The elevator doors opened, and as they walked out, she realized why she had not seen any of the other employees upstairs.
They were all down here.
A bare cement hallway stretched endlessly before her, looking much longer than the length of the building above, and it was lined along both sides with men and women dressed identically in green store uniforms. The sight would have been intimidating enough, but the employees were also completely silent, their faces serious, unsmiling.
'The gauntlet,' Mr. Lamb said.
She wanted to turn around, wanted to go back upstairs and leave, and this time she would have done so, but the elevator doors had already slid shut behind her, and Mr. Lamb had placed a hand on her back and was guiding her forward, into the hallway.
Most of the faces before her were familiar, but they looked upon her as if they did not recognize her, and her heart rate accelerated. She tried to catch the eye of Marty Tyler, then May Brown, the first two people on either side of the hallway, but both stared at her blankly, and she quickly looked away.
What was she expected to do here? What was the point of this? She glanced over at Mr. Lamb, next to her.
'Strip,' the personnel manager said. 'Down to your underwear.'
She shook her head. 'I don't want to do this,' she said, her voice sounding small and frightened. 'I . . . I changed my mind. I don't want the job.
I don't want to work here.'
'It's too late to change your mind,' Mr. Lamb said. 'Strip.'
She looked at the employees lining the hallway, but they were still silent. None of them had spoken or had as yet made a sound.
'Leave on your panties and bra,' Mr. Lamb said. A hard smile touched the corners of his mouth. 'If you're wearing a bra.'
'I can't --'
'Strip!' he ordered. 'The Store opens at eight! We don't have time for games!'
Frightened, she bent down to untie her tennis shoes. She looked up, expecting to see people laughing at her, giggling, but the faces remained unsmiling.
She took off her blouse, her pants.
She stood at the head of the hallway in her underwear, shivering with fear as much as cold. Her left arm was held over her bra, her right hand covered her pubic area. She turned toward Mr. Lamb. 'What now?'
'You run the gauntlet. If you make it to the end, you will join our Store family. You will be one of us.'
_If?_
She looked down the hallway, saw for the first time that many of the employees were holding objects in their hands. Objects that could be used as weapons.
'Run!' Mr. Lamb said.
She ran, felt a coat hanger hit her buttocks, felt a flyswatter slap her left breast. The pain was tremendous, and her eyes were teary, but she kept her focus on the far end of the hallway and maintained an even course between the two rows of employees, forcing her legs to run faster. A knitting needle was shoved into her upper arm, and she had to will herself not to scream.
'You're ugly!' someone yelled.
'You're flat!'
'You're worthless!'
'You have no ass!'
'You're a moron!'
'You can't do anything right!'
They were all people she knew, but she couldn't tell who was yelling what.
It was all so disorienting, the jabs and the verbal abuse, and she could barely see for the tears, but she forced herself to keep moving forward. A cleat kicked against her shin, and now she was crying out loud, sobbing, but still she kept going.
'Loser!'
'White trash!'
'Bimbo!'
And then she was at the end of the hallway, facing a blank cement wall.
She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes, then turned. She saw Mr. Lamb at the far end, nodding.
She'd made it.
It was over.
She was bruised and bloody, but they all gathered around her, the employees, hugging her. 'We love you,' they said in unison. 'We love you, Samantha.'
She was still crying, but the hugs felt good, and the warm words were welcome and she hugged her new co-workers back, kissing their cheeks, laughing through her tears.
'We love you,' they said.
'I love you, too,' she told them.
'Congratulations.' Mr. Lamb walked up to her, smiling, handing her a folded green Store uniform and a copy of a black book identified by gold embossed letters as _The Employee's Bible_. 'You're one of us.'
TEN
1
They were supposed to go for a hike, she and Jake. It was a beautiful day for it, the temperature warm and pleasant, not too hot, the deep blue sky filled with huge white clouds, but Shannon sensed something wrong almost immediately.
Jake was more subdued than usual, not himself, and he seemed not to care where they went. Ordinarily, he chose where they would hike, and if she made any suggestions he would invariably shoot them down. But today he acquiesced to everything she said, and that wasn't like him.
It worried her.
They hiked in silence, stopping only periodically to drink from their canteens. Usually, they walked together, hand in hand, meandering along the trails that led through the forest, talking intimately. Today, though, they walked single file, she in the lead, and it felt almost as though she was hiking alone. She had to keep sneaking surreptitious glances behind her to make sure that Jake was still there.
Shannon slowed. She'd never been this far along the trail before. Ahead, it wound down the side of a hill toward a small canyon below. A series of blue green pools connected by a thin stream lined the bottom of the canyon to the right of the trail. To the left of the trail, at the bottom of the canyon, was a meadow.
She turned around, looked at Jake. 'You want to go down?' she asked.
He shrugged.
She started walking.
Fifteen minutes later, they were at the bottom and she was almost in tears. They'd walked close together, but they hadn't touched on the way down, hadn't even held hands. He hadn't helped her down the steep parts.
Something was definitely wrong.
She took a deep breath, turned, faced him. 'What is it?' she asked.
'What's the problem?'
'Nothing.'
'Something.' She stood there for a moment, looking at him. 'Oh, Jake,' she said. She moved forward to hug him, but he caught her wrists before she reached him and held her at arm's length. He would not meet her eyes, and she felt her stomach drop. She knew what was coming.
'I . . . don't think we should see each other anymore,' he said.
Her mouth was dry, her vision suddenly blurry. 'You don't . . . I thought . . .' She cleared her throat. 'I love you,' she said.
He still wouldn't look at her. 'I think it's time we started dating other people.'
'You found someone else! That's why --'
