Tormented

by Robert J. Crane

  Benjamin got into his cubicle and sighed another breath of relief as he slid his chair up to his computer and started to log in. He cast a look back at the computer behind him, the chair pulled out all askew, the workspace messy with sheaves of rumpled papers. His was in perfect order, left that way before he had gone on his trip. In truth, though, he cleaned up every night, but even his messiest day wasn’t anything like what his cubicle mate regularly left out.

  Her name was Jessica, and they’d been unwilling cubicle partners for almost a year now. It was not a happy arrangement by any means. She was petty, mean, cold, and selfish. They seldom spoke, and that was all for the better. Once upon a time he’d tried, very hard, to make inroads with her, but then she’d stolen his tape dispenser without so much as asking, while he was sitting right there in front of her, watching in shocked silence. She hadn’t brought it back even an hour later when his thudding heart had subsided enough for him to politely ask for its return.

  He regarded Jessica’s chair with a little disdain and turned away. No, even she couldn’t ruin this day for him. It was good to be back.

  He typed his password into the network when prompted for his login. He waited, still humming “The Girl From Ipanema” as he sat, still and upright, in his chair. A frown creased his face as the message came back:

  Login failed. Please contact a network administrator.

  “Hmm,” Benjamin said to himself, and simply tried again. He waited, certain that this time would be different, but the same message was spit back at him a moment later, all in red text.

  failed

  you

  failure

  Benjamin shook it off, ignoring the sudden, mild stab of pain behind his eye. Something like this always happened on the first day back from vacation, after all. Best to roll with it.

  He stood and made his way out of his cubicle toward the desk of the tech support woman who serviced their floor. She was in the corner and he could see her talking on the phone. She was one of the few who merely had a desk, with no cubicle to shield her. What was her name? Alanna? Yes, that was it. He felt sorry for Alanna. He’d heard the rationale for not giving her cubicle walls was to make whoever was in her position more approachable. They were there to help, after all, but Benjamin would have died of embarrassment to feel so exposed, so out there in the middle of the floor.

  As he approached Alanna’s desk, he caught sight of Alanna herself. She was talking on the phone, pushing her dark, curly hair back over her ear as she spoke into the receiver. “Yes,” she said. “No, I think what your problem is—” She stopped as her eyes alighted on him. They widened just a hint, and she swallowed visibly. “I’ll have to call you back,” she said, and hung up the phone, spinning out of her chair and leaving her desk behind in something just below a bare panic. He watched her rush off and disappear behind a row of cubicles to her left.

  Benjamin just stood there, speechless, for a long moment after Alanna’s rapid departure. It was almost as though she’d seen something—

  a monster

  him

  horror

  —and simply run off. Benjamin took a slow breath, watched the yellow sun glint off the windows at the curve of the building just beyond Alanna’s desk, and resolved himself to leave a message on her voicemail so that she could deal with his problem in an orderly fashion when she returned. It had been rude of him to try and jump to the head of the queue, after all. She was a busy person, had a whole floor of people constantly tugging at her sleeves for attention, and for him to presume he was somehow entitled to help immediately simply because he was here earlier than most, well, that was simply the height of—

  entitled

  i do deserve it

  dammit

  —presumption, really.

  That sting of pain behind Benjamin’s eye had started to become something more. It was throbbing now, and he turned to go back to his desk with a little hitch in his step. He looked down at the floor, the shining grey tiles muting the color palette of the sun’s glory that had been blindingly in his eyes only a moment earlier. Perhaps some Tylenol would take the edge off, make it easier for him to think again. After all, these were simply minor problems—

  all of you are my problems

  hate you so much

  why do you TORMENT ME so?

  —that could be dealt with in time.

  When he reached his cubicle again, he paused at the entry, momentarily taken aback. His pulse quickened, the throbbing behind his eye intensified, and he was filled with the desire to—

  kill

  burn

  torch

  flame

  murder the b—

  —go visit the washroom and compose himself before he sat down. But he did not, instead skirting around Jessica’s chair, which was pulled out, the woman herself hunched over her computer and already typing something. Probably a sordid missive to her current lover, which, from what Benjamin could determine via not-quite-hushed-enough phone calls, was a different man than her husband.

  “Hello,” he said politely, trying to bury the hatchet as best he could. What better time to try, after all, than when he was refreshed from his trip?

  Jessica straightened in alarm, almost as though someone had pressed a Taser directly to the base of her spine where that awful—what did they call them? Tramp stamps?—where that awful tattoo rested, nestled in the waistband of her pants. He didn’t mean to look, but her shirts frequently parted from her pants, and there it was, a giant, pale bit of negative space that was darkened with some sort of Asian symbol. It practically dared his eyes to not look at it.

  Jessica slowly spun around in her chair with an expression not unlike the one that Alanna had worn only moments earlier. “What are you doing here?” she asked snottily.

  “Working,” he said, as politely as possible. He navigated around her and sat in his chair, facing his computer. “And I—”

  Benjamin did not hear her approach, nor did he see her hit him in the back of the head with her desk lamp. But he damnably sure felt it, that crack across the back of his skull, that pain that flamed over his scalp, that sent a flashing spectrum of colors pulsating in front of his eyes—orange, yellow, red, pink—all in speedy sequence, melding together and pulling apart, until he couldn’t tell the difference between them.

