Bye-bye

R eva spun around. “Pam!”

Pam clung to Reva. She was panting, her chest heaving up and down. Her wet blond hair clung to her forehead. Her green eyes were wide with fear.

“I—I got away from them,” she choked out breathlessly. “Where is the guard?”

“There isn’t one,” Reva replied, her eyes on the aisle behind Pam. “We shouldn’t stay here. We have to get downstairs. Come on.”

They began creeping side by side, cutting from aisle to aisle, staying low, alert for their pursuers.

Through a dimly lit shoe department. Past a display of running suits and sportswear.

The store seems so much bigger when it’s empty, Reva realized. I feel as if I’ve been going for miles.

Nearly to the back of the store now. She and Pam glanced at each other as the cries rang out. “This way! Over here!” Reva recognized Pres’s angry voice. “Diane—they’re over here!”

“They see us!” Pam cried.

Reva began to run. “Keep going,” she said, her side aching, her arm throbbing.

The back wall came into view. Is this another dead end? Reva wondered.

No.

The two employee elevators stood just beyond a narrow aisle.

Reva ran to the wall, gasping for breath. She pushed the button. Were the elevators running? Could she and Pam get on them? Could they get away before... before—

“No!” Reva cried. She suddenly remembered something. “Pam—this way!”

“Huh?” Pam reacted with surprise, her face red and puffy.

The elevator on the left hummed to life. Pam stared up at the floor indicator above it as the arrow slowly began to move up from the first floor. “It’s coming!” Pam whispered. “We have to take it!”

But Reva pulled Pam away. They ducked behind a wide round pillar, pressing their backs against the cool concrete.

“The employee elevators—they’re broken again,” Reva told Pam, struggling to catch her breath. “I remember. My dad told me they can’t figure out why they keep breaking.”

“But—but they’re coming!” Pam whispered, grasping Reva’s arm again.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky,” Reva whispered back, listening to the approaching footsteps. “Maybe Pres and Diane will think we went down. Maybe they’ll try to go after us. You know, jump inside—and fall to the basement.”

Pam’s face revealed her doubt. “Reva—that’s impossible. We can’t—”

“Shhhhh!” Reva clamped her hand over Pam’s mouth. “Here they come. Be quiet—and pray.”

Pressed against the pillar, the two girls watched as Pres and Diane ran up to the elevators, turning their heads to search the aisle. The elevator door on the left slid open.

“This way!” Pres cried, gesturing to the elevator. “They went down. Let’s go!”

Reva held her breath and stared hard, afraid to move, afraid to blink.

Both Pres and Diane leapt into the dark elevator at the same time—and dropped to their deaths.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20