by Jeff Strand
He tried to bash her with the tray, but it was a feeble effort. Minnie grabbed the tray right out of his hand and smacked him on the head with it. Chad fell to his knees, bellowing.
"Enough," Minnie told him. She tossed the tray aside and picked up his gun. "I'll twist your arm right off if you don't quiet down."
Chad didn't go completely silent by any means, but he stopped the bellowing.
"Uh, thank you for that," Barry said to Minnie. The slashes on his arm suddenly didn't seem so bad.
"Sure."
"Now what do we do with him?"
"He's not a threat."
"He'd be less of a threat if he was dead," said Syllabus.
"We're not going to kill him," said Minnie. "We're better than them. I did what needed to be done to subdue him. That's as far as it goes."
"We might be in here for a long time," said Syllabus. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't feel safe with him in here alive. We should put it to a vote."
"We're not voting," said Minnie. "I took him out while the rest of you stood there and watched, so it's my say."
"That sounds fair," said Trevor.
"I'm not sure it does," said Barry. "I mean, yes, she's the one who stopped him, but if he's still dangerous, we have to deal with that."
"He's not," said Minnie. "Look at him."
"He might have other weapons."
Minnie slammed Chad against the floor and gave him a quick pat down. "He doesn't."
"We don't have anything to bind him with," said Barry. "If we could tie him up or handcuff him to a shelf or something, I'd feel comfortable, but having him in this tight space with just a broken arm seems like too big of a risk."
Minnie stood up, pulling Chad to his feet.
"Here," she said, holding the gun out to Trevor. "I'll want this back."
Trevor took the gun from her.
Minnie grabbed Chad's good arm with both hands, then slammed it against the shelf. When the first try didn't expose bone, she did it again and got a better result. Then she shoved him back onto the floor.
"Is everybody satisfied now that he's not a threat?" she asked.
"I am," said Trevor.
Minnie held out her hand. Trevor gave her back the gun.
Chad lay on the floor, whimpering and crying and calling Minnie an evil bitch.
"We can't have dead bodies lying in the middle of our space," said Barry. He held up his bleeding arm. "I volunteer to lift them onto the shelves if nobody else will, but it's going to mess my arm up even more. Syllabus?"
"I'd rather not." Syllabus sighed and then bit his lip. "Okay, I guess I can do it."
"I'll help," said Dana.
"You sure?" Barry asked.
"It's not what I'd be doing for fun in my spare time, but it needs to be done."
"Let's clear off the shelves."
While Minnie kept an eye on Chad, the others pushed away food to make enough space on a lower shelf for the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson. In an apparent effort to be a gentleman, Syllabus let Dana take Mrs. Anderson's feet, while he took her arms, closer to the messy part.
"Aren't we tampering with evidence?" asked Vanessa.
"Does anybody else give a shit if we're tampering with evidence?" Barry asked the group.
Nobody did.
"I think the FBI will understand if we don't want to keep stepping over corpses."
Syllabus and Dana hoisted Mr. Anderson onto the shelf without an unfortunate dropping incident, then pushed him against the wall. They lifted his wife onto the same shelf, and though it looked like Syllabus lost his grip for a split-second, he regained it in time and Mrs. Anderson's dead body was also spared the indignity of being dropped.
Done. The corpses weren't completely hidden, but they weren't lying in the middle of the freezer.
"Thanks, both of you," said Barry.
There was a lot of frozen blood on the floor. Trevor picked up one of the metal trays and slid it across the floor several times, scraping up a pile of red ice.
"I think we tidied this place up pretty well," said Trevor. He pointed at Chad. "Excluding that piece of garbage over there."
"Go to hell," said Chad.
"You do not get to speak anymore," Minnie told him. "I'm keeping you alive because it's the right thing to do, but if we don't see perfect behavior from you I'm going to shatter some ribs."
Chad returned to softly weeping.
"Somebody want to get us the latest news from the outside world?" asked Barry.
There was a knock on the freezer door.
THREE
Everybody turned and stared at the door.
