Tag: Sam

2.6

Anna B.2 Comments

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Lachlan

Lachlan tried to run, but his legs buckled underneath him as he fled through the door, and the carpet burned his hands and face as he hit the floor. He lifted his head just enough to look up in front of him–no sign of Sam.

The creature let out another shrieking roar that rattled his ears and reverberated through the room.

It was a hallucination, he decided. It had to be. He’d been dosed with enough of fuck-knows-what to knock him out for several hours and render his legs all but useless.

Lachlan flipped onto his back to look up at the monster. One of its limbs was wrapped around Sam, holding him several feet off the floor. Sam thrashed and floundered, kicking at nothing as he tried in vain to pry himself free.

The monster began lifting Sam toward its yawning mouth. He screamed, his desperate thrashing becoming faster and more frantic.

I should probably help him, Lachlan thought. Just in case I’m not hallucinating.

Lachlan removed his shoe and hurled it at the monster. It landed in the creature’s mouth, and its jaws clamped shut. It began to make loud retching sounds as its limbs spasmed outward, dropping Sam to the floor.

Sam remained motionless on the floor, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling.

“What are you doing?” Lachlan shouted. “Get up! Run!”

Sam pulled himself to his feet and stood still for a moment. Then, as though he had suddenly remembered how to move his legs, he dashed across the room and through the door toward Lachlan. He slammed the door behind him, stepped over Lachlan, and collapsed against the wall onto the floor.

“I get that you’re collapsing in relief,” said Lachlan, “but there’s still a hideous monster separated from us by a single wall.”

Sam stared at the wall across from him, unresponsive. On the other side of the door, the monster was continuing to retch.

“Maybe we should, oh, I don’t know. Get farther away from it or something? Just a thought?”

Sam didn’t move.

“Sam? Yoo-hoo.” Lachlan crawled toward the nearest wall and tried to push himself into a standing position. “My motor control isn’t exactly top-notch right now, so if you wanted to stand up and help me, that would be superb.”

Sam turned his head from the wall to Lachlan, then slowly, almost mechanically, climbed to his feet. He walked over to Lachlan, pulled him to his feet, and helped support his weight as they made their way away from the sound of the creature. The carpet was filthy, Lachlan realized. He could feel bits of dirt and debris sticking to his socked left foot as he walked.

“Okay,” said Lachlan. “So I know you’re thinking the same thing as me here. What the entire motherfuck was that?”

Sam didn’t respond.

“Sam? Sammy?” Lachlan waved a hand in front of Sam’s face. “Samuel? Samantha? Samurai? Sampling distribution?”

“Stop.” Sam used his free hand to swat Lachlan’s hand out of his face.

“Ah! He speaks. I was beginning to think that thing devoured your soul or something.”

“Just…” Sam’s voice was stilted. “Shut… shut…”

The way he was speaking, as though each word was a monumental effort, reminded Lachlan a little of the way he’d felt immediately after waking from his drug-induced unconsciousness.

“Shut what? Shuttlecock? Shutterbug? Shut the front door?”

Lachlan knew it was mean to pester someone who was clearly shaken by a brush with death, but he felt as though he had to fill the silence somehow. He was usually okay with silence, but right now, not talking would mean processing whatever he’d just seen, and he wasn’t quite ready to do that.

“You… annoying…”

“Me annoying? No, me Tarzan. You annoying,” said Lachlan. “You’re welcome for saving your life, by the way.”

Sam was silent for a moment. Then he spoke, sounding a little less mechanical.

“It… wasn’t real. This isn’t… isn’t real.” He paused and let out a heavy exhale. When he spoke again, his voice was normal. “There’s no way a creature like that could exist. It was a rectangle with over 100 arms and a giant mouth. How would something like that even evolve?”

“Yeah, I had that thought too. There’s a very substantial chance that this entire experience is part of my drug-induced fever nightmare,” said Lachlan.

“No,” said Sam. “No, it’s not your dream. It’s mine. You’re not real either.”

“You mean you dream about being heroically rescued by other men? Gay.”

“That’s not…” Sam’s face reddened a bit. “That’s… no. I’m not… I have a girlfriend.”

“I’m sure you do, mate.” Lachlan patted Sam’s back.

“I… I do. Her name is Jen. And you didn’t heroically rescue me. You threw a shoe,” said Sam. “I would have escaped on my own if you hadn’t.”

“You’re so ungrateful. I’ll have you know, I’d only just bought these shoes and I really liked them,” said Lachlan. “And escaped on your own? You were in a weird stupor. You couldn’t even speak until a moment ago.”

“I wasn’t in a stupor. A stupor is a state of near-complete unresponsiveness. If I had been in a stupor, I wouldn’t have been able to help you up or process your speech.” Sam smirked. “The term you’re looking for is–“

“See, this? This is why I don’t believe you have a girlfriend.”

“–the term you’re looking for is stuporous catatonia.”

“Which, unfortunately for me, you don’t seem to be experiencing anymore.”

“Shut up. You’re not even real. None of this is,” said Sam.

“Do you want to know what I think?” said Lachlan.

“Absolutely not,” said Sam.

“I think the nature of reality is unknowable.”

Sam squinted at him. “What are you talking about?”

“You don’t understand?” Lachlan shook his head. “I thought you were meant to be a genius or something. I mean that for all you know, your entire perception of a world beyond your mind could be a dream or an illusion.”

Sam frowned but didn’t respond, so Lachlan continued.

“For all you know, you’re just a disembodied brain in a jar hooked up to a computer program, and your entire life is a simulation in a mad scientist’s lab.”

Lachlan thought Sam was attempting to roll his eyes, but he wasn’t sure because Sam was squinting so much from his lack of glasses.

