Have you ever wanted to break a routine? The same bridge. The same traffic. The same rotting deer corpse playing chicken with the same ravens and road crews. I have commuted down the turnpike for fifteen years. The thought of counting out the hours actually makes me sick. Today, I just needed something different. A change in the pattern. A spoke in the wheel. A left turn, for once, instead of a decade and a half of rights.
There is an exit on my route where the road is typically blocked by road crews. They never seem to be working on anything. One guy in a safety vest stands by the machinery. Another rests. Sometimes you can spot a third, rushing back and forth importantly with a clipboard and a hardhat, but the jackhammers stay silent. The road remains unpaved and people still get paid. Pretty typical for my country.
Back in the day, this particular street led to a tunnel which dove underneath the river and spit back out on the other side of town. The traffic split up nicely and folks could make it into the city in an hour flat. But ever since they shut it down, there’s only one way in, and a one-hour commute has turned to two or even three on a rough one.
I woke up absurdly early this morning. My plan was to get to the office, print out a few things, swipe my badge and leave. I had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon. My dad wanted to stop by for dinner. My mind was already off work before the day even began. I think that’s what pissed me off the most. I had a plan. Everything should have worked out okay according to the plan.
And then there was traffic.
The bridge backed up six miles by six AM. This should not be happening. I slammed at the steering wheel like a child. I bruised my finger on the dash. The radio hummed an update of an accident ahead. The delay would take me well past my normal arrival time. I woke up early for nothing. I could have left later and gotten in at the same time. The day was shot from the beginning for the umpteenth time.
I sat there a while, seething, eyeing a lady and her stroller on the sidewalk. She made it to the end of the block and turned. By the time I made it there, she was gone. My phone buzzed. I knew my boss wanted to talk. He always wanted to talk. Always about budgets and meetings to be discussed before the actual discussion. I cut around a minivan and strafed into the left lane. I slammed on the brakes. And that’s when I saw it.
The shortcut was unblocked.
No guy with a clipboard. No surveyor sitting with a sandwich. A lonely road divider stood in the way of a row of cars. Any idiot could sneak past it. That idiot was me. I nudged the gas and pushed forward. Traffic inched back to get out of the way. A Winnebago honked. I honked. The driver gave me the finger as we met nearly a foot away in all of the congestion. Our bumpers nearly bumped, but the empty exit lane opened up in front of me.
Jackpot.
I drove slowly for fear of arousing attention. The uneven gravel bumped underneath my tires. A year of construction had done nothing to quell the pipes and who-knows-what that ran under that particular part of town. I took the toll road for a few minutes until it passed underneath the shadow of the bridge. Then came the tunnel.
The entrance appeared moderately updated with large non-functioning digital screens. Two lanes converged into one before a wealth of blackness opened up ahead of it. The toll booth seemed operational but turned off with the gates pushed up. I didn’t get more than a few feet before a set of motion activated lights lit up the route ahead. I spurred ahead.
Daylight dipped into a neat little hole in my rear view.
Then it was gone.
The tunnel narrowed and twisted before it bent into a wide straightaway. Metal hatches and service doors checkered across my peripherals. Some were open, some were closed. I kept expecting to see a construction worker, a yellow hat, a sign or something to stop me and tell me to turn around. But nothing was there.
After ten minutes it became apparent I had driven longer than what should be necessary. I started to panic around twenty. By then it was too late to turn around. The road thinned until the sides grated against my tires. I could smell smoke from the rubber burning. My palms were white. My breath was ragged. Natural light dripped in just ahead. I kept my hands steady and still through the tiny gap and shot out the other side like a baby leaving the womb.
Freedom never felt so good.
A thin layer of fog hung about the air. The road signs were familiar. I took a left and a sharp right and ended up on the driveway outside my office building. I pulled in to find a mostly empty parking lot. Two lone cars sat huddled together in the corner. Strange but not unusual for an early morning. My plans for the day uneasily went back into motion.
My building is your typical ten stack with a lobby on the bottom and differing companies on each floor. We enter through the security turnstiles in front, swipe a badge, and take an elevator up. My team is on the fifth floor.
I headed inside and noticed that the security guard wasn’t at her desk yet. A plastic moveable sign read AWAY. The elevators sat unoccupied on the far side of the lobby. I walked over and hit the button. Nothing happened right away. I looked around and noticed some construction material strewn about the lobby. Screwdrivers and hammers sat arranged on a desk. Saws and masks on another. It looked like they were adding a new display screen. Two of the working ones showed a CGI dolphin swimming back and forth through a tank. I recognized it as the corporate logo.
I hit the button again before realizing there was a problem. A single white piece of paper on the far right elevator door read a note in tiny black print.
OUT OF ORDER. USE STAIRS.
Great.
My watch claimed 8:30 but it felt much later. I worried about the call with my boss. I worried about finding time to leave early. I kicked open a white door. I slid through another one. Paintings of sprawling landscapes and pristine mountain ranges decorated the walls. I found the door to the staircase. I opened it and let it shut conclusively behind me. I looked up from my phone and felt it fall from my hands. That’s when it finally fucking hit me. Right in the face, right in that stupid moment, everything had looked exactly the same until just right then.
