Toby’s stomach knots and sends a stab of pain through his nervous system, convincing him otherwise. “You’re not the one coughing up black crap.”
“You’re not dying. I wouldn’t do that to you,” she says. They come to a stop in front of an off-white door. She whips out a plastic keycard from her pocket and slides it through an electronic lock. The door chirps, and Toby hears the lock disengage. “Get inside. It’ll all be better soon.”
Clarice opens the door for him, and he steps into a small apartment. Or rather, Toby believes there’s a small apartment hidden under the total mess he is now taking in. From beneath countless baby and parenting magazines, he thinks he can make out a sofa nearby. Short, grey carpet covers the floor and is currently being kept warm by a surplus of mismatched clothes and a handful of Cabbage Patch dolls. To his side is a waste paper basket filled with the hollow shells of broken Bic pens, and at the other end of the room, a battered air conditioner hums loudly.
Clarice opens a side door and thrusts Toby into a bathroom that makes the lavatory on a DC-9 look like the Taj Mahal. How the two are actually fitting inside, Toby decides, defies the laws of physics. “Rinse,” she says, handing him a small plastic cup. “Flush the toner.”
Toby complies, and once he’s done using both sink and cup, he looks up at her and says, “Toner?”
“I put toner in your coffee,” she explains as if it was nothing more than a cube or two of sugar. “But don’t worry. Don’t worry. The worst has passed. An hour, maybe two...maybe two. You’ll be okay. It’s always okay.”
Toby grits his teeth as he fights another wave of nausea. “You spiked my coffee?”
Clarice shakes her head and bites her knuckle. “I had to,” she says, shaking. “Had to. There wasn’t a choice. It was that or ink. Ink works also, but not as well.”
Toby coughs. Spits. Black-tinged saliva sticks to the counter and the mirror on the wall. He takes a look at himself, at his teeth, specifically, and is revolted by their dingy color. He grips the counter and wants to strangle the woman where she stands. “What kind of sick freak are you?”
Clarice grabs his hands. Her words spit out like bullets from a machine gun. “Don’t be mad, Toby. I’m helping. That’s all I’m doing, trying to help. Trying to save us.”
“You had me drink toner,” he says, body temperature rising.
“No, no. You don’t understand. You have to understand.” She straightens. Her eyes brighten and she smiles. “It’s the drugs, Toby. That’s what this is for. Adrenaline helps, but not for long. That’s why toner is best.” She hugs herself tightly and rocks. “See? I’m helping you so we can escape.”
“What drugs?”
“The treats, the food,” she says. “They’re all drugged. They tried with the water, but it makes it taste funny. People wouldn’t drink it.”
Toby shakes his head. “No way. I’d know.”
“No, no,” she says. “No one notices. Most are lost after a few snacks. Two days, tops, and they’re gone. Always gone.” She smiles broadly and gives him a big squeeze. “But not you! You’re not one of them. Not yet. And that’s good. Good for us both. You have to see that. You have to believe me.”
Toby fills the cup twice more and rinses his mouth out each time. His stomach joins the fun and pukes again, prompting him to rinse and repeat for a third and final time. “You’re out of your mind.”
“It’s a preserve,” she says, eyes narrowed. “A preserve! They’re the enemy. Not me...not me.”
Her words stew in Toby’s brain. It doesn’t take long for him to admit that she’s the most normal person he’s met here, and even if she did poison his coffee, she’s also talking about an escape, which Toby finds instantly appealing. “Fine. I’m sorry. Tell me you have a plan to get out of this nightmare.”
Clarice smiles. “I do. We planned for a long time. Long time.”
“Fill me in,” he says.
“Not now. Too many questions, not enough time,” she replies, taking his hands in hers. Her voice softens along with her face. “Play your role. Do as I say.”
Toby concedes that his mountain of questions might grow tenfold if she answers any of them. Besides, all he really wants is to get home in one piece. “If it means escaping, I’m all yours.”
Clarice smiles broadly and lets go. “You have no idea how relieved I am hearing that. No idea.”