“That’s stupid. A computer program that elaborate wouldn’t be feasible to create. Besides, a disembodied brain wouldn’t be able to survive like that.”

“But can you prove it’s not true?”

“I don’t need to. It’s an idiotic theory.”

“Tsk, tsk.” Lachlan shook his head again. “And here, I thought you were a man of science.”

“What do you know about science anyway? Does the scientific method come up a lot at Chaz’s Chicken Shack?”

“It’s Chicken Hut. Not Chicken Shack. And I read a lot of books.”

Sam raised an eyebrow in what Lachlan thought was an attempt at a smug expression, but without his glasses it only made him look squintier.

“Books are an inferior method of learning. They’re very ineffective at conveying information.”

“I’m surprised you’d say that. You struck me as the bookish loser type.”

Sam snorted. “Hardly.”

“Just the regular loser type then?”

“I’m a loser? Three words for you. Chaz’s Chicken Shack.”

“Hut, not Shack. Maybe if you read more books, it would improve your memory.”

“For your information, I have a near-photographic memory.”

As Sam pulled him through a door, something caught his eye on the room floor. Two black high-heeled shoes lay discarded on their sides, as though their wearer had kicked them off in a hurry.

“Wait,” said Lachlan. “Do you see those on the floor?”

Sam squinted. “Two small, black blobs?”

“They’re girls’ shoes.”

“So what?”

“So all these rooms are completely empty, with the exception of the one containing our horrifying quadrilateral friend back there. Then suddenly we find some girl’s shoes? Don’t you think that’s weird?”

Sam shrugged, jostling Lachlan a bit. Lachlan let go of Sam’s shoulders, pushed him away, and leaned against the door frame.

“All dreams are weird. It’s less weird than a man-eating tentacle rectangle.”

“Don’t you get it? These don’t belong. Someone left them here,” said Lachlan.

“Wait a minute,” said Sam. “Are they black? And sort of shiny with a strap thing on them?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I was at work, and I heard a girl screaming for help, so I went to go look for her,” said Sam. “I found this girl Chelsea’s key card in a weird lab next to this machine, and then–“

“And then everything got all green and fucky and you ended up here?”

“Not how I would have phrased it, but yes.”

“Let me guess. This Chelsea chick was wearing these shoes?”

Sam nodded. “Which means that if this is real, she has to be somewhere in here too.”

“The real question we have yet to address,” said Lachlan, “is where the fuck ‘here’ actually is.”

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2.5

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Sam

Sam couldn’t make sense of where he was.

One second he had been in a lab, the next second the lab had seemed to dissolve around him, and through some impossibility, he had ended up here.

He wasn’t sure what kind of building he was in, but it wasn’t anything like the parts of the engineering building he’d seen before. It didn’t look like a Clyde Packaging Solutions building at all. Each room was empty of furniture, with yellowing walls and flickering fluorescent lighting that emitted the kind of never-ending hum that wore his patience down to a thin layer. Most of the rooms were damaged somehow, with chunks torn from the walls or gaping holes in the floor. Many of the walls had deep grooves, almost as though some giant animal had been clawing at them.

Sam wasn’t one for gut feelings, but the building felt deeply wrong in a way he couldn’t explain to himself.

“Is anyone here?” he called. “Chelsea?”

There was no response.

He’d been searching through room after room, hoping to find an exit or at least another person, but so far he had found nothing.

“Hello?” he called again. “Is anyone here?”

This time, he heard a faint reply from behind a door in front of him, too quiet for him to make out. He opened the door.

A boy sat in the center of the room, his hands bound behind his back. He was about Sam’s age, with dirty blonde hair that desperately needed a comb. He wore too-tight jeans and a button-up uniform shirt for some fast food place with a grinning cartoon chicken embroidered in bright red on the chest. Dark circles framed his eyes, and scratches and bruises covered his arms. His head snapped up as Sam entered the room.

“Where the motherfuck am I?” he said.

He had an accent, British or Australian or something. It was hard for Sam to tell, because the boy was slurring his speech as though he was struggling to form his words.

“An excellent question,” said Sam. “I was trying to figure out the same thing myself.”

“Ah, okay,” said the boy. “Second question, then. Who the motherfuck are you?”

“I’m Sam.” Sam noticed a name tag on the boy’s shirt and leaned down to read it. It wasn’t a name with which he wasn’t familiar, so he took his best guess at the pronunciation. “I take it you’re… Latch-lan.”

“Lachlan. Lach. Lan.” An infuriating smirk spread across the boy’s face, made all the more infuriating by the fact he was wearing a fast food uniform shirt with a goofy grinning chicken.

“Whatever.” Sam frowned. “What kind of name is that anyway?”

“It’s Scottish, dingus.” Lachlan rolled his eyes. “As evidenced by the ‘loch’. As in Loch Ness, Loch Lomond, Loch Lochy–“

“I get the picture,” said Sam. “So you’re Scottish?”

Lachlan’s accent hadn’t sounded Scottish, but it was hard to tell with the way he was garbling his words.

“Do I sound Scottish?” Lachlan rolled his eyes again and let out an exaggerated sigh. “Why is it that Americans can never recognize an Australian accent?”

“You’re slurring your words so much, I can barely understand you. How am I supposed to know what accent you have?”

“Well, excuse me,” Lachlan let out another loud sigh. “I was only drugged, tied up, and shoved into the back of the most sus van in the world. Forgive me if my enunciation is less than flawless.”

Sam started to respond, but he hesitated, unsure how he was supposed to respond to something like that. Lachlan continued before he could finish forming his words.

“By the way, just wondering, but are you going to untie me, or are you just going to keep standing there?”

