The Location

February 2024’s short story of the month

The moon was sitting on the house across the street as Jade left her house for her night shift. You would think that after a year of working nights, she would be used to it, but you would be wrong. Being a creature of the night took a lot of adjustment.

She paused before getting into her car. She stared at the moon. It was bright and full.

Great, she thought. She’d forgotten that there was going to be a full moon. That meant her evening was going to be… let’s say not boring, but in all honesty, it was going to be utter and complete chaos.

She took a deep breath and drove to The Location with the music off. She enjoyed the silence while it lasted. She knew her night wasn’t going to be a quiet one.

At the checkpoint, the guard scanned her fingerprints and her eye. He nodded as she drove through. Jade tried to remember his name. He was a fairly recent hire. They were minimally staffed, but she couldn’t recall his name.

The Location had a decent amount of turnover for a secret facility. Too many of the staff got curious and ended up getting fired. A few left under more tragic circumstances and were medically discharged. During her year at The Location, only three of the employees had lost a limb. She was told that was a new record. Her management skills were applauded.

Unlike most of the staff at The Location, she wasn’t hired through normal channels. She had inherited the job from the previous manager of The Location. Make a note, if you ever inherit a mysterious job at an unnamed facility in the middle of nowhere that requires you to cut ties with your life, run! Don’t ask questions. Don’t be curious. Just run. And, run fast. Kind of like your life depends on it. Because it does.

The previous manager had been her Aunt Ruby. Jade’s mother had always assumed that Ruby was crazy. No one in the family had known what Ruby’s real job was. She’d always told everyone that she worked at a private zoo. That’s all she would ever say on the matter. If they asked her why she only worked nights, she would shrug and say it was required by her job. In hindsight, everyone should have asked more questions and pressed her harder. Maybe then, Jade wouldn’t be the current manager.

Jade took a deep cleansing breath as she stepped out into the clear night air. She, once again, looked up at the moon that for once wasn’t covered by clouds. That in and of itself was rare in the Pacific Northwest.

Inside, she went through more security checks before she got onto an elevator and descended several stories. It was all very reminiscent of the facility in those cheesy alien movies about a secret organization. Though The Location didn’t have a cute talking pug or cool sunglasses.

The Location had two things in spades: weirdness and space. So, so much space. The underground facility didn’t feel like it was underground once you were in it. It was several football stadium sized facilities connected by halls. There was even a large aquarium in it. And large wasn’t the right word for it. More like humongous. There was only one creature currently living in it. And during Jade’s one year tenure, she’d yet to see it through the glass. She only saw it constantly being tracked, like all the other creatures down here, on the monitors in the security office, which everyone referred to as the “hub.”

In fact, like every night, the hub was her first stop for the evening. Her office was adjacent to the hub so that she was easily reached during times of crisis. As she walked in, all was calm. Tony and Trevor were watching the monitors as usual, and Dr. Elise Slater was filling out a report of one kind or another in her office. Jade waved at her. The doc didn’t see her, and Jade didn’t want to break the weird spell of calm that seemed to be over everything. She retreated to her office and read a few memos that had posted during the day. There wasn’t anything that required her attention.

The next thing she did was open her email. The very first one she saw was from Director Menken. Jade hesitated before opening it. Since she’d started working at The Location, she’d never received an email from the director that didn’t contain bad news. It was always something that caused her more headaches than she wanted, which was none.

The email was about budget cuts. Of course it was. Jade should have known that the night was too calm. It was an ominous sign. And when you ran The Location, you had to pay attention to signs. There was no ignoring the full moon for Jade.

She kept reading.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she shouted at her office. She glanced up to see Tony and Trevor both look over their shoulders at her quickly before looking away again.

She must have shouted louder than she’d thought though because within moments, the doc appeared.

“Everything okay in here?” asked Elise.

Jade was standing behind her desk taking deep breaths and trying to calm down.

No one spoke or moved for several seconds while Jade tried to get to a reasonable state of mind.

Finally, she let out a deep breath and felt some of the anger leave. She didn’t want to spread that much negative energy around, so she forced herself to smile before finally responding to the doctor.

“No. Things are not alright. Have you seen the latest round of budget cuts?” she asked.

The doc shook her head. “Can’t say that I have. I usually ignore that stuff until you tell me it effects my job in some way.” As the doctor finished her statement, her face shifted. Her eyes went wide, and she paled slightly. “Does it effect the medical staff?”

Jade shook her head. “No, thank goodness. We are operating on minimal funds there already.” She pointed at the computer screen. “The latest cut effects security.”

“Well, that seems stupid,” replied Elise. She walked around the desk and looked at the screen Jade was still pointing at. She skimmed the email. When she found what had set Jade off, she said, “Oh. Wow. That is… how can they…I mean honestly…” She couldn’t finish a thought.

“Exactly. Half. They are cutting the security budget in half. For this place,” said Jade gesturing wildly at the facility around her. “What are we supposed to do when things go sideways?” What she didn’t say was that things were always going sideways at The Location. It wouldn’t be a normal day if something didn’t try to escape.

The Location had one resident who was a constant thorn in Jade’s side. He got out all the time. He was constantly being spotted, and he thought it was hilarious to make her life hell. You’ve probably heard of him. He goes by Bigfoot or Sasquatch. In fact, as Jade was getting upset in her office, he was plotting his next escape.

Jade was turning red in the face the longer she thought about it. They were already operating with minimal security staff. She didn’t even think it was possible to cut anyone or she would have to start taking on security shifts herself.

“This is just ridiculous.” Jade dropped into her office chair.

“What are you going to do?” asked Elise.

“I guess the same thing I always do,” Jade answered. “I’ll schedule a meeting with the Director and board. I’ll try to appeal to their sense of national security. They’ll ignore me, and then we’ll just open the gates and let everything go free.”

Elise swallowed audibly. “I think you need a drink. I’ll be right back.”

Jade could see her opening a desk drawer in her office. Jade should have said no. Drinking on the job was not a good idea. But how on Earth was she going to have less security at this facility? It was unthinkable. Everything housed in The Location was kept in for public safety. It was also safer for the creatures if they remained here too, but the powers that be didn’t think of the creatures are worth protecting. The government viewed the residents of The Location as dangerous unknowable beings that had to be kept away from humans.

As Jade sat there waiting for the doc to return, she contemplated letting one or two of the creatures go right in the neighborhood of Director Menken. She wondered how he might feel if they were literally in his backyard. Maybe then he wouldn’t be constantly cutting her budget and fluffing other departments.

A grinchy smile was spreading across Jade’s face as Elise came back into the room.

The doc slammed two glasses on the table and a bottle of whiskey.

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, I’m in,” she said filling both glasses to the top.