Episode 3
⏮ Everything about him is inoffensive and precise in every way, as if by design.
He rubs his chin, where a sandy goatee has been freshly trimmed down, and wipes his mouth. He smiles, revealing a pair of pointy incisors. Whether it’s the sharp fangs or the cold glint in his pale blue eyes, he’s not actually smiling but doing an uncanny impression of making one.
Before he speaks, I glance down at the business card he’s slipped out of his breast pocket. He slides it across the counter, the only thing separating him from us.
CHRIS DAWSON
DISTRICT MANAGER
VORTEX VIDEO
“Corporate vampire,” Jai whispers.
▶️
Chris Dawson raps his knuckles on the countertop as he oozes around the perimeter of the employees’ safe space. This is our barricade to hold off an onslaught of crabby customers. Damien, Zero, and I circle around, trying to keep our distance from him. I don’t know what they know, but the tension in the air is palpable.
Jai crosses her arms, holding her ground. Daring the bland man with the sharp eyes to come closer. Her words ring through my brain. Corporate vampire.
“Well, what brings you here, Chris?” Jai asks. Her voice is pleasant and clear, but just like Chris, her smile doesn’t meet her eyes.
Chris is smiling right back at her. Those sharp teeth glint in the sunlight burning through the front window. I’ve never seen a vampire before—if that is what he really is—but I didn’t think they could walk around during the day.
“I think you already know the reason, Jai,” he replies. His eyes skim over the rest of us. I look to Zero for reassurance. He gulps, Adam’s apple bulging. Are we in trouble? It feels like we’re in trouble.
Chris doesn’t enter our enclave, just circles around it until he’s almost back around to the exit. Then he turns and walks back, pacing like a tiger. “Corporate received notice about the police called to investigate a report that someone here made about the store.”
“Oh, yeah?” Not an answer, but not not an answer. Jai was being vague.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?” Chris knocks on the counter.
“Probably nothing,” says Jai.
“Corporate doesn’t like police involvement unless there’s a good reason,” says Chris. “Is there a good reason?”
Jai lets the silence settle. Or rather, unsettle. It crawls under my skin. I scratch my arms, but I can’t alleviate the itch, not with my thick jacket on. But I don’t dare take it off. A tiny itch is one thing, but to completely peel off a layer during this unusual showdown would draw attention my way.
“Well?” Chris prods. Knuckles knocking. “Is there a good reason?” He waits a beat and then changes course. “Or how about this—who made the call?”
I look down at the phone on the counter. No, wait—stupid. Anyone could have called the police about anything. Could be a prank. But when I look up, Chris is staring at me.
He knows.
This time he crosses the barrier, pushes the swinging door out of his way, and reaches for the phone.
Jai lurches forward. But he swoops in, grabbing the phone. He thumbs a few buttons. The screen lights up orange. He’s checking the call history.
Damien covers his face with a floppy sleeve. “Game over, man,” he whispers.
We watch, frozen, as Chris thumbs through the call history. Down, down, down, through the list of recent numbers. It’s taking him an awful long time to go through.
I study his puzzled face.
Beside me, Zero shifts. I catch a smirk flicker on his lips. He notices me, then sucks in a cheek and resumes watching Chris flounder for evidence that’s been conveniently erased.
“Huh,” Chris mutters, gripping the phone. His knuckles crack. He sets it down. “All right, your phones then.”
No one offers their personal phone.
Damien shrugs. “What phone?”
“Yeah,” says Zero. “Corporate policy says we can’t use phones on company time.”
Chris grumbles. “I see…” He turns to Jai, who’s staring at the phone, still in disbelief that 911 just vanished from the call history. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re trying to play here, but it ends now. Did you call the police?”
Jai steps forward, chest out and chin up. She looks him dead in the eye. “No.”
Chris stares back at her, lips pulled back and fangs drawn. He’s about to pounce on her, scream at her, fire her—something drastic and unwarranted--when the door opens and another man walks in.
I leap between Jai and Chris. “It was me,” I blurt, feeling itchy all over. “It was me. I called them.”
The new man smiles. He’s much friendlier than Chris. Taller too. He stands at the counter, taking us all in. I’m wilting under Chris’s fiery gaze, waiting for the earth to break apart and let me plummet to hell, but I can see the man’s wearing a blazer. It pulls back as he stands with his hands on his hips. At his belt, his detective’s badge catches the light and shines heroically.
