TheCorporation

by Jesus Gonzalez

  Michelle sighed as she drove through town toward the house she and Donald now shared. Financially, they were doing okay. The sale of the house in Pennsylvania, and the money from her life insurance had helped create a small nest egg for them, one they’d had to live on for awhile until Donald could build up his patient base. His practice was doing well, so far. He’d even hired a medical assistant. Michelle had gotten back into her art and was painting, mostly commercial work for local businesses. In time, she thought she might apply for a teaching position at the local community college. It would keep her busy.

  As she drove down the street she and Donald lived on she realized she had come a long way in the past year. She had made peace with her past; she’d forgiven her mother for the emotional abandonment she’d felt as a child. Part of what helped her get over that was seeing her real mother in those few minutes at Corporate Financial and learning that Connie had never wanted any of this to happen—she’d loved Michelle deeply but was controlled by the force that was Corporate Financial. Knowing this gave her a new direction in life, one she felt when she first became pregnant with Alanis. More than ever, she would never live for a collective again, even for financial purposes. No amount of money would get her to do that.

  And as for Alanis...

  Michelle thought about her beloved first daughter and rubbed her pregnant belly. At five months, she was already showing. She had a good OB/GYN in the nearby town of Clifford who assured her that her pregnancy was coming along well. Michelle and Donald didn’t know the sex of their baby yet, and Michelle wanted it to be a surprise. Whether the baby was a boy or a girl, Michelle was adamant that her child would always come first. She’d had to go through a hellish experience in order to get to this place, but she’d made her decisions and she could live with them. They would be okay together, the three of them. And with Rachel Drummond and Jay O’Rourke living nearby, maybe they could have a nice support system in place. They’d have to look out for each other since, technically, the bombing of Corporate Financial Group was still officially open.

  Michelle made a right on Hempland Road and headed to their home, a pleasant little cottage along the middle of the street. The porch light was on, and as Michelle swung the Jeep into the driveway she saw Donald’s silhouette in the window and she smiled, feeling genuinely more happy and fulfilled than she had ever felt in her life.

  EPILOGUE

  JESSICA WILLIAMS COULDN’T wait to tell Diana Early about her date with Micah Walters Monday morning.

  Jessica stepped into Diana’s office quietly and closed the door. Diana looked up from the spreadsheet she was working on and grinned. “Well, how was it?”

  “You won’t believe it,” Jessica sat down in one of the two chairs in front of Diana’s desk. She was a temporary employee Handy Supplies had hired to perform some general clerical work over the summer while she was on summer break from University. Diana was the company payroll administrator. Jessica had accepted a date with Micah Walters, who had been with the company as an Assistant Operations Manager for six months.

  “So, what happened?” Diana asked, gushing to hear the news.

  When Jessica told her Diana’s smile faded.

  They’d gone to dinner and the only topic of conversation Micah seemed to want to talk about was work. How he’d saved the company x number of dollars by launching his new initiative; how his supervisor had recommended he be on the new committee for the redesign of the data warehouse; how he was working weekends and nights to facilitate his operation reorganization plans. Diana couldn’t believe it. “All he talked about was work?”

  Jessica nodded. Her pretty features bore a look of disappointment. Last week when she told Diana that Micah had asked her out she was excited. She thought Micah was handsome and she was very attracted to him. Now that enthusiasm was zapped. “It wasn’t what I would call a romantic weekend at all,” she said.

  “So what happened after dinner?”

  Jessica gave her the rundown. Micah seemed uninterested in her sexually and every time Jessica tried to interest him in another topic—what school he’d gone to, his family, favorite movies or music or something—Micah steered the conversation back to his work with Handy. At one point, Jessica said, he even asked her why she didn’t consider her job so important. “Why would he say that?” Diana asked.

  “Because I wasn’t talking about it,” Jessica said. She leaned forward. “And get this. He...well, it ended badly. He made me walk home from the restaurant and—”

  “He made you walk home?” Diana’s eyebrows raised in shock.

  “—he said he was going to have a talk with Mary about me,” Jessica said. Now she looked nervous. “He said I should be a more devoted employee; that I should be concerned about our position in the marketplace and be a team player and—”

  “What a bunch of bullshit!” Diana said; she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  “And he said he was going to have a talk with Mary about me first thing Monday,” Jessica said.

  Now Diana knew why Jessica looked so nervous, and she tried to calm the girl’s fears. Mary was the Accounting Manager. “What he says to Mary isn’t going to do anything,” she said. “I mean, you’re a temp! Everybody knows you’re only here for the summer and when the Fall Semester starts, you’re back to school. Besides, we all like your work. There’s no way Mary will—”

  “He said he was going to recommend to Mary that I either quit school and come on board as a full-time employee, or be fired,” Jessica said.

