

Elliptical

Guy James

Copyright 2011 by Guy James

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

The characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Also by Guy James:

Sven the Zombie Slayer

Rats on Strings

The Shareholder

Blood Spatter

Please visit http://guyjamesfiction.blogspot.com/ to learn about other existing and upcoming titles from Guy James.

Table of Contents

Elliptical

Beginning

Midpoint

Bonus Materials

Beginning of Sven the Zombie Slayer

Beginning of The Shareholder

Beginning of Rats on Strings
I don't eat breakfast because it slows me down. That's what my assessment says. I never liked breakfast much anyway, but now that it's been assessed out of my day, I find myself missing it. Not that I'm complaining. The assessment is right, of course. I am faster on an empty stomach, more productive.

My stomach growls up at me as I put on my suit. It is custom-made for my body to maximize my speed and efficiency. Basically, it's a lot like shrink wrap. The fabric nips at my hair and skin in the routine places as I put the suit on. The feeling reminds me of the previous day, and of the next day.

I remember, as I do at the same moment every morning, that I've forgotten to brush my teeth. I consider brushing my teeth, then decide to rinse out my mouth instead. As I've not had breakfast, there's no point brushing non-existent food particles out of my teeth. I rinse as I pull on the rest of my suit, then spit into the immaculate steel sink. I walk to the door of my living unit. The door slides open automatically, and slides shut behind me after I walk out.

I take the stairs because my assessment says that walking instead of taking the lift down helps limber me, increasing my productive capacity. I walk out onto the northbound feeder ramp to the street and wait my turn to enter the sidewalk and proceed toward the Station. I enter when my turn comes, taking my place behind a portly man dressed in the suit of an assessor.

I note the speed with which he moves in spite of his large size, easily keeping at the prescribed speed in the fastest sidewalk lane. I look up at the sidewalk level above me, the slower level where most of the assessors travel. The movement up there is measured and methodical, as if each step were infused with reflection on how to make our society more efficient and powerful.

I look back to my own level so as to avoid any collisions. Thankfully, I am still within my lane and a safe distance from all those citizens moving around me.

The assessor in front of me takes the exit to the Assessment Bureau. I continue past, on the way to the Station. The Assessment Bureau is a squat building that takes up an entire city block. The Station is two blocks farther, a tall narrow building that strains my neck when I try to see its top.

I imagine there is much sitting and screen-watching at the Assessment Bureau. I imagine there are different drugs, maybe better ones. I, of course, am not unhappy with the drugs I receive as a mover. They're great.

The man behind me—another mover like me—bumps into me as I daydream about the goings-on within the Assessment Bureau. It is not unusual for such collisions to occur, but no resentments are retained. Our society has long ago moved beyond such simple follies.

I take the exit to the Station, following a long procession of identically dressed movers ahead of me. I enter through the gate into the darkness beyond it. I make my way up two sets of iron, spiral staircases, maintaining my position in the procession. I step out onto my floor and walk into position, among my mover neighbors. We greet each other as we do every morning: with no greeting at all.

There is a moment of silence, as there is every morning. It is not an officially prescribed moment. That is to say, it is not in our assessments. It is simply the moment before the system kicks on, and I imagine that some movers are still getting into their positions, but I know that is only my imagination. I am certain that everyone is already in position.

Then there is a gentle whir, and I step up into the machine, in time with the other movers around me, on the floors above me, and on the floors below me. I position my feet and take hold of the handles. The clamps close on my ankles and wrists, tight enough to keep me secured to the machine, and loose enough to cause only minimal discomfort. As for the discomfort, the drugs help with that, but those come later.

I know that the machine of which I am now a part resembles what was once, many years ago called an "elliptical machine." The machine was once used for athletic training, primarily, as I understand it, for weight loss. Now that the function of the machine is so different, it is difficult for me to imagine that was its prior use. But I believe it was, because that information is sanctioned by the assessors.

I begin to move my arms and legs in time, finding the efficient rhythm that the assessors say I possess. I move the machine, and the machine moves the world—at least that's how I like to think of it. More accurately, it's the multitude of machines throughout my city that provide electricity, and electricity is the lifeblood of the world's movement.

As I move faster, blocking out the rapid movement of the other movers around me, the screen in front of my machine lights up. It spans the whole of the floor, and if I were to turn to my left or my right—which I don't—I would not see the end of it.

As I move even faster, an array of swimming colors bursts onto the screen. The colors move in jagged rows, up and down, left and right, and diagonally. There is space between the jagged rows, and there isn't. This is difficult to explain, but it is true. I believe that the assessors know it too. Between the rows, where the jagged spikes of color meet, there is no space. The colors seem to both cut off and flow into each other, like an optical illusion. But I know that there is a space, because whenever I increase the intensity of my movement, I can see gaps open between the colors, and I can picture myself propelled forward, into the gaps. It is the kind of thing I can only see in my peripheral vision, but I know that it is there all the same. I have considered discussing this with the other movers, but that would be as improper as the utterance of a morning greeting.

This is when I feel the many sensor-tipped needles puncture my skin in the familiar spots. Some stay at shallow points just underneath my skin. Others go deep into my veins. They all come with anesthetic, and are so small that I feel them only because after years of experience, I am able to recognize the subtle pricks.

The needles are there for my benefit. They monitor my body: its levels of blood sugar, lactate, and oxygen, my heart rate, and a plethora of more minute measurements with which I'm not familiar.

The needles are also there as a conduit through which the drugs may travel. The drugs come later, and I know to wait patiently for them. The assessors time the drugs' release to the optimal moment for each mover, to produce the most favorable overall production rate.

Some time later—I don't know how much later—I feel it, the magical unicorn cocktail of chemicals that inspires and invigorates. The feeling is sublime, heavenly. I know then that I am at the peak of my being. I redouble my movement efforts, reveling in an extended second wind. I make the machine move faster, and I can clearly envision the electric current that is my body's contribution to our society.

The drugs have one drawback: I lose sight of the gaps in the array when the drugs enter my system. I lose sight of the gaps and forget them entirely. I only realize that I forgot when I begin to feel fatigue, and by then the array has turned off and it is time to disconnect. I slow, then stop, scanning the screen for afterimages of the array and the gaps that I'm not so sure were there.

I disengage from the machine, in time with all the other movers. The procession to exit the building begins, and from my place within it I notice the exhaustion of all the other movers. I realize that I must be equally spent. I move out through the exit gate into the darkness outside. The multi-colored lights of the layered sidewalks are beautiful in the night, and as I enter the fastest sidewalk pathway at the prescribed time, I appreciate my role in the creation of this beauty, in the provision of the power that lends the glow to the lights that make it so. I approach the exit to my building and totter from the sidewalk pathway, the effect of the drugs in warding away my fatigue waning perceptibly.

I slow as I enter my building, and slow further as I plod up the stairs to my living unit. I enter, remove my suit, and take a lukewarm shower to help relax my muscles. I put on a plain robe and move to my bed. I sit down and watch the plant that sits on my night table. It appears to have grown, but then again, I always think that. It is not a real plant. I look at the leaves, perfectly made to resemble living greenery, and reflect on the last time I saw a plant. It was years ago, and I remember a smell being associated with the experience, but cannot place the smell anymore. I think I would recognize it if I smelled it again. I know I would.

I nod, look away from my artificial houseplant, and lie down. As I prepare to sleep, a familiar ring announces the delivery of my day's assessment. I look up at the screen and read the lines. There is no change.

I eat my allotted snack while I lay in bed. It is designed to repair any muscle damage and replenish my glycogen stores while I sleep, so that I am fresh for another day of movement in the morning. As I drift off into chemical dreamlessness, my eyes begin to lose focus on the screen above me, to lose focus on my assessment, which bears no name.

Sven the Zombie Slayer

Guy James

Copyright 2011 by Guy James

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Chapter 1

Matt Sarelson stared into the thing's eyes, and he knew, with the most terrible of certainties, that he was about to die.

***

Nine minutes and fourteen seconds earlier, Matt Sarelson had parked his Toyota Highlander behind Charlottesville's Downtown Mall. It was still dark.

His head began to nod, and he took another sip of his tepid coffee.

As part of his weekday routine, Matt made himself coffee every morning before he left for work. That morning, Matt had made himself a cup of strong Kona, but departing from his meticulous coffee-making practice, he had committed what he deemed a coffee preparation atrocity.

Matt's coffeemaker had self-destructed a week earlier, and while he waited for its replacement to arrive, Matt used his trusty French press in the broken coffeemaker's stead.

On that unfortunate morning, Matt was especially groggy when he forced himself out of bed at ten minutes past four. The grogginess led to an exceptional bout of clumsiness in the kitchen: the French press slipped out of his fumbling hands as he carried it from the sink, and though he juggled the press for a few turns, his circus skills did not save it from shattering on the kitchen floor.

Broken French press or no, Matt had to have his coffee, so he got out a small saucepan, in which he boiled some water. To the boiling water he added ground Kona, and he let the mixture simmer for a few minutes while he stirred it, distastefully, with a wooden spoon. Then he poured off the top layer of the mixture, striving to keep the grounds out of his cup.

But grounds had come, and now, as he sat in the parking lot in his Highlander, he felt the demonic grounds poking around his mouth, mocking him. He wondered how people had done it back in the day before coffeemakers. The thought made him shudder.

Matt swallowed the tinged mouthful and sighed a coffee breath sigh. Imperfectly prepared coffee was just another in the series of sacrifices he made for his job. Letting grounds run rampant in his coffee was bad, it was true, as was the broken French press, but today—getting in early today—was worth all of that.

He opened the car door, got out, and ducked back in over the driver's seat. He retrieved his coffee mug and tucked his stack of marked-up deal documents under his arm. Matt kicked the door shut with a loafer-clad foot, took a deep breath, and crossed the empty lot.

At the entrance of the dark alley that connected the parking lot and mall commons, Matt paused. It was a creepy shortcut during the day—lined on either side with dim, cavernous recesses—and was even more troubling at night, especially with one of the two overhead lights having burned out. Matt wondered if someone was going to replace that light any time soon. Didn't anyone work anymore?

Matt took long, tired strides through the alley, and then abruptly stopped in the middle. He had heard something...something that sounded too much like a scream. He couldn't tell where the sound had come from, so he looked behind him, and, seeing nothing, turned back around and started for the mall again, quickening his pace.

By the time Matt stepped out onto the mall commons, he had put the sound out of his mind. He was too tired to concentrate both on that and on what he had to accomplish at work that day.

The mall commons were empty, save for a smattering of the sleeping homeless, and they were still dead to the world. The place was still.

As Matt walked past the familiar shops, he felt a sting of resentment. All of the shops' owners and employees were in bed, and he should have been too—not with them but in his own bed—if it wasn't for that lazy, no good—

He heard a cry, and spun around to face the direction from which the noise had come.

He peered into the distance.

Nothing.

No one.

The mall was empty.

Matt decided it had been a particularly disharmonious bird, or, even if it had been a person, it didn't concern him. He had extremely important things to do that day.

He resumed his walk and stopped in front of the building, looking up at it. Bremmer Title Associates, it said to him—to everyone that passed.

But not forever, Matt thought, gripping his coffee mug tighter, one day, it'll say Sarelson Title Company. It shouldn't say "Associates" anyway. That was stupid—remarkably stupid. It was a company, and it should announce that fact to all of the potential clients that passed by it.

There were three residential mortgage closings on Matt's desk that day, and he was coming in early because in his quite correct opinion, he was the only Bremmer Title Associates' employee that could get anything done. Today was the day, Matt knew, that he would make Mr. Bremmer notice. Today was the day that Mr. Bremmer would finally see how talented Matt was, and how incompetent and worthless that suck-up Jon was. God, how Matt hated the two of them—Bremmer and Jon—always gushing over each other and following each other around while Matt got stuck with all the work. And to add insult to injury, Jon was Matt's junior! But Jon's father was a fancy so-and-so and la-di-da and—well, that wasn't going to matter anymore, not after today.

Each of the three closings was to take place when Jon was out of the office on one of his usual three-hour workout and golf sessions—Matt had seen to that bit of timing. Jon would be dropping the ball—not the golf ball of course, the work ball—and Matt would rise up to save the day. And he would make damn sure that Bremmer noticed.

Matt took another sip of his lousy coffee, which was no longer even lukewarm, unlocked the title company's door, and walked in. He locked the door behind him, flicked on the lights, and walked past the empty receptionist's desk toward his own office.

He was beginning to replay one of his favorite fantasies in his head—the one where he beat Jon senseless with the lazy suckup's own nine iron—when he saw a light coming from the back of the office hallway. He walked closer, and was startled to find that it was coming from Jon's office.

Jon's office was tucked away in the back of the floor, and Jon had had the privilege of picking it out because Mr. Bremmer loved him so much—so very, very, nauseatingly much. The position of Jon's office let the lazy bum sneak in and out unnoticed, avoiding work and leaving Matt to run the business under Mr. Bremmer's uninvolved and increasingly ungrateful glare.

God, how stupid they all are, Matt thought. That idiot Jon can't even turn his damn light off.

Sighing in frustration, Matt put his coffee and documents down at his own office's closed door, then crossed the length of the hall to Jon's door.

Just as Matt reached his hand in to flick off the lights, he was overcome by a stench so overpowering that it felt like a punch to the gut. His head began to swim, and the shapes around him got fuzzy. He almost retched, but managed to keep his coffee—grinds and all—in his stomach.

So now Jon was keeping rotten food in his office?

That's exactly something Jon would do, Matt thought.

It wasn't even five in the morning yet and already Matt felt livid with anger. He clamped his fingers over his nose and resolved to dispose of whatever decaying matter he found within Jon's office and get right to work. Even if no one else at Bremmer Title Associates did anything, Matt had a responsibility to the clients, and he was going to see it through. The work mattered.

Matt walked into Jon's office, facing the divider that Jon had rigged up so that no one could see his desk from the hallway. When Matt came around the divider, he almost gasped. But the caffeine had started to do its trick and he remembered not to breathe in. Stifling his surprise-fueled want of a breath, Matt looked down, and had to revise his theory as to the source of the odor.

Jon was slumped face down on his desk. Looking at the pale-yellow, viscous fluid that was collecting at the left side of Jon's head, Matt determined that the smell was vomit.

Great, he thought, now I have to waste my precious time cleaning up after this idiot.

Matt's eyes darted to the corner of Jon's office, where a letter opener stood, peeking out of a pencil stand. The letter opener seemed to wink at him, and he considered it for a moment. Wouldn't that be nice? I could just stab him in the back of the head and end his misery.

Then Matt's eyes shifted to the golf-bag propped up against the wall. Or, I could grab that nine iron sticking out of the bag, bring it up, and...

That was the better way to do it, he decided, flavorfully ironic.

Matt quickly walked out of the office, unclamped his nose, and took two deep breaths. Then he put his hand back over his nose and went back inside.

"Hey!" Matt yelled with his nose still clamped. "Wake up, it stinks in here."

Jon moaned, but didn't move.

"Come on, I have work to do and your stink is distracting. Jon! Jon, come on wake up you can't do this in here."

Jon moaned again, softer this time, and his head wobbled a little, then settled back into place. The puddle of pale-yellow fluid was spreading outward, making its way to the edge of the desk.

Then it'll drip on the floor, Matt thought, and I am not going to be the one to clean it up. I am not.

Matt looked at the clock in Jon's office and realized he needed to get started on his work. He couldn't waste any more time trying to deal with Jon. Matt felt himself growing angrier, and the bit of stench that managed to seep past his fingers and into his nose was making him light-headed. He walked to the corner, picked the nine iron out of the bag, and not-so-gently prodded Jon's shoulder with it.

Jon stirred, moaned, and in an apparent attempt to raise his head, fell off his chair, hit his head on the side of the desk, and landed in an awkward position on his back, with his arms folded together and in front of him, like he had fallen backward into a too-small coffin.

Matt had to stifle a laugh. Maybe Jon was now dead. Maybe his head impacting on the side of the desk had broken his neck. The vomit-laden fiasco may turn out to have a silver lining...no, a golden one.

After taking a shallow breath through his mouth, Matt poked Jon again, in the sternum this time, and hard.

That did the trick.

That did the trick in a way that Matt never expected, and in a way that he never intended.

Jon's eyes shot open, and Matt stumbled backward, knocking something over and almost falling before coming to rest against the wall behind him. Jon's eyes...they were...they were completely black, even where the whites should have been. It was a dull black, and it made Matt's stomach drop to look into it, like he was looking into pure, unabashed evil.

Matt's mind scrambled, trying to think of something to say or do, anything that might make those eyes look away from him, but no thoughts came. He began to feel a muddiness in his brain, and realized that the only thing he wanted to do was to get out of there, close the door behind him, and go back home. He could make some more bad coffee for himself and look for a whole new job—a different one. He decided that he didn't like title work all that much anyway, the clients were arrogant and insatiable, and—

Before Matt could complete his thought, Jon's mouth fell open, and a thick yellowish liquid poured out of it, splattering Jon's button-down. It was a vile thing to see, and then Jon was trying to sit up, and Matt was trying not to breathe.

But he had been holding his breath for too long then, and he had to, he had to take a breath—a full one this time. The hand unclamped from his nose.

Matt inhaled. The smell had gotten so much worse, unspeakably worse.

The office began to spin around him, and a strange numbness began to nip at Matt's skin, as if trying to find a way in. He continued to hold the golf club in front of him, pressing it against Jon, trying to keep Jon down.

"Don't get up," Matt said. "Please don't get up, I'll get someone, some help."

Then Jon grabbed the end of the golf club and pulled, and then—everything was getting fuzzy and that smell—Jon gripped Matt's elbow, and his grip was so strong, pulling Matt in.

It wasn't just a numbness now, it was a debilitating, creeping paralysis. In spite of the relative lack of sensation, Matt felt something in his shoulder give way and pop, sending a terrible shooting pain across his collar bone and down the side of his body.

Damn you, Matt thought, damn you and your working out and—

Jon's straining forearm stuck out of a rolled-up shirt sleeve. The skin of the forearm looked dry as paper, like it was crackling. Lines were forming lengthwise up the forearm, as if the skin was conforming to the muscle strands underneath. Then one of the lines of skin tore inward, and Matt could see muscle fibers ripping over paper-thin skin and—

Matt's failing mind tried to think of something, something nasty, about how he hated Jon, but he couldn't quite form the thought with the cotton ball fuzz that was now proliferating in his brain. And what about the forearm, hadn't it just—

He blinked, and his eyes focused on Jon's—Jon's stale black eyes. That was when Matt knew, even through the fuzziness in his brain, that death was only another moment away.

Matt's eyes were closing again as his dulled sense of touch felt the bite. They tried to reopen in shock, in pain, in anything...but they didn't.

Chapter 2

"You ready?" Lars was sniffling and rubbing his nose.

Sven nodded.

"How many you going for?"

"As many as I can get," Sven said. "Just don't drip any of your cold on me."

Lars nodded, then turned away suddenly and sneezed. "I'm fine, must be allergies or something. Let's go, you got it."

Sven took a deep breath.

He squeezed his shoulder blades together and dug them into the bench. He fixed his grip on the bar one final time. Then, with a mighty heave, he lifted the 435 pound weight off the pins. Every muscle in his body tensed, his mind filled with a crystal clear focus, and the bar and its plates became a part of him.

Sven lowered the bar to his chest. He raised it. He repeated the motion, counting in his head. One. Two. Three. Four. Come on Sven. Five. Six. Come on, come on.

