HELP! WANTED: Tales of On-the-Job Terror

by Edited by Peter Giglio

  The monotonous game of watching for the brake lights of the cars ahead to wink out in a domino effect only to surge on again a yard later resumed. The waste of gas was maddening. And it was September, a gray September day in a month when the days were growing noticeably shorter. Compounding the stress of the new job was that first nagging taste of seasonal depression. Sebastian closed his eyes and willed his galloping heart to slow.

  The deafening bellow of a horn shocked him back to the moment. His car, one in a long line of dominoes, had failed to creep ahead that extra yard. Sebastian resisted the urge to flip his middle finger at the offending driver and eased his foot off the brake. A yard forward, a second or two later, another car barreled down the carpool lane.

  The elite, those business people who’d swarmed together, mixing their perfumes and colognes and deodorants and the aromas of their expensive designer coffees, had been awarded a sacred privilege: speed.

  Another step forward. Brake lights. Entropy.

  Sebastian imagined the white paint of his sensible two-door economy car soaking up the grime and the fumes of the muffler ahead. The expense of the wasted gas. The merciless numbers of the clock, semaphoring closer to the time he was due at Baker & Sullivan. His third day there. His third day late.

  On the fourth, he would take the carpool lane. After all, it was only basic math, and Sebastian Hearst was something of an accountant. That was a glorified way to describe being a Customer Service Wiz but, after all, didn’t he field orders over the phone and complete transactions? He knew how to make one plus one equal two. Two, the minimum number of bodies required to travel in the carpool lane. Basic math.

  Taking a heavy swallow, Sebastian found that his mouth had gone painfully dry. He choked down the ball of desert heat that had desiccated his tongue and tipped his eyes at the rearview. His gaze lingered briefly, drinking in the gray-blue shade of his irises, the square, cleanly shaved jaw, dark hair, slightly spiky on top, all of it adding together into proof of decent genes. Yes, he was handsome, almost painfully so, as one ex had put it. But Sebastian’s eyes again darted away, because the face staring back could not be trusted nor forgiven. As handsome as his reflection was, it was also tainted by guilt. Guilt for a crime not yet committed.

  I’ll find another body, he thought. Someone else to share the long, tedious drive into the city. That way I can hop onto the carpool lane and avoid this bullshit.

  ***

  He would store her body in the trunk once he reached the parking garage on Congress Street. And he’d get away with the crime, Sebastian thought on the elevator ride to the fifth floor of the Ross Stanton Building, which housed Baker & Sullivan.

  He was twenty-three minutes late and caught holy hell from Miss Beckwith for it.

  “I know, it’s the traffic,” Sebastian said sheepishly, taking his seat and pulling on the earpiece.

  Miss Beckwith flashed a sharp smile. He attributed the Miss part to the harshness of her expression and the severity of her hair, yanked back into a bun, more than to the enormous butt carefully disguised by her frumpy pinstriped business suit. “It can’t happen again, Mister Hearst.”

  “It won’t,” Sebastian promised. Even her scent was jagged. A trace of cloying cinnamon or cloves bit into the lining of his nose and settled into the soft tissue, where it fermented.

  No, it wouldn’t.

  At six-foot-two, Sebastian towered over Miss Beckwith by nearly ten inches, but he tilted his head to avoid her small, mean gaze and slumped into his seat, dragging his big loafers along the floor guard. He stabbed the winking button on his phone to take his first call of the day while his criminal plan silently simmered at the forefront of his thoughts.

  ***

  More gridlock greeted Sebastian on the highway. He briefly considered jumping onto the breakdown lane and gunning the gas, but was relieved he didn’t give in to the temptation when, several long miles later, the blinding telltale of silent blue police lights confirmed his idea wasn’t wholly original. He’d seen half a dozen cars pulled over by the cops for doing the same thing since the start of the hellish week.

  An hour later, just when it started to rain, he pulled into the driveway of the dilapidated apartment house, mentally exhausted.