“Just a word of advice: annoying the one person with the ability to free you isn’t a very intelligent thing to do.” Sam crouched behind Lachlan and began to work on the knotted rope holding his wrists together.

“Eh.” Lachlan shrugged, causing Sam to lose his grip on the rope.

“Would you hold still?”

“Nah,” said Lachlan.

“You really aren’t very intelligent, are you? If you don’t hold still, I won’t be able to untie your hands,” said Sam.

“I’m probably smarter than you.”

“Unlikely.” Sam snorted. “I’m an electrical engineer, and you work at…” He paused to read the back of Lachlan’s shirt. “Chaz’s Chicken Hut.”

“So?” Lachlan turned his head to scowl at Sam. “You thought I was Scottish. And you couldn’t even pronounce my name.”

Sam felt his face grow hot. “Only because it’s a weird name.”

“A weird name? How is ‘Lachlan’ a weird name?” said Lachlan. “Also, are you done untying my hands yet? For someone who claims to be a brilliant engineer, you don’t appear to have a good grasp of knot theory.”

“First of all, knot theory is the study of mathematical knots, not physical knots in cordage–“

Lachlan feigned a loud yawn. “Wow, I bet you’re a hit at parties.”

“–second of all, the knots in this rope are extremely complex, and I can’t be expected to concentrate when you keep irritating me. And third of all, electrical engineering has nothing whatsoever to do with untying knots.” Sam tugged the ropes free. “There. Got it.”

“It certainly took you long enough.”

“How about a ‘thank you’?”

“Eh,” Lachlan shrugged.

“Oh, I guess I was wrong about you. You are smarter than me.” Sam raised his eyebrows in an attempt to make his expression as condescending as possible. “Your articulate response of ‘eh’ proves it.”

“I can be articulate when I feel like it. I just don’t feel like it.” Lachlan tried to boost himself to his feet, but only managed to pull himself into a squatting position before losing his balance. “Are you going to stand there uselessly, or are you going to give me a hand?”

“I would love to give you a hand, but unfortunately, I don’t like you and I don’t want to,” said Sam.

Lachlan grabbed onto a groove in the wall and hoisted himself to his feet. “You just met me and you already don’t like me?”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “Pretty much.”

“I can’t say I’m your number one fan either.” Lachlan stumbled, clutching the wall to steady himself. “Ow, shit. My legs are fucking fucked.”

“You just keep getting more and more articulate, don’t you?” said Sam. “Who was it who said that profanity is the attempt of a feeble mind to express a powerful thought?”

“Whoever it was sounds like a massive fuckhead.” Lachlan rolled his eyes. “Who was it who said that profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer?”

“Someone with a feeble mind, most likely.”

Somewhere in the distance, Sam heard a sound. It was something between a roar and a screech, somehow deep and shrill at the same time.

“Did you hear that?” he said.

“I didn’t hear anything. What are you talking about?”

“There was a noise. It sounded like some kind of weird animal.”

“Are you sure you didn’t just hear the sound of your own voice?” said Lachlan.

There was another screech, louder this time.

“Shut up. I’m serious,” said Sam. “There it was again. Did you hear it?”

“I didn’t hear any–“

Sam tried not to flinch as the sound echoed through the walls again. It had to be an animal, but it didn’t sound like any animal he’d ever heard before.

“Okay. I did hear that,” said Lachlan. “What the fuck was it?”

Sam tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in his chest. “Some animal. Probably just a cat or something.”

The unnatural-sounding roar rumbled the walls and floor again, this time loud enough to reverberate through Sam’s bones. It was the type of sound that pierced through his head, leaving pain and fog in its wake. He felt his body tense up and hoped Lachlan didn’t notice.

“Have you ever heard a cat in your life? Or does America just have really, really fucked up cats?”

Sam couldn’t stop himself from covering his ears as the shrieking roar sounded again, shuddering the entire room. A door to their right broke free from its hinges and crashed to the floor.

The creature trying to squeeze through the door frame was most definitely not a cat.

It had an oblong, almost rectangular body with smaller sea anemone-like tentacles surrounding it and long snakelike limbs extending from each rounded corner. It had a head in the center of its body, with a wide mouth lined with long interlocking teeth, and translucent skin that revealed the skull underneath it.

Lachlan was already trying to flee, stumbling toward the door on the opposite side of the room. Sam tried to follow, but that sound had stunned him, blasted through his synapses and paralyzed him like an electric eel with its prey.

One of his feet found its way backward in a tentative step, but he couldn’t make himself move any further.

The thing observed them through eyes that looked disturbingly human. When it spoke, its voice echoed through Sam’s bones as much as its roar had.

“I’m hungry.”

The creature lashed out with one of its long limbs and wrapped around his waist.

Too late, he remembered how to move again, stepping backward just as the creature jerked him into the air. The room blurred as his glasses slipped from his face and shattered on the floor.

He thrashed, pulling at the limb encircling him as it lowered him toward the creature’s gaping mouth.

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2.3

Anna B.1 Comment

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Sam

“Hey.” Sam turned to the man sitting next to him. “Did you hear that?”

The man shrugged.

“It sounded like a woman screaming for help.”

“It’s probably nothing.” The man didn’t look up from his laptop. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I don’t know.” Sam stood up and closed the laptop he’d just opened. “I’m going to go see what’s going on.”

The man grunted and shrugged again.

Sam left the office area and headed into the hallway in the direction from which the screaming had come. He’d been walking for less than half a minute when something bright red on the floor caught his eye.

It was a metal lunch box with a cherry pattern on it. Chelsea’s.

