Ramona envisioned this happening throughout the building.
As the Engineer stood by Amy’s cubicle trying to get Sylvia to listen to his complaint that Ramona couldn’t help him with his project, Ramona began to laugh. If it wasn’t for the Support Services Staff, these morons couldn’t get anything done. Which justified that they were an integral part of the organization, thus, should be recognized and rewarded accordingly. Here it was, barely five minutes into their little experiment and already things were falling apart.
They couldn’t have picked a better morning to do this. The phones rang one after another. Sylvia flashed looks of anger at Amy as she answered the lines and fumbled awkwardly for explanations as to why she was answering the department phones. The scene repeated itself elsewhere; secretaries stopped taking transcription and answering phones. Word Processors stopped work. Desktop publishers ceased layout of new manuals, regardless of looming production deadlines. It all came to a halt.
While the frustration of the exempt employees at their lower-salaried co-workers sudden cease in production grew.
The phone in Product Development ceased ringing for a moment. Sylvia spun to where Amy was seated, preparing to lash out at the secretary, but blinked in surprise. Amy was gone.
She turned toward Ramona’s cube. “Ramona!” She bellowed angrily. “What the hell is going on?”
She stopped abruptly at the doorway to Ramona’s cube. Ramona was gone.
She looked down the aisle as Terry Voegtli, Senior Engineer, lumbered toward her. “Terry, have you seen Ramona?”
“No. She won’t input my files,” he said. “I had to do it myself.”
“Dammit!” Sylvia was obviously angry.
All around them, the phones continued ringing.
Secretaries weren’t available to answer them.
Upstairs in the CEO’s office, the head executive stepped out of his plush office. “Where’s my coffee?” he asked an empty office.
A phone call to the head desktop publisher’s desk from the supervisor of production went unanswered. The company was scheduled to ship 200,000 units of their latest software package, and last minute changes to the manual resulted in desktop publishing being behind. Today was the deadline and the phone rang at an empty desk.
Sylvia stood at Amy’s desk, answering questions from dumbfounded colleagues in the building. “I have no idea what’s going on? All the secretaries are just gone!”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
The CEO walked down, his features non-plussed. “Carol always brings me coffee every thirty minutes,” he complained. “She failed to do so and there’s nobody upstairs. What’s going on? Production says that Diamond Printing is screaming for the new layout and Dave isn’t in his office.”
“I don’t know what’s going on,” Sylvia said as another line on Amy’s desk rang. She picked it up and answered as courteous as she could under the circumstances.
“If we don’t get that layout to Diamond by ten o’clock, we’re in deep trouble,” the CEO said. He walked back up to his plush office to wait for somebody to set things right.
While all throughout Randolph Industries, the collapse continued.
Twenty minutes into the experiment, Sylvia found herself in the eye of the storm and speed-dialed Terry’s number. It rang three times and went into his voice mail. She cursed, got up from Amy’s chair, and strode angrily down the row of cubes to Terry.
He wasn’t there.
She looked in all the other cubicles that housed the eight employees she supervised in Product Development. Computers were turned on, but the cubicles were unoccupied.
Back at Amy’s desk three lines rang simultaneously.
“What’s going on here?” Sylvia bellowed.
She ran to Amy’s desk and answered lines, asking confused callers to be put on hold, then doing so without waiting for an answer. She was aware that the clatter of business activity had died down around her while the phones still rang. There was no sound of conversing voices, nor was there any activity in the cubicles. She was about to neglect those callers she still had on hold and venture further into the building to see if she could find somebody, when the personal line in her office rang. She dashed inside to scoop up the phone.
“Diamond is screaming for the layout files,” the CEO yelled. “Where the hell is everybody?”
“I don’t know,” Sylvia breathed.
“Get to David’s desk and see if you can find it. Fax it over to them as soon as you find it.” He hung up.
Sylvia headed out of her office, prepared to do as she was told. She never made it to David’s cubical.
Five minutes later the CEO walked out of his plush office into an empty, silent environment save for the ringing of the phones. Where the hell did everybody go? Why isn’t anybody answering the phones? He stepped toward Carol’s desk, hands outstretched to pick up the ringing phone.
Starting at four p.m., when the employees of Randolph Industries usually began leaving for the day, building security noticed that the people leaving the ten story office building were from all the companies housed in the complex except for Randolph Industries. By five-thirty, Walt Chambers, supervisor on swing shift, got curious. He and his assistant, Bernie Macintosh, took the elevator to the tenth floor and stood in gape-mouthed silence at the empty expanse of offices and cubicles before them. The two men looked at each other in amazement. How all two hundred and thirty-five employees were able to leave the building without being seen by security was beyond them.
The only sounds that came from the vast myriad of offices and cubicles was the sporadic ringing of the telephones.
Going Home
JACK PAGE WAS surprised at the sudden turn of events this evening, but he had been even more surprised at Carla Beck’s living conditions.
