Overtime

Darren walked through the nearly deserted floor. It was well after close and he was just trying to catch up on some work. He was still a little worn out from some heavy rounds of Amaretto Sours the night before and was drinking more coffee than was probably good for him. He was headed back to his desk from the kitchen with yet another cup.

He looked over the numerous rows of cubicles. The flashing screen savers animated the empty cubes in a somehow unsavory way, like voltage passing through a dead frog. Without the inane chatter of dozens and dozens of coworkers, Darren had become way too aware of the recycled air clicking in the ducts above him.

He passed by a number of plain, closed doors that never really entered into his consciousness. There were no brightly colored door tags that explained who worked behind these doors, or what the rooms were used for. But one of these ever closed doors now had a piece of paper taped to it. The paper simply said: Room 4020 Is Open. Please Come On In.

Darren looked around the cubicle farm warily, and then realized that there was no one else there that would provide him with any answers. He knocked lightly on the door with the hand not gripping a coffee mug. There was no answer. He opened the door a crack.

"Hello?"

There was again no answer so he opened the door wide enough for him to walk into the darkened room. An amazingly strong arm shot out of the dark, grabbed him by his button down shirt and pulled him in. The coffee mug tumbled to the floor.

The lights came on, quickly and efficiently blinding him. He suddenly realized that these were not florescent lights, but that fancy, white, full spectrum light. He blinked through some discomfort and looked around at a mostly empty room where the walls had been painted with a jungle motif. There were two large, overstuffed chairs and a number of potted fichus trees. There was also a large middle aged woman in a bloody apron standing before him.

She looked like a truck driver. She looked like she smoked for a living. She looked like she enjoyed the taste of cough syrup.

"When they give you guys that free lunch tomorrow, y'know, the one for all the hard work you been doin?" Her voice sounded like a bike going down on asphalt in bad need of repair.

"Yeah," Darren said a little shaky.

"Don't eat none of it. You don't wanna know what's in there."

The woman then turned slowly towards the wall and stood absolutely still. Darren stood looking at the back of her head for a bit, waiting for more. When he realized he got all he was going to get, he turned away, flipped off the lights and slowly closed the door to room 4020 behind him.

He looked around the empty cubicles once again, searching out some grinning face that was having him on, but there was nobody. He turned back towards the door when he realized he had left his coffee mug in there, but then thought better of it. He had to get that 4th quarter sales spreadsheet done before he could go home.