Fearful Symmetries

by Thomas F Monteleone

  Cutting to the chase, the civil war between the older writers and the young Turks became so heated that almost all of the professionals in HWA who actually made their livings as writers did the only rational thing remaining to them—they quit en masse. Practically overnight, the organization was gutted of all its “name” or even “semi-name” writers, and the inmates were running the asylum.2 And so, yeah, I quit with them. I hadn’t even thought about the story I’d submitted to Robert Bloch’s Psychos…

  Which brings us to the second happenstance referred to at the beginning of this introduction—Bob Bloch became terminally ill before he could actually do much of the editing on the HWA project. It was a sad chapter in the history of modern horror/suspense writing when Bloch could no longer participate in the genre he had helped create. When he died, the editing of the project fell into the hands of an individual of whom I’d never heard of, and this guy summarily rejected my story for the HWA anthology with a form letter.

  Yeah, it pissed me off, but don’t forget, I was one of the rats scurrying down the hawsers away from a listing, sinking scow, so it didn’t piss me off all that much…

  But all of this is a bit of a digression (don’t you just love a good digression?), but a necessary one to explain where the story came from in the first place. And it eventually found a nice home as a signed, limited chapbook from Bill Schafer’s Subterranean Press with a great illustration by Roger Gerberding.

  1 Several of them had said things about me or to me that were either untrue, rude, belligerent, or sometimes downright vicious. And when I finally caught up with them at the Stoker Awards banquet in Las Vegas and the World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis, they suddenly reverted to type—ball-less wonders, who made fools of themselves by being overly friendly and attentive and polite. If I had been younger and crazier, I would have given each and every one of them a few knuckles of remonstrance. But as it was, I looked each one in the eye and told them if they had any problems with me, I was willing to listen right now. Nobody did.

  2 In the guise of people who were doing most of their writing for TV and film and video game novel-knockoffs or selling short stories to all the low-pay/ no-pay “magazines” that solicit material in a small press newsletter with the unlikely, but fairly apt, title of Scavengers.

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” said Charles Jameson.

  He stood before the massive desk of Alan Markley, CEO of MegaCorp International, feeling like a doomed gladiator facing the Emperor’s dais.

  “All things come to their natural ends,” said Markley.

  “I always tried to do a good job…”Jameson listened to his own voice; it was weak, ineffectual.

  Alan Markley’s gaze continued to be fixed on Jameson, but the CEO said nothing—his usual style. Behind his chair loomed an executive’s perspective of the Manhattan skyline—always impressive from ninety stories up.

  Finally: “Goodbye, Jameson. I’m sure something will turn up.”

  And that was it. Total dismissal. Jameson stood for a moment, perplexed, but realized he had no choice other than to exit the double-doored office. As he walked past Ms. Bremen, Markley’s secretary, she didn’t even look up from her make-work.

  Like I wasn’t even there, you bitch. That’s how they treat you after you’ve been given the old corporate ax. Maybe someday you’ll find out for yourself…

  His thoughts jangled like loose change. Fired. Shit-canned. Bounced. It didn’t matter how you phrased it. Jameson was gone. But he still couldn’t believe Markley’d called him in there to get “terminated.” Twenty-two years with the Corporation and now he was like a piece of fax-paper in Ms. Bremen’s wastebasket.

  Charles smoothed his silvering hair and adjusted his money-green power-tie as he entered the hall that bisected a series of glass-walled offices. He looked boldly from cubicle to cubicle where his former colleagues hunched at desks and consulted PC monitors.

  The bastards. Everybody was giving him the leper treatment now. Can’t get too close, can’t even look the pariah in the eye, or you might catch the same disease.

  He didn’t bother to perform the ritual cleaning out of his desk. Where he was going, he wouldn’t be needing any appointment books or matching pen and pencil sets. These days, when you’re fifty years old and carrying a fat salary around your neck like a dead-meat rotting albatross, you’re about as attractive to companies as a mugger in an alley. Jameson passed his former cubicle without a backward glance. He’d be lucky if he could get a job at Dunkin’ Donuts punching holes out of their dough…

  As he passed the bullpen area where the phone-and-copier grunts pursued their specialized routines, he almost envied them in their faceless, going-nowhere servitude. Nobody really cared enough about them to place any value on their work, and so their jobs were secure. It was only when you aspired to greatness that the Corporate Gods stuck a lightning bolt up your ass.

  Ambition? Hubris? Yeah, sure, Jameson. Why don’t you just bend over while we take aim here…

  He glided past the receptionist with the wild, I-just-rolled out-of-your-bed nimbus of red hair, and she smiled at him as he approached the polished chrome doors of the elevators. She obviously hasn’t been told, or there would have been no smile.

