The Salvation Plague | Book 1 |The Turning

by Masters, A. L.

  The Turning

  By A.L. Masters

  Content Warning

  This book contains romantic themes, language, and violence.

  © 2021 A.L. Masters

  Chapter One

  Just a Normal Day

  The overwhelming stench pervaded the freezing air of the office. Anna pulled her cardigan up to cover her nose as best she could, but it made no real difference. The stink still lingered.

  Darla had burned her popcorn…again.

  Not even the smell of Juan’s wife’s homemade quesadillas that were warming in the microwave could cover the charred, acrid odor of burned chemical butter and cheap, substandard corn kernels. Anna tapped out her report, thinking of all the ways she could murder Darla with the available office equipment.

  Pencil to the throat. Stapler to the eyes. Steamrolled by an office chair bearing Donnie’s three-hundred-and-fifty-pound load.

  Bingo.

  “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” Jared whispered to her from his cubicle next door. “I can tell by the way you’re typing. It has a murderous edge to it.”

  “Am not!” Anna hissed back.

  Okay, she totally was. She knew it was probably against all rules of moral decency to plot the death of a coworker with such vehemence and with such strange and unusual methods…but she was at her wit’s end with the blasted burnt popcorn.

  A few minutes passed and she heard nothing from Jared’s cubicle. She assumed that he had given up teasing her. She flipped through a few pages of the logs and started on the previous week’s backorders.

  “Are too,” he said when she had finally let her guard down.

  She threw a paperclip over the top of the partition. She grinned when a stick of gum flew back. It was her favorite kind. Jared bought it and kept it in his desk for her, even though he hated that flavor. He doled it out on occasion.

  “You need some funky beats to chill you out,” he said, popping his handsome head around the side for a moment. His green eyes gleamed.

  “Jared, no!” she whisper-yelled.

  She was too late; he was already gone.

  Every once in a while, Jared managed to clandestinely hijack the office’s speaker system and play the most random, crazy music imaginable. She had no idea how he did it, and she had no idea how he didn’t get caught. Mr. Hubbard even threatened to fire whoever it was that kept doing it. She didn’t want Jared to get fired.

  She gripped her mouse tightly and waited for the music to start.

  Maybe he wouldn’t do it this time?

  She made sure she looked industrious just in case someone walked by. Technically she was an accessory to it, right?

  She heard a beat and the tinny sound of hybrid funky-jazz, disco music as it blared out overhead. She cringed. She lowered her head to her arm and closed her eyes. It sounded like music from a Seventies Japanese martial arts movie. The badly dubbed kind.

  Just once could he choose something normal?

  Jared was her best friend, which was kind of sad because they only talked at work. She was pretty much a hermit and never left her apartment when she didn’t have to. She preferred to stay home and read, or binge watch her shows instead of going out with the girls. Well, she didn’t have any girls to go out with, but if she did she would still prefer to stay home. Probably.

  This was her life. Her lonely apartment and her small plain cubicle that shared a wall with the only person here that she genuinely liked. She preferred it that way. Kind of.

  She looked at the sandy colored makeup that marked her sleeve. Great. She pulled out a compact. She wasn’t ugly, but she didn’t think she was beautiful either. In fact, she was kind of average overall. It was probably why she didn’t get much attention. Her compelling personality —ha ha— and great sense of humor weren’t exactly apparent right off…except maybe to Jared. She was probably a little weird too. At least she wasn’t alone in that. Jared got pretty far out there sometimes.

  Not tall, but not short. Not thin, but not overweight either. She had invested in a treadmill and an elliptical and kept in shape. Last summer she had noticed her shorts weren’t quite as flattering anymore and she panicked.

  At least she got a good deal on the equipment.

  When she had first started doing cardio, she wanted to quit the first five minutes. Only the image of her lumpy butt in the mirror, which had started to spring up out of nowhere, kept her going. Twenty-five would quickly become thirty-five, and she wanted to take care of herself as best she could.

  Her secret fear was dying of cancer like her mother.

  So, she exercised. Now, she was kind of addicted to the feeling she got after a good session. Plus, she could read or watch T.V. while doing it and that made the time fly. It was neat to think that she could run several miles without even really getting winded.

  She flipped her hair back over her shoulder again, wishing she had worn it up today instead of down. She eyed the rubber bands in their little plastic holder but decided against it. The last time she had used a rubber band in her hair it had been a disaster of epic proportions and she had to get a bowl cut.

  Okay, she had been five at the time and her slightly drunken father was the cutter, but still. The image of that goofy ass haircut haunted her, especially since her mother had taken pictures of it. She couldn’t bring herself to give the rubber bands another shot. She also couldn’t bring herself to get rid of the embarrassing pictures from the photo album because her mother had put them there.

  She tapped her fingers on the desk as she waited for Mr. Hubbard’s outburst.

  She jumped as the branch manager shouted over the music to the full office. “Alright everyone, we’re going in for the weekly sales meeting now. Anna, I want you and Jared to continue with those sales reports. Anna, when you are finished, I want you to type up tomorrow’s agenda and get a memo sent out to the right people. Okay?”

