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The Finest in Crime and Suspense Short Fiction

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The Only Thing to Fear
by Clare Broyles 

“Please keep your arms and legs off the conveyor belt,” the announcement interrupted the soft jazz Muzak. Cheryl looked around. She was at the airport. Who was she picking up? Or was she the traveler? She felt she could remember if she only tried. Perhaps if she got her bags. There was her battered blue suitcase she had taken to Las Vegas last year before the world closed down. She watched it inch toward her on the conveyor belt. A crowd of people appeared around her, grabbing their suitcases and jostling her as they passed. A sudden fear shot through her. A crowd, and none of them were wearing masks. She wasn’t wearing a mask. How long had she been standing here among this throng of Covid-breathing strangers? More than fifteen minutes and much closer than six feet. She moaned with fear. Why had she done this foolish thing after trying for so long to stay safe? She put her hand on her chest. Already she felt she couldn’t breathe.

Cheryl woke up gasping for breath. 4:02 a.m., again. She calmed her racing heart and mind enough to think. Just a dream, there had been no breech. In the past two months she had not let a single item come in from the outside that was not sprayed down with her dwindling supply of Lysol or washed in bleach. She had sanitized until her hands were raw and red and the only hand sanitizer she had left was one-hundred-percent alcohol from a distillery that had cost her fifty dollars a bottle.

Every night a version of the same dream, but always in a different setting; at church, in the local Walmart, at La Coco’s pizzeria, and now at the airport. And always the realization that she had made a mistake, opened her defenses in a single foolish moment, and Covid had slipped through.

She shuffled to the kitchen to make her first coffee of the day, then put on a polyester blouse and jacket for her morning meeting, leaving on her pajama pants and slippers. No one would see them. No one had seen her bottom half for over nine months.

This meeting will begin when the host lets you in. The little circle chased itself around her computer screen hypnotically. As the Zoom meeting popped up, she rearranged her features into a much practiced smile that made her look friendly and avoided creating a double chin.

“Hi, everyone,” her boss Tiffany acknowledged the team as they popped onto the screen in their little squares. There were usually only four of them in this first meeting, and each day seemed a repeat of the last. Jill looking off screen, typing furiously, as if her workday had started hours ago and this meeting was interrupting her important work. Mykaela’s profile picture, some anime warrior princess, held her place as she finished putting her makeup on while everyone said their hellos. She would pop in after ten minutes with a scattered, “Was my video off? Sorry.”

“Good morning, ladies,” Brad’s voice pierced Cheryl’s ears. She turned down her volume. Brad loomed over his camera looking like a giant even though Cheryl knew he was only five seven. A chat popped up.

Brad to Cheryl: Nice blouse

Cheryl glanced down at the centimeters of skin visible on her chest and moved the camera up. She debated taking a screen shot for her growing HR file on Brad. Was it worth it? She pictured him in the HR office with his fake smile and too loud laugh explaining this away.

“I’m not allowed to give a compliment now? She’s fifty years old for God’s sake. I was just being pleasant. Between you and me I have a lot of better options than Cheryl.”

But where was the HR office now and who was running it? Presumably they were working remotely, whoever they were.

“Now, I have some information about the merger,” Tiffany said as if in answer to her thought. “The good news is that our team has been deemed essential so none of us are going to made redundant at this time.”

“That’s wonderful,” Cheryl said aloud with a smile of relief. On the screen the others were silently expressing similar emotion. She realized that she was on mute as well and clicked the mic icon. “Great news, guys,” just as Mykaela clicked on with, “That’s awesome!”

“But the bad news,” Tiffany continued, “Or maybe good news, I guess it depends on your point of view . . .” Cheryl tensed, waiting. Everything about the merger had been stressful and the fact that it was happening during a global pandemic had made the whole thing seem apocalyptic. “Since we are essential, the higher-ups want us in the office. We’re going back on Monday.” Cheryl’s heart began to beat faster, squeezing her chest and robbing her of breath. The rest of the meeting was a blur, a wall of blank noise, but Cheryl managed to go through the motions, nodding and responding at the right time. After she clicked off, she sat in the silent house. Its emptiness was lonely and comforting.

On Monday morning the parking lot was almost empty as Cheryl pulled in. It was still dark out at eight a.m.; only the twelfth floor had the lights on. She tugged two masks into place, put on her protective glasses, and pulled on her gloves. As she stepped out of the car her glasses instantly fogged up. She picked her way across the snowy parking lot, peering under the useless glasses.

