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The Department Store
“Can I just try
on this last piece?” Kathy asked the salesgirl.
“Sure, but we’re closing in twenty minutes.”
“Okay, okay. Wendy, hold my bag I’ll be faster,” Kathy asked her sister, Wendy, who'd folded
her arms.
“Make it fast, we have to meet Gary and Paul
at Rockland. They’ll be pissed if we’re late again.”
“Not to worry,
I know how to deal with Gary,” Kathy said, before running into the dressing
room. Passing rows of curtained rooms, no one was in the fitting room with her.
She stopped at the first room and drew the curtain closed. Shimmied out of her
jeans, and tugged the bias-cut silk dress over her head and camisole. Half the
price of yesterday. Was it enough to ignore the bulge under her armpit? No. She released herself from the sausage
encasing and pulled a brush out of her purse.
The lights went
out.
“What-the ... ?”
Kathy ran and made her way to the entrance of the dressing room. The
department store was dark throughout. “Hey, is anyone here? Wendy!” she called
for her sister. She turned through each of the isles looking to spot someone. Anyone.
“Wendy? She must have gone out to the car.”
Kathy dropped
the dress next t the cash register and hurried to the double glass door facing the
interior mall. The doors were locked. She pushed and pushed again on the levers.
The doors wouldn’t budge. “Is ANYONE here? Let me OUT!” Kathy screamed.
Pulling the phone
from her bag, she dialed her sister. “This is ridiculous . . . come on . . .
answer.”
“Hello?”
“Wendy? Where
the hell’d you go?” Kathy cried. “I’m locked inside the department store.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me--goofball,
your sister.”
“My sister? . .
. my sister died, two years ago.”
“You’re funny.
Gary put you up to this? He’ll pay, all right. Can you please, get me out?”
“I’m sorry.” Wendy
hung up.
“What?” Kathy called
again, but Wendy wouldn’t answer. She called three, four times, and still, no
one answered the phone.
Then she dialed
Gary’s number shaking her head. “They think this is funny? I thought we were in
a hurry to get a good seat for the show.”
The number you
have reached has been disconnected . . .
That’s strange. Kathy searched around the dark unable
to process what was happening. She dialed 911.
“You’ve
reached 911.”
“Yes! Hello. Can
you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,
what is your emergency?”
“Oh my God,
yes. Thank goodness. I’m trapped inside Wooltstein’s Department store -- at
East Line Mall. Everyone’s gone and I’m trapped inside.”
“Where did you
say you’re calling from, Ma’am? I’m not getting a computation for your
location.”
“East Line
Mall. In Woolstein’s--at the entrance! Can someone get me out?”
Kathy heard whispering.
“East Line Mall
burned down two years ago.”
“What? That’s
impossible. I’m inside the mall right now. “
“It is a crime punishable
up to fifteen years for playing with the emergency call system.”
“No—Please
don’t go. My name is Kathy Driver. I live at 500 Beacon Road. Please call my
sister, Wendy at (500) 225-1515.
“Someone is headed
to that address to see about your emergency.”
“The mall?”
“Of course,
not.” The operator sounded irritated. “You say you’re inside the mall’s
department store that burned to ash two years ago. They’re checking with the
folks at 500 Beacon.”
What else was
there to say? “Yes!”
Kathy kept
watch over the ghost town scanning the shops she could see. She’d forgotten
about the emergency exit. There’d be an alternative exit, somewhere.
Keeping the
phone line open, using the light of her phone to navigate, she made her way
through the racks to the opposite side of the store.
The EXIT sign
wasn’t lit. She pushed on the metal door. It wouldn’t budge. Spotting a water
fountain, grateful to get a cool drink, she bent over, but no water trickled
out of the fountain. How long could she
survive without water?
Her phone’s
battery down to the red, the clock off. Surely, Gary and her sister would come
looking for her.
It felt as though
hours had passed. The concert would be over by now. With her phone dying, no
water to drink, sitting in the dark, Kathy found a piece of gum inside her
purse and she chewed it, fading away.
Baby Baby,
Baby, Yeah.
It was her cell
phone. “Hello, hello?”
“Is this Kathy
Driver, who once lived at 500 Beacon Road.”’
“I live there
now.”
“Not according
to the Beacon family. They said you perished in that fire at the mall, two
years ago on this day. They are very upset.”
“That’s
impossible if I’m talking to YOU? Isn’t it? Why don’t you just send someone out
here? Then you’ll see.”
“Ma’am, there
are two patrol cars out at the old site of the East Line mall now.”
“Great! Where?
Where are they?” Kathy ran to the back entrance of the department store and watched
the parking lot.
Two police
officers passed near the door and she banged on the glass. So close, one of
the officers glared into her eyes. But did nothing. He picked up the radio
dispatch when he returned to the vehicle and they drove away.
“They left,” Kathy
whispered.
“The officer
radioed in that there was nothing to see at East Line. No mall, no cars,
people, not anyone. Maybe this game has gone too far,” the operator suggested.
“Yes, it’s gone
too far . . .”
Kathy turned
her back on the glass window and slid to the floor. Out of ideas. Her cellphone
went black.
The End.