“What do you need from me?”
“First, take a shower,” she says. “You reek.”
Toby laughs. “Where? Here?”
Clarice nods and points to a small shower massage that’s hanging on the wall behind him. “Use that,” she says. “The floor is tiled. The drain is under the sink. Soap is in the medicine cabinet.”
Toby looks under the counter and sure enough, there’s a tiny drain. “I can’t believe this doubles as a shower. What do I do about clothes?”
“Toss yours,” she replies, opening the door and stepping out. “I’ll find you better ones, ones that won’t make you stand out.”
Toby nods and begins to shut the door, but Clarice catches it. “Something else,” she says. “Something you can’t forget. You mustn’t ever forget.”
“What?”
“Don’t talk about leaving,” she says. “What happens here, stays here.”
Toby cocks his head to the side. “Like Vegas?”
“They’re always watching, always listening,” she says. Her eyes dart around and her voice lowers. “Not only Freddie, but the office people, too.”
“Surely they want to go home,” says Toby.
Clarice shakes her head. “This is home. They’re stock. Born and raised here. Except a few they bring to replace those gone. We’re the ones the drugs are meant for.”
“We can’t leave them behind,” says Toby. “We’ve got to save them.”
Clarice takes his hands and grips them tight. “No, Toby. You don’t understand. They don’t want to go. They don’t want to leave this life. They’ll do anything to keep you from leaving too.”
Her tone sends a shiver up his spine, but with a little luck, he figures he won’t be around long enough to see whatever she’s alluding to. “Okay,” Toby says. “No escape talk.”
“We’ll be okay, Toby,” she says. “Don’t worry. Shower. Get clean. Then we leave.”
* * *
Ten minutes later, Toby, dripping wet, peeks out of the door. He’s about to ask for a towel when he realizes the apartment has changed. The clothes on the floor have been stuffed in and around a couple of hampers. The magazines are gone, and the lighting has changed from the electric variety to the candle sort. The most notable change, however, is that the sofa is now a bed, a bed in which Clarice is lying on her side, covers drawn.
“Clarice?” Toby asks, unsure what to make of the scene.
“Yes, Toby?”
“Can I get a towel?”
“Sure.”
A few moments pass and the only thing Toby gets is a whiff of light perfume. Hairs raise on the back of his neck, and he wonders what happened to the jumpy secretary he’d met a short while ago. “So,” he says, uncomfortable in the silence, “about that towel.”
“Yes?”
Despite the dim light, he’s pretty sure he catches a glimpse of a seductive grin. Or maybe it’s more of the hungry type, and given this place so far, the thought crosses his mind that maybe she’s the resident black widow. Toby dismisses the thought as paranoia and says, “Can I get one or not?”
Her slender arm escapes the covers. “Toby, you can get a towel any time you like,” she says, pointing to a nearby corner. “They’re folded right there.”
“Look,” says Toby. “I’m not entirely comfortable strolling out there naked. Can you grab it for me?”
“I can,” Clarice replies. She gracefully slips out of the bed, and that’s when Toby realizes the only thing the shadows have to cling to on her is her bare skin.
“Clarice?” he stammers as her toned silhouette approaches. He
wants to say something else, something about being married or that being in a zoo doesn’t really do it for him, but he gets a second whiff of perfume, and his mind goes bank.
Clarice pulls the door fully open and presses a towel into his chest. “There you go.”
“Thanks.” He stares, admiring how the bathroom light strikes her every curve.
Clarice snakes her arms around his neck and soon it’s not the towel pressing into his chest, but her body. “Since I carried you a towel from the bed,” she says, kissing his neck, “you should carry me back.”
Toby inhales. A fragrance, sweet and intoxicating, drifts from her neck. His world collapses into the moment. All he can think about, all he can do, is touch her, kiss her.
“Carry me back,” she says again.
Toby nods. Her legs wrap around his waist and he brings her to the bed. He rounds the one and only corner between bed and bath a little too quickly, too haphazardly, and stumbles. Pain stabs through his right foot, and his two smallest toes scream in agony.
