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“And the doubters are the ones that get
their self worth from pointing out the failure of others. I didn’t
even really pay attention to her at the time, but when I grew up I
saw what she meant.” Claire paused and reflected on her childhood.
“Want to hear a dirty little secret?”

“Sure,” said Nancy, only half listening.

“I used to be a doubter. I’m ashamed to
admit it, but it’s true. I used to be one of those catty old crows
sitting around and picking at anyone that dared stir my ire. Hard
to believe, I know, but it’s the truth. I loved gossip, and bought
all those celebrity rags, spent my time chatting on the phone with
other women about who was fat, who was gay, who was cheating on
who, and all that nonsense. Waste of time, honey. That’s all that
is. And you know what turned me around?”

“What’s that?”

“Cancer.”

Nancy stopped and looked back at Claire.
She’d never heard anything about Claire suffering from cancer.
“What do you mean?”

“Oh yeah, honey. I don’t talk about it much,
but I had quite a cancer scare a few years back. Nothing will ever
set you right like getting up close and personal with the grim
reaper. After something like that, I’ll tell you, you just don’t
have the gumption to be a doubter no more. I pulled myself up by
the bootstraps, beat the disease, and started focusing on what’s
important in life. It took me most of my years to finally pay
attention to what my granny said, but I haven’t forgotten it
since.”

Nancy was going to respond to what Claire
said, but then she heard the beep of a new email as it showed up in
her folder. She looked and saw that it was from her supervisor,
Mike.

“Aw fuck,” she said as she opened the
tersely worded email. “How did he know I was running late? He’s not
even here.”

Claire rolled across the short gap between
their cubicles. Her headpiece’s wire stretched to its limit as she
looked at Nancy’s screen. “It’s the new system. He can track when
you log in even when he’s at the headquarters in the other
county.”

“But I punched in at three on the dot. Two
minutes early actually,” said Nancy as she pointed down the hall at
the break room.

Claire shook her head and pointed at the
screen. “I’m talking about the computer. You’re supposed to log in
ten minutes before your shift starts.”

“Are you serious?” asked Nancy.

Claire nodded and then rolled back to her
cubicle. “Yep. Sorry, honey.”

“I thought computers were supposed to make
our lives easier,” said Nancy. “This sucks. Next thing you know
they’re going to be installing cameras in here so they can watch
us.”

“What’s the email say?” asked Claire.

“Nothing new. He’s just being a dick,
reminding me that I’ve already been warned about being late and
that our quarterly review is coming up.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

Nancy was about to put on her headset, but
then set it on her keyboard and groaned as she rubbed her eyes. “I
swear to God, Claire, this place is going to be the death of
me.”

“Don’t be a negative Nancy,” said Claire,
and then she turned and chuckled. “That’s a funny name. Isn’t it
usually negative Nelly? I’m going to change it to negative Nancy if
you don’t cheer up.”

“Thanks,” said Nancy with a groan. “Do you
mind if I transfer my calls over to you for a minute. I need a
quick smoke. I’m already having a shitty day.”

“Go for it, I’m not going anywhere.”

Nancy hit the numbers on the phone to
facilitate the transfer. All calls that went into the center were
routed to a free line first, which would ring for a few seconds
before being sent back into the round robin exchange, ensuring that
no call was left unanswered for too long. Every day a report was
generated that showed how many calls each line answered to make
sure no one was avoiding work, but Nancy had discovered that
transferred calls counted as a hit on both lines, subverting the
system. It caused a slight delay in the answer for the caller, but
allowed her to catch much needed smoke breaks from time to
time.

She saw Darryl peering over the wall of his
cubicle and gave him a snide grin. He shook his head and looked
back down at his computer as she went outside.

“Why don’t you go and fuck yourself,
Darryl,” she whispered as she went out the door. She smacked her
hard pack against the side of her hand until a cigarette sprung
free. She quickly lit it and took a long, satisfying drag.