  Diana was getting angry. She’d had no opinion of Micah when he first came on board, but now she felt a supreme hatred for him. She knew he’d been hired six months ago, that he used to be a consultant from that firm that was in the news a year ago, the one that got blown up. He’d worked out of their Detroit office and left voluntarily before it was eventually shut down. “If Mary says anything to you, come to me,” Diana said. “I’ll vouch for you. Don’t worry; nothing will happen. Mary will just humor him and then—”

  Suddenly the door to Diana’s office flew open and there was Mary Fulmer and Micah Walters.

  Diana was startled by the sudden intrusion. Jessica glanced up, a look of guilt on her face. Don’t look guilty, Diana thought. You haven’t done anything wrong, for God’s sakes.

  Mary took a step inside the office. “Jessica, Micah told me about your dinner engagement Saturday evening and I must say I am most disappointed.”

  Jessica opened her mouth to say something. Mary continued. “Micah recommends we dismiss you from the company unless you are willing to quit school and come on board full-time.”

  “What?” Diana practically yelled.

  “Umm...” Jessica said, nervous and squirming uncomfortably in her seat.

  Mary ignored Diana’s outburst. “What will it be, Jessica.”

  “You can’t make her quit school! Are you out of your mind?” Diana was practically shouting now.

  Mary looked at Diana. “You’re fired. Get out!”

  Diana gasped. The expression on Mary’s face was one of emptiness; it was like she was talking to a robot.

  Mary turned back to Jessica. “I’d like an answer.”

  “I can’t quit now,” Jessica said. “I still have two more years.”

  “Then you can leave,” Mary said. “Handy is no longer in need of your services.”

  Diana Early and Jessica Williams left Handy Supplies together that day and went to a bar on State Street. They spent most of the morning and afternoon drinking and venting their anger and frustration over what happened to them at work.

  Back at Handy, Mary Fulmer and Micah Williams outlined the presentation they planned to present at the emergency employee staff meeting. They’d been planning this the past two days now, ever since Micah had infiltrated the company. Already he’d sunk his hooks into all of the executive staff; Mary was the first member of management to be influenced by him. She was working on the Manager of Engineering now and hoped to have him under
control shortly. She was sure employees would start questioning the sudden dismissal of Diana and Jessica but that was par for the course. Trimming dead wood early would be beneficial for the company. The plan she and Micah were to present to the staff that afternoon was even more crucial. Mary had a feeling that it would be met by protest, but if they didn’t like it they could go elsewhere. After all, if they intended to remain employed by Handy they would need to be dedicated employees, not only when they were on duty from eight to five, but twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The Human Resource manager had already sent two associates to the homes of several Handy employees to confiscate various items—televisions, stereos, books, games. Engaging in the consumption of any media unrelated to Handy business was now officially prohibited even when it was conducted on the employee’s own property (another initiative was currently being carried out in stealth mode—the takeover of all mortgages and property deeds held by Handy employees; if employees were paying mortgages from funds made while employed by Handy, then the property was really owned by the company). One must eat, drink, and sleep Handy business.

  It was the only way to stay competitive in the global marketplace.

  While elsewhere in the world, business continued on as usual.

  January 17, 2005 - October 2, 2005

  Lititz/Lancaster, PA

  Fountain Valley, CA

  About J. F. Gonzalez

  J. F. Gonzalez is the author of over fifteen novels of horror and dark suspense including Back From the Dead, Primitive, Bully, The Beloved, Survivor, and is co-author of Clickers series (with Mark Williams and Brian Keene respectively). His short fiction is collected in four volumes, of which the latest, The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales, is available as an exclusive digital title. He also works in other media including film, the technology sector, and other areas of publishing. He lives with his family in Pennsylvania and is currently working on his next novel. For more information, visit him on the web at www.jfgonzalez.com.

  Also by J. F. Gonzalez

  Clickers

  (Co-written with Mark Williams)

  Click Click Click Click

  Phillipsport, Maine is a quaint and peaceful seaside village. But when hundreds of creatures pour out of the ocean and attack, its residents must take up arms to drive the beasts back.

  They are the Clickers, giant venomous blood-thirsty crabs from the depths of the sea. The only warning to their rampage of dismemberment and death is the terrible clicking of their claws. But these monsters aren’t merely here to ravage and pillage. They are being driven onto land by fear. Something is hunting the Clickers. Something ancient and without mercy.

  Clickers II: The Next Wave

  (Co-written with Brian Keene)

  The first wave was just the beginning...

  The United States is in ruins. It has just suffered one of the worst hurricanes in history, the people are demoralized, and the president is a religious fanatic. Then things get really bad - the Clickers return.

