Morning all. What a vivid sentence that is. Let’s set the timers and see what comes out of it, shall we? Timers set and off we go.
I think I might actually have a story where this fits in. I love it when that happens.
Tuesday, September 1st: Metal grated against concrete.
Metal grated against concrete. It was a harsh sound but she knew it would cover up any sound of her breath. In addition the men were talking as they moved to and from the storage unit.
She hoped to be gone before anyone came down to this level.
“He put it in here with everything else,” one of the men said.
“Why did he do the big clear out anyway?” a second man asked.
“He wasn’t sure if he would need to have them at the apartment or not and he told Jeffry that this was a temporary corporate apartment in front of the girl.”
“Oh, so he had to get rid of anything personal,” the first one said seeming to understand.
She listened with growing dread. ‘Jeffery,’ she thought. Her father. ‘Am I the girl?’ she swallowed hard. No longer was she listening to determine how many men there were as she waited for them to leave, now she needed to actually hear what they said.
“Did he say what it looked like, he has an awful lot of stuff in here.”
“He said it was in the wooden crate with this symbol on it and that it was stored near the front and to the left. He had it moved in last since he knew he might need it,” one of the men said.
“Let me see the drawing of the symbol,” the first one replied. There are two boxes here with symbols, I’d hate to haul the wrong one up eight flights.”
“You know we are taking the elevator right?”
“Well yeah but I don’t wanna get the wrong box up there and have Mr. Halston yell at us. You remember what happened to Mort.”
“He didn’t bring the wrong box he mucked up something far worse,” the other man said. He sounded nervous and she could hear paper rattling. “Let me double check,” he said.
“Yeah, this is the one.”
There was scraping and grunting as the two men lifted something that sounded heavy. There was a thunk as it was placed on the concrete. This was followed by another harsh scrape of metal on concrete. She heard a metal rattling sound she thought might be the lock being replaced on the storage unit door. This was followed by some grunts and the uneven sound of shuffling footsteps on concrete.
She waited trying to breath as quietly as she could and to keep as still as possible. She heard the ding of the elevator and the rattle clink of the doors opening. A moment later she heard the same sound followed by a soft thud as the doors closed.
She leaned against the concrete block of the basement wall. She came here thinking this was a safe place. That once she reached here everything would be okay. It wasn’t. She thought Jeremy Halston would be a safe port in this storm. She took a deep breath, mind recalculating.
Ten til Midnight 