Companions in Ruin Page 12

  As Julie’s mother stared slack-jawed at the destruction, trying to make sense of what she was seeing, a low growling caught her attention and made her turn toward the far side of the bed.

  Julie crouched on her haunches, completely naked, covered in blood, her own waste smeared onto her face to create a grotesque mask. Her teeth were bared, and she growled at her mother like a wild animal.

  Julie’s mother started to say her daughter’s name, but then Julie pounced.

  MUST BE SOMETHING IN THE WATER

  10:00 a.m.

  I was sitting at my desk, typing up a report that was two days overdue, when the deliveryman brought in the new three-gallon jug for the water cooler. I didn’t really pay the guy who wheeled the jug in on a handcart too much attention. I’ve never been much of a water drinker, and in the three years that I’d worked in the office, I don’t think I’d ever drank from the water cooler. I spared the fellow only a cursory glance, and he made no impression on me. Tall and lanky, with a nondescript gray uniform, a name stenciled above the pocket, but I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup and later I couldn’t recall what the name was on his shirt.

  “Looks like we have a new company delivering water,” Joyce said, coming up and leaning against the edge of my desk.

  “What?” I said, not taking my eyes off the computer screen. If I didn’t get the report finished by lunch, Mr. Griswald was going to have my sack.

  “We usually get our water from Aqua Products, but this is a different company.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “The delivery guy from Aqua is cuter. Maybe—”

  “Joyce,” I snapped. Forcing myself to calm down, I continued in a more subdued tone of voice. “I’m sorry, but I’m really trying to concentrate on my work.”

  “Oh, of course, Marty. Yeah, I’ll talk to you later.”

  Feeling like a shit, I watched Joyce walk away. There were six of us that worked together in the office, our desks sitting out in the open, not even cubicles to give us the illusion of privacy. Sometimes I thought of putting tape around my desk like that guy on WKRP, but I was afraid no one would get the joke. Our immediate supervisor, Mr. Griswald, was the only one with his own office, a space almost as large as the one we all shared with glass walls so that he could keep an eye on us.

  The water cooler was in the far corner, next to the mini-fridge and microwave. Joyce, Carol, and Vic were gathered around it at the moment, waiting for the deliveryman to finish installing the new jug. It was just water, for Christ’s sake; they could get the same stuff out of the faucet in the bathroom. Hardly something to start a line for.

  Shaking my head and laughing to myself, I turned back to the report.

  11:00 a.m.

  By tuning out the rest of the office, I managed to finish the report in an hour. I quickly proofed what I’d written then printed it out. All done with an entire hour to spare. Not too shabby. Now I could get to all the other work I was behind on.

  Leaning back in my chair and stretching, I noticed that everyone in the office—Joyce, Carol, Vic, Joel, Terri, even Mr. Griswald himself—was gathered around the water cooler, drinking from those little paper cups that came to points like ice cream cones. They were talking and laughing boisterously.

  This was unprecedented. Mr. Griswald rarely partook in camaraderie with his employees, and he usually frowned upon socializing at work. Seeing him laughing it up by the water cooler, a hand clamped on Joel’s shoulder in a friendly gesture, was like seeing a monkey in a tuxedo.

  Intrigued, I headed for the water cooler, snagging the report from the printer on my way. I stood on the fringe of the group, listening to their laughter but having missed the source of their mirth. No one seemed to notice me there. I felt like a pauper standing outside an expensive restaurant with my nose pressed against the glass, fogging up the window with my need.

  After being ignored for a full minute, I cleared my throat and said, “Hey guys, what’s going on?”

  The six turned toward me then. Smiles were stretched across their faces, wide and strained. It was like a half dozen Jokers staring back at me. It was a bit unnerving. “Oh, Marty,” Terri said. “You’ve had your eyes glued to that computer screen for so long, we almost forgot you were here.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, Ned was just telling us the most hilarious joke.”

  I was just about to ask who Ned was when I realized she was referring to Mr. Griswald. I had never heard anyone call him by his first name before. And who would have thought he had a sense of humor? He’d certainly never shown signs of having one in the three years I’d worked for him.