The bar began to slow. Sven strained under the bar, squeezing the hell out of it, squeezing it to death. Four more. Come on. Come on. Seven. There you go Sven, come on just three more. Let's go. Eight. There it is, you got it, you got it. He felt his face flush with heat and a numbness begin to creep down his forearms. His breathing came in short, ragged gulps between clenched teeth.

He lowered the bar for the first half of his ninth rep. When he began to lift the bar again, it stalled three inches above his chest. Lars's hands shot out at once, forming a shadow underhand grip under the bar, in case Sven's muscles failed and the bar began to descend. It didn't descend, but continued to hang in place, obstinate. Sven stared at it, willing it up with his mind. Just get it past the sticking point. Come on, let's go. But the bar just hung there, motionless.

Sven dug his heels into the floor, pushed even harder, and found a few more untapped muscle fibers to contract. The bar burst through its sticking point to just short of lockout. Nine. He had conquered nine. That's it. You got it. One more. Just one more.

Sven stared at the bar. I got this, this is all mine. Come on, let's go. He began to lower the bar to his chest for the tenth rep. His arms shook and his chest burned. His head felt like it was about to explode.

It's a good thing Lars is here, Sven thought, a great thing. And just as he thought it, he got the sense that Lars was moving backward, around the bench press and away from it. Sven couldn't look up or around to check for sure, but that couldn't have been happening, not when Sven was in the middle of what would probably be his final rep, and after having nearly failed on the previous one. Even if Lars had suddenly decided to spot Sven from the front, Lars wouldn't be switching in the middle of a rep so deep into a set as painful as this one. Lars was too experienced and careful a spotter to do that.

Then the shaking spread from Sven's arms and took over his whole body. He was losing control of the bar and he knew it. He was pleading with it now, trying to make his hands grip tighter, trying to recruit more muscle fibers by sheer strength of will.

Then Sven lost control.

The bar came down too fast, hit Sven's chest, and knocked the air out of his lungs with a painful whoosh.

But that wasn't supposed to happen, because Sven had a spotter! Lars had been there just a few seconds earlier, standing behind the bench press for situations just like this one. Lars was a veteran spotter, and he had never let anything like this happen before. Where had he gone? Why would he have gone?

Sven lay there, pinned and bewildered, as the bar began to crush him.

Chapter 3

Jane took a sip of her coffee. It didn't taste good. Maybe it was too much milk, or too much sugar, or maybe it was just too much coffee. She had begun to lose her taste for the stuff in the past few weeks.

Jane took one last, crunching bite of her sesame bagel, then tossed it in the trash. She emptied her half-empty coffee mug into the kitchen sink, shaking her head as she watched the vile stuff go down the drain.

Now came the moment she dreaded every morning—leaving for work. Jane liked her job well enough, and the hours weren't terrible, but it all just seemed so pointless. Sometimes she wished a big pile of money would drop out of the sky and land in her front yard. She would collect the heaven-sent loot, count it, quit her job, and do some traveling.

It's alright Jane, she told herself, there must be a few more corners to cut so that I can save up for a real vacation. Sighing, she reached for—

A pained moan came from the living room, interrupting Jane's morning self-pity self-talk.

Jane walked out of the kitchen, through the foyer, and into the living room. Vicky was in the exact position that Jane had left her in before she went to fix breakfast—sprawled out on the couch, under two large, heavy blankets. There were two boxes of tissues on the floor next to the couch, surrounded by used, crumpled up tissues in various stages of sogginess. One of the boxes was empty and lying on its side.

Jane was beginning to worry. Vicky did get sick a lot, but her colds never progressed so rapidly, and they never appeared so suddenly. Vicky had started coughing at five in the morning, and now, only a few hours later, she was completely indisposed, burning up with fever and getting paler by the minute.

Jane picked up the glass of water on the floor next to the couch. It was cloudy and had nasty looking particles floating in it—probably backwash. She took the glass to the kitchen, dumped out the water with its host of floaters, rinsed the glass out, and refilled it at her Brita faucet filter. Jane brought the glass back out to Vicky, and leaned over her prostrate roommate.

"You have to drink this, really."

Vicky moaned and turned away, trying to hide in the brown, woolen blanket around her shoulders.

"I'm serious, you're not gonna get any better if you don't drink your liquids."

Vicky didn't respond.

"Will you take it?"

Vicky still didn't respond.

Jane sighed, frustrated. "I'm going to put some of that fizzy vitamin C in it—you know, the kind that you like—and set it by you. Just promise me you'll drink it."

When Vicky didn't say anything, Jane said, "Okay, if you don't say anything then you promise."

Then Jane waited a moment for an answer, and when no answer came, she said, "There it is, you've promised to drink the water I bring out to you."

She went back into the kitchen, smiling to herself and thinking how clever she had just been. But the smile faded quickly as her thoughts turned to her sick roommate. Vicky looked like she was getting worse, and Jane was beginning to think she should consider staying home to look after her.

Jane set the glass down on the kitchen counter and opened the cupboard. She took a raspberry vitamin C packet out of a box in the cupboard, then closed the cupboard.

She was about to rip the packet open when a noise from outside made her jump. It was a simple scraping sound, probably nothing more than a squirrel scratching at a screen door, but the way it broke through the quiet startled Jane. Then the scraping stopped. Jane went to the window over the sink and looked outside. The street looked serene, empty. Must have been a squirrel.

Jane went back to the counter, ripped the vitamin C packet open, and tipped it into the glass.

Chapter 4

Sven could feel the droplets of sweat running off his forehead and down the sides of his angular face. It was an odd thing to notice, considering the circumstances. He couldn't take a full breath, and the bar was squeezing the remaining air out of his already-burning lungs. He was pushing as hard as he could, but the bar wasn't going back up, and he knew it wouldn't. Sven was only keeping it from crushing the life out of him, and he only had a minute or two at the most until his muscles failed and the bar made him very, very dead.

I need Lars, Sven thought in desperation. Where the hell is he?

With the bar's weight on him, Sven could only turn his head an inch or two in any direction, and there was a sharp, stabbing pain in the left side of his neck when he tried. Where was Lars? Why would he have walked away in the middle of the set?

Lars had been acting a little strange that day, sure, but he had just lost out to his arch-nemesis in the Virginia Beach Bodybuilding Pose-Off, so Sven hadn't thought much of it. But leaving Sven in the bench like that? That was more than strange.

Trying to avoid the stabbing pain in his neck, Sven took in his surroundings by moving only his eyes. He turned his eyes up, to the left, and to the right.

Lars was supposed to be there, spotting! That was his function when Sven was benching, and one of the reasons the duo worked out together, for exactly this situation.

Spinning his eyeballs around had gained Sven nothing. Lars was nowhere in sight. Sven turned his eyes up again, looking behind the bench now. That was where Lars was supposed to be, doing his spotting duty.

A bead of sweat rolled off Sven's forehead and into his right eye. He flinched at the sting, involuntarily relaxing his grip on the bar. The bar took the opportunity to sag further into his body, evoking a ragged, spluttering cough from the compressed strongman.

He managed a low rasp. "Lars..."

There was no answer.

"Lars..." He rasped again, a little louder this time.

Still no answer.

Each time Sven had called for Lars some air was let loose from Sven's lungs, and the bar had sunk lower, deeper into Sven's chest. His strength was failing, and his ragged gulps of air weren't finding their way home. He was suffocating.

Dead bench-pressers flashed in Sven's mind—the ones who died benching alone in their basements without spotters.

But that's not me, Sven told himself. I have a spotter! That's not my story. Where is Lars? Sven didn't want to be remembered that way, as an idiot bodybuilder that crushed himself in his basement, all the people judging and offering their opinions on his stupidity. It was better not to be remembered at all.

Sven's burning face pulsed, like his heart was beating out of his face, instead of out of his chest, as the expression properly went. Sven pleaded with the bar, pushing against it with all of his strength, but it went nowhere.

Then, as Sven continued to push, the bar began to move upwards. But it was only for a moment, and the bar immediately settled on Sven's chest again.

He would not be racking the bar. There were only two options left—roll, or tilt.

If Sven could roll the bar down his body, he would avoid suffocation. Now accepting that he was alone and had to save himself, Sven pushed his chest into the bar as hard as he could. He loosened his grip on the bar and tried to roll it forward. It didn't budge. Sven curled his back and tried to roll the bar again. This time, the bar rolled forward an inch, shooting pain through Sven's body as it shifted. His chest burned, and it felt as if his ribs were about to break.

The bar was stopped, stuck after its too-short journey. Sven couldn't roll it any farther. The weight was too heavy. If there were 200 fewer pounds on the bar, Sven could have done it with ease, if only...damn you Lars!

Stars entered Sven's field of vision, popping and crackling about as a searing pain began to ripple up and down his body. He would have to try to tilt the bar off. That was it. The last option.

Chapter 5

Milt sat comfortably at his custom-built battle station. He had designed it himself, so that he could sit behind it for hours at a time without having to get up. There was a time when Milt would have used the word bespoke to refer to the battle station of which he was so proud, until that rapper had ruined the word in that song...that song about dandy American lads prancing about. It made Milt shudder to think of it.

There were four bags of miniature Snickers candy bars on the desk next to his oversized monitor. A cooler filled with Coca-Cola bottles sat next to Milt's furry-slipper-clad feet. They were the good kind of bottles, the old-fashioned, glass kind. Plastic bottles were not suitable for a warrior of Milt's caliber. Those were for crass, stupid people—the losers. The only problem with the glass bottles was that they required a bottle opener, so Milt had three scattered about his desk. One of the bottle openers—the one he had used most recently—lay next to the unceremoniously torn Snickers bags.

The bottle opener's most recent victim stood balanced atop Milt's belly, which, over the years, had formed to become the most perfect of cup holders. The top of his belly became a stable, flat surface when he positioned himself in his battle station. Sometimes he had two Coca-Cola bottles set on top of his belly at the same time, and it could easily hold more. Right now, there was just the one bottle.

The front of Milt's comic book and video game store was curtained and had no displays, so that most passersby wouldn't dare to walk into the uncertain lair to disturb whatever inhabited it. For those that were adventurous enough to venture in, a huge neon sign greeted them as soon as they walked their unintelligent bodies through the door.

The sign read:

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, NO MATTER HOW EXTENUATING YOU MAY INTERPRET SAID CIRCUMSTANCES TO BE, DISTURB THE OWNER AT HIS DESK—IN THE EVENT THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE ON YOUR PERSON THE EXACT CHANGE WITH WHICH TO PAY FOR THE ITEM YOU DESIRE, IT IS REQUESTED THAT YOU KINDLY AND HASTILY VACATE THE PREMISES.

There was a place at the counter where customers could drop off their money to pay for an item. Milt despised customers, but he was exceedingly proud of his store, so he submitted himself to the compromise of allowing the common people entry so that they may see—and covet—his collection, while prohibiting them from accosting him with their stupidity, which he believed to be contagious and transmittable through conversation.

Should a customer ignore the sign and attempt to confront Milt directly, Milt had two cans of pepper spray with which to remedy the situation. In the event of a confrontation, he could give the meddling customer a quick spray and get back to business without losing too much time dealing with the intruder. He had sprayed customers before, and it always got them to leave. Once, a sprayed customer had had the nerve to sue Milt for assault, or battery, or some such nonsense. The idiot judge had made Milt pay a fine, and that made Milt question whether he should keep his store open at all, but keep it open he did, figuring that all the other sprayings he had committed solved the problem without further incident of lawsuit, therefore future sprayings should, in all likelihood, not result in another dim-witted, though apparently legal, tongue-lashing.

Should nature call when Milt was engaged at his battle station, Milt had a way of dealing with that too. He had a way of dealing with everything, of improvising, innovating, and coming up with ingenious solutions to all kinds of problems. At his feet, in its own cooler, was an empty, liter bottle of Coca-Cola, with its top cut off. It made for the perfect urinary receptacle, and the ice in the cooler helped reduce the smell. There was also some raspberry potpourri in the cooler, and that helped the smell too. Notwithstanding all of these precautions, customers did sometimes ask about the smell. "Do you smell that?" the ninnies would ask. "Do you smell pee?" Milt always sprayed the urine-questioners, and got back to business. It was true that the store didn't always smell like a magical fairy tale, but that was war, and Milt, when he was engaged at his battle station, was at war.

Milt was fully engaged at his battle station now. The war was on, and he was so close.

Milt smiled, picked up the half-full Coca-Cola bottle on his belly and gulped down its contents greedily. Then, without taking his eyes off the screen, he felt around on his desk until his pudgy hand found one of the Snickers bags. He smiled again as he reached into it, remembering how smart he always was to tear the bags open before his grand work began. His well-cushioned palm and fingers closed loosely around two miniature Snickers candy bars. Milt pulled the bars out of the bag, and in a single, deft motion of his fingers, he popped the bars out of their wrappers, launching them on a brief flight through the air and into his mouth.

He gave the bars a sloppy chew. Some of his chocolate and caramel-infused saliva dribbled out over his bottom lip, collecting at the left corner of his mouth, like it always did. It dripped now and then, staining the shirt he was now wearing at the left nipple. Each of Milt's plain, white XXXL shirts was stained brown in the same place, at the left nipple. Milt knew this gave him character. The dribbling gave his mouth character and the staining gave his shirts character. Dried Snickers splotches of yesteryear decorated most of Milt's clothing, his store, and his living space, underneath the store.

The fragrance of the Snickers splotches, mixed with the fragrance of flat Coca-Cola, urine, and raspberry potpourri gave the place a distinctive air—it was the way the lair of a deadly warrior would smell. Milt was this deadly warrior, and he relished all that came with it. With great power, Milt knew, came great responsibility, and of course there were what some of the unenlightened would call drawbacks, but Milt knew better. Milt refocused his strained eyes, fumbled around for a fresh bottle of carbonated refreshment, opened it, and stood it up in its rightful spot on his belly.

Then he returned to clicking his mouse in furious fits, reaching up every now and again to feel for pimples on his scalp.

Milt was dimly aware of someone wandering around the back of the store—a stupid customer, probably. But as long as whoever it was didn't try to bother Milt by asking questions or trying to purchase something without the exact change to pay for it, Milt could ignore the wanderer.

Chapter 6

Sven's mind was frantic, and filling with thoughts of death. He tried to stay focused, but the tears that rolled from his eyes weren't just tears of physical pain. They were tears of anguish. He didn't want to die, and he was horrified that this was it—the end.

Sven closed his eyes and pushed his chest into the bar again. The bar had sunk lower, and it was in an even worse position. Though every movement hurt like hell, he kept pushing. He tightened the grip of his right hand, then slid his left hand around the bar, turning the grip to face him. Now his right hand was facing away from him and his left hand was facing toward him.

He pushed with his right hand and pulled with his left.

The bar began to tilt down to Sven's left, the left side of his chest taking more of the weight. The pain became worse, more focused. The bar tilted some more, and, at last, the plates began to shift. Sven told himself not to get ahead of himself. He wasn't out of harm's way yet, and he couldn't let himself get overexcited at the prospect of survival. There was still a lot of hard physical work to be done to get out from under the bar, and he knew he wouldn't be able to do it if he let his mind think the struggle was over, or even halfway through. Mental pacing and preparedness were key.

Sven was able to take a shallow, uncomfortable breath now that some of the weight was off his right side. He knew that if he could shake a few plates off the left side of the bar, he could get out from under it. He kept pulling and pushing, imagining that as he did so, he distanced himself from becoming the subject of a humiliating headline: "Greased-Up Bodybuilder Lifts Too Much, Crushed In Own Basement."

There were six plates on each side of the bar. Four of the plates were forty-five pounds, one was ten pounds, and one was five pounds. The heaviest were on the inside, and the smallest were on the outside. The two outer plates on the left side—the ten and the five—were the first to shift. They clanked to the edge of the bar and fell off. The sound of metal on metal bolstered Sven, but the four forty-five pound plates had only moved a few inches toward the left edge of the bar. Sven kept the bar on its tilt and wiggled it this way and that, moving it only a few inches in any direction, though his effort was enormous.

After one slow minute, one of the forty-five pound plates fell off. It clanked against the smaller plates. Sven didn't notice. All of his focus was on shaking the next plate off.

Seconds later, after the second forty-five pound plate fell, the remaining weight on the right side of the bar finished the job. The right side of the bar was now 105 pounds heavier than the left, and Sven supported the bar as it was pulled around his torso to the right. The plates on the right side came off in a jumble, and Sven pushed the bar, with the two plates still on its left side, off him with a weak, grating roar.

He rolled off the bench to his right, almost knocking his head against the plates. Now that the bar was off his chest, the pain was much worse. His left side felt destroyed. The skin and muscle burned where the bar had been, and there was a dull ache deep inside his ribcage. That wasn't counting all the muscles that had been pulled and strained in the struggle. But that was alright, because Sven had made it. The injuries would heal. He was going to live.

Sven's vision was blurry, his ears were ringing, and he was ready to throw up. He put his face in his shaking, battered hands, then pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

And that is why, he told himself, you never, ever, use clips when you bench. If he had, he would be dead. He never used clips at the gym, and there were none in his basement.

Benching doesn't kill people, Sven thought, clips kill people. He almost laughed hysterically, but anticipated the pain and stopped himself.

Crouched next to the bench, Sven was breathing in shallow gasps. He still couldn't breathe all the way in, and he considered sitting up to help the air get in—and to remedy his painfully dry throat—but it was too soon to be straightening up. He still needed a minute or two to recover, to appreciate the fact that he was alive.

Suddenly, a sound came from the back room of the basement, like a box falling. Sven's ears perked up. Maybe that's where Lars is, Sven thought, messing around with the supplies in there. But why would he be doing that? Growing angrier, Sven listened for more sounds, but none came. If he hadn't been in so much pain, he would have called out to try to find out what was going on in the back room.

After a few minutes, Sven's heartbeat had settled to a level just below panic, and he lifted his head out of his hands. He sat up on his knees, straightening up painfully, and looked down at his trembling body to assess the damage.

There was a deep red line where the bar had rested on his chest. The left side of his chest was turning purple already. Sven poked at it. It wasn't tender yet. He got up to his feet. More pain. The basement spun. He couldn't make the spinning stop, so he sat down again. After a few more minutes of ragged breathing, he got up.

The room had stilled enough for him to walk. He walked to the door to his storage room. It was more of a kitchen than a storage room. There was a sink, a refrigerator, two coolers, and shelves filled with non-perishable food supplies.

It was good to have a kitchen in the basement so that Sven could make himself a snack after working out. It was also good to have it there because Sven's basement doubled as a home theater. When friends were over, the storage room was the beer locker.

He walked with a hunch in his back, not due to a lack of back training, but because it hurt too much to straighten out all the way. It hurt to breathe. Sven reached for the door handle and saw the door was slightly ajar.

"Lars," Sven called. "Where the hell are you? I almost died in here."

There was no answer.

Sven pushed the door all the way open and walked into the storage room.

"Lars?" On impulse, Sven spun around to look back into the basement's main room. It was still empty.

"Lars?" he called again, this time it was a whisper.

Sven looked back into the storage room. The refrigerator was open. Not all the way, but enough that Sven could see the light peeking out of it.

So, Sven thought, Lars tries to kill me and jacks up my electric bill. Great. Where is that jerk?