  Benjamin’s chair flew out from underneath him and he hit his jaw on the cubicle desk as he fell, landing in a heap, chair back catching him in the ribs before it departed him entirely. It hurt, it all hurt, and when he looked up, he saw Jessica there brandishing the desk lamp, raising it above her head again with a look of utter—

  anger

  pain

  rage

  you dirty whore

  His hand flew up automatically to shield himself from her wrath, and he watched the fire leap from his fingers—

  red, orange, yellow, pink

  oh, the pretty colors

  see how she BURNS

  Jessica’s turquoise blouse and navy blue capris burst into flames, and her rose pink skin followed shortly thereafter. She dropped the lamp, and the bulb shattered as it fell, spreading white powder out in a puff through the air. Benjamin watched, dimly worrying about the mercury contained within. Someone should clean that up, he thought.

  The screams were terrible, horrific, reminding him of all those awful movies he never cared to watch—

  take that, you bitch

  —and the smell was worse somehow, worse than anything, like something rancid had been put on the grill—

  looks like it’s pig for dinner tonight!

  —and he just sat there, feeling the trickle of blood run down his skull as he watched her burn, burn—

  BURN

  “Oh, God,” Benjamin whispered as what he was seeing crashed through the wall between his eyes and his mind, screaming and panicking like the woman on fire in front of him. He scooted toward the cubicle exit as she danced around like a flaming ballerina. Benjamin crab-walked his way o
ut of the cube and stopped as Jessica’s spinning circuit carried her into the cubicle desk and she slammed into it and fell to the ground, writhing furiously as her screams filled the air until they were drowned out by another, louder screaming—

  serves her right

  got what she deserved

  —of the fire alarm, klaxon wailing like a police siren, deafening Benjamin. He sat there and watched her burn, horrified, wondering how such a thing could have happened—

  what do you mean, how did it happen?

  you made it happen, you idiot

  —and the horror of it all drove him at last to his feet, his breaths coming short and sharp as the first drops of the fire sprinklers started to rain down on him, the torrential downpour beginning in earnest.

  Smoke steamed from Jessica’s blackened flesh, dark as night itself, twisted and melted—

  yeah yeah yeah

  take that, you

  —and Brian heard another scream, deeper, issuing forth from his own mouth, and cut off by a voice that was so loud—

  so grating

  so impolite

  like her

  —that came from behind him and forced him to turn.

  There, standing in the downpour of the sprinklers, were two men in dark suits. One was black, one was white, and the white man stood in front, staring at Benjamin. The man’s hair was long and slicked back by the sprinkler’s artificial rain, but his voice was commanding, and Benjamin found himself listening to—

  the bastard

  gonna burn him, too

  —the man as he spoke. “Benjamin,” he said, “my name is Reed Treston. I’m here to help you.”

  Benjamin just stared blankly, nothing coming to mind—

  i'm gonna burn you alive, pig

  just like I did to this bitch

  25.

  Sienna

  “Do you ever think about the future?” Brant asked me as we stood there on the shores of Lake Superior, watching the snowfall intensify and the grey skies knit in even closer, like blankets pulled over the top of the world. Cold air flooded my sinuses, a brisk shot of life that felt like it was infused right into my brain.

  “I try not to,” I said, walking up to the shore’s edge. Over the bevy of head-sized rocks that met the shoreline, I saw a small beach made of stones. They were bigger than pebbles, a good size for throwing, or skipping. I stooped over and grabbed one, a flat one that fit oh-so-easily into the palm of my hand, clutched it between my thumb and my forefinger, and chucked it out across the lake. It skipped ten times before it flew out of sight.

  “Oh my,” Brant said, coming up to join me. He selected a rock of his own and gave it a throw, sideways. It only skipped four times before it sank in a sea of ripples. “Why not?”

  I picked up another rock, trying to decide if I should bother with skipping it, since I’d already proven it was a fruitless game. Maybe if the cloud cover wasn’t so heavy, I could actually see how far I could land it. Instead I just threw the rock as hard as I could, and watched it zip out of sight in a second.

  “Wow,” Brant said. “That flew fast. Like, faster than—”

  “A speeding bullet?” I smirked.

  Brant frowned. “I was going to say, ‘Walt Flanagan’s dog.’” He looked at me seriously. “Why don’t you like to think about the future? Most people tend to enjoy dreaming of a better tomorrow.”

  I stared out over the lake in all its limited, semi-majestic glory. “My father flew over Lake Superior at one point, did you know that?”

  “Uhm, no,” Brant said, “How would I have known that?”

  “An old … friend of mine sent me an email,” I said, hesitating to call Janus a friend. “Sent me a file that this other organization had on my father, after the war was done. He was on a ship called the Edmund Fitzgerald—”

  Brant raised an eyebrow as he interrupted. “You serious? Was he in the song, too?”