This wasn’t my office.
The walls were white. The floors were checkered blue. There were three separate staircases. One went down, one went up, and one stayed straight - like some architect’s fucked up fever dream. I tried to go back but the door was locked. I tried to give it my weight but the frame wouldn’t budge. A white sheet of paper sat stapled to a pin-board to my left. I pulled it off the wall and squinted at the text.
Take the staircase.
Thanks, assholes.
I considered my options in a heap of panic and wrecked nerves. Down probably led to a basement. That sounded scary. Straight didn’t make any fucking sense. Up might have lead to another office where somebody could point me in the right direction. That felt like the best bet.
I hopped steps two at a time, hit the bend, and kept going up. I walked for about five full minutes. At some point there should have been a door. Typically when you go up a staircase it leads to a fucking door. This one did not. There were four more turns. Eventually the staircase merged into another. There were three similar options - up, down, or forward. The former had an ominous green light attached. I took the latter and went up, up, up.
Six more turns and I found my door.
This one was open. I threw my arms into the crossbar. My feet flopped onto a slick tiled floor. I slipped and fell onto my face. It took another moment to take in my surroundings. Sprawled out in front of me was an Olympic sized pool. The water looked pristine and clear. But nobody was there.
I shouted out for help as my ankle throbbed aggressively. I got up and limped my way along the perimeter. Pink buoys divided the water into neat little rows. Gentle waves lapped up against the edges. In the distance, a robot cleaned the bottom for gunk and whatever the hell else might infect an office building’s pool. I watched for a while until it started to move towards me. That made me limp a little faster.
There was a door on the far side of the pool, about thirty feet away. I had no idea what it would lead to. But the vibe in that room just started to feel wrong. I don’t know why. The pool robot swerved to the right a bit when I looked at it. But every time I glanced back, it was closer, to the point where I could read the company branding on the pink and white hose.
WV Enterprises.
I reached the far door and pushed up against the handle. I took one last look at the pool, maybe humbling myself for being so scared, and noticed that the robot disappeared. Standing in its place was a woman with a pool rake.
“Hello,” I smiled. “Can you help me?”
She looked at me quizzically. Sweat formed over the wrinkles on her brow. Stains covered her blouse. She wasn’t wearing shoes.
“No,” she screeched. “No. No. You’re not supposed to be here.”
She tossed the rake at me. I ducked.
“Get out,” she laughed. “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW.”
A loud BANG sent me into high gear. I leaned into the door and felt it stick. Something was caught. A deep voice roared. I turned and the woman was gone. A shadow crept along the wall in her stead. An arm zipped across the floor and slipped up the slit of my jeans. The warmness of it was disgusting. I pushed harder and the door finally opened and shut in my sweating palms. I locked it on the other side just as a thin little finger slipped through and snapped off in the gap.
The pounding on the door stopped in a minute. The pounding in my chest took a while longer. I took a breath.
I was in a cubicle farm.
Twenty rows. Ten columns. Two hundred workstations end to end. I have had the time to count. When I first arrived, all of the monitors were synced with a screensaver and a moving logo. Some ten-pointed star with a little lion roaring behind it. When I sat down and opened up a browser, all of the other screens turned red. No words, no instructions, just… red.
There’s a window in the far right corner. I hoped it would look outside. Maybe I could see the car. Maybe I could signal for help. Maybe I could just jump the fuck out at this rate. But the view looked out into another office space with an indoor courtyard at the center. All of the hinges are locked. No help.
There’s a door at the back that leads to another office. Then another. And another. I kept going until it occurred to me how easy it would be to get lost. All of the rooms look the same. There are no directions. There are no instructions. Just pure fucking madness. I saw a projection monitor in one of the hallways and almost died from happiness. Of course the damn thing doesn’t work. But the randomness of it made me hope for something better.
Here’s the thing. I know I’m not alone.
I can hear someone through the walls. Especially in the conference room by the kitchen. I can hear a woman crying. I can hear another one whispering. I have screamed at them until my throat feels like it’s going to bleed out. But they don’t answer me. They don’t even stop saying whatever the fuck it is they’re saying. I hope they can’t hear me. The thought that they can hear me and do nothing is worse.
Some of the rooms have a strange smell to them. Like old moldy fruit and vinegar. I also heard music in one of them, but it just got quiet the more I looked for the source. It sounded like old time Jazz.
I read this story once. The Devil in the White City. A serial killer built a hotel with death traps in the center of Chicago right around the time of the World’s Fair. Countless people were trapped inside a meticulously designed Murderville made by a madman. The cops did nothing to help them. They didn’t even catch the guy years later. I really hope this doesn’t go down that way. I don’t want to be trapped here. I don’t want to die here. I just don’t know how to get out.
My phone is low on battery. I called my dad twice and he won’t answer. I don’t trust the computers here. I don’t trust anything. So here’s hoping my next update is on the outside. After the nightmare is done. After it was all found to be some dumb misunderstanding.
The lights are starting to dim now. It’s time to find a safe place to sleep.
I tried the staircase twice. There’s something eating inside it.