  Thousands of the monsters swarm across the entire nation and march inland, slaughtering anyone and anything they come across. But this time the Clickers aren’t blindly rushing onto land - they are being led by an intelligence older than civilization itself. A force that wants to take dry land away from the mammals.

  Those left alive soon realize that they must do everything and anything they can to protect humanity no matter the cost.

  This isn’t war, this is extermination.

  Clickers III: Dagon Rising

  (Co-written with Brian Keene)

  They thought it was over, but the second wave was only the beginning. In the aftermath of the Clickers and Dark Ones’s siege and a coup against an insane President, America rebuilds. Change has come, and a better future is promised to all. But promises can be broken and there may be no future at all because deep beneath the ocean a new terror awaits. Dagon, god of the Dark Ones, is waking up...and if humanity doesn’t stop him, then mankind will face extinction.

  Trapped on a South Pacific Island, the cast of Clickers and Clickers II: The Next Wave join forces with a mysterious group of occult agents to face off against the Clickers, the Dark Ones, Dagon, and an all-new threat - the deadly obsidian Clickers. The stakes have never been higher. Dagon is rising...and humanity will fall.

  Survivor

  Author’s Preferred Edition

  Before Hostel...before Saw...there was Survivor.

  It was supposed to be a romantic weekend getaway. Lisa was looking forward to spending time alone with her husband, Brad, and telling him that they are going to have a baby. Instead, it becomes a nightmare when Brad is arrested and Lisa is kidnapped. But the kidnappers aren’t asking for ransom. They want Lisa herself. They’re going to make her a star - in a snuff film.

  What they have in mind for Lisa is unspeakable. They plan to torture and murder her as graphically and brutally as possible, and to capture it all on film. If they have their way, Lisa’s death will be truly horrifying...but even more horrifying is what Lisa will do to survive...

  It Drinks Blood

  New Castle, Pennsylvania, during the tail end of the Great Depression.

  Robert Brennan has never completely forgotten those days, even though he has tried to forget them. But when the nursing home he lives in receives a patient he remembers from those dark darks, it takes his mind back to a period marked by terrible, blood-soaked violence...the very kind marked by the twisted perversity of the stories he used to write for the weird-menace pulps...the kind marked by the real-life fiend that stalked the hobo jungles in search of fresh blood!

  Primitive

  It began as just another day for David Spires and his wife Tracy: coffee, breakfast, and getting the kids ready for school. Then the bottom dropped out of civilization.

  The world ends not with a bang or a whimper, but with a dizzying downward spiral. Instead of the rat race of commuters scurrying to beat the clock, humans are now packs of animals reduced to snarling primitives.

  David, Tracy and their daughter Emily, along with fellow survivors, leave Los Angeles for the safety of the country where fewer people means fewer primitives. But as they venture farther away from the city, they realize an unnatural force is at work. Civilization didn’t just fall apart...it was overtaken by an ancient evil that was present before the first cave paintings. Human history has no formal record of it, but the dark presence that’s fueled nightmares since time began has crept out of the shadows...and its influence is growing.

  The Summoning and Other Eldritch Tales

  The Summoning contains seven collected tales of Lovecraftian-inspired nightmares from J. F. Gonzalez. Featured in this collection are two original pieces: "Holes" and "The Summoning" (co-authored with Mike Baker).

  This exclusive digital collection of stories includes:

  Opening The Way: An Introduction

  Tattoos

  Going Home

  The Revenge of Cthulhu

  Holes

  The Man Who Had a Death Wish

  The Summoning

  The Watcher From the Grave

  Each story contains special story notes penned by the author!

  Back From the Dead

  Tim Gaines was the town pariah. Mocked and teased continuously since he was in the sixth grade, he approaches his senior year of high school with a sense of cautious trepidation. Years before, when he was in the sixth grade, a group of boys led by Scott Bradfield - a popular, well-liked kid from well-to-do parents - spread a vicious rumor that he was a devil-worshipper. The rumor stuck, and is believed by most of the students and even a few of the teachers and administrators. It’s a rumor Tim can’t beat, and one he sometimes feels he’s brought on to himself due to his love of horror novels and movies.

  Now Tim has become friends with a loose-knit group of kids who have also become social outcasts thanks to other rumors about them by the student elite. With their mutual support, Tim has begun to come out of his shell. He’s going out with the
m, being invited to parties, and even begins to have a romantic interest in a girl, something he never thought would happen to him in high school.

  But all that will change when Scott Bradfield and his friends set their sights on Tim again. Only this time, they need his help. Like most of the student body of Spring Valley High School, they sincerely believe Tim Gaines is a devil-worshipper. And they believe he has a dark power. Now they want to use him and that power for their own sinister plight...