Winter seemed unwilling to disappear
entirely, and there was a chill in the air despite how sunny it
was. She crossed her arms and shivered as she paced in front of the
building. The ashtray had been pulled far from the entrance in an
attempt to keep people from smoking by the door, surely a result of
employees like Darryl complaining about having to walk through a
cloud of smoke to get to work. Nancy flicked her ashes onto the
pavement and flipped off the far away, waist-high ashtray as if it
offended her.

She glanced in through the front window,
past the patchy bushes, at her empty cubicle. Claire’s seat faced
the window, but Nancy could only see the side of her coworker from
this vantage, the rest was covered by the fabric wall of the
cubicle.

The phone rang and the incessant buzzing was
loud enough to hear even with the door closed. She watched as
Claire shifted to click the button on the computer that would
answer the call. Nancy took another long drag and looked away from
the building, toward the small downtown area of Widowsfield. It was
quiet, with only a few cars pulled up to the Salt and Pepper diner
on the corner and a UPS truck parked in front of the Anderson Used
Book Store. The Widowsfield Emergency Services building shared a
parking lot with a local credit union, but there rarely ever seemed
to be anyone at the lonely bank.

She closed her eyes and dwelled in her own
thoughts for a moment. It had been a long few weeks, and there was
no end in sight. She was stuck in a workaday world, at a job she
hated, with a mountain of bills waiting at home and no prospect of
relief. She felt like crying.

The cigarette was burned to the filter far
too quickly. Her excuse for a break, minutes after getting to work,
was over. She glanced at the clock on the bank’s sign at the
entrance of the parking lot.

3:14

She looked for Darryl’s Chevy and then
flicked her cigarette butt onto the hood before flipping off the
car. A swirl of smoke wafted in front of her face and she waved it
away only to see more smoke appear, as if her arm’s movement had
cast a spell bringing with it a grey mist. She looked down and saw
the thick smoke filling the parking lot, like water moving slowly
through the town.

“What the fuck?”

She kicked at it, and the mist wafted up
where it sullied the air. A flash of green light erupted near her
and an electric zap cascaded up the gutter on the side of the
building. Dogs started to bark as the fog swept through the
streets. Then a massive black shadow was cast over the ground as
something flew by above, blotting out the sun for a second. She
tried to look up, but the fog surged skyward to block her view.

The dogs started to growl, and she saw black
shadows zip through the fog in the parking lot. The movement caused
the mist to ripple before a green wave of light flashed from
within.

Nancy quickly opened the door and ran inside
as the fog snuck in by her feet. She kicked at it as if it were a
corporeal entity. It dissipated around her leg as she pulled the
door closed.

Someone was groaning nearby. It was a wet
gurgle, as if someone was choking. She saw Claire in her chair,
rolled into the center of the space between their cubicles, staring
at her. It took a minute for Nancy’s brain to register what she was
seeing. It seemed impossible, and she blinked several times before
accepting that it was real.

Claire’s body was partially sunk into the
chair and her headset was pressed into her head. The microphone
stuck out of her throat and the head band jutted from her ear as if
someone had plunged the headset into her, but there was no blood to
be seen. Her arm was trapped in the armrest of the chair, and her
left leg was below the seat while her right was above. She was
twisted, and when she tried to speak only a gurgle came forth.
Spittle dripped down her chin as her eyes darted back and forth,
terror seizing her as she struggled to get free.

Nancy screamed and backed away.

That’s when she saw the creature outside. It
was the size of a child, but with the head of a dog. The
monstrosity clawed at the glass door with hands that looked neither
human nor canine, but a bloody, pulpy mix of both. The creature
snapped its jaws against the glass, spreading its lips wide to bare
vicious white teeth. It seemed to be trying to bite her through the
glass.

“Somebody help,” said Nancy just before the
windows broke all around her. Green electricity cracked through the
room as the humanoid dogs rushed in from all sides. She tried to
fight them off, but they held her down as their maws ripped at her
clothes and flesh. They tore at her, shaking their heads back and
forth, nipping at one another to secure a spot for the kill. Their
nude, childlike bodies writhed over one another as their grotesque
heads gnawed at her bones. She should’ve been dead, but nothing
could end the pain. The fog swirled around her and lifted her head
to force her to watch. The green electricity zapped in her ears,
stinging and burning, as the creatures ripped her apart. She could
see her bones, her intestines, her heart, and her lungs. She
watched as the monsters fought over her meat.

