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Come and visit Trüberbrook - For a perfect summer vacation!

Chapter Text

An abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere isn’t the worst place to be stranded. It’s in the top ten, but there are definitely worse placed to be stuck. Plus, the night sky looks very beautiful when there is only two light nearby. Well, one light and a broken neon sign reading “gas station”.

 

The reason she stopped at this gas station was, you guessed it, to get some gas for her motorcycle. When it started sputtering a couple of moment before, she got very lucky to find a gas station that close by. Almost like the motorcycle had been waiting for a perfect time and place to finally break down. There may be one other very big reason for stopping at that time. Her bike was overheated. If she didn’t find some way to fix that, she would have to spend more time at the gas station. Not that it was the worst place to spend the night, and she’d definitely spend the night in worse settings, but she hadn’t really planned on it, and so it wasn’t that welcome in her journey.

 

And, as if she needed more misfortune, the gas pumps weren’t working. Great.

 

She looked to the window. A big glass pane, that opened the store up to the rest of the world. In the daytime, it was probably very useful, but right now she couldn’t see anything inside the store. While looking at the window, she remembered something her dad used to say.


A flawless establishment needs flawless window panes.

 

If the windows truly were something to judge a store based on, then this store wasn’t the best she’d ever seen. Of course, she already knew that by looking at the rest of it, but the windows weren’t that nice either. Kind of dirty, and, since it was night, she couldn’t even see anything through them, which meant that they were useless.

 

In a few steps, she was standing by a pile of tires, that lay outside the store. Not that she needed any new tires. Her old ones should still last her a couple of miles. But when something was just lying about in the nighttime, they almost begged for someone to investigate them. She looked closer, but the tires really didn’t seem that interesting.

 

Thankfully, a sign post only a few meters away did seem interesting. Maybe that could make up for the boring nature of the tires. Hansen’s ice cream. An old brand, that had been up and running since her childhood. She remembered summers spent sitting on old picnic blankets, eating Hansen’s ice cream and listening to her dad tell his old stories. The good old days.

 

Now she was really intrigued. If there was a sign for ice creams, maybe there would be actual ice creams somewhere nearby. She looked around. And yes! Just a bit to her right was an old ice cream container. With the same pink logo as the sign she’d just looked at, it was truly a Hansen’s ice cream container. She looked around, but there was no one anywhere. With a swift movement, her hand was already on the lid. In just a moment, she would be able to eat all the ice cream she wanted. But not this day. The lid was frozen shut. Maybe one day, she could eat some ice cream again.

 

Speaking of picnics, there was a picnic table right next to the ice cream container. Sitting under the only light out there, and looking a bit dirty. Maybe if there hadn’t been so much sand, ruble, the smell of gasoline, and the thousands upon thousands of dead bugs, that table would have been perfect for a picnic. Unfortunately she hadn’t brought any cleaning supplies. Maybe the next time she passed by here. If she would ever pass by again. Probably not, though.

 

There weren’t any lights on in the store, but she didn’t want to just go in without at least trying to make her presence known.


“Hello? Anybody in there? I could really use some gas.”

 

As expected, there was no answer. It was getting a bit cold outside, and if there wasn’t anybody in the store, then no one would know if she spent the night inside instead of outside. Her hand met the door handle, and she pulled it. Locked. Of course.

 

Well, she better get used to the cold, if she was going to stay out there until the morning. She sat down at the table, and looked up towards the night sky. With the few lamps out there, it was very easy to see a bunch of the constellations. Some of them seemed familiar, but others looked like something she’d never seen before.

 

While she was staring at the stars, she noticed a pipe running from the roof to the ground. Not that it got much use. She couldn’t imagine that rain happened too often in these parts. Maybe she could make some music with it. Making a rhythm with this water pipe could be a way to spend the night. With the first punch, she saw something drop on the ground. It shined in the light of the one lamp.


A replacement key. What a convenient place to put the key. Almost like they wanted it to be found. She bend down and picked up the key. She could use this to get inside the gas station. Surely, if she used a key, it couldn’t possibly be considered a break in, right? No matter what, she had a key now. And she would be insane if she wasn’t going to use it on that door.

 

She took out the key and tried it in the lock. It fit perfectly. When she turned it in the lock, it made a click, and the door swung open. Perfect.

 

When she walked inside, it was incredibly dark. So dark that she almost couldn’t even see her own hands. If only there was some kind of light switch around here. It didn’t seem like there was anything of the sorts inside the store, so she turned back around and walked out the store.

 

The night sky greeted her with its countless stars and the constellations that connected them. Surely, she would be able to see something she hadn’t seen before. Maybe a clue, that could lead her to turn in the light inside the station.

 

Looking back at the picnic table, sitting right next to the door, she actually did notice something she hadn’t before. A tool box. A big, red toolbox. How she didn’t see it before, that would remain a mystery. The important thing was that she saw it then. When she opened it, she only found some rusty pliers. She picked them up. She didn’t yet know what she could use if for, but she was sure that she would find something.

