Night Shift
CCTV Footage - 03/13/199x - 2:35 AM - QuickGrab Convenience Store Newark, NJ - Video only -
A man in a suit enters the store and comes into frame from the left. His tie is loose and his hair messy. He stumbles and narrowly avoids colliding with a shelf as he moves towards the counter. Behind the counter a young clerk awaits him, smiling nervously. The man comes up to the counter and grabs it with both hands, holding on. The clerk talks to the man. The man shakes his head. He seems agitated. Then he grabs the clerk’s collar with both hands. He pulls him over the counter and presses his face against the clerk’s in what initially appears to be a kiss. The clerk tries to free himself but fails and the man in the suit begins to convulse. Something is working in his throat, bulging and writhing. The clerk starts shaking, panicking. As the man finally lets him go the clerk falls behind the counter.
The man leaves. As he goes we get one clear frame of his face. His eyes are big, his mouth open in a grimace of fear. The corners of his mouth are ripped and bloody.. Then he is gone.
After about three minutes a young girl enters the room. We see her clasping her hands to her mouth as she finds her colleague. She kneels down to him behind the counter. They are both out of view.
- End of Footage -
The Case
During the last two weeks 3 people have disappeared at or around a QuickGrab Convenience Store in Newark.
The first disappearance on 03/13/199x was NJ State Police Lieutenant Henry Garrison.
Garrison has been off work for 2 weeks at the time of his disappearance, down with an unspecified illness. Now there is only his car, empty in the convenience store parking lot.
Garrison is a long time Delta Green Agent, working as Agent GRAND.
The second victim is Fred Coleman (29), construction worker. On 03/16/199x, Coleman phoned his young wife after work informing her of his plan to go by the QuickGrab on his way home. She never heard of him again.
The third victim is Laurie Feinstein (22). Laurie works nights at a nearby club. On Saturday, 03/24/199x, she told colleagues she was going to the QuickGrab for cigarettes and never returned.
The Newark PD has found no connection between the victims or links between the disappearances and the store or its employees.
What really happened
During his last operation Garrison and his cell were investigating a mysterious disease killing farm animals in rural NJ. Only two of the cell’s 4 agents returned. The first, Samantha Hinckley (Agent GRENADA), is spending time in a psychiatric hospital and is totally unresponsive. Garrison has been too ill for a proper debriefing and Delta Green is anxious to find out what happened.
Whatever infected Garrison left him bedridden with an unspecified illness. Late on March 12th he got up from his sickbed, told his wife he was going for medicine and left the house. He ended up at the QuickGrab.
There, he transferred whatever it was that infected him to store clerk Markus Hicks (25) and left. He died somewhere in the city that night, suffering serious internal injuries. His body has still not been found.
Hicks ended up a vessel for the gestation of the eggs of an unknown creature. The creature acted quickly. It took control of Loree Camper, Hicks’ young colleague at the store that night and then started building a nest.
Hidden inside and behind the bank of large fridges in the store it created an extradimensional pocket of flesh. Inside, the bloated body of Markus Hicks awaits the hatching of the eggs.
Meanwhile Loree is responsible for feeding him. She kidnapped 2 victims for now, feeding each to Markus, alive and raw.
Soon the eggs inside of Markus’ body are gonna hatch.
The Store
The store is a typical American convenience store. Outside there are two pumps for gas. The shop is managed by Wayne Sinclair (36). Sinclair is usually found in a small office space in a room behind the counter. The store’s other employees are Mario Ricci (23) and Abdul Nizar Shamoun (28). The store is open 24-7.
Sinclair knows nothing about the disappearances and is reluctant to answer more questions. He’s preoccupied with finding a replacement for Hicks, who abruptly left during a night shift on March 13th. Lauree Camper told Sinclair that Hicks had said he was fed up with the job and was leaving immediately. Furious, Sinclair feels the loss of his best employee, especially with the police snooping around and the odd decline in yogurt and beer sales.
Ricci and Shamoun are the day-shift and completely unaware of the things that are happening around them.If asked, they express confusion about Hicks’ sudden absence. They were under the impression that Hicks was the only employee actually enjoying his work.