Sven walked to the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of water and drank all of it. Water had never tasted so good. He closed the refrigerator, turning the storage room dark. He set the empty water bottle down on the counter, and his hand brushed up against something.

A sound came from deeper in the storage room where he kept the cat litter for Ivan. Ivan liked to play around in the storage room.

He reached for the light switch and flicked on the lights. A half-eaten sandwich sat on the counter next to the refrigerator. Sven picked it up with his thumb and forefinger. He sniffed it.

Nasty, Sven thought, I don't know how Lars can eat that crap.

He peeked around the refrigerator and in and around the shelves. No Lars there. No Ivan either.

Then he got some ice out of the freezer for his chest and some Burt's Bees' muscle balm off a shelf. He flicked off the lights, walked out of the storage room, and closed the door.

The sandwich was left alone, on the counter, in the dark.

Chapter 7

Milt grinned, and a half-chewed Snickers peanut toppled out of a fold behind his tongue, landing in the open Coca-Cola bottle sitting on his belly with a tiny plop. Milt nodded in approval when he heard the peanut's magnificent, sugary splash. He loved it when his two favorite energy-givers gathered together.

After taking notice of the plop, Milt blocked out his surroundings. He turned his peripheral vision blank. He focused all of his brain power on the screen. There was nothing but the battle for him now.

The Twelve-Gemmed Hammer of Azrael was almost in his grasp. Milt was slobbering now, but he didn't notice that either.

For World of Warcraft artifact collectors, the Twelve-Gemmed Hammer of Azrael was worth a lot of money. There was only one Twelve-Gemmed Hammer of Azrael in the whole World of Warcraft, and Milt was sure that if he got it, he could get at least $15,000.00 for it on eBay. It would be his greatest conquest yet. He had only to destroy the idiot dwarf that called himself Bane Brisgold the Dragon Slayer, and the almighty hammer would be his.

Bane Brisgold the Dragon Slayer was a stupid name for a dwarf. How many dwarves slew dragons? Milt didn't know any. Milt had a real warrior name. He was Miltimore the Sword-Wielder, an expert fighter and sword handler.

Milt had spent almost the entire month tracking Bane and the hammer, and now he had both of them ensnared in the next game chamber on his screen. All that was left to do was to go into that chamber, annihilate Bane, and seize the hammer.

It wasn't a matter of money anymore. Milt didn't need any money. He had been a well-compensated computer game developer in his previous life, and along with his savings from that job, he had stashed away close to a hundred thousand dollars from selling World of Warcraft artifacts on eBay. He had enough savings now that he didn't have to worry about money or actually selling anything from his store. That was especially true because Milt was smart enough to live in the basement beneath his store, so he didn't waste money on a house, above ground apartment, or anything stupid like that.

Milt was going to capture the hammer not for the money that it could bring him at auction, but for the glory of it. Milt was the best World of Warcraft player in the world—no, Milt was the best World of Warcraft player that had ever graced the planet with his wisdom. He was going to get hold of the hammer, play with it for a while, sell it, then win it back, and repeat the praiseworthy cycle.

A viscous slobber droplet fell from Milt's lower lip and landed on top of his protruding belly, next to his Coca-Cola bottle. Because the droplet didn't land at the regular droplet destination that was Milt's left nipple, Milt noticed, and realized that it was time for one last refueling before he entered the next chamber. Refueling before a battle was of the utmost importance, and Milt made sure that his brain was infused with all the sugar and fat it needed to function. That was why it was so unreservedly imperative to eat at regular intervals. Milt was no novice.

Milt felt around on his desk for two more miniature Snickers bars, grabbed them, and popped them out of their wrappers and into his mouth. He grinned as he bit into their chewy insides, remarking at his own incredible skill with the miniature candy bars. After his conquest came to fruition, he would reward himself with several Snickers ice cream bars.

He made himself stop thinking about that, there would be time for that later, and now was the time to be focused. Milt's grin widened as he thought about the hammer, but it could only widen so far, because the thick, sticky caramel, nougat, peanut, and chocolate paste in his mouth kept his grin from reaching its full magnificence.

He picked the Coca-Cola bottle up off his belly and gulped down the rest of its contents. That helped to clear his mouth of the goo. As he drank, the peanut that had gotten into the fizzy drink made its way through the mess in his mouth and lodged, most uncomfortably, in his throat.

Milt gagged and coughed and sprayed chewed Snickers bar fluid and Coca-Cola in a wide arc that covered all of his battle station. He sprayed and spun from left to right and back again in his chair until the evil peanut shot out of his mouth and plinked into his monitor. It didn't bounce off, but stuck by virtue of some caramel and chocolate on it. Milt watched, red-faced and still gagging a little, as the peanut began to slide its way down his screen, leaving a trail of candy bar goo behind it.

"You evil-doing ruffian!" Milt yelled at the peanut. "You, no doubt, are in league with that damned hooligan Bane the dragon-loving dwarf. I know what to do with treacherous scum such as you."

Milt waggled a pudgy finger at the peanut, wobbled some of his bulk in his chair to bend forward an inch or two, picked the peanut from the screen, and popped it into his mouth.

"Now I've got you where I want you," Milt said with the peanut lodged in a fold in his left cheek. "Do you have any last words?"

The peanut didn't respond.

"I thought not," Milt said, and crunched the peanut in a rage-filled chew. Then he opened another bottle of Coca-Cola and washed down the peanut particles with the delicious beverage. The Coca-Cola took care of the scratchy feeling in the back of his throat. The debacle staged by the treacherous peanut was over.

Milt gave his desk a quick survey to assess the damage to his battle station. There were fresh masticated candy bar and Coca-Cola spots all over. Some of the spots were little bubbling puddles with small bits of caramel and peanut scattered in them. Milt nodded. This was how a real battle station should look, one that was well-used and inhabited by a true warrior.

He turned back to the screen, and was relieved to see that Bane and the hammer were still in his ingenious trap. Now it was time to poke at his moronic dwarf quarry.

Milt focused hard on the screen as he probed around inside the folds of his right cheek with his tongue. He found a chunk of nougat, flipped it out of its fold with his tongue, and began to suck on it.

Then it all began to go wrong.

Chapter 8

Back in the basement's main room, Sven thought that something seemed off. Everything looked normal, but there was a strange, unnerving smell in the air. Sven couldn't place it, suddenly feeling confused at his own surroundings. Carrying the ice and muscle balm, he turned his back on the storage room and went upstairs. The air cleared, and the confusion left Sven's mind, leaving no trace that it had been there.

Sven lived in a house on Lewis Mountain Road, in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was the last house on the block right next to the University of Virginia Alumni Hall. The house had four bedrooms, not counting the basement. The floors were wood. There were four parking spots, not counting the front and back yards. It was a good old house, and like all good old houses, it had some character. It made lots of funny creaking noises, and it wasn't good at keeping the cold air out in the winter...or at keeping the hot air out in the summer. The lack of weatherproofing wasn't a problem, because the winters in Charlottesville were too mild to notice, and Sven tolerated the heat well.

Sven opened the door at the top of the basement stairs and strode into his living room. It was largely Spartan, but had all the basic living room stuff—a couch, a reclining chair, a bean bag, a TV, and a coffee table at the center of it all, cleverly positioned for the placement of food and drink items.

"Lars?"

There was no answer.

Sven sat for a moment while he rubbed in some muscle balm. Then, putting the ice pack to his chest, he walked around into the dining room. It was empty save for the seldom-used dining room table and the equally seldom-used chairs around it. He walked into the kitchen—no one there either. At least the kitchen refrigerator was closed, unlike the one in the basement had been. Where could Lars be?

Sven went outside and stood on the porch. The front yard was empty. Sven's SUV was parked in its spot. Lars's car was behind it. Sven walked into the driveway, and peered into Lars's car. Empty.

Sven walked around to the back of the house. There was no one in the back yard either. Sven walked back to the front of the house and stepped out into the street. He looked toward the University of Virginia grounds and up the street the other way. There were no cars out. That was normal. It was a quiet street.

Then he heard a scream—probably someone playing tennis or basketball across the street. As Sven surveyed the rest of his block, he saw some fast movement in his peripheral vision. He turned back toward the University of Virginia and caught the tail-end of a group of runners—no, sprinters—going north up Emmet Street. Sven thought it was a little strange that they weren't dressed for sprinting. They were just wearing ordinary clothes and a few had backpacks. Maybe it was a student sprint.

Sven shrugged, turned back to the house and went inside. As he was closing the door behind him, he heard another loud tennis scream-grunt. Whoever it was coming from really took her tennis seriously, it was blood-curdling in its terror. Must be a tough set, Sven thought.

Inside, Ivan Drago padded up to Sven and greeted him with a meow. Sven had adopted the Russian Blue from a rescue shelter three years earlier, and according to Sven's realty, the two of them were the longest-renting tenants in the house so far—apparently three and a half years was a record for the place.

Ivan hadn't been fond of people at first, and used to run away from everyone but Sven. Ivan was especially afraid of long, cylindrical objects like brooms and rolled up magazines, and when Sven noticed this, he tried to do the sweeping and bug-swatting out of Ivan's sight. Over time, Ivan had grown more comfortable with strangers and even with cylindrical objects, and had begun to act like a normal, contented housecat, but Sven still made an effort to hide the broom from Ivan. It had become routine.

Ivan meowed again, and Sven remembered something one of his college professors used to say: "When a cat meows at you, it's not to say hello. It's because he wants something."

That wasn't true, and as a cat owner, Sven knew it. Cats did meow to say hello. Ivan did it all the time. Ivan meowed for lots of other reasons too. He meowed when he wanted to go outside, and he meowed when he wanted to come back in. Ivan also meowed when he was pleased, and he meowed when he was displeased.

But Ivan was meowing now because he was hungry. Sven could tell because Ivan was meowing and trying to lead Sven into the kitchen. Sven obliged and walked into the kitchen where Ivan's bowl sat on the floor. The bowl was empty.

"Did you eat all your food already?" Sven asked. "I gave you your full ration just an hour ago. How'd you eat all of that so fast?"

Ivan stretched, brushed up against Sven's legs, meowed again, and then turned his green eyes up at Sven.

"You really like that liver huh?" Sven saw some of Ivan's wet food on the floor around the bowl. That wasn't like Ivan.

"Now here you go making a mess."

Ivan meowed.

"It's okay. I'll get you some more." Sven petted Ivan, and felt a searing pain shoot through his chest and neck. He flinched, and slowly straightened up again. He was trying to remember to limit his range of motion, so that he didn't end up any worse than he already was. Stupid Lars, Sven thought, I'm gonna have to ice myself and rest all week. What a waste of time.

That reminded him. Sven glanced at his watch and remembered he had a training session at eight that morning. It was already half past seven and the gym was a fifteen minute drive away. The session was with one of his most important clients—important because the client always paid on time—and Sven didn't want to ruin a good thing. He would feed Ivan and get on his way, injured or not. Then, Sven told himself, when I get back later today, I'm gonna have some serious words with Lars.

Sven jogged painfully to the cupboard for some of the canned wet food that Ivan enjoyed so much. He didn't mind giving Ivan some more food—the cat wasn't on a diet, after all. Ivan was very lean from running about the neighborhood, and he could be trusted to eat until he was full and then stop.

"I spoil you too much," Sven said to Ivan, who was padding around Sven and meowing. Sven opened the cupboard. There were no cans of cat food there. Sven thought he remembered the cat food being well-stocked, but maybe he was thinking of the shelves in the storage room. He wasn't sure.

Looking down, Sven was surprised to see a smear of a cat-food-like substance on the counter beneath the cupboard.

"Looks like I'm making a mess too. I'll get you a can from downstairs. Come on."

Ivan meowed.

Sven glanced at his watch again, feeling the stress start to build up. Lars was probably chatting up that girl at Mem Gym. What a good-for-nothing workout partner. She didn't like Lars anyway, she liked Sven. Sven had meant to take her out or something, but he never knew what to do with her besides work out. I should've taken her to that polo match at King Family, Sven thought. Even better, I should've had her spot me on the bench today.

Sven started down the stairs into the basement. Feeling that he was being watched, he stopped midway down and looked over his shoulder. Ivan was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at him.

"Come on, Ivan. You come down with me."

Ivan wouldn't move.

"You want me to do your bidding while you chill out up there?"

Ivan didn't answer, but flicked his tail along the ground.

Sven shrugged and walked the rest of the way down the stairs. The pain in his chest, side, and arms was getting worse. His back was tight in a way that suggested it would be in a lot of pain later. He must have tweaked it in his struggle against the bar. He hoped that nothing was herniated. Damn that Lars.

Sven walked across the basement and opened the door to the storage room. When he let go of the handle, there was something cold and greasy in his hand. Cat food. There was more on the doorknob.

Then Sven looked up and a chill passed through him. He had found Lars.

Chapter 9

The vitamin C powder fizzed and bubbled as Jane poured it into the glass. She liked the sound. It was satisfying.

Jane got a spoon out of a drawer and gave the drink a bit of a mix. She took a sip of the vitamin C water. It was delicious.

Jane brought the water out to Vicky and stood over her.

"Okay," Jane said. "You've gotta drink this. It's gonna make you better, and then I really have to go to work, okay?"

Vicky didn't respond.

Jane stood there, glass in hand, watching Vicky lie there on the couch. Vicky was turned away, her face against the couch's backrest, gulping air in ragged gasps.

"Honey," Jane said, "you have to drink something."

Jane put her hand on Vicky's shoulder. It felt as cold as ice. She pulled. Vicky didn't budge.

Jane pulled harder on Vicky's shoulder. "Come on, turn over."

Vicky rolled over and looked up.

Jane shrieked and jumped backward, forgetting to keep her fingers tight on the glass.

The glass fell to the floor and shattered. The vitamin C water made a purplish puddle, punctuated by small shards of glass scattered in and around it.

The puddle fizzed.

Chapter 10

Lars was kneeling on the cement floor of the storage room. He was in the back under shelves of protein powder and meal replacement bars. Lars had his back to Sven, and was bent over something on the floor in front of him. He was doing something to it or with it. To Sven, it looked like Lars was moving something back and forth on the floor. Sven heard an unmistakable sound—squishy chewing. Here was Lars, sitting in a dark corner and sloshing something about in his mouth, having left to sit there in the middle of his spotting duties? It made no sense.

Squish, squosh, squoosh. Squish, squosh, squish. Squish, squosh, squeesh.

There was a smell too, a strange, cloying odor. Sven began to feel a numbness inching up from his extremities, and a dizziness—

He shook it off. "Lars? What the hell are you doing over there? I was this close to being crushed in the—"

Lars turned, and the ice pack fell from Sven's hand.

Sven stared at Lars in disbelieving shock. His workout partner's skin was grey. His eyes were a dull black, and blood oozed from between his lips. A chunk of what could only be cat food tumbled out of his mouth and landed on the leg of his black man-tard. Small bits of Ivan's wet food were strewn all over Lars, all over his skin and all over the man-tard. Cat food was all over Lars's mouth—cat food mixed with blood.

Sven stepped backward, uncertain of the sight before him and feeling more lightheaded with every second.

Had Lars mixed weight gainer shakes again? But that hadn't been this bad. Lars looked like he needed medical help. He looked extremely ill, maybe even on the verge of death.

"What happened? Are you okay?" Sven asked as he made himself reverse course and walk closer to Lars. Lars stared, black eyes unblinking.

The cat food-coated muscle man said nothing.

"Lars? Say something." Sven walked close enough to see what was on the floor. Lars was kneeling before six cans of Ivan's wet food.

There was cat food and blood all over the floor. There was cat food and blood all over Lars's fingers, mouth, and lips. That's where it was coming from—Lars's fingers and mouth. Sven flinched when he saw that many of Lars's fingernails were gone. Sven didn't understand what he was seeing.

"Did you open those with your fingers and teeth? Dude we have to get you a doctor, you're bleeding all over the place."

Lars said nothing. His black eyes were fixed on Sven. Then Lars opened his mouth. Bloody cat food cakes rolled out. He must have cut himself on the cans, Sven thought, he must be really sick, I have to get him to a—

Lars groaned. It was a low groan, filled with what sounded to Sven like anger.

"Come on let's get you up," Sven said, but he didn't walk any closer to Lars to help him. Something was keeping Sven back—Lars seemed wrong. Sven stood a few feet away from Lars. Then Sven made himself take a step forward. He had to help his friend. But his eyes, and his skin, what's wrong with him?

Sven took another step forward, deeper into the wooziness that was now gripping his body. Lars kept up his mute, black-eyed stare. Sven put out his hand to help his friend. Looking at his own hand, he saw that it was trembling, but he couldn't really feel it, it was as if the sensation in his hands and feet had been dampened.

"Come on," Sven said, thinking that he might need a doctor himself if he kept feeling like this. Lars groaned again, then he raised his right hand and grabbed Sven's arm just above the wrist.

"Alright," Sven said, resenting the fact that Lars had thought it necessary to grab him that hard. Sven pulled. Lars's body began to rise, but then sank back down. Lars was pulling hard on Sven's hand, but he wasn't trying to get up. Sven made a move to get in front of Lars for some more leverage, but he couldn't do it. Lars was pulling on Sven's wrist too hard.

"Let go, man. I can't get you up if you don't help me."

But Lars wouldn't let go. He pulled on Sven's wrist with more force, and Sven had to grab hold of a shelf support to keep himself from falling down on top of Lars.

Sven felt like his wrist was caught in a vise. He tried to wrench his hand free but Lars wouldn't let up. Then Lars's gaze seemed to shift from Sven's face to Sven's forearm. Lars's mouth opened wide—too wide—and he began to pull Sven's forearm into his gaping mouth. Black saliva and bits of bloody cat food dripped from Lars's mouth. The droplets landed on the floor in front of Lars and on the short legs of his man-tard.

Thoughts of rabid dogs flashed in Sven's now unsteady mind. Sven pulled harder. He had to get free. Lars might have some kind of disease, and even if he didn't, there was no sense in getting bitten. Sven pulled on the shelf support with his free hand. An enormous case of meal replacement bars tottered closer to the edge. Sven pulled again, harder this time. And then he pulled again.

Lars wasn't letting up, but the case of meal replacement bars was getting closer to the edge. Sven's muscles were beginning to fail, and it seemed like Lars could go on forever. The pain in Sven's upper body from his near-death bench press encounter was agonizing.

Then Lars's bloody, cat-food spattered teeth were less than an inch away from Sven's forearm.

Sven braced himself for the bite.

Just then, the case of meal replacement bars fell from the shelf. It struck Lars on the side of the head. Lars's death grip loosened and he slumped over onto his left side. Still pulling when Lars loosened his grip, Sven fell backward, sitting down on top of the cold ice pack.

Some of the feeling began to return to his extremities, the room stopped lurching. Sven's heart raced. He was free.

Chapter 11

Milt heard a commotion in the back of the store. It sounded like someone falling, and was followed by a plainly brainless moan. The back part of the store was full of ancient DVDs and even more ancient video games—a section of primordial classics. There was even a Commodore 64 computer back there to set the mood. Milt wasn't sure if anyone had ever bought anything from that section, and he wouldn't be surprised if not one item had ever moved from it. The common people had no taste, and couldn't appreciate the rarity and wonder of the wares in the back of the store. The newer, more plebeian stuff was in the middle of the store, toward the front, and it moved better.

"Please refrain from physical outbursts," Milt shouted without turning away from his screen. "Pretend that you are cultured. This is a sophisticated establishment. Please make an effort to recall your etiquette training, though I doubt you have had any."

