Jumping slightly, I hunched forward while looking behind me. Carol was back there, smiling at me with her small eyes and too-broad face. She scrunched up her nose.
“Sorry! You just had a tag poking up.”
Ugh. Why did that mean she needed to touch me? She was always doing stuff like that. Invading people’s personal space, touching them, making weird comments. For someone in HR, she didn’t seem to get what made people uncomfortable.
“Oh…okay. Well, thanks I guess.”
She squinted back at me in what was probably supposed to be a grin but made her look like a demented chipmunk. “No prob, hun!”
Ugh.
Turning away, I made a point of taking a couple of steps forward, even if it meant invading the personal space of the guy in front of me. At least he didn’t have to worry about me creepily touching his…
“Gah!”
She’d touched my neck again. What the fuck was her problem? Turning back around, I didn’t temper my glare this time.
“What’re you doing?”
She scrunched her face at me again like she was taking a painful shit and was happy about it. “Sowwy. You’ve still got something poking out back there. Trying to get it.”
Frowning, I shook my head at her. “No. Just…just leave it. It’s fine.” I turned back around, still angry. I didn’t know what good it would do, but I was really close to reporting her if she kept this shit up. She’d always been a bit weird and off-putting, but this was ridiculous.
The next few minutes passed slowly and the line moved forward a few more feet. Bored, I took out my phone and started writing all this down. When I looked up next, I saw Jenny from upstairs further along the curving path of people. I felt my stomach tense a little. She was beautiful, and way out of my league, but hadn’t she been friendly the couple of times we had talked? And when we had that week-long seminar last summer, she’d sat next to me and joked around some too. Normally I didn’t see her enough to make small talk or look for an opening to ask her out, and I felt awkward just going upstairs to visit her like we were really friends. But if I could figure out a way to get up to her spot in the line, then maybe…
I felt a searing pain in the back of my neck as my thighs tensed and my knees felt floaty and close to buckling. It was like someone was trying to pull my insides, or at least my nervous system, out through my neck, and I twisted violently around to make it stop. Carol was looking up at me, a nasty smirk on her face.
“I almost had it that time. It’s a thread I think. A red piece of thread.” She giggled, her eyes still hard. “It’s funny. Your shirt isn’t red. And it almost looks like it’s growing out of your neck.”
Gasping, I blinked back tears as I tried to figure out what to do. My first impulse was to punch her and walk away. Go to the bathroom or go home or something. Or a doctor. Figure out if something was really wrong with me or I was just being freaked out by her crazy.
But I held back. If I hit her, or did anything violent, I’d be the one that got called crazy and violent. I’d probably get fired and arrested. My hand trailed up to the back of my neck. I did feel something back there. It could be a thread. And…was it stuck to my skin or something?
Shuddering, I dropped my hand and took a deep breath. I had to stay in control of myself while getting her to leave me alone. Fighting the frustrated fear I was feeling, I leaned down into her face and spoke in a low tone.
“Leave me alone, you crazy bitch. If you touch me again, I’ll report you.” Then, thinking about the weird HR speak they always told us about at meetings, I added. “This is your formal warning and notice that you are harassing me and I want it to stop.”
Her eyebrows furrowed at me in anger, but I didn’t wait for a response before turning back around. I’d just ignore her. Maybe I could find a way to move up to where Jenny was, but for now I’d just look at her or my phone and…
“That’s what you like, huh? Little pretty with nothing in her head.” Her voice was soft and light, but I could hear the anger there. I forced myself not to respond.
“Little pretty is a slut, you know. A stupid little slut that will spread her legs for anyone that will get her ahead or buy her shiny things.”
I felt a flare of anger and turned slightly so my whisper would carry back to Carol as the line moved forward a little. “You’re a sad and mean creep. She’s not stupid. What, you’re jealous of her so that makes her dumb and a slut? And what business of yours is it an…AHHH!”
The pain in my neck was a hundred times worse now, and the jolt from it did bring me down on my knees and then to laying twitching on the floor. Carol was on top of me, pulling on the string or whatever it was, laughing as I screamed and flailed, unable to control my limbs or even ask for help beyond a wordless wail.
Not that it would have mattered. The line had stopped for the moment, but no one was looking around at what was happening to me. Either I was invisible or nobody cared. I gagged as Carol’s hot breath washed over my tear-streaked face.
“It is my business because you’re my business.” She had repositioned herself now, keeping my string pulled tight in one hand while she stuffed the other down the back of my pants with sharp, questing fingers milling against and into my flesh. I let out a new, deeper wail, pleading inside for Jenny or someone to help me. But nothing. Just the sound of my pain and Carol’s harsh, excited panting as she hurt and violated me over and over again.
I blacked out for some of it I think. Or at least my mind made it a blur. When she was finally done, she kissed the side of my head and let go of my string with a last, contemptuous whisper.
“Get up. You’re holding up the line.”
Trembling and snotting everywhere, I stood up shakily. I…I had to leave. I’d run and hide if I couldn’t get away. I just couldn’t let her ever touch me again. I went to take a step out of the line and…
I couldn’t. Letting out a wet sob, I tried again and again, but my feet wouldn’t move left or right or back. Just
“Forward. Got to keep moving forward.” Her voice was hoarse from all her terrible laughter…before. The man in front of me was several steps ahead now.
Sucking in a breath, I tried moving with the line. My feet worked just fine. What…what was this?
“Help! Some…someone please help me! I’ve been attacked. I need…I need help getting away from here. I can’t move right.”
A low chortle behind me, but nothing else.
I spent a few more minutes and steps trying to escape the line, but I can’t. I’ve gone back to my phone and am writing it all down, thinking at first it might be the thing that saves me. I’ll send this out and maybe someone can come help me.
It’s just now that I realize I don’t remember where I am. It’s been hard to see much other than the hard floor we’re all walking across and the line a few people ahead and behind. When I realize I don’t remember what this line is really for or how I got here, I try to notice more details or see farther. Staring hard into the hazy distance, I finally make something else out. It’s hard for me to be sure at first—it must be a trick of the distance or my bleary vision or how the line is curved.
But no. When people move again, I see it clearly. The flow of motion like a ripple, moving to me and from me and to me again in a slow, crawling wave.
This isn’t a line.