1500 words, one hour. 2/24/2012
The End
“Cole, I need those reports by the end of the day.” Marcus trudged around the office spewing last minute orders before his meeting. “Donovan, make sure you’re here tomorrow by eight, we’ve got important make-up work to cover.”
Fridays were always hectic. I rolled my chair to each end of my office, organizing papers. “Boss,” I called, “ I can’t come in tomorrow. Can we make it Sunday?”
“That dog won’t hunt,” replied Marcus as he stepped through the door. “I need everyone with make-up to do here tomorrow. I’m not coming in Sunday to supervise one employee.” He left.
I sighed, then shrugged. What could I do? I gathered my things to leave, then went on my way.
Waiting at the elevator, as always, was agonizing. I felt like a child who took one hour bus rides home. I suppose it was in my nature to let large groups of people go before me. It was hardly out of kindness; I couldn’t stand being cooped up in an elevator with eleven other people.
It was fifteen minutes past the end of my shift before I was able to take the elevator with only two companions. One of them, a pudgy guy with pale skin and thick glasses, worked in the cubicle just outside of my office.
“TGIF, huh Bill?” He grinned at me an I nodded. “If only that applied to us.”
“Oh, you’ve got to come in tomorrow too, huh?”
“That’s right. Sucks, too. I had plans with my wife. How ‘bout you?” He asked.
“No plans, just hate comin’ in on Saturdays. At least it’s a half day, though.”
“ I hear that.” Ended the conversation, thankfully. I was starting to get uncomfortable talking to Jim, who I barely knew, in front of Lisa, the token “rasta-mama,” as Earl would call her, behind her back, of course. She had very dark skin and thin dreads.
Suddenly, as we were waiting to reach the ground floor, the elevator stopped. We each looked around, as if expecting to find the source of the trouble. The lights flickered out.
“What’s going on?” Jim said. Lisa remained quite, but her expression was fearful. She gripped the rail at the right side of the elevator and began breathing deeply.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
She frantically answered, “I’m claustrophobic! I can’t stand… being trapped in tight spaces…” She spoke between fits of breath.
“Do you hear a megaphone?” Jim asked. We stayed silent, and sure enough, there was the faint sound of a strong voice through a microphone. “Sound like an emergency! What could be goin’ on?”
“Relax,” I said. “It’s probably just a power outage. We’ll be fine. It’s not like anything’s gonna bring this building down.”
Just as we glanced at the ground in agreement, there was a crash. We were knocked to the floor, each of us expressing terror in our unique ways. I remained quiet, leant against the corner of the small dark space. Lisa let out a deafening screech, and thusly continued screaming. Jim looked horrified, whimpering and clasping his head, unsure of what to do, but unwilling to lose control.
After a couple of seconds, Lisa’s screaming subsided into whimpering similar to Jim’s.
“We need to calm down!” I asserted, though in truth I was no less terrified than either of them.
“What was that?” shouted Lisa. “What could that be? A plane? Oh God, I don’t want to die…” She hushed up in a fetal position in the corner across from me.
I stood. It was quiet. We heard sirens. “Listen. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve got a feeling we need to get out of here. Jim, I need you to help me get through the emergency hatch.”
“We’re at the third floor.” Jim said as he complied.
“I’m going to see if we can’t get out of the elevator from up here,” I said as I pulled myself the rest of the way through the emergency hatch. I looked up to see that about two floors above, a dim light shone through the elevator door. It was open.
“Alright, there’s a door open a little ways above. We can climb the ladder and get out of here.”
Another crash.
“Oh God! Oh no, God!!” Lisa screamed.
“Jim, help Lisa up here.” Jim pulled Lisa up from the floor and helped her to the emergency hatch. I took her hand and pulled her up. Her hands were moist and her cheeks soaked.
We heard a voice through a megaphone again, though we still couldn’t make out what it was saying.
“Lisa, help me get Jim up here. “ We both grabbed Jim’s hands and pulled as hard as we could, grunting. Finally he made it up, and each of us frantically lined up to climb the ladder. Lisa went first. Then I. “Hurry, we need to get out of here!”
Another crash, and a horrible screeching, followed by a blood-curdling scream. I didn’t want to look to see the horrified, screaming face of Jim as he plummeted to the Basement along with the elevator, which crashed at the bottom. Finally I turned to look down. Jim’s body was lying face-up on the elevator; I couldn’t tell if he was unconscious or not. For a split second I thought of going down to help him, but there were other, more pressing matters to attend to. Lisa screamed and climbed through the opening on the fifth floor. I glanced up and was shocked to see the next elevator falling. I couldn’t think; I just climbed as fast as I could. Lisa, with one jerk, pulled me clear into the nearby cubicle just before the elevator came crashing down on me.
We remained huddled in that cubicle for a good minute. I was so grateful for Lisa saving me that I couldn’t speak. Out of a mixture of fear and sorrow for Jim, I cried, as she did.
We could hear thunderous roaring from outside. We looked to see the windows smashed. The adjacent building was reduced to rubble. Surprisingly, we took little time to stare in amazement.
“We need to get out of here as soon as possible.”
We clamored for the stairs to find that, thankfully, they were intact. We looked up to see that such was not the case for the floor above.
“Amazing.” I said, and we began rushing down the stairs. I don’t know exactly how long it took us, but it felt like an hour. We gasped and rested for mere seconds as we reached the bottom. “Don’t stop now! Hurry!”
We exited the building, unharmed. We ran across the street to find a safe place, and found as we gazed wide-eyes around, that many buildings had toppled. We stood in the middle of the road, circling around in astonishment and fear. The Macy’s was demolished. The building with the Dunkin Donuts that I stopped by every morning was no more. The streets were blanketed with ash; the sky was filled with thick, dark smoke.
I was petrified. Lisa began making her way down the street. “Wait!” I called out. “I’m coming with you. You saved my life. Besides, there’s no one else around. We need to stick together.”
She nodded. I began following her as we looked for a space clear of smoke.
“There was no one left in the office building.” I said. “They must have evacuated while we were in the elevator.”
“Too bad no one cared enough to help us.” said Lisa.
“Well,” I said, “Well, maybe someone did. The elevator door was open, after all.”
We finally cam to a space clear of smoke about one mile south of the office. We stood where we could see clearly in front of us. The city seemed to have been reduced to a parking lot. What was more, a strange, gigantic figure appeared in the background. It was some sort of machine, white, and with the structure of a frog. It was stationary, but, having never seen anything of the like, we assumed it was responsible for all of the destruction.
“What do we do?” Lisa asked.
“I… I don’t know.”
As we stood for an extended period of time, we heard a succession of crashed coming from behind us. We turned around to run, but before we could get anywhere, a humongous chunk of metal smashed into the ground to the right of us, the force of it knowing us to the ground. Lisa began screaming uncontrollably as yet another, equally gigantic structure came down onto the ground on the other side of us. As Lisa screamed, a long robotic arm lunged from above us in the smoke, straight at her. It effortlessly ripped her from the ground, knocking her unconscious. As all of this was happening, a voice, as if from a megaphone, boomed:
“You are vermin and will be destroyed.” The hand that took Lisa instantly crushed her into nothing.
“You are a cancer, and will be removed.” Another arm, this one smaller, lunged at me and removed me from the ground. I struggled in a futile attempt to save myself.
“None will be spared. There will be no mercy.” The voice continued booming.
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Now here I am, locked between the vices of some alien war-machine. I am doomed. We are all doomed.
The End
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