“Christ!” Toby yells. He falls forward but manages to keep upright long enough to dump Clarice on the bed and not the floor. He drops to a knee and grabs his foot. Since the light is dim, it’s hard to inspect the damage. There are no obvious signs of bruising, but judging by the fire burning in his toes, he prays they aren’t fractured.
“Oh, you poor thing,” says Clarice. She slides her arms around his chest from behind and nibbles his ear like his bride, Nikki, used to do.
Toby straightens and pushes her away. “Stop,” he says, shaking his head while trying to make sense of what’s going on.
“Why?” she replies. Confusion mars both her face and voice. She tries to pull him in again and is rebuffed a second time. “What’s wrong?”
Toby takes to his feet. His heart thumps loudly in his ears. “I’m married, that’s what.” He stops as another whiff of perfume enters his nose. His muscles relax. The engine to his libido revs, but his brain, which is saturated with adrenaline and endorphins, plays its trump card and overrides the desire to make her claw the ceiling in ecstasy. “It’s your perfume, isn’t it?” he says, backing up. “You’re trying to drug me like the others.”
Clarice takes a bold step forward and doesn’t break eye contact under the accusation. “I thought it would help put you in the mood,” she says. “I can wash it off, if you like. Then we can start over.”
“I’m not starting anything,” he says, grabbing a towel from the floor and wrapping it around his waist. “I thought you were trying to help.”
Clarice gently takes his wrists. “I am helping. Besides, you know you want to.”
“I’m not going to tell you again, I’m married.”
“So?” she says without missing a beat. “I’m your secretary now. It’s okay.”
Toby swipes her hands away. “I said no, and I mean it.”
“You don’t find me attractive?”
Toby shakes his head, despite the fact that his lower half is screaming, “Yes!"
“Look, it’s not like that-” he begins to say, but Clarice catches a sob in her throat and he stops. She might be a touch overly aggressive, but he can’t help but feel sorry for her.
“You think I’m ugly,” she mumbles. She runs her fingers through her hair and grips the back of her head. “No, no, no,” she repeats over and over. She paces and starts to hyperventilate. “You can’t. You mustn’t.”
The panic building in her voice is all that’s needed to drop Toby’s guard completely. “What?” he asks with genuine concern.
Clarice looks up, hopeful, scared. “You have to sleep with me,” she says, eyes watering. “You have to screw me.”
Toby retreats the last bit he can before his back presses against the wall. “Look, I don’t know what the hell this is all about,” he says, hands up, “but you’ve just joined the ranks of bat-shit crazy, which isn’t my kind of girl.”
Clarice steps forward again. She paws at his hands, then takes and rubs one against her tear-stained cheek. “No, you don’t understand,” she says. “They have to smell you on me. They have to know I’m yours.”
Toby pushes her away. “I’m leaving.”
“You can’t,” she says, following his retreat with arms out. “You mustn’t.”
“Watch me.”
Clarice freezes. Her mouth hangs open, and whatever it is she’s staring at, Toby’s certain it’s not him. “No, no, no,” she whispers, digging her fingernails into her chest. “I can’t sit and watch. Not again. Not again.”
“Look, when you’ve calmed down, we can talk,” he says.
“Toby!” She says it with such a force that he jumps straight up. “They want you. All of them. You, your title, your job. Everything.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“They’re going to bag you if you don’t listen. You have to listen. You have to stay.”
“They do?” he asks, flattered and confused. “Why?”
“You’re a buck. Bucks get bagged. It’s the way it is.”
“I don’t care,” he says. “I’ll turn them down too. All I want is to go home.”
Toby goes to walk away, but Clarice grabs his wrists. “Please stay,” she says. “Stay for the night. I’ll explain it all if you give me a chance.”
“No—”
Clarice grabs her head and hunched over, walks in tight circles. “Stupid, stupid, stupid, Clarice,” she says. “You’ve got to be smart. Be smart for me. For us.” She stops her pacing and squares off with Toby once more. Her shoulders roll back, her chest up. Her posture is near perfect at this point. “I’m sorry, Toby,” she says, voice flat. “I came on too strong, and I apologize. I wasn’t lying before, but I need you to stay here and not go outside if we’re going to get out of here alive.”
