First to Die

By Peter Nelson

Seven teens trapped underground after an earthquake discover that the only person who knows their location is a criminal who would rather them dead.
 
For sixteen-year-old Mollie Fox, selling earthquake insurance is just a way to keep her beloved Jeep on the road. But when the Big One actually does strike California, Mollie finds herself living her worst nightmare. Trapped in a basement office beneath a collapsed shopping mall, Mollie makes two startling discoveries: The company she works for is a scam, and her crooked boss has left her and her six coworkers for dead. Between the dangerous aftershocks and the possibility of starving to death, Mollie and her friends are fighting for survival. The only thing keeping hope alive is the amount of criminal evidence they find in the wreckage—enough to put their creepy employer behind bars for a very long time. That is, if they don’t die first . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781504088947

Peter Nelson

Peter Nelson is a screenwriter who lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife, Diane, and their two sons, Charlie and Christopher. Herbert's Wormhole was Peter's First children's book. He wrote it without ever having met an actual alien or traveling through time, which made it a bit more challenging, but just as fun.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Come on, people, the manager called out. Let’s get on those phones—we’ve got a lot of product to sell and only a few hours left to do it.…

Bite me, Jaime said under his breath.

Speak up, man, Johnny whispered in encouragement. He didn’t hear you.

Hello, madame, Sherman said into his mouthpiece. This is Sherman Hermanson from The Insurance Shoppe. I was wondering if you have Prince Albert in the can? You do? When he’s finished, may I speak to him?

Oh please, Meredith said. We’re surrounded by morons.

There’s just Sherman, Roberta said. But he’s such a geek that having only one of him makes you feel surrounded.

You’re just jealous because I’ve sold more insurance than you, Sherman said.

Listen to what you’re saying, Mollie told him. ‘You’re just jealous because I’ve sold more insurance than you.’ If those aren’t the words of a supergeek, I don’t know what are.

You’re jealous, too, Fox, Sherman said. You’ll still be jealous when I’m spending my two-thousand-dollar commission.

Jaime and Johnny laughed.

The day any of us sees a penny from this slave labor is the day I get elected pope, said Roberta. I’ll bet being the first black female pope would pay more than two thousand a week.

That’s funny, Mollie said. You don’t look Catholic.

Fox, you wanna button it up and get to work? the manager said. His name was Benny Musante. He was a fat pig.

Mollie Fox’s future was a gaping black abyss full of hopelessness and despair. At least for the next hour and a half. Usually she was a happy person—cheerful, industrious, healthy, intelligent—a sensible girl from the Midwest, with sensible midwestern attitudes and opinions. Nothing a job like this couldn’t ruin.

Bite me, she muttered under her breath.

What was that? Benny asked.

I said, ‘Write me,’ Mollie told him. I’m talking to a customer who had some questions, so I was just suggesting he put them down on paper.

When Benny turned his back, Janet Tze half stood in her seat, put her thumbs in her ears, and wiggled her fingers at him. Benny turned and looked straight at Jaime.

I saw that, Santos, he said, pointing a finger and trying to look tough. Jaime’s expression was of utter innocence. If you don’t want this job, I got a desk full of applications from people who does. He went into the office to consult with Nick Keverian, the boss.

If you don’ want dis job, I godda desk full of applications frum people who does, Janet grunted in her best Benny Musante imitation. Unfortunately I’m too stupid to read.

Everyone snickered.

I am adrift in a sea of woe and sorrow, the currents of fate and ill fortune carrying me farther and farther from shore, Mollie said.

My sediments exactly, Sherman said.

Relax, girl, Roberta said. Just because you got a job you hate for a boss you hate in a town where you don’t have any friends and no way out is no reason to get depressed.

You’re right, Roberta, Mollie sighed. I’m just a gloomy Gus, I guess.

Hey, Fox—we’re not paying you three-fifty an hour to daydream, Benny, the human jelly donut, said into her headphones.

