the sign above her old room. Room 1.

“You weren't kidding about the “small clinic” thing...” Sayori murmured.

“Shh.” Kate feigned annoyance, but Sayori knew her well enough to know when she was smiling.

Still, this was no time for levity, and they both knew it. Kate started slowly sidling along the wall, fluorescent lighting buzzing overhead. She was definitely a quiet mover.

“Perhaps all nurses are,” Sayori thought, “and I'm only noticing it now...”

She tried her best to stay as silent as possible, but the closer they got to Room 2, the more she could smell something... off.
Something rancid.

Something rotten, strong enough to overpower even the smell of chlorine and disinfectant, mixed in with a coppery smell she'd rather not think about too much since she knew that if she did she might suddenly decide to hobble back to her room as quickly as possible and bolt the door with one of her crutches and hide under the blanket until this horrid nightmare was over.

So, she breathed in through her mouth instead, and kept her eyes focused on the back of Kate's head, internally debating whether it was dyed a bluish turquoise or a turquoise-ish blue.

 

“Katie?” Sayori whispered, although only after speaking did she realize it was more of a whimper.

“Yes?” Kate answered, her tone of voice surprisingly similar.

“Could you hold my hand? Please?”

She could have sworn she heard a sharp intake of breath from Kate, but the nurse acquiesced quietly, reaching behind her with her left, which Sayori gladly took, welcoming the warmth.

“Her palms are sweaty. I can feel her heartbeat. I wonder if she's nervous. Can't feel any rings. Is she single or is it just a patient safety thing? Her hands are really soft, I wonder what cream she uses...”

 

And so, they inched along, quietly, slowly, both of them trying their best to not look at the bloodstained handprint trailing down the small glass window in the door to Room 2.

“How cliché.” Sayori thought, and would have probably followed up with something equally witty if it wasn't for the sudden BANG on the door that made her yelp all too loudly and scurry away from the noise and pull Katie with her to the opposite side of the hallway that suddenly seemed all too cramped but of course Katie wasn't prepared for that sudden shift and fell over and her first aid kit clattered to the ground with a noise that might as well have been a gunshot for all it did because

BANG

“Katie? K-Katie?! I'm s-sorry, I didn't mean t-to-”

BANG

“IswearIdidn'tmeantoIgotscaredand-”

BANG

“Sayori, shut the fuck up.” Hoarse, shaky voice. “Now we run.”

BANG

Kate disentangled her hand, picked up her kit, shot a final, spiteful glance toward Sayori, and bolted.

“W-wait for me! Please!”

“My ride's parked out front, just come on!”

Sayori followed her as best she could, but there was no way she could match Kate, not with this leg, most likely not even if she was healthy.
They went past the cursed fucking room, past the medical supply storage, past the reception and then, just like that, they opened the double glass doors and found themselves outside.

The spring air was cold, the gibbous moon hung in the sky, almost full. Yellow sodium lights bounced off scarred asphalt. The entire street was deserted.

 

Chapter 3: Where Is Everyone?

The engine of the old white Corolla hummed, the yellow glow of the streetlights passing by lighting up Sayori's lap, each of them for a split second. The AC was blowing hot air – she still didn't have anything thicker to wear than a t-shirt, and the air outside was close to freezing.

“Don't worry.” Kate said, her eyes fixed on the road. “I've got family living just a bit out of town, I'm sure they'll take us in.”

She gave an encouraging smile towards Sayori, and she did her best to respond in kind, but didn't quite manage. She'd been watching the streetlights go by for a while, now, and everything seemed eerily quiet.

She hadn't seen anyone, no people, no “cannibals”, but the banging on the door had been real, right?

The bloodstained handprint, that had been real too, right?

This was all starting to feel like a nightmare. A very lucid one, but a nightmare – a dream – nonetheless. Like she'd close her eyes or will herself awake or pinch herself or something and suddenly she'd be back at the Rosewood clinic, waking up to Mary or James bringing her the typical, flavorless breakfast before clocking out, wishing her a good day in the process.

She'd rummaged through the cabinets a bit as well, and managed to fit some medications in her backpack. Prozac for the depression, Valium for the anxiety, even half a blister of 40mg Oxycodone, in case of pain. She'd also grabbed a few bandages, but right now they seemed almost like an overreaction. The town was completely deserted with not a single soul in-

“...now have the first confirmed reports of a new disease sweeping the state of Kentucky. A preliminary CDC report states that the first cases were observed in Louisville, and rapidly spread across the rest of Knox County. The pathogen seems to be airborne, and...”

Kate had turned on the radio, possibly to get the news, most likely just to fill the awkward silence. They'd never been this quiet while together before, and something was definitely on Kate's mind.

God knows Sayori had more than enough to think about.

“Airborne, huh?” Kate mumbled, casting a quick glance at her friend. “I guess we finally know how it got from Louisville to Rosewood in under three days.”

“Y-yeah.” Her voice was hoarse, and she had to clear her throat before speaking. “That would... that would make sense.” She agreed, not having the slightest idea about anything, just wanting to be somewhere warm and safe and well-lit.

They drove in silence for a while, the radio chattering on, different spokespeople saying different things, all of it equally hard to concentrate on.

“I need to make a stop – gas tank's a quarter full. You gonna be alright on your own?”

“Yeah, of c-course.” She did her best at faking a confident smile, and felt like she succeeded this time. Truth be told, being left alone in the car, at night, in the middle of a halo of light from the lamps overhead, darkness all around...

That was the last thing she would have wanted.

But if she couldn't be brave, she could at least put on a brave face.

“Attagirl.” Kate smiled. “I'll just go talk to the clerk, grab some snacks for the road. Anything you want?”

