There were nine of us in a room littered with monitors, yet there was only one screen we cared about. We all huddled around the television that hung on the wall as we watched a live news report about a man who was holding people hostage in a local store. Yep. That was us!
The perpetrator came as I was picking out snacks to pull an all-nighter. If I hadn’t procrastinated, I wouldn’t have been there. The guy had his face covered and a gun extended. He told us to get on the ground and forced the cashier to give him all of the money in the store. If the clerk had only cooperated, the robber would have left and I could have gone home. But, no! Mister Hero had to set off a silent alarm. The cops showed up before our thief left. He grabbed me off of the floor and put a gun to my head. He shouted at the cops to back away, and they did. I forgot how to breathe for a few minutes while he had the store owner drop the security gates to lock us inside. He made everyone get into the small security room at the back of the store. I was hoping I got to go with everyone else, but he had other plans. He slammed the door shut on them, shouting for them to stay put.
The phone rang. We looked at each other. I couldn’t keep myself from asking, “You going to get that, Rob?”
“Rob?” he asked me.
“Rob the robber,” I chuckled, my captor letting out a growl. Why did I have to make everything a joke?
He leveled the gun to my skull again. “Pick it up.”
I put it on speaker. “This is Officer Bennings with the police. Who am I speaking with?”
“Rob the robber,” he said, copying me.
“How many people are in the building with you?”
“Ten. I’ll hurt them if you don’t let me go.”
I rolled my eyes. “There’re nine of us, dude.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sure there is a way for us to work this out,” the cop said.
“Let me go, or they die!” Rob repeated, hanging up. He motioned with his gun. “Stand by that wall and don’t move.”
“Okay.” He kept his gun pointed at me, using one hand to build a contraption out of a propane tank. He broke a hole in the wall of the security room and connected it to the tank. Then, he told me to go inside. I shook my head no. “You just made that room a bomb!”
“Nah. It’s worse than that,” Rob said. “Get in!”
Looking back down at his gun, I gulped and made my way past him. When I got inside, I saw cloth get shoved under the door. I groaned. It was worse! “He’s gassing us!”
“What?” asked a lady behind me. The smell of fumes made everyone start screaming.
Rob spoke through the door as the phone started ringing again, “Don’t try to break out, or I’ll blow you off the face of the earth!”
“Real original, Rob,” I sighed to myself as I rubbed my head and turned on the television. My professor’s grating voice came to mind. ‘This is why you do your schoolwork in a timely fashion!’ Honestly, I’d rather listen to him than be here. I was trapped with strangers, watching to see if the cops would save us from our impending doom... or should I say boom?
Outside, Rob told the cops, “Things have changed. You will let me go, or these people will die. They’re choking on propane as we speak. They have a half-hour, tops! Which means you have five minutes. I want a twenty-minute head start. No cops. I have the detonator on me. I will light this candle if I see any of you blues on my tail. You hear?”
“What about the hostages?”
“If you enter the store early or if they try to break out, I’ll know. So, don’t try anything. I’m leaving you five minutes to get in and get them. If you want more time, let me out earlier.” I had to admit, Rob was pretty good at negotiations… I still hoped he’d get caught.
The line on the phone was silent for a moment, then Officer Bennings spoke up, “Alright. You can leave now. As soon as you step out the door, we will start your twenty minutes.”
I watched cop cars backing away from the store on the news. I heard tapping in the other room and the short blast of a loud song. The store’s door chimed a few seconds later as Rob left. I was shocked. I always thought these hostage things took hours. I guess when you start poisoning people, the timetable shortens.
A text came up on my phone. It was my little brother. He sent me a photo of when Rob was holding a gun to my head at the front of the store. He asked if the guy in the photo was me. I smiled a bit, but didn’t respond. He’d just worry more if I did.
My eyes widened at the sight on the news. Policemen were slowly approaching the door of the store! I dialed 9-1-1. Before the person on the phone could speak, I shouted, “I am a hostage in the store on Main. Call Officer Bennings and tell him not to come in! I repeat! Do not come in until the twenty minutes are up!”
“Sir,” a woman said, “the perpetrator is gone.”
“He will know! Trust me! Don’t follow him either, alright?”
Disbelieving cops were only half of my problem as the store clerk whispered, “He’s gone! Let’s get out of here! I have the key to the door!”
He started moving the key towards the hole it went in. That’s when I noticed something else. This room was carpeted. With all of the shuffling we’d been doing, we surely built up some static electricity. I knew as soon as the key reach the door, it was game over. BOOM! I single spark to kill us all.
“Stop! Don’t touch anything!” I shouted at him, the cop on the phone still rambling on about how I was safe. “Even a spark of static will blow us all to bits!”
The guy lifted his arms up in worry. I put the call on speaker as I explained the situation to everyone. “I heard him call his cell phone off of the store phone! He’s listening! If he hears them come through the door or us try to get out of this room, we’re all dead! So… TELL OFFICER BENNINGS NOT TO COME IN!”
The cops on the news were reaching towards the handle of the door at that very moment! All of us in the room held our breath. They stopped and back away. I huffed. I was starting to get dizzy. I didn’t know if it was the stress, or the poisonous gas filling my lungs. Trying to control my breathing, I told the other people in the room, “Listen. We have to remain calm. Don’t touch anything, and try to breathe as shallowly as you can. We don’t have a lot of oxygen left in here. Let’s make it last, okay?”
From that point on, we all remined silent. It felt like an eternity. I got weaker and weaker. A couple people passed out. We left them where they fell, afraid that physical contact might spark the gas. I felt bad, but what was I supposed to do? I had to get home to my little brother. Coughing on the toxic air, I watched the timer on the news screen. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
The door of the store chimed once again. We were safe! Officers reassured us as they withdrew the propane tank and opened the door for us. The others ran out as soon as they could, but I waited. The officers came in and lifted the two people off of the floor. One wrapped his arm around me and helped me to an ambulance.
As I lay on a gurney with an oxygen mask, Officer Bennings said to me, “Brian Nelson?”
“How did you?”
“You’re scheduled to enroll in the academy after you get your criminal justice degree.”
“Ah, right,” I said. They had my face on file.
“You really proved yourself in there today. Your attention to detail saved lives!”
“Thanks.”
He handed me his card. “When you graduate, come to my precinct. I can guarantee you that spot in the investigative department you want.”
“What about Rob?”
“He’s in the wind, but we’ll catch him. We can trace him using the number he left on the store phone.”
I let out a breath of relief and passed out with only one thought in my head. The professor has got to let me take the exam another day!
Please respect copyright laws. This short story is the work of S. S. Snodgrass.
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