The lunch box lay on the floor beside a purse. The purse had tipped onto its side, and a lipstick tube and a few coins had rolled out onto the floor. The purse and lunch box sat beside a door that was slightly ajar.

The door had a key card lock, and was surrounded by red and yellow signs warning ‘Danger’ and ‘Authorized Personnel Only’, which Sam elected to ignore.

The door led into a narrow hallway with another door with a key card lock at the end. A brown-haired woman in a lab coat emerged, and Sam waved to her.

“Can you hold that, please?” he said.

She held the door for him, and he continued through, ignoring still more warning signs.

The room he entered looked like any other lab in the engineering building, except for the large chamber in the center surrounded by walls of thick glass. Inside was a loop-shaped machine that was so tall, Sam couldn’t see the top of it. More warning signs were plastered on the glass walls.

“Chelsea?” he called.

There was no response–no sign of anyone else in the room.

Sam peered into the glass chamber. A key card lay on the floor beside the machine. He walked around the chamber until he found a door, then entered and picked up the badge.

Chelsea Brown, ID # 003568.

“Chelsea?” he called again. “You there?”

Still no response.

“Chelsea? Hello?” He looked around the room. “You really shouldn’t be in here. It’s not safe.”

There was an electrical hum behind him as the machine whirred to life, then an ear-splitting sound, as though the earth was ripping in half beneath him.

A dark green fog filled the lab around him, swimming in his eyes and distorting everything around him. A wave of nausea wracked his body, and he reached out to steady himself against the glass wall. The glass dissolved beneath his hand as though it was sand washed away by an invisible tide.

The last thing he saw before the fog swallowed up his vision was a sign stuck to the glass wall.

‘DANGER! No strong magnets allowed. Authorized personnel only.’

<><

Chelsea

Chelsea ran for her life.

She didn’t have time to wonder where she was, or what the snarling, crashing thing behind her was. She tore through door after door, not daring to look behind her and see how close the creature was.

She’d caught glimpses of its shadow. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human or animal.

She stumbled through a door and found a room with a gaping hole torn in the ceiling. She dug her hands and feet into the deep gouges in the wall and climbed.

She found herself on top of a vast concrete expanse and kept running, not stopping until she was certain she didn’t hear the thing behind her.

She collapsed onto her knees, gasping for breath. As she tried to steady her breath, she looked around, trying to make sense of what she saw.

Rough concrete extended on either side of her as far as she could see, disappearing into the dark green sky. Somewhere off to her right, an airplane sat on the ground in the distance. In front of her, she saw outlines of small buildings beyond the concrete.

She glanced behind her one more time to make sure she wasn’t being followed, then headed toward the buildings.

She let out a deep exhale, and her breath fogged up in the air. She realized it was a bit cold–too cold to be North Carolina in the summer. So where was she?

She reached a short wall at the end of the concrete and pulled herself over it. The drop was a little longer than she’d anticipated, and she stumbled on the landing, falling forward onto her knees and scraping her hands on a brick path.

There was no light source she could find, no lit windows or streetlights, but a faint dim glow lit up her surroundings just enough for her to see.

She was on a winding street lined with pastel-colored stucco shops and houses. It would have been charming had it not been so dark, quiet, and empty. It was easy to picture the sun shining overhead, children playing in the brick and stone streets, bicycles whizzing past, and shops and cafes bustling with activity.

That fact that it was almost normal made the eerie green-black sky and cold still air feel all the more wrong.

“Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone there?”

The town wasn’t just quiet, she realized. There were no birds or insects chirping, no crinkling leaves, no distant cars passing. No sound at all.

“Hello?” she called again.

A high-pitched shriek from somewhere behind her pierced the silence.

She turned around and felt a wave of relief as she saw someone sprinting toward her.

“Excuse me!” she called. “Can you please help me? I’m not sure where I am!”

As the runner drew closer, Chelsea’s relief turned to terror.

The figure was shaped almost like a woman, but the proportions were wrong. Her limbs were too long and didn’t bend in quite the right places, and her hands were unnaturally large and misshapen. As she drew closer, Chelsea could hear her laughing–a harsh, distorted crowing sound.

Chelsea heard the shriek again, louder this time, and realized it wasn’t coming from the figure.

Something small fluttered past her head, then careened through the air toward one of the stucco houses. It flapped its thin bat-like wings, banking clumsily in time to narrowly escape colliding with a window, and tumbled toward Chelsea.

She felt the flying thing collide with her chest, gripping the front of her blouse with tiny claws. It stared up at her through large, frightened eyes and spoke.

“Aiutami! Per favore aiutami!”

The inhuman figure stalked toward them, a smirk on her face.

Chelsea felt her heart leap into her throat as she realized the monstrous figure had the same face as the woman who had attacked her in Naomi’s apartment and at work.

Chelsea braced herself to be thrown against a wall or have the air sucked from her lungs, but it didn’t happen.

“Hey!” said the figure. Her voice was as harsh and unnatural as her laugh. “That’s my snack. Get your own.”

“Aiuto,” the tiny creature pleaded.

Chelsea could feel the poor creature trembling as it clung to her.

“Shh.” Chelsea stroked the creature’s head. “It’s alright. Um… va… va bene. Ti… aiuto.“

Chelsea wasn’t sure if her Italian was correct–she only knew what few words Angelina had taught her–but she felt the creature relax a little, nestling into her chest.

“Grazie,” squeaked the bat-creature. “Grazie mille, signorina.”

“Aw, isn’t that sweet?” The monster woman lurched forward. “Isn’t that just adorable?”

For a moment, Chelsea considered running away. She couldn’t very well leave the bat-creature to this monster, but it barely weighed anything and wouldn’t slow her down if it hitched a ride clinging to her shirt.

