A Short Story

Dead Enough for Life or Alive Enough for Death

They moved as dead things, slowly, with herky-jerky motions.  They were soulless creatures, barely even aware of the task they performed.  Only minimal vestiges of life showed on the physical husks that served as human bodies.  One would be hard pressed to find any sign of spirit.

In other words, it was a typical morning in the warehouse, and a Monday at that.  After all, work like this would drain anyone of life.  The art of moving boxes from one big pile to stack in another smaller pile was hardly inspiring.

The groan of metal suddenly called to whatever attention they could muster, announcing the burly burden of their fat boss moving down the steps from his lofty office.  The creaking of the stairs was like a wail of protest against his excessive weight.

“Here comes The Hut”, one of them said, knowing he would not be heard over the squeaking sounds of the stairs.  The Hut was their entirely unaffectionate nickname for their overbearing overlord.

“Hey, fellas,” The Hut called for their attention as he reached the workroom floor, suggesting a camaraderie that did not exist.  “There’s a problem.”

“Some of you,” he continued, “and I won’t name names,” he paused, as if they cared to speculate for themselves who might be at fault.

“Well, these few of you haven’t been putting the proper header strips on your invoices,” he announced dramatically.  “Now, I don’t need to tell you how important this is” (probably because it wasn’t), “but the folks up in billing sure would appreciate you getting this right.  I’ll print up a memo that you can post in your lockers to remind yourself.”

Another dramatic pause to let the gravity of the situation sink in, and then he concluded, “now let’s say we get out there and get some packages delivered.”

The Hut liked to talk as if he ever did any actual delivering, or physical work of any kind, other than the climb up the stairs, which he now started to undertake with great effort.  After such an inspiring speech, it was almost a relief to pack up one’s truck and get on the road.

Within a half hour or so, Pete was driving out with a full day’s worth of deliveries to make.  Feeling the wind of the open road was rather reinvigorating compared to the stuffy warehouse, and the music from his station of choice livened his drive further.  His first step of the day was as usual the local elementary school.  He wheeled in a dozen boxes and left them with the nice old lady secretary at the front desk.  Of course, she gave him the same line she always did that he was doing his part “to feed little brains”.

Leaving the school parking lot, Pete made his way over to the local strip mall for the string of business deliveries he had to make there.  The sales clerks in such establishments had established their own language through the years.  A certain kind of grunt passed for hello while a slight variation changed the meaning to “thank you”.  Furthermore, their faces were all stuck in a perpetual grouchy expression, and their signatures were all the same half assed wavy line.  He would have thought them less than human if they didn’t remind him of his co-workers and, if he was honest, himself as well, on bad days at least.

The office building Pete stopped at next was almost the exact opposite, although ultimately lacking humanity just the same.  All the receptionists wore fake smiles, which seemed painted on just the same as the excessive amounts of make-up.  Pete was fairly certain even the male employees who manned the front desks in this building wore cosmetics.  Everyone seemed overly concerned with covering even the smallest of physical imperfections, and also really hiding their true personality.  This was a whole building of people uncomfortable in their own skin.

After getting out of there, Pete finished up the last few of his business deliveries which made it officially time for lunch.  He made some abrupt, ill advised lane changes and within several minutes, he was pulling into the drive thru at the closest fast food burger establishment.  As he waited behind a line of other cars, he pondered how none of those words really applied to this place.  Eventually, he reached the hideously arranged menu board.  Static blared out from the speaker call box, and he yelled back his order.  The minimum wage employee on the other end responded in the usual monkey speak, “wuduliktupsizfernineninecentmor?”

Of course, this didn’t even require a response as the friendly customer order summary screen immediately finalized his order for the default size.  Sometimes, Pete liked to pretend he had communicated his refusal telepathically, which had about the same success rate as trying to influence traffic lights with his thoughts.  It was actually a little unnerving how little actual communication took place in these lunchtime transactions.  Everything was so robotic, as if both he and the worker taking his order weren’t really human.  There were many days, Pete wasn’t even entirely sure of that person’s gender, occasionally even after he’d met said person at the pickup window.

Pete pulled around to the window now and made the wordless exchange of paper currency for a paper bag with enticing smells which only promised a letdown during actual consumption.  He drove over to a parking spot to enjoy the wonderful ambience of eating in his truck.  Lunch was the same tasteless mush it always was, which was mildly disturbing in its own right, and even more so since Pete varied what he ordered.  Pete washed it down with his soda.  He nearly spit everything back out when he tasted that yet again they had given him Diet rather than regular.  Same as he did every day, Pete wished he had put a little more thought into his lunch selection.

With his lunch break concluded less than satisfactorily, Pete drove off to start on the residential deliveries.  As usual, most involved dropping a box on a doorstep when no one answered the doorbell or his knocking.  Every once in a while, Pete thought he noticed someone peeking out past curtains or blinds to see who was calling, but inevitably there was still no answer, as if he was some sort of monster to these people or perhaps they were the monsters, allergic to the sunlight.  With his consideration turned to creatures, Pete was at least thankful there were no loose dogs today.

Eventually, Pete’s route took him to an apartment building.  Company procedure required knocking on individual doors for each package, but it was pretty common practice just to quickly pile everything in the parcel delivery bin next to the mail slots.  Today, though, Pete felt like killing some time and started in to see what he could hand deliver.  Soon enough, he began to question his decision as his efforts made little response, just as with all the houses he had visited.  His mind wandered and he was just going through the motions with half hearted knocks.

