by Boris Bacic
Luckily, this was only the waiting room, where only the receptionist Claudia sat. Sometimes, one or two people were waiting for an appointment with one of the realtors. Right now, the seats for the clients were empty.
“Afternoon, Claudia,” Stephen nodded politely.
Claudia looked up from her phone behind the reception, flashing her white grin to Stephen.
“Hi, Stephen! Working hard?”
“No, hardly working,” Stephen retorted.
Claudia guffawed at his remark. It was an exaggerated laugh, but he knew about Claudia. She was just a receptionist, and he was the top real estate agent for the company. Everyone knew how much he earned, and since the company wasn’t big, the news spread quickly.
When Claudia first started working for LiveBetter, she barely even dignified Stephen with a greeting. And then, around two months later, when the CEO of the company personally congratulated Stephen for his hard work for the company – in front of Claudia – things changed. She began smiling at him more often, tossing flirtatious comments about him looking good in his pants, casually mentioning that she didn’t have any plans for the weekend, etc.
Stephen ignored her and maintained a professional relationship. He already heard about her from the other coworkers. Claudia was apparently one of those bimbos that he only saw in movies, who made their way to everything in life over a bed. She definitely fit the description with her pumped-up lips, powdered-up face, one-inch long nails that made Stephen wonder how she was able to hold anything in her hand, and tight and skimpy clothes that she posted on social media (he skimmed through her profile on Instagram). She probably would have worn the same kind of clothes in the office had it not been for the company’s dress-code policy.
The word was that Claudia slept (or did something sexual) with the HR manager, and that’s how she got her receptionist role. There were talks from other employees that she was a real slut, and that made her all the more repulsive to Stephen. The last thing he needed was to catch some STDs or become the talk of the office – and potentially lose his job over it. And to think that could happen over some lowlife like Cladia, no fucking way!
He had hoped that Claudia would take the hint and back off, but she was persistent, flirting with Stephen with every chance she got – and with others when he wasn’t around. He even tried lying to her about having a girlfriend, but she wouldn’t let up. Moreso, she seemed even more interested in him afterward, becoming more direct by briefly talking about her lesbian and threesome experiences, etc. Stephen silently prayed that she would fuck another higher-up soon so that she could get transferred to a different department because having to stop and make small talk with her out of courtesy every single working day was exhausting. Making small talk meaning listening to her talking about shallow nonsense and throwing pathetic compliments at Stephen.
“Off so soon?” Claudia teased Stephen when he loped his way past her without stopping more than to briefly exchange pleasantries.
“Yeah, got something to take care of in the office,” he stopped in his tracks and turned to face Claudia. “Uh, if anyone comes looking for me, tell them to wait here and let me know about it.”
He gave her a courteous smile.
“You got it, busy man,” Claudia said with a wide grin.
Stephen couldn’t help but notice how she looked all plasticized, like a life-sized Barbie doll – more so than usually. He thanked her and turned around before she could start a conversation about something else with him. Stephen found the key to his office once more, allowing the keyring to jungle loudly now that he was away from the waiting room. As he stopped in front of the door with a thick, opaque glass pane that had the plastered grey letters Realtor Steve Hicks on it, he inserted the key into the keyhole.
“Hi, Steve. Did you find someone for the apartment we talked about?” the voice came so abruptly from his left that Stephen nearly jumped.
“Jesus, Charlie!” Stephen chuckled at his manager’s jumpscare.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I guess that’s easy to do in a quiet place like this one,” Charlie glanced down at the waiting room.
“Yeah. Anyway, I was just about to sit down and look at all the candidates for the apartment. I’ll give them a call as soon as I look over their info.”
“Good man. Keep up the good work. Just don’t overdo it. You know what it means if you do.”
“Yep, we get another increase in the required norms. I’ll make sure to take it easy.”
Charlie gently patted Stephen on the shoulder before making his way towards the exit. Stephen made sure to follow him with his gaze until he was through the glass doors and out of sight. Only then did he turn the key – slowly. The lock clicked much louder than he wanted it to, but then he realized that doing things slowly would make him look all the more suspicious.
He pulled the key out and opened the door, stepping inside the dark office. He skillfully flipped the switch, already familiar with its location, and the room immediately got bathed in bright, yellow light. The office was small but cozy. Stephen wished he had more space, but he appreciated having his own privacy and silence. He couldn’t imagine working in a cubicle like the IT guys on the same floor. His introverted personality contradicted his job description where he needed to communicate with clients daily, and Stephen himself was surprised at his ability to speak with clients for hours without feeling fatigued. However, five minutes of small talk unrelated to work caused him to burn out pretty quickly.
Stephen locked his office, leaving the key in the keyhole, made his way around the desk, and slumped into the rotating chair. He tossed the thick and heavy folder on top of the desk, feeling the immense stress slowly leaving his body. He had been buzzing from place to place all day long, and the seat came as a haven for him. He leaned back in the chair, groaning in relief and grabbing at his painful neck. Stephen closed his eyes and allowed himself to enjoy the moment of respite.
