Some nights Jeremiah felt like he was one of the last cells in a dying body. When he was hired four years ago, straight out of college, the office had been a lively, dynamic place, full of people who were full of ideas. The boss had even shown up regularly back then. The company had produced a couple of moderately successful video games, and everybody felt confident they were on the way up.
Unfortunately, they had a lousy sense of direction.
The past three years had brought an increasing number of layoffs and a decreasing amount of revenue. Jeremiah had been in the process of sending out his résumé to other potential employers when the company was suddenly bought out by Fazbear Entertainment and entrusted with the task of developing their new virtual reality game. Excited about the possibility of working with VR and hopeful that the successful franchise might bring the company new life, Jeremiah had decided to stay.
Besides, he hadn’t really wanted to leave. If he left, he might lose Hope.
Hope, in this case, referred to a person, not a quality, though Jeremiah had to admit he pinned a lot of his hopes on Hope. One of the three employees left in the office, Hope possessed every human quality Jeremiah treasured. She was kind and thoughtful without being a pushover. She was smart and resourceful without being arrogant. She was hardworking but fun-loving, too.
He didn’t love Hope for her looks, but he still had to admit she was lovely to look at. Men who preferred flashier types might find her a little plain, but in Jeremiah’s opinion, these guys were too obvious in their tastes to appreciate Hope’s soft, natural beauty. She had shoulder-length ash-blonde hair that fell in soft waves around her keen-featured face. Her eyes were wide-set, brown, and doe-like. Her lips were delicate-looking pink petals. Jeremiah often wondered if they were as soft as they looked.
Since Jeremiah saw Hope every day, he thought that surely someday she would really see him and realize how he felt. He had tried to confess his feelings to her on two different occasions. The first time, he felt like his mouth had been superglued shut. The second time, he had gotten his mouth open, but then their only other coworker, Parker, had barged in and taken over center stage, as always. Unlike Jeremiah, Parker never had trouble finding words. Sometimes Jeremiah wished he would lose a few of them.
Jeremiah sat at his desk, working on coding the VR game, absorbed in his work. He absentmindedly lifted his thermal mug to take a sip of coffee. As soon as the liquid touched his tongue, he felt like his mouth was turning itself inside out. The taste was unbearably sour, and without even thinking, he spat it out, spraying the computer screen. “What the—”
“Oh, that was too funny!” Parker’s voice boomed from the doorway. He was laughing his usual manic hee-hee-hee. “You did a total spit take! I got you good! Here, I got it on my phone. I’ll show you.”
Jeremiah looked up to see Parker, with his too-styled hair and impeccable suit, convulsed in laughter. To make it worse, Hope was standing beside him, giggling with her hand over her mouth. Her laughter, unlike Parker’s, was gentle and lovely, like the pealing of a bell. Jeremiah wished that she was laughing with him over some private joke they had shared instead of laughing at him, caught in another one of Parker’s stupid pranks.
Jeremiah knew he was blushing. He looked down at the mug. An acrid odor floated up from it and made his nose tingle. “What was that?”
Parker laughed even harder. “Apple cider vinegar! I sneaked it into your cup while you were in the restroom. Stuff’s supposed to be good for you, actually, but it probably helps to know up front that it’s what you’re drinking.”
Hope shook her head, but she was smiling. “Parker, you’re terrible.” Her sweet tone didn’t sound negative, though. It was as though she liked that he was terrible.
“Check this out,” Parker said. He held his phone up to Jeremiah. On the small screen, Jeremiah watched himself working obliviously, then taking in a mouthful of the vile liquid. He watched as his eyes got huge and he spat the vinegar out of his mouth, looking like an ugly stone gargoyle with a spout for a mouth. “Wow,” he said, trying to sound good-natured. “You really got me there.”
“You bet I did!” Parker said, running a hand through his overgelled brown forelock. He showed no signs of stopping his laughter anytime soon. “How long do you think it would take for that video to go viral?”