  “I doubt it. He was on it when it broke up, and he used his powers to whisk a girl named Adelaide to safety on the shore. Took every bit of power he had to do it, but he made it safely.” I looked out onto the cloudy waters, thinking it wasn’t so very different from an ocean, really. “I wonder if he flew by here?”

  “It sank over near the upper peninsula of Michigan if I remember correctly,” Brant said, pointing to our right, “so … probably not, unless he decided to take a very indirect route to shore.”

  “I think about that sometimes,” I said. “About how he did that. He was a windkeeper, and they can’t really fly very well. My brother—”

  “The asshole?”

  “That very one,” I said dryly, “he can fly a little, but he does better in a place like New York City, where he’s got some natural drafts to work with. But my dad, he did it for … miles.” I looked up at the clouds and wondered how high they were. Probably not as high as my dad had been flying that day. “When Reed heard that story, he was shocked. I think he looked up the distance to shore and just about crapped himself. It was … inconceivable to him.” I glared at Brant. “Don’t make a Princess Bride joke.”

  “That word is ruined forever,” he said. “Which is a shame, because it’s a good word.” He eased a little closer to me. “Why did you bring up the topic of your father when I asked about your future? I mean … no disrespect intended, but he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “He is dead,” I said.

  “Seems like that would be something of the past, then,” Brant said. “Why don’t you like to think about your future?”

  “My dad died before I was born,” I said, then paused. “My mom died … during the war. We weren’t that close.”

  “Difficult childhood or something?” he asked, and I turned my head to look at him. I’d read the scandal rags reportage of my upbringing. It had broken recently, complete with photos of the box that still remained in my basement because I didn’t know what else to do with it. Some asshole had broken in and sold the photos, and of course the press gobbled them up, penning a thousand wanking think pieces about how damaged I was.

  “Classy way to say it,” I said. “My mother … never left a mark on me, but she left her mark, if you know what I mean. She also died early.”

  “Both of your parents died early,” Brant said, nodding. “I’m starting to understand this reluctance to talk about the future now.”

  “What is this?” I asked. “Are you angling for your junior psychologist merit badge or something?” I watched for his reaction.

  “Just asking,” he said, shrugging expansively with his broad shoulders. “Like I said … I thought maybe you could use a friend. Or at least a bartender.”

  “Yeah, well …” I tried to decide what to say next. My thoughts were surprisingly clear on this matter, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spill them to a near stranger.

  Then I realized … what did it matter? Nobody could think any worse of me than they already did, even if Brant ran to the internet and posted our entire conversation.

  “My grandmother lived over five thousand years,” I said, continuing with my thought.

  “Whaaaat?” Brant asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, waiting for the startled look on his face to subside. “So … here’s how I see my future every time I think it out.” I tried to hold myself steady. “I’m either going to die violently while I’m still young … or I’m going to get to watch everybody I love and care about—a rapidly thinning list, I might add—die around me. Which has already happened too many times.” I met his eyes. I knew mine were sad, laden with a level of concern that most people never even had to think about. “See why I don’t like to think about the future?”

  26.

  Reed

  Augustus and I had been enjoying an uncomfortable breakfast in Roseville, following my instinct that maybe Cunningham would try something today, when we’d gotten the call that he had, in fact, tried something, and that the something he’d tried was apparently showing up to work like yesterday hadn’t even happened. We r
ode in silence to the scene, and just as we popped out of the elevator on his floor, we found the man in question committing an act of interpersonal arson on one of his co-workers, who was screaming and dancing like a stuntwoman from a movie before she finally dropped to the ground as the sprinklers came on.

  It was a downpour, like a rainstorm going on indoors when I shouted out to Benjamin Cunningham that we were here to talk to him. I could feel Augustus on edge behind me, waiting to rumble. I was skeptical about how much rumbling he’d be able to do with the nearest dirt about seven floors down and outside, but he was chafing to act, I could tell that much. I couldn’t really blame him; we’d walked in on an incriminating scene. It wasn’t like she’d chosen that moment to spontaneously combust, after all.

  “Benjamin,” I said quietly, straining to be heard over the sprinklers dousing us with cold, kind of smelly water, “we need to talk.”

  “We need to help this dude into a cell,” Augustus said behind me.

  I cringed, hoping that the sprinklers drowned out his pronouncement, figuring it wouldn’t do much to help Cunningham’s state of mind. “Benjamin …” I said.

  Cunningham was shorter than I figured he’d be, with slumped shoulders and a distinct scorch pattern on the sleeve of his shirt. It might have started out grey, but with the soaking of the water it looked almost black at this point, and his hair had lost any distinctiveness to its shape, turning into a wet, plastered bowl that covered his forehead and ears. “I don’t … this isn’t my fault,” he said, gesturing to the burnt and blackened form on the ground next to him.

  “Okay,” I said, holding out my hands in front of me like I meant peace. For most people, that might have been a gesture of peace. In my case, I was ready to blast his ass through a cubicle wall at a moment’s notice. “Why don’t we talk about it?”

  His head shook in a terrible tic as he looked over at the body again, then away abruptly. His eyelids fluttered. “I … I didn’t do that.”