Carla Beck’s current residence was room 204 at the Lucky Star Motel on Beach Boulevard. He hadn’t said anything to her as she led him into the room but now as he lay in her bed, Carla comfortably snuggled against him, he debated on whether he should bring it up. He wanted to ask, why do you live in such a dump? But as he thought about it he realized it all fit: her low pay scale, coupled with whatever happened to her in the past that would have caused her to be divorced would be sufficient excuse to live in a motel. He wondered how long she’d been living like this.
As if she’d read his thoughts, she said, “If I hadn’t been so drunk I wouldn’t have brought you here.”
“Are you sorry for what happened?” Jack asked.
A pause. “No.” She was silent for a moment. “I just didn’t want you to see how I lived.”
Jack thought about that. He didn’t know what to say. He’d met up with Carla Beck at happy hour, after work. Once every few weeks or so, their co-workers at Free State Insurance gathered at a local Mexican Restaurant for drinks and munchies and serious unwinding time. Much venting against their working conditions was done at these excursions. Jack was a frequent attendee, and he’d been surprised to see Carla Beck this evening, especially after she’d become the object of an intense round of verbal intimidation at the staff meeting just four hours earlier.
“I haven’t always lived like this,” she said.
“What happened?” Jack asked.
“The usual shit,” Carla sighed. “My husband left me and took everything.”
“And this was all you could afford,” Jack confirmed.
“Yeah.” She shifted around beside him in the bed. “My job doesn’t really pay all that well.”
“I can imagine,” Jack said. He felt sorry for Carla. He’d wound up sitting by her at the restaurant, trying to cheer her up. He didn’t know her well, but he’d heard through the grapevine that she wasn’t that well off. She was in her mid-forties, with wavy brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Carla was what you thought of when you thought ‘white trash’. She favored frumpy skirts and slacks at work that framed her chunky frame loosely, and tonight she
dressed in faded blue jeans and a white blouse. She had wide hips and large breasts and she would have been pretty if she hadn’t lived such a hard life; the lines in her face made her appear weathered. Her nose looked like it might have been broken and never reset correctly, and she had a small scar on her chin. She had a nice mouth, though, and if you looked past a missing tooth or two she had a pretty smile that brought dimples to her cheeks. The only thing he knew about Carla was that she was divorced, with two daughters who were in their late teens and early twenties that were already out on their own. She’d originally come on staff as a temp and after two years she was hired on a permanent basis as a floater. Meaning she floated around from department to department, assisting other secretaries as needed. It was a shitty job, and for all Jack knew it was the lowest paying position in the department. He would be surprised if she made twenty-five thousand dollars a year.
They’d gotten tipsy at the restaurant, and then they were walking out, arm in arm drunkenly. Carla told him she lived just up the street a ways and Jack thought he would just walk her home, wearing off the buzz, but then one thing led to another and the next thing he was aware of they were at her place, in bed.
“I never really had any job skills before I came to Free State,” Carla continued. “In fact, this is the first real job I’ve ever had.”
“You were just a housewife before?”
Carla nodded. “Yeah. I thought that was great.” Then, in a lower voice. “Boy, was I wrong.”
Jack didn’t want to go into her personal life, but she appeared to be freely divulging the information. “I was so desperate to leave home that when I did, I didn’t know where to turn to,” she said. “I had a little money with me, but I knew it wasn’t going to last. Then I met Mike, my husband, at a bar. We hit it off real quick and I fell for him fast. I was only nineteen. Young and stupid.”
“You got married young?”
She nodded. “About a year after we met. I had Darci two years later, and then a few years after that I had Michelle. Mike had a good job as a general contractor. He made enough money so I didn’t have to work. It sure beat home.”
“Where’s home?”
For a minute he didn’t think she was going to answer him. She stared at the ceiling for a moment. Then she said, “I’m from back east. Pennsylvania to be exact. A very rural area. We had no running water, no electricity. We were dirt poor.”
“Are you Amish?” It spilled out of Jack’s mouth before he could stop it.
Carla shook her head. “No, my family isn’t Amish.” Then, in a voice so low that Jack wasn’t sure if he heard it right, she said, “When I was young, though, sometimes I wish I had been in an Amish family. Even that would have been preferable to where I was.”
“Your home-life was that bad?”
Carla sighed. “I’m sorry if I’m making it sound as if I came from this hell-hole, but really...no.” Carla shook her head. “It really wasn’t that bad. It was just...”
“Eccentric?”
Carla appeared to think about it, than nodded. “I guess you could say that.”
“So there were good things about where you’re from?”
“I suppose I shouldn’t be so harsh on it, but, yeah, there was.” Carla sat up, her back propped against the headboard. Jack sat up, too. “Living in the country does have some beautiful advantages: the clean air, the open space, the wild-life. It’s really quite peaceful.”
“Did it ever occur to you to maybe go back after your divorce?”
Carla shook her head vehemently. “No. I couldn’t do that. That would just make things worse.”
“Why?”
She wouldn’t answer. Jack thought he’d stepped over the line. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No, it’s okay”, Carla said. “I started this.”
“We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Carla was silent again. She appeared to be struggling to hold back the tears. Jack felt uncomfortable. “You okay?”