Milt belched some caramel and listened for a retort from the ninny in the back, who, Milt suspected, likely did not know what etiquette training was. He regretted not closing the store for this battle—so much pride hung in the balance. The fool in the back would no doubt only distract Milt, and leave without purchasing anything.

No response came from the disturbance-causer, probably because he was stumped by Milt's clever words.

Milt blinked and retrained his eyes on the screen, choosing to forget the distraction for the present moment.

The time had come. Milt entered the chamber where the naive dwarf Bane waited, trembling in his magical video game boots.

"I have come for the Twelve-Gemmed Hammer of Azrael," Milt clattered into his keyboard. "If you surrender it to me without incident, I shall consider sparing your pathetic life. I assume, of course, that you know who I am, as I am sure my reputation precedes me, and so I suggest that you do not attempt anything foolish."

Milt had no intention of sparing Bane's life, but it was nice to toy with his victims a little before dispatching them to the netherworld.

"Yes, I know who you are," Bane's character typed back. "But you will never defeat me, for I have the hammer, and you are naught but a thieving, dishonorable scoundrel."

A pleasant outrage seeped into Milt. He was surprised by the dwarf's audacity, but Milt loved verbal jousting, and he would best the dwarf in banter before dispatching him to the gates of hell.

Milt was about to type a taunting response to the knave's foolish challenge when there came another noise from the back of the store—a loud rattle this time—followed by a crash of breaking glass and the scraping of plastic.

Milt couldn't spare the time to get up and look back there. Instead, he yelled, "Stop that racket this instant or I will be forced to retaliate. You are on notice that I expect you to compensate me for all of the damage that you have no doubt inflicted on that most precious part of my store. The items in it are truly irreplaceable and invaluable. You stay right where you are and ready your cash reserves."

Milt was angry now, and had to have two more miniature Snickers bars to refocus his energies on the task at hand.

Milt began to type a belittling response to Bane, "I know you are but what am—" when he noticed that Bane was no longer in the room with him. What? But how could that be? Did that coward sign off and think that he could escape that way?

Then Milt noticed that it was his own internet connection that had gone dead. But that was impossible!

Milt huffed and puffed and knew that it wasn't impossible, for his internet provider was Time Warner, and of all the dastardly evil-doers that made up the internet provider oligarchy, Time Warner had no challenger as the worst.

Seething and gurgling nougat, Milt dialed Time Warner's customer support, which he had on speed dial on his phone, and was preparing a barrage of insults when the whole middle aisle of the store was tipped over and came to a clattering, video game case-breaking crash. That put Milt at a point of infuriation that he wasn't sure he had ever experienced before.

Milt put the phone down—he wasn't getting a dial tone for some reason—put his hands on his desk and used them to spin his great bulk in his chair to face the long open room of the store.

Then he saw the man—was it a man?—the thing, that had caused the ruckus.

Hyperventilating, Milt forgot about Bane, and began to fish his inhaler out of his pants with his left hand while fumbling for another Snickers bar with his right.

The empty Coca-Cola bottle that rested on Milt's stomach toppled as he panicked. It made a dull clunk on the carpeted floor beneath him, and did not break.

Chapter 12

Ivan was sniffing around the kitchen, wagging his tail and looking for a treat. He liked treats. He liked fish treats most of all. Sven usually fed him by now. Why hadn't Sven fed him yet? Maybe it had to do with the bad smell. The bad smell was bad. Some bad smells said stand and fight. But this bad smell said run and hide. It was a very bad smell. Ivan didn't like bad smells. Couldn't Sven smell it? It was getting stronger, and Ivan was finding it hard to focus on his search for fish treats. Ivan wasn't even sure he still wanted a fish treat with that smell lingering in the air. Ivan hoped Sven would finish playing with his clanking toys and come up to give Ivan a treat. Was Sven playing with his clanking toys? He had been earlier, but Ivan couldn't hear any clanking now. Sven liked to clank. He was probably clanking the toys. Ivan shook his head, and decided that if Sven didn't come to feed him soon, Ivan would go downstairs and give Sven a good, hard bite.

Chapter 13

Lars lay in a heap on the floor. Sven watched him, not knowing what to expect. A few moments passed. Lars groaned. It was a soft groan this time.

"Lars?" Sven said. His voice was a squeak, and he expected no answer.

There was none.

Lars gathered himself up on his hands and knees. Then he began to crawl toward Sven. Lars's mouth was closed again. He made no noise as he crawled. Much of the blood around his mouth and fingers had dried. Lars had grown even paler, making the dried blood stand out more. There was a grey tinge to him now. It wasn't a bad weight gainer that had done this to Lars. No, it was definitely no weight gainer.

Sven scrambled to his feet and took a step backward. Then he took another, and another. Lars was still crawling toward him. Sven took another step backward and bumped into the edge of the counter by the door. He felt for the doorway, and without taking his eyes off Lars for a second, Sven backed out of the storage room and closed the door.

He heard another groan through the closed door. He didn't know what to do. He stood outside the door, unable to think. Sven's mind wasn't carrying its weight, but was flopping around like a fish on mud.

The door to the storage room didn't have a lock.

Upstairs, Ivan hissed.

Chapter 14

"Vicky?" Jane asked. Jane couldn't believe what she was seeing right now. Vicky's head looked like a popped popcorn kernel—a grey popped popcorn kernel. There was no color in her face, and her head bulged in places it shouldn't bulge in, and sagged in placed it shouldn't sag in.

"Are you alright? Hey, I'm gonna get you to the hospital, okay? Vicky?"

Vicky rolled off the couch and crashed to the floor, her arms at her sides and her legs together like a grey popped popcorn kernel soldier.

Jane bumped into the TV stand behind her and realized that she had been backing up all the while. She reached out with a hand to steady the TV and then looked back at Vicky.

Vicky began to flop over toward Jane, turning as she went. Vicky groaned and flailed one of her arms as she flopped. To Jane, Vicky looked like a diseased rag doll rolling its way across the living room floor.

The glass shards crunched as Vicky rolled over them. Then her arms were outstretched, reaching for Jane.

Jane shrank back farther, her body filling with cold terror. It was obvious that this was no ordinary cold. She knew that she had to help Vicky, but she wasn't going to touch her. She couldn't, there was something wrong about her...and the air—there was a funny smell in the air—a wrong smell. It smelled like spicy, rotten fruit jam. The room began to sway...or was Jane swaying? She couldn't tell.

Jane felt a pang of guilt for not reaching out to help her friend, but something was stopping her. Jane began to edge around the TV stand back toward the kitchen.

Vicky's groans grew louder and more frequent, and it seemed she might be trying to stand up.

Jane noticed, for the first time, that her own cheeks were wet from crying, and that her hand was outstretched in front of her, as if she were still holding that glass of vitamin C water.

She had just gathered her thoughts enough to know what to do next—it was hard with that smell in the air—when a not so faraway scream distracted her for a second.

Jane looked down at the thing that was crawling toward her, and as the room's swaying became more violent, she forgot her next move.

Chapter 15

He stood outside the storage room for a moment longer. Then, feeling cold, Sven picked up his shirt from the floor next to the bench and put it on. He stood in the basement and listened. Slow shuffling noises were coming from inside the storage room.

Sven dragged his bench press over and put it in front of the door, blocking it. He put the bar in place and, working through the pain, loaded it with all of the plates he had. Sven looked at what he had done. It should keep Lars in the room. But would it? Lars was so strong. Sven stood there a moment longer, his mind blanking again.

Ivan hissed, snapping Sven out of the sudden trance.

Sven went upstairs and found his cell phone. He dialed 911 and paced with the phone to his ear.

"Your call cannot be completed as dialed," a robotic voice said. "Please hang up and try again."

Sven dialed 911 again.

"Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again."

Sven dialed 911 one more time, with the same result. He tried some of his other workout buddies, including Brian and Lundgren, each of whom was resourceful and would help in a tight situation. He tried his mom, his lawyer client, Memorial Gymnasium across the street, Gold's Gym, his favorite online bodybuilding supplement retailer, Yuan Ho Chinese Restaurant, Asian Express Chinese Restaurant, Whole Foods Market, and Ivan's vet.

None of the calls went through.

Sven gave up, and with growing agitation and discomfort, tossed the phone on the couch. He walked into the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next.

Then he heard scraping coming from the basement, and—

He at last saw what had displeased Ivan. There was a man in the back yard. It was Sven's neighbor, Bob. Bob's house was behind Sven's. Bob was a tennis fanatic, and sometimes he managed to drag Sven out onto the tennis courts. Tennis was not Sven's sport—he carried too much brawn for it. But it was nice to watch.

Sven stared out of the kitchen window at Bob. Bob wasn't moving. It looked like he wasn't even breathing.

Sven unlocked his back door and stepped into the back yard. He noticed that Bob looked thinner than usual. He was wearing his tennis clothes, complete with head and wrist bands, and he was clutching a tennis racquet with both hands. He just stood there, like a statue, his grey skin much greyer than usual.

Then Sven knew—this was the start of a very bad day.

Chapter 16

Jane watched Vicky stand up. It had taken a few minutes, and horror-stricken though she was, Jane couldn't make herself turn away. She was frozen in place, staring, the whole time.

Vicky's whole body had creaked as she made her way up from the floor. It took Vicky several tries, propping herself up, and then falling back to the floor, as if she had forgotten how to make her body work, how to coordinate her limbs in time.

Vicky was up now, and Jane found herself trapped by the cold, dark gaze of her roommate, who, Jane was now sure, was not exactly her roommate any longer. Jane's body was rigid, and though she was willing herself into action—any action that would take her away from her transformed roommate—she could barely manage a shudder.

"Vicky..." Jane said, her heart pounding in her ears. "Vicky? What's happening? What's wrong with you?"

Vicky groaned in answer, and began to stagger toward Jane.

Jane drew in a breath and tried to move her feet. They were so heavy, as if they were glued to the floor...and that smell, it was making her want to throw up, like she was turning into mush on the inside and her body needed to expel it. She tried to get her legs to move, but her muscles were frozen solid.

Of all the stupid images she could've pictured at a moment like that, Jane was now picturing a frozen, unthawed chicken breast under warm running water. If her legs were the chicken breast, and her mind the water, the thaw would take too long and...and what? What was Vicky going to do when she reached her?

Vicky dragged herself to within a few feet from Jane. Vicky raised her arm, bumping it clumsily into Jane's shoulder. Jane recoiled but still couldn't get her legs moving. Vicky's hand tried to grab, but the rickety, uncoordinated fingers closed on air.

Vicky shuffled closer. Her mouth opened, and a thin string of drool began to make its way from her bottom lip to the floor. The string broke when it reached knee level and plipped onto the floor a few inches from Jane's foot. Jane still couldn't get herself to move, the muscles in her legs were clenched so tight now that they burned. Run, she kept telling herself, run, get out of here.

Vicky's head came to within inches of Jane's face. Vicky's mouth was snapping open and shut in violent motions, sending the whole of her body into seizures with each snap, as if Vicky had no control over her limbs at all.

When Vicky snapped at Jane's neck, Jane's instincts finally, mercifully kicked in. She reacted, falling backward away from the bite, and kicked out with her leg, striking Vicky in the knee.

Jane fell backward onto the floor. The air was clearer there, and the fog in her mind and numbness in her body let up. She remembered where she was, who she was, and she remembered that she had to survive. It didn't matter what was happening, she was going to survive.

Chapter 17

Sven had seen this movie before. He had an idea of what was going on, but he had to make sure.

"Bob," he said. "Wake up Bob. You wanna hit some balls today?"

Bob said nothing.

There was a faraway scream.

"It's a great day for tennis, weather's perfect."

Bob just stood there.

"Nice headband, where'd you get it?"

Bob still said nothing.

Nodding in understanding, Sven picked up a branch and waved it at Bob. It was a soft branch, so instead of poking Bob as Sven had intended, the branch only caressed the immobile tennis player.

After a few tender, leafy caresses, Bob raised his head. Sven jumped back, dropping the branch.

After Sven regained his composure, he retrieved the branch and resumed the caresses, aiming the branch at Bob's face this time.

Bob's eyes snapped open to reveal dark, glaring eyeballs in too-loose sockets—just how Lars had looked in the basement. Then the tennis player's head tilted sideways, snapping his neck, and sending Sven tripping backward over his own feet to fall onto the grass of the back yard.

There was another scream, much closer now.

Bob's mouth popped open, and he began to sputter and pop toward Sven, clicking and gnashing his teeth. Sven got painfully to his feet, ran around the chomping tennis player and went back into his house, locking the back door behind him. From the kitchen window, he watched Bob make his awkward way to the back door. Then Bob began to bump into the door. He kept at it, bumping the tennis racquet against the door over and over again. He never tried the knob.

Chapter 18

The knee kick sent Vicky staggering backward several ungainly steps. Then she stopped, steadied herself, moaned and resumed her pursuit. As she drew closer again, her dragging feet picked up shards of glass and scraped them along the floor.

"Stop!" Jane screamed, unnerved by the scraping shards stuck in Vicky's feet. "Just stay over there, and, and I'll get help. Just stay on that side of the room. Okay? Don't come over to this side, okay?"

Vicky groaned and kept coming.

Jane remembered her gun. It was upstairs in the bedroom. She wanted to get it, but she'd have to go around Vicky. What was she even thinking? She couldn't shoot Vicky. Was Vicky still Vicky? What was wrong with her? What was with the biting? People with colds and even the flu didn't try to bite other people...right? I don't know, Jane thought in exasperation, I'm an accountant not a doctor!

Vicky was getting closer, her saliva splattering the floor as she went.

Forgetting that she could get up, Jane crawled backward without taking her eyes off Vicky. She crawled until she bumped into the wall behind her and had to veer left, into the kitchen. Once Vicky's staggering body was out of sight, Jane found it easier to concentrate. She got up, shook herself, and closed the kitchen door. She looked around the kitchen for something to prop against the door. Her eyes settled on the wine refrigerator. That would have to do. She dragged it over and set it in front of the door. At least the door opened inward—that was something.

Muffled by the glass of the kitchen windows, Jane heard a faraway scream. It was unmistakable—pure terror.

Jane's mind began to race as she stared at the small wine refrigerator in front of the closed door, and listened to Vicky's dragging, scraping feet out in the hall. Jane knew she had to get out of the house, and she cursed herself for ending up in the kitchen with only the one door. She looked at the windows over the sink. She could try to jump out if it came to it. She began to look around the kitchen, thinking about what to do next. Her eyes came to attention when they fell on her 32-piece, stainless steel knife set. She walked over to it. Jane felt her heart beating in her chest as she closed her left hand around the handle of the largest knife in the set. The plastic handle was room temperature. She pulled the knife out and stood there for a moment, thinking. Then she opened a drawer and took out a long, two-pronged weenie fork.

Holding her knife and fork, Jane turned back to the door.

Chapter 19

Sven locked his front door and then submitted his body to agonizing pain by pushing the couch up against the door to the basement. Afterward, he hobbled upstairs to his bedroom where he retrieved his backpack and gym bag. He put on a pair of nylon track pants, a loose t-shirt, and his most comfortable pair of cross-trainers—a pair of Asics. Sven took his emergency supply of protein bars out from under the bed and put it in his gym bag. Then he grabbed all three of his stainless steel water bottles and a portable water filter and threw all of them into the gym bag.

Sven didn't pack any clothes—except for his man-tard, which he put in his gym bag by rote. Realizing that he had packed it made him think of Lars, in his now bloody cat food-coated man-tard in the basement. They had gotten their man-tards together. Lars had introduced him to the man-tard. Before Lars, Sven hadn't known there was a male equivalent of a leotard. Man-tards made lifting so much better. The mind-muscle connection that man-tards enabled just couldn't be matched. Sven was crouched over his gym bag now, clutching the man-tard. He nodded his head, and as he did so, a single tear rolled down his well-muscled cheek. The tear fell, landing soundlessly on the man-tard.

Sven pulled himself together and carried the gym bag and backpack downstairs to the kitchen. To the gym bag he added the first aid kit that he kept on top of the refrigerator. He filled the three water bottles and put them back into the gym bag. Sven opened his cupboards and cursed under his breath. He kept all the good stuff in the storage room downstairs. But he couldn't go there now.

Out of the cupboard Sven took a small bag of dried pineapple and papaya, a box of oatmeal granola bars, and some uncooked rice. He put all of these into the gym bag. Sven looked at the bag that was now bulging. He took the rice out and put it back in the cupboard, figuring that wherever he was going, he wasn't going to be cooking rice. Then he took a small bag of Ivan's dry cat kibble out from under the counter and stuffed it in the outer pocket of the backpack.

"This is your ride," Sven said to Ivan, pointing at the backpack. Ivan looked up at him and tilted his blue head to one side.

Sven took a pan out from under the counter and set it on the stove. He turned the stove on. Then he picked Ivan up and found an angle at which both he and Ivan could see Bob bumping and grinding against the back door.

Sven pointed at Bob. "You never liked him did you?"

Ivan hissed.

"Smart cat." Sven gave Ivan a smelly fish treat, which Ivan gobbled happily. Then Sven put Ivan back down, and put the bag of fish treats in one of the backpack's small outside pockets.

When the pan was hot enough, Sven took out two ribeye steaks that had been meant for his post-benching meal. He seared each to perfection, all the while trying to silence the voice in his head telling him he better enjoy them, because they would be his last. Sven plated the steaks in overlapping slices, and carried the plate into the living room. Ivan followed. Sven sat down on the floor and began to eat the steaks. He started with a knife and fork, then put the knife and fork aside and used his hands. Sven devoured the meat while Ivan lapped at the steak juice that collected at the bottom of the plate.

It occurred to Sven to turn the TV on and see if the news had anything to say about what was going on. He wiped his hands, got the remote, and turned the TV on.

The first channel that came on was all static. Sven flipped around and saw that most of the channels were just static. Thinking that was all in a good day's work for Time Warner, he nodded to himself as he chewed and kept on flipping.

The first channel that worked was Comedy Central. The caption on the screen read, "Strange Flu Outbreak Grips Commonwealth of Virginia." There was a reporter on the screen. She looked uneasy and pointed behind her. She said, "The CDC is handling the matter and asks that if you reside in Virginia, you stay indoors until the matter is resolved."

Sven gnawed on one of the rib bones. The reporter went on, "The flu symptoms are rather unusual but the CDC insists there is no cause for alarm. Special field units have been dispatched to—"

The channel cut out and the TV screen filled with static. Sven looked down at the bare rib bones in his plate. His stomach growled against the backdrop of Lars's scraping downstairs, Bob's bumping outside, and Ivan's tongue smacking as he worked on the steak juice in the plate. Sven picked up the remote and flipped around some more. He found another working channel—the Oprah Channel. There was a news report on that one too, but with no caption on the screen.

The reporter said, "The Virginia flu outbreak has been traced to—" and the channel cut out. The TV filled with static once more. Sven had had enough of Time Warner and its static, so he turned the TV off.

Maybe he should have turned the TV on before he cooked his steaks. Maybe then he would have heard more about what was happening. He shrugged, walked back into the kitchen, and seared another ribeye.

Chapter 20

It was clear that Ivan didn't want to get in the backpack. Sven pleaded with him, but Ivan just wouldn't listen.

"Come on, we have to get out of here," Sven said. "Just get in and we'll talk about it later."

