He slipped in during closing, when no one was watching, sliding a leg down through the open window and finding easy purchase on the highly polished wooden floor. He walked carefully down the dim hallway, avoiding the boards that might creak under his weight and then froze at the first door, silent and still.
Was someone coming?
He held his breath and waited.
No, there was no one there. It must have been the wind. Or the building. Sometimes buildings settle and make noises that only seem to be important when it's getting dark outside. Filling his lungs with air again he pressed on, trying the first door and finding it locked.
He moved on.
After several frustrating minutes he came to the conclusion that all the doors seemed to be locked and so he circled back to the first door, the one closest to the window at the end of the now-dark hall. It appeared to have a rather flimsy doorknob lock in a door that was half-glass, a large window set into it, single-paned, rippled with age.
Doable, he thought.
He took one last look around, just to reassure himself that he was indeed alone.
He covered his eyes with one arm and put his fist through the glass.
It shattered all around him in a deafening crash and he tore his arm away from his face to check again to see if anyone was watching him. The hallway remain deserted but now an alarm was ringing somewhere, deep within the building. He looked at his hand, watching as the blood ran down his knuckles and dripped off the edge of his palm. Any other time he would have been hypnotized by his injuries but he knew he didn't have a moment to waste now that the alarm had been triggered.
He reached through the window and unlocked the door from the inside, throwing it wide open. The door slammed against something on the inside, ricocheting back into his face. He kicked it open again before it struck him and threw himself through the doorway.
Inside he took a quick inventory of the room. There was a small window on the opposite wall that afforded better lighting than what was now in the hall and as he surveyed his surroundings he saw the room contained only a row of wooden file cabinets on each side, their drawers neatly labeled in her modern handwriting, a distinctive blend of capital letters and loopy lowercase, easy to read and impossible to duplicate.
He crossed the room with purpose now, and with rage roiling through his veins he began to rip the drawers out of the cabinets, two at a time, letting the contents fly around the room in a paper blizzard, a storm no one would ever want to be caught in. The beginnings of an evil smile began to tug the corners of his mouth upward and he started to laugh as all the lights began to come on, one by one down the hallway and then the room he was in was suddenly bathed in the harsh fluorescent light of day even though the day was long over.
And that was when the alarm stopped ringing and the screaming began.
Was someone coming?
He held his breath and waited.
No, there was no one there. It must have been the wind. Or the building. Sometimes buildings settle and make noises that only seem to be important when it's getting dark outside. Filling his lungs with air again he pressed on, trying the first door and finding it locked.
He moved on.
After several frustrating minutes he came to the conclusion that all the doors seemed to be locked and so he circled back to the first door, the one closest to the window at the end of the now-dark hall. It appeared to have a rather flimsy doorknob lock in a door that was half-glass, a large window set into it, single-paned, rippled with age.
Doable, he thought.
He took one last look around, just to reassure himself that he was indeed alone.
He covered his eyes with one arm and put his fist through the glass.
It shattered all around him in a deafening crash and he tore his arm away from his face to check again to see if anyone was watching him. The hallway remain deserted but now an alarm was ringing somewhere, deep within the building. He looked at his hand, watching as the blood ran down his knuckles and dripped off the edge of his palm. Any other time he would have been hypnotized by his injuries but he knew he didn't have a moment to waste now that the alarm had been triggered.
He reached through the window and unlocked the door from the inside, throwing it wide open. The door slammed against something on the inside, ricocheting back into his face. He kicked it open again before it struck him and threw himself through the doorway.
Inside he took a quick inventory of the room. There was a small window on the opposite wall that afforded better lighting than what was now in the hall and as he surveyed his surroundings he saw the room contained only a row of wooden file cabinets on each side, their drawers neatly labeled in her modern handwriting, a distinctive blend of capital letters and loopy lowercase, easy to read and impossible to duplicate.
He crossed the room with purpose now, and with rage roiling through his veins he began to rip the drawers out of the cabinets, two at a time, letting the contents fly around the room in a paper blizzard, a storm no one would ever want to be caught in. The beginnings of an evil smile began to tug the corners of his mouth upward and he started to laugh as all the lights began to come on, one by one down the hallway and then the room he was in was suddenly bathed in the harsh fluorescent light of day even though the day was long over.
And that was when the alarm stopped ringing and the screaming began.