Chuck breathed in deeply, trying to calm his erratic heartbeat. His pulse was racing. He wiped his sweating palms on his khakis. Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward, peeking out from behind the off-white wall he was crouched against. After glancing around the store for a few seconds, he jerked his head back. No sight of Sarah yet.
This didn't mean anything, however, no matter how prone to panic Chuck felt. Sarah had told him to give her time, and he was going to do that. He was going to prove to her that he was useful.
His leg ached, threatening to fall asleep, and Chuck grimaced. After glancing out one more time, he shifted position and sat down, his legs crossed Indian style. He resisted the urge to stretch his leg out in front of him. He had never before had to spend such a long period of time on the store's tile floor, and the hard material made it impossible to get comfortable.
Chuck rubbed his thigh, trying to get the blood flowing again. A quick look at the clock told him that it was almost five in the evening. His first thought was, It's almost time to go home. His second thought was, You can't go home, you idiot. Not now, maybe not ever.
Well, that was depressing. He didn't want to think about that, so he twisted around and looked around the wall. His eyes scanned the store, and on the second sweep, he noticed Sarah glaring at him from the showroom. She was almost completely hidden in shadow, except for her face. Her blue eyes flashed at him in a way that would have terrified him if he hadn't known who they belonged to. Finally! she mouthed. Come on!
Chuck nodded hastily. His palms were sweating again. He got back into his original crouch, leaning heavily against the wall, and quickly wiped off his hands again before looking back out into the store. He looked both ways, like any good driver would, and saw nobody coming in either direction. A second to gather his nerves and for Sarah to roll her eyes at him, and he took off. Slowly. Very slowly. He crouched across the aisle, his hands almost brushing the floor.
When he reached the first wall of shelves, he paused and peeked around it. No one was coming, and when he looked back at Sarah, she was trying to tell him as much. She gestured him over impatiently, and he made a face at her.
She raised her eyebrows at him, in a Did you really just do that? way that made Chuck feel like his caution was the epitome of stupid. He pressed his lips together and checked again, but he could still see Sarah motioning to him from the corner of his eyes.
He sighed. Fine. If I get killed, it's your fault, he thought mutinously, then he took off again, this time moving slightly faster. Sarah watched him as he crossed the distance between them, glancing around to make sure he wasn't about to run into someone with a gun. When the first three aisles were passed with no such encounters, Chuck grew more confident and sped up.
Sarah was backing into the shadow of the room as he approached, making room for him to get past her through the doorway, when her eyes caught on something. Her eyes widened, and her entire face tensed. Her eyes met Chuck's and she began to mouth something in panic.
Chuck had no idea what she was saying, but the look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know. He skidded to a halt in the middle of an aisle and scrambled backwards. Heavy footsteps were approaching, getting steadily louder. Chuck pulled himself behind the shelves so violently his hand swept into an off-brand ipad and sent it crashing to the floor.
The footsteps stopped suddenly and Chuck cursed mentally. He knew Sarah was doing the same without turning to look at her. He hesitated for a split second over whether he should replace the ipad on the shelf or not, but heard more noise, panicked, and ran to the next aisle as quickly as he could without making a noise or straightening his back and letting his head protrude too high.
He pushed his back against a shelf of coffee pots and forced himself to take long, quiet breaths instead of hyperventilating. The footsteps were now accompanied by low muttering. The man was talking to himself, Chuck soon realized. His voice was so deep and low that Chuck was unable to make out any specific words.
He could hear the cracks in the man's knees as he crouched. He muttered a curse, and Chuck slowly peered around the shelf. A huge man was in the middle of the aisle, taking up most of the space in it. Standing up, he was probably something like seven feet tall. He picked up the ipad and studied it. Chuck assumed he was searching for cracks in the surface or other damage.
Chuck decided to call him Grouch. He couldn't explain why, but it just seemed to fit. Grouch had thick eyebrows over dark brown eyes that made him look permanently disgruntled, as if he had ordered some fries from a drive thru and only realized that he had received no ketchup to eat it with a few miles later.
After he was satisfied with the ipad, he stood and placed it back on the shelf. At full height, he towered over Chuck, who was on his hands and knees by this point. He tried to move back hastily, just to be safe, and his heel caught the metal bottom shelf. A small box threatened to tip over the edge. Chuck glanced back and, when he saw this, lunged to catch it before it fell.
