The Elevator
Getting stuck in an elevator is one thing. Getting stuck in an elevator with your worst enemy is another. Getting stuck in an elevator with your worst enemy and Klink is… well, let the nightmare begin… For the Short Story Speedwriting Challenge 2015
The elevator stopped somewhere between the third and fourth floor. Klink didn't even notice it at first. He had been so busy listening to Major's Hochstetter's rant about Papa Bear (and trying unsuccessfully to tune it out) that he didn't notice how slowly it was taking the elevator to reach its destination (but then, time always seemed to slow to a crawl when Hochstetter was around).
To his credit, the Major didn't notice it either. He was too busy yelling at the time. Hogan was the first to notice. At some point he cut into Hochstetter's rant and calmly said,
"Is it just me or has that arrow been between 3 and 4 for a while now?"
That got him Klink and Hochstetter's attention. Sure enough the elevator had come to a halt. Klink pushed some of the buttons, to no avail. Hochstetter banged the door and ordered it to open. It refused.
A tense silence came upon the room. "Well now," Hogan was the first to speak. He had a calm, almost amused tone, "Looks like we're stuck."
Hochstetter let out a long string of curses. His vocabulary was so vast and colorful that Klink stared at him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, while Hogan regretted not bringing along a notebook to jot down some new words.
He supposed he could understand the Major's irritation. Why, just outside the elevator Papa Bear was supposedly sneaking out some underground agent from the hotel, right under the Major's nose! Except, the Papa Bear in question was stuck in the elevator right alongside the Major (and Klink) and the nefarious plot was still going on.
Hogan could only hope he hadn't made a big mistake with this. While he trusted his men to get the job done without him, he couldn't help but feel a little antsy about his own part. The way the plan was designed to work, they should only be stuck for about ten minutes. So far three had passed.
Hogan took a seat in the corner of the elevator across from the buttons. Well, he may as well get comfortable.
"Could you possibly try not to hit every single one?" Hogan said courteously to the Major who was mashing the elevator buttons as if someone's life depended on it (it probably did), "You might break something. Also, I don't see how the 'door close' button will help us in this case."
Hochstetter stopped long enough to glare at Hogan, give a loud "BAH!" that reverberated off the walls, and give the 'door open' button one last manic jab for good measure before resuming his tirade, albeit this time on the door.
Kicking the door wasn't working. Banging the door wasn't working. Yelling at it and threatening to send everyone and everything to the Russian Front wasn't working.
Klink was the epitome of misery and looked like he would start crying at any moment. Hogan was sitting nonchalantly.
Hochstetter wanted to shoot both of them then and there. Papa Bear was out there stealing his target while he was stuck in an elevator because he insisted on following Klink and Hogan upstairs to retrieve a forgotten item, because he was sure that it was just an excuse for him to get out of Hochstetter's sight. He just knew that Hogan was responsible for this, somehow!
But unfortunately for him, the earlier incident involving keys, windows and a mounted deer head resulted in his gun being out of bullets.
All bullets.
After ten minutes had passed, Hogan found it difficult to maintain his nonchalant smile. Stuck in the elevator, he had no idea what was going on. He wasn't too worried about his men; he was absolutely certain that they hadn't run into any problems. There were always hiccups in plans, yes, but this was that final do-or-die crazy plan that followed all of those hang-ups, and was therefore guaranteed to go well. Statistics had proven it!
But there they were, ten minutes later, in an elevator. An elevator that still wasn't moving.
I'll give them a few more minutes, Hogan thought, swallowing the lump in his throat, Nothing to worry about.
Ten more minutes later, he decided he was never listening to Carter again.
"It sure is taking a while," Klink said shakily, "Surely someone should have noticed by now?" He looked at Hogan for confirmation, for he knew he was more likely to get an answer out of him than Hochstetter, who had finally stopped yelling only to engage in a glaring match with the door. The door was winning.
"Beats me Kommandant," Hogan shrugged, "But don't worry, elevators break all the time."
"Bah!" Hochstetter cut in, "Maybe in your country they do, but in our glorious Fatherland, they don't! This is an act of sabotage! By Papa Bear!"
Klink nodded along. "That's right, Herr Major, this is sabotage," he agreed at once, "Our great German efficiency would never allow this to happen!"
Hogan considered this for a moment. He stared at Klink who had launched into another one of his Gestapo-appeasing speeches about the glorious Third Reich, then Hochstetter who decided to give the door another go (he hated Klink's Gestapo-appeasing speeches), and then finally at the arrow that stubbornly sat between the 3rd and 4th floors.
German efficiency had a lot to answer for, he decided.