“A hug,” She thought to herself. “or a cup of hot cocoa.”

She just shook her head. “I'm fine. Really.”

“Well, I'll still get something extra, just in case. Be right back.”

And with a slam of a car door and a wave, Kate was gone.

Sayori tried her best to not pay attention to the time passing, but the car – initially a source of comfort – now started feeling more and more claustrophobic. Like a prison on four wheels. She wasn't locked inside, she could leave whenever she wanted, but she didn't know which would be worse – staying inside and feeling the car slowly shrink until she couldn't breathe properly anymore, or being outside, being visible, being a target, being

A faint scream shook her from her reverie. She'd recognize the timbre from anywhere – it was Kate.

it was katie

Sayori practically flew out of the car, half-hobbling, half-sprinting, her heart in her throat.
The entrance to the gas station proper was garishly lit with neon colors, but it almost felt like a dream, or a nightmare, she kept running and kept hobbling but didn't get any closer until suddenly she was inside and oh my god katies on the floor and there's someone else here its the clerk or at least hes wearing the tshirt and

“Sayori! He's one of them, he's a cannibal!”

the man in the fossoil shirt turned towards her and his eyes looked dead and there was fresh blood around his mouth and oh god ive got to get away ive got to get back to the car and drive somewhere far away im gonna drive back to japan and its going to be okay

Sayori only realized she'd slowly been backing away after a postcard stand behind her clattered to the ground. Moments later she was on the ground as well, laying on her back, the fall having knocked the wind out of her.

This was the worst possible moment for the cannibal to realize she was there, and Lady Luck definitely hadn't been in her favor so far.

The man creature shambled towards her, arms outstretched, and fell on top of her, hands grasping, teeth gnashing, emitting an unearthly wailing moan, blood and fluids she couldn't even name dripping onto her face as she kicked and wriggled and tried to push him away and oh god it's going to happen again he's going to fuck me until i bleed and film it and send it to his friends and if i fight back he'll hit me and call me names and threaten to kill me and

CRACK

Sayori felt a sudden spatter of something wet on the side of her cheek just as the creature moaned in protest and what she assumed to be pain but that didn't matter because she could get her good leg between them now so she turned him towards her right and wedged her left leg between their bodies and pushed with all her might and suddenly she was free just in time to see Katie pale as a ghost with an expression of total fury on her face and a baseball bat in her hands aiming a crushing swing towards his head and

CRACK

This one sounded more wet and there was blood spattered all over the floor but the body was still twitching and trying to move despite the skull being broken and i think that gunk is brain matter you know on the tip of the bat heading downwards agai

CRACK

“You alright?” Kate asked, between labored breaths.

Sayori could only nod – all words had left her.
Five seconds later she had crawled outside and emptied out her stomach onto the welcome mat, the engine oil and dried mud from before mixing with stomach acid and something that used to be a Spiffo's Cheeseburger with fries and a Sprite.

It took a moment for Sayori to notice that Kate was kneeling beside her, holding her hair out of the way. She suffered through one last dry-heave before finally speaking.

“Tha-thank you. Thank you s-so much.” Sayori suddenly found herself fighting back tears, “If y-you wouldn't h-hav...” but it was too late, there was no stopping this flood. “I w-would have... would have...”

Kate sighed, the aluminum bat clattered to the floor, and suddenly Sayori felt a pair of arms around her, warm and gentle and smelling vaguely of sweat.

shesavedme
shesavedme
shesavedme

“Same to you, Sayori. Same to you.” Kate mumbled into her ear, still breathing heavily. “That fucker hurt me pretty bad – almost tore a chunk out of my shoulder when I was trying to pay for my shopping.”

She sniffled.

“I f-fell over. I was bleeding r-really badly. I'm- if it wasn't for you coming in and- I th-think I would have...”

They sat there for several minutes, locked in an embrace that neither was willing to let go of just yet, even after the tears ran dry, even after both of them realized they were mere yards away from a rotting corpse, just a few moments more.

Sayori exhaled deeply.

“A-alright. On five?”
She felt Kate nod into her shoulder, heard the muffled “mm-hmm”.

one

two

three

four

five

“Thank God they had toothpaste.” Sayori remarked, wrist deep in a bag of Jolly Ranchers. “That... that thing...” She shuddered.

“Yup.” Kate still kept her eyes on the road, but Sayori could see her smile even in the dim lighting of the old Toyota. “Thank God for a lot of things. Baseball bats, toothpaste, chocolate, Sayori Takahashi.”

“In that order?”

Kate laughed. “I never specified a ranking, and I don't think I ever will. I mean, you're tied with chocolate, at the very least.”

It was Sayori's turn to giggle now.

“I know a lot of people who don't even come close to chocolate, so I'll take it. For now.”

They drove along in amicable silence for a while. They'd left the lights of the Rosewood gas station behind a while ago, along with the clerk. The baseball bat came with.

“In all honesty though,” Kate rubbed the back of her head. “I owe you, big time. Once we get to my grandpappy's place we'll repay you as well as we can. He's got a cozy little farm up along this road. The next left we take is gonna lead us straight there.”

Sayori hummed her appreciation for a moment, letting her gaze drift along the pitch-black forests and shrubland that had somehow, in her mind, come to symbolize Kentucky – and by extension – America as a whole.

So much untamed beauty.

So many small towns, each with their own farmers and gossip circles and polite clerks and mom-and-pop-stores.

So much of everything.

“By the way – “Sayori mumbled, briefly glancing towards Kate in the dim, yellowish light. “where'd you get the baseball bat?”

Kate chuckled darkly.

“I used to work there before I became a nurse. A proper Louisville Slugger tends to deter most wannabe robbers, especially once you show them you're more than willing to use it.”

"Huh."