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With my phone stuffed in my pocket and my gun in my hand, I walk slowly and remain on high alert. A crooked white sign with peeling black paint letters that read ‘Office’ hangs above a weathered door with a broken pane of glass.
Stopping ten feet from the entrance, I try to peer into the shadowed interior. “Sophie?”
Her face appears in the gap of broken glass. “Hi.”
There are streaks of dirt on her cheeks and mascara tear tracks under her eyes. She looks terrified and pathetic and I can’t help but soften my attitude.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand and jiggles the door handle until the rusty hinges creak open. “I’m so glad you’re here. It’s been so scary being all alone.”
After glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one is creeping up behind me, I curse my own paranoia and step through the door. The interior smells like piss and rotting wood. A counter that must have once served as the reception desk is littered with mouse droppings. An abandoned office chair lies on its side and bleeds foam stuffing. Parts of the floor are rotted and water damage warps the walls.
Sophie notices the gun in my hand and begins to cry again. “I hate those things. I don’t wanna look at them. They remind me of my father.”
With a sigh, I set the gun down on the counter beside my small handbag. “Yeah, they remind me of my father too. Now where the hell is your suitcase?”
“Oh, it’s in here.” Before I can flinch, she grabs my arm and excitedly pulls me through an open doorway.
This room must have been the manager’s residential quarters. A filthy sagging sofa sits in the middle of the space. Wires hang from the wall where a television set was once mounted. A wall that used to separate this room from a small bathroom has been broken apart, exposing metal pipes and rotting wood.
Our presence seems to have disturbed something alive. Soft animal noises whisper somewhere nearby. “You hear that?”
She cocks her head. “Rats. There’s a lot of them in here. Don’t get bit. They can carry rabies.”
Sophie drops my hand and flings open another door. A deep closet beckons and there, in the corner, sits a giant Louis Vuitton rolling carrier. It appears to be partially sunken into a hole in the floor.
Sophie steps into the closet and tugs on the handle. “It won’t move,” she whines.
“Out of the way,” I grumble and wait for her to scurry out. The closet is easily eight feet deep, just about large enough to be a tiny bedroom.
As I grab for the suitcase handle, one of my father’s favorite pieces of advice comes back to haunt me.
“Never show anyone your back. That’s where they always bury the fucking knife.”
He’s a split second too late.
I whirl around just in time to see the light disappear when Sophie slams the door closed. As I hurl myself at the door, an ominous lock clicks and all I succeed in doing is bruising my shoulder.
“Sophie!” I pound on the door with my palm. “What the hell are you doing?”
Dumb question. Whatever she’s up to, it’s not good. My eyes try to adjust to the gloom. The only light comes from a tiny sliver at the base of the door. I rattle the handle, not shocked when it doesn’t budge. Worse, a rapid exploration of the door shows me a detail I’d missed earlier.
Unlike the decaying, broken doors elsewhere in the building, this one is solid. This one is made of metal.
Dropping to the floor, I put my eye to the light beneath the door. There are shadows moving, the sound of footsteps. No other voices. I’m guessing that Sophie is still alone. Somehow that makes the situation more outrageous than ever. I’ve been trapped in a closet by one of the biggest morons walking planet earth.
Fuck.
An object lands in front of the door, blocking out the light. The vague whispered noises I heard a moment ago are much closer. A brick of dread drops in my belly because now I recognize the sound.
Jared and Talon have a taste for showing off. They use their live rattlesnake collection as both a prop and a weapon. They like to have their pets in the room during family meetings as some kind of petty show of force. That’s why I’m very familiar with the sounds that rattlesnakes make when they’re caged together and trying to escape.
I can’t fucking believe I left my gun on the counter.
Not that it would do me much good. I can’t blast my way through a metal door.
My phone is still in my back pocket. Yet that sense of relief is short lived when I discover that I have no service.