Outside the elevator, a small crowd had amassed. The hotel manager and several of the guests were listening intently; occasionally a man's angry tirade and violent banging could be heard. The Kripo had been called a while ago, but had yet to show up. Schultz was standing to the side, pale and nervous. At a nearby table, just out of his earshot, sat four befuddled prisoners. Their mission was long finished—all that was left was for someone to hurry up and fix the elevator.
"He's going to kill us," Carter muttered again, fidgeting with his gloves.
"Us?" Kinch gave him a level glare. Carter winced. Newkirk shook his head.
"You better hope he doesn't come out of there completely barmy," he said in a low voice.
"Pauvre type," LeBeau added sympathetically.
"Well how was I supposed to know the elevator was old and due for a breaking down?!" Carter exclaimed, his voice just low enough to not be overheard, "Besides, I may have been the one to suggest it, but the Colonel's the one who agreed to it!"
"Shut up, Carter," Newkirk snapped, still looking at the elevator, "'E agreed that the plan would last ten bloody minutes. And 'ow many has it been now?"
"Thirty-seven," Kinch answered wryly.
"Just listen to that animal!" LeBeau remarked as another angry tirade came out of the elevator, "If he doesn't go insane, he'll go deaf." Kinch and Newkirk nodded.
"…Well there is one bright side to this," Carter spoke up a minute later, after the yelling stopped.
"What is it now?" Newkirk demanded venomously.
"We got the agent out in nine minutes."
The triplet glares he received told Carter not to open his mouth again, especially if he had another brilliant idea involving elevators.
"This is all my fault," Klink sobbed. Though Hogan and Hochstetter had fully expected him to start crying at some point, they still couldn't believe it was actually happening.
"Um, there, there?" Hogan offered.
"Klink, you are an embarrassment to the glorious Third Reich you keep prattling about," Hochstetter scowled, "And what do you mean your fault? Are you working with Papa Bear?"
"No," Klink took out a handkerchief and blew his nose, "But I remembered that some time ago, there was a guard stationed at Stalag 13. His name escapes me now, but he was a terrible guard. Lots of escape attempts happened on his watch—no successful ones, of course, because you know, no one ever es—
"Get on with it!"
"R-right," Klink deflated and dabbed at his eyes again, "Since he was so terrible I had him sent to the Russian Front. But…"
"Yes?" Somehow Hogan had the vague suspicion he knew where this story was going.
"Sometime before his transfer, I happened to overhear a conversation he had with Schultz. About his life before the war. And it turns out…before the war… he lived in Hammelburg… and repaired elevators."
Hochstetter let out a deep frustrated growl-sounding sigh. Klink continued his dramatic sobbing.
"Well fancy that," Hogan's voice cracked.
"Alright, Kommandant, truth or dare?" Hogan asked. Klink frowned and looked at the empty gun on the floor between them. The barrel was pointing between them, but it was decidedly closer to Hogan, he noted.
"Oh no, you don't," Klink, back to his usual arrogant self, wagged a finger at him, "It's your turn. Hogan, truth or dare?"
"Really, are you sure?" Hogan said in a dull tone, "No, it's definitely pointing at you, sir." Hogan was the one spinning the gun (which made an excellent substitute for a bottle when there was no risk of it going off, preferable as that was at the moment though), and he made sure to always have it land near Klink or Hochstetter. It wasn't much, but the silly game kept the Kommandant distracted, and helped pass the time. And it had the added bonus of grating Hochstetter's nerves, but then sitting quietly also seemed to do that. It was less fun though.
"Maybe we should spin again," Hogan suggested, "Just to be sure." But as soon as he reached for the gun, Hochstetter grabbed his wrist.
"No, it's your turn," he snarled, "Truth. You are Papa Bear! Admit it!"
"Major, that's not how it works," Hogan sighed for the umpteenth time. This was why he tried not to have the gun land on him. "I'm supposed to pick whether I want a truth or a dare. And if it's truth, you're supposed to ask a question and I answer it honestly. And, again, the answer is no. Can't you ask something else?"
Klink wanted to ask something else, but Mount Hochstetter erupted before he could even get a sound out. Reminded of Papa Bear once again, Hochstetter threw himself at the door demanding their immediate rescue.
Either way, the game was over.
Sitting silently may not have been fun, but it was something. Each man occupied one corner of the elevator, head leaning against the wall, lost in their thoughts. No one dared check their respective time pieces any more. Thinking about how long they'd been in the elevator was just depressing at this point.
"Elevator silence," Hochstetter suddenly muttered under his breath. Hogan and Klink looked up warily, fearing another incoming rant. It was downright unsettling how all that screaming seemed to have no effect on the Major's voice. Their ears couldn't take much more of it though, so they didn't risk saying anything that could set him off.
