The Consultant

by Little,Bentley

  “As a matter of fact,” Patoff said, as though he was in the middle of a completely separate conversation, “I’ve been thinking that we may need to extend our time at CompWare. The problems here are systemic and not easily remedied. Much more time may be required before we can resolve all of the issues facing your company.”

  “How long?” Matthews asked, and hated himself for the whiny note of subservience he heard in his voice.

  “It’s hard to say,” Patoff responded as a pen floated up from the desk and suddenly whipped backward, slashing Matthews across the forehead and drawing blood. The consultant chuckled. “I’ll let you know.”

  He strode out of the office, the door slamming shut behind him, and Matthews used a Kimwipe to pat the blood seeping from his forehead. He held the oversized tissue in place and made his way over to his private bathroom. The wound felt worse than it looked, but it was definitely noticeable, and he took some Neosporin out of the drawer, rubbed it on the cut and applied a Band-Aid. A jumble of thoughts were struggling for supremacy in his head: frightened theories about how the consultant could do what he did; paranoid notions about what the man wanted and why; pipe dreams about going to the police and charging him with assault; concern for himself, his company, his workers and his wife.

  Fear was his overriding emotion, however, and it superseded everything else, ensuring that he would remain impotent and do nothing.

  Matthews opened the bathroom door, walked back out to his office—

  And saw someone sitting in his chair.

  His heart gave an involuntary start.

  At first he thought it was Patoff come back, but though the chair was swiveled away from him, facing a window, he could see that the figure in it was shorter than the consultant and dressed in a dark cowl made of some heavy rough burlap-type material. Both observations made him uneasy. The costume was completely incongruous in these surroundings, and the fact that the person in his chair was almost small enough to be a child was just plain creepy.

  He made sure his voice was appropriately angry and authoritative. “Who are you and what are you doing here? This is my office.”

  The chair spun around, and the thing in it smiled at him, an impossibly huge smile that took up most of the bone-white face, leaving little room for the dark piggy eyes and the snake-slit nose.

  Matthews cried out, stumbling backward. The bathroom door handle hit his spine, causing a searing flash of pain, but he was afraid to take his eyes off that abomination in his chair, and without looking behind him, he moved to the right, still backing away, hoping to get back in the bathroom where he could close and lock the door before calling Security.

  The chair turned around once again, facing away from him.

  Matthews glanced quickly at the office door, thinking he should make a run for it. The door was closed, but it was on the opposite side of the room from his desk, with plenty of open space in between. Unless that little freak could move like lightning, Matthews should have no problem getting out of the office and away.

  Unless the door was locked.

  Patoff had been the last one in and out of that door, opening and closing it with his…powers, and it wasn’t inconceivable that when Matthews reached the door he would find it sealed shut. Unable to open it, he would turn around and see that horror smiling its face-spanning smile as it scuttled across the floor toward him.

  The chair moved a little to the right and Matthews managed not to scream as he ran into the bathroom and shut the door. There was a phone between the sink and the toilet—one of those little luxuries he’d never used—and he picked it up, punching in Diane’s extension. “Call Security,” he ordered her. “There’s an intruder in my office.”

  “Right away.” She hung up, and he did too, closing his eyes as he leaned against the wall. He could probably go out there now, because he knew that as soon as one of the guards opened the door, his office would be empty, leaving everyone to think he was crazy.

  Sighing, he opened the bathroom door.

  It was still in his chair.

  He slammed the door and locked it, breathing heavily. Moments later, he heard his name called out by a male voice, heard the office door open—it was unlocked!—and heard Diane’s short sharp cry of fear.

  It was still there.

  He felt braver with others around, and he opened the bathroom door, stepping out. His eyes briefly took in Diane and the two security guards but then focused on his desk chair and the figure sitting there.

  The dummy.

  For it was not a living being that was in his seat now—although he knew it had been very much alive only moments before—but what appeared to be a ventriloquist’s dummy. The white face was similar to the one he’d faced, but the mouth was not smiling and was in proportion to the rest of the face. He recognized the figure as a character from one of CompWare’s fantasy games and assumed that, if confronted, Patoff would claim that it was part of a marketing strategy to advertise the program.

  “I must have overreacted,” Diane said, covering for him.

  He shot her a grateful look before addressing the Security team. “Yes, you probably didn’t need to come, but I’m glad she called you. Better safe than sorry, right?”

  The guards nodded. They were looking at the dummy, not as though they had been called here on a false alarm, but as though the object was indeed dangerous and they were afraid of it.

  Matthews kept his voice calm. “Take that out of here, will you? Throw it away or do whatever you want with it.”

  The guards looked at each other, as though deciding between them which would have to touch the object, and the older, burlier one on the right stepped forward and picked up the figure. He handled it gingerly, and when it spoke, saying something in high-pitched gibberish that had to be part of the game, they all jumped, the guard holding the dummy nearly dropping it. There was nervous laughter all around.

  “Thanks, guys,” Matthews said, ushering them out of his office.

  He followed them out to Diane’s desk, and neither of them said anything until the Security men were gone.

