Nanoprep 2015 Day 6: Lock And Key
By Robin de Voh on 2015-10-16
It'd been there as long as they all remembered. And none of them had ever seen it opened. The office manager said nobody had the key and nobody had ever tried to open it, either. It was just a closet nobody needed, so her advice was to just leave it be. But it'd been there as long as they all remembered and they all wanted to know quite badly what was in there.
It was a Friday night and all the managers had already left. All of the over 500 nerf darts had been fired at least twice and all beer had been consumed, as well as the bottle of white wine not intended for them.
"So we gonna do this, or what?" Lloyd said as he grabbed and ripped open the last bag of potato chips.
"Lucy's not going to like it," Jeremy said.
"Screw Lucy."
Everybody giggled.
"Okay, okay. We're not the most sober bunch, but I think it's a good plan," Lloyd said, passing the bag to Jeremy.
"Step 1: Drink enough that we can claim not to be responsible for our actions. Check," Ron said, grinning.
"Sure, that's why we drank it all," Jeremy said mockingly.
They laughed.
"Okay, so who's gonna make the call?"
"I will," Ron said as he picked up his phone.
"Alright then," Jeremy said, leaning back in his chair. He was fine not being an active part of this. He also wanted to know what was on the other side of that door.
Ron dialed, "Hello? Bob Hammerton here," he snickered. "We seem to have lost the key to one of our closets, and I saw you guys are the only locksmith still open at this hour. Yes? Hmm. Averton and West, 324. Half an hour? That sounds good to me. Yeah. See you then, thanks."
They burst into laughter just before Ron hung up. "Hammerton?!" "It's all I could think of!"
With half an hour to fill, they decided to sort some e-mail and clean up the nerf darts. Then the bell rang. Ron got up to open the door.
"Hi, yeah, I'm Bob. It's this door here," and he pointed the young guy to the locked door.
He looked at the lock and mentioned it didn't seem like it'd been opened in years.
"Well, that's why we lost the key. Haven't needed it in years," and Jeremy winked to Ron.
Within a few minutes, the locksmith got up and twisted the handle, opening the door just a little. Lloyd thanked him for his services, paid him and escorted him out. He returned as quick as he could, making sure the door hadn't been opened yet. He wanted to be here for the reveal.
He nodded to the others and received nods in return. He put his hand on the doorknob and pulled.
Dust came out in wafts, obscuring what was inside for just long enough to add even more suspense. The guys held their breaths. When the dust settled, they saw their bounty.
Stacks upon stacks of absolutely nothing.
After a short silence, Lloyd closed the door again.
"I'm going home, can I get a ride to the subway station?" Jeremy said.
"Yeah, me too?" Ron said.
"Sure," Lloyd sighed.