"It's all because of elevator silence," he continued, "If they would just talk in the elevator instead of being quiet mice, we wouldn't have had to get rid of him. And then someone would still be monitoring the bug in the button panel."
Hogan and Klink automatically turned to the button panel. Klink edged closer to Hogan, who would have moved back had he not already been in the corner.
"What is he talking about?" Klink whispered. Hogan shook his head.
"I have no idea. But, the way I see it, Herr Kommandant," he said as Hochstetter kept muttering, "If we don't go crazy once in a while, we'll all go crazy. You had your turn, now it's his."
Klink nodded, satisfied with that answer. "Does that mean it's your turn next?"
Hogan wasn't sure if it really was his turn to rant like a loon, or if he was just feeling vindictive, but suddenly in the middle of the silence, he said, "You know, we've been here for quite a while right? We've ranted a bit, banged doors a bit, cried a bit, played Truth or Dare for a bit, but you know the one thing we haven't done yet? Bonded."
"Bonded," Klink repeated the word disdainfully.
"That's right," Hogan nodded, "After spending…time like this, we're practically best buds! You know, it's been ages since I heard anything about the war effort, or what's been going on around these parts. POW life gets kinda dull, you know. So how 'bout it, pals? Anything interesting to share?"
Hogan's grin fell as soon as Klink opened his mouth. Stories about Klink's sad excuse for a love life were not what he had in mind. He really was going crazy. He couldn't even weed out information correctly.
Even worse; Hochstetter was so far gone that he was sitting there enjoying Hogan's visible struggle not to bang his head against the door, and refusing to silence Klink.
Karma must have decided that listening to Klink act like he had game was punishment enough, for after the eighth dreadful yarn, there was a sudden shake and the elevator slowly began to move. The suddenly heard the familiar ping of an elevator reaching its destination and, as if in slow motion, the doors opened revealing a crowd of curious and nervous Kripo members, Gestapo men and the mousy hotel manager, who really wished he could be anywhere else right now.
Unfortunately, Hochstetter spotted him right away, but fortunately the moment he stepped out of the elevator and saw the slightly guilty faces of his fellow Gestapo and the lack of underground agent in their custody, he unleashed his pent-up rage on them instead. And then the Kripo for taking their sweet time fixing this.
The hotel manager instead got to be yelled at by Klink, which was also unpleasant, but Klink's way of getting his point across was through posturing, while Hochstetter's was through shooting people, so the manager certainly wasn't complaining. He just kept apologizing for the inconvenience.
Hogan slipped past him and Schultz, who gave him a pitying look, and went straight towards his men.
"Tell me the agent is safe and sound," he said quickly, not giving them a chance to voice their apologies or concern.
"Yes, Colonel," Kinch answered, "We got him out."
"In nine minutes!" Carter quickly added, before shrinking back behind Kinch once more.
"Good, good," Hogan sat down, "Now who wants to tell me what the hell happened?"
Kinch, Newkirk and LeBeau instantly turned to the Tech Sergeant, the one who had suggested using the elevator as a distraction in the first place.
"Carter?" Hogan said evenly, "You told me you knew how to operate the elevator."
"I did!" Carter insisted, "I mean, I do! It stopped before I even touched it!"
"You mean—
"The bloody lift broke on its own," Newkirk said, "Bad luck, that."
"Bad luck is a bit of a understatement!" Hogan exclaimed, not caring how he crazed he sounded, "I was stuck in there for hours. With Hochstetter. And Klink!"
"We heard them," LeBeau said, shaking his head, "Mon Colonel, you deserve a medal."
"I deserve hazard pay," Hogan retorted. He was glad that no one dared ask what went on in there, because he was looking forward to forgetting it as quickly as possible. "Kinch, remember those plans we had to add an elevator to the tunnels?"
"Yeah?"
"Scrap 'em. Stairs are superior. Never complaining about 'em again."
"Yes, sir."
Hogan nodded. He was ready to go back to good old Stalag 13 and put this day out of his mind. But then, Carter spoke again.
"Um, Colonel?" he said timidly.
"What?"
Carter glanced around, uneasily. "You know… you never did retrieve your hat…the one you 'forgot' upstairs to get Hochstetter into the elevator in the first place…"
Hogan glanced up. He'd left it on the top floor. It was a very tall hotel.
He slammed his hand on the table and slowly got up. "Schultz, I need a favor…"
AN: Thanks for reading! :)
(I feel so rusty after a year of not being active in this fandom (sorry)... I hope this still turned out okay though. I've wanted to write a story like this for a while, though somehow I think it sounded better in my head ^^")
Lines used:
Could you possibly try not to hit every single one? - Alexander Dane/Dr. Lazarus in Galaxy Quest
If we don't go crazy once in a while, we'll all go crazy. - Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H