She looked at the steep road ahead of her, winding downward into complete darkness, and immediately rejected the idea of running.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Chelsea picked up a broom that was leaning against a house wall, brandishing it handle-first at the monster-woman.

“Pick on someone your own size?” The monster-woman laughed her horrible, cawing laugh again. “Seriously? That’s such a cliche line. Oh, my god.”

The monster-woman whipped one of her long, strangely bent arms toward Chelsea, grasping for the creature clinging to her shirt, and Chelsea realized why her hands looked so misshapen.

They were halfway between hands and grotesque saurian heads, with the thumb and pinkie fused to form the lower jaw. Needle-like teeth lined the insides of the fingers.

Chelsea thrust the broom outward, and the needle-teeth bit into the wooden handle. She tugged on the handle, pulling it free, then swung the broom at the monster-woman.

Chelsea flinched as the handle collided with the monster-woman’s face with a sickening crack, but the monster hardly seemed to notice. She reached for Chelsea again, her arm distorting as she stretched her lizard-hand forward.

Chelsea blocked her again with the broom handle, then swung it again, striking the monster across her chest. Again, no reaction. She may as well have been striking one of the candy-colored stucco walls behind them.

The monster laughed, reaching out again. Chelsea shoved the broom handle out again, but she wasn’t quick enough this time. The limb wrapped around her neck, bending in ways an arm shouldn’t be able to.

“It’s my lucky day!” The monster-woman’s chipper tone was jarring combined with her warped, inhuman voice. “I wanted a snack, and now I get a snack and dinner. Yay!”

The other arm’s lizard-hand gnashed its teeth as it reached for the trembling creature clinging to Chelsea’s chest.

Chelsea thought back to when the woman–if she’d been a woman at all–had attacked her in Naomi’s apartment. She hadn’t flinched when Falcon had thrown a metal table at her with enough force to crack a wall, but Chelsea’s desperate kick had been enough to phase her.

‘She can’t feel pain,’ Chelsea realized, ‘but she can be winded.’

Chelsea thrust the broom with all the force she could muster, aiming just below the monster’s rib cage.

The limb released Chelsea’s neck, and the monster doubled over, gasping for breath through all three of her mouths.

Chelsea jabbed the monster with the broom again, aiming for the same spot. The monster fell to the ground, still gulping for air. Chelsea hit her with the broom one more time to be sure she was incapacitated, feeling a bit guilty in spite of herself for hitting something that was already down.

“Correre!“ said the bat-creature. “Correre! Fretta!“

Chelsea ran.

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2.2

Anna B.2 Comments

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Content Warning: Forced drugging, kidnapping, needles

Chelsea

Chelsea heard footsteps behind her and jumped, whipping her head around.

“Whoa, sorry,” said Sam. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Sorry,” said Chelsea. “I’m a little jumpy today.”

“What are you doing eating in here? Hiding from the other interns?” Sam chuckled. “I don’t blame you. Most of those guys are imbeciles.”

Chelsea shrugged. She was hiding from the other interns but not for the reason Sam thought she was. She’d been fielding questions about the bruises on her neck all day, and she was getting tired of having to explain what had happened to her again and again, editing out the stranger parts of the story.

“I usually eat in here too. If Jen doesn’t drag me to the cafe, that is.” Sam sat down in a chair beside her. “Whoa! What happened to your neck?”

“Oh, um…” Chelsea suppressed a sigh. “Someone broke into my friend’s house yesterday while I was there and attacked me.”

“Oh, wow,” said Sam. “Oh my god, that’s– Are you okay?”

“I’m a little shaken up,” she said, “but I’m fine. Mostly I’m just glad no one was seriously hurt.”

“Yeah, me too,” said Sam. “That’s scary. Was it a robbery, or…?”

“Yeah,” Chelsea lied. “Most likely.”

Sam pulled the ring of magnets off his wrist and began fidgeting with them, and Chelsea took it as an opportunity to change the subject.

“Those magnets look cool,” she said.

“These?” He looked down at the magnets, then looked at her and smiled. “Yeah, aren’t they awesome? I’d let you hold them, but they’re high powered and very dangerous.”

“Oh, wow. Really?” She smiled back at him. Her distraction had worked.

“They’re called neodymium magnets. They’re the strongest magnets in the world, so they’re highly illegal in the United States. I actually had to import mine from Japan…”

Chelsea was fairly certain most of what he was saying wasn’t true, but she feigned interest as he continued to tell her about his magnets.

“…more than three times the magnetic strength of solar sunspots.” Sam leaned forward in his chair. “Well, I actually just came down here to grab some coffee. I hate to leave you to eat alone, but I should probably get back to work. Sorry about what happened to you and your friend.”

“Thanks. It was nice talking to you, Sam. I’ll see you later.”

Sam got up and headed for the coffee machines. Chelsea resumed eating her sandwich as the latte machine burbled behind her. After a minute, she saw Sam make his way up the stairs with a steaming mug, his magnets hanging in a ring around the handle. When he reached the top of the stairs, he turned around and raised his free hand in a wave, then disappeared down a hallway.

She stopped eating and looked around, suddenly aware of how quiet the building was. Everyone was either working in their labs and offices or taking their lunch breaks, leaving the engineering building atrium almost completely empty. The only sound came from one of the frosted glass conference rooms on the other side of the atrium, where some kind of meeting or luncheon was taking place.

She packed her half-eaten sandwich into her lunchbox, picked up her purse, and headed up the stairs, deciding to look for a break room to eat lunch in. The quiet, empty space and high glass ceiling were making her feel uneasy.

She rounded a corner into a hallway, nearly bumping into a woman in a lab coat who was standing in the way.

