Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (34 page)

The
glowing oasis of the screen floated in a sea of darkness. The orange pall of the
streetlamps crept beneath the drawn shades. The cool hand of February cracked
the floorboards and shook the loose windows in their sills. As if maneuvered by
a hidden hand, the worn refrigerator motor kicked in and rattled the empty
kitchen.

He
looked down at his in-box and its newest addition, “Tonight”. Drew glanced to
the left and noticed that the “sender” field was empty.

Typical
spam
, he thought.
Delete
it and go back to bed.

Instead,
his right hand positioned the cursor over the subject line and his pointer
finger delivered a click. Drew’s hand trembled as he waited for the message
window to open. He felt a flutter in the room as if it were exhaling a dusty,
old breath. Shadows cast on the living-room wall twitched. Drew could taste the
dust blown from the heating ducts of the old house.

The
whiteness of the message body almost blinded Drew. He put one hand toward his
eyes to diffuse the glare. The “sender” box was empty. The “body” box was
empty. The subject line held a single word, “Tonight”. The seven letters stood
with resolve, staring at Drew through liquid-plasma eyes.

“Is
short.”

Drew
almost dropped the company laptop to the floor. He swore under his breath,
thinking about the thousands of dollars he would have to cough up should the
laptop be damaged outside the office. The concern passed as the two words came
again.

“Is
short.”

He
shut the lid and waited for the blue and orange lights on the keyboard to fade.
Drew set the machine on the table and sat in the still darkness, convincing
himself that he had mumbled the words. Twice.

One
of the shadows hanging on the wall slid toward the floor like a shelf of ice
falling into the Arctic Sea. It crept along the baseboards, and the inky black
of the form spread into the kitchen and out of Drew’s sight.

He
stood and placed a bare foot on the oak floorboards. The coldness of the
century-old wood felt like fire on the soles of his feet. He peered into the
kitchen, expecting to see the shadow and hoping it was Molly getting a glass of
water.

“What’s
short?” Drew heard himself ask. His face flushed red in the darkness, an
embarrassment to himself. “Who am I expecting to answer that question?”

The
cranky heater in the basement coughed and, with a reluctant clang, fired up
again as the thermostat dropped to fifty-five degrees. The air shook Drew, and
he swore he saw his breath. As quickly as the chill infiltrated his bones, it
disappeared.

He
turned and looked at the digital clock on the microwave: 4:03.

Two
hours if I fall asleep right now,
Drew thought as he plodded back upstairs toward the bedroom.

Chapter 3

The
reverberating radio voice claimed that the sale ended in only three days. Drew
rolled over and fumbled for the silver cancel button in a line of silver
buttons sitting atop the alarm clock.

“Hmmmmm.”
Molly pulled the comforter over her head and rolled away from the source of the
commotion.

Drew
sat up and rubbed the stubble on his face before swinging both feet out of bed
and onto the floor. He heard the kids and decided to shave before they came
pounding on the door. The precious moments of privacy in the bathroom would be
all Drew would have during the day.

He
went through the rest of his morning ritual, and was on the highway by seven
with a coffee in one hand and a cinnamon-raisin bagel in the other. The lull of
a steady sixty-five miles per hour reawakened thoughts of Vivian in Drew’s memory.

“Do
you love her?”

“I’m
married.”

“I
didn’t ask you if you were married. I asked you if you love her.”

Drew
gripped the frosty mug and wished he could climb inside. “Yes.”

Vivian
set her wineglass on the table and slung the thin strap of her purse over one
shoulder.

“Wait.
I really like you and I don’t want to lose you as a friend, but you can’t ask
me to cheat on my wife.”

Vivian
smiled and failed to hide the tear running down her cheek. “We could have been
really happy, Drew. I mean really happy.”

He
watched her turn and dart through the happy-hour crowd. Drew tilted his mug to
the bartender, applying liquid salve to an open wound.

***

Drew
knew better than to check company e-mail after a night of drinking.

At
first he gasped. The language and tone felt wrong, like she had written the
message in another language and then ran it through a translating website.