  It wasn’t a question. “Yes, Mr. Hubbard.”

  “And someone turned that blasted music off!”

  Well, that was surprisingly succinct. He must be running behind schedule today.

  Anna looked around at the rapidly clearing office. The sales and customer service reps were following Mr. Hubbard into the back conference room. She heard the squeaking of Jared’s desk chair and looked over at the end of their partition.

  His right arm came into view first. His muscular forearm rested on the armrest and his hand gripped the end. The right side of his body and face came next. His eyes were serious in the large, newly vacated office. His look promised excitement.

  He didn’t move a muscle aside from the rapid pushing of his feet against the mat which were propelling him at a steady rate out of his cubicle. She bit her lips to keep from laughing out loud, and potentially disrupting the start of the meeting.

  As he continued to scoot his chair out from behind the wall, she caught a glimpse of the keyring in his left hand.

  Yesss!

  “It begins,” he said as he jingled the keys.

  He jumped up with a sudden burst of energy and looked around the office over the top of the cubicles. He motioned for her to wait.

  Jared had filched the keys from the office manager’s desk one day and made copies of them on his lunch break. Anna knew when the keys came out something spectacular was about to happen.

  Jared took his eyes from hers and she clamped her lips together to stop herself from grinning. He was about to retaliate for Darla’s olfactory popcorn assault…she just knew it. He glanced around once more, making sure that everyone was settled in for the hour-long sales meeting. Sometimes there were stragglers taking bathroom breaks or fetching coffee. For
now, they were alone.

  Jared bent down to get something out of his desk then stood up, using his six foot-two-inch height to see over the tops of the cubicles that littered the center of the large room. The secretary, Jill, was watching YouTube with her ear buds in. It was her custom during the meetings, and lunch, and any time she wasn’t specifically given a task.

  She heard the rattle of Jared’s cinnamon flavored Altoids. He ate them obsessively and she would always associate that smell with him. She forced down the attraction that she felt for him. She didn’t want to want a relationship with him; it would ruin everything. Things would get weird, and he wouldn’t be her best friend anymore. Then she would be all alone.

  When he gave the all-clear, Anna followed Jared to Darla’s workspace. She wondered what his plan was as he squatted down and unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk. Anna snorted and held back laughter as he bypassed Darla’s purse and grabbed her secret stash of popcorn packets. She even had butter-flavored oil and cheese powder in there.

  How the woman could fail to properly make a bag of popcorn after all these years boggled her mind. She either did it because she liked it burned, or she liked to impose the atrocious scent on everyone at the office. She was that kind of person.

  “Bingo!” he mouthed to her silently and raised his eyebrows.

  She gave him two thumbs up and a nod.

  Jared motioned her to follow. He pressed a finger to his lips as they crossed to the back hallway and passed by the conference room door. The door was thin, and they heard the monotone droning of Mr. Hubbard giving his completely uninspired motivational speech. He recycled the same one every few months. Sometimes Jared repeated it from his cubicle when they were having a particularly dull day. His impersonation skills were impressive.

  She listened at the door again. Nope. They hadn’t even gotten into the sales reports yet. Anna thanked God yet again that she didn’t have to take part in the weekly meetings. She and Jared were support personnel. While they didn’t make the bigger bucks from commissions, they also didn’t have the pressures of the sales team. They were happier for it.

  Jared stopped in front of the ladies’ restroom and he waited a moment before opening the door and motioning her in. She brushed past him, not failing to catch a whiff of his delicious scent.

  She reprimanded herself severely for that.

  He followed her in and shut the door behind them, locking the deadbolt with a quiet snick. The air was redolent with the co-mingling smells of bleach, air freshener, and mildew.

  “Hey, it’s nice in here!” he whispered, looking around. “I see you guys got new paint. We put in a requisition form for a gallon of Sherwin William’s Shoji White. You know, give the place a little pizazz. Never heard back,” he said frowning at the ladies’ room’s newly painted walls.

  He touched an oil-rubbed bronze fixture. “Think we could have one of these faucets?” he asked, and she couldn’t tell if he was serious or not.

  “Can we hurry this up? I don’t want to go to jail for theft,” she whispered, motioning for him to hurry.

  “Calm down, Anna. The most you would get is a misdemeanor and a fine, and after we explained the situation, I’m sure they’d take our side.”

  She snorted, “Leave it to you to try talk cops out of theft charges. You really should join the Sales Team.”

  “Okay, are you ready?” he asked.

  She raised her eyebrows in question as he grinned at her and pulled the keys from his pocket. She held the loose packages of popcorn as he found the right key.

  “You’re putting her popcorn in the tampon dispenser?! Nobody ever uses it!” She said, laughing.

  “I know. Last time this thing was filled? 1992,” he said with mock seriousness.

  Anna laughed and covered her mouth quickly, feeling more like a fifteen-year-old kid pulling pranks at school than a twenty-five-year-old. “Are you serious?”

