Dead End Job (Book One of the 'Zombino' series)

by Chris Welsh

  Chapter Five. 10:00am

  WELL, THAT'S STRANGE.

  Bing!

  'DOORS ARE OPEN'

  I felt a degree of pity for the voice actor with that role on their CV – 'Voice of a Lift'. I imagined them putting it on a show-reel to display their talents and saying 'That's me, that is!'

  Getting in a lift with friends would be a whole bunch of grief; if I knew someone who did that voice, I'd make them do it live then laugh like a tickled jester.

  -

  The lift spat me into desolation; no carpet on the floor and the door opposite covered by a big wooden board, though the long strip lights all shone brightly. Floor Ten was big, as big as all the other floors actually, given they shared the same building with the same-shaped floors, but most of it hid behind boards, giving it a cramped, claustrophobic vibe.

  For some reason, management hoarded all staff into the lower six floors instead of expanding upwards and allowing some of us to enjoy the spectacular views across the never-ending treetops. There were rumours that the top of the building ran rife with poltergeists and other various ghosts and apparitions that would sooner skin you than look at you, spread by me, after I told an office junior that the top of the building ran rife with poltergeists and other various ghosts and apparitions that would rather skin you than look at you, and she ran off screaming. Within the hour everyone received another all-office email denouncing 'the rumours' which fuelled them further.

  A second informative message did the rounds months later, threatening dismissive action against anyone found on the abandoned floors. Some stealthy adulterer had been taking his office mistress up for a quick going over every few days. Security, the only people with a base above the sixth floor, caught them on CCTV cameras and nailed them whilst he nailed her. Unfortunately for the man involved, his wife also worked for the company and so too received the email which, for one reason or another, named everyone involved. Though he managed to retain his job, his left testicle never surfaced. His right one is reportedly in a zip-loc bag in the desk of the now ex-wife as a warning to others.

  In another encounter with the aforementioned office junior, I may have accidentally mentioned that the ghost of this missing testicle still rolled the tenth floor hallways in search of its lost brother, causing her to scream and run off again.

  -

  I crept along the corridor with mild hopes of repeating the man's first, successful action. I had no jealous wife to relieve me of my jewels therefore the act would be risk-free, minus the possibility of losing my job to which a precedent ruled against. After manhandling a few locked and boarded doors, I found one that opened. Inside, I found Susan lurking in darkness behind a stack of chairs, peeking nervously out around them.

  "Hiya Joe, glad you made it. I worried I'd find a horny young couple coming for a, well, you know."

  "No, sorry Suze, just me. Although, if that's what you have in mind...?" I said with a cheeky smile. Or rather, I said whilst attempting a cheeky smile. I think I came off more 'perverted uncle who isn't a proper uncle' than 'sexy co-worker', judging by her expression.

  "Joe, this is important. I have something to show you. Flick that light on."

  She fished an unassuming packet of paper out of a bag. Honestly, it was so unassuming, it could have been any packet of paper at all. I didn't recognise it in the slightest. Would have ignored it completely if there had been anything else in the room to look at. It was slightly off-white, with words and images printed on the sheets.

  A stack of paper.

  I don't know how else to describe it.

  "I found these hidden deep in the computer system. They're like scans of official documents and notes and, honestly Joe, I'm a little worr..."

  "Look, I'm sorry. Can I stop you there? My name isn't Joe. It's not, I swear to you. It's Wes. Always has been and, bar some sort of drunken bet and a lot of paperwork, it always will be. No, please don't say otherwise, I know my own name. It's Wes. Look!" - I held my pass up as unequivocal evidence of my truth-telling, and ran a finger neatly under 'Wes'. "Wes Jetter! It makes me sound like an American politician or industrial cleaning product, but it is definitely my name."

  "Urgh, I know, I'm sorry. But I call everyone Joe. I don't know everyone's name but they all know mine, so when a man says 'Hi' in the mornings, I christen him Joe."

  I gave her a look that sarcastically thanked her. An exasperated expression, coupled with a slight lean back and a fling of both arms. I heavily implied the phrase 'Oh that's all well and good then'.

  "No one has ever pulled me up about it, surprisingly. At one point I suspected the company exclusively employed men named Joseph. It kind of stuck with you, even after I got to know your name. So I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. Now, as I was saying, these papers..."

  'Other men?' I thought, 'Other men than me? She harmlessly flirted with other male workers in the office she worked in? What a filthy, whoring slut.' I decided to avoid any and all romantic situations with her, even if she wanted one. Which she didn't. So I had no chance anyway. But whatever.