Then, to his astonishment, one of the doors swung upon for him.  His eyes widened in further shock as he saw the lady standing in the doorway, barely dressed in something out of a lingerie catalog.  Sadly, she hadn’t aged well, though Pete couldn’t really say how old she was.  She had probably been rather attractive some years ago, but that beauty had faded, particularly on her face.  Her eyes looked devoid of life.  Even the makeup intended to make her seem pretty just suggested that her face was decaying.

Gathering himself, Pete figured he should apologize for intruding, but the woman acted before he could form any words.  She ripped the package Pete was delivering from his hands, and flung it against the wall across the room, even though it was marked fragile.  The sound of shattering porcelain was oddly invigorating.  The lady grabbed Pete’s wrist and tugged, trying to drag him inside.  Her grip was surprising strung and her nails dug into his flesh, like some kind of hag witch creature.

Though it was certainly against company rules, and despite her haggard appearance, Pete found himself a little tempted.  Any feeling at all would be a welcome break from the soul crushing monotony of the day.  The woman turned, pulling Pete with her.  The sight of her unkempt hair made Pete think of Medusa.  Rather than morphing into stone, though, this unnerved him even more and broke the fragmentary spell  this she creature had on him.  Mustering all his strength, Pete pulled free of her grasp and beat a hasty retreat down the hallway.  Not wanting to risk a wait for the elevator, he fled down the stairs.  Quickly depositing the last of his deliveries in the parcel delivery bin, Pete hurried from the building and jumped into his truck.

As he hurriedly drove off, Pete noticed that the woman had left a wicked scratch on his arm with her nails.  He only half jokingly wondered if he should get checked for rabies.  Distracted, he barely noticed the red light in time, slamming on the brakes to screech to a halt, the front of the truck sticking slightly out into the intersection.  He heard the last few of the boxes in the back fall to the floor.  He hoped nothing was broken, because he wanted to avoid the hassle of dealing with that rather than out of any sense of altruism.  Pete was grateful that the day’s trend continued as no one answered the door during these last few deliveries.

Heading back to headquarters, Pete was glad this day was almost over, not that there was anything particular happening in his personal life this evening, or most days.  It would be another night of pizza, beer, and reality television, but Pete looked forward to it.  Laughing at how pathetic the people on those shows were helped him ignore his own mindless existence.  The last strains of the song “Dragula” blared through the radio as Pete pulled into the warehouse parking lot.

Leaving his truck in the usual spot, he headed inside to drop off his paperwork and punch out for the day.  For the moment, he was the only one in the building.  Pete stood at his locker to change his sweat drenched shirt.  He heard someone enter behind him and turned his head for a quick look to see who it was.

“Hey, Jenkins,” Pete called out and then turned back to concentrate on unbuttoning his shirt.  There was no reply but that was fairly normal around here.  Pete took off his work top and tossed it into his locker.  He pulled on a fresh t-shirt, and turned around.  Jenkins sure seemed to be moving slowly, and Pete now noticed how strange he looked.  He was walking badly, dragging his leg, and he had bruises on his face and arms, as if he had been mauled by a dog.

“Man, what got you Jenkins?” Pete asked.

Jenkins still didn’t say anything, continuing to shuffle closer and closer.  Pete just stood there, with no consideration that something extraordinary might be going on.  After a typically mind numbing day, there really wasn’t any thought at all going on in Pete’s brain.  Jenkins’ approach was a super slow motion oncoming rush of a predator.  Before Pete could process what was going on, Jenkins was right in front of him and grabbing him.  Pete was surprised by the strength of Jenkins’ grip, who was certainly not muscular.  Pete was still in shock as Jenkins leaned closer and bit into Pete’s neck.

Jenkins munched away for a while, and the disease soon worked its way through Pete’s system.  Pete felt himself turning into a soulless creature.  Maybe it wasn’t much of a transformation, but he was now condemned to this reality, to be driven by a perverse hunger to feed on humans.  As the change overcame Pete, Jenkins moved away to a new victim as another driver had returned to the base.

When the next driver arrived, Pete was fully drained of whatever humanity he had possessed and followed Jenkins to feast on this prey.  Through the evening and into the night, one by one their co-workers drifted in to be taken and changed.  Almost all of the crew was transformed, save for a few that had finished their day earlier than Pete.  Now that the disease had turned them mindless, they stayed in the warehouse all night, just shuffling around randomly, which was oddly nearly indistinguishable from their movements any morning.  There was no pattern to their ambling, though if one checked the surveillance camera footage by chance during just the right timeframe, there was a period where they appeared to be recreating the “Thriller” dance.

Eventually, morning came, which only mattered to the small mob as it brought the arrival of new victims.  By the time the sun was fully risen, the last of the drivers had been converted.  Then, The Hut entered the warehouse.

“Hey fellas,” he addressed them.  “why haven’t you started sorting the boxes?”

He stood there like an idiot.  Probably no one would have bothered to respond even if they hadn’t all been turned into creatures driven only by their hunger.  Before The Hut could even think to react, his former employees had swarmed him.  Despite their utter inability to feel any emotion, they seemed almost enthusiastic as they zealously began to feast on The Hut’s flesh.  This was more effort than he had ever inspired in them before.  Several times, satisfying crunching sounds announced that they had penetrated past bone.  Chunks of The Hut’s brain came flying out.  Some of it splattered across a pile of invoices stacked next to the computer on the work bench.  That probably wasn’t what he had meant by “putting a proper header” on them, but at least solidarity among the staff had been achieved.

(This piece was inspired by something Alan Edwards is working on.  Let me give credit to the band “Icon of Coil“, the song title is from a song of theirs; credit also to Rob Zombie and Michael Jackson, whose songs feature, and to myriad other bands whose particular musical stylings helped influence this; and credit to the movie “Office Space”.)