  Diane let out a heavy breath. “What was that?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.

  “Did Mr. Patoff bring it in? He stormed right past me, but it didn’t look like he was carrying anything in his hands.”

  “No,” Matthews said.

  “I can see why you thought it was a person. That thing was huge.”

  “And creepy.”

  “And creepy,” she agreed.

  He almost told her the truth but at the last second decided against it. This was farfetched enough as it was. He didn’t want his secretary thinking he was seeing things that weren’t there. The two of them had worked together for a long time and had a lot of respect for each other, and he didn’t want that to change.

  She looked at him. “When is he going to go?” she asked. “Mr. Patoff. When’s he going to be done?”

  “I don’t know,” Matthews said.

  “Soon, I hope.”

  “I hope so, too.”

  THIRTY ONE

  Craig was in the middle of his usual mid-morning BFG spam purge when Angie called. Dylan’s school was having another early release day, and she wouldn’t be able to pick him up because she’d been called in to the Urgent Care to sub for three nurses who hadn’t come to work. “I can’t leave until five or six at the earliest, so you need to get him.”

  “Okay,” he told her.

  The two of them had discussed this before. Neither of them understood these school schedules that kids had now. When he was little, they’d had three months off for summer and, with the exception of Christmas, Easter and a few scattered holidays, they’d attended class straight through from the Tuesday after Labor Day to the first week in June. But summer was now down to two months, and the school year was broken up by furlough days, teacher in-service days, early release days and late start days. It was a ridiculous patchwork that caused havoc with every working pa
rent he knew, forcing far too many of them to waste vacation time picking up their kids on shortened days like today.

  Ordinarily, he would have just taken his lunch an hour late and picked Dylan up then, but Mrs. Adams was still “observing” him, and he was pretty sure BFG would frown on such an informal arrangement. So, just to be on the safe side, he officially informed Scott Cho of his plan.

  “I’m going to have to report this,” the department head said disapprovingly.

  “I’m using my lunch hour.”

  “You can’t just decide when your lunch hour is. You have a specific assignment, and that is when you have to eat.”

  “Then I’m taking personal time,” Craig informed him. “The way everyone does. Including you.”

  “I still have to report it,” Scott insisted.

  Craig was disgusted. “Do what you have to do.”

  He ate lunch at his desk—a microwaved burrito and a Dave’s Buttermilk Twizzle from the vending machines—and made sure to keep the door open so Mrs. Adams could see that he continued to work through his meal. When the time came to pick up Dylan, he let the programmers know that he would be out for an hour or so, and also informed Scott that he was leaving. He didn’t say a thing to Mrs. Adams, and the observer didn’t ask, just continued to type into her tablet.

  It was odd not to have Lupe here, and without even a temporary secretary, Craig set his phone to go straight into voicemail while he was gone.

  He and Dylan returned less than forty minutes later, more quickly than he expected, and found Patoff waiting, conferring with Mrs. Adams at the secretary’s station outside his office. The consultant clapped his hands upon seeing them. “Perfect! Your little girl’s here for Bring Your Daughter to Work Day!”

  Dylan did not take the bait, and Craig was proud of him. He was a little less enthralled when he looked down at his son’s face and realized that the boy was scared. The consultant was smiling at Dylan, and Craig stepped between them. “Don’t you have work to do?” he asked pointedly. “CompWare didn’t hire you to chat with employees and joke around with their children.”

  “Just so,” Patoff said. “In fact, I’m here to invite you to a meeting to discuss inter-office email protocols.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “The meeting starts in five. Third floor conference room. No children allowed, of course.” He cast a faux sympathetic smile toward Dylan.

  Ignoring the consultant, Craig took his son’s hand and walked into his office, closing the door behind him. He didn’t want to frighten Dylan any more than he was already, but he needed to make sure his son remained safe.

  He wished Lupe was here.

  “Dylan,” he said. “I have to go to a meeting. I don’t know how long I’m going to be, but until I come back, I want you to stay here in my office. Don’t let anyone in. I’m going to lock the door behind me. Just sit there at my desk. I’ll set up some games for you, and you can play until I get back.”

  Dylan, too serious, nodded. “Okay, Daddy.”

  “And don’t open that door.”

  “I won’t. Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I get a drink out of your refrigerator?”

  Smiling, Craig mussed his hair. “Of course. Get whatever you want.”

  “I can get it myself?”

  “Sure.”

  The fear of only a few seconds before forgotten, Dylan dashed over to the small refrigerator, opened the door, sorted through the contents and pulled out a grape Propel Zero. “All right!”

  Craig felt a little better. He set up his computer so that the menu offered several different age-appropriate games, all of which Dylan had played before. “Okay,” he said. “I need to go.”

  “Don’t open the door,” Dylan said, anticipating his next sentence. “And don’t let anyone in. I know.” He hopped onto the chair behind the desk and spun it around, before stopping it and facing the keyboard and computer screen.

  Craig laughed. “Good boy. You going to be okay here by yourself? It’s the first time we ever left you al—”

  “I’ll be fine, Daddy. I’m just going to play.”