He just managed to steady it, but his forehead slammed into the side of the shelf a few feet off the ground. A large coffeepot made of glass with a metal handle was knocked off and shattered on the tile.
All background sound in the store stopped as everyone turned to find the source of the noise. Chuck bit his tongue hard, both to keep from crying out in pain and to reprimand himself for being an idiot, like usual. Grouch, behind him, made a noise, a confused grunt that would seem more at home coming from a Neanderthal.
Chuck sprinted forward, trying to keep as low to the ground as possible. He made it around the corner of the last shelf before the wall and slid to his knees, only checking that the aisle was empty after he entered it.
Grouch was silent, then some glass clinked, like he was moving it around with his foot. "Hey!" he shouted loudly, and the sudden noise almost made Chuck cry out in surprise.
"What was that?" someone called back.
"Something fell off the shelf," Grouch explained. "Someone needs to come clean it up."
"Why don't you do it?" someone else shouted.
"'Cause I don't want to, you moron!"
"But you're closer to it!"
"And you're closer to the ground!" Grouch roared. "Just find a broom and get over here! Aisle thirteen!"
There was silence from the other side of the store, then the sound of faint arguing from several dozen feet away and someone sighing loudly. "Fine! I'll do it! Just like always!" they shouted bitterly.
Grouch rumbled something under his breath again, then began to walk away. As his steps receded, Chuck suddenly remembered how to breathe. He sat for a moment, his heart pounding, before leaning out again to look at Sarah. He was almost back where he had started. The door they had started from was only a few feet behind him. He found Sarah in the shadows of the showroom. She was rubbing her forehead, her eyes closed, and shaking her head.
When she looked up and saw him, she splayed her hands as if to say, What the hell was that?
Chuck shrugged.
Sarah very visibly and deliberately rolled her eyes again. Chuck frowned at her, and got in his starting crouch again, ready to sneak back across the store. The showroom was over a dozen feet away. Sarah had made it look so easy when she crossed over. She did it in one try in under half a minute, while Chuck had been stuck out in the open for what felt like the most nerve wracking hours of his life. Of course, most things Sarah made look effortless ended up eating Chuck for breakfast. He should be used to it.
Chuck started forward again, skirting around the broken glass carefully. Sarah was watching him intently, all traces of annoyance wiped off her face as he made his way toward her. He stopped between each aisle to be careful, but he was too nervous to really check. He just wanted to reach Sarah.
"Simon! Where the hell is the broom?"
Chuck immediately fell to his knees and hid. The voice had come from a few aisles away.
"I told you!" Someone who must have been Simon responded from across the store in an equally annoyed tone. "There's, like, a closet over there, somewhere."
"Where?"
"Why should I know? Do I work here? No! Thank God," he added in a slightly quieter voice, but still just as frustrated.
"Thanks a lot, Simon!" the voice said sarcastically. "I can always count on you."
"Will you two please just shut up?" someone shouted from the front. "Jake, every store has a broom closet. It's not that difficult!"
"Shut up, Preacher!" Jake, the one looking for the closet, responded maturely.
Preacher responded with a colorful combination of curse words Chuck had never heard before, and Jake didn't volley anything back at him. Instead, he just let out a huge, angry sigh and began walking again. "Every store has a broom closet, Jake," he mimicked angrily. "No, duh!"
He was walking in the area between the showroom and Chuck's aisle. Chuck tried to wait patiently for him to leave, but Jake stopped suddenly. "Oh, would you look that. The broom closet," he said to himself, and began walking again. Chuck waited, mildly frustrated, until he remembered that the broom closet was in line with the aisle he was hiding in.
If Jake reached the closet and turned around, he would see Chuck. And probably shoot him.
Chuck began to move backward slowly, keeping track of Jake as he moved along the outside aisle. As soon as he reached the closet, Chuck could move out and get to the showroom. Only a few more seconds…
"Jake!" a bright voice called, and Chuck froze. Sarah discreetly disappeared from view. A woman jogged out behind Jake and stopped beside the showroom expectantly. Jake kept walking. Soon he would be able to look into Chuck's aisle, and the woman would be in the way of reaching Sarah.
