by Stephen King
He let his smile grow warmer. “As I said, I can’t promise anything, but I will do everything I can to make this happen.”
“Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.”
“I’ll let you know by next Friday.”
After she left his office, Pendleton turned on the monitoring software that let him tap into her computer’s webcam. The little light wouldn’t come on to alert her. She’d gone straight back to her office, and she was smiling, weeping just a little bit, but getting right to work, ever the busy little bee.
He had no intention of letting her know anything that next Friday. He’d wait until Monday, tell her there was a bit more red tape to cut through, but not to worry! He’d let her know. He’d string her along a few more days until her anxiety was perfectly ripe, and then he’d drop the bombshell that, in fact, she wasn’t getting the promotion. Because, after all, there was some other employee with just slightly better review scores, or slightly more seniority. More to the point: there’d be a man whose scores looked better than hers on paper. He wasn’t about to let a critical position go to a female. Even if he hadn’t been enjoying his game with her, it just wasn’t good business sense to promote women past a certain level. Everybody knew that.
The accountant would take the news stoically, nod and smile and tell him she understood … and then she’d go back to her desk and weep. And he would watch those big, fat, salty tears rolling down her plain cheeks. He’d want to lick them off her unpowdered face like bitter caviar. But he’d content himself with his voyeurism.
And the best part? She wouldn’t quit. She’d put too many years into the company to just up and quit. It was too much risk for a fearful little bitch. She’d stick to the job she knew at the company she knew. And so he’d have the chance to dangle hope and snatch it away all over again the following year. And the year after that.
And maybe her daughter would die. Her tears would flow beautifully, then, stain her papers for days and weeks. And she certainly wouldn’t quit the company after that—what else would an inconsequential person like her have to hold on to?
It was possible, he mused, that she might kill herself. But he’d identified other crybabies: a ratchety secretary, a middle-aged tech writer, a brunette in the mailroom who wasn’t pretty enough to fuck, even if fucking her might be the best way to get her to weep. There were almost certainly others. Women were so emotional, and so easy to manipulate. None of them belonged in the cutthroat world of business. But since he had to spend his time on them, he might as well make them useful. A man with his responsibilities needed regular stress relief. It was simply his due.
Suddenly, he was aware of a pungent stink. The stink: it smelled like sewer gas and rotting fish and spoiled milk. It came and went, an olfactory phantom. It had plagued him since he joined the company the previous year. A few other managers said they smelled it, too, but none of them could quite identify what it was. He had the janitors double-check the trash and restrooms, and maintenance checked the heating and plumbing systems. Nobody found anything amiss, and in fact none of the lower-level employees reported smelling anything at all.
Pendleton wasn’t satisfied. It wasn’t just that it smelled bad; it made him feel itchy and queasy, as if he were having some kind of allergic reaction to it. Sometimes, it made his heart race unpleasantly. His skin never had a visible rash or hives, but he had the terrible feeling of something unpleasant was all over him. His health might be at stake here.
And then he had an epiphany: maybe one of the employees on the floor was a connoisseur of terrible foreign foods. The janitors had checked for moldy containers, but not for esculent abominations frozen in microwave boxes. That had to be it!
Feeling triumphant, he locked his computer and strode down the hall to tell whoever was microwaving raghead vindaloo or ching-chong glop to knock it off and bring a burger next time.
But nobody was making food in the break room.
The only person there, sitting all alone in an orange molded plastic chair, was a luscious college intern reading a paperback mystery with a black cat on the cover. She was maybe 20 and had the kind of curves you saw on ‘50s starlets, long legs sheathed in a clingy blue pencil skirt, and thick, glossy blonde hair nearly down to the crack of her ass. He entertained a brief fantasy of twisting her arms behind her, bending her over the break table and reaming her ‘til he could see his own face reflected in the puddle of her tears spreading across the bland Formica.
She looked up from her book and met his gaze. Her eyes were the color of his favorite dark chocolates.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Pendleton.” She had an upper-crust British accent he found devastatingly sexy.
“Afternoon, Miss …” His gaze fell on the ID badge dangling at her delicious hip, and he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise when it told him that she was with the IT department. Probably she did something with the phones. “Miss Alewhite. Have we met?”
“I don’t believe so.”
How had he not seen her before? How were they not having a long lunch in the motel around the corner right that second? Dammit, HR knew he wanted to meet all the new interns. Could they have onboarded her when he was vacationing in Tahiti? They must have.
She smiled, her teeth perfectly straight and white. A flawless specimen of femininity, he had to admit. Probably had men showering her with compliments day and night. Time to shake her up a little and show her she wasn’t anything special in his world.
“I love your hair,” he said. “Is it a wig or a weave?”
She laughed and set her book aside. “Did you just neg me? Seriously? ”
He frowned, feeling an unaccustomed heat creep into his face. “Miss Alewhite, perhaps they haven’t taught you proper business behavior at whatever liberal college your hippie parents sent you to, but that is not the kind of tone you should take with a superior in the workplace.”
He expected her to turn pale and start stammering an apology, beg him for forgiveness, but she just grinned.
