Hot Off The Press

It was the kind of heat that melted time.

Not the romantic kind of summer warmth that encouraged rooftop sunsets and lemon sorbet, but a suffocating, unforgiving blaze that turned Seabrook’s pavement into stovetops and crosswalks into griddles. The Viking News office—an aging three-story building that hadn’t seen a proper HVAC update since Clinton was president—felt like the inside of a dying toaster.

At 9:04 AM, the staff of the Viking News was already sweating. Even the walls looked tired.

The air vents groaned, coughed like a dying smoker, and finally wheezed out one last blast—of hot air. With a loud mechanical rattle and a fthhhhhpt, they gave up entirely.

“Oh, come on!” Grace Orozco shouted from her desk, which she had surrounded with empty LaCroix cans like a shrine to carbonation. She slapped her keyboard in frustration. “The AC’s cooking us alive!”

"That wasn’t AC," muttered Sam Ihle, adjusting his perpetually askew glasses and fanning himself with a printout of his latest crime report. "That was a hairdryer possessed by Satan."

Behind him, photographer Jimmy Pruitt walked in holding a bag of ice cubes and slapped them onto the communal table like it was the Ark of the Covenant.

“I give it an hour before Ben Diaz turns to ash like a vampire in daylight.”

Speak of the devil—Senior Editor Benjamin Diaz stood by the bulletin board, his arms crossed, a red pen tucked behind one ear and a face locked in a permanent scowl. The heat had not mellowed him. If anything, it had made him crueler, more editorially unhinged.

“Michael,” he barked, turning to the human interest reporter who was trying to soak his feet in a plastic bin under his desk. “That write-up on the orphanage renovation was sentimental tripe. If I wanted to read about wet-eyed nuns and plaster angels, I’d go to a Hallmark aisle.”

Michael Simmons blinked, lifting his sunglasses just enough to show his squint. “It's a story about hope, Ben.”

“It’s a story about you being lazy. Rewrite it.”

Danny Van Hoosier, the sports reporter, leaned toward Jodie Williams-Ihle with a whisper. “Someone should tell Diaz the heat makes him more demonic than usual.”

Jodie, who had her hair pulled up in a bun and an Audrey Hepburn mug filled with iced espresso sweating beside her laptop, didn’t look up. “Go ahead. Be my guest.”

Sam, still fanning himself and scribbling on a notepad, added without missing a beat, “Actually, the heat probably makes him feel at home. You know, like his home down below?”

A brief silence hung in the room.

And then—laughter. Sudden. Grateful.

Even Diaz cracked a reluctant smirk, though it quickly dissolved as he flung Sam’s last article onto his desk.

“Tell you what, Ihle—when your writing stops feeling like a sophomore’s murder podcast script, then you can make hell jokes.”

Sam winced. “Noted.”

10:36 AM

“I’m not going back out there,” Grace said, one arm draped dramatically over her brow like a Victorian ghost. “I already got two nosebleeds just walking from my car.”

“You don’t even have AC in your car,” Katherine Evangelista pointed out, barely visible behind a handheld mirror as she reapplied powder in vain.

“Exactly.”

Benjamin clapped his hands, and it sounded like the world’s most sarcastic thunder. “This is a newspaper. Not a nail salon. News doesn’t care if it’s 102 degrees. News doesn’t stop for heat. Water main burst on Pine and Fifth. Sam and Jimmy—you’re on it.”

“Water?” Jimmy perked up. “Blessed, holy water?”

“It’s a main. Not a baptism.”

Still, Jimmy and Sam took off, shielding their heads with folded newspapers as makeshift parasols. The street outside shimmered like liquid mercury.

Benjamin jabbed his pen toward the whiteboard. “Jodie, city council is holding an emergency meeting about the blackout rolling through West Seabrook. Grace, you’re with her. And don’t write your piece in emojis.”

“That happened once,” Grace muttered, dragging herself up.

“Danny, the high school summer league game is still on. They moved it to 8 PM, so you’ll get to bake for a few more hours before anyone throws a pitch. Pack sunscreen.”

“Thanks,” Danny deadpanned. “You gonna edit my sunburn too?”

“I might,” Benjamin said, turning on his heel.

Michael tapped his pen to his notepad and called out, “And what about me?”

“You’re on ice cream duty.”

Michael blinked. “Sorry?”

“Ice cream truck driver down by the waterfront is giving away cones to kids whose power’s out. It’s sweet. Human interest-y. Maybe you’ll get a quote out of a sticky four-year-old that’s more profound than your last three paragraphs.”

Jodie leaned over to Michael. “You know he loves you, right?”

Michael grinned. “Like a tick loves blood.”

12:14 PM – Pine and Fifth

“Okay,” Jimmy said, sweat trailing down his neck. “Remind me why I didn't go into indoor photography?”