  ***

  She was born after supper, which had consisted of boxed macaroni and cheese and two hot dogs fried in margarine, washed down with chocolate milk.

  Sebastian stretched across the old sofa, thumbing the remote control. Channels flipped past, none occupying the screen long enough for anything to register. He was tired physically but worse his soul felt drained. The makings of an exquisite headache pulsed at his temples.

  The hollow creak of the spare room’s door drew his gaze away from the television. Sebastian hit the remote’s mute button. How long he stared at the door with the chipped beige paint, now standing partially open, he didn’t know. But it was enough time for the last act of a sitcom to play out, he realized, when he kicked his legs off the sofa and stood, killing the tube altogether. The wind, Sebastian thought.

  A gust of brisk air swept in from the open kitchen door, supporting the theory. A house this old and rundown was prone to swaying doors, hiccupping pipes, and leaky faucets, the same voice in his head reminded, proclaiming the words between mildly painful drumbeats.

  The wind’s whisper kissed Sebastian’s cheek, unleashing the ripple of a shudder down his spine. He rarely entered the spare room, though his mind had wandered beyond its builder-beige door numerous times since returning to the apartment from his lousy day at work. He placed a palm on the cracked paint and pushed. The door swung most of the way open before snagging on the old carpet, groaning as it did. None of the doors in the ground floor apartment were completely plumb with their frames. The floors creaked, especially the one in the kitchen. What had started as a small crack in the ceiling plaster above his bed was now a root-shaped lightning bolt whose tendrils snaked halfway across the room.

  A rush of stale, bottled air greeted him. Adding to its stagnancy was a hint of musty cardboard and the dregs of the previous summer’s heat, which the room had baked in for months, its two windows covered in heavy, dusty panels parted in the middle. Murky gray daylight now oozed through that gap.

  Though he hadn’t entered the room in months, perhaps years, Sebastian knew its topography with near photographic recall. As second bedrooms went, it wasn’t a small room; it sat wedged between the kitchen and the staircase leading to the upstairs apartment. The staircase had been walled off decades earlier when the drab New Englander was converted into apartments, though he still heard his upstairs neighbor’s comings and goings, especially when she wore heels.

  The room’s closet had been built under the slant of the staircase and covered the entire wall. The rest of the room contained unopened cardboard boxes. A futon. A dress form and sewing machine. Sebastian’s old 10-speed bike and a post lamp.

  Two of the lamp’s three bulbs had burned out. He turned the light switch until the metal shade on the top flared to life. A warm, stale odor filled Sebastian’s next shallow breath, the result of dust cooking on the bulb.

  How long had it been since he’d set foot in the room? Winter? But not necessarily the most recent winter. Sebastian had lived in the apartment for the last seven of his twenty-seven years. He knew what most of the unpacked boxes sitting slumped in piles contained. Most of them.

  He crossed to the closet door but hesitated from opening it. Instead, he passed a shaking hand across the fur stole draped around the dress form’s shoulders. Not for the first time that day, he attempted to swallow, only to gag on the dry heat that had gathered into a ball at the back of his throat. Even more unsettling, Sebastian realized that, for no obvious reason, he’d gotten an erection.

  He slid a hand into his still-belted khakis and adjusted himself. The sensation was electrifying. He left his fingers to play there while reaching the others toward the closet.

  The door opened with a sough, not a groan, it
s motion releasing a hint of lilac perfume. Eyes half-closed, Sebastian inhaled deeply, held the scent in his lungs, and then released it. For several minutes, his breaths came raggedly in shallow sips, but he wasn’t aware he’d stopped releasing air until burning erupted in his chest.

  In the poor light filtering through the windows and the dull glow of the floor lamp’s lone lit bulb, Sebastian made out the shape of a rigid, naked body. A body with waxy, pale skin, perky tits, and a seductive, frozen smirk set beneath wide open eyes.

  He would call her Ms. Juggles. Sebastian always did.

  ***

  The rain stopped falling, but the morning dawned with overcast skies and there was a serious bite in the air that hadn’t been there before the storm.

