Office Politics by L.R.J. Allen

Author:L.R.J. Allen [Allen, L.R.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Horror
ISBN: 9781671587694
Google: 7S-TzgEACAAJ
Amazon: B099F2CZDK
Publisher: Independently published
Published: 2021-07-09T20:01:07+00:00

Twelve

T he corridor they stumbled into was dark, illuminated only by intermittent emergency lighting and the flicker of the fire their assailant had created. The outer rim of the main hall turned into a warren of hallways and adjacent rooms, many of them offices, others storage, with most of the key card readers. There was one main continuous hallway that looped around the hall itself and where they stood, they realised the main entrance, which was the most obvious escape point, was on the opposite side from where they were.

Tess had chosen to run to the right, so Helen and Richard followed, Richard’s arm still linked over Helen’s shoulder as he hobbled. There were signs on the wall pointing them to the main entrance, as well as smaller arrows that, in better times, would have led staff to the other departments, the cafeteria, or the onsite gym.

The wound in Richard’s side continued to weep and left a significant bloom of blood and plasma on his t-shirt that was warm to the touch. Helen took a glance.

“That doesn’t look good,” she said.

“It doesn’t feel good either,” replied Richard.

“Will it be ok?”

“Let’s focus on getting out of here,” Richard said. They were approaching the first turn in the corridor. Helen chanced a peek behind her. There was no sign of their pursuer.

“I can’t see him,” she said.

“Maybe he fainted.”

“Maybe,” she conceded, though she was not confident.

“Do you know him?” asked Richard.

“Know him?” she said in a disbelieving tone. “You didn’t recognise him?”

“I was upside down,” he said.

“That’s Pete Anders,” she said, incredulous. “You’ve met him, I’m sure!”

Richard had, yet only fleetingly. Anders was at the same barbecue where Richard and Helen had first met face to face, though he kept to himself, and merely stared at the festivities with thinly veiled disgust. They had joked concerning his demeanour; passive yet oddly threatening, something they found incongruous compared to the other managers around him, who were all engaging and funny.

It seemed that, without the checks and balances of the typical world around him to curtail his behaviour, Pete Anders opted to let the mask of sanity drop completely.

As they reached the turn in the corridor, they found Tess stood, her tail up, ears back, and slightly hunched as she growled at something.

“Tess?” Richard whispered. Saliva was streaming from her bloodied muzzle.

He and Helen both peered round the corner and saw, to their horror, Anders stumbling into the hallway in front of them.

The geography of the corridor was simple enough: it encircled the hall in a square, with four sets of double doors spaced equidistantly, one centrally on each side. Richard and Helen had exited through the doors at the rear of the main hall. Anders had simply used one of the side doors.

To their advantage, Anders appeared particularly dazed as his tattered arm flopped uselessly to his side. Blood poured over his unusable hand in a consistent flow. Everything between the elbow and wrist glistened, catching what ambient light there was to bring further attention to the sickening injury.

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