Sven pointed at the backpack in frustration. "Please? We really have to go. I promise we're not going to the vet. Would I lie to you?" That was probably the problem. When they went to the vet, Ivan usually traveled in the backpack, and Sven figured that Ivan suspected this was a vet trip.

Ivan meowed in defiance as he danced around the backpack, hitting Sven repeatedly with his tail.

"Come on," Sven said, still pointing at the backpack. "We're really not going to the vet, and I won't close the top of the backpack all the way. You can peek out as we go, so you can jump out and run away if something happens."

Ivan turned away from Sven and waved his tail.

"Okay, okay, I'll get you some beef jerky. How about that?"

Ivan got in the backpack.

"That's all it takes," Sven said, and he put on the backpack and picked up the gym bag. He got his car keys and made for the front door.

Something in the basement overturned as Sven was walking to the door. He stopped for a moment, and then he heard the screams.

Chapter 21

Lorie was trying to finish her eggs. She knew she had to finish them, and the toast too. Her breakfast would be her fuel for the race. But she was too nervous, and her stomach wasn't cooperating. Lorie always got that way before track meets, and today was the most important meet so far. She cut away a piece of broccoli omelet with her fork and stared at it.

Evan was next to her, eagerly lapping up spoonfuls of Fruit Loops. Lorie looked into his bowl. There were only three fruit loops left—one blue and two yellow.

"Do you actually like that stuff?" Lorie asked. "The milk doesn't even look like milk anymore, it's all blue and purple and orange in places."

Evan looked up at her as he sloshed another milk-drenched loop into his mouth. "These are great. And blue milk is better than regular milk. It's sweeter."

"Milk isn't supposed to be sweet, Evan. Everyone knows that."

Evan picked up the bowl of cereal and slurped up all of the brightly-colored milk. He put the bowl down, turned to Lorie's plate, and looked thoughtful. "It looks like mine is better than yours. At least I want to eat mine. You're just playing with your green omelet."

"Am not. I'm just not that hungry."

"You shouldn't play with your food."

Lorie smiled. "I'm not playing with it." It was good to have Evan around. It made for much less boring breakfasts, even though he liked those silly cereals that she had no taste for. Lorie also liked Evan's dad, and Lorie's mom liked Evan's dad, and they all hung out together and it was fun. It had been a little weird when their parents first got married, but now it was starting to feel normal, a lot like things used to feel like back when Lorie's dad had been around before he—

A shattering sound came from the living room.

Lorie was on her feet at once, calling into the living room. "Mom? Are you okay?"

No response.

Lorie began to walk toward the living room threshold. "Mom?"

No response.

"Come on," Lorie said to Evan, and he got up to follow her.

Lorie's mom and Evan's dad had been taking their breakfast on the balcony off the living room. They often took their breakfast out there, outside and away from Lorie and Evan. They liked their privacy.

As Lorie was about to cross into the living room, there was another shattering sound, and Lorie was hit in the face with a rancid, too-sweet smell that stopped her in her tracks.

The Shareholder

Copyright © 2011 by Guy James.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Foreword

She screamed, and the wine glass slipped through her fingers. The bowl of the glass shattered on the floor; the stem and foot separated, but remained intact. The wine she'd been enjoying, a King Family Roseland 2010, formed a small golden puddle around the shards of the wine glass's bowl. Moments later, the bright puddle was marred by dark red spots, and then it was more blood than wine.

***

The Shareholder gazed at the girl's limp, blood-soaked body, feeling not a tinge of remorse. She lay there, draped over the small threshold between living room and balcony, like a fallen decorative object, her sundress a sopping, bloody rag clinging to her athletic frame.

The Shareholder stood up and walked closer, avoiding the bloody wine puddle. The girl had sated the Shareholder's hunger, and now she was to be thrown away, back to the uncaring world that, though unconcerned with her, had been quite generous to the Shareholder over the centuries.

How stupid she had been. How trusting and utterly naive—and what a delicious meal. The Shareholder crouched down by the girl's body for a closer look. Her skin, tan though it was on the outside, betrayed massive blood loss. In spite of the blood still flowing from her neck, running onto the floor, the Shareholder was full. It was unusual for the Shareholder not to take more, to be satisfied through incomplete feeding.

The Shareholder stood up, stepped over the body and out onto the balcony. The night was shrouded in mist, utterly beautiful. The full moon shone down through the soupy haze in the air, and it reminded the Shareholder of how wonderful it was to be a vampire—to have seen the moon shine down on so many different places around the world, and at so many different times. The moon never appeared the same way twice.

The muted glimmering of stars reached through the veil of mist into the vampire's peripheral vision, as if the stars were describing a message. The vampire stared at the moon through the shimmering haze, unblinking, as if looking into it, or perhaps beyond it.
1

"Good afternoon. Ms. Hudson...is that correct?"

"Yes."

"May I call you...Juli?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good, good. So I see here that you're originally from Roanoke, Virginia. What made you apply to our firm?"

"Well..." Juli took a deep breath, recalling her well-rehearsed interview routine. "I've always been fascinated by New York City, and I think that's even more the case because I'm from such a small city in Virginia."

"Roanoke is a city?"

"Yes, we have about 100,000 people."

"Interesting, please continue."

"There's so much life in New York, always something to do, and I've always wanted to live there." Juli paused, as per her rehearsals. "In fact, I've always dreamed of moving there. And, of course, as much as I want to live in New York City, I'm even more interested in working for the New York office of Krov & Kantz, because of the type of work that you do there."

"Hmm? And what type of work is that?"

"Corporate work. I'm interested in transactional law."

The Shareholder nodded, and resolved to continue to ask questions, but not to listen to any more of the girl's answers. It didn't matter what she said. She would get the job, the Shareholder would make sure of that. This girl—Juli—she was the one. Her blood was just right, and there would be a way to kill her without anyone finding out. Where there's a will, there's a way, isn't that what they said?

It was against the rules, of course—it was against the Shareholder's own rules. It wasn't prudent to go killing people at your workplace, for obvious reasons. But rules were for breaking.

The Shareholder's fangs protruded momentarily, in anticipation of biting into the girl's neck. It was a beautifully sculpted neck, and the blood pulsing just beneath—the Shareholder sighed. It would be a long wait until she joined the firm as a summer associate, it was only August. The Shareholder sighed again, and the fangs retracted.

Juli smiled. To the Shareholder, it was the very essence of allure, drawing up the centuries-old hunger to its total, deadly, ravenous—

"May I ask you a question?"

The Shareholder groaned inwardly. "Please do."

"Why do they call them shareholders at your firm, instead of partners? I think what I'm asking is, what are the structural differences in organizing as a corporation instead of a partnership, as far as its impact on law firms?"

That had been a mouthful, and after Juli got it out, she put on what she hoped was a look of genuine interest. That question had been the clincher, she was sure of it, and was feeling better about this interview by the minute.

She had played the shareholder question just right, it was a bit insightful, and she played dumb about it. No one liked a girl that was too smart. And no one liked to be outshone by a lowly law student.

Juli knew the answer to her own question, and, more importantly, she knew better than to let that on. She had read her copy of The 48 Laws of Power, after all. She had read it twice.

The Shareholder smiled. "That's a great question Juli, and I'm glad you asked it. Let me explain it to you."

Juli smiled, and began to give exaggerated, open-mouthed nods. She didn't listen to a word the Shareholder said.
2

The Shareholder strolled out of the University of Virginia School of Law, grinning. The interview had gone so perfectly. Juli was so eager, so willing to march to her own slaughter. They always were.

Glancing skyward, the Shareholder snarled at the mid-afternoon sun, reflecting on how difficult life would have been if all the folktales were true, if sunlight did in fact burn vampires, boiling their skin, scorching their flesh, and so forth.

Instead, vampires were only slightly more prone to sunburn than red-haired, freckled children. That said, vampires did have a natural aversion to light, so the Shareholder followed up the snarl by sinking farther back into a protective cowl—the bloodsucker's daytime refuge.

How ridiculous the fairy tales were—a pitiable attempt to gain power over an unconquerable predator. The humans needed something to cling to, to delude themselves away from reality and feel just a tiny bit better about their short, insignificant lives. It had always been that way, and likely always would be.

The grin on the Shareholder's face broadened. Murdering Juli would be a favor, death being preferable to associate life at Krov & Kantz.

Was she worthy of being more than a marvelous meal, of entering into the Shareholder's standing, of becoming timeless, matchless, limitless? That decision would have to wait. One had to get to know a person before making such weighty commitments.

The Shareholder strolled back toward the law school building, walked through two sets of doors and out into the law school's central garden. The University of Virginia School of Law was shaped like a hollow rectangle, with a courtyard garden in its center.

There were eight fish and three frogs in the pond—the Shareholder could smell them, though the frogs were silent, hidden, and asleep. The senses of a vampire, especially of one as old as the Shareholder, were of an ilk unimaginable to humans.

The courtyard was mostly empty. A professor sauntered his way across it. Two suit-wearing law students sat on benches, bowed over their interview folders, frantically studying the ins and outs of the law firms at which they were trying to secure spots—to which they strove to give their lives.

It was a curious thing for the Shareholder, that humans were so willing to throw their lives away for money. It was different for the Shareholder, for a vampire.

Time was not an issue. When it had been an issue, the Shareholder spent the days poor and free, pursuing inspired callings and struggling to eke out a living. The law had come later...much later.

There was someone else in the garden. A girl, a young law student by the looks of her, bent over a textbook—but bent not quite as low as the suited law students. She wore a light dress—inappropriate interview attire. She was younger, and there was no palpable dread coming off her, so she must not have been interviewing.

Why was she there now? It was late August, and classes hadn't yet begun. Was she trying to get an early start on her legal education?

The Shareholder nodded, deciding that was it. They were all so eager to destroy themselves, to wear out their bodies for money. It was always about the money.

The bloodsucker approached the girl's bench, appraising her.

The girl looked up.
3

Lena gasped, and the casebook toppled from her lap. It smacked into the pleasantly-shaped stones beneath the bench.

She smiled, embarrassed. "Sorry. You startled me." She'd been absorbed in her now fallen Torts casebook, getting ahead in her 1L reading.

A person in a short cloak stood before her, face obscured in the depths of a dark hood. It made Lena's mind flash on secret societies and other strangeness.

"No need to apologize. It was my fault. I did creep up on you...but I didn't mean to scare you, of course." The hooded figure bowed slightly. "May I?" The figure reached down and retrieved the casebook, glanced at its cover, then handed it back to Lena.

Lena took it, feeling oddly uncomfortable. "Thank you."

"How do you find Torts?"

"It's very interesting." A dread tingled at Lena, as if she were in a pool whose water was growing slowly cooler, cooler, and cooler until...

She didn't know why, but she wanted to get out of there.

"That's good. I didn't think so when I was a young law student, but that was a long time ago. Maybe the squib cases have improved since then, grown more interesting. Have they? Well I guess you wouldn't know that. Are they interesting? The squibs? Any gory ones?"

Lena began to stammer something. She wanted to go, but she felt suddenly frozen in place, and she wanted—more than anything—to answer correctly, to please her questioner. She paused, sweeping the crevices of her mind for the right answer.

"Yes," she said, her voice shaky, "there are some."

"Tell me about them. Some with egg-shell plaintiffs, no? Take them as you find them and all that?"

"A few like that..." Come on Lena, she told herself, find the words, what's wrong with you? "One...one of the squibs...is...is about a man who was holding the door to an elevator open, to let some people in...and...the elevator car dropped suddenly...and when it did, the man's head was cut off and thrown into the elevator. His body was left outside it."

"Was it his estate that brought suit?"

"No...it was one of the women in the elevator, suing for emotional distress, for being trapped in the dropping elevator with the man's severed head."

"That one I like...that one I like a lot."

"Are you a lawyer?"

"A lawyer? No, no, nothing as pedestrian as that. I am an attorney. I've been doing it a very, very long time."

A long time? The so-called attorney didn't look that old, was hard to pin an age to, in fact. Lena's mind questioned the statement, but she didn't dare voice her doubt.

"You see, a lawyer—" the attorney's mouth twisted around the word, "—engages in ambulance-chasing, blue collar criminal defense, immigration law, pro bono malfunctions, labor law, and perhaps even in practices as despicable as karate law and space law. An attorney, on the other hand, is a respected, respectable individual. An attorney engages in, among other things, securities litigation, corporate deal-making, bankruptcy, tax matters, and perhaps real estate, although that is still a questionable component of a true attorney's employment."

Lena was shivering now. She didn't know what to say, didn't want to say anything, didn't want to be anywhere near this attorney, but she was frozen solid to the bench, as if she were its wooden, human-shaped outgrowth.

"Oh," Lena said, "okay."

"So when you grow up, do you want to become a lawyer...or an attorney?"

She stared, frozen, as if the attorney's words had been icy, infectious projectiles.

Finally, Lena gulped, stood up shakily, and tottered away. The attorney said something more, but she didn't hear it. Lena began to run.

Later that day, Lena gave notice to the University of Virginia School of Law and dropped out, never having stepped foot in a classroom. She became a florist, finding that flowers helped to quell the image she saw whenever she closed her eyes after the eerie garden encounter—a severed head staring up at her from the floor of an elevator...an elevator from which there was no escape.
4

"I think I nailed it," Juli said excitedly, "right through the heart!"

"Oh yeah?" Pam said. "That's great to hear. You wanna tell me about it?"

"Well, the interviewer seemed really, really interested in me, and I laid it on real thick you know? About New York City and corporate law and all that other bull. I asked all these stupid questions too, and I think the shareholder that interviewed me was really impressed. I pretended to listen and everything!"

Pam smiled wanly. "How is that different from any other interview though? I mean I hope you get it and all."

Juli studied her friend. Pam was always the practical one—the annoyingly practical one. "It felt different. I think I have this one, and I want it real bad. This is the firm."

"Alright, I hope it works out then."

"What about you, how'd your interview go today?"

"Fine, nothing interesting, nothing I'm excited about. Hopefully I can get something in DC and be close to home."

Juli nodded. She liked Pam, but did not share her sentiments about staying close to home. Juli wanted to get about as far away as she could from Roanoke. She was ready and willing to forgo the spending power of a lawyer's salary in DC for the far weaker spending power of the same lawyer's salary in New York.

New York was much more prestigious, and she was going to have a prestigious career. She was going to make her own way in the world, make her own money, and never rely on a man to provide for her. She was proud of what she'd accomplished on her own, and she would accomplish more.

With a JD and a few years experience at a New York law firm, she could do anything. It didn't matter that she didn't know what that particular anything was yet. There was plenty of time to find out.

When they had talked and eaten, Juli and Pam got up from their table at Bodo's Bagels—the one close to the law school—and made for the exit. There was a bounce in Juli's step, and she practically frolicked out of the eatery.

"You working on Innocence Project stuff tonight?" Pam asked as they walked through the gravel parking lot toward their cars.

"Yeah, that and brushing up on some interview questions for tomorrow. You?" Juli did care about the Innocence Project, and it helped that employers seemed to like it as a talking point—who could disagree with working to free the innocent? Whether employers actually wanted their employees to be committed to public service was, at least in Juli's mind, extremely doubtful. The interview was a charade, a dance of lies.

"Same, I guess I'll see you in the library tonight. Don't forget to send a thank-you email to that hell-firm you're obsessing over."

Juli grinned. "Been there, done that." Krov & Kantz was to be hers. She didn't want to be anywhere else. It was as if there was an evil about the name, a very lawyerly evil—exactly what she was going for. Of course there was the money—the reason she had gone to law school in the first place. She was going to rise to the top...as soon as she paid off her loans, anyway.

Pam waved. "See you later."

"Bye," Juli said, and waved back. She watched Pam walk away, get in her car, and drive off.

Juli had been in a weird mood of sorts ever since the Krov & Kantz interview. Besides the spring in her step, she felt generally elated. But there was something else. There was a foulness to the happiness, an almost overwhelming stain that she couldn't keep from her thoughts. She knew what it was—the lack of an offer.

She got in her car and drove back to her apartment on Arlington Boulevard. She lived within walking distance of the law school, in the same apartment that she'd lived in as a 1L.

As she changed into her gym clothes, Juli wondered if she'd sent her thank-you email too soon, or not soon enough. She wondered for a moment if she should follow up again, then quickly decided against it. That would come off too needy.

Prestigious people aren't needy, she told herself, and I'm prestigious...or at least well on the way to it.

Juli left her apartment and began to walk up the hill to the North Grounds Recreation Center for her daily workout. As she walked, she got the sense that she was being watched, as if someone were behind her, stalking her, boring his or her eyes into Juli's back. She glanced behind her more times than she could count, but never saw a thing.
5

"I've got her," the Shareholder whispered. "Be charming, be nice, be inviting. Sell her some more on the prestige...that's what she wants, to be prestigious."

The Shareholder dialed Juli Hudson's cell phone number. It was early in the morning to be making such calls—7 A.M.—but the decision had been made, and Juli was not to be given the opportunity to slip out of Krov & Kantz's grasp...to slip out of the Shareholder's grasp. The Shareholder had the hiring committee's full deference, to do as was fit to be done—in the best interests of the firm, of course.

The Shareholder stood over the torn body of the latest blood donor, wondering about the sudden devolvement into gore and blood-gluttony.

It was concerning. If it was kept up there might not be anyone left in New York City when Juli arrived.

The phone began to ring.

It was good to be back in New York City, back in a place where a vampire could disappear into the crowd of nameless faces and kill without fear of recognition. It was also good to be done with the terrible task of interviewing, though this particular interview trip had stirred something unexpected in the Shareholder, had brought with it Juli Hudson...and the City had no one that could compare to her, no one anywhere near as radiant as she. Her skin had an incomparable glow, the blood beneath it so vigorous, so ready to be taken from her.

The Shareholder snapped the phone shut. Maybe it was too early. There was no need to be rude, or overeager. Over eagerness could suggest a lack of prestige on Krov & Kantz's part, and that was exactly what had to be avoided in baiting Juli.

Then again...

The Shareholder's eyes were drawn to the neck of the man on the floor. A flap of flesh hung down from below the man's jaw, exposing a well-bitten jugular. His scalp was torn part way off and one of his eyes was broken and bloody, apparently destroyed in the struggle, though the Shareholder remembered little of it.

"To hell with it," the Shareholder muttered. "I can charm at seven the morning after." The Shareholder knew the interview had gone perfectly, and if Juli didn't feel the same way, there was money that could be thrown in to sweeten the deal—and if need be, it would be. That girl was coming to Krov & Kantz, the Shareholder was absolutely set on that.

The Shareholder dialed Juli Hudson's cell phone number once more.

The phone began to ring, again.
6

Lady Gaga's Born This Way began to play on Juli's phone for the second time that morning. She'd ignored it the first time and it had stopped playing at once—not so this time. The song played on, relentless.

Juli reluctantly raised her head from the pillow. She turned and tried to remember where she'd put her phone. She rolled over and groped for her bag, hoping that the bag was by her bed. It was. She fished the phone out and pulled it under the sheets with her.

Who would be calling so early? Juli never got calls this early. What kind of person—

There was a (212) number on the phone's display. Manhattan! Juli knew the area code by now, having scrutinized the specs of each of the New York firms to which she'd applied.

What if it was? What if—

Juli sat up, remembering a bit of advice she'd gleaned from an otherwise useless book on landing the job of one's dreams. If she made her body vertical, she'd sound more awake than if she talked while lying down.