“Detective Wilson, PD,” he announces. “We got a report of a missing person. Mind if I ask you some questions … starting with you?”
*️⃣ *️⃣ *️⃣
There’s a brief reprieve as Chris attempts to dissuade Detective Wilson from questioning us. Chris banishes us to the back of the store and we cluster around the wall of “new releases,” though there’s nothing newer beyond 2007.
Damien cracks open an energy drink and slugs half of it back. “That was a close one, eh?”
“You’re telling me,” says Jai, holding herself. “The second he started going through the phone I thought we were fucked.”
“I know,” says Zero. “That’s why I took care of it.”
“You … what?” Jai asks.
That smirk again. He doesn’t elaborate.
“But you wanted to call the cops,” she says. She cocks her head toward Chris. “This is the consequence of doing that. So why even bother deleting the call log?”
“I stand by what I said: We need to get help for Doug, and maybe that’s the police, though that remains to be seen.” He gives the cop a side-eyed glance. “But I never said we need Corporate involved.”
“But that’s what happens,” Jai says. “All emergency and police-related calls get routed back to them. If we report Doug missing, they’re gonna know about it and we’re gonna get stuck with that asshole.”
My POV is ping-ponging back and forth between them and then over to Chris and the detective. “I don’t understand. We don’t want Corporate here?”
Damien chokes on his drink, sputtering syrupy fizz down his shirt as he attempts to answer. Jai holds up a hand, covering for him.
“Never,” she says. “Never, ever do you want Corporate involved in store business.”
I’m confused. “But … doesn’t Corporate run the stores?”
Zero sighs, shaking his head.
“People run the stores,” Jai explains. “People like me and Doug, and Zero and Damien, and even you. But Corporate? They’re a bunch of morons in khakis with phone cases clipped to their cheap belts. They make up arbitrary rules and tell us how to run the business when they’ve never dealt with a customer in their life.”
“They don’t run the store,” Damien adds. “They only think they do.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” says Jai, sliding an arm around my neck and lowering her voice. “The nice detective is going to ask you about Doug. Tell him everything you can. You were there when it happened. But don’t give Chris anything.”
“Not even your name,” Damien adds. He grins. “He really thinks I’m the Anti-Christ.”
“Sure he does,” Zero says, drawing a breath for another exasperated sigh.
*️⃣ *️⃣ *️⃣
My time with the detective is fairly painless, and yet, I can’t help feel like I’m in trouble. Capital “T” trouble. My nervous system is a wreck any time I have to answer to an authority figure.
We take over Doug’s office. I’m right back in the hot seat where I’d had my interview. Now I’m sweating over an even higher stakes Q and A.
But Detective Wilson assures me that he’s only trying to piece together what happened the night Doug disappeared and establish a timeline. I nod and listen to all his questions, answering each one. He asks me to give my whole story and listens to every word. His grey-blue eyes are focused, studying me and occasionally skimming over the contents of Doug’s office. He only stops me to clarify a couple of details and then makes a few notes on his notepad and flips it shut.
“Thank you,” he says, reaching out to shake my hand.
“What do you think happened?” I ask. I’d given so many answers that I wanted someone to give me something in return.
He clenches his jaw, thinking it over or perhaps considering what he wants to share with me. He seems pretty young for a detective. Not much older than Jai or Zero, I’d suppose. Maybe he’s some investigative wunderkind who sniffs out missing people like a bloodhound.
“I think … that what happened was everything you said,” he says, which says nothing. My blank expression must’ve given away my confusion, so he explains himself. “I believe you saw what you saw. It must’ve been frightening, but there’s a reasonable explanation, I’m sure. Now you said you and your coworkers were watching a late-night movie. Was there any alcohol or drugs involved?”
Ah, there it is—the first seeds of doubt.
“I-I don’t think so. I wasn’t drinking.” But had the others been? Had Doug smoked another joint? Did I get a contact high? Was it possible I was buzzed and didn’t know it?
“Was it possible Doug had a little too much of one substance or other?” Wilson asks. “Do you know if he has a history of going on a bender and taking some time off unexpectedly?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I only just started.”
“So you were working with a man you didn’t know.”
Is that a question? An accusation? My brow twitched as I tried to think how to best answer that. Does anyone ever really know the people they work with?