Chuck had to move backwards again. "Oh, come on!" he muttered, but he wasted no time in moving back to the previous aisle.
"Jake!" the woman called, annoyed.
"What?" he asked without bothering to turn around.
"I need your help with something!"
This time, Jake turned. "No, you don't. You're just in denial and too stubborn to get the truth in your thick head."
Chuck heard a sharp intake of breath from the woman. "Jake, I would never-"
"Yes, you would, Maddie," Jake interrupted. "Now, please, go away."
"But-"
"Go. Away."
Maddie huffed. Chuck could just imagine her standing with her arms crossed, one hip jutted out. "Fine. I'll just go ask Preacher."
"Yeah, you have fun with that. He just let some scrawny guy escape into a freezer and lock himself in, but go ahead. I'm sure Preacher will be more than accommodating."
Some scrawny guy? Chuck thought indignantly.
"You're so frustrating!" Maddie stomped her foot.
"Then go away." Jake's voice betrayed little emotion.
Maddie said nothing else, but Chuck could hear her stomping away. He glanced around the corner of the shelves and saw her walking away, her blond ponytail swishing behind her. Chuck couldn't help but be grateful that his relationship with Sarah wasn't like that. Sure, they were always arguing and almost constantly annoyed with each other, but you could hear Jake's true dislike for Maddie in the way he talked. And Maddie herself seemed like she had never matured past seventh grade.
He heard Jake open the closet. "Found the broom, if anyone was wondering," he announced to the store. There was no response, and Jake slammed the door closed.
Chuck got tense and slowly inched to the thinner, far side of the shelves. As Jake walked from the broom closet, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth set in a scowl, Chuck slipped forward through the aisle and waited a beat to hear him sound the alarm.
But Jake said nothing and started to sweep up the glass.
Chuck wasted no time and made a beeline for the showroom. Sarah was waiting for him in the shadowed doorway, her eyes wide as she watched worriedly. As he finally reached her, she grabbed his hand and pulled him in, almost overbalancing him and sending him toppling into the table. As it was, he barely managed to change course and stop himself on the couch. Sarah quickly and quietly closed the door behind him, and there was darkness.
After a few seconds of silence, Chuck's eyes adjusted and he noticed the light permeating through the curtains blocking off the windows, just enough to barely see the outlines of the room. He was breathing heavily, his pulse still racing from his close encounters. He readjusted on the couch and forced himself to slow his breaths.
There was some rustling, and he felt Sarah climb onto the couch beside him, careful not to run into him. "You okay?" she asked quietly.
"What? Oh, yeah, I'm fine." He paused. "You just make it look so easy."
"Years of practice," Sarah pointed out.
"I know," Chuck said, "but you would think I'd have gotten better at it by this point. Right?"
"I don't know. Maybe you're just bad at this kind of stuff."
"Oh, yeah, that's so much better."
"Maybe, next time," Sarah said slowly, "don't break everything within a mile radius?"
Chuck made a face at her reflexively before realizing that she couldn't see it. "I just made a face at you."
"Good to know."
There was another silence that stretched out for forever, or, so it seemed to Chuck. He was on the verge of saying something stupid just to break it when Sarah lunged forward. Chuck jerked his arms up to protect himself, but Sarah had him pinned.
He slowly realized she was hugging him.
"Please don't ever do that again," she said in his ear. "I almost had a heart attack."
Chuck's pulse was in overdrive. Heat rushed to his cheeks, and he had never been so glad to be in the dark. "Me too," he managed to get out. When Sarah didn't let him go, he awkwardly lifted his hands to wrap around her.
She stayed there for another second or two before moving back just as suddenly as she had started it. "Anyway," she said, and Chuck saw her toss her hair out of her face. "Now that that's over-" she started.
"Hey!" someone shouted inhumanly loudly from outside. Chuck flinched violently, recognizing the voice as Jake's.
"What?" someone else called back, irritated.
"Where the hell is the dustpan?"
Hey, look! A new chapter! One of these hasn't been spotted in years!
But, yeah, sorry, about that. I hope you enjoy it anyway. I am extremely thankful your patience.
Thanks for reading!