  “Okay, then. See you soon.” He put on a brave front, but the idea of leaving Dylan by himself made him nervous, and he knew he was going to catch hell for it from Angie later. He closed the door, locking it behind him, and glared at Mrs. Adams. He expected her to follow him, the way she usually did, but she remained seated, and he wondered if that was what Patoff had been talking to her about, if they had something planned. The thought of it almost made him go back in, get Dylan and bring his son with him to the meeting, even though the consultant had specifically said children were not allowed.

  But his office was locked, he had the only key, and if Patoff was going to be conducting the meeting, his office was probably the safest place for the boy.

  Shooting a last glance at his closed office door and the seated observer stationed outside it, Craig started down the hallway.

  He would have felt a hell of a lot better if Lupe was here.

  ****

  His dad told him not to leave the office, but he’d been gone a long time and Dylan desperately had to go to the bathroom.

  And the door to his dad’s bathroom was locked.

  He’d been holding it for a while now, but if this went on much longer, he was going to have an accident. That hadn’t happened since kindergarten, and Dylan, remembering how embarrassing it had been, did not want that to happen again. He tried to make his brain forget about it by focusing on the game he was playing. He crossed his legs, pressed down on his lap, even got up and walked around, but he was nearing the end of his rope. He had to go.

  Dylan walked over to the door, turning the lock, knowing he was disobeying what he’d been told and feeling guilty about it. He was hoping to see that his dad had arrived back at exactly the same time he opened the door. No such luck. There was only Mrs. Adams, the mean woman in the chair outside, and she was staring at him with the blank face of a statue.

  His gut reaction was to slam the door, lock it and stay inside the office, but it was an emergency, and he stepped out tentatively. “I have to go to the bathroom,” he told Mrs. Adams.

  She smiled, and the smile scared him. It reminded him of Mr. Patoff’s. She said nothing but typed something on her pad.

  “Do you have a key to my dad’s bathroom?”

  She stared at him silently.

  “Do you know where another bathroom is?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer, and when it became obvious that she wasn’t going to answer, he walked past her, stopping to look both ways down the corridor. To his left, he saw a man talking to a woman, and he hurried over to them. The woman looked at him as he approached. “Do you know where the bathroom is?” Dylan asked.

  “Why don’t you show him, Bill?” the woman said.

  The man nodded, looking down kindly. “It’s over here, sport.” He led Dylan down the hall before gesturing to a door with a plaque showing the white stick figure of a man on a blue square. “Are you okay? You want me to go in with you?”

  “No, thanks,” Dylan said, hurrying in.

  He made it just in time.

  Afterward, he washed his hands in the sink, having fun with the automatic soap dispenser and the motion-activated faucet. There was music in the bathroom, boring old man music, although Dylan didn’t notice it until it shut off. After several seconds of silence, there came an announcement over hidden speakers. “Dylan!”

  He jumped at the sound of his name.

  “Dylan!”

  Recognizing Mr. Patoff’s voice, he quickly moved away from the water and grabbed some paper towels to dry his hands.

  “There’s someone who wants to play hide-and-seek with you!” Mr. Patoff’s voice was teasing.

  He was hoping the man who’d brought him here was still waiting outside, but when Dylan hurried out of the bathroom, the hallway was dark. There were no lights in the ceiling, just torches on the walls, flickering flames creati
ng pockets of pulsating illumination that made some areas blurrily light and others utterly dark.

  That was impossible. This wasn’t a fairytale castle. It was a regular building. How could there be torches?

  He didn’t know, but there were.

  There were also no people. He was the only one here, and that was scary.

  “Dyl-an!” It was Mr. Patoff’s voice again, sing-songy, as though he were playing, having fun. “It’s hide-and-seek time! The dwarf ’s finished counting! He’s looking for you!”

  The dwarf?

  Dylan looked around frantically, trying to remember which way he’d come. Everything was different, even the directions seemed off, and he wasn’t sure how to get back to his dad’s office. There was movement down the hall to his right, and he turned his head to see, by the flickering light of the torches, the tall shadow of a very short man.

  He ran in the opposite direction, hoping this was the right way. Nothing looked familiar. The ceiling, walls and floor were dark gray, and he didn’t see any office doors or secretaries’ alcoves, only a series of branching hallways that made him feel as though he were in a maze.

  From behind him came a terrible high-pitched giggle.

  The dwarf.

  Dylan ran faster, tears blurring his vision. He managed not to cry out, though he could feel a scream of pure terror building in his chest. He kept running straight, not turning down any of the offshoot passageways because the bathroom had been along the same corridor as his dad’s office. He was afraid that he was running in the wrong direction when he saw the widened section of hallway where his dad’s office was located. It was farther away from the bathroom than it should have been, but he recognized it, and it looked regular.

  Mrs. Adams was sitting in her chair, grinning at him. “Better hide,” she said. “He’s coming.”

  Sobbing, Dylan ran through the doorway into his dad’s office, where all was as it should have been. He closed and locked the door.

  The lights went out.

  “Daddy!” he screamed, afraid to move.