The fog wouldn’t let her die. The mist was
capable of trapping her spirit, and she was conscious even though
her body ceased to live. The flashing green fog kept her alive and
forced her to witness every agonizing moment until the creatures
plucked out her eyes. Then she was forced to listen.

16 Years Later

March 9th, 2012

Alma stared at her apartment complex from
the safety of her car. The yellow lights in the parking lot cast a
hazy hue over the scene, as if a polluted mist had descended upon
her life.

“Are you here?” she asked as she chewed on
her thumbnail. “Did you find out where I live, you son of a
bitch?”

She could see her apartment door, on the
middle floor of the three-story building. Each section of the
apartments was connected to the next by a concrete, railed landing
with stairs that zigzagged down. From her vantage she could see her
nondescript door as June bugs and moths fluttered around her porch
light.

Was her father hiding in the shadows? Was he
waiting for her?

She reached for her purse and got her cell
phone. She flipped over to her page of contacts and thought about
which of them might be able to help her. Several of her friends
were out of town, and others didn’t answer her call. She kept
trying, even selecting people she hadn’t spoken to in years. The
few people that answered all had excuses as to why they were
unavailable.

Alma led a reclusive life, only venturing
out to go to work and the occasional concert. She wasn’t socially
adept, preferring the comfort of a late night movie alone than a
party. She didn’t make friends easily, and when she did they
usually tired of trying to convince her to come out. Alma always
had an excuse why she was staying home for the night, and
eventually the new friend would stop calling.

There was always Paul.

She looked at his icon on the phone. He had
a wide, beaming smile and a stoner’s eyes. “Fuck it.” She tapped
his icon and waited, half hoping he wouldn’t answer.

“Yo,” he answered with a lethargic
greeting.

“Paul?”

“Alma? Holy shit.” She heard covers rustle
and assumed he was in bed. “To what do I owe the honor?”

“Paul,” she sighed, regretting this already.
“I need your help.”

“You got it, babe. What’s up?”

Alma had a mixed reaction to his voice. His
lounging baritone, each syllable drawn out as if he savored them
equally, caused an equal amount of disgust and adoration in her.
While their past convinced her to hate him, she couldn’t help but
love him a little.

“I need a place to stay.”

He didn’t answer.

“Paul?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. I heard you. Just, you
know, thinking about it.” He sighed and she could hear him
scratching at his scalp like he always did when conflicted.

“Never mind.” Alma was annoyed and ready to
hang up.

“You can stay here, Alma,” said Paul.
“You’re always welcome, you know that. It’s just that, well, you
need to know that I’m not alone here. You know what I mean?”

“You’ve got a roommate now?” asked Alma.

He paused for a telling second before
saying, “Sort of.”

She understood what he meant, and didn’t
know how to respond. “Maybe I’ll just get a hotel.”

“You don’t have to,” said Paul. “You can
stay here if you want.”

“No,” said Alma. “Don’t worry, I’ll be
fine.”

Alma and Paul had been together long enough
for him to become familiar with the underlying meaning of certain
phrases. Every couple develops passive aggressive mannerisms, and
Alma was as guilty of it as anyone else. Paul knew that when she
said, ‘I’ll be fine,’ it really meant anything but that. And if
Alma were being honest with herself she would admit that she
deliberately used that tone to stoke Paul’s compassion. It wasn’t
that she wanted to guilt him into helping her, but rather that she
needed him to hear how hurt she was that he was sleeping with
another girl. Even though they’d broken things off, for the third
time, over six months ago, Alma still hadn’t moved on and the
revelation that he had was agonizing. Six months was far too long
to dwell on a failed relationship, but Paul and Alma had kept in
contact over the break, and she always thought they would end up
together again. It was agonizing to find out that Paul felt
differently.