  Studying himself in the reflective metal after pushing the down-arrow, Charles Jameson tried thinking about how much his life was going to change. Losing the house and the cars and the time-sharing condos in Aspen and Barcelona would crush him out, sure, but kissing off such an exotic piece of woman-flesh as Alaina would be the worst of it. A mental conjuring of her long, tanned legs and silky flanks sparked and fluttered as he thought of his wife. Naturally, Anne would remain steadfastly by his side. She was such a pathetic, sycophantic bitch…

  No, that wasn’t being fair. She certainly was no bitch—she didn’t have the juice, the passion, to be that memorable or distinctive. Actually, Jameson felt sorry for her. The poor woman had bought the whole Fifties ramadoola: let your husband bust his ass, forsake any career or identity for yourself, and build your life around a gaggle of kids who are only going to desert you as soon as they stand up on their hind legs. She did, and they did; and now all that remained of Anne Jameson was a bittersweet female ravaged by menopause and the realization that she had no skills, interests, or anything to which she might personally aspire other than twenty years of solitude after widowing a corporate coronary victim.

  That’s if you believed the Insurance Companies actuary tables…

  But none of it really mattered any longer. Jameson’s life effectively ended back there in Alan Markley’s wainscoted office.

  A soft electronic ping interrupted his meandering thoughts and a red light indicated which of the bay doors would open next. He approached it and watched the chrome panels recede to reveal two passengers doing their best not to look at him. Entering the small chamber, he checked them out almost automatically. A messenger boy, wearing his obligatory Walkman and headphones, boogied and head-bobbed to secret tunes; and a female ladder-climber who wore the required costume of an ugly, tailored suit, foppish blouse and bogus-cravat. Looking like somebody had just crammed something cold up her narrow rear, she stood there stiffly. A real prunesicle, this one.

  The doors closed and the three of them descended ten floors until Ms. Corporate Posture departed. Three floors later, in walked a skinny guy wearing a suit that looked like its hanger was still in the shoulders. He promptly turned, tilted his neck upward, and began the required watching of the illuminated floor indicator. Two more floors, and the rhythmic messenger slipped free and the doors entombed Jameson and the tall, lean guy in great need of a tailor. Jameson kept trying to retreat into the snarled web of his dark thoughts and self-pity, but there was something about his fellow traveler that kept distracting him. Even though the guy kept watching the blink of each passing floor like you’re supposed to do, he seemed to be twitching and moving beneath his clothes like there were bugs crawling over him.

  Weir
d.

  After descending into the mid-sixties, there came a thunk! and a heavy, ratcheting sound. The floor slipped away from their feet for an instant before a keening sound pierced the space above their heads. The elevator car was screaming like a seagull trapped in the shaft, squawking to be set free. Jameson’s stomach pressed up against the bottom of his ribcage as the car plummeted downward.

  Jesus, we’re in free-fall!

  Jameson reached up and grabbed the light-fixture over their heads, hanging in mid-air as the other guy collapsed in a heap.

  Down they rocketed through the core of the building, picking up speed. The entire car started vibrating, keening, almost singing like a tuning fork. Jameson’s eardrums felt like they might pop inwards. The sound became impossibly loud, insanely loud. His fingers curled over the edge of the overhead light, felt like they were being crushed against an egg-slicer. His stomach worked its way up his throat. Much more of this and it would be in his mouth.

  Then, suddenly, it was yanked back downward like it might be pulled out the other end of him. A hideous screeching sound filled the car. A million fingernails across a million chalkboards.

  Gravity returned like a fist grabbing them, tugging them earthward with a single final surge. It had all happened in the space of a few seconds. Jameson’s grip on the over-head fixture was pulled free, almost slicing off the top digits and he fell to the carpet. He steadied himself, attempting to stand only when he was certain the car had stopped moving downward. Silence covered them like an oil-soaked rag, heavy, thick.

  Almost instantly, a sensation of being sealed in, trapped, slapped him like an angry woman. Charles used his Dale Carnegie training to push the fear off the edge of his senses. No place for panic now.

  “My God,” said Baggy Suit as he jittered to his feet. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jameson. “Sounds like the emergency brakes locked in. We might have lost our cable.”

  “You’re kidding!…where are we!?”

  Several numbers on the indicator strip blinked. “If you want to figure from that, it looks like we’re between the 39th and the 40th floors…”

  “I don’t know if I can handle this,” said the tall, thin man. His hair was matted to his skull with some sort of gel. It shined like a cheap plastic helmet. He wore thick glasses which magnified his eyes when he looked straight on.

  Jameson grinned sardonically. “I don’t think you’ve got a hell of a lot of choice.” Speaking of panic, this guy looked like he’d been first in line when they were handing it out.

  “You don’t understand,” said the man. “I’ve got to get out of here!”

  Jameson could hear the tension rising in the man’s voice. Great. Just what he needed—spend a couple hours with a claustrophobic yahoo…

  “Calm down, I’ll call Security and see what’s going on.” Jameson smiled as he opened the glass door to a phone. He keyed in the security code and waited for moment.

  “Security…this is Williams…”

  Jameson quickly recounted his and his companion’s situation.

  “We already got you covered, Mr. Jameson. The big computer board’s got you lit up and we’ve sent an emergency crew on the way to get you out of there.”

  “And how long might that be?” asked Charles.

  “Oh, an hour tops, they told us…”

  Only an hour, thought Charles. Apparently Security had not yet been told of the falling ax either.

  “It sounded like we lost our cable…is that right?”