  "They're documents about experiments. On humans, or at least human cells. Genetics. DNA manipulation. That kind of thing. Some pages mention Tall Trees, but buildings I haven't heard of, on floors I'm certain don't exist. I came across them a while ago and thought nothing of them, someone's idea of a joke maybe, but then that email went around earlier and I recognized the name. QB Celeste. His name is on the papers, as if he signed them off."

  My face, at this point, portrayed 'confused' and said 'Okay, so?'

  "So I hunted down these documents again, then contacted you. Mainly because you're quite anonymous and I think I can trust you to not run to a manager."

  I paused for a second for my ego to deflect the anonymous jibe, and grabbed the stack of papers from her hands.

  "What else do they say?"

  "The typing is too blurry to read, thanks to the rubbish scanning, and some bits are blacked out with pen. But you can still read the hand-written notes. Though the pictures are fucked up enough on their own."

  The pictures (both drawn and photographic) showed deformed or dissected human-ish bodies, along with detailed descriptions of mutated limbs, accelerated recovery from injury, extra organs, strange implants and case studies involving words I didn't recognise and needed an extra tongue to pronounce.

  Reams documented specifications for heavy duty fish tanks, the type capable of keeping Killer Whales from eating the public at sea-life sanctuaries.

  "One last thing I need to show you. It's regarding one of these experiments but I found it in another subfolder, hidden pretty deep in the computer system. All it says is it will be an experiment on living tissue. Not sure what that means exactly, but I doubt it's anything to do with anthropomorphic Kleenex. Look at the date."

  It would have been easy to disregard this; experiments on living tissue? Could mean anything, especially without any decent proof that any of these documents were real. What worried me though, was that the experiment had a scheduled date of this morning and came with a precaution list as long as my arm. In small font. And I'm not renowned for stubby arms.

  "Might this be what Quinton urged someone to abort?"

  I hoped not. The timing meant that anything planned would've already happened and if something so potentially mind-fucking had already happened, I reasoned that it might be a good time to leave the building. Or hide under a desk with a box so full of enough sharp objects that the most twisted horror film director would think it OTT.

  Also a rocket launcher.

  If only because every man dreams of playing with a thing that literally launches rockets.

  -

  We pored through the remaining documents together, scouring for any definite evidence when the lights flickered and disappeared for five seconds. Maybe the worst thing to happen in a room with blacked out, boarded windows whilst reading psycho lab reports. By the time they flashed back to life and before either of us could say 'Hey
, what's up with the lights?' we were both bounding for the lifts like startled squirrels.

  I definitely did not scream like a four year old girl finding out the monster under her bed is real and has claws.

  As we neared the lift, the lights came back on all at once, shining innocuously as if they hadn't been responsible for a heart-troubling nightmare scenario. We slowed to check that pulses were still things we possessed and that we had all our limbs, exchanging terrified glances over hurried, frantic breathing. My heart didn't so much beat as it did stage a one-organ impersonation of a drug-addled rave DJ with an abundance of drum machines.

  "Did you hear a scream when the lights went off?" Susan questioned, peering back down the corridor and straightening her skirt.

  "NO!" I spurted out, protecting my manliness, "An instinctive growl, I'd say. I think. Like a roar, or a yelp with a slight bit of squeal. An 'eep' at worst, but no scream, definitely not."

  "Not from you, from inside the room, in the corner. By the stacked chairs and boxes."

  "Erm...No, I can't say I heard that. I was too busy making sure you were safe in the dark and everything. You know, protecting you from whatever vile creatures caused the lights to go off. Want me to go check?" I asked, remaining planted to the floor.

  "We'll both go," Susan said, before she walked off. I followed a second later, forcing myself along the corridor. The sudden dampness in my pits chafed and my mind cast back to the lies told of haunted floors and ghostly testicles. Terrible thoughts to have alongside shady articles on dismemberment and human biological experimentation.

  "I'll protect your back because it's, well, more vulnerable than your front. What with you unable to see it and...stuff."

  I'm dying here.

  "Your back is fine." I added.

  -

  It's not that I was scared. I wasn't. Merely experiencing a bout of temporary fear. It was a strange, new experience that flew in the face of the self-image inside my head. The one where I sported a rugged beard and jet-black chest hair, and for some reason I'm topless so my chest hair is visible. I'm normally too apathetic to scare from things. When faced with an axe-wielding maniac, my likely reaction would be 'Oh' until they chopped me up and played jump-rope with my intestines.