“‘Did you know you’re beautiful when you’re angry?’” She said in a playfully seductive voice. “I bet you’ve used that line on plenty of women before. Annoying, isn’t it? And, in your case, totally untrue.”
“Miss Alewhite!” he thundered. Clearly, his action item for the day would be to teach this little cunt her place. Maybe she was the daughter of a duke or some damn thing over the pond, but here? This was his world. His rules. She would show him respect, and more.
“Can I let you in on a little secret?” she stage-whispered. “I took a wee peek into your personnel record. Remember that psychology test you took after you interviewed for your position here? You’re a total psychopath.”
He paused, silent, gazing at her warily. Even he hadn’t seen his psychological results; as far as he knew, only the company owner could access them. Was she lying to him? Was there a game afoot?
She nodded, black eyes wide in mock surprise. “It’s the truth. Clinically, you’re an awful human being.”
He stared down at her, feeling an itchy bead of sweat roll down the small of his back. Was she a corporate mole, a spy? What was going on?
“But it’s okay!” she declared. “All the executive staff members are psychopaths. The whole lot of you. If you hadn’t been, you’d have never been brought onboard.”
Alewhite stood up. She was taller than he expected, taller than he was, and he glanced down at her feet to reassure himself that she was wearing high heels. But she sported black canvas sneakers. He hated them. And was surprised that he hadn’t noticed her unflattering, unfeminine shoes before that moment.
“I know you’ll be quick to brag that it’s because you psychopaths are just better suited to the ruthless corporate world.” She had the kind of tone schoolteachers used with very young children. “You know, willing to cook your own families to succeed and all that. But you’d be wrong.”
She came around the table, leaned in close, and whispered in his ear: “Your brain is fundame
ntally broken, Mr. Pendleton. You’re neurologically insensitive to certain things that normal people can easily perceive. You know how humans on the autistic spectrum have trouble interpreting social cues? You psychopaths have trouble sensing reality. Or rather, the loss of it.”
“That’s ridiculous!” he replied coldly. “Nothing escapes my notice! I am a highly perceptive man.”
“Modest, too!” She laughed, and he wanted to punch her teeth right down her throat. But if the company owner had sent her to test him, giving her the violence she deserved would be the end of his career.
“But no,” she continued. “You’ve been fooled. For months and months now. But—what luck!—I can help with that.”
She reached out and touched his forehead.
The world he knew tore away like a flimsy canvas stage backdrop.
A huge white claw—a bristled insect leg—hovered over his face, and Pendleton tried to scream and step back, but neither his throat nor his body would obey him. The claw withdrew, and he saw a monstrous ivory-colored arthropod gazing down upon him. The wedge-shaped, suitcase-sized head reminded him strongly of a mantis, as did its clawed forearms, but the mantid thorax merged with a round, bleached spider body. The only spot of color upon it was its big black eyes.
He heard a girl’s laugh inside his mind, and then Miss Alewhite’s voice: “Surprise! Do have a look around.”
It was then that he realized, first, that his throat was sore, aching like he had strep, and second, that he was naked. Worse, he was shambling forward in line with a bunch of other naked people. The back of the man in front of him was filthy, covered in grotesque fungal growths that seeped a pungent ichor. The stink. Or part of it, anyhow.
He looked away from the man’s back, and what he saw made his breath catch in his aching throat. They were all in some huge subterranean cavern, and there were hundreds of lines of thousands of filthy naked people, all shuffling forward, eyes glazed. Strange glowing orbs hovering in the air lighted the cavern. The cavern echoed with thudding footfalls and wet noises.
The floor beneath him didn’t feel like dirt; it felt soft, and clammy. With effort, he tilted his head down so he could see what he was walking across. More fungus, he realized. His toenails were cracked, split, infected with the same foulness he’d seen on the man’s back. His legs and body were covered in broken pustules, each bearing its own cloud of tiny red gnats.
“And this is where it gets interesting,” said the Alewhite monster, prompting him to look up again.
The man in front of him had fallen to his knees in front of something that looked like a gigantic purple sea anemone, although the thing’s glistening tentacles had a strangely plantlike look to them. The tentacles reached for the man’s face, pulled him forward, and after a few moments of vigorous movement, they spat him back out. Unseeing face dripping with goo, the man stood and shambled to the back of another line.
“Your turn,” said Alewhite.
Pendleton fell to his knees, and the tentacles grabbed his head and pulled him down. Something rubbery and slippery forced its way between his lips and tongue, slithered down his throat. It pistoned harshly inside his esophagus, spewing some kind of foul, viscous liquid directly into his stomach. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. The tentacles held him fast as the monstrosity filled him. His stomach ached from the pressure, and just when he thought it might burst, the tentacles released him, and he jerked to his feet like a puppet.
“Go on, now,” Alewhite said, pacing him.
Pendleton stumbled after the others up a huge mountain, his belly aching terribly, his throat sore, his head pounding. The goo in his stomach was leaking up into his throat, and it tasted like spoiled clam chowder. What kind of terrible place was this?
“Not long now! Keep going.”
He crested the hill, and he saw the huge, pink, shuddering maw of some impossibly huge creature buried in the fungal earth. It was as wide as a football field and lined with sucking tentacles. People were falling to their knees at the edge of the mouth, vomiting the contents of their stomachs into the hungry chasm.
