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

by Edited by Peter Giglio

Jack grabbed a handful of nickels and began dropping them into Agnes’ slot.

  He took his time, caressing her coin slot each time he fed a new nickel into her.

  Warming Up…

  The deep, rumbling hum. Seductive. Wanton.

  Jack lovingly gazed down, eager for her invitation to proceed.

  Ready to copy…

  An electric thrill ran up his spine as he grabbed the handle of her cover and lifted it high. He slid the document onto her glass, then slowly, lovingly, closed the cover, and ran a gentle, reassuring hand over her hood. His finger hovered over the Start button for just a moment. Then he plunged his finger down hard.

  Agnes’ hum reached a fever pitch. The light show spilled into the room, and her internal paper feeder churned and grinded.

  A page spilled into her tray.

  Jack leaned over, picked it up. The warmest page he’d ever touched.

  Dearest Jack, I am the one for you. There must be no more thoughts of Maddy. There must be no more Maddy. I appreciate you—Agnes.

  He was horrified by the implication of the message.

  Jack slid his back down the side of Agnes and slumped into a sitting position on the floor. He held the message in front of him, staring at it, contemplating his next move.

  Jack rested his head against Agnes’ 11x17 compartment, feeling her click and hum into Standby. He held his cheek against her body, comforted by little vibrations that lulled him to sleep. Smiling, he closed his eyes…

  …and dreamt about Agnes…

  …and the proper disposal of an insolent wife.

  05

  As Jack maneuvered the Volvo into the driveway he sincerely hoped Maddy had done the deed herself.

  Too much gin and a drunken plunge into the corner of the coffee table. Clean and tidy.

  But all too easy.

  He laughed. Maddy never did anything for him that didn’t also benefit her. And this wouldn’t be an exception. With his luck, she probably checked into rehab today.

  Jack became nauseas when the stale stench of cigarette smoke slammed into him like a freight train. He peered into the hazy room and filled with hope when he saw the glass coffee table shattered. A trail of carnage—toppled furniture, Jack’s clothes strewn about, and a collection of empty wine bottles—led to the bedroom. Jack followed the path of detritus, then opened the bedroom door.

  Maddy lay face down on the bed, naked as usual and snoring like a diesel engine.

  Jack slid into the room, taking off his suit coat and letting it drop to the floor. He lifted the large porcelain lamp off the nightstand and leaned his mouth to Maddy’s ear.

  “Maddy,” he hissed.

  She continued snoring loudly.

  “Wake up, Maddy,” he shouted.

  Maddy grunted and rolled onto her back. A line of blood and snot ran from her right nostril to her upper lip. Maddy opened her mouth to take in a large gulp of air, and a glob of blood-snot fell into her mouth.

  Jack stifled a giggle and bent to her ear again.

  “Wake the fuck up, Maddy. Agnes says hello.”

  Maddy grunted as her eyes cracked and fluttered.

  Jack straightened above her, raising the lamp over his head. He stared down at Maddy, waiting for her eyes to completely open.

  “Don’t fire ‘til you see the whites of their eyes,” Jack mumbled.

  Maddy’s eyes fluttered again.

  Remembering his father’s instructions on wood chopping, Jack spread his legs further apart.

  “S’what the fu…?” Maddy managed, her eyes now wide. She attempted a weak grin but her mouth contorted into an expression of revulsion. She brought a hand up to wipe her lips and—

  Jack slammed the wide base of the lamp into her forehead, then backed up and prepared for another swing.

  Maddy turned a cloudy gaze on him, life fading fast from her eyes.

  Jack let the lamp drop to his side as he stared at his work.

  She burped a bloody bubble that quivered on her lips. The bubble popped in a spray of red mist, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

  Jack studied the incredible dent above her brow as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.

  He brought his shaking index finger to the soup bowl that was formerly his wife’s head and touched the interior of the crater, feeling the cracked skull beneath rapidly bruising flesh.

  Exhausted, he lay down next to the corpse.

  He fell asleep quickly, thankful that Maddy couldn’t snore the night away.