Sam wiped his forehead. “Because you once said ‘nature is light’s most honest subject.’”

“I lied.”

They watched the geyser of water shooting from a cracked main, kids from the neighborhood playing in it like a free waterpark. City workers were attempting to contain it with plastic cones and a prayer.

Sam scribbled notes and approached the city engineer who looked as tired as the pavement. “How long until it’s fixed?”

“Depends,” the man muttered. “You got a miracle plumber in your back pocket?”

“No,” Sam said. “But I’ve got a deadline.”

1:43 PM – Viking News Office

The newsroom was quieter, the midday heat sapping even the gossip from their bones. Julio Vasquez, the cartoonist, used a cold soda can as a rolling pin on his forehead.

Katherine Evangelista sat barefoot at her desk, typing with one hand and holding a mini desk fan in the other like it was a pistol from a Bond film.

“I swear,” she muttered, “this building's older than the Constitution.”

From the far corner, Michal Olzewski returned from a local church’s soup kitchen that was doubling as a cooling center.

“They’ve got cold sandwiches, a choir singing praise music, and air conditioning that actually works,” she said dreamily, like describing paradise.

“Take me there,” said Grace.

“Take all of us,” said Danny, who had dunked his Viking News baseball cap into a pitcher of ice water.

“Where’s Diaz?” Michael asked.

“Probably carving angry words into some poor intern’s soul.”

Just then, Benjamin returned from the break room, red in the face, holding a lukewarm coffee as if daring the heat to challenge him further.

“Why are none of you writing?”

“We’re melting,” said Julio.

“Die after deadline,” Diaz snapped.

4:08 PM – Waterfront

Michael was down by the harbor where the city’s only ice cream truck stood like a divine mirage. Kids cheered as free cones were handed out. A portly man with a handlebar mustache wore a straw boater hat and scooped rocky road with gusto.

“What made you decide to do this?” Michael asked.

The man smiled. “Because it’s hot. And because being kind is the only currency that doesn’t lose value.”

Michael grinned. “Mind if I quote you on that?”

“Please do,” the man said, handing him a cone. “On the house. You look like you need it.”

6:12 PM – City Hall

Grace and Jodie had finally gotten quotes from two council members and the mayor, who looked like he wanted to swim in his own sweat. The council chambers had all the charm of an overheated auditorium and the grace of a DMV.

As they stepped out, Grace asked, “Want to grab drinks before heading back to the office sauna?”

Jodie squinted. “Not unless it’s something frozen and alcoholic and intravenously delivered.”

They settled for iced lemonades from a bodega and stood outside under the pitiful shade of a withered palm tree.

“Hey,” Grace said, “you know that thing you said earlier? About Ben Diaz being from hell?”

Jodie smirked. “Sam said it.”

“Well, it might be true. But today—I don’t know. He kinda held the ship together, right?”

Jodie nodded slowly. “He’s like a demonic Moses. He’ll get us through the desert, but none of us are making it to the Promised Land.”

8:03 PM – High School Baseball Field

The sun had dipped just enough to make shadows bearable. Danny sat in the bleachers, notebook in hand, as the Seabrook Sharks took on the Harbor Hawks. No one played well—everyone was too hot—but the crowd was loyal.

He jotted down notes between sips of Gatorade, knowing Diaz would tear the article apart anyway. But as a foul ball bounced near him and a kid offered him a bag of sunflower seeds, Danny grinned.

There was still something good about summer.

Even in hellfire.

10:12 PM – Viking News Office

The night crew filtered back in. One by one, they placed their laptops on sticky desks, their bodies sunburned, their spirits half-cooked.

Sam and Jimmy returned smelling like mildew and concrete.

Michael brought back melted ice cream on his collar and a notepad full of joy.

Danny, red-faced and tired, handed Diaz a thumb drive of photos and stats.

Grace plopped her phone on the table and said, “I’m never drinking lemonade again.”

And Jodie?

Jodie came in last, her heels in her hand, bun undone, and handed Benjamin a perfect quote from the mayor.

Diaz sat silently at the center table, reading.

Then: “You’re not completely incompetent.”

Everyone took that as high praise.

Julio hung his cartoon of the day on the wall: Diaz sitting on a throne made of scorched red pens, wearing devil horns and a sash that read Editor-in-Beast.

Diaz stared at it.

Then said, “Frame it.”

11:48 PM – Final Proofs

The office was quieter now, cooled slightly by the forgiving night. The team gathered around as final pages were laid out. Despite everything—the inferno, the dust, the dehydration—they had stories. Good ones.

Jodie nudged Sam. “Still think Ben’s from hell?”

Sam grinned. “Yeah. But he’s our devil.”

Benjamin, overhearing, rolled his eyes.

“Don’t get sentimental,” he muttered. “The heat’ll be back tomorrow.”

And it was.

But so was the Viking News.