Five knocks. A pause. Then five more knocks.
"Maybe it's the police," said Dana.
"Maybe," said Barry.
The door handle moved.
Barry and Dana hurried over together and grabbed the handle, just in case the broom wasn't good enough. Sure, it could be that they really were keeping out a law enforcement officer who was there to rescue them, but until they could confirm it, nobody was getting in here.
"I've got this," Barry told Dana. "See what you can find out."
Dana tapped and swiped away at her cell phone for a few moments. Whoever was on the other side of the door stopped trying to get inside.
"I don't see anything about the police being in the store," said Dana. "What I'm seeing is that they're still outside trying to negotiate for the release of hostages."
"That doesn't mean they aren't secretly inside," said Minnie.
"It could also be another poor bastard who got trapped in here," said Trevor.
"No, they'd be knocking more desperately," said Minnie.
Five more knocks.
"Do we even know for sure that this freezer is soundproof?" asked Barry. "Hey!" he cried out. "Who's out there?"
Nobody answered.
"Okay, okay, okay, here's what I've got," said Dana, looking at her phone. "Apparently they have at least five hostages near the front of the store. One of the attackers has said that he'll kill them all with a crossbow if anybody tries to come inside. Nobody has died on either side."
"Anything about people hiding out in a walk-in freezer?"
"Not that I've seen."
"We should open the door," said Vanessa.
"Are you out of your mind?" Barry asked.
"We won't open it all the way. Just a crack. Just a tiny crack. Enough that we can talk to whoever's on the other side. If it's the police or the FBI or the marines and they're here to escort us out of here, we'd be insane not to talk to them."
"And if it's not somebody here to help?"
"We won't even open the door enough to let an arrow through. We've got more people than they do. Even if all three of them are pulling on the other side, which we know isn't the case because at least one of them will be guarding the hostages, they can't get in."
The door handle jiggled again.
"That would be a mistake," said Barry. "If cops, feds, military, or whatever are in the store, then this will be over soon. We're fine in here."
"We're not fine! We're freezing to death!"
"Not in the next few minutes!"
"How do we know this will be over in the next few minutes?" asked Vanessa. "If they put a crossbow to somebody's head, they could be talking that out for hours. You're imagining that the cops have snipers ready at every angle, but that's not necessarily the case. Yes, they brought an idiot with them. That doesn't mean the other three are just as dumb."
The door handle continued to jiggle.
"I vote we open the door a crack," said Dana. "The fact that it's wedged shut is already a giveaway that we're in here."
"I agree," said Syllabus.
"I disagree," said Trevor. "That's a bad, bad idea."
"Minnie?" Barry asked.
"No, don't open it."
"So what do we do? Leave the tiebreaker to the kid?"
"Actually, you know what, I've changed my mind," said Minnie. "If it'
s one of them, we call the police and let them know the attackers are outside the freezer. Every extra bit of information helps."
"Okay," said Barry. "We open the door one inch. That's all. And we pull it closed at the first sign of a problem."
"Don't make a goddamn sound," Minnie told Chad. She placed her foot on the back of his neck. "If you try to send any kind of signal, I'll kill you. Understand?"
"Yeah."
"Say it like you mean it."
"Yes, I understand."
"I'm not kidding."
Barry slid the broom out of the handle and set it aside.
Everybody waited.
The door handle jiggled, and then the door popped open. Barry grabbed the handle to keep it from opening more than a crack.
"Who's there?" Barry asked.
"FBI."
He didn't sound like an FBI agent. Barry had not, to the best of his knowledge, heard an actual FBI agent speak outside of movies and television, but still, this guy sounded wrong. A real fed wouldn't have a nervous tremor in his voice.
"Slide your badge through the door," said Barry.
"I'm afraid it's under a bulletproof vest, sir."
Barry looked back at Minnie to get her opinion. She shook her head and mouthed "No."
"Ethan! It's Chad! I'm in here!"
Minnie slammed her foot down on the back of his neck and he shut the hell up.
Barry pulled the door closed.
