The Storage Closet Coffee Service
Mike sat at his desk, working furiously away at the stack of papers that represented his workload for the day. His co-workers around him were impressed at the level of focus that he had, and left him to his work. Even his buddy Tom, who would normally find something to give him a hard time about something, simply shrugged and let him be.
Mike glanced at his computer screen to check the time, it was nearly 11:30AM. He knew that if he was able to get enough of his work done before lunch, not only would it leave a large time buffer for later, but it would also give him the perfect excuse to move around the office, as he could freely more about while under the pretense of dropping paperwork off for others, while in actuality, he would be searching for the presents that Connie had hidden. There's nothing that would get in the way of him finding them all.
As he worked, Mike began to plot out a map of the office, which would allow him to quickly cover as much area as possible; he even began to draw out a map of the area using a picture that he took of the fire escape route as a base. He also knew that there were several areas throughout the office that he didn't normally cover on his normal route, and in order to stay as inconspicuous as possible, he would use his lunch break to explore some of the more remote areas of the office. Of course, one of these areas was the server room near IT, so the likelihood of happening upon Connie was pretty good... maybe they could... Mike shook his head to shake the thoughts from his mind, this is no time to get distracted, there will be plenty of time for such thoughts after he completes her challenge and THEN it'll be time to collect his prize.
Mike began to hear conversations around him as he heard his co-workers begin to get up for their lunch hour, and he was shocked to see that it was already noon. He looked down at the map that he had plotted out, and was deciding where to start when he heard Tom calling out to him.
"Earth to Mike!" Tom cajoled. "Hey buddy, we're heading down the way to try out that new curry joint that just opened up. You wanna come with?".
Curry?! Mike panicked, not only would the smell be overpowering when they brought it back in... but the aftermath would make it that much more difficult to pinpoint the perfume afterwards! Mike knew he had to do something to prevent this. "Oh you're going to THAT place. Ooooh, I heard some nasty things about it. One of the guys downstairs said he tried it out opening day, and he still can't sit down yet."
Tom stopped in his tracks and his eyes went wide. "Hmm, that bad huh? Maybe we should give them a week or so to get their shit together."
Mike sighed on the inside "Yeah, might be a good idea. There's a new Vietnamese coffee shop that opened up not too far away, I heard that the hostess's there wear only tiny bikinis... and the sandwiches are supposed to be great."
As soon as he heard "bikinis" Tom perked right up. "You know... I was just thinking that I could use another coffee along with my lunch, good call. You coming?" Tom asked.
Mike waved him off "Thanks, but I have a bunch of stuff to catch up on, and I want to make sure that I'm able to leave at a decent time for once"
Tom shrugged "I hear ya man, well I'll say hello to the hot bikini babes for you." he called over his shoulder as he hurried to meet with the group of co-workers at the end of the row.
Mike exhaled, crisis averted, and now... the hunt begins! He picked up his makeshift map and quickly headed off to search.
Forty five minutes later, and Mike was nearly at the end of the areas that he needed to search. He was admittedly a little disappointed at not having found another "present", however at the same time he knew that this lunch time search was simply to cover all of his bases, and that he will have plenty of opportunities to find them throughout the rest of the day. After a quick search through one of the smaller office supply closets, Mike checked his map and saw that there was one last location that he needed to check before heading back to his desk. It was one of the out of the way storage closets that was rarely used (it was used to store seasonal decorations, older equipment and other odds and ends). The closet itself was rather large, but Mike knew that it would be easy to search, given how easy it would be to smell Connie's perfume in there.
As Mike approached the closet, he sniffed the air and his pulse began to rise when he caught the hint of perfume, which caused him to quicken his pace. In the back of his mind, something seemed a little odd, but Mike was so excited about the prospect of finding a second present, that he dismissed it and continued on. The nagging feeling was enough of a cause for him to glance around quickly before opening the closet, and when he did; he did so quietly and quickly slid into the dark room.
Rows of tall shelves lined the storage closet, filled from floor to ceiling with a variety of office equipment, supplies and odds and ends. A dim light situated in the ceiling near the center of the room cast a meager circle of illumination in the middle of the center row, but the rest of the rows lay in darkness.
Once inside, Mike paused for a moment, and sniffed the air again, breathing in deeply, and confirmed his suspicion that there was definitely perfume in here. It was odd though, while it definitely smelled of Connie's perfume, something didn't quite fit, as it smelled slightly different, as if there was another underlying fragrance to it. Maybe it was one of the one of her toys that Connie had stowed away, Mike shrugged and took a step forward to investigate.
As soon as his foot made contact with the floor of the closet, he froze as he heard a woman's voice whisper "See, didn't you hear that? Someone's there!" followed by silence.
