Tim From Work

After an office prank goes too far, Marc learns some messes can’t be vacuumed away.

Marc didn’t have to go into the office very often, but when he did, his gut cinched in a knot of rage. He liked the work well enough, the building was forgettable, the unlimited free coffee, sure. But it was Tim. Fucking Tim. His desk neighbour, who made Marc want to stick pencils in his ears just to drown out Tim’s lilty, shrill voice. He was always there. Marc sometimes wondered if he lived in the building, he’d never seen him anywhere else. This morning is no exception.

Marc steps into fluorescent lights and walls so beige they seem to apologize for existing. He’s barely halfway to his desk when a high-pitched “Hey there, Marc!” rings out from the next cubicle. Marc just grunts at the cheery fuck and sits, already fantasizing about office-wide carbon monoxide leaks. Tim’s chair groans as he leans back, peeking past the cubicle walls.

“So, you excited?” he asks. Marc turns to look over his shoulder at him with barely contained agitation. “For?”

“Uh, the pizza lunch? Duh?” Tim looks at him like he’s an idiot. Tim would look better as a leather jacket. He turns back to his desk and observes his stapler, hole-punch, and pencils, all in perfect alignment.

“Ah, right, that,” Marc says to the screen. After a beat of silence, Marc glances back. Tim is still looking at him with that stupid grin. “Yup! Super excited!” Marc yells with over-the-top enthusiasm. Tim smiles and gives him finger guns before disappearing back behind the cubicle wall. Marc hunkers down and prays that’ll be the extent of his social interaction for the day. He spots a cobweb in the corner of his cubicle and yanks out his duster to clean it.

A few hours pass before Tim bothers him again. A few light taps on the back of Marc’s chair jolt him out of his rhythm. Tim is going to get pizza. Marc sneers and tries to find his place in the spreadsheet again. Marc’s finally tuned the world out again when Tim returns, his paper plate piled high with small squares of pizza, dripping with grease.

“So listen, ol’ pal,” says Tim, landing in his chair. “You’re ok, right?” Marc regards him with genuine surprise.

“Yeah, I’m fine. What- why do you ask?” That’s the 13th time he’s made an unsolicited comment this week. God, I wish his tongue would fall out.

“Nothing, just checking.” He smiles and Marc wants to smash those perfect teeth. Barely a few moments pass before Tim pipes up again, slicing through Marc’s focus.

“That’s wrong.” Marc’s body tenses at Tim’s ringing voice. He gathers all his civility before replying,

“What’s wrong?”

“That, this cell.” He taps Marc’s screen with one greasy finger, leaving an obvious, glistening smear of grease behind. Marc can only stare at the spot he’s left, the fat gliding down and revealing the mistake in the spreadsheet. The moment seems to stretch into eternity. Marc feels the blood boiling behind his eyes. He’s frozen, certain that moving means he’ll lose control. Marc is so deaf with rage, he doesn’t even hear his boss until she shouts.

“Earth to Marc!” his boss calls out, her voice boring into his consciousness. His eyes snap up to her. “I asked if that’s ok?”

“S- Sorry, what?” Marc stammers as he reaches for the disinfectant wipes in his desk, wishing they were chloroform.

“I said, I need you and Tim to stay late tonight, finish the Anderson report. No problem?” she asked with a thumbs up.

“Uh, yeah, for sure,” he replies, like he’s just woken up from a nap. His boss walks away and Tim slings an arm over his shoulder, shocking Marc back.

“Just you and me, good buddy!” Marc pulls off the greatest acting performance of his life as he smiles at Tim before turning back to his screen, where dried grease turned his white spreadsheet yellow.

Marc only looks up again when he hears the low commotion of people packing up and leaving the office. He looks at the clock, 4:45pm. Slackers, he thinks. Settling in for a long night, he decides to get some coffee. His chair squawks as he stands. Tim leans past the cubicle wall.

“Marc! Whatcha up to, bud?” Marc flinches. That voice, high and condescending, like he’s speaking to a child.

Marc turns, slow and stiff. “Just getting some coffee.”

“Oh, I’ll take a cup! Thanks!” Marc barely hides a sneer as he walks off. He enters the office kitchen, with a huge floor to ceiling window and too small counters, and begins making a fresh pot. He hears a dull thunk to his left and lazily turns his head to just catch a glimpse of a pigeon’s mangled body falling twenty stories. He stares at the final imprint of life on the glass, his eyes half closed, and his jaw relaxed. He could have been folding underwear.

The spectacle over, he grabs the glass pot of coffee, two styrofoam cups and walks back to his cubicle. He sets the cups down carefully, eyes fixed on the foreign object waiting for him.

