The Waiting: A Supernatural Thriller(2)

Instead, he prepared to beg. “Christy, please, I won’t be able to afford Shaun’s medical bills without the health care.”

“My thoughts are, you should have contemplated that before stealing from the company, Evan,” Colt said, moving to the side of Christy’s desk.

Evan ignored him, focused on Christy. “Please, let me speak to Mr. Tillins, I’m sure he’ll understand.”

The curls shook. “No, Evan, this is final. Please pack your desk up. We’ll have your last check delivered to your house. Your health care will continue for the next two months, until the quarter ends.”

Evan’s jaw worked as though more pleas wanted to come out, but there was nothing left. The aching worry that had begun early in the morning with Christy’s email asking him for a meeting became a sour explosion of reality. They’d found out. He’d lost his job.

Colt come closer, and he stood, staring down at the kid’s snarky face. What kind of name was Colt anyway?

“If you have any further questions, direct them at the HR department,” Christy said, now looking at a stack of papers that her fingers shuffled through.

Evan turned toward the thick double doors and began to walk, hearing Colt’s footsteps a few inches behind his own.

“Well, on the bright side, now you have some extra time to spend with your retard,” Colt said, just above a whisper.

Evan moved without thought, oblivious to the static charge in his limbs as he spun. His elbow came up in a short arc and connected with Colt’s face. A sound like an aluminum can being crushed filled the office, and then there was blood—a lot of it.

The kid’s hands cupped his shattered nose as his broken glasses slid, now in two pieces, off his head. Colt stumbled back, clutching at his face with delicate piano-player fingers.

Christy sat stock-still in her chair, her eyes saucer plates dabbed with blue at their centers.

“Uhhh! Uhhh! He f*cking hit me!” Colt yelled.

He tripped over a chair and fell to his ass, the impact jolting a fresh gout of blood through his shaking fingers.

Evan stared, his jaw loosened. So much blood. The sound of the phone on Christy’s desk being picked up pulled his eyes from the bleeding office worker.

“Don’t!” Evan said, pointing at Christy, her finger hovering over the button that would bring the two security guards from the lobby rushing toward the office. “Or I’ll call Tillins’s wife.”

Christy’s mouth formed words that died in her throat. She set the phone back into the cradle.

“Get out.”

Evan looked one last time at Colt and wondered if the hipster would bleed to death right there on the floor, then turned and hurried through the double doors.

Evan walked as calmly as he could down the hallway, saying hello to several people who passed him by. His legs moved on their own accord, propelling him forward as his slamming heart threatened to burst from his chest. He rounded a corner and saw the sign for the bathroom. In a few seconds he was inside the farthest stall, with barely a pause to see if anyone else was present. He fell to his knees and vomited into the toilet, the light salad he’d had for lunch an unrecognizable mess before him. Evan clutched the handicap bar to his left and heaved again, and again.

He was unemployed. He’d broken Colt’s nose, threatened Christy with blackmail. What the hell was he doing? And more importantly, what the hell was he going to do? The stall spun, and he closed his eyes, spitting acid into the water.

When he managed to make it to the sink—the bathroom still blessedly empty—his reflection met him, but he avoided it entirely. He didn’t care to see what waited there for him. Instead, he bent and splashed cold water over his face until his skin stung.

He left the bathroom and walked to a set of doors at the far end of the corridor, opting to take the stairs rather than risk bumping into someone in the elevator who might ask a question he didn’t want to answer. After six flights of steps, he swung a door open, stepped out on the ground floor, and made his way to his office at the rear of the building.

Office. It wasn’t more than a glorified broom closet, just wide enough for a small desk, no window, and two file cabinets. He’d attempted to make it nicer several years before everything fell apart, by hanging photos of Elle and Shaun on the walls. He removed them, pausing to take in his wife’s and son’s features.

They both had a fair complexion and light, wispy hair. Elle’s smile radiated from the picture and struck a bell in the center of Evan, as it had when she was alive. Shaun’s arms were wrapped around his mother’s neck, his face partially buried in her hair. The white scar on the side of his small head was all but invisible in the picture unless you knew what you were looking for, and Evan couldn’t help seeing it each time he gazed at the photo.

He swallowed and turned in a slow circle to survey his office, searching for anything else to take, but other than a warm can of Coke inside his desk drawer, his favorite pen, and his jacket, there was nothing.

He stood in the doorway to the office in which he’d toiled for eight years writing promotions, ads, and marketing strategies. He remembered all the time spent in the little room, away from his family. And what did it mean now? All his effort culminated at this point—alone, with nothing but his pictures beneath his arm to show for it. He snapped the light off and shut the door behind him, listening to the hollow thunk as it closed. The end of his career.