The Gift Shop at Dad's Work
Kevin couldn't wait until he turned twelve. Twelve was less than a week away,and what with tonight being Halloween, his birthday just wasn't getting here quick enough. Each day Kevin's parents saw his restlessness, and his father decided to get his mind off all the waiting and take him to the night shift with him like he would do from time to time. Kevin's mother packed two lunches for them that evening, and they were off to work.
His father worked most nights at a power plant. A minimal staff kept watch over jumping needles behind glass gauges, and any real or dangerous work was mostly handled by the day staff. It was a relaxed environment, and he thought it was just the sort of thing Kevin would find cool, especially when he offered him a "job' when they got there.
The far end of the power plant had been a low-ceiling, separate clothing store that shared their building. It was not energy-themed or anything related, but entirely its own and turned a profit. They sold band shirts and skinny jeans and voicing out black apparel, and plenty of grays and random blues gave the shop something to offer everybody. On staff this evening were Jess and Ryan " the manager " who would be providing Kevin with his employment.
It was real official for Kevin. He had a magnet clip go on his shirt with his name already prepared and he got to punch a time card just like any 9:00-5:00'er. His dad kissed him on the forehead, told him to be safe, and left him to the busy work of folding shirts. Ryan was very friendly, and an even nicer boss when it came to ignoring the idling and wanderings of a youth. One such wandering soon took Kevin down the red-tiled floors where the bathrooms were after thirty minutes of very boring laundry work, chasing a yellow ball with a blue-LED light in it from a basket of such balls for sale near the register. The ball flickered its light some and stopped after a few seconds against the women's bathroom door where he dropped it, just waiting on Kevin now to return it. As he disappeared down the hall, Ryan flirted with his co-worker, Jess.
Kevin picked up the ball and took special notice that the light at the end of this hall was not kept on. He squeezed the ball to turn the strobe within it on again " as if it helped " and flirted with a strong impression to return to the presence of the others, but did not. For reasons Kevin himself could not be blamed for, he entered the unlit women's bathroom.
The flip of a switch filled light to the white floors and line of gray stalls. No more than two steps inside and his ball had gone off, dancing bright light no longer. The halls and rooms of Dad's Work could have gone on infinitely and it all would have been fine if it were lit like this bathroom. He was not scared in the slightest, and used that fearlessness to see just what made the girl's bathroom so different from the boy's. Turned out it was just a boy's bathroom, but without the urinals. It didn't harbor any secret or surprise that he had expected it to live up to. Just lines of stalls, all with shut or nearly shut doors.
Exploring was fun and all, but to keep Kevin entertained meant something a little more than that, in this case at least, so he began tossing his ball up and down until he reached the end. And what were throwing toys for if not to go tumbling down where you should never go' Slipping from his fingers, the ball rolled under the stall next to the one at the end, and what noise came from within made Kevin nearly jump clean out of his light-up shoes.
A girl was in there, and she became scared too when the ball came rolling into her vicinity. She kicked her feet out at the end of the stall where it came from briefly, reactionary almost, like you'd try to fend back from a spider. This also revealed that she had been sitting on the bathroom floor.
"Are you okay in there?" Kevin asked instinctually.
There was no answer. Not a sound from the stall except for when the ball had rolled in. Nothing was out of the ordinary to Kevin, though. He asked again after a moment, this time if she needed anything. Was she hurt, he asked. Did she want him to get anyone for her" Concerned enough then, he knocked on the stall door, and its unlocked status helped his knuckles begin to open the stall door enough to see inside.
She was a girl his age and perfectly normal-looking. She must have been here with her parents somewhere. Maybe her dad was having a meeting with his dad. It wouldn't have been the first time that a meeting was held here at night and he'd had other kids to run around and play with. But never before on Halloween Night.
She answered him. No, she said. She was not okay. She wasn't feeling well. She was much too warm, much too hot, she told him. She had yet to open her eyes for him, attributing them to her sick condition while she rest her head back against the tile wall. Kevin wanted to help her, and he asked what he could do for her. Should he go find her parents, he asked.
No, she told him, quickly changing the subject to a more important one.
"I'm burning up," she said, squinting her closed eyes and tossing her face from side to side. Just help me, please, she told him. She needed a fan on, she said, and not just any fan would do. Luckily she knew there was one in the generator room that was just perfect to make her feel better. Kevin was told not to go in there, not unless his father was with him or another adult. But the girl's moaning overturned all caution and danger he'd ever been warned.
"Okay. Wait here," Kevin said. He left the bathroom, leaving the girl and his ball behind. He was now on a mission.
Kevin came back out to the gift shop that he was going to very quickly cut through. He adopted his stealth here and strove to keep it until he was done. If he got spotted anywhere outside where he was supposed to be, it would all be over, and he wouldn't be able to help the girl, he thought. He was at most risk for being captured down the long halls that separated the power plant from the small shop, where there was nowhere to hide. If anyone would spy him, it'd be there, so he tried to walk as quickly as he silently could down it.
The generator room was marked by a red door with a red floor, and it was the room that the night staff had view of from the control room, which tonight was Kevin's dad and one slacker streaming on-demand from his laptop. Kevin entered the room with the generators and quickly took cover behind a yellow cart to get out of sight from his father. He had made it. Now, to locate that fan. There was nothing to speak for other than the propeller fans on the walls and axial fans on the generators themselves, and nearly all of this was used for ventilation and overheat prevention. Kevin didn't see much help in any of this circulating throughout the plant to possibly help that girl. But then he heard her voice...
"Above you, Kevin....Please hurry..."
He looked up, above the large generators he only came up about halfway to. Above those, the floor that accessed them from a secure railing. Above that, another floor much higher where hanging from a crane rope was a large roof exhauster fan, paused and left there from its installation earlier in the workday. Kevin could reach it, maybe, but he'd have to climb.
Up the steel ladder on the wall he went with energy to spare, then up the one on the wall to reach the second story scaffolding. He could have climbed all day, and that was partly to blame for the height he soon arrived at. He was visible from the control room window now, but neither his father nor his co-worker had been looking, his dad busy with his every-ten-minute check of the gauges. The generator room itself saw very little attention during the night shift. Kevin could have clung to that railing all day, he thought, but he would never reach the fan suspended out nearer the middle of the generator room. It was a deadly drop down, those two stories, but he had to switch on that fan.
"Please....I'm burning up..."
The voice sounded horribly distressed now. If he didn't hurry and do something soon....That was when it came to him. He hooked his light-up shoe on the railing and began to lean away on the outside of it, letting go with his hands to reach for the fan. It was so close, just fingertips away from that large plastic switch that turned on like an egg timer. The more life-threatening his reach became, the closer he came to turning the switch, and the more sense the voice made.
"Turn the fan on please..." she whispered from out of sight.
Kevin reached for it with all his effort, and he did grab that switch and flip it, but it was at the cost of his foothold. Headfirst he plummeted the two stories, and the crunch of his neck and thump of his small body wasn't enough to overpower the running generators. At the very same time, the young girl from the bathroom had been spying behind Kevin's father. As Kevin fell, she pushed over a broom from the corner of a bookshelf and a wall to crash behind them and wake them up.
His father sprung up in his chair and looked around the control room and out the window to the generator room. He saw nothing and eased back down while his co-worker picked up the broom, thinking nothing of it. Everything looked as it should be out there: everything running as it should be, and that large fan still off, not even plugged in to anything. Kevin's father couldn't help fend off the feeling, though, that something was out of place. Meanwhile, the young girl had appeared behind the generators standing over Kevin and smiling so widely that it was literally tearing her cheeks apart.