The Nest and the creatures
The nest is an extradimensional space of about 15m² that is connected to normal space through a fleshy slit. The slit is hidden inside the bank of fridges that takes over one side of the store interior. It sits between the yogurt products and the beer cans. Several shelves and a significant amount of merchandise have to be removed to be able to access the slit. It can then be entered relatively easily but is very tight and allows only one person at a time through. Entering the slit covers the entering person in a clear, weird smelling slime the consistency of hair gel.
Inside there is a little bit of light that enters through the slit. The room seems to be made of rosy looking flesh that is warm and slimy to the touch. In the middle of the chamber is the body of Markus Hicks, sitting on the floor. It is grotesquely swollen and lumpy. His skin seems stretched to the breaking point in various areas. The ground around him is strewn with the victim’s remains, mostly bones and ripped clothing.
At the start of the operation (around March 30th) Hicks’ body needs the nutrients of two additional adult bodies to finish the gestation period. After that six large ten-legged spider-like creatures will emerge, ripping Hicks’ body to shreds in the process. They will leave the nest through the slit and go looking for new hosts.
When the agents manage to enter the nest before that, smaller, immature versions of the creatures are going to exit Hicks’s body. They will leave the body, squeezing through every orifice with imaginable results and attack the agents.
The camera footage
The store is equipped with five security cameras that show: the entrance and gas pumps, the counter, the bank of fridges, the back office and the backdoor from outside.
The camera system is old and prone to failure. It records onto VHS. There are only two VHS tapes, each with a capacity of 12 hours. The tape is switched at the end of a shift, so only one of the two shifts is on record at any given time. The footage is black and white and has no audio.
Lauree
Lauree is under the influence of the creatures growing inside Hick’s body. She is compelled to bring adult bodies to it so that they can be devoured alive and raw. She is working at the store to pay her way through nursing school and has some useful medical knowledge and access to a limited amount of medication and gear. With that and her very attractive appearance she turned out to be a very competent and inventive kidnapper.
Her new task has negatively impacted every aspect of Lauree’s life. Her roommate has already complained about Lauree’s slipping standards of personal hygiene and the state of their apartment. She has a boyfriend that she has abruptly stopped seeing and her attendance at school turned very patchy.
Lauree can be freed from the creatures’ influence by either destroying the creatures or isolating her in a safe location for a few weeks. Until then she will do anything that has to be done to feed them. She is even willing to offer her body as the last body consumed if needed.
Avenues of investigation
These are some possible ways for the investigating agents to find out about things. Details are up to the handler:
- Hicks personal life. No one seems to have reported him missing.
- Lauree has avoided footage of her doings by not switching the tape at the end of her shift. That way the night-shift tape is always recorded over by the following dayshift.
- Lauree’s deteriorating home-life (e.g. her dirty clothes covered in some bad smelling slime)
- For some reason no one is buying beer and yogurt anymore at the QuickGrab
- Interviewing Agent GRENADA and the details of Garrison's last mission
- Finding Garrison’s body
10-Legged-Spiders
Gray-black, about the size of a dog, ten legs
STR 12 CON 16 DEX 12 INT 8 POW 12 HP 15 WP 12
Armor 3 Points of leathery skin
Skills Dodge 60%, Stealth 65%
Attacks Bite 60%, damage 1D6
Piercing legs 60%, damage 1D4
Intrusion 50 % (see Intrusion)
Unnaturally Flexible
The spider is able to squeeze through almost any opening, no matter how small. In addition it can’t be crushed in any way. It always bounces back to its normal form.
Spider Legs
The Spider can walk on the ceiling or the wall without any problems
Intrusion
The spider enters the victim’s body through any orifice or other opening (e.g. squeezing past the eyeball). The process is very painful and traumatic (1/1D6 SAN-loss). Depending on the opening the process causes damage to the victim (up to the handler). Once inside, the spider can only be removed surgically (or it leaves on its own). Within 12-hours the spider gets hungry and must be fed by eating raw meat. Otherwise the spider begins eating the victim from inside.
Immature Version
If the spiders are forced to come out before they are fully grown, the immature version has no armor and only 10 HP
Credits
Night Shift was written by DieWeltkatze for the 2024 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_-5peLn4SmIvAYPlcEFH12kMI4xxwhqJbVC6vK4l-O8/edit