Hide and Seek

The department store stood in the middle of downtown Nashville; with its skyscraper height, intriguing modern design, and at least one store to make each member of the family want to tag along; it was the ideal weekend outing for all.

Not to mention, it’s the largest in the entire county. It has 4 stories, with six janitors for the entire department store, each covering a section that took them nearly their whole shift to complete, ending with the building being spotless and ready for the next day of shoppers. Dean was in charge of the third floor and he liked it that way, because it was the quietest and least used, for anything.

One night, Dean had a new employee he was training, named Rick. A few hours into the shift, Dean left to stock up on a few things and left Rick a list of what needs to be completed, then left him to work. As the night went on, he was getting the list checked off at a good pace, until he heard something he knows, that at that moment, he shouldn’t have…Pop…pop…pop.

It was coming from around the corner of where he was mopping. Again, he heard the popping, but this time carefully set the mop on the floor and slowly went to the corner and peered around, watching down the hallway. Bubble wrap cluttered the long stretch of linoleum, unraveled and torn; with nobody in sight for a clue as to who was unwrapping whatever was there only moments before.

Rick tried to use his hand radio to get in touch with Dean, but it was no use– the radio was completely dead. Rick turned around and started to head to the janitors’ office, but stopped instantly; hairs on his neck and arms stood straight up, his face turned stark white and he was frozen in horror at the sight of a mannequin standing in the doorway, without a pose…

Just as fast as he blinked, Rick saw Dean coming down the hall, but couldn’t open his mouth, because he was still unable to process what had just happened. As Dean approached him, he looked over to see what Rick had been trying to motion to, but when he did, the doorway was clear.

After a minute and still shaky from what he had seen, Rick found his voice and tried to explain in his words what he had just witnessed, trying not to leave out any details. When he was done, Dean nodded his head, looked around the room and leaned into Rick so he could talk softly, almost as if he was whispering so nobody could hear…“Rick, they found you; now it’s your turn to be it in their game of hide and seek.”