Chapter Eight
Interlude: They all fall
Maureen's day started off just like any other day. She arrived at the office promptly at 10 minutes after 8 in the morning, so that she can be the one to make the coffee the way that she like it.
"The last time that I let Jessie make the coffee I almost threw up," Maureen said to herself as she got out of the car, her breath puffing in the cold morning air. "I'll never let that cow near the coffee pot again. I swear she put dirty socks and cow patties in it."
The thought of the coffee made Maureen shudder in spite of wearing her thick coat.
She shut the door of the car and pressed the button on the fob on her keys to lock her door. The car chirped in the silence as she walked around the front of the car and looked for oncoming traffic.
The street was empty in both directions this morning, on a typical morning the street is bustling with a few of the other early morning workers, like herself. The coffee shop a few blocks away normally has cars lined up to the lights at this time of day after people dropped their kids off at school.
A light fog was rolling in from the river, giving the street an eerie feeling as she stepped off the kerb and onto the pavement. If this was a scene in a movie, Maureen thought that this would be when the villain revealed his plan for taking over the town and killing the hero. She started to imagine herself as the international spy, in town to covertly infiltrate a business and foil plans for destruction. She smiled as she played out a scene from her favourite movie in her mind as she stared into the fog.
A crow cawed in the distance frightening Maureen from her daydream.
"Shit." She said as she jumped back, almost falling over the kerb.
She laid a hand on her chest and felt her heart pounding in her chest through her thick coat. She looked in the trees along the road behind her trying to spy the bird.
A clanging bottle from across the road brought her attention back to her office building.
A man, probably in his 40s, came stumbling around the corner of the building next to where she worked. The man was filthy; it looked as if he had fallen asleep in a kindergarten class while they were painting pictures of poppies for Remembrance Day. His face, shirt, and pants were discoloured. His eyes were lifeless and empty; she could almost sense the hopelessness in them. Maureen looked at the front door directly in front of her and glanced over at the man who had just noticed her and started walking towards her.
Maureen noticed that the man's step was off balance like he had too much to drink and the way that he was looking at her, with a little smile on his face, she knew he was going to be causing trouble for her once he got close enough.
Maureen grabbed the keys out of her purse and started hurrying across the road, not even bothering to look for cars as she ran. She fumbled with the keys trying to find the key for the deadbolt as she watched the man out of the corner of her eye.
She reached the other side of the road at the same time as she found the master key and put it in the lock turning it to the left, and pulling on the handle in one swift motion. She pulled the key out of the lock and pulled the door shut behind her as the man reached for the back of her jacket. His hand slammed the door as she turned the lock on the bolt and let out an exasperated sigh.
Maureen backed up as the man pressed his face on the tinted glass trying to search the darkness for any sign of movement.
Maureen reached her hand out behind her and felt for the railing for the stairs and started walking slowly up the stairs, never taking her eyes from the man.
The man walked away from the door before she was half-way up the stairs.
She stood there for a minute and watched the door before she turned around and ran up the stairs to the office. Once inside the office, she slammed the door shut, pulled down the blind and looked out the window to the street below, not even bothering to turn on any lights until she was sure that the man was gone.
She glanced at the clock on the wall, "Eight-fifteen? Where is everyone?" She said to the empty office. "Jessie should be here by now. She's always here by now."
She turned to look out the window for any arriving vehicles when the lock in the door turned, and someone pushed open the door.
Maureen turned around quickly surprised by the wonderful co-worker arriving at the office.
She saw Jessie come through the door with a smile; her expression quickly changed when she saw the look on Maureen's face.
"What happened to you today?"
Maureen quickly told Jessie about the man who chased her into the building when she got here a few minutes earlier.
"There was no one outside at all when I got here." Jessie said, "The roads were kind of empty, but maybe they have a teacher's day at the school, and a bunch of people are staying home."
Jessie shrugged as she walked into the office and closed the door. She turned and pulled open the blind and turned on the room lights.