  “Well, I have that report here for you, Mr. Griswald.”

  Mr. Griswald waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, forget about that, Marty. It can wait.”

  “Wait?? Mr. Griswald had been riding my ass since yesterday morning about finishing this report. He’d made it sound as if the world would spin off its axis if I didn’t have it on his desk by noon today. “I thought you said it took precedence over everything.”

  Mr. Griswald drew close and put an arm over my shoulders, as if we were best buds. “You have to learn to take it easy now and then, my boy. All work and no play, you know how that goes.”

  Did Mr. Griswald really just call me my boy? I suddenly found myself wondering if I’d fallen asleep at the computer and was now in the grips of some bizarre dream.

  “Here,” Carol said, filling one of the paper cups from the water cooler and holding it out to me. “Have a drink with us.”

  “Uhm, no thanks. I’ll just grab a soda.”

  I opened the mini-fridge and took out a frosty Pepsi.

  “Soda’s bad for you,” Joel said, which was a joke. If there was one person in the office who was a bigger caffeine addict than me, it was Joel. “Have some nice, refreshing, healthy water.”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” I started backing away toward my desk, and the group turned away from me, closing me out again. I glanced at the water cooler and wondered if maybe the water had been spiked. It seemed unlikely, but maybe the deliveryman had decided to have a little fun by slipping some alcohol in the water jug. Everyone in the office certainly seemed to be acting drunk.

  I returned to my desk, the laughter trailing behind me. Maybe I was just overreacting. Perhaps Mr. Griswald was simply in a good mood and wanted to spread it around. Of course, in three years I had never seen him in a good mood, but the law of averages suggested it would have to happen sooner or later.

  I pulled some files out of the two-drawer filing cabinet next to my desk and began going over them.

  12:00 p.m.

  At noon, I put aside the files and went to heat up my lunch. I’d brought leftover lasagna in a Tupperware bowl, and I took it out of the fridge and placed it in the microwave, setting it for two minutes then hitting the START button.

  “What’re you doing, Marty?” Joyce asked, walking up to me.

  “Lunch.”

  “Leftovers again?” Joyce took one of the paper cups and began filling it from the water cooler. I noticed that despite the constant trips my officemates had been making to the water cooler all day, the jug still seemed to be full.

  “Waste not, want not, that’s what my mother always taught me.”

  “Didn’t you hear?” Joyce said with a tight smile. “Mr. Griswald has ordered in Chinese for everyone.”

  I stood there for a moment, just looking at Joyce. While I was friendly with everyone in the office, Joyce was the only one I would have really called a friend. About twice a month, we got together outside of work. A movie, dinner, once we went to see the Dixie Chicks in concert. She’d even set me up on a blind date with a guy in her ceramics class, although the resultant date had been a disaster of Katrina proportions. I felt I knew Joyce pretty well, and she just wasn’t acting herself. It was nothing overt, nothing easily pinpointed. Her smile was forced, more of a grimace, and it didn’t touch her eyes. She stood a little too rigidly, but he
r shoulders jerked now and then as if she were having muscle spasms. While I watched, she guzzled the water down, some of it dribbling down her chin. She made no move to wipe it away.

  “Are you feeling okay, Joyce?”

  “Never better. How about a drink of water?”

  “You know I don’t really like water. I’ll stick with my soda.”

  “Well, are you going to join us for lunch? We’re all going to eat in the conference room.”

  I found the idea of eating lunch with my officemates with their painted-on smiles and strangely cheerful demeanors rather unappetizing. “You know, I’m not really in the mood for Chinese. I think I’ll just eat my lasagna at my desk.”

  Joyce’s smile vanished in an instant, as if a magician had made it disappear. Her gaze darkened, storm clouds building up behind her eyes. In fact, the air suddenly seemed charged with an electrical current. I actually backed up a step, banging my ass into the front of the microwave.

  “What, you think you’re too good to eat with the rest of us?” Joyce said, her voice low and heated.