“Stephen,” someone softly whispered into his ear.
It didn’t startle him but rather reminded him that he had work to do. As he opened his eyes and turned his head in the direction of the sound, he saw no one.
“Alright, alright. Can’t a guy get a moment of rest?” Stephen jokingly asked aloud.
He rubbed his eyes and leaned forward with a groan. He opened the folder and sifted through the papers. He took out one piece of document that had a picture of a young man attached with a clip to it and placed it on the desk, all the way in the upper left corner. He then pulled out the next paper, also one with a picture of a person, this one a middle-aged woman. Stephen neatly placed the paper next to the one of the young man and continued rummaging through the folder.
Since a lot of the people there were not adequate candidates, Stephen put those people’s documents aside while sifting through the rest. The entire desk was soon cluttered with documents of various photos attached to them. Stephen had to make some papers overlap since he didn’t have enough room, but by the time he was done, the previously heavy folder was much lighter as it lay in his lap.
Stephen tossed the folder on the floor next to him and leaned on his knees, staring at the bevy of papers in front of him. He scrutinized each photograph, trying to understand what kind of person he was looking at. He had met with all those people, of course, but most of them were nice, for the most part. They always were. It was the face they put on when they wanted to buy a property. Even after all these years of working as a realtor, Stephen was horrible at reading people. He was great convincing them to buy things, yes, but he was never able to get past that underlying smile and first-impressions personality where everyone portrayed themselves in the nicest possible way.
He glanced at the photograph of Andrew Wasdin. He was a fifty-year-old Marine Corps veteran who wanted to buy the apartment, and Stephen didn’t like him one bit. Not only was he bulky and intrusive in personal space, but he wouldn’t shut up about his stories from the army days. Stephen tried to be polite for the most
part, but he accidentally let out a chuckle when Wasdin told him about the time he and his five buddies beat up fifty police officers before getting arrested. Wasdin shot Stephen an angry look when he saw him chuckling, and for a moment, Stephen thought he was going to call him out on it, but he instead turned into the living room and asked some questions about the apartment.
If anyone from the list of people was the best candidate for apartment 401, it was Wasdin, Stephen thought. But that was not for him to decide, and as previous experiences showed – first impressions could easily be deceiving. He leaned back in the chair. It didn’t squeak, a testament to how rarely it was used. Stephen placed his hands on the armrest and took a deep breath.
“Alright. Show me,” he said as he stared down at the document-littered desk.
He tapped his right hand on the armrest, averting his gaze from the papers and darting his eyes around the room. It was silent, so silent that he heard the calm, steady beating of his own heart. He swallowed, and at that moment, it sounded annoyingly loud, even to himself. He continued glancing around the room, waiting for… something. For what, exactly?
He already knew. He just needed to be patient.
Stephen looked down at his lap, starting to feel his eyelids getting heavy. He closed his eyes for a moment, just to rest them briefly. He wished he could be in his apartment right now, on his sofa next to the electric fireplace, with some soft classical music playing, while his cat, Mr. Pickles, rested on his lap. He would be purring, sending low vibrations along-
The sound of the wind’s gust startled Stephen out of his daze so suddenly that he jerked his head up. The whistle sounded more like a person’s voice trying to mimic the whooshing sound. Instantly, the papers on the desk scattered and flew around the room, gyrating in the air before dropping on the floor. Stephen made no effort to catch them. He looked around the room but saw no one inside.
Of course not.
If he had a window in the office, he would have glanced at it to see if he left it open, but the office had no windows; therefore, no breeze could have blown the pages. Only five pages remained in front of Stephen on the desk, scattered out of their neat order. And then another whoosh came from somewhere in the room (maybe from behind Stephen), and this time he did jump because it felt like someone was blowing an icy breath into the nape of his neck, causing his hairs to stand straight. More papers scattered off the desk, flying around the room before joining their fallen brethren on the floor.
Stephen looked at the desk and saw that only one piece of paper remained on top of it. Two photographs were attached in the upper right corner – a young married couple. He remembered them. Brad and Julia Napier. They went to see apartment 401 just a week ago. Nice couple, very polite. Stephen tentatively approached the desk and picked up the paper, staring at the photographs.
Brad was grinning at the camera. He had a clean-shaven face and a perfect, pretty-boy smile. This was complemented with lush, hazel hair that made him look all the better. Stephen remembered speaking to him a week ago. He was down to earth, polite, and considerate. He even asked Stephen if he needed to reschedule their appointment since the realtor complained about having a busy day.
And then there was Julia. She was a brunette with curly hair, and although in the photograph she looked beautiful with blue eyes and an enchanting smile, Stephen considered her to be a little above average in person – which was refreshing, especially since he expected her to look like a model – like in the photo. She was friendly, but she and Stephen didn’t talk much. She spent most of the time following him and her husband around while the two men talked about the apartment.
“You… you want them? You want me to give the apartment to them?” Stephen asked, looking around the room.