“As a thank you, I got you some… chips,” Tim says, trying to keep his composure. Marc looks at the small can of chips and then to Tim.

“Thanks,” he says, wondering if Tim truly believes they’re friends. Marc sets the hot coffee down and reaches for the chips. He lifts the plastic cap and, too late, sees Tim’s wide grin. Suddenly, a shower of glitter and two foam snakes shoot out right in Marc’s face. His eyes open in horror as he stumbles back. Glitter rains down all around him, covering his pristine keyboard, chair, and screen. Marc takes in the mess, blood pumping through his ears. Slowly, he becomes aware of a high-pitched screeching. Tim is laughing. He’s doubled-over on the floor and pointing directly at Marc.

“Prank war!” he says, sitting up and stretching his arms wide. “Now you have an opportunity to get me back!”

Marc doesn’t blink. His eyes twitch, his fingers tremble. He wraps a hand around the large coffee pot and pulls back.

“Hey man, are you ok? You’re shaking,” Tim says with genuine concern. Marc slams the coffee pot into Tim’s nose, shattering it. Scalding coffee spills over his forehead. Tim yells in agony, clutching his nose and falling onto his back. Marc straddles him, slamming the pot into his face again and again until it explodes in shards against bone. Marc pushes the shards of glass deeper with each strike. He only stops when there’s nothing recognizable left.

He pauses, then screams, “Got you back!” loud enough to tear something in his throat.

Chest heaving, he stands. Grabs the disinfectant wipes and scrubs his hands clean. He looks back at his glitter-covered desk and knows that no work is getting done like that. Sighing, he reaches for the portable vacuum under his desk.

Only after triple-checking there’s no glitter on his desk, the floor, or himself, does Marc turn to the body. He stares at what used to be Tim. From the torso down, it’s almost as though he’s asleep. But his face looks like a casserole. His jaw juts sideways. There are bits of flesh, bone, muscle, blood, and glass, all mashed in what used to be a face.

Marc considers his options. He scans the deserted office, almost thankful that they were asked to work late. He remembers the warehouse downstairs with their trash compactor and industrial bags. With a plan in place, he grabs Tim’s arms and drags his body to the utility closet. Coldly and systematically, he places each of Tim’s extremities on the guillotine paper cutter. First his wrists, stacked neatly on printer paper to keep the blood off the beige tile. Don’t want to make any more mess than I have to, he thinks to himself. Then his feet and calves. Each part gets its own section of printer paper. It’s after he manages to saw through the knee joint that he realizes two issues.

Fuck, this cutter is getting dented from the bone. I can probably only separate the head before it breaks. And even then, how am I going to get you down to the warehouse? This chute goes straight down to the compactor, but I’ll get blood all down the inside. He straightens and looks around the room. In the corner are thick cardboard boxes. I’ll need to use more than one cause the big ones can’t go down the chute. Despite this, he smiles at his own intellect. He continues procedurally, taking Tim’s head off, lining the box with paper and placing each separate body part within a box. He’s pleased, not for the first time, by how well feet fit together in a box. So symmetrical, he thinks.

Once the last box is on its way down, Marc wipes up the stray blood, then tosses the rags in after and steps into the elevator. The doors open, and he sees one lone worker in a high-vis vest on the far side of the floor. Marc tenses but steps calmly to the compactor, where parts of the cardboard boxes are already turning red. He slams the start button and watches as the compactor crunches and grinds far too loudly. Marc turns and looks for the worker but sees nobody coming. Suddenly, it stops. It’s stuck! Marc starts sweating as he kicks at it, hard. On the third kick, something snaps, loud and wet, and the compactor continues. Marc steps back and looks around. The worker is at the end of the aisle, staring at him. Marc gives him a little wave and says

“Recycling, am I right?” The worker shakes his head and walks away. The compactor continues its job and when it’s finished, Marc peers in. Nothing recognizable. No human parts. Good. He goes back upstairs. After all, he has a job to do. Marc sits down and, for a moment, turns to his right. No Tim. He lets out a breath of relief and gets to work. A light directly above flickers.

Marc’s nerves are shot the next day, and Tim’s absence only sharpens it. His boss comes by: “Hey, have you heard from Tim?”

“No! I mean, no, I left before him last night, he said he was going to stay back for a while.”

“Hmm. Ok, if he shows, send him to my office, ok?”

“You got it, boss.” She leaves and Marc turns back to his desk, trying to shut out the world. The same light flickers above him, just once. He looks up at it, uneasy, making a mental note to talk to maintenance about it. The rest of the day crawls by. Marc finishes his work and, at 5:05 exactly, he tells maintenance about the light. The next morning, he walks in to find the same maintenance worker on a ladder, removing a panel from the ceiling.

