Last Ones Left by Adan Ramie

Author:Adan Ramie [Ramie, Adan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2021-03-01T16:00:00+00:00

Long minutes passed and her heartbeat picked up speed again. She didn’t hear anything. She couldn’t see anything. Her skin crawled with prickly cold and she wrapped her arms across her chest and tucked her hands in on her sides.

“Please, Jolie, come back,” she said over and over so that it sounded like a chant. “Please, Jolie, come back.”

Then Jolie’s head was back in the opening, and Riley felt like crying with relief.

“What happened? Did you find something?”

“Of course, I did,” Jolie said, and slid something small and metal into the hole. Riley grabbed it and lowered it to the floor. “Pop it open. It’s one of those step stools short people use in their kitchens. I’m sure you have one, right? I know I do.”

Riley fiddled with the shiny metal poles until she had the little step stool popped open as far as it would go. It didn’t stand more than a foot high. She pushed it up against the concrete wall and stepped on it.

She reached as far as she could on the tips of her toes, and Jolie reached out for her, but their fingertips slipped over each other.

Riley felt her heart plummet into her stomach as she stretched and couldn’t make her fingers hook onto Jolie’s.

Jolie sighed and pushed herself up off the carpeted floor. “Okay, you really are short. We need something else.” She got onto her feet. “I’ll be back. Stay down so you don’t get yourself killed.”

“Wait!” Riley cried out, but Jolie didn’t hear her or didn’t respond. In moments, she was gone, and Riley was alone in the dark hole again. “Please hurry.”

Jolie was only gone another couple of minutes. Riley didn’t have a chance to go into full-blown panic mode, so when she saw Jolie’s face, she managed a smile instead of a grimace.

“Try this,” Jolie said, and handed down a folding chair. “I must have been blind as hell to not see it before. If it’s not tall enough, you can probably put the stool on the chair and make it that way. Be careful. If you fall and hurt yourself, I won’t be able or willing to go down in that hole and get you. You’re on your own.”

Riley opened the folding chair and made sure it was sturdy on the floor before she settled the folding step stool on top of it. The structure was wobbly and insecure, and in any other situation, Riley would have waited it out instead of trying her luck.

But this wasn’t an ordinary situation, and she could easily imagine herself losing her mind in the hours or days it would take for someone else to get her out, so she took a breath and started to climb slowly up the metal monstrosity.

“I told you to be careful,” Jolie warned.

“I’m trying. Stop harping on me.”

Jolie watched from above as Riley climbed. A thump sounded from behind Jolie. She scrambled to her feet and faced away from Riley.

“Who is that? I know you’re out there, so you can show yourself now before I go off on you.

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