“I guess I didn’t,” I admit, looking down at the hands in my lap. I’m squeezing the tops of my legs.
“I see,” he says. “Well, that’s all I need to know for now. But I’ll let you know if I have any more questions.”
I nod. Yes, yes, of course. I don’t bother asking if Detective Wilson will be able to find Doug because that doesn’t seem to be the reason he’s here. Detective Wilson is not looking for a missing person. He’s looking to arrest someone.
*️⃣ *️⃣ *️⃣
By the time Detective Wilson finishes up, I’m exhausted. But my shift is just starting. I wish I could call out sick, but the others have seen me all day. I’m fine, at least that’s how I appear. So I put on my work shirt and get to work.
Zero clocks out with little fanfare, leaving the store to me, Damien, and Jai. And Chris.
The corporate vampire has taken over Doug’s office, watching us through the parted door.
“I hate that guy,” Damien whispers to me. He’s pretending to tidy up around the counter, anything to avoid leaving the sanctity of the counter. But someone has to clean up in the stock room and take out the trash.
The office door inches open and Chris slides out an arm. His long finger curls in a summoning gesture.
Damien ducks behind the counter. “Don’t,” he warns.
It’s too late. I locked eyes with Chris. “What do I do?” I whisper back.
“Anything,” he says. “Just leave. He can’t do anything if you leave.”
“Won’t he fire me?”
“He doesn’t have any power over you outside of work.”
Come here. Now.
I’m pulled toward the back of the store, toward Doug’s office, toward Chris’s lair. I’m stammering, trying to explain myself, but I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I just go.
A weak smile wriggles across my face as I lamely tap on the door. “Hello? You wanted to see me?”
Chris offers me a seat. The hot seat again. I don’t want to sit, but he insists.
He picks up a clipboard. I can’t see what’s on it, but he reads my name off of the top. “You go by ‘Raven’?”
I’m about to explain that “Raven” is my store name when I reconsider. Chris might not be aware of the little game my teammates play to avoid getting into trouble. So I nod and wait for his next question.
“You haven’t been here long,” he says. Again, another man making statements instead of asking a direct question. He laces his fingers together and drops his hands over the clipboard, scootching in closer from the other side of the desk. “It’s strange that Doug would’ve hired you.”
“It is?”
“I’m sure one of the others would’ve told you, but the store’s numbers are down. They’ve been down for a long, long while and decreasing every month. The store doesn’t have the bandwidth to take on another body.” He skims the clipboard again. “I have to support two full-time staff, two part-timers, you, and now an absentee manager.” He stares me down. The weight of his attention is crushing. “Something’s gotta give.”
I wrack my brain for a solution. Perhaps I can fix this. But what can I offer? “Are you asking me to quit?”
He tips his head to the side, beaming cheerily. “Could you?”
“Umm…” I don’t want to. I just got this job. My first check hasn’t even been deposited. But Chris seems so happy with my suggestion.
You want to make people happy with you … don’t you?
You want to be a team player, right?
My head feels fuzzy. The room spins. I look around.
Chris slides a sheet of paper toward me and a black pen with a red tip. I reach for it, a writer’s instinct.
The office door crashes open and Jai barges in. “Hey, Chris? You got a sec?”
“We’re in the middle of something,” he says.
Jai pulls me up, ushering me toward the door and taking my spot. “I’m sure it can wait,” she replies.
As the door shuts behind me, Jai crumples up the piece of paper and flick the pen back at Chris. “That’s some underhanded bullshit,” she tells him.
I wander back to the front counter, rubbing my forehead. The brain fog clears the farther I get from Chris.
Damien looks up from his hiding spot. “You okay?”
“Fine.”
“Did he fire you?”
“No.”
“Good.” He lowers his voice, watching the door as he speaks. “That son of a bitch will find any excuse to get rid of us. But he has to follow the law and corporate’s rules. To fire you, he needs cause. Unless he can think of an easier way to make us go away.”
I think about the paper he wanted me to sign. I, (print name), tender my resignation from Vortex Video effective immediately.
*️⃣ *️⃣ *️⃣
After Chris leaves, Jai fumes through the rest of the shift. It’s been a long day and we’re ready to go home. She scowls at me and Damien to finish dusting and emptying the garbage.
