It Happened One Night [COMPLETED]

Chapter 5 - "We're screwed!"

Liv raised a fist as she reached the door on the fourth floor, and as if they had been partners signaling to each other for years, Ezra stopped just behind her. She nodded her head, counting down from three before she silently twisted the handle and eased the door open. They both held their breaths as they waited and listened.

When they didn't hear anything, Liv poked her head out just far enough to look around. The door from the stairwell opened up on a long hallway. Every few feet there was a door, but they were all shut. She pushed the door open further and stepped out. Ezra quietly shut the door behind them and they began to slowly creep along the hallway.

All of their muscles were taut, prepared to drop and find cover at the first sign of someone, but they moved uninterrupted. Halfway along the hallway, it branched off in a perpendicular direction. They paused and looked both ways. If they kept walking straight it seemed to lead them towards more closed offices. If they turned right, they could see the short walkway lead to a large open area but they couldn't see how far it reached.

Liv thought it was best to continue straight. Her mind went to finding a good hiding spot and she thought the hallway might offer more concealed positions. She looked at Ezra and motioned moving forward like a question, and he nodded. She peeked around the corner leading to the new walkway, making sure the coast was clear before she quickly cleared the gap. Ezra did it in two big steps.

They continued walking but kept an ear out for anything behind them. When they reached the end of the hallway they discovered it turned into a dead end. As they retraced their steps, Liv tried every doorknob they passed. She wasn't surprised to find them all locked. This floor consisted of small businesses renting individual office space, but she had been hoping to find potential hiding spots.

Without having to signal about it, they paused before they peeked around the corner leading to the open space. The sneaking around that had felt silly and slightly crazy at the beginning of the night was now a necessity with strange people searching the building.

They chose to sneak along the right wall until they reached the end. Like all the other floors, the emergency lights were the only source of illumination, but they were enough to reveal the expansive open space. There were clusters of chairs and coffee tables, and a few desks tucked into the corners. On the far end there was a large desk that looked like a welcome counter and behind that a doorway leading into a dark room.

Liv didn't like moving into a space so open, but standing in the short hallway wasn't much better. She looked at Ezra and he gave her a reassuring nod. He lightly grabbed her upper arm and they stepped out together. He scanned left as she scanned right and they took another step. They made it to the first cluster of chairs without anything happening and let out a sigh of relief.

The chairs were positioned in a pinwheel formation with a table in the middle and on the table was a phone. Liv grabbed Ezra's hand in excitement. It was a landline. There was a chance that since it ran through the power lines, it would still work. She quickly rounded the chair and grabbed the phone. She held it up to her ear hopeful but there was no dial tone. She pressed some of the buttons on the base but there was still no sound. Disappointed, she replaced the phone.

She looked to the other cluster of chairs to see if there were any more phones they could try. There were four more phones. She moved to the next set of chairs and Ezra took a different one. But they got the same result for all four.

She moved on to searching the desk in the corners. She was in a far corner when Ezra whistled quietly to get her attention. He motioned her over to the front desk. She hurried over and saw he had found a fax machine and a computer.

"If we can get the computer on and the internet is still working, we could make contact that way," he whispered.

It was a big 'if' but worth the try. They were searching for the power button for the computer when suddenly they heard voices. They both froze. The voices were coming from the hallway past the front desk. They were still speaking in a foreign language and it was clear there were multiple of them.