“Oh, sorry!” Chelsea said, trying not to sound as startled as she felt. “Excuse me.”

The woman didn’t move or respond, so Chelsea tapped her shoulder.

“Excuse me, do you mind if I just slide past y–“

The woman turned around, and Chelsea stopped cold.

“Hey, red.”

Chelsea could feel her heart pounding in her head.

“Help!” she shouted. “Someone, please, hel–“

The woman extended a hand, and Chelsea slammed into the wall.

Chelsea tried to move, but it felt as though something was pressing down on her, holding her arms and legs immobile against the wall.

“Let me go,” she said.

“There is literally no reason for me to do that,” said the woman.

The woman reached for Chelsea, pulling her from the wall and wrapping an arm around her neck.

“I know better than to try mind-choking you now,” she said. “I guess I’ll try the old-fashioned way.”

><>

Lachlan

“Welcome to Chaz’s Chicken Hut,” said Lachlan. “What can we get started for you?”

“Lachlan. You need to cluck when you greet the customers.” His manager Kathy looked up from a clipboard and frowned. “We’ve been over this. It’s about good customer experience.”

“Excuse me.” Lachlan turned to the teenage boy on the other side of the counter. “I’m just curious, but if I clucked at you right now, would that improve your customer experience?”

“Uh, not really,” said the boy. “I just want chicken nuggets.”

“The customer is always right,” said Lachlan.

“That’s not what that means and you know it.” Kathy stood up and walked up to the counter beside Lachlan. “Go ahead. This young man is waiting.”

“Nah,” said Lachlan.

“Can I just order?” said the teenage boy.

“Cluck, cluck! Welcome to Chaz’s Chicken Hut!” Kathy stuck her elbows out, imitating chicken wings. “Now you try.”

Lachlan sighed. “Cluck, cluck.”

“You need to do the arms.”

“I’m not doing the arms,” said Lachlan. “I draw the line at doing the arms.”

The boy turned away from the counter. “Um, I’ll just go to Red Rooster.”

“Red Rooster’s not open this late,” Kathy called after him.

The boy ignored her and continued out the door.

Lachlan turned away from the register and headed toward the back door.

“Well, we don’t have any customers now,” he said. “I’m taking my break.”

He closed the door before Kathy had the chance to say anything.

He let out a heavy sigh and leaned on the wall behind him. It was a cool night, and he could feel the cold bricks through the back of his shirt. He usually liked to wear a T-shirt under his ridiculous uniform so he could pull it off as soon as his shift was finished, but he’d been in a hurry tonight. He was almost glad he hadn’t worn another shirt now; the cold on his back was refreshing after standing over a hot fryer for a few hours.

The night was quiet except for the occasional sound of a passing car, and a soft rustling behind the skip bin–probably a cat or possum looking for a quick meal.

He pulled his iPod out of his pocket, put in his earbuds, and selected a song by The Goldfish Technique.

I’ll go back in after five songs, he thought. If I feel like it.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall.

‘Hey, hey won’t you leave me alone? I’m better off when I’m on my own,’ he sang along. ‘You’re just a silly boy, silly boy. You treat me like I’m just a toy.’

He was so lost in his music, he didn’t hear the men approach until they were right in front of him.

It was too dark for Lachlan to make out their features. He could only see their silhouettes in the streetlight’s dim glow. The man in the center was thin, and not much taller than Lachlan. The men standing on either side were large in two different ways–one was built like a rugby player, the other looked more like a sumo wrestler.

The thin man reached over and pulled Lachlan’s earbuds from his ear.

“What you listening to, mate?”

“Look, I don’t have any money,” said Lachlan. “I don’t have my wallet with me. I’d rather you not have my iPod, but if you’re going to stab me or something, go ahead. Take it.”

In the darkness, Lachlan could just barely make out the sneers that stretched across the men’s faces.

“Money?” said the fat man. “We don’t want your money, chicken boy.”

“Then what do you want?” Lachlan felt a cold weight in his chest. “My… my mobile?”

The thin man pulled something small and cylindrical from his pocket. The man stepped forward, and jammed the object into Lachlan’s neck.

“Ow, fuck! I–” Lachlan’s anger gave way to horror as he realized what had happened. “What… what did you do to me?”

He tried to reach for the door handle beside him, but his arms felt like they were made of lead. When his legs buckled under him, he felt as though he was falling in slow motion. He tried to shout for help, but only a weak, strangled whimper escaped his lips.

The already dim streetlight seemed to darken even more as a thick, staticky fog began to dance across his vision.

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Chelsea

“Hey, wait up!”

Chelsea jumped at the hand on her shoulder. She turned around to see the marketing intern she’d been sitting beside earlier. A dark-skinned boy in glasses and a button-up shirt stood behind the girl, wearing a bored expression. He was fidgeting with a bunch of small, spherical magnets, forming them into a cube shape.

While the boy’s disinterested frown reminded Chelsea of Lachlan, the girl reminded her of a more clean-cut, blonde version of Angelina; she was beaming, apparently having already recovered from Mr. Clyde rebuffing her question.

“Sorry!” The girl giggled. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Cheslea, right?”

“That’s okay,” said Chelsea, “and yes, I’m Chelsea. What’s your name?”

“I’m Jen! And this is Sam! Say ‘hi’, Sam!”

“Hello.” Sam nodded at Chelsea, then stepped forward and extended a hand. “Are you in marketing with Jen?”

“IT, actually.” Chelsea shook his hand.

“Ah, IT.” Sam smirked. “The poor man’s electrical engineering. Well, it’s a step up from marketing, at least.”

“Sam! You’re being arrogant again. Bad Sam. Bad.” Jen mimed spraying him with a spray bottle as he rolled his eyes.

