The Supervisor
By Christian Riley
Copyright 2011 by Christian Riley
Cover Copyright 2011 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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The Supervisor
By Christian Riley
Two hours ago, I crept up behind my supervisor, drew my forty-five caliber handgun to the back of his head, and blew his last remaining thought into a scrambled heap upon his desk.
I have never so much as killed anything larger than a fish, and would like to say that I am not a madman, but at this point I’m not too sure anymore. The authorities will definitely think so. They will find me soon on this stormy Christmas Eve, sitting here in this restaurant eating Kung Pao Chicken, and then haul me away like an animal, where I will ultimately be thrown into some remote asylum you or I have never heard of.
Hard to blame them really. One just doesn’t walk into their place of employment and murder their supervisor, then receive a light sentence for “temporarily losing his mind.” Not in this day and age. My life is over, this I know, but as God is my witness, I would have it no other way. For you see, in truth, the real crime here was how I let that horrendous monster, my supervisor, take from me all that any man could ever live for.
The seeds of my guilt were planted several months ago, during the affectionate unfolding of summer’s tide. Teddy White transferred to our backwater town of Issaquah, Washington, from our company’s headquarters near downtown Seattle. He was our new, fearless leader in our charge through the sea of web development, and much to our dismay, seemed as proverbial to the notion of diplomacy as one would expect from a guy like him. It was, of course, no stretch of our imagination how we silently dubbed him “The Great White,” as we talked amongst ourselves in our circles…
The Great White wants you to email that progress report to Advanced Cycle Systems…now!
The Great White just gave me that condescending smile in the break room…yeah, yeah…that’s the one.
Some of Ted’s annoyances could have been more palatable if it were not for the fact that he was always delegating his duties to us. At what point does the act of “delegation,” that icon of proficiency gaggled over by upper management, bring with it a relevant salary? That’s the question we would often ask ourselves in the break room, as we made sport of the topic. But it was during one of these comic reliefs, while Ben Jukowski was reproducing one of Ted’s ridiculous demands with flawless appeal, that I caught my first glimpse of something strange about Ted…something not quite right.
I had stood up from the chair I was in, still laughing while Ben went on with his routine, and then proceeded to walk out of the break room to use the toilet. Standing there silently, around the corner, was Ted. He had caught me by surprise, most definitely; in fact, I had even jumped a bit, which I noticed brought a moment of pleasure to his eyes.
“Having fun, Dan?”
That’s what he said to me, a question I had no answer for. I tucked my head with embarrassment, and cowered my way to the restroom, anxiety washing over me from the awkwardness of it all. As expected, I fretted over the incident for quite some time, worried about how Ted would handle being the target of our jokes. But it was during this moment of anxiety that I discovered that “something” about Ted. I had remembered seeing a look on his face that was quite disturbing, during that brief moment as I walked around the corner. He had quickly concealed the face with a smile, before he posed his question to me, but I had glimpsed enough of that gesture to award me with a haunted feeling for days to come. The only word I could think of as I tried to rationalize my observation of Ted was sinister.
Just as alarming was the fact that Ted never mentioned the incident to me, or any of us in the office again. Of course, I alerted the others to how I caught Ted spying on our conversation, which had us all speculating when the man would bring the hammer down. But there was no change in his demeanor. Nothing new, for better or for worse, that came over us from our supervisor. Nothing except an occasional odd glance to me, from Ted, which left me wondering what he was playing at.
A few weeks passed, and the office was storming ahead of schedule, days before Halloween. We were all in a chipper mood from our progress, and excited over the fact that Halloween fell on a Friday this year. Jennifer, our receptionist, made up a memo inviting us to wear costumes on the upcoming Friday, but the notice was hardly needed. There were about thirty of us at the Issaquah office, and with exception of myself, Ted and a few others, most of the employees were quite young. They needed little encouragement to dress up, especially on the last day of the week—and due to years of their youthful influence, neither did the rest of us “old timers.”
Ted was the questionable factor though. He was the new guy, and considering his uptight persona, along with the fact that he never made any attempts to socialize with any of us beyond the parameters of work, we all assumed he would come to the office on Halloween morning dressed as his normal self.
Friday arrived, bringing with it a thoughtful surprise for everyone. Ted regularly wore khaki pants and a button-down, long-sleeve shirt. Contrasting this, he also wore Nike running shoes—his silent way of bragging to us all that he, somewhere in his fifties, was still a capable runner. But on Halloween day, Ted showed up in a three-piece suit, along with four dozen donuts for the whole office. We were stunned. Adding to our considerable astonishment, he also made a point of interacting affably with us all. The man had dressed himself in a role demanding great respect, and played the perfect character to match.
His “costume” struck us as delightfully humorous in the beginning, but after a few hours, I could see the question hidden behind the eyes of my colleagues. I know this, because the same question danced in my head as well: How can this guy all of a sudden turn into the exact person our office needed? Ted went from “The Great White,” to “The Man in White,” literally overnight.