  My other brand of reaction to fear and the unknown is rage mixed equally with a stupidity-based death wish. I like to think that I don't care either way but if I'm going down, it'll be frenzied, loud, and incredibly messy.

  ...I'll rephrase that.

  If I'm going to get angry I'll do it right, and if I'm going to die, I'll make as much noise as possible.

  There, much better.

  -

  Susan pushed the door. I lingered behind, poking my head around the side of the frame for a wary glimpse inside. It was a smart move on my part; I could spot any impending danger from a safe range, and I stood closer to the lifts, giving me the edge should anything nasty come to play.

  I felt my chivalry quotient drain to nothing, though I needn't have risked it. A disheartening, sigh-inducing menace greeted us, a sight I could have done without, though not one that sent me screeching in abject terror.

  A five-foot-five, ultra short haired, fake tanned man in a pristinely pressed pink shirt. He wore a black tie, a black stripe on each shoulder and hideously tight black pants, ending at shoes so shiny they should hang from the ceiling of a disco. In short, what we gawked at was Stuart, the camp security guard that roamed the building in search of new gossip. And when I say camp, I mean it. Boy Scouts couldn't do camp as good as this guy, even when they broke out the dresses and wigs to perform drag cabaret around the fire.

  Everybody in the building knew him well, because he spent time making himself known to everybody. He's the guy who swans around the office, chatting about heels to the ladies even though he doesn't wear them. Popular and difficult to dislike, despite being so uproariously annoying. My surprise came from not expecting to see him there, is all.

  "Helloooo," he said, giving a little wave.

  Susan's shoulders dropped from a tense height to a relaxed slump. No axe-wielding maniac, no ferocious beast with teeth like knitting needles, no immediate danger. And if anything like that burst through a wall, we were now equipped with a small homosexual whose CV read 'Security Specialist', which surely counted for something.

  "STUART! What're you doing up here?!" Susan chimed, with a sterner voice than I thought warranted, like a mother scolding her child for setting a small fire in the house.

  "Oh. Hi, Suze. Uh, well, I was in the CCTV lounge keeping an eye on the monitors when I saw you shuffling around from the tenth floor hallway camera. You went in this room, and we don't have cameras in here, and I said to my partner, 'oooooh I wonder what she's up to, eh!' so I came to have a gander."

  "Oh. I didn't know there were cameras up here..." she said.

  "I heard you talking from the hall. Came in as the lights died. You must not have seen me. I'd literally walked through the door when they went off! I darted forward and may have screamed a bit. Must have run right past me because when they came back on, I was alone in this empty room with the door closed."

  "How much did you hear? Do you know anything about what we said?" Susan inquired. She appeared quite angry with the poor mite for eavesdropping, though she hid her annoyance behind non-committal enquiries.

  "I heard it all. Sorry. I'm a good sneak-listener, I can't help it. I love it. Those glossy celeb magazines have nothing on me. But I swear this is the first I've heard about any of it. It all sounds a bit sinister to me. Maybe a bit made up, if you know what I mean."

  "I do, but it's still a bit worrying and I'd like to make sure of its falseness before letting it go."

  Susan's voice fell to calmer levels. I decided to say something useful for a change.

  "Has there been anything unusual on the CCTV cameras? A report we read suggested one of these experiments was due to go off big time this morning."

  "Well, no, I've not seen anything, but I've been out of the control room for the last twenty minutes so I don't know. I'll check with my partner."

  Stuart wrestled to unclasp his walkie-talkie from his belt. I peered through a crack between two cheap MDF boards, enjoying the view. Through the dusty, paint-flecked glass I saw uninterrupted off into the woods. Nothing but green and browning trees for miles in all directions, topped by a grey sky littered with shadowy clouds. The fluffy white turned to dismal, ominous darkness on the horizon; the signs of a storm biding time.

  Ten floors below, the gardens and entrance areas were empty, no soul to be seen. Usually at least fifteen people hung out for a quick smoke or a breath of fresh air, but not this time. The place looked deserted. It felt deserted, which drew an involuntary scowl on to my face. A piece of paper spun in the wind, circling a small bush before catching on a protruding twig. I couldn't shake the feeling that something should have been going on but...wasn't. Like walking into a large shopping centre before anything opens; there should be people and probably is somewhere, but they're hiding behind shutters and it all feels alien until the cookie shop comes into view and you really want a cookie, but you can't because...

  Susan interrupted my wandering lament with a sharp poke in the back from her sturdy index finger.

  "Come on Wes, Stuart is having trouble with his radio thingy; he can't get through to Brian, the other guard. We're taking the lift down to the CCTV room."