Room Service & Other Short Stories
Page 2
“Shadows you say?” Courtney asked, adjusting her itchy pea coat.
“Yes ma’am, they are beneath us,” Ray said.
Inching closer to each other they almost whisper to one another.
“This will be a long process. The mystic sea is what wakes me up every morning. We have to get to the bottom of what is going on.”
“Where do we begin? Scientists can’t even fathom what has happened and what is yet to come.”
The buzzing screens indicate different shapes, sounds and symbols. Each worker has their own work station to paste tiny pictures of the loved ones they’ve left behind.
“I need a status report as soon as possible,” She said, looking across the room to the other workers.
“Yes ma’am.”
The screens flow through her brain as she passes each one, searching for the answer. Some type of progress. Anything. Only a large dark shadow dots the debris filled sea like a million ants mocking her.
“Starkey, any word yet on the sea conditions today?”
“No ma’am. All we know so far is that the more we mess with nature, the more dangerous this will all become,” Starkey said, wiping off his glasses.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion, I just want everything to be in order before I press that button. The truth will come to us all then.”
“Ma’am with all due respect, if we go that route we will reek havoc on the environment and the citizens who have no clue what is going on out there.”
“It’s a risk I am willing to take. Just do your job and I will do mine. Keep me informed every hour.”
“Will do,” he said.
Grabbing her coffee, Courtney peers at her screen with all of the instructions to blow up the ocean floor. Then there is the button with it’s sparkly, computer generated effervescence, waiting to be pushed.
“It is so good knowing that just by the touch of her finger, we could all be destroyed, and for what? So she can be in a magazine with her pretty head on the cover for those who may have a chance of surviving to read it?” Ray said, hiding in a corner of the lab.
“She is only taking orders from those who are just as mad as she is, sir,” the voice on the other end of the line said.
“Well, I can’t just stand here and let her do this. I want to know what keeps crowding our ocean floor just as much as everyone else here, but not at the expense of innocent people.”
“Go with either Plan B or C, sir. It is your work, your sweat and tears, you decide.”
“We can make America safe again. We have our brightest on the job working twenty-fours hours a day ensuring this happens,” John says.
Ray always looked up to Senator John for his ambition and made sure he had his hand held radio with him to hear his speeches. They were best friends growing up through all the terror under the sea, telling stories with tiny chins resting on top of flashlights.
Straightening his glasses, “The sea bed is collapsing just under this grayish area,” Starkey said, poking at the big screen.
Turning off his radio, Ray walked around to his computer, putting his face closer to the screen to see every nook and cranny of what was happening.
“This is a good thing. The more nature runs its course, the less chance she can destroy it.”
“I think the best thing to do now is to alert the Coast guard, sir. If they are anywhere near this they will get sucked under too. It is a whirlpool of the sea board crashing. The mass of that grayish area is causing this eruption.”
“Let’s just see what happens.”
“Yes sir,” Starkey said, biting the inside of his cheeks.
“Here she comes.”
“Any word yet on the sea level, Starkey?”
“Looks like the sea board is falling apart, breaking up like the after effects of a wine bottle being smashed into a wall.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I don’t like wine then huh?” She said, hands on her tiny waist.
“Once you give me the report on the sea levels and without some analogies about bottles, your services will be no longer needed here.
“Ma’am?” Starkey spun around to face her so fast his glasses flew onto the floor.
“You think I don’t know about you? I won’t have you around mucking up the waters any more than they already are. Leave quietly.”
Reaching down to grab his glasses, heat radiated from his hand to his throat.
“If you ever come near this lab again I will end you. Got it?”
She took her size seven boot off of his hand and walked off.
“You okay man?” Ray asked.
“Yes sir, I’m with you. Go with plan C. I’ve been studying the ocean floor for years,” Starkey said, regaining his composure.
“I’ll be around.”
Ray rushed to his computer, sweat rolling off of his temples, looking up his plans one last time before making a decision. If Courtney knew of his plans he would certainly be hog tied and thrown out into the sea.
The ground shook, while waves crashed against the levee that everyone could see just outside the spotless window by the water cooler where Courtney stood, hands clenched behind her back.
“I’m going to end all of this,” she whispered.
Walking up to her, “Ma’am I’m going with my plan. Your death warrants for this city are no longer needed.”
Busting open the window with his radio, he pushed her face close to one of the glass shards dangling on the side. He pressed his mouth against her ear.
“I’m going with Plan C. You're done here," he said, tossing her out of the window, watching her body shatter like a red wine bottle onto the seaboard floor.