It chaffed us all. He was teasing us, mocking our intelligence, toying with our emotions. But the real kicker came at lunch time. We were all pretty much tired of Ted at that point, no one wanted anything to do with his offensive charade anymore. Nonetheless, Ted made his way back to the break room to mingle. He was making a great effort to “get to know us,” asking questions about our individual selves, and adding to our various conversations randomly. Fed up, I decided to turn the tables on Ted, and ask him questions about himself. Much to my surprise, the event was short-lived:
“So tell us Ted, what are you supposed to be dressed up as, anyways?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Dan?”
“No. Not really.”
“Why Dan…I’m a
serial killer.”
And then he left the room, as simple as that.
The ensuing silence felt as if our entire break room had been instantly plunged into the arctic ocean, like one of those crab pots you see on TV.
“Ohhkkaayy,” Ben finally said, with a crazed roll of his eyes. Most of the others chuckled awkwardly, relying on humor to cut the edge Ted left us with, but certainly not me. I found the man’s words haunting. It was almost as if I truly believed him, like he was confessing to us his “other life,” in a demented way only he would conjure up.
I left the office that day telling myself it was all a practical joke; just Ted being Ted, serving us all a plateful of insults, followed by that last little morsel, in case the taste in our mouths wasn’t awful enough. I put the incident out of my head, trying not to think about it until the following Monday, when Ted showed up wearing his normal khakis with his long-sleeve shirt, his normal running shoes, and his normal condescending attitude. The Great White was back in the tank, and sure enough, damn if we didn’t regret it.
It was a sick game for the man, and he was still playing at it. With absolute disgust, this was what I realized later that day, when Ted came up to my cubicle and whispered in my ear, “So Dan, how do you like me now?” Yes, my blood ran cold.
I avoided Ted as much as I could for sometime after that, letting the passage of time take with it the freshness of that creepy event. And much to my relief, so did Ted. He did that thing of his, pretending nothing had ever happened, going about his usual way. Everything was all back to normal, for which I was thankful, but always, in the back of my mind, loomed that chilling suspicion about Ted…What if?
It would be right around Thanksgiving when I picked up another disturbing clue about Ted’s character. I had gone to his office to give him a summary report for one of our clients. I should note here that Ted always preferred two things about his office: he always kept his door open, and he kept his computer station to the opposite side of his desk, so that when he worked on it, he would have his back to the door. And that’s how I found him when I rapped my knuckles on his door, sitting there with his eyes glued to the monitor, clicking his way through some photographs.
“Come in,” he replied, never once turning his back to see who it was. As I approached his desk, with words on the tip of my tongue, I had suddenly noticed from the reflection off his monitor (due to the dark colors of the picture he was looking at, and the adjacent glare from the window to his left) that Ted was staring at this picture with a sort of frivolous, childlike grin upon his face. Intrigued by his apparent fascination, I asked him what he was looking at. He swiftly spun his chair around, bid me to sit down in a cheerful way not seen since Halloween Friday, then tilted his monitor at an angle suitable for both of us to look at. Naturally I was suspicious, but upon recognition of what were obvious “hunting photographs” on his monitor, I gracefully accepted his invitation to sit down. I had figured it couldn’t hurt to at least humor the man.
Ted immediately went into a dreamy narrative over the pictures, stating facts about the various animals only a fellow hunter would comprehend, as well as other memorable events such as “the beauty of the river here,” “the coldness of the morning there,” and what have you.
His recent trip, as he showed me, was of a turkey hunt in Eastern Oregon. I remember being considerably surprised when I noticed on those pictures a couple of his friends. I guess it never occurred to me that Ted had any friends, as distant as he was with us regarding his life outside of work.
He prattled on over several more pictures, and I could see quite clearly that the man had a real passion for hunting. I, myself, had never gone hunting before, but would have to admit that the notion of doing so had always interested me. Due to my natural curiosity, I found myself inquiring more about his trips and general aspects of the whole hunting process.
Ted was a child. He sprung open like a cracked water main, divulging to me that part of his life like I was one of those men in his photographs; like I was one of his hunting buddies and, to be quite honest, I was flattered. I savored the moment, and remembered thinking that perhaps I had finally broke some ground with the man, and found a common denominator that would garner a different tone between us. At one point, to my great astonishment, Ted even proposed to take me out one day, to sort of “show me the hunting ropes” if you will.
But then, as Ted went on about more pictures, more trips, I suddenly noticed a photograph of him and a friend standing before what must have been a few dozen dead squirrels, spread out at their feet in that familiar, fresh-kill pose. I asked Ted what that was about, and he proceeded to brag gaily about that day, and how he and his “bud” shot more squirrels then than they ever had in the past.
“Do you eat squirrels, Ted?” I asked him.
“Well, you can, but there ain’t much meat,” he replied frankly.