She took a deep breath and picked up.

"Hello, this is Juli."

"Good morning, Juli." Juli knew who it was at once. She'd know that voice anywhere, it was unmistakable. It belonged to the shareholder who'd interviewed her the day before.

"Hi, how are you?"

"I'm well...do you know who this is?"

"Yes, I recognized your voice."

"Good. Listen Juli, I apologize for calling so early, but I thought you might like to start your day to some good news...to some new career possibilities."

"No need to apologize...I'm all ears."

"Well, as you've probably guessed by now, it is my pleasure to extend a callback interview to you. But, as you certainly have not guessed, we have decided to obviate the usual practice of conducting a callback interview in your case, since you are such a promising prospect. Therefore, it is with even greater pleasure that I extend to you a summer associate offer at Krov & Kantz. I was very impressed when I met you, and now that I've had a chance to discuss your application with the hiring committee, and with my fellow shareholders, we are all hoping that you'll join us for a summer in the corporate department."

Juli's heart beat nearly out of her chest with jubilation. If she weren't still half-asleep she might have shrieked with glee. It was good that she didn't. That was probably not the prestigious way to respond to her offer. Her offer! She had an offer now—and so early! She really was going to be a prestigious New York attorney.

The shareholder went on, "You don't have to respond now, you may take your time to think about it. I'm sure you'll have a number of callbacks and offers to choose from and it's often a very difficult decision to differentiate one firm from the pack. One of the things I recommend you do to help your decision is—"

"I accept! I accept...like I said in my email, Krov & Kantz is where I want to be, in the corporate department." There was a moment of silence, and Juli became nervous. Was she screwing it up? Did she sound too eager, un-prestigious? "I can accept now, right?"

"Yes, Juli. Of course you can. I am extremely pleased to hear that. I think you'll find that the corporate department at Krov & Kantz is an excellent fit for you. In fact, I can assure you that you will not be disappointed."

"I can't imagine how I could be. I'm so happy. What should I do now?"

"I'll have our human resources people reach out to you."

"Okay."

"Do you have any questions you'd like to ask me now?"

"I can't think of any, I'm a little overwhelmed I think."

"Should you have any, please don't hesitate to call me directly. We're all looking forward to your arrival."

"That sounds great, thank you. Thanks."

"Have a nice day, Juli."

"You too, thanks again."

"Take care."

"Bye."

The line went dead.

Juli fell backward into bed, clutching her phone and smiling up at the ceiling.

Rats on Strings

Guy James

Copyright 2011 by Guy James

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Chapter 1

The man stood at the end of the block. He was holding a cup of coffee in his hand and minding his food cart. From where I was it looked like the cart was filled with meat on sticks.

Then he, and his cart, were gone.

I turned to Kelsey and pointed to the spot where the man and his cart had been.

"Did you see that?" I asked.

The ground shook as a train passed beneath us.

"See what?" she asked.

We were walking south on Park Avenue, in the low fifties. I watched the steam leave my mouth and then vanish. I shivered, and tried to get deeper into my coat.

"I thought—I just thought I saw something, that's all."

What was that? The man and the cart had been there, I was sure of it. But how could they have been? People with coffee in their hands and a food cart to look after didn't just vanish. I'm not sleeping enough, I told myself.

"You're not listening to me," Kelsey said. "You always ignore what I say to you."

"I'm not ignoring you. We're talking about it now."

I didn't know what she was talking about, but I didn't like the tone of her voice.

Then a woman crossing Park Avenue caught my eye. She had something strange in her hand. I watched her. I looked at the thing she was carrying and something in me caught on fire. There was a flash in my mind, and at that instant it all changed. She had a—

"Hey!" Kelsey said.

"What?"

"Who are you looking at?"

"Nothing, I mean no one." I turned back to Kelsey.

Kelsey looked in the direction I had been looking, saw the woman, pursed her lips, and turned back to me.

"I think you should move out," she said. "I can't keep waiting for you to grow up."

"What are you talking about? I was listening."

"No you weren't," she said. "You're a child-like moron."

"What?" That caught me off guard. A child-like moron? "Where am I supposed to go? I mean, we picked our apartment out together."

"You can find a place, or stay with your friends or something, I don't know. I'll give you your rent money back." She moved her pursed lips this way and that, scrunching up her face. It looked like she was trying not to cry. She wouldn't look at me.

"I don't want it back," I said. "You think I'm a moron?"

She sighed. "That's not it. I feel like you don't care."

"But I do everything for you," I said. "All I do is try to make you happy, I mean I go out of my way to take care of you."

"That's not enough. I just, I just can't keep waiting, all my friends are getting married."

"That doesn't mean they're happy," I said.

She shook her head. "I'm never dating another guy my age again."

"Good afternoon sir," a strange and unfamiliar voice said, "would you be so kind as to spare some change for a soul in need?"

The owner of the voice was sitting on a standpipe. His hair was unkempt, his clothes dirty. He looked me straight in the eye. His eyes glimmered.

Couldn't he see we were fighting? I ignored him.

My now ex-girlfriend and I kept walking. I looked back at the man. He was still sitting on the standpipe, looking at me.

I turned back to Kelsey. "Don't you wanna try to work this out?" I asked.

"We've tried enough," she said.

I searched my mind for something to say, something that would fix things. I could fix these fights most of the time. It was just a matter of saying or doing the right thing. Maybe a card or some flowers or a nice dinner. Maybe all of those.

Then I looked at Kelsey's face, and I knew that nothing I said or did would change her mind.

We walked south some more. When we reached Kelsey's block, she turned right, toward her building. She didn't wait for me to walk with her. She didn't look back.

That was how she ended our two and a half years as a couple. That was it.

I stood on Park Avenue, and watched her leave.

I stood there for a while, not knowing what to do. Then I turned around and walked north. I stopped in front of the homeless man who had called out to me before. He was still sitting on the standpipe. I felt bad about the way I had ignored him. I pulled out my wallet and gave him a few bills, catching a few dirty glances from passersby as I did so.

"Thank you kindly," he said, and smiled. "It looks to me like you're having a rough day."

I nodded, and began to walk back to Kelsey's apartment.
Chapter 2

I moved out that same day.

I moved out into my firm. It was easy, because I didn't have a lot of stuff. I had my clothes, my laptop, my Bloomberg Businessweek magazines, and my Russian Standard vodka. Kelsey's apartment was twelve north-to-south blocks from my office, about a half mile. It took me four trips to move everything.

Kelsey had gone to a friend's so I didn't see her on my trips back and forth. That way there was no more fighting, no awkward encounters, nothing. I was grateful for that.

In my office, I stowed my things under my desk and in the hall closet. I spent most of my waking life there anyway, so moving in wasn't that much of a change.

My stack of magazines was quite large. It took up most of the space from the floor to the bottom of my desk. I used to get rid of them on a regular basis when I went to the gym. I would take three or four with me, flip through them while I did my cardio, and then leave them there for someone else to read. But I hadn't been to the gym in months. I couldn't remember the last time I had had the time to go, and told myself that I would have to start getting rid of the magazines, even if I didn't take them to the gym. The stack was just getting too big.

It was dark by the time I finished my move. I went to the break room and made myself a French Roast. The machine whirred, whizzed, and burped at me as it made my coffee. I knew the sound too well. It was like the voice of an old friend—a friend I could rely on. The milk we had in the office tasted like old clothes, so I took my coffee black. Then I set out on a lap around the floor as I drank my coffee. It was bad. I had taken the spicy French Roast instead of the regular French Roast by mistake. I drank it anyway.

I was the only person at the firm that Sunday evening, and it was good to be alone. I began to think of those characters in John Grisham novels. There was always intrigue, blackmail, or mafia in their lives. The books weren't about boring, aging, no-name lawyers at big law firms in New York City. There was no novel anyone could write about me.

At least now I had an idea to work off of, I told myself. I didn't expect it to work, and I wasn't sure it could work. It probably wasn't something Grisham would want to write about anyway. But there was something about it that made me hope. It felt nice to have some hope on a post-breakup Sunday evening at the office.

On my way around the floor, I stopped outside Mr. Pitchfork's office. There was a cockroach on the ceiling just outside the door. It sniffed around with its antennae—or whatever it was cockroaches did with their antennae—and it made me think of Max. It had been a long time since I'd last thought of him, and it had been a long time since anyone at the firm had talked about him.

Max had worked there years ago. When he was a first year associate, he picked a fight with a ceiling cockroach in this very spot. I remembered it well. It was the kind of thing you didn't forget.

The fight took place on a busy day at the firm. Everyone was in, and everyone was hard at work. On one of his trips back and forth across the floor, Max must have spotted a cockroach on the ceiling. Like this one, it was outside Mr. Pitchfork's office. I was in my office at the time, so I wasn't there to see how the battle began. Maybe Max wanted to show everyone that he wasn't afraid of a cockroach. Maybe he wanted to show us that he could get the job done, at least as far as fighting cockroaches went. I heard a commotion, and I left my office to see what was going on. What I saw was a small circle of my bosses and coworkers, looking on as Max stabbed at the cockroach with a broom. Max's sleeves were rolled up, and sweat poured from his brow. But the cockroach was wily, and it wasn't about to let a lowly first year end its life.

Each time Max jabbed at it with his broom, the cockroach scuttled away. Max jabbed again and again, but each time the cockroach scurried just out of reach, as if it was mocking Max. Max and the cockroach danced back and forth for a while. Max came at the cockroach with his broom and the cockroach fell back. Then the cockroach came at Max and Max fell back. It went on and on.

After a while, it looked like Max was starting to take the battle close to heart. The whole department was watching, and some passersby from other floors had joined the crowd too. Most cheered for Max, but I heard someone say, "Poor cockroach." I don't remember who said it.

At last, Max swiped the cockroach with the broom. The swipe didn't kill the cockroach, but instead flung it into Mr. Pitchfork's office. From where I stood, I couldn't tell if the cockroach landed on the floor, or flew, or what. There were shrieks of horror, and by the time I got in a position from which I could see into the office, the cockroach was in place.

It sat on a framed photo of Mr. Pitchfork's wife, flicking its antennae at her face. There was some stifled laughter. I bit my lip but still felt a smirk creep onto my face. Mr. Pitchfork was nowhere in sight, and someone suggested that Max get the cockroach out of there while he still could.

Then Mr. Pitchfork came walking down the hall. He took in the crowd gathered around his office. People fell away as if pushed, and returned to work. I stood and watched as Mr. Pitchfork walked up behind Max, who was reaching for the cockroach on the photo.

"What are you doing in my office?" Mr. Pitchfork asked. Max froze. He didn't say anything, but Mr. Pitchfork's eyes followed the poor kid's hand to the cockroach on the picture of Mrs. Pitchfork. Max began to stammer something. He was probably trying to explain what had happened. Then Mr. Pitchfork swung the door shut.

None of us ever saw Max again. Sometimes I wondered what had happened to the cockroach.

I stared up at the cockroach that was on the ceiling. Maybe it was the same cockroach. Thinking that it was made me smile.

I left the cockroach in peace, finished my coffee, and returned to my office. I closed my door, leaned against the stack of deal documents that looked the softest, and closed my eyes.

Images began to flash in my mind. I saw the man in the food cart, he was drinking his coffee now, and the cart behind him was full of donuts and fruit, alongside the meat on sticks. And I saw the woman crossing Park Avenue with the—

I caught myself nodding off. If it wasn't for the cup of coffee, I wouldn't have caught myself. That wasn't the first time I had slept in my office, and it was only for a few seconds anyway, so it didn't really count.

Sleeping in the office aside, I had a nice life as an associate. My firm called itself a lifestyle firm, and although no New York City firm was a lifestyle firm, mine was better than others. Or at least it was better than some others. The main problem with my job was that I could never plan anything. If I made plans, the plans would be broken. But while the hours weren't steady and called for a lot of plan-breaking, they weren't excessive either. Unlike many of my friends from law school who worked in big New York law firms, I had never worked more than ninety hours in a week, and I almost always got some time off on a Saturday or Sunday. That was in part because I lived just a few blocks away, so it was easier for me to sneak away for a bit, but it was true all the same.

Now that I was single, I thought, I could be a better associate. I could be the kind of associate that partners' dreams were made of—the kind of associate with no social life to stand in the way of work. I would have nothing better to do but work. Because of that, it was better not to tell anyone that Kelsey was out of the picture. Even though the partners expected me to come in when they called, it was easier for them to pick on those associates who had no personal lives. If I let on that I was single, that would invite the partners to throw more work my way. I didn't want that.

Thinking about work made me realize that I didn't want to spend the night in my office. The thought of sleeping at the firm made me depressed, and I needed a shower. I had to find a friend's couch to crash on. I picked up my BlackBerry and called Sanjiv.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey man," Sanjiv said.

"What's going on?"

"Same old nothing, you?"

"Is it ok if I shower at your place for a few days? Kelsey kicked me out."

"What? Wow. Uhhh, yeah, sure. That should be fine. Are you guys really broken up this time? I mean you guys have broken up like a million times."

"Yeah it's for real this time. My stuff is in my office. I'm looking at it."

"Sorry man, that's rough I guess. Yeah, ok, come by whenever. I'm not doing anything."

"Ok that sounds good."

"We'll have some beers,"

"That'll help."

"Alright, later."

"Thanks."

I hung up and looked back at my screen. I searched for apartments on Craigslist and found a few listings close to the office. I sent some emails to inquire about the apartments that looked promising.

Then I left for Sanjiv's.

I knew Sanjiv from law school. We were the same year. Both of us had come to New York to live the big firm life. That's what you did after you graduated from law school with loans to pay off. We called it Biglaw. It was a derogatory term. The loans were how the firms got us.

Sanjiv and I bonded in law school because we were both outcasts. Unlike the uncool kids who took advantage of law school as a place to redefine themselves, to move into the incrowd, Sanjiv and I were at ease with our lack of coolness. And we were both poor. Or maybe our friendship had nothing to do with either of those things. Who knew why people became friends? Some personalities just clicked with each other. We clicked.

On the way to Sanjiv's, I stopped at the corner where the man with the food cart had been—if in fact he had been there at all. I looked at the sidewalk, the curb, the street, the cars parked on the street, the puddles, the building on the corner. They all looked normal.

But one thing was out of place. On the corner where I had seen the food cart man, just beneath the curb and half-submerged in a puddle of sludge, was a coffee cup. Not that there was anything strange about a coffee cup lying in a gutter. But this was no regular, run-of-the-mill coffee cup. It wasn't any kind of coffee cup I had ever seen before, and I knew my coffee cups. It was a black paper cup, with a five-pointed star etched into it. Just a star, and no other markings I could see. I wanted to see more, but I wasn't going to reach in and touch or disturb the sludge in which the cup lay.

Was it the vanishing man's coffee cup? I couldn't tell. I closed my eyes and tried to recall the scene from earlier that day. I must have looked strange standing with my eyes closed on a street corner—but not strange by New York standards. I could see the food cart, the man, the corner, and I could feel Kelsey walking next to me. I tried to focus in on the image in my mind—to zoom in on the man's hand. But I couldn't. I couldn't make out the cup. I opened my eyes and looked back at the cup in the gutter. It could have been the food cart man's, but I had no way of knowing. I stood there a little while longer, staring at it.

When I got back on my way to Sanjiv's, I was sure about what I'd seen. The cup had a strange crispiness to it. It had the look of a cup that had been singed with care.
Chapter 3

I got there at ten.

Sanjiv's place was about a fifteen block walk from my firm. On the way, I got more dirty looks from strangers than was normal, on a per-block basis. They looked at me like I was a thief, and upon seeing me, many put their hands in their pockets, or clutched the bags they carried closer to their bodies. When I got to Sanjiv's, I had a look in the mirror. I looked the same as I always did, as far as I could tell.

Sanjiv and I had a few beers and talked over an episode of Dexter, the show about a lovable serial killer who kills people that deserve it. His victims have it coming. They're all bad.

At first, Sanjiv and I talked about my former relationship, but after I had had a few beers, I steered the discussion in a different direction. I didn't want to talk about Kelsey anymore that night, and I knew full well that people would be bringing up my breakup for a long time yet. I wanted that night to be about something else.

"You know how we always talk about what a mistake law school was, and how we should have gone to med school instead?" I asked.

"Yeah," Sanjiv said, "except we didn't have the grades for it."

I nodded. "Well, I have an idea that I think might get me out of law."

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"Something weird happened today, while Kelsey was breaking up with me. We were walking down Park Avenue, and I had some kind of vision or something."

Sanjiv raised his eyebrows. "Drug-induced?"

"No, I mean, I thought I saw something, and then I did see something, and then I had this idea. It just came to me."

Sanjiv just looked at me, so I went on.

"I saw a man with a food cart, and he had a coffee in his hand, and then he just vanished. He just vanished, you know. I mean—"

"How much coffee did you have?"

"That's not the point—"

"How much?"

"A lot, but that's not the point."

Sanjiv shook his head. He looked at the TV. Dexter smashed a plate in anger. Dexter's new love interest was leaving him.

Sanjiv turned back to me and shrugged. "So what's the idea?"

I told him. He listened, but he looked more and more dismissive as I went on.

"That's stupid," he said, when I had finished.

I could always count on Sanjiv to be honest.

"I know it's a little out there, but I think I can do this. The way it came to me, it just seems to me that it'll work—like I have to give it a try."

"Yeah, well it seems to me like you were stressed out from working too much, and that you're still stressed out from that, and from Kelsey leaving you. I don't think it's a good idea."

"Look," I said, "I want to start a business. I want to quit law and do my own thing, where I'm my own boss. I want to have free time. I want control of my own life. I want to stop carrying this around." I took out my BlackBerry and pointed at it with an accusing finger.

Sanjiv nodded. "I know, I know," he said. "But it's a big risk, and it's way out there. I mean, it's not like you're gonna deliver bread. That I would get. People like to eat bread, so you might get some business. But this—this is just nuts."

"So is staying in law, so is never trying. I have to try to do something, and this seems like the right something."

"If you build this business and fail, it sounds like you might be out a lot of money, right?"

I took a moment before answering, because I hadn't thought about that yet.

"I think so," I said. "But I'm gonna follow through on this. It's the only good idea I've ever had. I think it's once in a lifetime. And now that Kelsey's out of the picture, now that I'm single, I don't have to worry about supporting anyone. I can take a risk. I need to take a risk." I paused and took a breath. "So...I guess you don't want in?"

"No, I don't want in, and I don't think you should want in either. You have a good life. Maybe you don't have as much free time as you want, but we went to law school to be lawyers. You can't back out for something like this. Not that it's too late to back out of law if something good comes along, but this isn't it. What you're talking about is crazy."

Sanjiv shook his head again and looked back at the TV. We sat in silence for a few minutes. Then the door opened, and Sanjiv's fiancée, Amberley, walked in, click-clacking her heels as she went.

"Hey guys," she said, smiling. She got herself a beer and sat down between us. "Wow my night sucked, some gross guy threw his smelly boxers into my cage. I mean, like, who does that?"

Sanjiv laughed. "It's a dangerous job," he said, and gave Amberley a playful jab in the ribs. Then he pointed at me. "He's single now."

"Really?" Amberley asked.

"Yeah," I said.

"I've got just the girl for you," she said, and began telling me about her perfect coworker.

That was all I needed right then, a cage-dancer to date.

"Thanks," I said, when she had finished. "But I'm gonna take it easy for a while."

"Ok, let me know if you change your mind."