If you were paying me to daydream, it would be worth a lot more than three-fifty an hour, Mollie thought.

She dialed the next number on her call list, someone named Alvarez. A man answered.

Hello, Mollie said, trying to sound as cheerful as possible. A sign on the wall informed her: THE SMILE IN YOUR VOICE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE. My name is Mollie, and I’m calling on behalf of The Insurance Shoppe.…

Drop dead, the man said, hanging up the phone.

Mollie was supposed to keep a record of all the calls she made and the responses she got. She had a computer form with boxes to check after each name, Strong No, No, Weak No, Maybe, Weak Yes, Yes, Strong Yes. Everyone except the Strong Nos got a call back. The Yeses and the Maybes got brochures. Mollie kept her own list: fifteen Drop Deads, one hundred forty-eight Obscenities, thirty-seven Leave Me Alone I’m Eatings, and a marriage proposal. People didn’t seem to like being sold earthquake insurance over the telephone, and they particularly didn’t like being called during dinner.

Usually Benny or Nick sat at the monitoring console, eavesdropping on the calls employees made. You could be fired for deviating from the standard pitch: Hello, my name is … I’m calling on behalf of The Insurance Shoppe. We’re a new low-cost premium insurance sales cooperative, and we’d like to offer you the lowest prices possible on all your insurance needs. This month we’re featuring earthquake insurance, not because there’s any immediate threat, but because you can never be too protected from the unpredictable forces of nature.… Mollie had envisioned the earthquake—the Big One—a thousand times, ever since the day her parents told her they were moving to California. In this business, Sherman had once punned, it’s doom or bust.

One more pun, Hermanson, Johnny Chelios had threatened, and I’ll rip you from limb to limb and throw the pieces in a blender.

Grate, Sherman replied. Just grate.

Fifteen minutes, everybody, she heard in her headphones. The president of the company had spoken. Nick Keverian, early thirties, hair in a pathetic miniature ponytail. Hair that said, I’m still young, from the back, though from the front the receding hairline refuted the statement. Keverian considered himself one incredibly slick dude, oozing confidence and what he considered to be charm. He wore expensive trendy clothes, the kind that would have gotten him laughed out of most places back in Iowa, where Mollie had lived before moving west. Janet, Mollie, he said, can I see the two of you for a moment?

In his office Nick handed Janet a stack of letters for her to drop in a mailbox at the end of the mall. Do this right, Janet, I’ll fire Benny and make you my manager.

Janet smiled shyly. No thanks, Mr. K, she said.

Janet had worked at The Insurance Shoppe longer than everybody else—the other people who’d started at the same time she did had all quit. Nick turned to Mollie. He had large gold rings on his fingers, frangible assets—they come in handy when you’re in Vegas, he’d once said. A good gambler always has an ace in the hole. He’d gone to Las Vegas to gamble the previous weekend and had returned, Mollie noticed, two rings lighter.

Tough luck at the craps table last weekend? she asked.

Blackjack, he corrected her. Everything else is a sucker’s game, but you still need luck. Next time, Fox, I’ll take you with me. Maybe you’d bring me luck. You lucky, Fox?

Sure I’m lucky, Mollie said. I work here, don’t I?

Your name suits you, Nick said, winking at her. Fox, I mean.

Well I get chased by dogs a lot, if that’s what you mean, she said. You wanted to see me?

Yeah, right. Nick handed her an empty cardboard canister. Behind him, atop a bookcase, sat an illuminated aquarium with three fish in it, each about the size of a large man’s fist or Benny’s brain. Piranha food—you know where the pet store is? South American piranhas were aggressive fish that liked to kill all the other species in the tank. On special occasions Nick fed them guppies and then sat back to watch. She took the canister with her.

Who wants what? Mollie called to the others in the main room. I’m making a run to Seven-Eleven. There was an employee rest area at the rear of the room: three couches and a table, a hot plate for heating water for tea or instant coffee, and a small refrigerator containing soy milk, liquid brewer’s yeast, and a bag of dried couscous.