  04

  Jack woke up at 10 a.m., having slept late two days in a row. It was unlike him. Maybe Tim and Arlene would think he had a life outside the office. Or maybe they’d worry about him. He hoped not. He’d never felt better. Certainly he was better than Maddy.

  He showered and dressed slowly, taking his time for the first time in years. He made a pot of coffee and sat at the breakfast nook, sipping as he read the morning paper. His home was quiet, and he intended to relish every beautiful moment.

  No torturous hangover tantrums. No screeching questions. Nothing.

  At 11:30, he decided to go into the office. He made a quick stop in the bedroom and gave his wife a kiss goodbye for the first time in years.

  03

  Jack walked into the office, beaming. Arlene was out, at court no doubt, but he could hear Tim puttering around. Jack flopped his briefcase onto his desk and walked back toward the front door, shucking off his coat.

  “Jack, that you?” Tim called out from the rear of the office.

  “Yeah, any news that’s fit to print?” Jack hoped Tim would recognize his good mood. Tim probably hadn’t seen him smile since they were kids.

  Jack flung his coat at the first available hook. It dropped to the floor and he left it with a smile. Nothing could bother him today, nothing. He made his way toward Tim’s voice.

  “Dr. Braun has been calling every ten minutes, says he didn’t get any of the documents you promised him?”

  Jack was about to tell Tim that Braun was a drunk, disfiguring bastard. But as he turned the corner, everything he wanted to say stuck in the back of his throat. He fell against the wall, his mouth wide in shock.

  02

  Tim was crouched in front of Agnes, his hand deep inside her, rooting around. Jack heard the scraping of nickels as Tim fished another handful and dropped them in the jar at his feet. As soon as his hand was empty, Tim plunged into Agnes again, scraping the bottom of her bin, grabbing every nickel he could scrounge.

  Jack felt himself moving in slow motion. He stood, continuing to stare down at his brother…his brother! His own flesh and blood, elbow deep inside of Agnes, violating her like a drunken surgeon might.

  His Agnes!

  Jack’s vision washed out in reds and pinks and he felt himself moving closer to his brother. He bent over and lifted the nickel jar by the brim.

  “Hey,” Tim said, not bothering to look up, “you want to put that back? I haven’t finished cleaning the machine out.”

  Jack bristled as Tim’s arm shot in and out of Agnes. The bastard thought she was only a machine. Just a “machine.”

  Jack felt the nickel jar swing back, then sweep at his brother’s head.

  Tim turned as the jar hurtled at him. And his playful brother-banter look vanished in a flash.

  The jar connected with a thud, like the lamp the evening before. Tim fell backward, his nose mashed into his head. A fine spray of blood arched upward as Tim’s body thudded against the floor, his lips drawing back into a sneer that showed off a row of broken teeth. His eyes were frozen wide, staring at the ceiling or some ethereal world unseen by Jack’s eyes.

  Jack placed the bloodied jar in its proper spot on top of Agnes, then stroked her cover reassuringly.

  01

  When Jack removed Tim’s arm from Agnes’ bin and closed her door, she began to hum.

  He smiled.

  Even with all of Tim’s prodding and thrusting, Agnes responded to him alone. He grabbed a few ni
ckels from the jar and slipped one, then another, then another slowly into her slot. He pressed himself against Agnes and felt her warm vibrations pour into his body.

  Jack kicked Tim aside, making a little more room in the cramped copier area, then lifted Agnes’ cover slowly. He laid his head on her glass and felt the change in her hum that told him she was ready to copy.

  Agnes no longer needed to spell out her needs. The two of them existed in perfect synchronicity. Jack moved his hand along a row of her buttons. Careful not to push, not yet, he gave each button the briefest caress.

  Jack sighed as he pressed the Start button.

  Heat spread across his face; her light show never brighter. He pressed Start again and again, each time a new sensation, a new pleasure.

  No Maddy.

  No backstabbing brother.

  And soon, no sister-in-law.

  Only Agnes.

  00

  Job finished.