Then Amberley told us about her night. While she talked, she took her pet bunny Freckles out of its cage for her cat Retro to play with. Retro swatted at Freckles. Freckles tried to get back into her cage. Retro swatted some more. And then, something strange happened. Freckles swatted back. We all saw it.

Amberley's jaw dropped. "I've never seen her do that before," she said. "She never swats back, she just ignores Retro or runs away. That's so weird."

Sanjiv and I agreed. Retro and Freckles kept on swatting at each other. They were at an impasse. Amberley let the two go at it and hopped in the shower.

Amberley's boxer shorts story had put my business idea out of my mind. That was for the best, because after Sanjiv had weighed in on it, I didn't want to think about it there anymore. I was going to go through with it no matter what he said. I was going to be stubborn.

Once Amberley was out of the shower, she made the couch up for me to sleep on. I thanked her, and she and Sanjiv went into the bedroom.

As I lay on the couch, I thought about what I had done so far in my life. I thought about all the schooling that I had been through. How was it that I was so educated and knew so little? I felt like I knew nothing of substance. My work knowledge I had picked up on the job, and it was just a set of arbitrary rules. Was there any more for me to learn now that I was in the real world? I tried, but I couldn't think of any topics I cared to know about. I thought about how teachers had once held me rapt in my want for knowledge. I wanted that feeling back. I wanted to learn and be creative, like when I was a kid.

As I slept that night, developing a crick in my neck, I dreamt of Kelsey. In my dream, Kelsey was married to Dexter, the same Dexter from the TV show. Kelsey and Dexter had a bunny and a cat. They all got along. The cat didn't swat at the bunny, and the bunny didn't swat at the cat.
Chapter 4

Work dragged on the next day.

I got a few emails in response to the ones I had sent in my apartment search. A few were ads that tried to get me to click on a credit score website. After clicking on a couple of these, I learned to spot and ignore them.

One of the emails that wasn't spam intrigued me. Or rather the landlord's asking price intrigued me. The listing was for a one bedroom going for only $1,500, which meant that something was wrong with it. But it was in a good location—only two avenues away from my office. It was a six minute walk at the most, and I liked to live as close to the office as I could.

I followed up and got another reply. My suspicion that there was something wrong with the place grew stronger when the owner emailed me directions and told me to go to Devil Bar on 56th Street, and to ask for Pat at the bar. It sounded sketchy, but I figured it was worth a look. Maybe I'd get lucky and find a hidden gem.

I also had an email in my inbox from Kelsey. My heart began to pound harder when I saw it. I opened it, and a hollow feeling crept into my stomach. It felt as if the air had been sucked out of me, and breathing in just made it worse. Kelsey wanted to know how I was doing. She asked if I had found a place to live yet. She said she was sorry she had made me leave without having a place to go to. She said she should have let me crash on the couch. She said I could still do that until I found a place. She said she hoped I was well.

The hollow feeling in my stomach had grown worse as I read. I reread the email a few times. It was just a few lines. I didn't know how to respond. I didn't know if I should respond. I deleted it. Then I clicked on my trash folder and pulled the email out. Then I deleted it again. Then I pulled it out again. My finger wavered over the mouse. I sighed and closed the browser. I stared out the window for a while, but I couldn't shake the hollow feeling.

I had a lot of work that day, but not so much that I couldn't spare an hour out of my day to look at the Devil Bar apartment. I needed to find a place where I could relax, or at least to find a place that wasn't my desk. I didn't like the fact that my usual joke about living at the office was taking on a whole new meaning, and I felt that if I didn't push myself to move into a real apartment, I might never leave. I might end up living at my desk until I died. That was a depressing thought.

My appointment to meet Pat at the bar was for 4:30 in the afternoon. I would look at the apartment and then go back to work. I hoped the place would be decent enough for me to rent for a while, and that the owner would be flexible on the length of the lease term. I was desperate, but if the place was terrible I wanted to avoid being tied to it for too long. I put my game face on and tried to look cheerful. I didn't need Pat seeing that I was in dire straits. That meant trying to push the corners of my frown up. There was no cheer in me at all.

On my way out of the office I ran into Bill. He saw me getting into the elevator and I froze.

"Are you going up?" Bill asked, pointing up with his thumb.

"No, down, sorry."

Bill's eyes narrowed and he looked me and up down. He was still looking when the doors shut. That was bad luck. That was bad luck because Bill was the "cool partner."

Every law firm had at least one, and most had a team of them. We had our share too, and Bill was head of the "cool partners" at my firm. He was boss "cool partner" man. That was his unofficial title. Law firms needed "cool partners" to seduce new hires during the summer program, when the "cool partners" tricked summer associates into thinking that the firm was a great place to work. "Cool partners" liked to talk about work-life balance, vacations, fancy lunches, and the prestige that came with a career in law. If "cool partners" were trying to get a law student into the firm, they wined and dined the student in a single-minded pursuit to win the student over. They took the student out on a series of dates. The student and firm dated each other for a while, and the "cool partner," since he was the firm side of this, was always on his best behavior. The "cool partner's" courtship tactics did the trick most of the time. Young law students never saw it coming.

Bill played this role in our group, and in my firm as a whole. Unlike some "cool partners" at other firms, Bill didn't wear board shorts or talk about surfing. We weren't that kind of firm. But he did wear striped shirts sometimes and I once saw him wear jeans on a Jeans Day. Bill wined and dined summer associates as he tried to get them to join our group. Then he wined and dined new hires as he tried to get them to stay in our group. Bill was generous with his high fives, his questions about family, and his gifts. He knew how to win the associates' trust, and the associates felt comfortable with him, like he was one of them, like he was their friend.

But, "cool partners" had a dark side. They played a dual role. Their job went beyond new hire seduction, and included constant associate surveillance. They were there to keep a watchful eye fixed on the associates who already worked at the firm, under the guise of friendship. It was their job to get in good with the associates and learn all they could about them. "Cool partners" were spies.

Once Bill felt that he knew an associate well enough, he wrote a memo. I saw one of these memos once. The memo was, at its essence, a long list. The list was nicely formatted. Bill had been doing this for years, after all, so he had had a lot of practice. The list defined the associate in terms of his most basic traits, fears, debts, and anything else that Bill thought was important for the firm to know, and that he had learned in his dates with the associate. The list even included food preferences, drugs of choice, relationship status, and as many likes and dislikes that Bill could get a handle on. Bill circulated the list to all the partners in the group, and sometimes to all the higher-up partners at the firm.

If an associate had been the subject of a list that stood out, the associate would, after a time, begin to hear the things he had said to Bill on their dates together. The associate would begin to hear these things from other people, with whom there had never been dates. He would then wonder if he had told these people his secrets. Then, after he'd heard them from people he'd never even talked to before, it became obvious that the firm social network had a leak somewhere. The leak was Bill.

It happened a lot. Once they got a sense of what was happening, associates that had been the subject of Bill's memos kept a low profile. Those who didn't came to learn of an updated memo that Bill had circulated. Bill loved to update his memos, and it was best not to give him any more to write about.

I never got to see the memo about me, even though I always wanted to. I knew it was out there somewhere.
Chapter 5

I walked to the bar.

On the way there I told myself that Bill wouldn't tell on me. Of course not, I had been at the firm too long, and he would have real work to do.

The bar was easy enough to find. A wax figure devil stood in front of the bar's entrance. He beckoned at passersby with one well-cooked hand and held a beer in the other. He had the typical devil horns, moustache, and goatee. His face was singed a greasy red, like it had been fried in hot oil.

I tried to find a tail. There wasn't one. Maybe the devil's creator had forgotten that part. I preferred devils with tails, but that wasn't a big deal. The wax devil made me feel a little better about life. I'm not sure why, but he did.

I walked past the wax devil into the bar. I walked up to the counter. There were two men behind it. They both turned to look at me.

"Hi, I'm looking for Pat."

"You got us," one of the men said, and he pointed at himself and then at the other man.

"We're both Pat," the other man said, and they both burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world.

After they calmed down, one of them said, "Are you here about the apartment?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Oh," one of the Pats said, "then you want him." He pointed to the other Pat and started laughing again.

"I'll go get the keys," the other Pat said, and went into the kitchen.

"Ok, sounds good" I said. I took a deep breath. This was way more happiness than I was used to during the day, and it was making me uncomfortable.

"You want a drink?" the remaining Pat asked.

"No I'm good, thanks," I said.

The Pats were making my head spin. They looked alike and had the same mannerisms. They both talked too fast, and they both pointed to each other too much. I was having a hard time following along in what they were saying to me, and I got the sense they were talking more to each other than to me.

I stood by the counter and waited with the remaining Pat. He was calmer by himself, and he looked hopeful, as if he thought he could succeed in selling me a drink if only I stood at the counter long enough. That would have been true if it hadn't been a workday, but I had resolved in advance not to have any drinks.

As I waited, my eyes began to run over the liquor bottles behind the counter, then turned to the taps. I looked away. A man was sitting to the right of me, drinking a clear drink. He looked like he was about to fall off his stool. I looked at my BlackBerry. It was 4:37 in the afternoon and this guy was drunk. He was a quiet drunk, and he didn't look unhappy. I watched him for a while. He didn't look over at me, or at the Pat at the bar, or at the TVs. He just sat there and stirred his drink, sipped at it, then stirred it some more.

A few minutes passed while the keys to the apartment were being found. I saw the Pat that had gone to find the keys get them from one of the busboys. That made me think for a second.

"Alright let's go have a look," the Pat with the keys said.

"Ok," I said, and began to follow Pat out. I looked back at the drunk man. He was still looking down into his drink.

I followed Pat outside and one door over. We went up two flights of stairs. Pat opened a door, and there we were.
Chapter 6

"It is what it is," Pat said.

He showed me around, and it was what it was. It was ugly.

"It's fine," I said, as I looked into a small closet with no door.

"No fridge," Pat said, pointing where I was looking. The small closet had a stove and a cupboard. That's when I realized that the small closet was a kitchen.

"Oh," I said.

"It is what it is," Pat said, and shrugged. He had a sad look in his eyes, as if he had been trying to rent this place for a long time. He looked hopeless.

"It's really convenient to my office," I said. "And it won't take much work to keep clean."

I found myself wanting to make Pat feel better about the place.

"It's got new carpeting, and it's above the kitchen so you don't hear much from the bar," Pat said, "I can turn on the music downstairs so you can see how loud it is."

"That's ok," I said.

Pat sighed and his shoulders slumped. "It is what it is."

"Actually, yeah, let's do that. Let's turn the music on.

"You got it," Pat said, straightening up.

He trundled out the door.

A few minutes later the floor began to vibrate. I could hear the music, but it wasn't as loud as I had expected.

Pat walked backed in.

"It is what it is," Pat said, and looked at me. The place seemed to depress him.

I took another quick tour of the place and walked back over to Pat, who was vibrating in the center of the living room.

"There's some vibration from—"

I cut him off. "I'll take it. Can I move in today?"

We shook hands, vibrated out the door, and that was that. I had a place to live.

I walked out of my new building and took a right, heading back to work. I had declined Pat's offer to celebrate my new apartment over some drinks. I had taken a rain check instead. As I began to walk back, I pulled my BlackBerry out of my pocket and saw that I had eight new emails. I had only been out of the office for twenty minutes. It wasn't unusual to get eight emails in twenty minutes, and most of the emails were unimportant. But one was from Mr. Pitchfork.

The subject line of the email had only four words in it, and the body of the email was empty. The subject read, "PLEASE SEE ME ASAP." I looked at the time the email had been sent. It was fifteen minutes old, so it was sent a few minutes after I had left the office. I had no idea what it could be about. I was a short walk from the office, and I was already on my way back, so I didn't respond. I would see what Mr. Pitchfork wanted when I got back.

I walked back to Madison Avenue, walked through my office building's revolving door, and got on the elevator. On the elevator, I got another email. This time it was from one of the associates I worked with, Tom. The subject line of Tom's email was "hey" and the body said, "fyi - pitchfork is looking for you, he is not happy."

Tom and I had started at the firm at the same time. We had shown up as scared, green first years, and had spent years sleeping in windowless conference rooms. Our shared misery had made us fast friends. Since day one, it had been us against the firm. And now, even though we were fast growing into the firm ourselves, we still tried to look out for each other. If Tom had thought it was worth taking the time to email me about Mr. Pitchfork looking for me, it couldn't be good.

A nervous tension began to creep up the back of my throat. I had been with the firm for years, but I had never become comfortable there.

When I got off the elevator, I walked straight into my office and sat down at my desk.

My phone rang.

It was Mr. Pitchfork.
Chapter 7

I picked up the phone.

"Hi," I said.

"Come into my office," Mr. Pitchfork said.

"Ok," I said into the dead receiver.

I got up, feeling a little unsteady. I took a deep breath. That didn't help. I walked down the hall to Mr. Pitchfork's office and knocked on the open door.

Mr. Pitchfork looked up. "Close the door and sit down," he said. I did. That was how it was most of the time. He said and I did.

Mr. Pitchfork was a little man in his early fifties. He had a crew cut. He always wore a suit and tie to work, even though our dress code was business casual. His shirt was always white. He talked very fast. He walked very fast. He ate very fast. He was scrappy and mean and made me think of Curly in Of Mice and Men. Like Curly, he lived to pick fights with anyone who was bigger than he was. In the Of Mice and Men in my mind, Mr. Pitchfork played Curly, and Mr. Pitchfork had to tone down his real life behavior to do it.

I looked across the desk at him and my eyes ran across the monocle—Mr. Pitchfork's weapon of choice. It was in its holster. I remembered what Mr. Pitchfork used it for and shuddered. Unhappy visions began to dance in my head. I rounded my back, drew my arms in, and tried to collect my thoughts. It was hard for me to be coherent when he talked at me, and I was trying to prepare myself.

"You left the office in the past hour," Mr. Pitchfork said. "Is that correct?"

"Yes," I said.

"You left without permission."

"I needed permission?"

"Yes, you must always have my permission. You cannot leave the office during work hours unless I say you can. You are not allowed to make decisions like that yourself. You have to have permission. You must always ask me. You—"

"Can I say something?"

"Yes, but it won't change the fact that you are not allowed to leave the office during work hours without permission."

"You don't even know why I left the office."

"It isn't relevant. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care," Mr. Pitchfork barked. His rapid fire speech was starting to make me dizzy.

"Ok."

"You can tell me why you left if it makes you feel better. But it won't change anything, not at all, not anything."

"I left to look at an apartment. I need a place to live."

"You can look on the weekends."

"I'm here on the weekends too." I bit my lip a little. I felt the anger building up, but I knew I had to sit there and take it. Just sit there and take it a little longer. Don't say anything stupid, I told myself. He's the boss. Did Bill tell him I went down in the elevator? Maybe. But I would never ask, and no one would ever tell me even if I did.

"That's your problem." Mr. Pitchfork reached for the monocle. He put his hand on it. He stroked it.

"I guess so," I said, gritting my teeth. I wanted this to be over. I wanted to go back to my desk.

"It was very stupid of you to leave. You know how the associate keycards and BlackBerrys are wired. You know we know where you are. We know when you're at your computer and when you're not. We don't need anyone to tell us you left."

I slumped lower in my chair. Mr. Pitchfork loved to talk about his high-tech tracking gadgets. It was true, the associate keycards and BlackBerrys at my firm were wired to track us. The partners always knew where we were, and they knew when we left the office. If I had known this stuff existed when I was in law school, I would have devoted myself to pro bono, or to a small firm in the South.

All the partners tracked us. But Mr. Pitchfork derived a special pleasure from it. Even if my firm didn't use tracking technology, Bill was likely to have turned me in. Maybe Mr. Pitchfork hadn't checked the tracker, and it was Bill that had told him I was going down in the elevator. It didn't matter. One way or another, I had been caught.

I didn't feel too bad about getting this lecture. Mr. Pitchfork was known the firm over for the fights he had with associates when they left to grab a cup of coffee with a friend during work hours. It wasn't personal, it was just how he was.

"I need a place to live," I said again, the stupid, too-bold words leaving my mouth before I could stop them.

Mr. Pitchfork picked up the monocle. I shrank back in my seat. "I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care," Mr. Pitchfork said. "You are in the wrong."

"You don't care? I don't even have time-sensitive work right now."

"That's not relevant. You left your post. I pay you to be at your post. You can't leave your post. Don't you understand? What if a partner had been looking for you? What if a partner was thinking about coming to your office to talk to you? You need to be there. You can't judge what the partners are thinking. You don't know what the partners are thinking. And you can't judge what is or isn't time-sensitive. Everything is time-sensitive. You should know that by now."

"Right," I said, and sighed.

"You must always mind your post."

Now that the monocle was in his hand, I knew I had lost. "You're right, Mr. Pitchfork," I said. "I should not have left, I'm just stressed out. I wasn't thinking." Then the dreaded, humiliating words left my mouth, "I'm sorry."

Mr. Pitchfork's face brightened.

"That's right you weren't thinking," he said. "Go back to your office, that's enough for now." He put the monocle down.

"Alright," I said, and left.

"I hope you don't hate me, but you can if you want, but don't be mad at me," Mr. Pitchfork said as I walked out. I didn't respond. He always said stuff like that. Mr. Pitchfork was the kind of guy that would berate someone and then top it off with a "don't hate me." Maybe it was a routine, or maybe it came naturally, but whatever its origins, it was scary and confusing. It was the good old shock and awe routine. One minute he would be the nicest nerd in the world, and the next he would be the cruel, scolding, monocle-wielding taskmaster who haunted your dreams.

I stomped back to my office and sat down at my desk. I was angry, but I didn't need to vent to anyone. I had had talks like this with Mr. Pitchfork before. That was his way, and he wasn't alone. Many of the partners at my firm liked to flex their flabby muscles. Mr. Pitchfork loved it.

Back at my desk, I opened up the email from Kelsey. I told myself I was doing it to distract myself from Mr. Pitchfork's tirade. I thought about writing back. I looked at it for a while. What would I say? That I missed her? That I wanted her back? I knew I couldn't crash on her couch. That would just make things worse. Once the hollowness had filled me again, I closed the browser. I'd get back to her later.

I moved in that day—the same day that Pat showed me the place. It took the same four trips that it had taken me to move from Kelsey's place into my office. The trips were much shorter, and I was done with my move in an hour and a half.

It was 11 P.M. when I was done. I was tired, and the place was bare. That was fine by me, because there was no room for furniture anyway. I might get some later, I told myself, but I didn't care to think about it then.

I stacked six magazines to make a small pillow and lay down on the living room floor. I hated carpeting, but I had to admit it was better for lying on than hardwood. I was cold, so I got up and took two towels out of my duffel bag. I lay back down on the floor, covered myself with the towels, and fell asleep.

I had no dreams.
Chapter 8

The next day was it. I set my plan in motion. I wasn't going to let what Sanjiv said get me down. I knew I was on to something good, if only because of the strange way it had come to me. I also knew how to start, so I did.

The first thing I needed to do was to hire someone that knew genetics—a genetics guy. So, I did the logical thing, and called up the only genetics person I could think of, James Watson. He won the Nobel Prize after he discovered the structure of DNA along with Francis Crick. Who else would I have called?

I dialed the Cold Spring Harbor Lab. But I didn't reach James Watson. I did reach someone named Li Chin.

Li had an accent. It wasn't light, but it wasn't too heavy, so I understood most of what he said, most of the time.