Many people hunt for “sport”; killing for the sake of some trophy, or perhaps as a form of controlling animal populations in particular habitats. This I knew. It was one aspect about hunting that never appealed to me, but I knew it was common practice. The fact that his dead squirrels apparently fell into that category wasn’t what struck me as alarming, but rather how Ted went on about that day, and the general attitude he conveyed through his expressions. I realized then, in a sudden, unnerving fashion, that Ted enjoyed killing things…just for the sake of killing.
…Serial killers, for some deranged reason, take great pleasure in murdering life’s little creatures. I had heard that once, somewhere, years ago. They were the kind of words that always stuck with a person, summoned to the forefront of their thoughts at various times from conversations, or perhaps by headlines of the evening’s news. They were certainly the words summoned to the forefront of my thoughts then, as Ted gazed at that photograph, reminiscing as he did.
A sudden chill swept over me. Halloween Friday…that following Monday. So how do you like me now, Dan? The miserable events of those days came whistling back to me like a train barreling through a tunnel. I was both disappointed, and disturbed. No, Ted wasn’t going to “show me the hunting ropes” and yes, Ted just may be a real life killer!
My thoughts went foggy. I wiped my hands on my pant legs, trying to rid them of their sudden clamminess as I felt the racing of my heartbeat echo in my ears. My neighbor Bob had panic attacks. He used to tell me all about them on Sunday morning, after church. The sweaty palms…difficulty breathing… "Like a little mini-heart attack, Dan!” he used to say. That’s how I felt then, as Ted kept going on about those damn squirrels. I ended our conversation abruptly, on the premise that I had a ton of emails to get back to, and made my way out of his office with as much couth as possible.
“Anytime you wanna go shooting, Dan…” he offered again, on my way out.
* * *
My wife, Veronica, was an incredible cook. I mean, incredible. Not only could she make the best Mexican food you would ever taste in your life, but she also had a flare for creating those extreme-cuisine dishes; ones that would cost you nothing short of a hundred dollars a plate in a fancy restaurant near downtown Seattle. I would often joke with her that if she ever decided to open a restaurant, she’d put half her competition in all of Seattle out of business. She learned her art from her mother, Lucille, who actually did run a restaurant, in San Diego, before she passed away ten years ago. Our young daughters, Josephine and the twins Maria and Anabella, also loved Veronica’s cooking and would often help out in the kitchen as much as they could, but mostly, they were in charge of keeping me and my sneaky fingers out. It was a wonderful family game we participated in almost every night. But when I got home that evening, the “dead squirrel evening,” I found that I had little appetite for much of anything. At the table, my thoughts kept wandering back to Ted. I tried to put my suspicions about him out of my mind, but it seemed an impossible thing to do. Not once in all my life had I entertained the idea of being…so close to a murderer.
It was all
my imagination. I was working myself up over nothing. I had to be. Ted was just an asshole; a bully who liked to impose his will on everyone. Everything, for that matter. I kept telling myself this at least.
“What’s wrong, hon?”
Veronica’s words broke the spell I was under. I shrugged it off as nothing, just a lot on my mind from the office and all. What could I say? Oh, sweetie…I just think Ted is a murderer, that’s all. I had never mentioned to Veronica my concerns about Ted. It was a regular habit for me to keep my work-related stress away from my family life, and the fact that I thought my supervisor might be a real-life serial killer, well…"work-related stress,” right?
Things turned even more frightfully upsetting for me about a week later. Veronica was a goddess. She had one of those metabolisms that wouldn’t quit, the kind that made us “stocky” people complain. And even after all that rich food she would cook and eat, the fact that she gave birth to three children, and the fact that she was in her mid-forties, she still looked as fit and gorgeous as she did when I first met her, fifteen years ago. Men loved to look at her, and the brave ones would often approach her and flirt with her. Much to my pleasure, she would flirt back. It never bothered me, as I wasn’t the jealous type. I knew I was a lucky man. I flaunted it.
This wasn’t the case, however, when she came to the office one afternoon to drop off a client-folder I had left at the house. As I walked up to the front desk to meet Veronica, to my great horror I found her, Ted, and our receptionist Jennifer all laughing exuberantly, like college roommates at some party. Jennifer was only halfway into the merriment, obviously a little uncomfortable with the whole “chummy” thing Ted was putting out. But Veronica, on the other hand, was blushed in the face, running her fingers through her long black hair as she laughed along to Ted’s charming behavior.
I watched them in terror from behind a corner. I wasn’t jealous so much as I was dreadfully alarmed. My wife knew nothing about Ted, and he knew nothing about her, but right then and there they were both getting to know a little bit about each other. Fury and terror swept over me. I quickly broke into the scene, coughing uncomfortably to announce my arrival as I walked into the lobby. The subsequent moment reminded me of a trailer from one of those Hollywood blockbusters, a suspense thriller starring Harrison Ford: Jennifer slipped out of the scene, while Ted and my wife slowly turned their heads in my direction, reluctant it seemed to break away from the stare they were both sharing. Their eyes, giddy with laughter and underlined with huge smiles, fell upon me…
The Supervisor Page 1