I’ll have a Mounds bar, Sherman said. Sherman was just a little bit too funny to qualify as a full-fledged dork. He was wearing baggy shorts, white socks, and black loafers with shiny quarters glued permanently in the slots.

Meredith Hughes only smiled and shook her head. Meredith was one of the most beautiful girls Mollie had ever seen, with long brunette hair, full lips, huge brown eyes, and a body to die for.

Aw c’mon, Meredith—Twinkie? Mollie said. Moon Pie? Maybe a nice greasy slab of roast pork, with hair on it and fingernails and ants …

Meredith made a face. What was a rich girl doing at a job like this anyway? Mollie was working to support a five-year-old black Jeep named Fathead—she’d promised her father she’d pay for upkeep if he’d make the payments on it. Fathead was recently rear-ended in a parking lot, no note and no witnesses.

Nothing for me either, Roberta said. If I had something to eat, it would only revive me and make me work harder. It’s Friday night. There must be something better to do on a Friday night than this. There’d been only two black students in the small Iowa town of Onagle, where Mollie came from, and they were three and four years younger than she. Roberta Baldwin, who was becoming her closest friend in Bayside, was funny and smart, and someone who said exactly what she felt at all times. Both Roberta’s and Mollie’s fathers were policemen in the same precinct.

Except for Johnny Chelios, everyone working at The Insurance Shoppe went to Bayside High School. They’d all seen the same advertisement in the school’s newspaper: STUDENTS—EARN UP TO $2000 A WEEK. Three-fifty an hour minimum, the rest earned on commission. What a laugh. No one had been paid so much as a penny yet, a cash flow thing, according to Nick.

Chelios looked up at Mollie through dark eyebrows, one lock of his black hair, which he normally wore swept back, falling across his forehead.

Could you get me a pack of Marlboros? he said.

You can buy your own cigarettes, Mollie told him. If you want to smoke, that’s your business, but I’m not going to help you.

That’s a noble sentiment, but they’re for my grandmother, Johnny said, smiling at her. It would have been much easier for Mollie to write Johnny Chelios off as a loser, a dropout who had been in some sort of trouble and quit school to work on cars, if he weren’t so unbelievably handsome in his white T-shirt and blue jeans. Fortunately, he was not Mollie’s type.

Your grandmother shouldn’t smoke either.

Neither should my great-grandmother, Johnny said. She’s ninety-six, and one of these days, it’s gonna kill her.

You makin’ a food run? Benny said as Mollie walked past him. Mollie nodded. Benny needed something to eat like a librarian needs something to read. Pick me up a lottery ticket. Benny knocked on wood.

Every time Mollie left the basement room where she worked, she felt as if she’d just escaped from a dungeon. The upstairs part of The Insurance Shoppe was a hokey country storefront space where mall shoppers could walk right in to take care of all their one-stop insurance needs. Old Bayside Mall was soon to be replaced by the New Bayside Mall, nearing completion three miles away. The old mall, with its cracked cement floors and leaky ceiling, was across Division Street from the high school, accessible via a footbridge. Everyone called it the Dead Mall, because it had lost most of its main shops, including the two anchor stores, a JC Penney at one end, and a Kmart at the other. Half the retail spaces were boarded up, the other half pathetic: a used comic-book store, an antique model-airplane dealer, a video parlor called Aladdin Land, a wallpaper store, a store that would sell you everything you’d need to convert your Volkswagen Bug into a MONSTER TRUCK!!! Mollie paid for her purchases at the 7-Eleven and headed for her favorite store, San Francisco Pet and Supply, passing, on her way, a pond in the atrium filled with goldfish, brackish water, and pennies. Today she saw two goldfish gone belly up.

At least they didn’t have to live in a mall anymore.