A welcoming blast of hot air met her as she clumsily swiped her card through the reader and scraped the door open. Her boots echoed strangely in the lobby. The neon sign above the long empty coffee shop blinked on and off with a buzz that set her nerves on edge as she waited for the elevator to descend.

“Cheryl!” she heard a tap and the muffled sound of a woman’s voice outside the glass door. Cheryl looked curiously at the bundled up and masked woman as she fumbled for her key card. She didn’t recognize her. At that moment the elevator opened with a ding. Cheryl stepped in and punched the button for the twelfth floor. She heard the outer door begin to grate open and punched harder.

“Hold the door,” the woman said, her voice muffled, struggling to close the door behind her. Cheryl tensed, ready to jump out if need be. The thought of breathing the same air as a stranger terrified her. How could she stand six feet away in an elevator? The doors closed and Cheryl sighed with relief as she ascended.

The elevator opened onto the hall she hadn’t seen since March thirteenth. It felt like another lifetime. She took a deep breath, tasting the cloth of her mask, and entered the room. Some of her colleagues were already at their desks in the open-plan office. She saw with relief that the desks had been pushed to the far corners. Large plastic shields surrounded each desktop. Yellow stickers on the floor asked the staff to socially distance. A new metal sign outside the bathrooms said “One at a time please.” She nodded at her distant workmates, not ready to try to yell across the office to exchange pleasantries. She hurried over to her desk, turned her computer on, and put on her headphones.

The morning Zoom meeting was the same, everyone in their little box but now with a mask on. The work was the same. It became evident by ten o’clock that she would be asked to do nothing that couldn’t have been accomplished from home more safely and comfortably.

“Excited to be back?” Brad stood behind her, she could feel his body leaning against her chair. She rolled forward as far as she could and turned to look at him. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and as she watched he pulled his mask down to take a sip and then put it back up. His large nose hung over the top of his single ply mask, breathing disease at her.

“Please step back six feet, Brad,” she said, tightening her own two masks onto her face with her hands. He didn’t move. She stood up and backed away, standing across the desk from him, behind the plastic shield. “The signs say six feet.”

“Jesus, don’t have a cow, do I look sick to you? I just wanted some friendly conversation.” He made no move to leave. She pictured the droplets from his nose as little flecks of paint, covering her chair and keyboard.

“And your mask goes over your nose as well,” she added.

“Okay, sheeple. If that’s what you want,” he tugged his mask up briefly. It fit so loosely that it immediately sagged below his nose again. “Whoops,” he laughed, “I guess some of our members are too big to be contained.” He leered in her direction.

“I have work to do, Brad,” Cheryl’s stare was frosty.

“Sure,” he lowered his mask again to take a slow drink of coffee, enjoying her discomfort. Then he sauntered over to another desk.

Doesn’t he have any work to do? Cheryl thought before realizing that there was one upside to being in the office. She could talk to an actual person. Her manager Tiffany was the only person on the floor that had an actual office. Cheryl knocked on the open door and Tiffany waved her in. She closed the door but stayed as far away from the desk as the room allowed.

“What’s up?” Tiffany clearly didn’t feel happy with the closed door either.

“Brad.” Cheryl felt like she was yelling through the two masks to make her voice heard. “He keeps making creepy comments to me, and now he’s walking around with his mask under his nose. Can you get him to stop?”

“I’m not sure what I can do,” Tiffany’s voice was muffled as well. “Honestly, Cheryl, the reorganization is still going on, and it will be a week or more before we know for sure who is in what department and exactly who I’m managing.” She saw the look of confusion on Cheryl’s face. “I can start some paperwork, but let’s wait until we know for sure whom he’ll be working with.”

“But he is standing at my desk with his mask down.” Cheryl felt she had to speak up for herself. “That’s not safe.”

“I’ll talk to him about that,” Tiffany promised, “and we’ll leave the rest until we know who is in the HR department, okay?” Then she picked up a flyer from her desk. “Actually this might help. I guess the new company has a helpline for internal company issues. They might be able to connect you to the right people.” She handed Cheryl the flyer. On it was the new corporate logo and a Zoom link with the text “Zoom in at any time to solve your problems. We’re here for you.”

Cheryl took the flyer. This was a new world in which managers didn’t manage anyone and complaints were to be made to a Zoom link. But anything was better than nothing.

