Sisterhood Of The Smoker Babes, Part 9

Writers Note---Those that enjoy a good science fiction story know that they
need to suspend their beliefs of the real world and allow for the possibility
of things that are out of the ordinary. You will need to do that when you
read this story. With that being said, while the science fiction stuff is
mostly a product of my imagination, many of the smoking scenes are in fact
based on real encounters and sightings that I've experienced throughout
my life. Some have been modified to fit the context of the story but others
remain mostly intact as they actually occurred. Lastly, when reading this I
suggest that you pay attention to the timeline as it is critical to how
you'll draw your conclusions over the stor's ending. My email address is
hotelcalifornia14@hotmail.com if you wish to discuss or comment on the story.
I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing it.


          SISTERHOOD OF THE SMOKER BABES-THE SMOKING WAR CHRONICLES

CHAPTER 9 - October 23, 1991 - Star reporter gets the story.
    Eighteen year old University of Alabama freshman Melissa Turner was in a
quandary. She really needed this job and it wasn't going well. She was a
journalism major with a partial academic scholarship and had talked her way
onto the staff of the school newspaper. Actually she'd lied her way onto the
paper. And now she was in trouble. UAB was a huge campus and freshmen rarely
write for the paper in her first year, mostly serving as interns and
glorified errand persons for the upper classmen on the staff. But Melissa's
dad was on the board for one of the companies that supported the school and
her dad had called in a few favors. And Jay Engle, a senior who was chief
student editor of the paper knew it and was going to make sure Melissa
crashed and burned. Engle knew that his plan might hurt the paper short term
but then he could sweep in and save the day like he always did and the girl
who only was on his staff because of her dad would probably run away crying
and he'd never have to worry about her again. 

    Melissa was truly stressed. Yes, she wanted to write for the paper but
she thought they would start her out with small human interest stories about
student life on campus, or maybe she could do a feature on the new science
program that the school was opening up. Something easy, something to get her
name out there but that was not the case. 

    Engle had assigned her to cover the football team. Not any football team
mind you, this was the Alabama Crimson Tide; the team of championship
tradition and legend. There was one problem. Melissa knew nothing about
football; she knew nothing about sports in general, actually. But that's not
what she told Engle. He'd been condescending to her right from the start, and
at times openly mean to her. She felt if she balked at the assignment it
would be one more excuse for him to single her out in front of the others. So
when he assigned her to the football team, her reply was, "no problem Jay, I
covered our high school team for four years. State champs last year." Melissa
knew that her high school team won the state championship last year. But that
was all she knew about her high school football team. 

    For three days she poured through books on football and tried to get
general information about the team and the game from the school's computer.
After spending three hours one afternoon on what seemed to be the slowest
connection to the internet she'd ever seen she became distraught, went back
to her dorm room and began to cry. She almost didn't hear the knock at the
door. She got up and opened the door, it was her friend Leslie from her
political science class. 

    "Hey, oh my god, what's wrong Liss?" Leslie asked, noticing her friend's
red eyes right away. 

    "Oh nothing, no, actually everything," Melissa began and then told her
friend the situation. Melissa was the taller of the two girls. She was thin
with long dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. A few freckles were still visible
on her face which gave her the appearance of being a bit younger than her
eighteen years. Leslie was shorter with dark hair. She was cute but she had
more of a rebellious look and was into the grunge music style that seemed to
be taking off as a revolt against the eighties hair bands.  She'd tried to
get Melissa to go to a Nirvana show but Melissa wasn't interested. Still,
despite their differences the two were becoming inseparable on the large
campus. 

    "Oh my god, we gotta be at the infirmary right!" Melissa said. "I'd
totally forgotten about it." It was Melissa who'd talked her friend into
going to get a flu shot which the campus infirmary offered. Melissa was a
health nut, not to mention she was carrying six courses and had no time to
get sick. After a few more minutes of talking with her friend, her spirits
had lifted and they headed out together. 

    Upon arriving at the medical facility the girls waited a few minutes.
Leslie was called first. "Figures, this is your idea and I'm the fucking
guinea pig," she said with a sarcastic tone, but smiled at her friend.
Leslie was in and out in two minutes and it was Melissa's turn. She went into
the office and waited not more than a minute. A long dark haired intern came
in and said hello. 

    "Hey," Melissa said, eyeing the intern and noticed he had checked her
out.  It was mutual. Melissa had checked out the medic and thought he was
pretty cute himself. 

    "Now, this won't hurt a bit," the intern said in a calming voice. 

    "Yeah, and Santa Clause is real," Melissa shot back. Her arm stiffened as
he wrapped the rubber strap around her left arm. She braced herself as he
plunged the needle into her arm. There was a momentary intense prick and then
the pain subsided. 

    "See, not so bad, right?"

    "It better be worth it, if I get sick in the middle of the winter I'm
gonna be really pissed." Melissa's mood had really lightened now. First the
conversation with Leslie and now flirting with the intern had made her almost
forget about that bastard Engle. 

    Three months later Melissa sat on the bleachers overlooking Bryant-Denny
stadium, the home of Alabama's football team since 1929. The bleachers and
field were empty. She had a notepad and a cassette recorder with her. She
looked at her watch, she was a bit early but was pleasantly surprised when
she saw a figure emerge from the tunnel where the players come out of on game
day and head towards her. The figure was Shawn McCarthy, who was the school's
record breaking quarterback. During the season he'd passed for almost five
thousand yards with 31 touchdowns and only 5 interceptions.  More
importantly, he'd led the Crimson Tide to a 12-1 record and a date in the
Orange Bowl against USC. 

    McCarthy sat down next to Melissa, who grabbed her notebook.

    "How ya doin?" McCarthy asked. 

    "I'm good, how are you?" She reached into her purse and pulled out a pack
of Marlboro Reds and extracted a cigarette. "Do you mind?' she asked him. The
question was more of a formality. She had already lit the cigarette and in
mid-exhale when McCarthy said he didn't have a problem.  She switched on her
cassette and grabbed her pen. "Ok then, so for starters, you're facing a USC
team that's has the number three rated defense in the country. What have you
guys been doing to counteract the Trojan's high profile pass rush?" She took
another drag from the Red and blew her smoke into the cool brisk air as
McCarthy began to answer. 

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