For those just tuning in, this challenge is about taking a story idea from bare bones idea into a fully fledged story by writing consistently every week day for fifteen minutes. The sentence I end with on one day, is the sentence I start with on the following. Part one was Bob’s story and has nothing whatsoever to do with the story below. Part Two follows a character named Penelope. I have a few basic sentences to act as road marks on her journey. I am loosely calling that an outline. We will see where she ends up by the time the story is done. For now, we start Part two of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Writing Challenge.
Day 150: For all she knew they wired the entire parking garage so they could monitor every inch of it.
For all she knew they wired the entire parking garage so they could monitor every inch of it. ‘After all how would it look for nefarious undertakings to go on just outside of your secret entrance?’ Penelope had a mental image of someone trying to do a deal, whether drugs or selling stolen watches just on the other side of the hidden door.
‘I wonder if they would bust them or just record it for potential use later?’ She doubted they would lift the hidden door and yell. ‘Maybe the parking attendant comes out and yells.’
She followed Michaelson away from the car and to a door in the wall. The door was normal door shaped and visible in the wall but it had no handles. It was an exit only door. Also when he stood in front of it, she could see at least three camera’s focused directly on them. She guessed there were cameras she couldn’t see.
‘At least I would put one camera no one could see,’ Penelope thought. That way if anyone took a baseball bat to the visible cameras I’d have a back up.’
She doubted that was protocol. ‘And they would probably be suspicious of anyone coming iun with a baseball bat.
Michaelson just stood there in front of the door with no handle as though content to wait for as long as it took.
‘Which is all he can do, I suppose.’
Penelope waited with him. It probably wasn’t that long but standing inside a walled off section of a parking garage, it felt a lot longer. It was long enough for her to get used to the silence so she jumped a little when the door buzzed and the sound of a lock opening echoed off the concrete. The door swung open and Michaelson led her inside.
The scent of gasoline and oil reached her nose before anything else. Looking around, she could see they were in a short, tiled corridor. At the end was another door. Michaelson urged her forward and she went towards that door. He closed the one they used to enter, the click sounding loud in the narrow, enclosed hallway. They reached the other door and Michaelson had to enter a number into the pin pad. He was better at shielding the numbers than his compatriot was so Penelope couldn’t see the numbers. The door clicked open and she felt relief at being able to step through and into the room beyond.
Penelope wasn’t normally claustrophobic but there was something about moving from the sealed off section of parking garage to the narrow corridor that made her feel relieved to step free.
‘Maybe there are no windows and so many locks,’ she thought. The scent of oil and mechanical bits intensified and it was easy to see why. The room was warehoused sized and Penelope was certain she was standing in one of the warehouse buildings that surrounded the parking garage. ‘Because this doesn’t look like one of the office buildings.’
This building was turned into a mechanics. There were several cars on metal runners with dark pits below. Some of the pits had people working in them. Others did not.
“Michaelson,” a voice said. It was deeply masculine built for a moment Penelope couldn’t see who it belonged to. Then a man stepped out from behind a tall set of metal cabinets. He was wearing oil stained coveralls and wiping his hand on a rag.
Ten til Midnight 