  Ready to copy.

  David C. Hayes is a genre actor, writer, producer, and director. Most recently he has starred in A Man Called Nereus, Machined, Reborn, Orville, Sportkill, Jackrabbit Sky, The Death Factory Bloodletting, and Dark Places. He produced and appeared in the films Predatory Instinct, Blood Moon Rising, and The Frankenstein Syndrome. David has written multiple feature films, including Closets, Blood Guardian, Back Woods, Vampegeddon, Riverdead, and Shower of Blood. He has also written several comic books/graphic novels, including Rottentail, and Tranquillity, and is the author of Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Ed Wood, Jr. His feature film screenplay, Executive Privilege, was a finalist in the 2010 Bridge International Screenplay Competition, and his stageplay, Swamp Ho, was a finalist in the International Cringefest. He teaches screenwriting, film production, acting, and rhetoric.

  Work/Life Balance

  Jeff Strand

  On my nineteenth anniversary with the company, Mr. Swanson called everybody into meeting room 4D. He seemed to be in a cheerful mood, so I didn’t think this was a “Guess what? You’re all fired!” kind of meeting. In fact, I suspected that he might be summoning us in there for cake, even though nineteen wasn’t exactly a monumental anniversary.

  The dozen of us sat around the mahogany table in our suits and ties (dresses for the ladies) and waited expectantly. I didn’t see a cake, which made me mildly sad.

  Mr. Swanson smiled. “Don’t worry, this is going to be quick because I know you’re all busy. I just wanted to let you know that from now on, you have the choice of taking the usual one-hour lunch, or you can take a forty-five minute lunch, in which case you can leave fifteen minutes early.”

  A murmur of pleasant surprise went around the table. I never really needed the full hour anyway, and leaving fifteen minutes early would help me miss some of the traffic. As much as I enjoyed corporate-sponsored cake, I enjoyed receiving this news even more.

  “I could have just sent this as an email, but I thought it would be nice to bring everybody together. This is part of our new commitment to employee work/life balance. If you could all be so kind as to send me a note saying whether you’ve selected the one-hour option or the forty-five minute option, I’ll mark it on the sign-in sheet.”

  We all left the meeting quite pleased. Even my five co-workers who were going to stick with the hour-long lunch plan and whose lives were thus unchanged were happy to at least be given the option.

  A week passed, and the new lunch length worked out quite well, saving me nearly seven minutes in traffic each evening. But when Mr. Swanson called another impromptu meeting, my first reaction (after “Oh no! We’re all going to get fired!”) was that maybe the new plan hadn’t worked out so well, and he was about to rescind it. My precious seven minutes were about to be taken away from me, and we’d only just met.

  “Good news,” said Mr. Swanson. “We’re instituting a new policy of Business Casual Fridays. That means that on Fridays, suits and ties are no longer required. You may wear a much more casual shirt; for example, a polo shirt would be completely acceptable. No tee shirts and nothing with logos or phrases on it, unless it’s our own, but feel free to dress down a bit on Fridays. You’ve all earned it.”

  Gerald raised his hand.

  “Yes, Gerald?”

  “But today is Friday.”

  “Obviously this new policy takes effect next week.”

  “Oh. Good. Thank you.”

  Well, to say that I was excited was an understatement; to say that I was very excited would be much more accurate. Business Casual Fridays! I’d heard that such a thing existed at other companies, but I’d never imagined that it would make its way into my own workplace!

  The following Friday, I came to work in a tasteful but slightly playful sweater, and though I can’t honestly say that it was the best day of my life, it was a definite improvement over wearing an itchy, strangling tie.

  And then, three business days later, we got an email with the most shocking development yet: flexible starting times.

  The amount of time we were to work each day had not shortened or lengthened. It was still eight hours, plus the forty-five or sixty-minute lunch. But now we could start any time we wanted between the hours of seven o’clock and nine o’clock.

