The Working Dead: Demoted

Jennifer leaned back in the chair and looked at her pale reflection in the mirror on the wall. It was hard to admit that her mom may have been right about moving to the big city, so now her bad nerves have her on edge. There was a note on the desk that stated she was close to being demoted and sent to “the room”. Once she read it, Jennifer became terrified and felt sick to her stomach. It seemed no employees were ever seen again once that happened. There were a lot of morbid rumors, but she preferred to think they were forced to use a separate entrance. At least, that would explain why they were never seen again, right?

The constant power surge in the building made the lights flicker like normal, but this particular day after Jennifer read the note left on her desk, she was scared out of her mind. The additional stress made her migraine hit a high gear. Bill collecting was not an easy task and apparently she wasn’t bringing in enough money for doing the job to put up with all the stress that comes along with it. The headphones that stayed glued to her ears as she worked provided a constant stream of people who had to endure whatever harassment that was needed to get them to agree to pay past due bills. Her eyes were drawn to the heavily armed security guards by the entrance to “the room”, which made it difficult to concentrate on the calls because her imagination was getting the best of her.

What she had seen in the alley earlier was strange but decided it was best to not mention it to any of her co-workers. It would only serve as fuel for the already rampant rumor mill. Jennifer had broken down and purchased a pack of cigarettes on the way to work. The stress of the past week finally caused her to cave to her tenacity to quit smoking. She decided to sneak a smoke in the alley since it was not allowed in front of the building. It was a big refrigerated truck backed up to the loading dock that drew her attention. There were two men in white environmental suits emptying what looked like full black body bags into carts and pushing them into the opened back door that caused her heart to start racing.

Surely, they wouldn’t bring dead bodies into the building? It had to be something that looked like bodies. She felt embarrassed that her imagination was being fed so well by the rumors. A tap on the shoulder woke her from the daydream. It was the manager, and he asked her to follow him to the office. This was the perp walk she had been regretting. It was time for the demotion to happen, and she would finally know what the bad employees did for a living.

“We’ve been as patient as we can, but you are officially being demoted,” the tall, thin man stated without emotion. Two guards walked in and stood on each side of her chair. “These gentlemen will see that you settle in nicely to your new position.” She stood, and they each grabbed an elbow, which made her extremely nervous. They led her out of the manager’s office and one of them swiped a security card that unlocked the glass door to “the room”. All Jennifer could do was gulp as fear took full control of her.

Both of the guards laughed at the look of horror on her face when surveying the scene below. There were dead bodies dangling just out of reach of the zombie-like employees, encouraging them to walk in circles. They were chained to wooden bars, and the forward motion turned the turbines for the generators that apparently provided electricity for the building. The guards pushed her down the steps and into the crowd of zombies waiting at the bottom. She screamed as they clawed a bit.

“Shut up!” one of the guards yelled. “At least you get to spend eternity saving us on the light bill. The hanging meat is the bastards that didn’t pay their bills!” he laughed and the guards smacked each other playfully on the arm and went back upstairs.