Ice Ice Baby by Allison Maldonado

Ice Ice Baby

            I knew from the moment he left that Ryan Damewood was not actually out of my life for good, although I wanted him to be.  As the nineteen year old son of the owner of the ice cream shop I worked at, he had been in my life an excessive amount that past summer, flirting, ogling, and tempting me.  Ryan was extremely handsome, and I was the “pretty” new girl, a nice change for him.  Although I tried many times to make my current boyfriend evident, he was very persistent and he went about his pursuit in such a discreet way that I often found myself charmed by him at the end of my shifts.  We never did anything but form a very close friendship, but nonetheless I was still glad to see him go.  However, several weeks after moving off, a death in the family brought him back.

            It was a stormy fall night, and I was closing up with the most annoying employee we had, Effie.  Effie was a senior in high school just like me, but that’s as far as our similarities went.  Although she meant well, Effie was, by a long shot, one of the most obnoxious people I had ever met.  I had a hard time tolerating her, but from what I understood I was the employee that had the most patience with her overwhelming personality, which meant I spent most shifts listening to her useless babbling.  We had just locked the doors and started to clean up when she spoke for the millionth time that night.

            “I think Ryan gets back into town tonight…” she said, as if this was supposed to mean something to me. 

            “Cool.”  I responded nonchalantly, although just his name alone had made my heart skip a beat for two reasons.  The first because I actually had missed him.  The second because I had missed him, and that was not acceptable.  While I did have a crush on him, it needed to stay just a crush, and nothing else.  The only way that was going to happen was if he wasn’t in the picture at all. 

            “Well, don’t you want to see him..?” she prodded.  “I mean, you guys were like, super close and-“

            “Effie!” I snapped, shutting her up for the time being.  I stared through our glass doors, watching the lightening dance across the sky outside, while my mind drifted back to a few months earlier.    

 “Look at us Alexandria.” Ryan said with a smirk as he cleaned dishes and I rinsed them off.  “Aren’t we cute, washing dishes together?”  I shot him a look and as I went to grab a bowl from the water he put another dish in, causing our hands to brush.  “Awh, Alex, we just had a moment!”

            “No, Ryan. No we didn’t,” I said, turning away so he wouldn’t see me blushing. 

            CRASH!

 I was quickly brought back into reality as I jumped and spun around to see Effie standing over what used to be few of our ice cream bowls, but were now a pile of shattered glass. 

“I didn’t touch them, I promise! They just-“ she was cut off for the second time that night when more bowls slid down off the shelf and crashed onto the tiled floor.  Before we could react, a third wave of them came crashing down and with that I started reaching for all of the remaining ones, piling them in my arms.  Effie started doing the same, but we didn’t have big enough wingspans to hold the remaining fifty or so. The next minute was filled with the loud shattering of glass. 

            “What. The. Hell?!” I shrieked, setting down the few I had managed to save after the wave of bowls finally stopped.  Effie walked over to the shelf where the shattered ones had fallen from. 

            “Maybe the shelf is tilted or something…I should go get Sarah,” Effie said.  Sarah, our boss.  Sarah, the lady who puts her heart and soul into the shop.  Sarah, Ryan’s mom, who had just had a death in the family.  Sarah, the lady who would absolutely kill us once she found the dozens of broken glass bowls.

            Before I could point any of this out though, the jukebox started blaring Barbara Ann at full blast, causing both of us to jump and myself to scream.  If there’s one thing that can scare a person it’s old fifties music being played at full volume in an empty ice cream shop at ten at night.   Thankfully, Effie reacted quickly this time, running over to unplug it. 

            “Man, I hate that thing,” she gasped between breaths.  “Why is it on full volume anyway?!” she shrieked, turning the volume knob down as well.

            RIIIIIINNNNGGGGG.  With an eye roll, I picked up our pink rotary phone and tried to sound pleasant as I said the usual, “Thank you for calling Ice Ice Baby, this is Alexandria.  How can I help you?” Meanwhile I was just waiting to inform them that we were closed for the night.

            Silence.