  For example, if I chose to arrive at seven, I would then proceed to work until three forty-five. Somebody who chose to arrive at nine would work until five forty-five, unless they’d previously selected the hour-long lunch option, in which case they would work until six. But I could start at seven-thirty, eight-fifteen, eight-thirty...the options were limitless! Well, perhaps not limitless, but they certainly made my mind boggle!

  Though I ended up sticking with the eight o’clock arrival time I’d had for the past nineteen years, I truly appreciated this new flexibility.

  And over the next few weeks it was as if a floodgate of freedom opened for us. Business Casual Fridays turned into Business Casual Mondays and Fridays, and then, on one amazing day, it became an every single day of the week change. No more suits! No more ties! (Unless, of course, you had to meet with an important client, but that was understandable.)

  In another meeting, we all gaped at Mr. Swanson in slack-jawed astonishment as he described the new procedure for a compressed workweek, where we could work ten hours a day, four days a week. And we could pick the flex day! Monday! Tuesday! Wednesday! Thursday! Or, yes, even Friday! Yes, there were restrictions (after all, you couldn’t have the entire department gone every Friday) but I still felt myself tearing up and almost had to ask to be excused from the meeting.

  I picked Wednesdays. Wednesdays were now my favorite day of the week. Tuesdays now carried the excitement of a Friday. Admittedly, Thursdays now had something of a Monday feel, but it was worth it.

  We all chattered excitedly in the break room each morning, wondering what might be next.

  Casual Fridays! We could now wear jeans. At work. Not jeans with tears or smudges or rhinestones, but still...jeans! The comfort was almost unimaginable. And tee shirts! We could wear tee shirts! Again, they had to be in excellent condition and could not contain text or images inappropriate for a professional environment. As an example of a shirt that would not be acceptable, we were shown a photograph of somebody wearing a Hooters shirt. (Not the uniform worn by waitresses, but rather a gentleman wearing a shirt advertising the restaurant.)

  Their commitment to our work/life balance didn’t end there. Exactly six months after we were given flexibility in our lunch lengths, Mr. Swanson announced the new work-from-home program, where once a week we would be allowed to do our job from the comforts of our own home! On many occasions, my co-workers and I had discussed how so much of our jobs involved sitting in front of our computers, and how we could basically do it anywhere, but we never imagined that this option would actually be presented to us!

  There was, of course, no dress code at home, and I gleefully completed my first day in pajamas. I did, of course, complete all of the same cleansing and hygiene activities that I would have done if I’d gone in
to the office. Working from home didn’t mean I needed to become a savage.

  I have to admit, I started to wonder if things had gone too far when every day became Casual Day. Shouldn’t we dress in professional attire at least once a week?

  Some of my co-workers began to abuse the freedom. On occasion Gerald would show up as late as nine-fifteen or nine-twenty. Yes, he’d stay later to compensate, but still, with two hours of flexibility surrounding our start time, why did he need to push it further?

  Mr. Swanson sent out an email, explaining that these changes were privileges, not rights, and that it would be in our best interest to follow the rules. Gerald did not show up late anymore.

  On the day of my twentieth anniversary, Mr. Swanson called us all into the meeting room. I smiled. Twenty years with the company meant cake for sure, along with a fancy certificate, and Mr. Swanson would read a very nice note that had been signed by the CEO.

  But there was no cake in the room. Mr. Swanson smiled as we took our seats. “Aside from a few small instances, these changes have worked out extremely well, don’t you all agree?”

  We all nodded our agreement.

  “So, effective today, public displays of affection will be permissible.”

  Everybody glanced around at each other, unsure if he was kidding or not.

  “Obviously, I’m not talking about insertion, but kissing and groping, as long as the work gets done, is perfectly fine. Remain conscious of the dress code, but if you wish to simulate certain acts, by all means go ahead and do so.”

  Everybody was silent for a moment.

  Helena, who was sixty and an unofficial mother figure to us all, raised her hand. “Is this a joke?”

  “It is not. You’ve all proven that you’re mature enough to be given additional freedom and still perform your job duties, so this is the next step in the work/life balance.”

  “I’m sorry, but this is a part of my life I’d like to keep at home.”