 

She walked around for a while, but when she couldn’t figure out what to do, she went back inside to escape the cold. The poster by the door looked odd, and she took it off the wall to get a better look at it. Maybe it was a picture she’d seen before. Hm. Holding it in her hands, she didn’t really see anything about it that could be considered weird or suspicious.

 

She motioned to put the picture back in the wall, but then she saw something she hadn’t noticed before. A switch on the wall where the picture used to be! It must have been hidden by the picture. Why somebody would want to hide a light switch was a mystery to her, but if that’s the decor that the owners wanted, then she wasn’t really in any position to complain. She had broken into their gas station, after all, so it would be a bit rude to also complain about their decorations.

 

Finally, there was light in the store. She looked around. It looked like a pretty normal store. There was a counter in the corner, with some food behind the glass and a couple of trinkets standing behind it. One thing that really caught her eye was the coffee maker standing behind the counter. If there’s something she can’t stand, it’s cherry pie and hot coffee. Something about that combination made her nauseous just thinking about it.

 

When she moved closer to the counter, she saw that it was pretty dusty. It seemed that the inside of the store wasn’t that well kept, just like the outside. Standing on the counter next to some other-store-bought buns, was a cherry pie! Holding back a noise of disgust, she quickly looked away from the pie.

 

There was a poster on the wall with the menu on. When she looked in her wallet, there was only a few Deutschmarks. Nothing she could use to purchase anything on this menu. Everything was too expensive. Not that there was anybody around to sell her anything even if she could afford it. But if there was anybody, then she still wouldn’t be able to buy something.

 

Standing at the end of the counter, close to the wall, was a bunch of postcards with pictures of the surrounding attractions. She doubted that anyone would want to send a postcard from this gas station, but one of them actually looked useful. A card with a map of the surrounding area. Since there still wasn’t anyone in the store, and the postcard-stand looked rather dusty, she figured that nobody would miss a single postcard. With a quick movement, the postcard was now in her backpack.

 

What a fine collection she’d gotten. Some rusty pliers and a postcard. Truly, she was ready for anything.

 

She looked at the table closest to the counter, and saw a cup. It was lying on the table. Nothing was in it, thank god, so she moved to pick it up. One man’s trash is another man’s convenient holder for some rusty pliers, after all.

 

An old jukebox in the corner of the room caught her attention, and in a few quick steps, she was standing in front of it. Since the power was now on, it wasn’t too difficult to turn it on, and soon the room was filled with a creepy tune.

 

Not that ghastly tune again. She’d heard that exact piece of music on the radio when she was driving towards this gas station. Maybe the people nearby just really enjoyed weird music that sounded like it belonged in a cheap haunted house.

 

She’d already spent a long time inside the closed gas station, and she was getting a bit antsy, so she decided to go outside and look at the stars again. On her way out the door, she saw some electrical cables. With nothing else to do, and while ignoring the voice in her head that told her that this is not her property and she can’t just break anything she wants , she took out her pliers and cut the cables.

 

It didn’t seem to do anything. She shrugged her shoulders and exited the store.

 

Already one step out the door, and something already happened. Her feet were wet.

 

“Oh, come on!” She exclaimed, and bowed down to look at what had happened. It seemed like the freezer wasn’t freezing anymore. Maybe it hadn’t been the best idea to cut some electrical wires without knowing what was going to happen.

 

She looked at the freezer, which technically wasn’t freezing anything at the moment. Cold water is leaking out , she thought. Maybe she could use that to cool down her bike. Then she only needed to find some gas before she could carry on with her journey.

 

The only thing she needed was something to carry the water with. She could probably try to carry it with her hands, but a lot of it would most likely leak out, and she would be left with nothing but wet hands. Not a good idea. She opened her backpack to see if there was anything useful, and immediately saw the cup. A cup was the perfect vessel for transporting water somewhere. Now, one man’s trash would be her way of transporting water. The world truly is a marvelous place.

 

The cup was now filled to the brink with ice cold water. The perfect thing for cooling down her overheated bike. Carefully, as to not spill any of the water, she walked towards her broken-down bike.

 

She poured the water over the motor. There you go. Have some cool-aid. Ha ha, puns.

 

Maybe the pumps would be working now that she’d turned on the power. That made sense, right? And lo and behold, the pumps were finally working. She filled her bike with reckless abandon, not even thinking about the price for a second.

 

Finally, we’re able to get out of here again.

 

She swung into the seat, and turned on the motor. Or, she would’ve turned on the motor, if that damn bike wanted to start already. It must be that damned oil pipe again. It was always acting up at the worst of times. Looks like there was no other way than staying the night at that old gas station and hoping that someone would be there in the morning.

 

Hopefully the rest of her journey would be a little more peaceful that this had been. Just a bit of peace and quiet, right?