14. Janie
Chapter 14
Janie
A s I slid my timecard into the time clock, the lathing guys stood behind me and I automatically felt on guard. I’m sure they all knew about my date with Rick. A shadow flickered underneath the time clock. Meical mentioned feeding on emotions. Did he know I was anxious right now? Under their breath, the men exchanged jokes and the sound of their chuckles filled the air. The heavy door we entered cracked open, and a whistle erupted behind me. As everyone turned to the door, the whispers grew louder and more intense. I stepped to the side and found my slot for my time card. I was pretty sure that was Rick—or the monster wearing Rick’s face.
“Did you fuck her?” a man whispered loudly. I don’t know his name. I barely knew any of their names.
“Bet that ass was prime for the taking,” another one muttered.
I felt the blood drain from my face as I listened to their words. If Rick was still here, what would he have said? Would I have just been another notch to brag about behind my back? This was a mistake. Fury swept through me; they had the audacity to say that with me right there. I turned toward the lab doors when I heard a crack screech through the air. I turned and a wooden chair near the time clock was in pieces. “Rick” stood by the men that had been talking. Fury radiated off him. He glared at the two men that had been disparaging me.
“Don’t you ever talk about her like that ever again,” he growled. His knuckles turned white as he squeezed his hands into fists.
The men’s faces paled as they shook their heads. One stepped closer to another man. “What the fuck happened to that chair?” he whispered as he turned away from Rick.
I walked to the lockers, which were still cloaked in darkness. Why can’t they turn on the lights in this joint? I opened one of the empty lockers at the end to stuff my purse inside. A cold touch brushed against the back of my hand. I looked around the edge of the locker door. A shadowy tentacle wrapped itself around my wrist. My mouth fell open as I turned my head. Rick stood menacingly at the end of the hallway, where the light glowed around him. The tentacle wrapped up my arm under the long sleeve of my top. A pulse of desire seemed to cross between us. Another co-worker walked out of the break room a few feet behind me and the tentacle retreated into the shadows as Rick turned toward the lathing room. I slammed the locker shut and walked into the brightly lit lab area. As I walked to the whiteboard for today’s station, it seemed like the smaller shadows in the room vibrated abnormally. How long had the monster been following me? Would he even know what to do in the lathing room without causing suspicion? I turned to the window. Rick put on his safety glasses and puttered around. He looked normal. But the creature inside that room wasn’t normal .
I turned to my microscope and sat down. Tana sat at her microscope beside me. “How was the date?” she asked.
I shook my head. “It was pretty bad. He’s . . . not a good dude,” I said.
Tana stilled. She looked around and lowered her voice. “What do you mean?”
“It was bad. I . . . don’t want to talk about it,” I said. A chill went down my spine as my imagination filled in the blanks of what could have happened. I bit my lip and looked away.
“But I heard him defend you out there. I thought that was a good sign?” she said.
“No. It’s bad. I should have never said yes to the date. I mean, it had been days of being pressured. It was like every time I turned around, he was there. Bugging me for that date.”
“Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I feel like it’s my fault for pressuring you to go on that date, too,” she said. She touched my arm softly. “I thought he was a nice guy.”
I didn’t really know what to say to her. As much as he pressured me, the fear of my sanity made me accept the date. Maybe I can blame the monster as much as I can blame everyone else. A perfect deluge of events to cause my pain. Tana and I worked in silence for a few hours. We occasionally would take part in small talk with the others, but they weren’t the fun convos we usually had. Maybe this was for the better.
“Almost lunch time,” Tana said.
“Are we going outside?”
She scoffed. “Of course. I don’t want to be with all of them. That room is too small for the factory anyways.”
“Cool.”
“I’m going on a date this weekend. ”
“I hope it works out better than mine.”
“He seems like a sweet guy. Like lonely and sweet. Maybe a bit of a geek. I decided to try someone I don’t typically go out with.”
“Sounds like a good one.”
Tana sighed. “Yeah. I hope.”
“Feel free to text me when you are finished. Um, only if you want. I . . .”
A crash from the lathing room interrupted our conversation. Tana was opening the window when she glanced at me. Loud shouts erupted from the narrow room. I put my tweezers down and rushed to the window. Teresa was in the clean room and she wouldn’t know what was going on to tell us to sit down. Rick threw things around the small lathing room, which was the size of a large walk-in closet. He pushed one man that had made a comment about me against the wall. The other one pulled him back. That man jerked back suddenly. The window was small, and I struggled to see what was going on. I had a feeling one of his shadows had pulled that guy off of Rick. Shouting and cursing filled the small room as another man pulled Rick off the other man. He shoved the other man into a machine, and he yelped in pain. The other man screamed as the blood drained from his face. Yes, there had to be a tentacle wrapped around his legs.
“I quit!” Rick shouted as he stomped out of the lathing room. More loud noises echoed through the building. Tana turned around to face me, her face pale with fear.
“Do you have any clue what that was about?” she asked. Her eyes were wide. “Maybe you were right. A bad dude.”
I shook my head. “I have no clue. He didn’t seem violent like that . More like sexually violent. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. No safe words sort of thing. I wonder what happened?” I asked. It was all a lie because I knew that Rick was dead. Punished for his crime. No jury. Justice.
When my eyes fell upon the grand glass windows off to the left, an office worker hastily moved from their pristine office to the bustling factory floor looking for the emergency. I turned to Tana and pointed. “Shit. They are coming to investigate. We should get back to work before we get in trouble.”
Tana nodded. “I think I will pop in the back and warn Teresa. Might also mean we may be behind on orders. Fuck. Did you see them flying in the air? Or was that my imagination? That couldn’t be possible,” she said as she walked towards the clean room hall.
“I didn’t see anything weird other than Rick attacking everyone,” I lied.
“Oh, shit. Does that mean we will have to do overtime? Or will they run out of things to do?” I walked to the whiteboard with the jar spinning the raw lenses. “The next few days will be rough, I guess. Do you think he broke the machines?”
Tana shrugged as she slipped into the hall and I walked back to my station. As I sat down, I slipped my phone out of my pocket. Except I couldn’t text the creature. He didn’t have a phone as far as I knew. Maybe I wouldn’t see him again. I asked him to get rid of Rick. Maybe this was part of his plan.