            “Hello?”

            Silence again.  Then, a loud crack of thunder that scared me into slamming the phone down and hang up on whomever was on the other line.

            RIIIIIINNNNGGGGG.  This time I snatched it up immediately.  “Ice Ice Baby, this is Alexandria”

            Silence.

            “Thank you for calling Ice Ice Baby”

            Silence.

            “Hello..?”

            Then, I could hear it.  The deep breathing of someone on the other line.  “I’m hanging up now,” I warned as I set the phone back on the receiver. 

            RIIIIIIINNNNGGGGG.  This time, Effie answered.  But she too, was met with silence.

            “I can hear you breathing.  This isn’t funny,” she said, her voice quivering a little.  “I’m calling my boss.”  She hung up the phone just as the jukebox started another episode, this time blaring the Beach Boys’ Surfing USA.  Strangely enough, it was on full volume again.

            “I thought you unplugged it!” I yelled, running over.  But as I got to the power cord, I was shocked to see that it was still unplugged; the jukebox was technically off.  I went to change the volume, but the knob was turned all the way down.  Effie tried to help me, but nothing was silencing the booming and disturbingly happy music.

            RIIIIINNNNGGGGGG.  

            “I’m going to get Sarah,” Effie screamed while thunder shook the shop.

            RIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG.

            The rain was really coming down hard now.  I nodded, and with my blessing she sprinted to her car.  I barely waited until she was out to lock the door.  Then, I was left alone while the loud noises echoed throughout the tiny shop.

            RIIIIIINNNNGGGGGGGGG.  I kicked the phone off of the counter and it came to a crash on the tile floor, just like the bowls.  But unlike the bowls, it didn’t break and it didn’t stop ringing.

 I opened up the Employees Only door and went to the back to check on the door that led to the dark deserted alleyway.  With my heart pounding in my ears, I slowly jiggled the handle, only breathing out once I realized that it was locked and that I was safe.

THUD. THUD.  Something hit the door, hard.  Loud enough for me to hear it over the screaming jukebox and shouting phone.   I jumped back and tried to tell myself that it wasn’t the fist of someone trying to get in, but just a lost wild animal, making its way in the dark.  As I turned to leave and go back in the front of the store, the actual shop part, I noticed that the light to our giant deep freezer was still on.  I felt everything inside of me wilt as I realized I was going to have to go inside of it, to the very back, and turn it off.

I took a deep breath, and went for it, the cold biting my lungs as soon as I stepped in.  I sprinted the 15 foot distance to the light switch located along the back wall, flipped it, and put myself in freezing cold darkness.

“LET’S GO SURFING NO-“  I was frantically feeling my way back to the door when the jukebox abruptly cut off, leaving me with just the sound of the telephone and my ragged breaths.

RIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGG.

  I told myself that there was a reasonable explanation for it, and that there wasn’t someone else in the shop that turned off the music, but by the time I reached the door again, I was in a full out panic.  What shut the jukebox off?

I tried to push it open, but I there was some resistance.  Sometimes the door sticks, I told myself, using both hands to push.  I had just managed to get it open and had started to step out when it was met with a great force that slammed it shut and shoved me back in.  Then, a new song started on the jukebox, Johnny Cash’s I Walk the Line.  It seemed to be getting louder with each song, if that was even possible.  I was now shivering all over, my hands turning numb.  I will not die in a damn freezer.  I used my entire body weight to shove open the door and sprinted to the front of the shop.  Once I got out into the open again, with the shattered glass and overpowering noise, I fell to my knees in despair, frustration, and most of all, fear.  Where is Effie?!

“BECAUSE YOU’RE MINE, I WALK THE LINE!”

RIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG.

Somehow, over all of the chaos, I once again heard the THUD THUD of someone trying to get in the door, only this time I could tell it was coming from the front, the glass door.  Thinking it was Effie and Sarah, I gathered myself, figuring I would have to let them in.

I got up and turned, only to look through our glass door and see none other than Ryan Damewood, standing out in the pouring rain, knocking on the door.