The Baker Shop [ON-GOING]

Chapter 18 (Part 2)

Erin's POV

The beating inside my chest echoed through my ears, I slowly crept towards the door to the back room. I don't know why I'm doing this. This is such a stupid idea that came from my dumbass head.

I noticed nothing out of the ordinary when I opened the door, everything seemed untouched but that's clearly not what I heard earlier. I crouched onto my hands and knees and continued creeping through the cold marbled floor.

It was dark and crouching made it harder for me to see where I was going. Suddenly, I felt a cold liquid graze my hand, I brought it up to my nose and was hit by a familiar scent of coffee; Gran Joan's coffee. I squint my eyes harder and find her favorite I Heart Sean Connery mug lying on the floor—in pieces. She's totally gonna be pissed tomorrow.

I made it to the storage room and noticed the door slightly ajar, the dim setting not giving justice to where I could be bumping into. I stood up to my feet and put my back against the wall right beside the door.

Everything felt like slowing down in my perspective, the adrenaline flowing through my veins making me sweat my armpits off. Should I open it? Maybe it's just a rat, I can't help but think about worst case scenarios right now.

What if it is him? Should I just run off and let God do the work to make him pay for his crimes and just magically end up in prison? No.

I'm already in this, I might as well finish what I started. I grab the door handle, its metal surface feeling cold against my skin. I opened it a bit more with slight crank and was welcomed by a yet another cold dark room.

I tilt my head and looked around side to side in the room before letting my feet move forward through the door. I stood my ground and prepared for the worst when I entered, the scent of frozen coffee beans and creamers mixed the air only a hardcore coffee addict would love.

I trailed my hand at the wall to my left, trying to find the light switch. I immediately switched it on, a loud crash came again as the mop fell down as a black rat ran across the room from one stock shelf to another, I let out a short panicked shriek at the sight that probably scared it off.

For fuck sakes! I thought we already took care of that.

With that, my blood pressure was returning to its normal state and I let out a sigh of relief. I almost had a heart attack on that one. I step further inside to grab the mop and placed it back, I head for the door, preparing to leave when I felt something weird.

Like the air felt warm or something. I whipped around and looked back at the room, something else in here or someone else. I should definitely be going by now but I want to get this over with. I don't want Gran Joan to be dealing with it in the morning or else she'll complain to me again about the whole 'I better be pulling my own weight around the house and help her'.

There better not be a stray cat in here or else I'm gonna scream so loud it wished that it was never born with ears.

I find myself eyeing each of the stock shelves, finding sacks of beans with holes in them. Those goddamn rats! As I inspected them, the lights suddenly went dark as I heard the door close in.

Holy shit! Since when did my life turn into a horror movie, I wasn't in full view of the light switch so I hurried past towards it, bumping into a few shelves along the way.

When I flicked the lights back on, I felt a hand a hand touch my left shoulder and suddenly all the air in my lungs escaped. It felt like a touch of a demon or warmth from death, I quickly turned around to face the intruder of my grandmother's coffee shop and immediately regretted it as I was forcibly shoved back against the wall with great strength.