Maureen blinked hard at the harsh brightness of the fluorescent lights after being in the dark. She turned her attention back to the area outside of the window.
"I'm going to make some coffee," Jessie said with a smile as she walked back towards the small kitchen.
"Wait," Maureen said as she spun around and pierced Jessie's soul with a gaze that would have killed a kitten. "I'll do it." She shouldered Jessie out of the way gently as she walked into the kitchen to brew the coffee.
The office for Sam's Air Conditioning was rather small compared to most other offices in the building. Since there were so few office workers, they spent the bulk of their rent on the garage and storage space on the other side of the building. There were two small offices for the sales manager and president of the company, a small meeting room, the kitchen and another room used for technical support and sales. The bathroom was shared with the other tenants of the floor and located at either end of the hallway; this was the one thing that Maureen disliked about the new office, having to walk that far to use the bathroom was a big inconvenience for her.
Maureen heard a small beep and knew that the coffee finished. To her, the office smelled like an exotic jungle teeming with life and freshly picked coffee beans. She heard Jessie rummaging around in the kitchen looking for some sugar when Mike, the senior sales manager walked into the office with Marjorie, the wife of Sam, the president of the company.
She looked at the clock on the wall and noticed that it was almost time to open the office for the day. Maureen walked to the kitchen to get her coffee before the others in the office managed to drink it all before she could enjoy some. She sauntered back to her desk by the front door and began to get ready to start the day.
Pressing buttons on the panel on her desk she turned on the sign outside, took the phone off of night mode and logged into the computer at her desk.
Maureen opened her email and started looking through the messages from customers sent overnight when a single knock came at the door.
Jessie had just finished watering the plants on the wall next to the door and looked at Maureen who just shrugged.
Jessie reached for the door handle while saying "Hello. We're open, you can come right in."
Her hand was just about on the handle when the person on the other side of the door started banging on the door.
Jessie stepped away from the door as the banging continued, her eyes turned to Maureen who had picked up the phone, ready to call the police for assistance if required.
Suddenly the banging stopped, and she heard a moan from the hallway.
"Oh my God." Jessie snapped to attention, her first aid training kicking into gear. She stepped quickly to the door and swung it open ready to help whoever was in the hall.
Jessie was barely able to register who was out there as several hands grabbed hold of her hair and sweater and pulled her into the corridor.
Jessie tried to scream in the darkness but all Maureen could hear was a wet gurgle and several moans. The gurgling stopped suddenly, and the Maureen sat froze
n in her seat with the phone pressed to her ear listening to the dial tone buzzing.
A thump echoed down the hallway, and Jessie's feet were pulled through the doorway and into the hall. She heard a soft smacking and tearing sound from the outside the door.
Maureen screamed as a figured walked in the door covered in blood. It hissed as it recoiled from the noise she was making and started walking towards her. There was a new smear of blood covering his face and chin, with every step that he took a few drops of blood fell to the floor, landing on the carpet.
Mike and Marjorie came running from the meeting room. Mike yelled "What's going on out..." before he ran into the man standing in the office. Mike fell to the floor looking down at his chest and hands covered in the warm, wet liquid from the man.
The man turned towards the fallen Mike and threw himself on top of him grabbing and reaching for his neck and shoulders. Mike tried to push the man off of him; his hands kept slipping off of the man's shoulders as he pulled his way up to Mike's face.
Mike stopped struggling as he looked into the face of the man on top of him. His skin was starting to fade, from this distance Mike could almost see the individual veins just under the man's skin. His eyes were starting to turn yellow, and the colour had begun to drain from his iris. The man slowly leant forward and pressed his cheek to the side of Mike's face; Mike started to relax thinking that the drugs had finally come out of the man's system.
The man opened his mouth and grabbed Mike's cheek in his teeth tearing a large chunk off of it.
Marjorie screamed as she saw the flesh torn from his skin and the man began chewing it while bending down and taking another piece.
