There is a button marked with the word Emergency. I press it but nothing happens. I hit it again and again. Nothing.
Cellphone,I think as I yell, “Help!” again. “Someone help me.”
I dig into my handbag for my phone, pulling it out only to find no service.
“That’s great,” I say, taking a deep breath. “Help!” The word slips into a scream that keeps going until my throat is raw and I can’t do anything but sink to the ground. I wrap my hands around my knees, closing my eyes and trying to get a hold of myself. How much air is there in here? How long can it last?
I shuck off my overcoat. I’m sweating like crazy. It’s too warm. I’m never getting out of here.
I’m about to scream again when I hear something. A scraping sound, coming from above me. I listen hard. “Is someone there?” I call out.
No answer, just more scraping. I press my ear to the door. It’s above me, like another door opening. “Can you hear me? I’m stuck in here.”
“I know,” a man’s voice calls back. “Just keep calm.” It’s a deep growl of a voice, like a bear that’s only recently learned how to talk. I get an image of a grizzly using its claws to scrape open a nice tinned can of Ophelia. “You need to stay calm,” the voice says as I let out a shriek of panic.
I bark a high pitched laugh. “Keep calm, he says to me. Stay calm. Like I’m not calm. He tells me to keep calm but I am calm.” I raise my voice. “I am calm. Don’t tell me to stay calm.” I don’t like the hysterical note to my words. “I’m the calmest woman on the planet.”
“Talk to me.”
“What?”
“What’s your name?”
“What?”
“Your name. What is it?” More scraping behind his voice followed by a grunt.
“Ophelia. My friends call me Fee.”
“Got a last name, Ophelia?”
“Addams. Ophelia Addams.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three, why?”
“You always lived in New York, Fee?”
“No, I moved here from Minnesota when I turned sixteen.”
“What brings you into the Felici building at this time of night apart from to break my elevator?”
“I didn’t break it. It just broke.”
“Sure it did. What are you doing here, Ophelia?”
“I’m supposed to be cleaning an office on the tenth floor. The big boss’s office.”
“Judy cleans that.”
“She’s off sick. The administrator called the agency Cathy works for but she was double booked so here I am, filling in.”
There’s a loud crunch and then the doors in front of me scrape open.
Through the gap I see an ax and I get an insane image of Jack Nicholson breaking through, about to yell, “Here’s Johnny.”
The ax forces the doors apart. Another couple of inches and there’s enough of a gap for me to see out.