“I don’t want to contact them from my desk,” she said. “He might overhear what I’m saying.”

“The offices down the hall are still vacant,” Tiffany suggested, “why don’t you call from there?”

“It’s a Zoom link,” Cheryl said, then saw that Tiffany was no longer paying any attention. She was pecking away at her keyboard, her eyes focused on the screen. Cheryl went out, not closing the door behind her. She considered grabbing her laptop from her desk but decided against it. Instead, she walked out of the office. It was freezing cold in the hallway. The area around the elevator was lit with a cold blue light, but a long hallway stretched away into the dark. She turned on her phone’s flashlight and walked into the gloom, her footsteps echoing strangely. The door she chose was unlocked, and she walked into darkness and groped for the light.

It came on and the room sprang into view: a small room piled with boxes. There were no windows and Cheryl remembered that only the temps had been asked to work in here before the shutdown. There was still one desk visible under the piles of paper and boxes. Cheryl rearranged the stacks so that she could perch on the side of the desk, shivering at the touch of the cold metal. She took her phone out of her blazer pocket, opened the Zoom app, and carefully punched in the meeting numbers on the flyer Tiffany had given her.

A message popped up on her screen. The Help Line will let you in in just a minute. She composed her features into her Zoom self, trying to hold the phone up high enough to get her whole face. Then a Zoom box labeled help desk came into view with a shadowy figure inside.

“Hi,” Cheryl began, making sure she was not on mute. A long drawn-out croaking sound came from her phone. “Hiiiiiiiii.”

“Um, hello?” Cheryl was not sure if she could be heard through her masks. Tentatively, she pulled them down and took a shuddering breath of the cold, dusty air.

A chat popped up. So sorry. My internet is out at home and I am using a hotspot. How can I help you?

“Can you hear me okay, or should I chat as well?” Cheryl said, trying to make out any features of the face on the phone. It remained pixelated and blurred.

I can hear you just fine, go ahead.

“I have an issue with a colleague,” Cheryl began with Brad’s uncovered nose, then his standing too close. And then, unexpectedly, as if this were a therapy session, a gate somewhere inside her opened and she found herself pouring out all the comments he used to put her down, make her feel small, the way he tried to take credit when they had to work together, the way he ignored her suggestions until they were reinforced by another member of the team.

When she finished she waited in silence. The radiator pipes knocked somewhere in the walls. The picture on the screen had not changed. The person on the other end was still on mute. It was possible they had stepped out of the room and not heard a word she said, but she did feel better for saying it.

I’m sorry you had to go through that, appeared in the chat box. I’ll take care of it. The phone went black. Cheryl clicked it open again but the Zoom chat was gone.

Did that really just happen? she wondered as she made her way through the freezing hallway back to the socially distanced, muffled office. Her whole life felt like a hallucination, an episode of the reality TV reruns that filled her nights. She walked back toward her desk, carefully keeping more than six feet away from each person she passed, sat down, and started pecking at her computer again, noticing as she did so the smudged polish from her attempt to paint her nails herself. Her desk was near the floor-to-ceiling windows. The December cold seeped in and swirled around her feet. For a brief while the sun came out and shone on the snowy deserted streets and parking lot. Then it started to snow again and the whole world turned gray, dark, and cold. Cheryl’s stomach ached with hunger. She had not brought a lunch. She couldn’t imagine letting either of her two masks down, picturing the deadly virus lingering in the air, ready for any slip in her vigilance.

It seemed like days had passed before Tiffany came out of her office to thank them for coming in.

As if we had a choice, Cheryl thought bitterly. She carefully timed her exit from the building so she would not have to stand close to another person on her way out.

The next morning was a repetition of the gray journey to work through deserted streets. She had to move to the left lane as she crept by a wreck, her eyes dazzled by the flashing blue and red lights of the police car. The sense of unreality intensified as she walked through the lobby, as the elevator ascended to the twelfth floor, and she found her cold seat at her computer and got to work.

About ten o’clock she noticed a sense of relief, an absence of irritation. Something that normally bothered her was missing. She stood, stretched her back, and looked around the office. Brad was not at his desk. He was not loitering at anyone else’s desk making a nuisance of himself. She waited to see if he would come out of the bathroom. He didn’t. . . .

Read the exciting conclusion in this month’s issue on sale now!

Copyright © 2024. The Only Thing to Fear by Clare Broyles

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