“It’s
not true,” he said to Molly.

“Then
she has a hell of an imagination,” she replied. Molly never responded
positively to things when shaken from sleep, but that night Drew felt he had to
be direct.

“She’s
been hinting at an affair for months, but I never pursued it, I swear.”

Molly
swung a pillow behind her back and stared at Drew through bed-tousled hair.

“We
met at Sully’s after work. She insisted, and I knew it was not going to be
pretty. I ordered a beer, she asked me to leave you, and I told her no. I told
her that I love you.”

Drew’s
wife took a deep breath and waited, her fingers clutching and releasing the
sheet. “And she sent this to Johnson, too?”

Drew
exhaled and slid closer to Molly. “Yes. Vivian isn’t stupid. She knows the
company policy on harassment, knows what procedures have to be put in play, and
knows the amount of pain this is going to cause.”

“Then
you need to get into his office first thing in the morning.”

The
blaring horn jarred Drew from the memory. The transparent wax paper lay on the
passenger seat like the discarded shroud of the bagel. The cup of coffee in his
hand felt warm, the bitter tang no longer subdued by the heat. He pulled up to
the intersection and turned right, looking at the dashboard clock and realizing
that he had driven the entire route to the office on autopilot.

Probably
would be safer if I texted while driving. At least I’d still be paying some
attention to the road,
he
thought.

“Hey,
D!”

“‘Sup,
Charlie?”

The
security guard smiled at Drew from inside the frosted pane of the vertical
coffin he called a booth. Drew could see the flickering images of the portable
DVD player through the icy glaze of the window.

“Same
old shit. When we movin’ to Florida?”

Drew
chuckled. “Soon as you win the lottery, my man.”

Charlie
smiled and hit the button. The red arm rose with a cranky squeal of half-frozen
gears until it pointed skyward. Drew drove through the security check and
toward his office building in the industrial park, glancing in his rearview as
the arm came down again with a forbidding shake.

***

“Did you see
her today?”

Drew dropped
the messenger bag to the floor and looked over his desk. Brian’s eyes sparkled.
“No. I’m not looking for her, asshole.”

“You should be.
She’s got this tight, black skirt on. Heels, of course. And her blouse dips low
enough to sport serious cleavage. I still can’t believe you passed on that.”

Drew turned around
toward Johnson’s office and allowed his eyes to drift left, to Vivian’s
cubicle.

Nothing
wrong with looking,
he said to himself. “You oughta hit that.”

Brian squealed
like a kid who already knew what Santa left under the tree. “She ain’t into me,
man. She’s into you.”

“Did you forget
about the whole shitstorm?”

“My penis has a
short memory.”

With that,
Brian sauntered toward the coffee machine, leaving Drew with a wink and an
opportunity to recall the meeting with Johnson and their discussion of Vivian.

***

“I think I’m
going to need to see it.”

“Taken out
of context, it could cause me a lot of problems.”

“Seems like
you already have a lot of problems.”

Drew snarled
at Johnson and swallowed his anger like recurring heartburn. “I showed it to my
wife and I told her it’s not true.”

“She
believes you?”

“Of course.”

“For now.”

Drew stood
and considered dragging Vivian into the room. Johnson stepped in front of the
office door and closed the blinds.

“I need to
know. Don’t hand me any bullshit.”

“I did not
touch her. Ever.”

Johnson
sighed and nodded his head. “Then we should probably get HR in on this as soon
as possible. After I hear Vivian’s story, of course.” Drew smiled with his
eyebrows furrowed and a snarled lip. “Don’t do this to me, Drew. You know I
have procedures to follow.”

Johnson
opened the office door. Drew stepped close enough to smell his cheap aftershave
and the remains of greasy hash browns on his face.

“I’ll
forward you the e-mail from Vivian, according to procedure.” Drew spit the last
word from his mouth like a swig of sour milk. He walked through the rows of
cubicles as if in slow motion, seeing every keystroke on a keyboard and every
number punched into a phone. Vivian looked up at him and then back toward
Johnson’s office. She dropped her head to her chest.