  Sebastian dressed her properly for the chilly weather, in a periwinkle blue turtleneck and tweed slacks. He rolled wool socks onto her stiff ankles, then slid her thin feet into a pair of lady’s loafers. He had set her hair the previous night, combing it back, fixing the lush auburn locks into a tail with a tortoiseshell chignon. That morning, he’d carefully touched up her foundation and applied a soft shade of magenta lipstick. Lastly, before carrying her out to the car, he gave her a spritz of the lilac perfume hidden on a shelf in the spare room’s closet.

  His heart thudded in his chest on the short walk from his front door to the car. A brick wall crawling with wild ivy separated the apartment house from its nearest neighbor, and they kept all of the shades drawn on the side that faced him. The woman upstairs worked nights; he’d heard the familiar clip-clop of her heels while he’d masturbated in the shower, so by now he imagined she was fast asleep.

  Cradling Ms. Juggles in his arms, Sebastian fumbled the car door open and set her on the front passenger seat. He strapped her seatbelt into place and when his movement stirred a ribbon of lilac scent he gasped, brushing his lips along her ear and briefly melting into the wonderland between her rigid lobe and neck.

  The final bit of window dressing was a fashion magazine stolen out of the upstairs neighbor’s mailbox. Using tape, he opened the rag and fixed it to her hands, lending the illusion that she was reading.

  Then Sebastian drove off, headed for work.

  ***

  The area of bad highway loomed before him. About three miles before the expected bottleneck, an additional left lane appeared, marked by a traffic sign that read:

  CARPOOL LANE: MINIMUM TWO-PERSONS REQUIRED FOR USE.

  “That’s me and you, one plus one equaling two,” Sebastian sang the words. He reached over and patted Ms. Juggles on the thigh, feeling bony hardness beneath the tweed fabric of her slacks.

  He withdrew his touch, clicked on the left turn signal, and crossed into the carpool lane.

  The smooth, less-traveled pavement streaked beneath his wheels. Sebastian felt no guilt when, those few miles farther along the highway, he passed the same gridlock that had captured him in its web a day earlier. His heart leapt into his throat after he drove beneath an overpass where a state trooper sat like a troll or a trapdoor spider lurking in wait for a victim—the first vehicle with a lone body inside that dared to break the morning commute’s cardinal rule. She and he equaled two. The cop remained under his bridge, and his cherries stayed dark.

  “I love you,” Sebastian growled.

  He again reached over, dipping his hands into the v-shaped region between her slender, rigid legs.

  “I love you, too, Sebastian,” he thought he heard her whisper back.

  ***

  Sebastian made it to Congress Street forty-five minutes early and was parked in the garage with half an hour’s time to spare.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Juggles,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. He reached behind her and pulled the tartan wool blanket off the back seat, tossing it over her before exiting the car. The garage was crisscrossed with security cameras—it wouldn’t look good for him if a security guard saw him placing a woman’s body in the trunk, no matter the explanation. Even if the body was made of hard plastic.

  Sebastian fumbled his key into the lock and popped the trunk. He carefully eased her body in, smoothed out the blanket, and professed his love a second time along with his atonement. Then, Sebastian slammed the trunk shut.

  He turned in the direction of the elevator. A few steps later, Sebastian swore he heard a single, muffled thunderclap at his back, what sounded to his ear like a fist pounding against metal. Standing frozen in place, he closed his eyes and wished the vision away. It was only an echo from somewhere else in the garage; hell, likely the reverberation of his trunk slamming down, bouncing off a distant concrete wall. That was all.

  Sebastian willed his feet into motion and continued on his way to work.

  ***

  The caustic heaviness of cinnamon perfume invaded his senses, giving Miss Beckwith’s closeness away before Sebastian actually saw her. She leaned down and her scent grew. Sebastian fought the urge to gag, but another image invaded his head, and that one wasn’t as easily quelled. Embalming fluid. That dry, cinnamon thickness conjured thoughts of desiccated Egyptian mummies.