“It’s not rude if it’s true,” said Sam. “IT is for people who aren’t quite smart enough to be engineers. No offense intended, Chelsea.”

“Um, no offense taken,” Cheslea said, feeling a bit offended. “So, I assume you’re in engineering?”

“Electrical engineering.” Sam gave her a smug smile. “Naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“We were on our way to the cafe,” said Jen. “We were wondering if you wanted to get coffee with us?”

“Well, I’m getting coffee,” said Sam. “Jen will undoubtedly order some frilly mocha frappe monstrosity.”

Chelsea looked down at her phone. Naomi’s message had been concerning but she had said ‘no rush’ and Chelsea still had almost 45 minutes before she was allowed to clock out. It would be good to get to know some of the other interns and getting coffee would beat sitting at her desk worrying about the message.

“I’d love to,” Chelsea said, “but there’s something I need to do first. You guys go ahead and I’ll be right behind you.”

Jen waved as she and Sam stepped into the elevator. Chelsea waved back, then typed a message to Naomi.

‘What’s going on? Is everything okay?’

><>

Billy

Billy Clyde put on his Panama hat as he entered the cafe, stopping to tip it at a pair of men in business suits leaving with their afternoon coffees. His driver was waiting outside to take him away to some tiny run-down air park almost half an hour away and he needed a caffeine boost before the long trip ahead of him.

It was ridiculous, he thought. The CPSI headquarters were so close to Charlotte Douglas Airport the jetliners overhead often made it difficult to hold a conversation outside. It would have been much easier for a private jet to take him home to Georgia, and he would have been able to stop for tacos at the airport, but his wife always insisted on picking him up in one of her silly little propeller planes. She never let him get tacos.

His cell phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and recognized the number immediately.

“If it isn’t my blushing bride,” he said. “I thought you weren’t supposed to use your cell phone at the air park. Did you miss me so much you couldn’t wait another half hour?”

“We have a problem,” she said, her voice a distorted crackle on the cell phone speakers. Billy sighed. That awful air park had terrible cellular service.

“Well, hi to you too,” said Billy. “What’s this problem that’s so serious you can’t say ‘hello’ to your old husband?”

“I just talked to Gus,” she said.

Billy watched a business jet longingly through the window as it whizzed through the sky. “Remind me who that is.”

“Gus Gibson.” He could hear the eye roll in her voice. “The old overseer in Melbourne.“

“Ah, our old friend Gus. I haven’t talked to the fine folk in Melbourne in a minute,” he said. “Not since that unpleasantness in the data center last year.”

“It’s about the unpleasantness in the data center.“

Billy felt a jolt of anxiety. He looked around to make sure no one was listening, then lowered his voice. “You don’t mean our little situation in Brisbane.”

He heard an unintelligible voice in the background, then heard his wife snap at the voice’s owner. “What do you mean I can’t talk on my cell phone here? This is a goddamn emergency! Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with? Do you have any idea how fucking easily I could end your sad little job with just a few phone calls?“

As she continued to berate the poor sap who’d made the mistake of asking her to put her phone away, Billy took the opportunity to order his coffee and a blueberry muffin.

His wife finished with the unfortunate employee and returned to the conversation slightly out of breath.

“I do mean the situation in Brisbane,” she said. “Only the situation’s not really in Brisbane anymore. That’s the problem.”

“You mean the resource isn’t there anymore?” he said. “Then where on earth is it?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Gus saw someone bring it to Brisbane Airport, and he hasn’t seen it since. It could be anywhere in Australia by now. Maybe even the world.”

“Well, golly, that is a problem.” Billy took the coffee cup and muffin from the girl at the counter. “Thank you, dear–Do we know who brought it to the airport?”

“Gus said he wasn’t able to see the driver of the van through the window, but I have my suspicions.”

><>

Chelsea

Chelsea checked her phone as she waited for her iced coffee.

“Who’re you texting?” Jen leaned on a bar stool and sipped her frappe.

“Oh, I’m just waiting for a message from a friend.”

“A boy friend?” Jen smiled and quirked her eyebrows.

“No, just my friend Naomi,” said Chelsea. “I got kind of a weird text from her during Mr. Clyde’s presentation and I’m a little worried.”

“Oh no,” said Jen. “I’m sorry. Do you need to go home?”

“I don’t think so. I wouldn’t be allowed to clock out yet anyway.” Chelsea paused to take her drink from the barista and thank her. “She said there wasn’t any rush but something weird happened and she wanted me to come over after work.”

“That is weird. I hope everything’s alright.”

“Is Jen bothering you?” Sam sauntered toward them, sipping from a cardboard coffee cup. He had fashioned his magnets into a bracelet and was wearing them on his wrist.

“Oh, no, no, not at all,” said Chelsea. “We were just talking.”

“Don’t tell me you drink iced coffee.” Sam pointed to her cup. “That’s an abomination. Coffee is meant to be hot.”

“I do prefer hot coffee actually, but I couldn’t possibly drink anything hot in this weather. Especially when I have to wear these long slacks.” Chelsea tugged at her pants leg.

“You could wear a dress.” Jen put her drink down on the counter and twirled, causing her dress to billow out around her. “They’re pretty!”

Sam rolled his eyes.

“I tried that on my first day,” said Chelsea. “They told me I had to cover the tattoo on my leg because it was ‘unprofessional’.”

“Aw,” Jen picked her drink back up and took a long sip. “That’s too bad.”

“Can we see it?” said Sam. “The tattoo?”

Chelsea put her drink on the counter and pulled up her right pants leg to show off her tattoo–a stylized goldfish. Waves of water wound around her calf behind it as though the fish was swimming up her leg.