"Asshole!" Minnie screamed.
Jesus, she'd really messed him up. Chad wasn't just silenced; he was dead. Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth.
Barry wedged the broom back in place as the door handle began to jiggle again.
It didn't matter. The psycho outside wasn't getting in here. Unless he had a stick of dynamite handy (which Barry supposed wasn't out of the question) he wasn't getting through the thick freezer door. Not a chance.
The handle stopped jiggling.
"It's okay," said Barry. "We're no worse off."
He wasn't entirely certain that was true, but this wasn't disastrous. Disappointing, yes. Disastrous, no.
Minnie crouched down beside Chad's corpse. "Oh, God," she said in a whisper. "Why did I do this? Why did I do this? Why did I do this?"
"You had no choice," said Barry.
"What the hell are you talking about? Of course I had a choice!"
"You warned him."
"That doesn't mean I needed to murder him!" Minnie had seemed pretty cold and ruthless before, but she'd instantly switched to somebody on the verge of hysteria. Apparently there was a huge difference between breaking somebody's arms and breaking somebody's neck.
"He deserved it."
"I'm not the one who decides that."
"Look, Minnie, there's not a person in here who doesn't think you did what needed to be done. That murderous piece of crap brought that on himself. Legally and morally, you're in the clear."
"I should have just covered his mouth before we let the door open. That's all I had to do. Press a frozen steak over his mouth and keep him from saying anything. Give him frostbitten lips. That would've been okay. I shouldn't have murdered him."
"Okay, you know what, it's not my place to tell you how to feel about this," said Barry. "You take as long as you need to reconcile things with yourself. But I think we should move him to a shelf."
Minnie gave him a scary look like a lion protecting a dead baby cub, but immediately softened and nodded. They cleared off another shelf, since there wasn't room on the one that held Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, and Dana and Syllabus lifted the corpse onto it.
Well, at least it's not as crowded now, Barry thought, though he didn't actually say it out loud. He wasn't sure how well a joke like that would land with this audience.
"Nice to have a little more room, anyway," said Trevor. It didn't earn him any chuckles, but a couple of the others smiled.
Minnie wiped the corner of her right eye, then the left. Barry had never killed anybody, so he had no concept of what she was going through, but he hoped she saved the complete breakdown for after they were out of here.
She was still holding Chad's gun. She didn't seem to be consciously pointing it up at her face...but that's where it was pointed. This made Barry extremely nervous.
"So, uh, Minnie," he said. "The gun."
"What about it?"
"That's not the best place to point it."
Minnie pointed the gun at the floor.
"Thanks," she said.
"Do you think somebody else should hold it?" Barry asked.
"No," said Minnie. "I do not."
"You sure? I'm not saying you aren't doing a good job. You just seem a little distraught right now. Maybe you'd feel more comfortable if somebody else took responsibility for the gun."
Minnie shook her head. "The gun is mine."
"All right," said Barry. "You're the one who got it from him. If you change your mind, let me know."
"I won't change my mind. I'm probably the only one in here who won't accidentally blow her own face off."
Barry really wished that somebody else was holding the gun, but it wasn't worth pushing the issue any further. He didn't want to enrage her. They weren't at the point where it felt necessary to tackle her and wrestle the weapon out of her hands, and so, in the spirit of the advice he'd given Syllabus, Barry decided to focus on more immediate problems.
The lights went out.
Everyone waited in complete darkness and complete silence for a moment.
"Is this good pitch blackness or bad pitch blackness?" asked Trevor.
Vanessa and Dana turned on their cell phones, providing some illumination. Cell phone lights were surprisingly eerie under these conditions.
"Maybe the cops cut the power to the store," said Vanessa.
"Maybe," said Barry.
"Maybe the guy outside the freezer pulled the plug," said Syllabus.
"Maybe," said Barry.
"Why would he do that?" asked Dana.
"Makes it scarier in here," said Syllabus. "Draws us out. As long as that door stays closed, it's going to stay miserably cold in here. It's a good tactic."
