“Don’t make a sound Mr. Manager sir. I’d hate to blow a large hole in your back in front of all these nice people. Just stand right where you’re at and smile like I just told you a humorous story. Let my partners finish their little job and we’ll quietly walk out of here and no one will be the wiser, capice.”
The sweat broke out on Dilford’s usually cool forehead and he managed a very weak smile. He didn’t know how these idiots thought they could get away with this robbery in the middle of a room full of people but, so far they were. This could really wreck his grand opening plans if word of this got out, so he vowed to himself to not cause a ruckus after the robbers left but to quietly notify his guards of what happened and let them deal with it very sedately. After all his elaborate plans, no petty thugs would put a damper on his party. Only God could do that, he hoped.
Paula Howard, her hands still raised over her head, plunged straight down when the floor gave way. She had been hired just the week before as a temporary desk clerk for the grand opening. Now, she thought as she regained her senses about her, while trying to stand up behind the now collapsed check in counter, I start a new job and I get robbed the second week I’m here and then the whole place falls apart. This will look really good on my next job application. Sometimes, you just can’t win. Paula, part time model, part time actress,
The robbery, foiled in midstream by one of Mother Nature’s little “I will get even” tricks had collapsed as fast as the floor had. Frank Medford and Carrie Petringelo had lost all thoughts of cleaning out the enormous safe very visible through the office door. They now had one thought on their mind. Saving their own skins.
Frank picked himself up and tried to look around the collapsed room. Most of the emergency lights that were strategically placed around the building became dislodged from their locations near the ceiling mountings and were lying in or under the many piles of debris cluttering the room. The light in the room was so dim that any object further than ten feet away was virtually completely hidden from view. Frank looked down and saw Carrie unmoving on the lobby floor and he gave him a swift kick to his ribcage.
“Get up, you lazy asshole. We’ve got to find our way out of here.”
Carrie jumped up like he had been stung by a bee and rubbed his throbbing side.
“Why did you have to kick me Frankie?” He whined. “I didn’t do anything to you.”
“This is no time to play possum.” Frankie answered. “We have to get out of here before the whole place collapses.”
Frankie looked over the crumbled check-in desk and a puzzled look came over his face.
“I wonder what happened to the desk bimbo? She was right behind here the last time I looked.”
Paula Howard had ducked back down behind the largest standing fragment of the smashed desk when she heard Frankie yelling at Carrie. She had gotten on her hands and knees and crawled in the direction of the front doors. She knew she had been dealing with some really bad dudes and she figured they were really going to be mad now that the robbery attempt had been canceled. Paula continued crawling in the darkness until she realized she was out of voice range and she then stood up and ran toward the front of the building.
“Let’s go Frankie, I’m scared. I don’t want the whole roof to fall on my head. You said you wanted to get out of here. Let’s hurry up and go.”
“Well, I just changed my mind.”
“You said the desk clerk was gone. How are you going to get the combination to the safe? If we can’t open it, there is no reason to stick around. Come on. Let’s go.”
“Will you wait a damn minute and quit all that yapping. You sound like a six-year old kid on speed. Look in that office for a minute. Do you see what I see?”
Carrie strained his eyes in the very weak light and he could barely make out the safe against the back wall of the office.
“The door is open Frankie. I can barely see it but, the door is for sure open.”
“Yeah, I know. The sudden drop must have popped it open. We don’t need the desk clerk now.”
Frankie started walking around the collapsed desk and into the open door of the office. He unbuttoned several of the lower buttons on his dress shirt and reached in and pulled out a canvas bag. This will work quite nicely, he thought to himself.
“Hurry up Carrie.” He had turned around when he got to the safe and had seen Carrie still standing on the other side of the desk. “We’ve got work to do.”
The two men finished cleaning the currency and jewels out of the safe and were heading out the office door when the building sank a second time. They were again thrown to the floor but, they recovered a lot faster than before. They picked themselves up and headed in the same direction as the desk clerk.
The initial sinking of the lobby hadn’t killed anybody that was in the main part of the building. The second jolt, stronger than the first, crumbled the heavy peaked roof over the lobby
and the death toll began to mount.
Mike Summers sat on a thirty-pound cardboard barrel of chlorine inside the maintenance shed and passed the rest of the roach back to his twin brother Mark
“You know Mark, that Santos babe was really built. Did you see the way she strolled past me when she walked back to her room? I could really go for a lady like that.”
“Put your ego back on the ground Mike. That lady walked past you like that because she has class and all ladies with class walk that way. She wasn’t showing off for you and besides she probably thought you were me. I’m the handsome one of this pair.”
“Hey dope head. We are identical twins or have you forgotten that. Cripes! What was that loud noise? It sounded like it came from the hotel.”
Mike jumped off the barrel and ran for the door and almost collided with his brother who had been leaning on the back wall of the shed. Mike stopped in his tracks as soon as he cleared the doorway and was almost back ended by Mark who had hurried up behind him.
“Look at that Mark. The whole hotel just sank. I can’t believe this. The whole thing is gone. Mark, what the hell can we do and what happened to all the people. Oh my God, this is terrible.”
“Come on Mike. We’ve got to do something. Let’s see if we can find somebody to help. There has to be some people trapped somewhere in that hole. Wait, go back in the shed, and grab those ropes we have for closing off areas. I know they’ll come in handy. I’ll meet you in the driveway in front. It looks okay from here. Now hurry up and haul ass.”
Sally Backlin and Beverly Forham were staring past the swimming pool at the maintenance shed wondering when the twins would come back when, they were knocked to the pavement by a tremendous jolt. The ground had buckled under their feet and an earthquake immediately came to both teenage girls’ minds. Suffering little more than a scraped elbow, Beverly quickly set up and asked Sally if she was alright.