  “Of course not. I just don’t—”

  “All day you’ve been at your desk, head down, just ignoring the rest of us. Like you think you’re superior to us or something, like we’re not worth your time.”

  I laughed uneasily, trying to hold to the belief that this was all a joke, but the rage I felt radiating from Joyce was quite real. “Come on, Joyce, you know I’m not like that. I’m just not feeling very sociable today.”

  Joyce said nothing for a moment, but her eyes sliced into my flesh like razor blades. Finally she said, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible, “Better be careful up there on your pedestal, Mr. My-Shit-Don’t-Stink. Someone’s liable to come along and knock it right out from under you.”

  Before I could respond, she turned and stalked off. As she approached the conference room, she shouted, “Marty won’t be joining us for lunch! His Majesty is too good to dine with us common folk!”

  The whole encounter had left me reeling. Was that really Joyce, the same woman whom I’d gossiped with since she began working in the office a year and a half ago? It looked like her, but that was where the similarities ended. And how quickly her mood had changed for chipper brightness to seething anger. Such a sudden mood swing, it had nearly given me whiplash.

  Behind me, the microwave’s timer went off. I took my bowl and a soda and returned to my desk, making a conscious effort to avoid looking in the direction of the conference room.

  1:00 p.m.

  Over the next hour, things appeared to be getting back to normal. No one was talking to me, but everyone seemed to return to their usual workday activities. I was actually beginning to believe that maybe the weirdness had passed, until I went to the restroom.

  I stood at the urinal, staring at the tiled wall as I relieved my bladder. There was a black layer of grime coating the spaces between the tiles. I walked away, the sensor in the urinal letting it know that it was time to flush. I stepped over to the sink, sticking my hands under the faucet so the sensor would know to start the water. I was musing on how much of our lives were run off sensors when I heard the moan.

  It was deep and drawn out, followed by a sudden intake of breath. I also thought I detected a sound like slurping. The noises were coming from one of the restroom’s three toilet stalls. I knew what it sounded like; they were sounds I’d heard as a younger man in bathroom stalls in clubs I’d attended. Hell, they were sounds I’d made as a younger man in bathroom stalls in clubs I’d attended. But surely I was mistaken; this was an office, after all.

  Crouching down, I ducked my head so that I could see under the stall doors. The stalls on either end were unoccupied, but in the middle stall were two pairs of legs. One pair belonging to someone standing, the other to someone kneeling. I recognized both pairs of shoes. The man standing in the polished black loafers was Vic; the man kneeling in the brown lace-ups was Joel.

  I stood slowly, hearing the joints in my knees pop, wondering if Joel and Vic could hear it. If they had, the uninterrupted noises they made suggested they didn’t care that they were no longer alone. I tried to wrap my mind around this, but it just wouldn’t compute. Vic was a fifty-seven year old grandfather, and Joel was a newlywed.

  I bolted from the restroom when I heard Vic hiss, “Here I come, boy.” In the hallway, I almost collided with Carol. She gave me an annoyed look then continued on her way.

  “Hey, Carol, have you seen Joyce?”

  At first I thought she was just going to ignore me, but then she glanced over her shoulder and said, “Try the copier room.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hurried toward the copier room, eager to find Joyce and tell her about what I’d seen in the restroom. Not just out of a desire to gossip—although there was that, I had to admit—but so she could help me try to make sense of it. The door to the copier room was closed, which was unusual, but I didn’t pause to consider it. I simply open up the door and rushed inside. What I saw made me stop so abruptly I almost tripped over my own feet.

  Joyce was on top of the table next to the copier, on all fours with her hair hanging over her face like a veil. Mr. Griswald was kneeling behind her, grabbing her hips as he thrust repeatedly. Both were naked and covered in sweat.

  A tiny gasp escaped my lips, and both Joyce and Mr. Griswald looked up at me. Mr. Griswald did not stop thrusting, making throaty grunts with every stroke. Joyce smiled at me and said, “Hey there, Marty.”

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to barge in,” I said dumbly, edging back out the door.

  “Nonsense. Why don’t you join us?”