“Don’t post it,” Jeremiah said, sounding weaker and more desperate than he meant to. He was already embarrassed enough with only two people witnessing the prank.
“Here,” Hope said. She took the phone out of Parker’s hand and tapped the screen. “Deleted. Nobody else needs to see that but us.” Her voice was soft, comforting.
Jeremiah was touched. “Thanks, Hope.”
Parker nudged Hope with his elbow. “Aww, you’re no fun.”
“And you’re very naughty.” Hope dug through her purse, then walked toward Jeremiah’s desk. She held a wrapped peppermint in her outstretched hand. “Here, this will get the nasty taste out of your mouth.”
Jeremiah took the peppermint, letting his fingers graze the palm of Hope’s hand, which was soft and smooth. Her favorite ring—an aquamarine, for her birthstone—winked in the light as she retracted her hand. He would rather take her hand than the mint, but he knew that wasn’t what she was offering. “Thanks,” he said again. He popped the mint into his mouth. It was sweet. Like Hope.
Parker clapped him on the back. “I got you good,” he said again, chuckling. “But no hard feelings, right, buddy?”
Jeremiah looked at Parker’s grinning face, his large, almost unbelievably white teeth. There was something childlike about him, mischievous but not malevolent. He couldn’t stay mad at Parker. “Of course not,” Jeremiah said. “But watch out. I might get you next.”
“You think so?” Parker said with one of his hee-hee-hee laughs. “That’s some big talk, buddy. Catch me if you can. Many have tried, but all have failed!” He backed out of the office as if he were reluctant to turn his back on Jeremiah.
Hope shook her head, smiling. “He’s such a little boy.”
“I was just thinking that exact thing,” Jeremiah said. This fact made him feel strangely happy. He and Hope were so compatible, they even thought alike.
“I mean, he’s good at his job and everything, but emotionally … I’d say about eight years old.” Hope sighed. There was an awkward silence that Jeremiah failed to fill, and then Hope said, “Well, I guess I’d better get back to work.”
“And whose job are you doing today?” Jeremiah asked. This question was a running joke of sorts. Three years ago, Hope had been hired to work the front desk at the office, but as the number of employees decreased, she ended up doing the jobs of several other people. For no additional compensation, of course.
“Mostly the PR director’s,” Hope said. “Though later I think I get promoted to pretend boss for a while.”
Jeremiah sat up straighter. “I’d better look out, then and try to act extra busy.”
“You’d better,” Hope said, flashing her lovely little smile. “You wouldn’t want the pretend boss to have to pretend fire you.”
Jeremiah smiled back, wishing he could think of a witty response.
“Well …” Hope lifted her hand in a little wave. “I’ll see you, Jeremiah.”
“I’m sure you will,” Jeremiah said. How could Hope not see him? There were only three people on the whole floor.
But at the same time, he knew that Hope didn’t actually see him. Not the way he wanted her to, anyway. And yet every time she was in the room, his feelings for her seemed so obvious. Whenever she approached, he felt like one of those old cartoon characters whose eyes pop out of their sockets and heart visibly beats out of their chest. But apparently she didn’t see him like that. Or like much of anything at all.
Jeremiah sighed. It was time to get back to work.
Jeremiah lived in a plain, one-bedroom apartment in walking distance of the office. He had lived in much worse places when he was a student—basement apartments with ancient stained carpets and faucets that leaked more than they ran. Everything in this apartment was clean and new and in working order, but it was boring and bland and entirely devoid of character. It was a neat little box with eggshell-colored walls and beige carpet, everything designed to be as neutral and inoffensive as possible. Jeremiah knew that hanging some pictures on the wall and adding some plants or colorful cushions would help matters, but he could never gather the motivation to decorate. Something about the apartment felt temporary, like a hotel room he was staying in for a few nights, even though he had signed a one-year lease.