She nodded hesitantly.
“Was it that bad?” he asked.
Carla sniffled, staring at the wall in front of them where the nineteen-inch Minolta TV was bolted to the wall. “Sometimes I think about that and I wonder if it was as bad as I made it all out to be.”
“What do you mean?”
Carla appeared to think about it for a moment. “Have you ever looked back on an event that you used to think was bad only to later think it wasn’t as bad as you thought?”
Jack nodded. “Well, yeah. High school was like that.”
“That’s what home is like,” Carla said.
“How long has it been since you’ve been back?”
“I left twenty-two years ago,” Carla said. “I’ve never been back.”
“Not even to visit?” Jack found this astonishing.
Carla shook her head. ‘Not even to visit.”
“But you’re thinking what it might be like to go back now, aren’t you?”
Carla nodded. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Are you afraid of going back?”
Carla appeared to not know how to answer this question. “I don’t know. Sometimes I feel scared, and other times...other times I think it would be so much better for me if I went back and never set foot in the modern world ever again.”
Never set foot in the modern world ever again. Christ, had she lived in a stone hut back there? “Do you really hate it here more?” He asked.
Again, Carla appeared uncertain. “I don’t know.”
Jack thought about this. Maybe her parents were alcoholics or something; or they’d abused her. He didn’t dare ask, but a part of him wanted to know. “Maybe a short visit back might help. You know, give you a chance to confront whatever it is about your past that’s bothering you.”
She seemed to think about it. “I don’t know. That might be a good thing to do.”
He almost asked why not? He smiled and put his arm around her shoulders. “Maybe it wouldn’t be. But then how would you know if you don’t at least try?”
She nodded slowly, looking at him. “Yeah, I see what you mean. Still...” That look of uncertainty came back to her.
“What?”
“It’s going to be so much different. I haven’t been in that environment in twenty-two years. I would be...I don’t know...I would feel so uncomfortable and out of place.”
“Do you think it’s really changed that much in twenty-two years?”
“No. But then, I’ve changed. My whole world-view has changed. Going back now would be...”
“Like going to a foreign country or something?”
She nodded. “I guess you could say that.”
They were silent again. After a few minutes, Jack asked if he could smoke a cigarette. She needed one, too, and they lit up and leaned back against the headboard, smoking silently, each lost in their own thoughts.
“I know we don’t know each other that well, but...”
“Yeah?” He looked at her, waiting for what he was expecting.
“If I went back for a few days would you come with me?”
What he was expecting was more in the line of, I know we don’t know each other very well, but I enjoyed our time together and I hope we can do it again. Maybe...see where the relationship takes us to next. What she asked him instead was unexpected.
He thought about it. He could use a vacation. And he’d never been in that part of the country before. As long as she paid for her own airfare, he wouldn’t mind tagging along. Hell, it might be fun.
That decided it for him. “Sure.” He grinned at her. “When do we leave?”
The smile she flashed back at him seemed to suggest that, right at that moment, Carla Beck was the happiest woman on the planet.
“YOU OKAY?”
They’d pulled to the side of the narrow dirt road that Carla indicated, and now as they sat in the rented Ford Escort somewhere in
the deep woods of the Pennsylvanian mountains, Jack felt a shiver of foreboding pass through him. Until now, he’d never been nervous about the trip. That was all rapidly changing.
Carla looked up at the old, ramshackle house set back against the dirt lane with a look of fear. The late afternoon sun was hidden behind trees with skeletal branches that spread themselves over the grounds. The house was Victorian in style, with high gables along the north and south ends, indicating a roomy attic and a long front porch. The house seemed to tilt to the left, as if the foundation it rested on was slowly sinking into the earth. The shutters leaned off crookedly; the paint was peeling from the gray walls. Dead leaves floated along the weed-choked front yard amid a light breeze. The shades were drawn over all of the windows. The house looked haunted.
“So this is where you lived?” Jack asked, looking up at the house. It had been three weeks since their conversation at her motel room. Since then, Carla Beck had been a frequent visitor to his bed, but they never discussed the subject they’d spoken of the night they consummated their relationship. Except for a few brief discussions on his accompanying her back east, Jack respected her wishes. They’d lucked out on two round-trip tickets to Philadelphia due to stiff airline competition, and it had been fairly easy to get the few days vacation time.
Carla Beck sighed and reached for the door handle. “I might as well get this over with.” She opened the door and got out.
Jack followed her out. Upon landing at Philadelphia International Airport, they’d rented a car and driven northwest, reaching the foothills of the mountain country two hours later. They’d landed at two p.m. east coast time, and by the time they’d checked into a cheap motel along Route 87 it was closing in on five-thirty. The homestead was another thirty minutes through winding, heavily wooded terrain. Carla had wanted it to be her first stop after they checked in so she could get this over with as quickly as possible.
Jack followed her up the yard to the rickety wooden steps that led to the sagging porch. Carla hesitated a beat, then stepped forward and rapped on the thin wooden door.
When the Darkness Falls Page 21