He was met with silence. The lights flickered, briefly and intermittently engulfing the room in total darkness before they stopped working altogether. It took Stephen’s eyes a moment to get adjusted to the dark, and then he started to make out shapes in the blackness of the room.
Just in front of him, in the corner of his office, stood a figure, unmoving and staring somewhere to Stephen’s right. Stephen felt a lump forming in his throat as he looked at the figure. He started to discern more and more details on it – a featureless face, slick hair tied into a ponytail, a tight, dark dress against a slim, feminine body. Stephen couldn’t force himself to look away. After what felt like an eternity of staring at it, his eyes burned from the lack of blinking. His eyes unwillingly closed and opened, and -
The figure’s head was now facing him. Or was it? Was he just imagining it? No, no, he wasn’t. Stephen blinked again, and the figure was now facing him not just with its head, but its entire body, too.
The lights came on, and Stephen stared at… nothing. There was nothing in front of him, just an old coat hanger with his jacket hanging on it and a red baseball cap just on top of it. Stephen felt his heart beating a million miles an hour, and as he looked down, he just then realized that he was still clutching the paper with Brad’s and Julia’s documents, so firmly that he slightly crumpled it near the edges. He gasped when he saw the crude red letters on the paper that weren’t there just a minute ago.
It said, THEM.
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The Door
“Hello?” Daniella shouted into the darkness ahead of her.
It was pitch black and she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She took her phone out of her pocket and turned on the torch. It illuminated the dilapidated walls of the narrow corridor in front of her, which by logic shouldn’t even be in front of her. The temperature was much lower here than it was back in the apartment and Daniella found herself shivering; and not just from the cold. Something was terribly wrong here and she could feel it in her bones, but she couldn’t leave just yet.
She forced herself to take a step forward and after that, each subsequent step came naturally for her. The light of her torch barely penetrated the permeating darkness ahead and the deeper she went in, the more she became overwhelmed by a feeling of unease. She had no idea where she was headed and it was impossible to tell how far the corridor stretched on for. She glanced behind, just to reassure herself the apartment door was still open there. The idea of being trapped in this corridor, surrounded by such darkness, terrified her.
Come on, Daniella. Come on, you got this. Your sister’s counting on you. She did her best to motivate herself, feeling her own breath uncontrollably tremble with each harsh exhale.
She quickened her pace a little. The steps she took up until this point were timid and short, but they slowly broke into a more confident stride, as the sound of her shoes echoed in the corridor with each step she took. Despite feeling less uneasy now, she kept glancing behind herself to make sure the door was still there, afraid it would somehow disappear, despite the corridor only going straight in a narrow path. The light which came from the apartment was now a small rectangle and Daniella was amazed at how much distance she put between herself and it.
The end couldn’t possibly be far, right? The building wasn’t that big, so whatever was on the other side must have been-
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a sound in the distance. She froze in place and perked up her ears. She stared down at the ground, since it allowed her to focus better, plus she couldn’t see anything ahead of her from the dark anyway. Was it just her imagination? No, there it was again. Quiet, barely audible, but without a doubt, the sound of creaking, resounded in the distance.
It discouraged her, because she realized she probably had a long way to go yet. But then another terrifying thought occurred to her. What if someone else was in here? It made her pulse speed up and in the eerie silence of the corridor, she felt her heart thumping against her chest violently, all the way up to her ears.
“Hello?!” She called out again foolishly, knowing that she could potentially be putting herself in danger, as her voice echoed.
She didn’t care about that, though. Rig
ht now she simply wanted whoever was there to respond, so that she knew if someone either was or wasn’t there. This anticipation was only making her more nervous. She waited a moment, trying to catch even the faintest noise, her tremulous breathing being her only response.
“Come on Daniella, pull yourself together.” she said to herself aloud this time, giving herself a mental shake and put one foot cautiously in front of the other.
She looked behind her shoulder. The light which provided solace to her was now barely a dot, a meager glimmer of hope in the ever-present darkness surrounding her. She turned back in the direction she was going, exhaled deeply and continued walking. The creaking noise from before followed her occasionally, but she decided not to stop and listen to it this time. After only a few more agonizing minutes which felt like hours, she started to notice something ahead of her. At first, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her from being in such overwhelming darkness.
She put down her phone and squinted through the dark. It wasn’t her imagination. There was a dot of light far ahead, just like the one behind her. It reinvigorated her and she broke into a light jog, as the torch of her phone violently bobbed up and down. And then she heard something that sounded like a moan, far ahead in the distance.
She gasped loudly and stopped to listen, breathless. Silence. She waited. And then it came again. A barely audible, feminine scream. A very familiar one.
“Michelle?!” Daniella shouted and broke into a sprint, “Michelle, hold on! I’m coming!”
The scream became louder and echoed throughout the corridor, as the creaking returned, now much louder than before, permeating the air both in front and behind her. The thought of her sister being harmed filled her with such primordial fear, that she forgot all about her own safety and threw herself in the path of danger to rescue her sibling.
“Michelle, hold on!” she shouted between sucking in shallow breaths, her voice drowned out by the creaking which was now so loud, that everything else became inaudible.