I assumed Li Chin was James Watson's personal research assistant. I told Li what I needed and described my business plan in detail. Li agreed that what I wanted to do could be done, and he was eager to help me build my product in exchange for a stake in the profits. That sounded good to me, and I told him we could discuss all of that in more detail when we met.

Li lived nearby, and came over to my new apartment later that same day, sometime around midnight. We greeted each other and shook hands. Li had brought over four large bags of Chinese food for our first meeting.

Li opened the bags and set out the food he had brought on the living room floor. If he was trying to win me over, he did. As far as Chinese food went, the food was superb. Li had brought over sesame chicken, General Tso's, three varieties of fried rice, steamed and fried dumplings, scallion pancakes, Kung Pao chicken and beef, curry puffs, and pitted lychees for dessert.

We ate most of the food, and what was left I put on the windowsill. I still had no fridge, and I didn't plan on getting one. I ate most of my meals at the firm, so there was no point.

"Oh that's good," Li said, when he saw me put the leftovers on the windowsill. "Good way to save money."

I wasn't sure if he was kidding or what, but I smiled and said, "Yeah, it works for me."

"But soon," Li said, "we're gonna have so much money that we won't know what do with it all. Then maybe you can get yourself a mini-fridge or something. Or at least a cooler."

"I hope so. So you think this'll work?"

"It's pretty easy, very doable." Li paused. "You mind if I ask you something?"

"What?"

"How did you think of it?"

I told Li about the day Kelsey broke up with me. I told him about the man in the food cart.

"Oh, that's a good omen," Li said. He looked thoughtful. "Almost like those fortune cookies we give people. Very interesting."

When I told Li about the woman that I had seen crossing the street and what she was carrying, Li began to nod so hard that I thought his head would fall off.

"Yeah, that's really interesting. It's like you saw all the signs that day." Li paused. "I think this is the kind of thing you have to see through to the end, no matter what. It'll end up being just like what the lady had, only better."

"I'll try, but I don't know how this can work without a lot of money to back it up."

"Oh, don't worry about that. If we put the work in, it'll happen."

"So you can get all the rats we need?"

"That won't be a problem. I can get more rats than this room can hold."

"Ok. How long do you think it'll take?"

Li shrugged. "Oh, maybe...two, three, four months."

"That would be perfect, the sooner the better. It's good that you've done stuff like this at Cold Spring. I'm excited it can be done."

Li looked at me. "What? What are you talking about?"

"You know, you do this stuff for James Watson all the time."

"Who?"

"Don't you work at the Cold Spring Harbor Lab, aren't you Watson's research assistant?"

"What? No, no. I work for my parents. We own a Chinese restaurant. The best one in the city." Li beamed with pride.

That's when I realized I must have misdialed.

"Hold on," I said, and I went to check the number I had dialed the day before. Then I compared it with the number on Li's Chinese takeout bag.

I had, in fact, misdialed. I had called Bamboo Bridge Panda Crossing Chinese restaurant, not the Cold Spring Harbor Lab. When I realized this, I felt my face flush.

"But you said you can do this, remember? On the phone when I called you?"

"Oh yeah, it can be done, and I can do it. I actually have a lot of experience with this kind of thing. Like we said on the phone, I'll do it and take a cut of whatever action there is on the other side. I think it's gonna be a very good business. A very profitable business. It'll make my parents proud."

Li went on and on in the same vein, and though I wasn't quite convinced that he did, in fact, know how to do what I wanted him to do, I figured I should give it a shot. He was willing to work for nothing but a share of the profits, and it was time for me to take some risks. The arrangement seemed fair to me, and since I got the sense that the profits of our venture would either be huge or non-existent, splitting the profits down the middle seemed like the right thing to do. Li wanted to work, he was cordial, brought me delicious food, and he had access to an endless supply of rats.

That made me think for a second. Why did he have an endless supply of rats? Who had an endless supply of rats? Was there a link between the rats and Li's restaurant?

If there were dots to connect, I didn't want to connect them.
Chapter 9

The work went fast.

As we made progress, Li began to live above the Pats' bar with me. He moved in three weeks after I did. That had never been part of the plan, but we got along and our work went faster that way. I didn't charge Li rent, didn't pay him for his work, and was glad to accept the supply of Chinese food and rats that he brought. The Pats became aware of our arrangement, and the Pat that had showed me the apartment asked me if Li was living up there with me. I said he was. The Pat just shrugged and said, "It is what it is."

The place was too small for two people, but the setup worked because our paths seldom crossed. I slept there, showered and shaved in the mornings, and was off to work before eight. I didn't come back until nine or ten at the earliest. Li slept late, and had the place to himself all day. We only saw each other in the evenings, save for my morning passage through the living room, where Li slept. Best of all, when our paths did cross, Li and I got along as old friends.

One night soon after Li moved in, I came home early, at about eight. I found Li hard at work. He was absorbed in his task, and didn't notice that I had walked in.

"Hey," I said, startling Li. He almost dropped the rat he was holding.

"Oh, hi," he said. "You're back very early. They fire you or something?"

"No. It's just slow, not much going on. And I was kind of curious if there was still an outside world."

"Yeah, there is. You're in it now, except we're inside." Li put the rat back in its cage with the others. "Hey let's get a drink downstairs. The Pats have been asking about you and how come you don't come down and drink with me more."

"That's nice of them. How've they been?"

"Good, you know, happy as ever. I like the bar. It's very relaxed, you know? No snobs or anything, just nice chill drinking."

"Yeah, it is what it is," I said. "You think they suspect anything? You know, about this?" I pointed to the cages.

"No. I don't think so. And I doubt they would care."

Li got up, and began to primp in the mirror.

"You gonna change or what?" he asked. "I don't wanna talk to the ladies with suit-man next to me."

He waved his hand at me, pointing to the work clothes I had on.

"Ok, ok, but just one drink."

"Come on. You need to relax. That'll take more than one drink for you."

"Thanks, I appreciate that. But really, just one drink. I have to come in early tomorrow."

After I changed and Li squeezed a few bottles of gel into his hair, we went downstairs and walked one door over into the bar.

One drink turned into two. Two drinks turned into three. Three drinks turned into four, and so on. That's why I didn't drink. My job made it too easy to drink.

Li and I sat together at the bar for a while. The Pats were happy to see me, and that was nice. It was a slow night for Li as far as lady-killing went. There weren't enough women there who measured up, at least not for him.

But, at long last, some time after my fifth or sixth drink, Li spotted his first mark. I knew it when I saw his eyes narrow, his nostrils flare, and his teeth flash. Li had come alive like a beast of prey.

I turned around to find the girl that he was looking at. She was easy to find. Like all the girls Li liked, she was thin, petite, had long hair, and wasn't afraid to show some skin in public. She stood at a table in one of the back corners of the bar. By the time I saw that there were three half-full glasses of beer next to her own, Li was most of the way over to her.

I took a quick look around, picked up my drink, and got up to catch up to Li. By the time I caught up to him, he was at the table.

"Hey," he said, and put his hand out for the girl to shake. "How you doin'?"

I was at the table, standing next to Li. I felt awkward tagging after him like that, but I wanted to make sure he saw the glasses on the table. I didn't think the girl was alone.

The girl turned to Li. She looked him up and down. Then she took his hand and shook it.

"I'm Jackie," she said.

"Very nice to meet you, Jackie," Li said. His words sounded practiced. "This is my friend over here." He presented me.

Jackie looked me up and down, just as she had done with Li.

Then she rolled her eyes and turned back to Li. "What is he a lawyer or something?"

"Oh, no, no, no," Li said. "A lawyer? No. He's a good guy. Not a lawyer."

"He looks like a lawyer to me," Jackie said.

She shook her head. Then she looked at the half-full glasses on the table and back at Li.

"Nice to meet you too," I said.

"Oh," Jackie said. "That was rude of me I guess. Sorry. Lawyers just scare me. They creep me out you know. I dated a lawyer once. But I don't want to talk about that. He—"

Li interrupted her. "He's a good guy," Li said, pointing to me. "It's not nice to accuse someone of being a lawyer. I don't go calling guys lawyers for no reason. It's kind of uncalled for, don't you think?"

Jackie gave Li a resigned shrug and nodded. She took a deep breath, and said, "Yeah, you're right, that was bad of me. Sorry."

"It's fine," I said. "Don't worry about it." I stepped to the side some and let Li and Jackie chat. I wasn't interested in getting to know her, I wasn't looking for anyone for me, and Li had found her first. They seemed to be vibing, so I walked back to the bar. I could talk to the Pats for a while and not feel like a third wheel. The Pats were on the level.

I sat down at the bar. I was feeling all the drinks by then, and I forgot about the half-full glasses on Jackie's table.
Chapter 10

"One more?" the Pat at the bar asked me.

"Sure."

He poured me another light beer.

"How's business been?" I asked.

"Oh, you know, it is what it is. We've been getting a lot of kids in here trying out their fake IDs on us lately. Don't know why. Maybe they heard we used to be lax on that stuff. We're not lax anymore, that's for sure. We've been turning away maybe fifty kids a night on Fridays and Saturdays."

"Really?" I took two large gulps of my beer, and peered into my glass. It was half-empty already.

"I never had a fake ID," I said. "I wasn't cool enough, I guess. I barely even drank in college. Yeah, I was a huge loser as far as drinking went. I just never got that into it, you know? I still don't drink that much, but it is tempting having a bar right—"

I heard a commotion, and Pat shot a sharp look behind me. I turned around to see that Li was surrounded by three guys.

"Hey," Pat yelled in their direction. "Don't make no trouble in here."

Pat began to walk around the bar. I got up too, and crossed to where Li was. By the time I got over there, two of the three strangers were holding Li's arms. They were broad-shouldered, hulking men, and looked like former athletes that had grown pot bellies. The third was a thin, sweaty, older man in a billowing blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt. He stood in front of Li and wagged a shiny, gold-ringed finger in Li's face.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

No one reacted.

I raised my voice and said, "Let him go."

Pat came up from behind me and stood next to me. I had struck my best Indiana Jones pose. Still, no one reacted to my request.

"Let the kid go and get out of here," Pat said. "We don't want your business here tonight."

The thin man whirled on Pat and me while his goons still held Li. Li looked relaxed in spite of what was happening. He even looked a little bored.

"This Chinese was flirting with my girlfriend," the thin man said. He pointed at Li and Jackie. "I don't approve of that. I don't approve of that at all. He's gotta be taught a lesson."

Jackie sat at the table and watched, enthralled. She didn't look in the least bit worried about what might happen, and I thought I saw the glimmer of a smile touch her lips.

"You won't be teaching any lessons in here," Pat said.

"Fine, then we'll take him outside," the thin man said.

"You won't be doing that either," Pat said. "Now get out of here before I call the police."

The thin man frowned and raised his finger.

I presumed he was about to wag it in Pat's face, but before he could, Li squirmed free of the goons and gave the thin man a push from behind. It was almost playful the way Li did it. The thin man toppled over like a rag doll and somehow ended up in my arms. I hadn't meant to catch him but my arms went out by reflex. The thin man pushed me away with disgust and turned around. Li stood there doing nothing, and the goons stood behind him, as if they didn't know what to do next.

Then the second Pat was next to the first Pat, and the two Pats took the thin man by the arms and led him out the door. He didn't struggle. The goons followed in pursuit, leaving Jackie behind. Now I could see that the thin man and his goons were wobbly. No wonder Li had looked relaxed. These guys couldn't even walk a straight line to the door. They were big, but they were pumped too full of liquor to be a real threat.

I was starting to think that the showdown would end without incident when I felt a sharp pain in my ribs. I doubled over, and before I had time to get my bearings, I felt a blow land near my left eye.

I shielded my eye with my right palm while I clutched my hurt rib with my left.

"Die you stupid lawyer," a voice said. "Die and bill it you—"

The sentence cut off in a squeak, and I turned to see that the voice had been Jackie's. Li had picked her up by the waist and was carrying her out of the bar. She kicked and shrieked all the way out. All the shrieks had to do with how lawyers were scum and sucked the life out of everything they touched.

I slumped down against the wall by the table where Jackie had been sitting. Li came back and looked at me.

"It's not too bad," he said. "I'll get you some ice."

"What the hell did she hit me with?"

"Her bag," one of the Pats said.

The Pats were back inside now.

"She must have had some rocks in it or something," I said.

"Sorry about that," a Pat said. "It looks like you're the only one that got hurt. I'll get you a drink."

Before I could tell him I didn't want a drink, he was at the bar. One more drink couldn't hurt, I told myself. Not as much as the bag had hurt—that much I was sure of.

Li came back with some ice. He gave me the ice and crouched next to me. I tried to put the ice to my eye but kept missing. Li helped me place the ice and I winced.

"You ok?" Li asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. She must really hate lawyers."

"Don't worry. It happens. I'll buy you a drink."

And before I could stop him, he was off getting me a drink.

I lost track of time after that, and things got hazy. The Pats brought me some more drinks, Li brought me some more drinks, and I sat there, propped up against the wall, and drank them. There was scotch, and beer, and rum, and vodka, and then the cycle repeated. Some of the bar patrons that had seen my beating brought over some drinks too. They told me that lawyers weren't scum, and that lawyers made the world a better place, and even if they didn't, they were people too. At least that was what I heard in my inebriated state.

At one point, there were two girls sitting on the floor with Li and me. They had each brought me a drink and told me what horrible people the girl,—what was her name?—the thin man, and his thugs had been. The room spun. They were nice girls. One was named Mindy. At least I thought she was. I couldn't remember the other girl's name no matter how hard I tried. There were four Pats then. Did one of the goons buy me a drink? No, the thin man and the goons were gone. Then there were six Pats. They were what they were. The room spun faster. I needed to go to bed to get up for work. Work was soon. In a few hours.

I shook some of the booze off and told Li and the two girls that I had to go to bed. The three of them just managed to get me up to the apartment before I passed out.

I woke up a few hours later and felt very awake. I felt wired. I got out my laptop, thinking how funny it was that my laptop spun and the room spun at the same time, yet they spun in different directions.

I decided it was a good time to email Kelsey back. It had been rude of me not to respond. She wanted to hear from me.

It took me a few tries to get into my inbox. I kept putting the web address in wrong. Then I couldn't remember my password. When I thought I had remembered it, I put it in wrong at least five times before I got in. Then I couldn't find Kelsey's email for a while. At last, I found it.

I had also found a way to deal with the spinning. The dual spinning of the laptop and the room in opposite directions was troubling, and I had found that if I wobbled my head in a loose circle I could cancel out most of the spinning.

I opened Kelsey's email and hit reply. I said that I was sorry I had taken so long to get back to her. I said that I missed her and that we had been very good together. I said we should try to work things out. I said we should get some dinner and talk things out. I said I hoped to hear from her soon. Then I topped it all off with an "I love you."

I looked at the email for a moment. The bit of spinning that I still felt was making me queasy. I wished Kelsey was there. She would get me a glass of water—or Li, he would do that too.

Then I hit send and passed out.
Chapter 11

The next day, I woke up in a heap on the floor of my room. I was parched and my head throbbed. My joints popped as I sat up—as I tried to sit up. Through the open door to the living room, I saw the rats watching me with their sympathetic rat eyes.

How could I have had so much to drink the night before? Where was Li? Did someone hit—I touched the skin around my eye. I winced in pain and drew my hand away. The room spun for a moment. Then it steadied, and I went to the kitchen and drank three full glasses of water. I stopped myself from drinking more. I didn't want to overdo it.

I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. What gave it away? What was it that made it so obvious that I was a lawyer? At least now that I had a black eye I would look less like a lawyer. Did I want to look less like a lawyer? Why had she said the word "lawyer" with so much disdain? With so much derision? And why did I care? I didn't know her, would never see her again, and she was—I assumed—drunk.

I kept on looking in the mirror. Was it in my eyes? In the pale skin? It must have been a bunch of things. Maybe it was in my body language. What if I couldn't get rid of it? I felt panic lock up my throat. I put my hands on the sink and steadied myself. The panic passed.

I shaved. Then I stood in front of the mirror. What was I going to do about that black eye? There wasn't much I could do. I got some ice and held it against the black and blue skin. It was tender, but the pain wasn't as bad as I had thought when I woke up. It looked worse than it was, and the ice didn't make it look any better. I got dressed and left for work.

I took the back way in and tried to avoid people. I made straight for my office, went in, and closed the door.

As soon as I sat down, the phone rang. It was Mr. Pitchfork. I picked up.

"Good morning Mr. Pitchfork," I said.

"Eh," Mr. Pitchfork said. "Can you come to my office please?"

"Ok, I—" He hung up. I cursed under my breath. That was not how I wanted to start the day.

I walked into Mr. Pitchfork's office. He looked up, frowned, and waved his hand at one of the chairs. I sat down. He was on a call, so I waited.

I listened to a client yell at Mr. Pitchfork for a while. The client lived in a mansion on an island. The client was angry that his neighbor's fence was half an inch over the property line, so it was on the client's property by half a hair. The client was even angrier that Mr. Pitchfork couldn't do anything about it. The courts didn't care about stuff like that, it was petty. The client didn't take this well. I picked up some new curses as I listened. I thought that at my age, I knew them all, but I was wrong.

After ten or fifteen minutes, the client was hoarse. He said he needed to suck on some cough drops, and that he would call back later. Mr. Pitchfork agreed, said that was a good idea, and got off the call.

"What an idiot," he said. Then he turned to me. "What happened to your eye?"

I was caught off guard. "Uh, uh, I—" But I had taken too long to respond.

"Are you about to tell me that you walked into something? Or that you fell down some flights of stairs? Don't bother. I'm not stupid. Do you think I'm stupid? Well I'm not."

"I don't think you're stupid."

"I didn't ask for your opinion. You represent this firm. You represent me. You can't go around looking like you have fights in bars. What if a client saw you looking like that, what would he think? What kind of lawyer walks around with a black eye? This isn't criminal defense. And even then it's not professional."

"You're right," I said.

"Don't get in bar fights, and put some makeup on or something."

"I wasn't in a bar fight, and I'm not going to put makeup on."

"I suggest you rethink the latter."

"No."

"What?"

"No." I got up and walked out.

"Don't hate me," he called after me. "I'm not stupid!"

Back in my office, I fumed for a while and thought of ways to get revenge. An image formed in my mind. I imagined my hands gripping Mr. Pitchfork's throat, squeezing it. His face turned purple, and then, with a most glorious pop, his head exploded into a mass of confetti. I didn't know why it was confetti, but that was all I could ever imagine Mr. Pitchfork's head exploding into. Most of the confetti was brown, with small red bits mixed in.

After a time, I calmed down. I called Mr. Pitchfork and told him I was sorry. He took the chance to repeat what he had said about bar fights. He told me not to fight in bars. Then he said it again. And he told me that if I wanted to fight in bars I should go work for the government or something. I told him that was a good idea. He liked that. Then he told me he wasn't stupid, and that we should be friends. Then he hung up.

I slammed the phone down. I was tired of dealing with this not stupid man who wanted to not be hated—whatever that meant. I needed the job, and I would have to deal with the putdowns until I went elsewhere. I had been dealing with the putdowns for years.

I sighed and told myself it wasn't me, it was him. It was them—all the partners. And as true as that was, it didn't keep me from thinking that maybe it was me. Maybe the bullies were right. Maybe I was supposed to be more like them. I had been at the firm for years, and I had not yet turned into one of them. I had no future there.