Hey, Ruth—two more today, Mollie said, laying a box of Snausages on the counter beside the cash register. She added a cardboard jar of Piranha Fish Flakes to the order.

Tragedies everywhere, the woman behind the register said. Ruth probably had worked at the Old Bayside Mall since the day it opened. We had a snail in the back that got run over by a turtle.

Okay, Ruth, I’ll bite. What happened?

Well, we don’t know—the snail said it all happened so fast. How’s life in the bomb shelter?

The what?

The bomb shelter, Ruth repeated. When they converted the old mill building in the fifties, that room was supposed to be the bomb shelter. Back then everyone was afraid the Russians were going to drop nuclear missiles on us any minute.

A direct hit on that place could only improve it, Mollie said.

Probably survive it, Ruth said. They reinforced it good.

Do you mind? Mollie said, holding up the box of Snausages.

Go ahead, Ruth said, but they’re acting pretty weird.

The pet cages were in a separate room, behind a large Plexiglas window. When Mollie opened the door, she was greeted by a cacophony of barking ten times louder than she’d ever heard it before. Usually one or more of the puppies would be sleeping, despite the din, but this time all twelve of them were up and making noise.

Why are they so nervous? Mollie called out, but Ruth didn’t hear her. A tiny white poodle pup sat in a back corner of his cage, trembling as if he were freezing. Mollie’s favorite, an Akita puppy she’d named Pirate because he had a black splotch over one eye, had wet himself and was whining uncontrollably. She passed a Snausage through the bars, but the dog only sniffed at it. A golden retriever puppy paced back and forth, as did a tiny Doberman no bigger than a kitten. None of the treats Mollie passed through the bars were so much as touched.

Ruth—I think something’s wrong with them, Mollie said.

I know, Ruth said. To tell you the truth, I never seen nothing like it before. All of a sudden they got like this. They haven’t touched their food. It’s weird.

Mollie noticed something else odd. There were two dozen bird cages at the far end of the room: parrots and finches, parakeets, cockatoos, and canaries. Usually their sweet music gave the pet shop the feel of a lively arboretum. Today the birds made no sounds whatsoever, sitting quite still, wingtip to wingtip on their perches.

Then again, nothing was too strange for California. The day before, she’d seen a man walking down the street, shampooing his hair.

Mollie picked up her purchases and headed back to work, back to the grind. Another hour and a half, and she’d be finished.

CHAPTER 2

When Mollie returned to work, Benny was sitting at his desk with his Walkman headphones on, listening, as he always did during the break, to WPRO 1440, All Sports Radio. Benny was fond of bragging about all the money he could have won betting on sports, if only the universe weren’t out to get him.

If anybody calls for me, I’m not here, Nick announced, sticking his head out the office door. Benny—you got a moment? Benny! he shouted over Benny’s radio. Through the picture window separating the office from the calling room, Mollie saw Nick and Benny looking at something on the computer screen. They looked, somehow, like two little boys plotting a snowball attack.

So, you seeing Jordan tonight? Roberta asked her. If you’re not, a bunch of us are going down to Artie’s. The Angela crowd will be there.

Joy unbounded, Mollie said. Nothing I like better than to stand around listening to Angela Carbajal talk about herself. The only reason she likes Artie’s is because there are mirrors on the walls.

You should take Jordan there just to make her jealous, Roberta said. She’s always wanted him.

Well, Mollie said, sipping from her Diet Pepsi, she may have a chance yet. I think Jordan is going to dump me tonight. Roberta looked shocked. Just a feeling. He said he had something important to tell me.

Uh-oh, Roberta said. Hey—maybe it’s good news.

People don’t usually prepare you when they have good news. He said there was someone he wanted me to meet, Mollie said. Roberta frowned. Frankly, Mollie wasn’t exactly sure how heartbroken she’d be about it. Jordan was the quarterback of the football team and a star forward on the basketball team. In other words, he was Mr. Popular. He was also incredibly nice, drove a Range Rover, and got good grades. His only problem