“Hey, this is your desk, right?” The maintenance worker asks

“Yeah, something wrong?” Marc replies

“This panel was loose, could’ve come crashing down on you and left you a mighty big bruise. It’s lucky the light was on the fritz, otherwise this would’ve gone unchecked.” Marc’s eyes narrow.

“Yeah… well, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He walks away, leaving Marc staring at the new panel. The light didn’t flicker again. The following week, Marc comes in to find his boss standing at his desk and chatting with two police officers. He freezes and tries to turn away, but his boss calls out

“Marc! Join us!” Marc shuffles over, keeping his shoulders loose and his face bland. One of the cops reaches a hand out to shake.

“Marc, good to meet you. I’m detective Davies, this is officer Chen.” The second officer nods. Marc shakes the detective's hand.

“H-How can I help you?” He swallows.

“We’re looking into your co-worker, Tim. He’s been declared missing. Have you seen him recently?”

“No, not since…” He turns to his boss. “Last week, right? You asked if I’d seen him that morning.” His boss nods and detective Davies marks something in his notebook.

“It’s weird, the guy didn’t really have anywhere else to go. We tried reaching out to any family, but he’s got none. Even the person who reported him missing was the owner of a Chinese place a block from his apartment, who said he didn’t come for two days in a row.” He pauses, looking at Marc. “Is there anyone else you can think of who would know him? Someone he might go to for help?”

Marc pretends to think. Inwardly, he wonders if it’s a blessing or a curse that he didn’t know more about Tim’s internal life. “No, I’m sorry, detective. I’ve got nothing.” The cop flips his notebook closed, and thanks them both for their time. Marc’s boss turns to him and bluntly asks

“So, what’s in the drawer?” Marc looks curiously at her.

“Sorry?”

“The drawer.” She points to a sticky note placed haphazardly on the wall of Marc’s cubicle that simply says: ‘Check Drawer’. Marc’s eyes go wide. He knows he didn’t write that. He quickly tears it from the wall.

“It’s nothing,” he says, looking down.

“Oookay.” His boss walks away. Who the hell wrote that? And why? ‘Check Drawer.’ It’s scrawled in uneven writing. Off-centre. Sloppy. Marc crumples it and tosses it into the trash at the far side of the office. When he sits back down at his desk, he eyes the drawer. A tremor runs through him. He’s definitely not opening that drawer.

He tries to push it out of his mind, turns on his monitor to the spreadsheet he has just about finished. Just as he’s about to hit send, the monitor goes black. Marc jumps back slightly in surprise. He reaches over to turn it on again. It flickers back on fine, until he moves the mouse towards ‘Send’. The monitor swiftly and, almost reactively, turns off again.

“The fuck?” Marc says aloud. He tries to be faster than it, turning on the monitor and moving the mouse as fast as possible. It cuts again before he can get there. Marc leans back in his chair and feels the air get cold around him. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck stand up. He swivels. The office is still. Normal. No one else seems to notice. He turns the monitor back on and there is a loud clunk. The calm whirring of the entire computer stops. Marc looks under the desk to see the computer has been unplugged. He bolts upright. Gathers his things, knocking over his meticulously aligned pens. He doesn’t fix them. He just leaves.

When he gets to the ground floor, he notices the security desk is empty. Odd, but Marc brushes it off. He tries the front door, it’s locked. He tries the security lock, powered down. His panic spikes. Something isn’t letting him leave! No, that’s stupid. It’s just the tech that’s on the fritz. Marc circles the security desk and knocks on the office door.

“Hello? Can someone open the door?” he calls, louder than intended. Abruptly, he hears a series of loud pops next door. Not knowing what else to do, Marc takes a seat in the lobby and forces himself to breathe. Time blurs. Finally, a guard bursts from the back office, scanning the lobby. His eyes land on Marc.

“What are you doing?!” he shouts at Marc

“I’m just trying to leave, the doors are locked.” Marc replies, sheepish.

“We were in lockdown! There was a shooter in the parking lot next door!”

Marc gasps. “Is… is everyone ok?”

“It’s okay now, cops arrested the guy,” the guard replies. “I’ll get the door for you.” He hits a button and the door clunks unlocked.

“Thank you,” Marc says, and walks out, his face illuminated by the red and blue lights.

He calls in the next day, saying he’s sick and needs to take a day to himself. His boss replies, “Don’t worry about it, you’ve looked on edge the past few days and I don’t think you’ve ever missed a day before, so please, take this one.”