“It’s real pretty,” said Jen. “A lot of tattoos look trashy, but that’s beautiful.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, it’s actually quite well done.”

“Thanks,” said Chelsea.

“Does the fish mean anything,” said Jen, “if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, no, I don’t mind at all,” said Chelsea. “I got a goldfish because of my favorite band. They’re called The Goldfish Technique.”

“I’ve never heard of them so they can’t be very good,” said Sam.

“They are good,” Chelsea said, trying to sound less annoyed than she felt. “A lot of great artists start out unknown.”

“Whatever.” Sam shrugged.

“The Goldfish Technique?” said Jen. “As in the sales technique?”

“I don’t know,” said Chelsea. “Probably. I didn’t know it was a sales technique, though. I thought it was just a random name.”

“Yeah, it’s a sales technique where you scare the crap out of your customer and then they buy whatever you’re selling,” said Jen. “I learned about it last week when we had to do this sales training thingy.”

“Why’s it called the goldfish technique?” Sam sipped his coffee.

“Basically, when you give a sales pitch you put a poster of something random like a goldfish behind you.” Jen stirred her drink with her straw. “You tell them a story of what horrible thing will supposedly happen if they don’t buy your product. Then at the end, you tie it into the goldfish somehow.”

“So something like ‘if you don’t buy our product, you’ll go out of business and then you’ll lose all your money and have to subsist eating goldfish out of a pond to survive?” said Sam.

“Yep, something like that,” said Jen.

“Doesn’t sound like a very nice technique,” said Chelsea.

“I didn’t think so either.” Jen frowned. “I was like ‘what happened to catching more flies with honey than vinegar?’ and the training lady just laughed at me.”

“Wait.” Sam laughed. “You said that? You actually raised your hand and said that in the training session? What, were you channeling the spirit of my grandma?”

Jen swatted his arm lightly. “Don’t you laugh at me too! And your grandma’s alive. I’ve met her.”

“I’ve never heard that expression but I think I agree with it,” said Chelsea. “I don’t know anything about sales, but I wouldn’t want to buy from someone who tried to scare me.”

“Me neither,” said Sam. “Corny old lady expressions aside, only a sucker would fall for something like that.”

“That technique is a really big thing in this company apparently,” said Jen. “The training lady said you don’t make any sales by being nice and friendly.”

“That’s silly,” said Chelsea. “What are you supposed to be, mean and unfriendly? I can’t imagine you’d get many sales like that either.”

“I don’t know. If you haven’t noticed, this company’s not real big on being nice.” Jen shrugged. “Especially if their founder and CEO is any indication.”

“Yeah, that really wasn’t very nice of him to dismiss your question like that,” said Chelsea. “I thought it was a good question.”

“If you think he’s mean, you should meet his wife,” the barista chimed in. “There was a guy who worked with me in the cafe last year who got her coffee order wrong. She gathered all the cafe employees together so she could fire him in front of us.”

“Wow,” said Jen. “Is she even allowed to do that? She doesn’t actually work here, does she?”

“As far as anyone’s concerned, she has as much power as Mr. Clyde. Maybe more,” said the barista. “Lily van Vleet Clyde is pretty notorious among the dining staff now.”

“Wait,” said Chelsea. “Her name is Lily?”

“Yeah,” said Sam. “So?”

“And her husband’s name is Billy? They’re Lily and Billy? Seriously?” said Chelsea. “Is that on purpose? That’s got to be on purpose.”

“No, they went by Lily and Billy before they got married.” The barista sprayed something on the counter, then wiped it with a cloth. “My manager worked here back when they were both married to other people and messing around on their spouses. She said they weren’t exactly subtle about it because they knew no one would dare say anything.”

“What happened to their spouses?” said Sam.

“Lily’s late husband died in a mysterious light aircraft accident. Or so-called accident, anyway,” the barista said. “Her stepdaughter was on the plane too.”

Jen covered her mouth with her hand. “You mean she…?”

“Killed them?” The barista shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised. The guy was an experienced pilot and apparently they never figured out why he crashed or even found the wreckage. He left her a whole bunch of money too. I’m not saying she did it but it is suspicious.”

“If I were Mr. Clyde, I’d be pretty nervous,” said Sam.

“Nah, I think Mr. Clyde was in on it too. He divorced his then-wife and married Lily right after it happened.”

“How do you know all this?” said Jen.

“Us dining staff are basically invisible to executives,” said the barista. “We overhear some wild shit.”

Sam leaned both his elbows on the counter. “Like what?”

The barista adjusted her glasses. “I just told you the wildest thing I’ve heard. I hear other stuff I’m not supposed to but none of it is as… interesting as what I just told you.”

“Well, it is a pretty high bar,” said Sam.

“I wouldn’t call that interesting so much as horrible,” said Jen.

“It can be both.” Sam tilted his head back to take a final sip of his coffee, then tossed the cup into a trash can.

“Mr. Clyde was in here talking on the phone just before you three showed up, actually,” said the barista. “I don’t know what he was talking about but he kept lowering his voice and looking around like he didn’t want anyone listening in.”

“What was he saying?” said Sam.

“Sam!” Jen nudged him with her elbow. “That’s none of our business.”

Sam shrugged. “As an engineer, I have a natural curiosity.”

“He was saying someone took something from the company in Australia and sent it somewhere on a plane.” The barista leaned down to shoo a fly out of the pastry display case. “He said something about goldfish too; maybe it was that technique you were talking about. I didn’t really understand it.”

“Did he say what was taken?” said Sam.

“No, but he mentioned the guy he thought took it. Someone called Dominic… Davis, I think?”

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