He caught a whiff of the terrible stench rising from inside the maw—and knew for sure that this was the awful thing he’d been smelling. A horrible nausea took him and he fell to his knees, body wracked with spasms as he puked up everything the anemone had pumped into him—
Pendleton abruptly found himself back in the break room staring at the beautiful intern with the insect-black eyes. His skin wasn’t covered in yellow pustules. He was wearing his fine Armani suit again.
“Oh God.” He looked around at the familiar coffee maker, the stainless-steel refrigerator, and the parquet floor, took a deep breath and exhaled. “Thank God.”
“Don’t be fooled.” She wagged a finger at him. “You’re still a good little drone in a big hive of fungus. You just mostly can’t see it. Because your poor widdle bwain is bwoken.”
She made a clownishly sad face at him.
“It isn’t. It isn’t! ” he snarled.
“Pop quiz. Who owns the company?”
“Uh … he’s …” Pendleton had played golf with the old man a dozen times; why couldn’t he remember?
“No? Okay, this should be easy: what’s the name of this company?”
“It’s … it’s …” His frustration became a vein-popping monster in his head, but he couldn’t think of the name. He’d been working here for over a year, for Christ’s sake! But there was nothing. No name. Nothing. He collapsed into one of the orange plastic chairs, feeling profoundly confused.
“See?” She smiled. “You don’t know because none of this is real; you’re sharing a corporate fantasy with a few hundred other drones. Our dreamweaver didn’t even have to spend much time customizing it for you; it’s practically straight off the rack. How sad is that?”
She shook her head. “But I fixed your cerebrum, just a little. You’ll see your true reality every so often. Not most of the time. Maybe once or twice a day. Just enough to remind you where you really are.”
“What—what can I do?” he choked.
“Nothing. Well.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “You could get religion. Pray for your soul and such. But honestly, I don’t think you have a soul, and you’re already vomiting semen to feed the only god you’ll ever meet, so … no. Nothing you can do.”
“W-why did you …” he trailed off.
“Show you your reality?” She prompted. “Because my job as your overseer is really quite dull considering the lot of you just stumble around in your little dreams of being masters of the universe. It’s just … just nice to see one of you scared out of your wits every so often. Makes the day go by faster.
“Unfortunately, now that I’ve destroyed your illusion, your drone body will fail sooner, maybe much sooner. Madness and misery always affect the flesh. But! My unit’s productivity numbers are quite good, and they always let us omit a few poor performers from our metrics. You won’t matter in the end.”
She cocked her head to one side, seeming to listen to something he couldn’t hear. “Oh, and now my boss is returning from his dinner. It’s time for me to go back to being invisible to you. Ta ta!”
With that, the intern disappeared completely.
For several minutes, Pendleton just stared at the spot she’d occupied.
Then he walked slowly back to his nonexistent office, closed the door, laid his head down on the wide illusory desk, and wept.
PINK CRANE GIRLS
AUTUMN CHRISTIAN
She’s folded thirty cranes already, the coffee not even cool enough to drink. Her hands moved too fast for me to see, so that she seemed to meld into her environment, her flesh the color of the paper, her hair the texture of the brown booth. No matter how many times I saw a girl sitting across from me in that dirty roadside café the speed of her fingers, the vibration of her throat and eyes, made me want to stick my head out the window and scream to the dirt.
“This is your last job, and then you’re ou
t,” I told her, resisting the urge to swallow, and I thought, maybe she’ll believe me,
The waitress approached, and the girl’s elbow jerked across the table. Cranes spilled onto the floor. The waitress rolled her eyes, kicking a crane out of the way with her soft shoes.
“What it’ll be, junebugs?” she asked.
“Hashbrowns and an order of tomato slices. And more coffee please.”
“And her?”
“W-water,” she said.
“And shall I call the ambulance now or after she’s shot up again in my bathroom?”
“She’s not on drugs, K,” I said. “Not anymore. It’s you know, residual effects.”
“And this place used to not be a waystation for whatever sick shit you’re into,” she said, and then turned to the girl. “I’m not talking about you, honeycake, I’m sure you’re just a good girl in a bad situation.”
Before the waitress walked off, the girl had folded ten more cranes.
“This job is at the Edgar Vault. They’ve been waiting for us, so they’ve got anti-shift tech, on the walls and floors. But you’re our best girl. We know you can handle it.”
I used to know their names. I thought that’d make me a good manager, to show that I cared, but then I stopped caring.
She breathed in little panting gasps, sweat the color of sepia in the dawn light breaking out on her forehead.
“Sweetie.”
My hand hovered over her vibrating fingers, but didn’t touch.
“I know you can handle it.”
They never believed me.
The Lab bought up the contracts of girls who slipped through the city of fortresses, girls who slept on ceilings and dismantled machine guns for entertainment. They were girls with iron in their teeth, salt and blood underneath the fingernails. They were the kind of girls who programmed AI to go to school for them in the gridiron machine, and shot up sticky black ICE in the bathrooms of business Overlords before stealing computer codes and escaping out back windows.