“Thanks, I’ll try to come back for tomorrow.”

“Just one more thing before you go.” Marc’s blood goes cold. “The Anderson reports, where are they? You left before submitting them yesterday.”

Marc breathes again, “Oh, they’re in the… drawer. In my desk, the bottom one.” The same one I was told to open. If I had listened to the note, the reports wouldn’t be late, he thinks. His boss wishes him a restful day and Marc hangs up. He puts down his phone and lays his head in his hands.

“What’s happening to me?!” he shouts into the silence.

Marc can only take one day of rest before he begins feeling useless. He shambles into the office, shirt untucked. His monitor is already on, waiting for him. Something about it feels menacing, begging him to sit down. Tense, locked up, he sinks into the chair. He immediately sees that the spreadsheet he was about to send to his boss and clients was incorrect. He’d mislabelled the payment by a factor of six. I… I must have not been paying attention. Too much going on, he thinks.

He fixes the error in five minutes. No flickers or interference. The report sends. Staring at the sent email, he notices a new draft, unsent. His entire body sags in anticipation and dread as he opens the draft.

TO: HR@RossPaper

FROM:MarcT@RossPaper

Help. Marc is not well. Pleas

The email cuts off after that, left unfinished. Marc reads it once, then again. After the third read, his screen blacks out. Marc flinches, then realizes it’s his own reflection, hair a mess, eyes baggy and frantic. He looks at himself like he’s just seen an ad for a haunted house. He stares at himself until an all-hands meeting is called. He stands at the back of the meeting room, everyone packed in and breathing on each other. He’s not paying attention, his mind keeps running in circles, playing back everything that has been happening to him since… that night. He wants to be rational about it, he knows that logic rules this world, but he can’t shake the feeling of being haunted. Tim wants him to fail, he’s setting him up!

Marc is so consumed by this thought that he’s startled by the room erupting into laughter. Then, he hears Tim behind him laughing. He whips around so quick he strains his neck, but there’s nothing behind him, just the window and open air. He excuses himself from the meeting and goes to get some coffee, to calm his nerves.

He steps into the kitchen, muffled voices still coming from the meeting room. He reaches for the pot, but a hand grabs his arm and yanks him back. He spins from the force, turning to look around. There's only air behind him. The kitchen is still. Marc can't hear the voices from the meeting anymore. Not even a hum.

“Hello?” he asks the open air. Nothing. The sound of doors opening from down the hall brings him back. He cautiously steps out of the kitchen, weaving through the crowd, his eyes searching the air. The sound of glass shattering behind him startles the crowd. A co-worker yells as the boiling coffee spills all over her and the floor. The pot was cracked. Marc stares. If I had lifted that…

He steps away shakily and wonders, absurdly, if the building had finally listened. Maybe they’d piped that carbon monoxide in just for him. He's about to sit when he sees the pens that he had knocked over before. They’re back, exactly the way he likes them, perfectly arranged. Nobody knows how he liked them. Nobody he knew, anyway. Not even Tim… right? He feels a fresh wave of fear.

The walls heave and press in on him. His chest tightens and his thoughts are like flies, circling in his head, never coalescing, never landing. His legs tremble as he steps into the gray stairwell, one hand on the wall, the other on the railing. He takes careful, measured steps down, sweat pouring from his forehead. He collapses on the metal landing. Back to the wall, he pulls his legs into his chest and begins to rock slowly. I’m losing my mind.

A spark flickers in the air. He looks up. A small piece of glitter floats down and lands in the centre of the floor. On that exact spot, feet begin to form. Translucent feet. Then pants, neatly pressed, rise from the floor. Marc stays unmoving as the translucent form of Tim takes shape in front of his eyes. His shirt appears, still stained maroon. Then the face. It’s the same as Marc remembers, unmarred by what he did. Still smiling that detestable smile. The ghost opens its mouth, wider than a mouth should go.

“Marc look! I learned how to manifest!” says Tim, his grin stretching unnaturally wide. Marc doesn’t scream, just grunts in pain and clutches his chest. He doesn’t look away from the ghost, but his heart thunders, like a current running under his skin. Suddenly, everything stops. Marc can’t hear his heart anymore. He blinks, and now it’s the world that seems foggy and translucent, while Tim stands before him, as solid as can be. He hears a thud next to him. Looking down, he stares into his own dead eyes. He looks back up at Tim, whose face is regretful.

“Ah, sorry buddy, didn’t mean for that to happen. Still, that means we can chat again!”

Marc tries to close his translucent eyelids. He can’t.