Wait them out

After moments of furious thinking, Jen decided it was slightly less risky to wait for the ladies to finish moving their inventory in. Even though the storeroom door behind her could open at any moment, she was worried that if she ran for the hallway the woman ahead of her might notice her out of the corner of her eye.

Please just hurry up, Jen mentally plead.

Bit by bit she watched as the inventory get shifted into the store. The intervals between the boxes being picked up wasn’t regular, the lady inside the store likely having to move them to different parts of their stock room as she brought them in. Four seconds here, ten seconds there. Jen kept glancing behind herself, concerned that it was only a matter of time before someone came for the inventory she was hiding behind.

After several minutes Jen saw the woman standing in the hallway hand a box off to her co-worker, then grab the last one herself and walk back into her store. Jen took a split second to listen carefully and, hearing no one approaching, she left the stack of boxes and started moving. She bypassed the trash bags she had considered hiding behind and scurried to another inventory stack, two large boxes side-by-side and one long, narrow box on top. She leaned against the wall and squatted down, suddenly feeling a poke in the side of her butt. Nearly yelping, more out of surprise than pain, she shifted away from the wall and looked down. Set low into the wall was a plastic vent cover, slightly cool air drifting out of it.

Guess that’s what I felt.

Jen turned back towards the hallway ahead and started planning her next move. Several stacks of boxes still remained ahead, piles of filled trash bags, and stretches of empty ground with nothing to take cover behind. Placing a hand on the wall, she was about to stand up when a door further ahead opened.

“Shit, can you believe Kacey?” a male voice said.

Ducking lower behind the boxes, Jen watched as three teen boys stepped into the hallway. She watched one turn away and lean against the wall, facing the other two as they let the door close behind them.

“Why does she never have to close?” the same teen asked, “ever since I started working here, I’ve never once seen her scheduled for a closing shift.”

“She’s a better seller than anyone else, she gets her pick of shift.”

“That’s it? Seriously?”

Jen tuned out their discussion and leaned back against the wall, the cold painted brick hard against her nude butt and back. It seemed likely the clerks were on their break She checked her hiding spot and thought the top of her head might be poking out from the top of the boxes. Maybe not enough for anyone to realize what they were seeing, but more than she was comfortable with. She began thinking about what she could do to get past them.

Looking backwards there was only more hallway. If the shop doors were locked then going that way might expose her for no reason. She looked back and considered the boxes.

Maybe there’s something in there I could throw and create a distraction, she thought. Jen considered this idea for a few moments. She could throw it behind her and if it worked, the teens would walk right past her. With any luck they might not look to their side, but she didn’t like her chances.

Suddenly she stopped feeling cool wind on her butt and realized the vent wasn’t putting out air any more.

The vent, she thought, I think I can fit through there. But for how far? If it gets narrower then I might get stuck. Still, that would mean those teens wouldn’t walk past me. It’s one or the other, otherwise I’m stuck here until their break is over…