The man on top of Mike reached out with his hand and grabbed her ankle; a startled Marjorie recoiled from his touch, but the man did not let go, and she toppled to the ground falling into a bookshelf against the wall and hitting her head.
Mike struggled against the man as his attention changed to Marjorie, but the man was bigger and heavier than he was expecting. He could not move the man no matter how hard he tried.
Exhausted, Mike slumped down, hitting his head on the floor. The man turned his head towards Mike and bit down on the soft area of the neck just below the jaw. Blood squirted from the wound spraying upwards, hitting the ceiling and landing inches from Maureen's shoes.
Maureen, still frozen in her seat, looked at the door as movement caught her eye and watched as two more blood-covered men walked into the office and went right towards the sprawled Marjorie.
The first man, dressed in a suite had a briefcase attached to a long strap around his neck dropped to his knees by Marjorie's feet and began to bite and tear at the muscles in her legs. Marjorie did not move or flinch; Maureen had hoped that she had died when she hit the shelf when she fell.
Seeing the second man frightened Maureen the most, that was the man who had chased Maureen into the building this morning. The man looked older than she had originally thought this morning, the grey in his hair had looked blond this morning, but now she was able to see that the man was well into his 50s, and judging by his attire he was likely a runner. The man approached Marjorie and bent down to look at her face closely, the reached out and touched her cheek.
Marjorie moaned and started to roll her head sideways. She began to moan louder as the pain from her leg intensified. Her eyes shot open, and she looked directly into the eyes of the man who opened his mouth and hissed at her before diving on her and biting her shoulder.
The smell of blood began to fill the room as the strange men continued to eat and destroy the closest thing that Maureen had to a family. A tear started to roll down her cheek as the thought of her life coming to an end like this had begun to be a realisation.
A spray from the carotid artery of Marjorie hit Maureen in the face and brought her attention to the present. She looked around the room as she wiped the splatter from her face. She noticed that everyone had focused on the body in front of them and they had all forgotten about her.
Maureen started to slowly stand up in her chair, rolling it out behind her and softly hitting the wall. She froze, waiting for the men to remember that she was there.
No one moved, and Maureen sighed softly with relief.
Maureen looked around the room and took a single step forward. The heel of her shoe clicked on the floor.
Maureen hissed at herself for changing into her dress shoes already. "Shit." She whispered to herself.
She bent down and slowly undid the buckle on the strap around her ankle. She wobbled a little as her feet lost that extra bit of stability, she reached out with her hand and grabbed hold of the desk to make sure she stayed up. Her large costume jewellery ring clanged on the desk as she reached out for her balance.
She winced with anticipation as she closed her eyes. She opened one eye expecting to see the men looking at her snarling, but each of them was gorging on her co-workers. She worked quickly sliding her foot out and putting it on the cool floor, she reached over and released the clasp on the other shoe and pulled out her foot. A bead of sweat began forming on the back of her next and rolled down her back following her spine down her back between her shoulder blades.
Maureen shuddered as the cold bead ran down her body.
She reached down for the shoes, her hands shaking noticeably. Maureen steadied her hand after taking a few slow breaths.
"I can't go down like this," Maureen said to herself.
She grabbed the shoes in her hand, "There's no way I'm leaving these behind. I paid good money for them in Vegas." She thought to herself, justifying her decision to take them with her.
She stood up and looked towards the door. Her big bulky L-shaped desk was going to be a problem, a couple of months ago they put up the partition on the front of the desk to give visitors something to lean on when they arrived. With all of the stationary, papers and binders on her desk it was a cluttered mess.
"I knew I should have cleaned that earlier." She thought to herself as she eyed the mess.
Maureen took in a deep breath and exhaled, she was going to have to walk around the desk as quietly as she could. She started walking to the end of the counter and pressed her bum against the side of it and began to follow it as closely as she could.
When she got around the first corner of the desk, she ran into a problem, the man who was currently desecrating the body of Marjorie had his feet resting on the side of the desk. Maureen looked around the corner of the desk to see if there was a better way to walk around the man.