Toby shakes his head. This marks the third shift in her behavior he’s witnessed since being in her room, and to say that that makes him uneasy is like saying sitting on a burning hot fire poker might make him a little uncomfortable. He can’t even begin to fathom someone going from skittish, to horny, to desperate, and back to normal in such a short time.
“This is really creeping me out,” he says. He has the urge to bolt but realizes that even if she’s a little psycho, if she knows a way out, he should stick around. “Tell me what you’ve got in mind.”
“The aliens have these things,” Clarice says, stammering, searching for words. “They use them to open doors. Doors to other places we can’t get to. We just need to get a hold of one.”
Toby smirks. “You mean they have keys?”
Clarice tosses him a pile of mismatched clothes from the floor and grabs some for herself as well. “I know what keys are,” she says, dressing. “And they aren’t like car keys. They look like a deck of cards or a cigarette pack. I don’t know how they work, but they open these doors, or portals, or whatever you want to call them.”
“A portal?”
Clarice nods. “They’re flat and appear out of nowhere. Sounds like a portal. Looks like a portal. What do you want to call them?”
Toby concedes the point as he slips on some boxers. “Where do they lead?”
“Out. That’s all I know.”
“And how do you plan on getting one of these devices?” he asks.
“We take one,” she says, putting on a white baby doll shirt. Her voice wavers. “We take one when they watch us mate. The wardens always like to watch.”
“This is ridiculous,” Toby says. “You think I’m really going to fall for that?”
“No, no, I know,” Clarice says, clearly trying to placate him with both body and word. “No sex. You said that, I know. We can get a key though, the two of us, if we work together, give them a show.”
Toby raises an eyebrow in skepticism, and he can’t help but think she’s leading him on another ruse. “How can I possibly trust you?”
Clarice throws her hands up. “I don’t know,” she says. “I’d do anything I could to make you believe. An
ything.”
Toby pauses, searching for something the woman could do as a show of trust. “Tell me about your scar.”
Clarice backs. Her entire affect goes flat. “What about it?”
“How did you get it?”
“Someone cut me.”
“Who?”
“Nick,” she says. “My boyfriend.” The most uncomfortable of silences settles between the two. “He’s not here anymore,” she eventually tacks on.
Toby’s gut knots, and though the mask she has on her face is nearly impenetrable, he can still catch a glimpse of unspeakable pain in her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Clarice clears her eyes with her hands and nods. “It’s not your fault,” she says. “And I’m the one that should be apologizing,” she adds. “I’m really not a whore.”
Toby laughs nervously. “It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, but-“
“I know. You’re married, and this place is scary,” she finishes. She flips a nearby light switch and the room brightens. “Scares me too. Always has.”
Now that he can see better, Toby looks down at the oversized t-shirt he’s about to put on. It’s a grey Nike, and in the center, Toby counts nine small holes clustered together in about a six-inch radius. “This shirt’s a little worn,” he says, holding it up for her to see. “Got anything without pencil holes driven through it?”
Clarice shakes her head. “New clothes don’t come often,” she says. “Everything’s used. Everything’s worn.”
“Yeah, but it looks like this thing sat under a leaky engine block,” Toby adds, noting the large, discolored section of fibers in the front of the shirt. “Not sure I want to wear rags.”
“Put it on,” Clarice says. “Only those on top get to wear nice things. Nice things make you stand out. You don’t want that.”
“Why? Is this like a prison where people beat each other up for clothes?” asks Toby.
“Not a prison,” she says. “Worse. It’s a preserve. Prisoners are let go. We never are.”
Toby looks at her, hoping for a deeper explanation. Not that being kept in an alien zoo for the rest of his life isn’t bad enough, but he’s not understanding the connection she’s trying to make. “What don’t I know?”
Office Preserves Page 3
