While Jonathan Gates was starting his day, one of the company’s disgruntled employees stormed over to him and glared at him with furious eyes. When the man was close enough, he grabbed the oblivious worker and pulled him right into his face, a roughness seeping into his voice. “Why’d you rat me out?”
Jonathan tried to get the man off him as he replied, “Curtis, what happened to you was your own fault.”
“No, you ratted me out, Jonathan!”
“You stole from the company!” Jonathan said as he dislodged from his co-worker’s grasp. “This is all your fault.”
“You got me fired,” Curtis said as he peered through slitted eyes, “and I won’t forget it.”
Because of the commotion, a guard approached the two men, positioning himself behind Curtis, and said, “Do we have a problem, Mr. Reyes?”
“There’s no problem here. I was on my way out.” Curtis turned around with a sneer, shaking his head as if the man he’d been arguing with disgusted him. As he stomped away, Curtis turned his head and muttered loud enough for Jonathan alone to hear the threat. “You’ll pay for this, I promise you that.”
Jonathan ignored the implication of Curtis’s words, pretending they hadn’t unsettled him, and returned to his shift. The night work wasn’t glamorous, but he needed the money. Once the line stopped for the day, he grabbed his portable white noise machine before grabbing his mop and bucket. By the time he started, he had been listening to the soothing sounds of the ocean. Despite the scant illumination from the dim lights, his focus was consumed by cleaning the floor around the assembly line. Just as he was finishing, something extinguished the little dim lights.
Before he could react to the sudden darkness, something grabbed his wrist. Without a thought, Jonathon tried to pull his arm away from whatever had seized him, yet the grip only tightened as malevolent laughter filled the air. A shiver ran down his spine as he fumbled for his phone with his free hand. As the screen lit up, something yelped and released him.
He swept the trembling beam of his phone’s light but found nothing. The laughter echoed still, always just out of reach, but every time he washed light where he heard the laughter originating, nothing was there. Having felt like he had searched everywhere, Jonathan rushed to the light switches. He killed the lights and counted several thundering heartbeats. Then he flipped them back on, yet the light never spilled out into the room.
Looking up, he saw darkness creeping across the ceiling, with cracks of light struggling to survive. He turned and flew to the door only to find that it was sealed. Someone had locked him in. He edged away from it, stepping back into the room, and within moments he could feel warm air enveloping the back of his neck. While the humid air bathed his exposed skin, the menacing laughter boomed from behind him. Fear gripped him, causing his legs to feel as if they’d been coated with drying cement.
Before he could spur himself into action, he felt pain lance across his back as something raked across his skin. As his cry tore through the near silence, Jonathan’s flailing hands bathed the area behind him with light. The ensuing howl of pain ripped through him. He staggered, breath ragged, trying to stay upright as the echo faded.
When the cacophony died away, the unmistakable rasp of Curtis’s voice sliced through the silence. “You may have harmed my friend, but your little light won’t last forever.”
The moment he heard that claim, Jonathan knew he needed more than the protection offered by his phone. With his free hand, he began groping for anything while he tried to light the large room with what he had. When his hands fell upon some cloth, a fragile wave of relief started flooding into him as he yanked the fabric towards him, creating a crash of clattering and shattering objects. But he didn’t care. He had a spark of hope.
Another howl rang out, though this time instead of declaring pain it was crying out for vengeance. Jonathan snatched his lucky lighter out of his pocket and lit the cloth. As the cloth burned, he realized that there were hundreds of bolts of material, so he started pulling more down and feeding his meager fire. After he added the third bolt, he heard more cries of pain from whatever attacked him. As the sounds died away, he could make out Curtis’s faint curses.
Jonathan took several deep breaths and listened to the symphonic crackle of the fire. Then he heard the deafening click of a cocking handgun. He ducked behind some machinery moments before a bullet tore into where he had been. “Fine, Jonathan, we’ll do it this way!”
Heart pounding, he scanned the area for anything to defend himself, but all he found was a pipe propped up against the machinery.
“I told you that you would regret what you did.”
Jonathan could tell that his crazy former co-worker was drawing closer, so with his pipe held firmly, he began trying to locate his assailant. As he searched, he heard another explosion and the crack of an impact as the latest bullet embedded itself into something. He swallowed his fear and looked around the corner and saw Curtis’s back a couple of feet away.
Biting his lip, Jonathan rushed into action, forcing his body to obey. He pounced towards Curtis, and as he was turning around, the pipe slammed into the man’s shoulders, driving him to the ground. After a tense moment, the sprinklers finally went off, and his eyes went wide as his fear grew. Yet as the fire died, the lights flickered on, and another unearthly howl of pain ripped through the room. Soaked and fully bathed in light, Jonathan finally exhaled, tension draining as the silence took hold, but his heart’s beat refused to slow.