She could not see any other way around him, she pressed her back on the side of the desk and slowly started shuffling along as she tried to move as quietly as possible. Maureen let out a slow breath, trying hard not to bring any attention to herself as she tried to make it to safety.
After moving a couple of feet along the desk, the sound of the men greedily slurping on flesh and blood of her coworkers had started to get to her. She could feel the room starting to spin as she got more and more lightheaded by nausea rushing over her. She reached her hands out and grabbed hold of the top edge of the desk to brace herself and closed her eyes, wishing the noise would stop.
She clenched her eyes closed harder and waited for a minute before continuing.
After a minute the noises that were filling the room started to slow down until there was just a faint dripping sound heard in the room.
A warmth of embarrassment washed over her as she suddenly realised that the dripping sound was from her. While fighting off nausea that came over her, she was trying so hard to block out the sounds of the cannibalism that she did not realise that she had wet herself. Her feet were starting to get cold as the liquid had begun to cool off quickly as it spread over the floor.
"Oh god," Maureen whispered to herself. "How am I going to show my face in the office again after this?"
She slowly began to open her eyes and looked around the room, the two men that had been eating her co-workers were still laying on the floor, their f
aces covered in blood as they were slowly chewing pieces of muscle in their mouths.
"Eek!" Maureen shrieked as she realised that she was the focus of their attention now.
She turned and ran towards the door.
Her foot slipped in the puddle of urine on the floor, and she fell face first onto the floor. She stumbled to her feet as she looked over her shoulder to see both men getting to their feet now.
Maureen got to her feet and ran to the door she fumbled with the handle as she tried pushing the door open to escape.
She looked over her shoulder again as she turned the knob to the right and left to see both men coming around the corner of the desk after her. She put both hands on the door handle as she turned the knob back and forth shaking the door as she began to whimper.
The door flew open and smashed Maureen in the nose, water instantly rushing to her eyes making them water. Blood started dripping down her face and onto the floor.
Maureen ran out into the hallway, forgetting all about the door she left open.
She moved towards the stairs and started to run down when she noticed a blurry shape at the bottom of the stairs by the door. She tried to blink away the tears to focus on the form to see if it was inside or outside the building.
The growl of one of the men coming out of the office and spotting her was enough for her to make up her mind to make a run for the roof. She ran down the little hallway that ran along the stairs and took the corner and headed up the flight of stairs towards the roof.
She ran up the flights of stair and paused on the landing looking down the small hallway towards the two offices that were on this floor to see if there were any lights on, both of these businesses typically did not open until 10 in the morning most days and were never usually very busy with foot traffic.
She ran towards the first door and tried the handle.
"Damn." She sighed as she began pounding on the door. "Let me in! Please. Someone. Anyone?"
She started sobbing as she continued to pound on the door. She looked down the hallway towards the other office but decided not to try it as there was no commotion from inside of it. She turned back towards the stairs as she wiped tears and snot from her face with the sleeve of her jacket.
The first man came up the stairs and stopped as it listened for where she had gone. A sob escaped her as she saw the blood dripping from his fingers as his arms hung down by his side. He turned towards her and sneered at her.
The blood drained from her face as she realised that this was going to be the end. She started saying her goodbyes and getting prepared for the painful death that was soon to follow.
Maureen stood up and straightened her back. "No. Not today. Not like this." she said to the man sternly. The tone of her voice caused the man to suddenly stop and tilt his head sideways as he tried to see if she was going to be a threat.
She looked behind her to see the wall of a dead-end hallway. "How was this building never closed for being a death trap?" she said to herself.
She turned back towards the only exit. She looked at the man and shrugged her shoulders as she started running back towards the man screaming as loud as she could.
He reached his arms out to catch her, but as she got closer, she grabbed the expensive high heeled shoes by the toes and swung her left hand down finding one of the man's hands with the heel of the shoe impaling it. The force of her swing caused the man to turn as she ran by and swung her other arm out and hit the man squarely in the neck with the other shoe.