"It's not going to work," said Barry. "So we sit in the dark. So what? We've got lights. We're not going to run out of here flailing our arms and screaming."
"Not yet."
"Would one of you be kind enough to shine the light over here?" asked Trevor. "I still have some ice-blood to clean up."
Dana provided helpful illumination while Trevor scraped up Chad's blood.
"I can't tell if the store has power or not," said Vanessa. "There's nothing online that says either way."
"Did your husband ever text you back?" asked Dana.
Vanessa shook her head.
Barry wasn't sure why the freezer suddenly felt so much colder now that it was dark. If anything, technically it was warmer, though Syllabus was right, it wasn't going to rise to a tolerable temperature unless they were stuck in here for a good long while.
He sat down on the floor. The metal floor was not pleasant on his ass, but his joints were getting stiff from standing in the cold. At least it was distracting him from how much his arm hurt. He should probably take off his shirt and wrap it around the wounds, but, nope, it was too cold for that. He had a long way to go before he bled out.
Dana sat down next to him, on the side where his arm wouldn't get blood all over her. She scooted right up against him. "Body heat," she said. "I hope you don't mind."
"Not at all."
She gestured to Pete. He sat on her lap and she put her arms around him.
"You folks have the right idea," said Trevor. "Mind if I get in on that?"
"Be my guest," said Dana.
Trevor sat down next to her. "Sorry that my bony ass doesn't provide much warmth, but I do appreciate it."
"I'm in," said Vanessa, sitting down next to Trevor and snuggling against him. "This is horrible. I've never been so cold in my life."
"Minnie?" asked Dana.<
br />
Minnie shook her head.
"Syllabus?"
"Pass."
Everybody just sat there quietly for a few minutes, shivering. It was an awful place to be, but on the bright side, they weren't out there with the psychos. Barry wondered if any of the hostages had been killed. He assumed that Vanessa would have reported that, but if they'd slaughtered somebody without witnesses from outside...
Five more knocks at the door.
They were slower knocks this time. More sinister. Could knocks be sinister? It was probably just in Barry's imagination, but he could imagine the knocker standing by the door, ear pressed against it, a macabre grin on his face.
"Go away," said Trevor. "No solicitors."
They all waited.
"Just ignore him," said Barry.
They sat there for a few more minutes. God, it was cold. If he'd been alone, Barry might have just succumbed to the need to pee, and enjoyed the sensation of warm urine flowing over him. But others were there, and somehow Barry felt that pissing his pants would not be well received.
"Are you doing okay, Minnie?" he asked, to keep his mind off his bladder.
"No. I'm doing quite poorly, thanks for asking."
"You don't have to be there by yourself. We can't offer much, but we can offer body heat."
Minnie said nothing. Barry wanted to offer more reassurance that she'd done the right thing by stomping on that scumbag's neck, but that seemed to be a lost cause. When she got cold enough, she'd join them.
"This may be a dumb question," said Dana, "and I'm sure everybody else has already thought about it and not said anything, but why don't we just shoot him?"
"It's too dangerous," said Barry.
"It's not risk free," Dana admitted. "But all we'd have to do is have somebody waiting with the gun when we let him crack the door open. Bullet to the face. He doesn't know we have Chad's gun."
"Not for sure, but he'd suspect it," said Barry. "And he wouldn't leave himself exposed like that. It seems straightforward, yeah, but plenty could go wrong."
"I guess you're right," said Dana. "That's why I said it might be a dumb question."
"Here's the real problem," said Minnie. "Let's say it works. He opens the door. Bam. Bullet between the eyes. Dead. We're dealing with men who came in to just randomly murder a bunch of shoppers, but somehow in the midst of it decided that they weren't sure if they actually wanted to die for their cause. Now they're desperate as hell, they've got hostages, and they don't know what to do. If one of them opens up this freezer door and the back of his head explodes, the other two are going to panic even more than they already are. If they panic too much, we've put the lives of the other hostages at risk. Unless we're willing to blow somebody's head off and then hurry out there to take out the other two, we can't poke guns through cracks in the door."