No Way Out | Teen Ink

No Way Out

September 14, 2022
By Anonymous

When I woke up Tuesday morning, I had a feeling it was going to be an awful day. You know those days where you wake up and just know that it's going to be a long day? Well I was having one of those days. I was dreading getting up for school but my alarm went off at five in the morning and I got up and went to the bathroom. I did my usual morning routine, brushed my teeth, washed my face and started doing my hair. Now this is when things started to go bad, I was curling my hair and I could already tell that it was going to come out bad. My hair was so frizzy like a lion's fur around its head but I didn’t have enough time to fix it. It was already 5:45 am which meant I had exactly twenty minutes to get dressed and start walking to my bus stop. I get on the bus and arrive at school at 7:05 am. When I get there I meet up with my friend Devin to get my coffee that she bought for me and we go find the rest of our friends to eat breakfast. At 7:30 it’s time to go to class and on my way to class I drop my coffee in the hallway. So now I had to clean it up which took me a few minutes to do and now I was late to class. I got through the first and second period classes just fine, but then I got to the third period and realized that we had an exam today. I had completely forgotten that I had an exam today which means I also forgot to study. As I was taking the test I could already tell that I was going to fail it. It’s finally time for lunch and while Astrid, Devin and I are eating, Astrid mentions wanting to find a job. I told her that she should come work with me at Subway. Her and Devin have softball practice after school so I tell them to come by my job afterwards. After Lunch Astrid and I walk to fifth period together because we are in the same class and she tells me that she is a little nervous about getting a job at Subway because we only have two workers on shift and it's not very safe. I tell her not to worry because I've been working there for eleven months and nothing has ever happened. I get through the rest of my classes and now it’s time to go home so I find my bus and get on. I get home around 3 o’clock and take an hour nap before work. At 4 o’clock I get up and get dressed for work. When I’m almost ready I call a lyft to take me to work since I don’t have my license yet. I arrive at work and clock in for my shift. I enjoy my job because it’s easy and most of the customers are nice. For about two hours I have to prepare meat while my co-worker preps the vegetables. We take turns taking customers orders so when a customer comes in it's my turn to take his order. I greet him but he just starts telling me what he wants on his sandwich in a very demanding tone so I start making it. When I’m done making it I wrap it up and put it in a bag, he then pays and goes and sits at a table near the entrance to the back room and near the restrooms. Soon after I go back to preparing meat when I hear the door opening and I see that it’s astrid. She tells me that she missed softball practice and that Devin would be coming by a little later. I go ahead and take astrid's order and I walk to the front to give her her food and also an application to Subway. When I went to walk back to the back room, I could feel something touching my back, I turned around and realized that the demanding customer from earlier had a gun to my back. He has his finger over his lips, shushing me and tells me to go inside and lock the door. When we get inside he points the gun at my coworker and tells her to sit down on the floor, that's when he hands me zip ties and tells me to tie myself and my coworker to the preparing table. While I'm zip tying us I hear the door to the store open up and I hear Astrid scream. The man is yelling at Astrid to get in the back, so she comes in the back and is tied up with my coworker and I.  The men search our pockets and take all of our personal belongings to the other table far from us. The male who came in after the first goes to the register and demands that we open it so my coworker tells him the code to get into it and she begs for him to let us go. He ignores her of course and grabs all the money from the register and puts it into a backpack. He then asks Lisa, my coworker where the safe is at, she points to the bins in the far left corner and tells him that it's in the ground underneath the bins. Both of the guys go over to where the safe is at and start trying to figure out how to open it. While their backs are turned Lisa grabs a knife that was near the table we were tied to and cuts her zip ties, she doesn't hesitate before she bolts to the door but she suddenly falls after a loud BANG! the taller male shoots her in the back.  Astrid and I scream and are in shock. Lisa doesn’t move at all. The guy tells us to not think about doing anything and goes back to trying to open the safe. The men struggle for a long time but suddenly someone walks into the store, a police officer announces himself and tells the guys to come out with their hands up. They both panic and look at each other. The police officer is getting louder and louder and is now screaming at them to come out. The second guy peeps his head around the corner and starts shooting towards the officer and that's when the officer starts to fire back and hits the guy in the neck. He falls to the ground and his partner drags him further to the back. He’s trying to stop the bleeding but you can see in his eyes that he knows his partner won’t make it. Suddenly we can hear another cop screaming, this time it's a woman’s voice, she yells out for the guys to come out with their hands up or let the workers come out. I looked over at the guy and he looked defeated. He knew there was no way out of this situation. He was going to be convicted for murder and attempted robbery which meant his life was over. He is now pacing back and forth with a worried look in his eyes, but then he walks over to Astrid and I and cuts our zip ties and tells us to run so we get up quickly and walk quickly to the door, then we start running towards the cops with our hands up. Seconds later we hear a gunshot go off, the man killed himself. His time had come. Later on we find out that the lady who owns a laundry mat next door heard the gunshot and called the police. She saved us. 


The author's comments:

This a short story I wrote for my English class assignment.


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