He returned
to his desk and Drew looked at the framed picture of his family. He shuddered
and wondered if they could ever be them again: smiling, happy, whole. He
clicked through the screens until he came to his password-protected desktop. Drew
opened his e-mail in search of Vivian’s message. He scrolled through the list,
reordered by sender, then by date, and then by status. Nothing. Her e-mail was
gone. Drew scrolled through again, line by line. He picked up the phone and
dialed the IT desk.

“Frank. Hey,
it’s Drew in design. I’ve got a really important e-mail that’s disappeared.”

“They don’t
do that on their own, Drewy-boy.”

Drew winced.
“Listen to me, Frank. I had an e-mail in my in-box and now it’s not there.”

“Hold on.”

Drew heard
the phone clink off a hard surface, followed by pounding keys begging for mercy
under the plump fingers of the head of IT.

“Got a
retraction on your account.”

“Frank?”

“Right. Dumb
it down for ya. Whoever sent that e-mail pulled it back. Our system gives you
twelve hours to do that as long as the recipient is on our network.”

“You mean interoffice.”

“Yeah.”

Drew sighed.
“Can you tell me if the message was retracted from all recipients, or just me?”

“C’mon Drew.
You know I can’t breach privacy—“

“All or just
me, Frank,” Drew said, cutting off Frank’s canned response.

“All. Two
recipients, two retractions. Don’t bother asking who the other recipient was.”

“Wouldn’t
dream of it, Frank. You’re such a champion of privacy.” He heard the huff
through the phone before the line went dead.

***

Vivian walked
past Drew’s desk. He inhaled her perfume, making the memory of that day
visceral. She dropped a manila folder on his desk from an elevation that caused
other papers to flutter.

“Johnson needs
your signatures on these before the end of the day.”

Drew tried
making eye contact with her, but failed. He wondered how many more years it
would be before they would speak again. “Thanks, Vivian.”

She paused,
opened her mouth, and then closed it before walking back to her desk. Drew
flipped through the folder and counted the number of lines requiring his
signature before he shut it and walked across the row to Brian’s cubicle. Brian
held one finger up to him with a handset tucked under his chin.

“The CSS code. Yep,
got it. How about the link tags? Good? Okay. Yep, will do.” Brian hung up the
phone and leaned back in his chair.

“Can I talk to
you?” Drew asked. Brian twirled his fingers while sipping bottled water. “It’s
not work related,” Drew added.

“Never
stopped us before.”

“Did you ever
think someone was in your apartment?”

“Once I thought
I had two women in my bed, but it was just a dream.”

“Never mind,”
said Drew as he turned back toward his cubicle.

“Sorry. Sit down,
man.” Brian kicked the edge of another chair, which sent it flying toward
Drew’s knees. He stopped it with his left hand and sat down at the desk
opposite Brian. “You mean like ghosts?”

“Not exactly. A
feeling like someone else is in the room with you.”

Brian tilted
his head toward the panels of the suspended ceiling dotted with emergency
sprinkler heads.

“Honestly, I
don’t think so. I remember being scared shitless as a kid when my folks made me
go upstairs to bed. We had a family room in the basement with our television
and toys. My parents would stay up watching shows and at my bedtime they’d send
me upstairs to brush my teeth and go to bed. I used to leap over steps on the
way up, convinced something was going to get me. I’d run down the hall and turn
on my bedroom light. I felt safer under the covers, but getting there was
always a bitch. And it was the same thing, night after night.” Brian paused and
smirked at Drew. “You looked serious. I didn’t want to fuck with you.”

“Sorry, man. I’m
not used to seeing this side of you.”

Brian shrugged
and tapped a pencil on his phone. “What’s going on, Drew?”

Drew took a
deep breath and placed his elbows on his knees. He hunched over and looked left
to right before replying. “Had a strange feeling last night.” Brian waited,
pencil tapping. “I was on the computer around 3:30.”