She jumped in excitement as she ran by the man and got to the end of the little hallway to go up the next flight of stairs. Maureen looked back at the man and saw him still standing with a shoe sticking out of his neck continuing to follow her.
"What!?" She shrieked as she ran up the stairs. "Why the fuck is he still standing up? He should be bleeding out and screaming by now."
She got to the top floor of the building and looked down the darkened hallway, there were three offices in this building; one belonged to a photographer who only used this space in the evenings, another belonged to a graphic designer who mostly worked from home, and the last office was vacant.
Maureen knew that none of these offices would be open and turned towards the little hall that led to the final set of stairs that headed to the roof.
Maureen raced to the top of the stairs and stopped when she reached the top. She listened, holding her ragged breathing as best she could to hear where the men were. She could hear them shambling and stumbling down the hallway towards the stairs banging on the locked doors as they went.
She let out a small breath as she looked at the door. The door to the roof had a simple push bar holding it closed. Until last year the door was always closed with a padlock to keep squatters and homeless from coming up during the day and sleeping there at night. Her boss had managed to talk the landlord into removing the lock so that they could use it as a lunch room, or smoking area in the summer to keep the smell of cigarettes from the front of the building to give it a better image.
Maureen put her hand on the door handle and gave it a light push. A loud crack filled the stairs and echoed down the hallway. She had forgotten how loudly the door opened.
She looked back down the stairs as she heard the men clamouring into one another as they turned around and headed towards the source of the noise.
Maureen raced out the door and threw her arm up in front of her face as the early morning light slightly blinded her after being in the dark hallways for so long.
The door slammed behind her as Maureen turned in a circle looking for anything that would give her a way to block the door and keep those men from killing her. Maureen stomped her feet on the floor as she had realised that the table and chairs that the boss had not brought back from his house after taking them home over the weekend.
There was nothing on the roof; no garbage can, no sticks, nothing she could use to block that door from opening.
Maureen turned towards the door and started to back away when she heard the first fist slam against it. She looked over her shoulder and started walking towards the corner of the building the furthest away from the door.
Another bang made Maureen jump in as she realised that all of the men were now at the door trying to get out. A tear began to roll down her face as she began to accept that this was going to be her end.
The door flew open as the men pushed against it and stumbled to the ground, the man in the back stood on the other two as he walked out and onto the roof. A smile crept across his lips, and he licked some of the congealed blood off of his face.
Maureen backed away from the man as the others began to get to their feet as well.
She looked behind them as she noticed another shadowy figure in the darkness. The figure emerged into the light; Maureen gasped as she raised her hands to her face and began to shake her head back and forth. Walking into the light with a portion of his face missing, a large chunk missing from his neck and carrying Marjorie's arm was Mike.
Tears streamed down her face as Mike raised the arm to his lips and took a bit of it. She watched as he chewed the meat from the arm, small chunks falling to the ground from his exposed jaw.
Maureen looked at what used to be her former coworker and could not understand how he was up and walking now.
"Mike!?" She shouted at him. "What's wrong with you? Why are you doing this to Marjorie?"
Mike continued his slow walk towards the shouting woman as he chewed on the arm, trying to satisfy the craving for meat that seemed never to dissipate.
Mike dropped the arm as he got closer to Maureen and put his arms out for her.
Maureen thought about running to Mike. Running into his embrace and accepting her fate from her friend. She continued to back up as she thought about what to do next.
She looked over her shoulder quickly and noticed how close to the edge of the building she was getting. She turned her attention to the men that were closing the distance when she closed h
er eyes and continued to walk.
As she hit the edge of the building, Maureen thought that she heard a gasp or a shout coming from somewhere behind her in the distance, there was nothing else she could do anymore.
Maureen closed her eyes as she started to fall.
The short amount of time that Maureen was falling was exhilarating and freeing; she had always been too afraid to do anything related to heights or jumping.
"Nothing I can do about it now." She thought to herself as she came to a sudden halt on the pavement.
Chapter Nine