  “I think so…but don’t worry, sir. The Building Engineer sez them emergency brakes’ll hold you up there forever. Sez they work on gravity or somethin’.”

  “All right, then…thank you, Williams.”

  Charles hung up the red phone, looked at Baggy Suit, who was staring at him anxiously.

  “Well, what’d they say!? What’s going on? They gettin’ us outta here…or what?!”

  Charles explained the situation as succinctly as possible.

  “An hour!” The man grabbed at his lapels, pressed his hands against his chest. It was an odd nervous gesture. “Goddamn better not be that long!” The man’s eyes were round and buglike behind his lenses.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have much to say about it,” said Charles. Again he felt the dank feeling of utter confinement pass over him. He shrugged it away.

  The man allowed himself to slide down the wall of the car, settling on the rug in an ungainly position in the corner. “Looks like we may as well get comfortable,” he said.

  Suddenly, standing seemed inappropriate, and Charles felt the urge to join his companion on the carpeted floor. He tugged at his Armani suit trousers so the knees wouldn’t bag, and eased himself down, edging into the corner opposite the stranger.

  They sat staring at one another for a minute or so. Charles studied the guy more intently. He appeared to be maybe forty-five, but he could have been a harried, stressed-out thirty-five. He never stopped fidgeting with his hands, and was always wriggling in his clothes like he was wearing a hair-shirt. The man’s gaze turreted from the floor number display to the red phone to Charles Jameson. A timed cycle of movements: numbers, phone, Jameson; numbers, phone, Jameson…

  The guy probably wasn’t wrapped real tight. His jittery demeanor gave him a distinctly paranoid aspect. Charles decided he didn’t like the fellow even a little bit.

  The silence between them grew more prolonged, hanging in the air like a foul odor. The guy continued his metronomic gaze-shifting. It had become unnerving, and was starting to piss Charles off. But then, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea—getting angry with an odd duck like Mr. Baggy Suit here. It occurred to him for the first time that maybe, just maybe being trapped with a character who might be a little unhinged wasn’t such a great idea. If Charles hadn’t been so pre-occupied with his own personal tragedy, he might have been thinking more clearly about any potential problems of a more immediate nature.

  The guy in the opposite corner was getting more animated by the minute. Sweat had popped out all over him like dew. He looked like a pressure cooker waiting to blow. Charles cleared his throat and spoke to him, “If we’re going to be here for a while, I guess we should get to know each other…My name’s Jameson. Charles Jameson. What’s yours?”

  In truth, Charles had no desire to know the creep in the corner, but felt any distraction from the man’s current state of high anxiety was safer.

  The man looked at him, swallowed with great effort. His eyes grew wide and glassy. “Hello, Mr. Charles Jameson. My name is Doctor Doom.”

  Great. I’m trapped in an elevator with some donut who calls himself ‘Doctor Doom’…Yes, Charles, you’re having a special day, all right.

  “Doom?” asked Charles as nonchalantly as possible. “Is that with two o’s?”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.” The good doctor looked at him with an expression that could only be described as suspicious. “Nobody’s ever asked me how to spell it before.”

  “Well, it’s an unusual name, you must admit.”

  “It’s getting hot in here,” Doom said, as though to himself.

  “I hadn’t noticed,” said Charles.

  “You wouldn’t by any chance be employed by MegaCorp, would you, Mr. Jameson?”

  Charles managed a thin, ironic smile. “No, not any longer…”

  The donut’s gaze became more focused, a tic in the corner of his mouth intensified. “But you were part of that international gang of pirates!?”

  “That’s an interesting description of the company…but yes, that’s correct, I was a ‘part’.”

  The man opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a strange sound—a clanging concussion that reverberated through the elevator shaft.

  “What was that!” he almost screamed.

  “Probably the rescue crew,” said Charles.

  “How much longer!?” The man was actually screaming now.

  “Hey, take it easy…they said e
verything would be fine.”

  The man laughed, half-rolling his eyes. He looked like Jack Nicholson chewing the scenery in Kubrick’s The Shining. “Of course they think it’s going to be fine! They don’t know they’re dealing with Doctor Doom!”

  Suddenly the space between Charles and the stranger seemed far too small, too confining. For the first time, a sense of claustrophobia raged over him. Could he fear this thin weasel of a man?

  Yes, he could.

  Standing up, Charles, pretended to smooth out his clothing. He figured he was better prepared for any problems if he wasn’t balled up in a corner. He noticed the man watching him intently.

  “How do I know you’re not one of them?” said Doom.

  “One of who?”

  “The MegaCorp agents. They’re everywhere, you know.”

  “Trust me. I’m not. I just got fired.”

  “That’s right! I was asking you what part you played in MegaCorp’s Grand Scheme…” Doom’s expression was so pinched, so perfectly aimed at Charles, he answered reflexively.

  “I was a vice-president…in charge of Environmental Affairs.”

  “Did you say ‘environment’!”

  “Well, almost…” Charles teased, knowing he’d pushed one of this walnut’s hot-buttons. He watched as the man scrambled to his feet, his hands fisting and unfisting nervously.