Damien is wired and jittery from drinking can after can of Monster Energy. He follows me around as I dust and dissects the entire day.
“That was a crazy move on Z’s part,” he says. “Deleting the police phone call. Who’d even think of something like that?”
It’s the longest conversation I’ve had with any of my coworkers so far and though Damien is spooky in a hunched-over Nosferatu sort of way, I’m grateful for his company.
“And deleting the call history? What does that do?”
“Not much, but it means Corporate can’t prove anyone made the call from the store, so they can’t retaliate for one of us going around them. The rule is if there’s a reason to get the police involved, we have to let Corporate know first and then they call the cops.”
“Even if there’s a fire or a—?” I don’t want to say robbery, as if my anxious brain could manifest that nightmare scenario.
“Emergency calls don’t count, ’cause obviously,” he says. “But if we want to report something shady, like money’s going missing or there’s property damage, we have to call Corporate first. And if we don’t call them first, it’s a violation of company policy and they can ding us for it.”
“Ding?”
“Yeah, it means they’ll come after you with bad performance review bullshit and try to get you shit-canned for no good reason. And Chris has been looking for any reason to shit-can Jai. They’re mortal enemies.”
“So if there’s no history of making the call…”
“Then we’re all Spartacus,” he says with a mischievous grin. “They won’t know who did it and they can’t do anything about it. So Zero saved Jai’s ass.”
“Huh. I didn’t think they liked each other.”
“They fight like cats and dogs, but it’s birds and bees.”
Jai stomps out of the office. “What the hell?” We both startle. Did she hear us talking about her? “Guys, I wanna go home. Can you take out the garbage already? Jesus Christ.”
Damien grins. “Not it.”
“What?”
“New girl takes out the trash,” he says, sprinting to the front of the store.
We’re in the home stretch now. The doors are locked and Jai turns off the neon OPEN sign. I follow Damien to the front to collect the trash bags when the rusty return slot squeaks and a video tape clatters into the empty box.
Already in motion, I swing over to retrieve it—another black video tape without a case. Just a bird sticker and a 🤡 emoji sticker.
I pick it up by its corner and take it to the counter.
Damien’s mouth forms a silent O.
“Do you think…?” I ask.
“Another Doug original?” He reaches for it. “Should we…?” He swivels around, looking for Jai.
“Let me dump these first,” I say, grabbing the trash bags. I don’t want Jai to come back and see that I haven’t done what she’s asked me to do. “I’ll be quick.”
I scurry to the storage room just as Doug had shown me. Damien calls something out after me, but I don’t hear it. Blood is rushing through my ears, pounding through my skull as I envision another video clue about what happened to Doug.
But I’m not fully present in the task. I don’t hear the door shut behind me. I don’t notice the shadows shifting as I beeline for the Dumpster. I hurl the trash bags into the stained and stinking receptacle’s gaping black mouth and spin back around to the door.
Ding ding!
Honk honk!
AaaaaaRrrrrrrooooooogah!
The tiniest car I’ve ever seen rumbles down the alley, sputtering and spewing black exhaust. The faded flower decals on its piss yellow exterior are peeling off of the rusted body.
It comes screeching to a halt— the driver’s white grease paint face smearing against the windshield before he kicks the door open and plants a long, red floppy-soled foot on the cracked pavement.
The clown wriggles the rest of the way out of the car, shaking it off like a hermit crab’s shell. Calliope music plays from the car’s stereo.
Then he holds up a finger and reaches back inside for a flat brown disc. He spins it up his arm, over his shoulders, and down the other arm where some magic pops it into the shape of an old brown hat. He flips it onto his head, tufts of black hair sticking out on each side, and spreads his arms wide. TA-DA!
I’m frozen in place while he puts on his little show. I can’t look away from his face, red paint bleeding down the cracks in the white. Those cracked, bloody lips frame two crooked rows of painfully yellow teeth.
He squeaks with each step he takes back from the car. Then another big shoe steps out. Another clown. This one lanky and long, like he’d been folded up like origami to fit inside. As he springs aside, a shorter clown tumbles out. He somersaults toward me and blasts a car in my face.
Now I’m moving. I run toward the door, but it’s shut, locked from the inside. The only way to safety is through the alley and around to the front of the store. But the clowns and their car have made escape impossible.
All I can do is watch as they encircle me and pray they’re not about to make me part of their sideshow. ⏹