  “Glad to see you on time, Mister Hearst,” she said, her thin, sharp lips forming a harsh little smile around the statement.

  Sebastian smiled back even as he shrank from her eyes, which never seemed to blink. “I left at dawn,” he said, hoping the joke would sound funny. It didn’t, but her smile persisted.

  “Good. Things for you are definitely looking up.”

  She patted his shoulder. Sebastian went rigid. He felt her stubby, too-warm fingertips through the fabric of his boring blue button-down dress shirt and the white tee beneath. His stomach, already queasy from too much coffee and not enough breakfast, pulled into knots.

  “Do you have lunch plans?” she asked.

  A rush of nauseating heat billowed through Sebastian’s insides. As though it had been timed perfectly to the moment, one of his phone lines lit, accompanied by a muted chirp.

  Sebastian thumbed the button. “Good morning, customer service. This is Sebastian speaking—how may I help you?”

  Had the person on the other end of the line spoken, Sebastian likely wouldn’t have heard a single word. He flashed another smile at Miss Beckwith, mouthed Sorry, and turned away from her.

  Relief flooded over him as her hand slipped off his shoulder. He waited another maddening second, just long enough to see her pinstriped caboose wander up the line and away from his station, before returning to his call.

  “I’m sorry for the delay. How may I be of assistance?”

  Dead air poured out of the receiver, followed by the plaintive toll of the dial tone.

  ***

  At one-thirty, it happened again.

  “. . . is Sebastian speaking. How may—”

  Before he could finish, a breathy, aroused sigh teased Sebastian’s ear.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  The line went dead. Sebastian glanced around the bullpen, and his only relief came in seeing that Miss Beckwith wasn’t present. Likely, she’d taken her lunch alone.

  ***

  “I know you didn’t like being trapped inside the trunk, any more than you liked being left in the closet. How many times do I have to apologize? I feel guilty enough, so don’t bust my balls.”

  Sebastian slid his hand across the seat, only to receive a hard slap.

  “Don’t touch me,” Ms. Juggles admonished.

  He had driven most of the distance home in a fog, completely oblivious of the details, going on instinct until his exit rose up. Half an hour later, she had thawed, and they were naked in his bed making love.

  “I don’t like that Miss Beckwith,” Ms. Juggles said.

  “That makes two of us.” Sebastian rolled onto his back, spent. He was high on the scent of her lilac perfume and feeling absolved enough to broach the touchy subject. “Did you call me at work today? Twice?”

  Ms. Juggles didn’t answer, and Sebastian remembered that, as had always happened before, her lack of a respons
e was the answer. Yes.

  He turned back, stirring the smell of their stale sex and his even staler bed sheets, and a hint of lilac perfume. But the bed was empty.

  She had returned to the closet under the stairs, where she had lurked for so very long.

  ***

  “Work is very stressful right now,” Sebastian grumbled. He sipped the coffee in his travel mug, a caustic blend heavy on the sugar, light on the cream, a mixture he could never seem to get quite right. “I need you to think about that, and about us, and not add to it.”

  Ms. Juggles didn’t comment. The air sweeping in through his cracked-open window ruffled the pages of the upstairs neighbor’s stolen fashion rag clutched between her hands.

  “Just try to remember that I do love you and you’ve got nothing to fear from that Beckwith bitch, so no matter what, don’t go doing something crazy. Okay?”

  Sebastian received a tisk from the passenger’s seat, that sound of the tongue clacking in frustration against the roof of the mouth that people make when they’re on their last nerve. It was followed by an angry puff of breath. Ms. Juggles was not pleased.

  “I mean it, honey. No tricks this time.”

  “Don’t lock me up. You know I don’t like it when you shut me out.”

  “We have to. We need this job.”

  Sebastian pulled onto the carpool lane, aware that his heart had quickened pace. But its cadence wasn’t for the fear of being pulled over by the cops. It was the tone of her voice that caused it to race; that conjured a shiver from the short hairs on the nape of his neck and sent it tumbling down his back.