  I felt like I was going to be ill, and I quickly backpedaled out into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

  Had everyone in the office gone insane? I had wondered earlier if the water had been spiked with alcohol; now I was wondering if it had been spiked with some kind of hallucinogenic drug. I wasn’t sure what to do. I thought about leaving, but wasn’t sure if I should. The workday didn’t end until four, but surely when you found your boss fucking one of your coworkers in the copier room, standard workplace procedures were pretty much out the window.

  In the end, I decided against leaving. I simply returned to my desk and tried to erase the image of Joyce and Mr. Griswald from my mind. I didn’t have much success.

  2:00 p.m.

  “You goddam cunt!”

  At the sound of the angry words, I looked up. Carol and Terri were over by the water cooler. They had the stance of wrestlers about to start a match.

  “I was here first,” Terri said, taking a step toward the water cooler.

  Carol snatched Terri by the hair and jerked her back. “The fuck you were. I was here first; you can just wait your turn.”

  Terri lashed out and smacked Carol across the cheek. The sound of flesh on flesh was loud in the office like a gunshot. Vic, Joel, and Mr. Griswald were making their way over to the fight. Joyce was nowhere to be seen.

  “I got here before you, and I’m having the first drink,” Terri said, taking a paper cup from the dispenser.

  Carol punched Terri in the small of her back and then shoved her forward. Terri collided with the wall and slid to the floor. Carol started for the water cooler, but Terri kicked out and tripped her. Carol fell to the floor, and suddenly the two women were rolling around, slapping and scratching at one another, spitting curses at each other that would have made Quentin Tarantino blush.

  I pushed up from my desk and hurried over. Mr. Griswald grabbed me by the arm and said, “Where the fuck you think you’re going, dickhead?”

  “To put a stop to this.”

  “Oh, hell no!” Joel shouted at me. “This is good shit, and you ain’t gonna ruin it!”

  In the tumult, Terri ripped Carol’s blouse open, revealing a bra that had a safety pin holding one of the straps. Vic, Joel, and Mr. Griswald hooted at the sight.

  Suddenly, Joyce emerged from the conference room and bolted past the two women on the flo
or. Laughing like a mental patient, she yelled, “It’s all mine!” The she got down on her knees and stuck her head directly under the spigot of the water cooler, unleashing a flow into her mouth. Impossible as it seemed, she was laughing even as she gulped the water down.

  Carol had bloodied Terri’s nose, and the men started to chant as they watched the fight. Vic opened his pants and began masturbating. I retreated to my desk and decided to call corporate office to see if they could send any help. The phones weren’t working.

  3:00 p.m.

  I was terrified. Following Carol and Terri’s fight, I had tried to leave the office. Mr. Griswald had stopped me, informing me that no one left before the end of the workday. When I tried to leave anyway, he called over Vic and Joel, who physically escorted me back to my desk and deposited me in my chair. Joel was now standing guard by the door to make sure I didn’t make another escape attempt.

  Carol and Terri seemed to have made up. Carol was sitting on her desktop, legs spread, with Terri’s on the floor, her head hidden under Carol’s skirt. Joyce, Vic, and Mr. Griswald were in Mr. Griswald’s office, having what sounded like a very loud threesome. Every so often, Joel would glance at Carol and Terri and play with himself.

  Carol, a languid smile on her face, looked in my direction and said, “You know, Marty, you should really have some water.”

  “It really is yummy,” Terri added, taking a break to peek out from under Carol’s skirt then returning to business.

  I cleared my throat and licked my lips. “Well, I am kind of thirsty.”

  “Then have some water,” Joel said from the door. “You’ll feel a lot better after having some water.”

  “You know, I think I’ll do that,” I said, standing. My legs felt weak, barely able to support my body, but I managed to walk across the office to the water cooler. It was still full. I took a paper cup and held it under the spigot. Then, instead of filling my cup, I grabbed the jug and toppled it.

  It was made of heavy plastic, not glass, so it didn’t shatter when it hit the floor, but it did made a loud noise, and the water began pouring out of the open end, forming a rapidly spreading puddle at my feet.