  “Oh, I’m totally serious,” he said, and she believed him.

  After they dumped the packets into the dispenser -and indeed found several severely dated tampon packages- they relocked it and left quietly. Anna thought they were finished, and turned back toward the cubicles, but Jared grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the small breakroom at the very end of the hallway.

  “What are we doing now?” she asked him quietly.

  “We are disabling the enemy unit,” he divulged.

  He moved ahead of her and gave elaborate hand signals that she assumed were meant to be military in origin. She was fairly certain that no military unit ever used the exaggerated-looking stuff he was coming up with.

  “Where did you learn all that?” she whispered as they crept softly down the hall.

  “T.V.”

  That figures.

  They made it to the break room without further conversation and without getting caught.

  Anna raised her eyebrows as Jared took the glass microwave plate and roller from the microwave. He jumped up on the counter easily and put them on the very top of the cabinets. She should know better than to be surprised at anything he does anymore.

  “Nobody ever cleans up here,” he said with a disgusted look. “And we have mice.”

  Anna wrinkled her nose at the thought of the kitchen surfaces being contaminated with mouse droppings. She was definitely going to be more careful about eating her lunch here now.

  He jumped down and washed his hands with an excessive amount of soap. After he dried them, he came toward her with a smile, holding his hands out to his sides in question like a Shakespearean orator. “Verily, I hath once again banished evil from the land of Gregory Fields Incorporated…Art thou well-pleased, wench?”

  She shook her head at him. “You are such a dork. It’s a good thing I’m your best friend, otherwise I don’t even know what you would do,” she joked.

  “You know you love it, Collins,” Jared said, laying his arm over her shoulder and guiding her back toward the office.

  “Guilty,” she agreed, putting her arm around his waist as they walked.

  She wasn’t excited one bit to be this close to him. Her heart did not race in her chest. She also did not notice that his waist was very well-muscled. When they got back to their partitions, she ruffled his slightly unkempt, slightly long, brown hair affectionately.

  “Get back to work, Carson. And thank you for exorcising the popcorn demon from the hallowed halls of GFI. Your name shall be remembered in the annals of mankind forever.” She placed her hands together and bowed slightly.

  After he rolled back to his desk, in the same way he had rolled away from it, she heard his voice drift toward her once more. “Don’t thank me, Collins. I did it for the good of all humanity.”

  She grinned and barely even noticed the unpleasant burning buttery popcorn smell that still drifted around the room.

  She heard a brief aerosol hiss, and suddenly the smell of chemically engineered tropical flowers floated down around her head, somewhat covering the offensive odor.

  Thanks Jared.

  Chapter Two

  A Blip on the Radar

  Anna turned down the resistance to a more moderate level and started her cool down. She was getting her nightly thirty minutes on the elliptical in her small spare bedroom. The news was broadcasting from the small flatscreen on the wall, but she wasn’t paying much attention. It was all bad news anyway. More debt, more terrorist attacks, more diseases spreading, more job losses.

  She worried about her job sometimes, but people would always need office supplies, right? The company she worked at was a small distributer of office supplies for a major corporation. She didn’t anticipate the corporation going under. Notepads and paperclips were here to stick around. The company was even making gains on the market thanks to some new innovations in the stapler industry, which was reassuring.

  She grimaced as the burning in her legs reached an almost unendurable level. This was a cool down, really, but she didn’t like to slow down or stop early. It felt like
failure. Instead, she turned up the T.V. and tried to concentrate on that. Didn’t work, but she didn’t have the energy to change it.

  She caught the tail end of a report about a lab explosion in a remote part of Russia. It wasn’t much. It didn’t have any ramifications for them here, and from the way they were reporting it, it wasn’t even that odd of a thing. She remembered other times when incidents like that happened. They seemed so calm about it. She wondered if the Russians were effective at responding to them.

  She finally turned off the machine and stepped down. She chugged a small bottle of water and wiped her face on her t-shirt. The clock on the T.V. showed that it was six-thirty. She wobbled toward the small kitchen and pulled a bag of broccoli from the freezer and popped it into the microwave. That reminded her of their top-secret mission today and she smiled. He made her look forward to work every day.

  She wondered what Jared was doing right now. She didn’t think he had a girlfriend or a wife because he never mentioned one in their years working together and didn’t wear a ring. He was thirty-one, good-looking, and single…so what was his deal?

  They had worked together for two years now. She finished college and got hired at Gregory Fields right off the bat. He was her trainer that first month, then her friend after that. He had been with the company for five years, after transferring from a larger city. He didn’t talk about anything else from his past.

  She was glad she had decided to settle here. Kennedy was a small town in the northern part of the South. It was so far north that it was almost in the Midwest. It had the homey, friendly feel of a rural southern town, but the amenities and opportunities of a small city. It was perfect for her. The tree-lined streets and the quaint business districts were a welcome change from the bustle of the large city she went to school in. If she got bored, a metropolitan area was a short drive away. She hadn’t made it there yet.