Tonight as soon as he got “home,” if that’s what this place was, he stripped off his business-casual khakis and button-down and changed into a T-shirt and a ratty but comfy pair of sweatpants. He went to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, and surveyed his options. He figured he should probably eat the leftover Chinese takeout before it went bad. He grabbed the white paper box, a soda, and a fork, and made his way to the couch. He reached for the remote and channel-surfed while he slurped his noodles cold out of the box.
There was an action movie that looked promising, one he had meant to see when it was in the theater, but he hadn’t gotten around to it. He polished off his noodles and watched the hero, in an expensive black suit, run and jump and beat up bad guys. He briefly pictured himself wearing the same kind of suit and punching Parker square in the face. But he knew he would never do it. He was decidedly not a man of action. He was the kind of guy who sat passively and watched the action unfold in front of him on a screen.
When the movie was over, Jeremiah changed over to a late-night talk show, but he soon dozed off. He dreamed, as he often did, about Hope. He and Hope were at a fancy restaurant with dim lighting and crisp white tablecloths. She was wearing a rose-colored dress with a scoop neck that showed off her lovely collarbones. He was wearing the same black suit as the guy in the action movie. They were eating frou-frou French desserts, pot au chocolat for her and crème brûlée for him, and they reached across the table, feeding each other sweet spoonfuls. They didn’t talk because they didn’t need to. Even without making a sound, they were in perfect harmony.
When the alarm on his phone went off, Jeremiah started and looked around, disoriented. He had slept in an awkward position on the couch all night. His neck hurt, and he had drooled on the upholstery. And now, like almost every other morning, it was time to make the coffee, to dutifully crunch his way through a bowl of cereal, to shower and put on clean khakis and a polo, all in preparation for another long day of work.
The dream he had enjoyed last night was definitely over.
In the shower, Jeremiah gave himself a pep talk. Okay, so Hope is completely oblivious to your feelings, and she thinks Parker is hilarious. But you know what? You’re a nice guy, and Parker, deep down, is a jerk. Didn’t Mom always say that niceness counts? So maybe if you just keep on showing Hope how nice you are, she’ll eventually realize she can’t live without you.
The pep talk helped a surprising amount. Jeremiah whistled as he dressed with a little more care than usual. He shaved off a three-day growth of beard and even put a little “product”—though he couldn’t remember when or why he’d bought it—in his hair. He regarded himself in the mirror. Not bad. He was no action hero, but he looked nice. And he was nice. Nice was key.
He walked to the office with a spring in his step and took the elevator up to the fifth floor. As soon as the doors slid open, he heard the sound of Hope’s laughter.
Parker was sitting at his desk showing Hope something on his computer. They were both laughing. Hope was standing right behind him looking at the screen. If either of them adjusted their positions by an inch, they would be touching.
“Hi, guys,” Jeremiah said.
Neither of them turned away from whatever was on the screen.
“Hi, guys,” Jeremiah said, louder this time.
“Oh, hi, Jeremiah,” Hope said, favoring him with a smile. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Nobody can hear much of anything if Parker’s around, Jeremiah thought. But he didn’t say the words. Nice. That was what he was going to be.
“Hey, Jeremiah, my man,” Parker said, smiling his most disingenuous smile. “Have you had your morning cup of vinegar, or should I hook you up?”
Hope gave Parker a little play slap on the shoulder. “Now you stop that.” She turned to look at Jeremiah with her big, lovely eyes. “Jeremiah, I just want you to know that I’ve talked to Parker, and he’s promised to be on his best behavior today.”
“I did make that promise.” Parker gave a wicked grin. “The trouble is, my best behavior still isn’t that good.” He waggled his eyebrows theatrically.
“Well, then you’re going to have to be better than your best,” Hope said, though her voice still tinkled with laughter. “I mean, look at poor Jeremiah there. His nerves are shot.”
At least she’s looking at me, Jeremiah thought, though he wished she weren’t looking at him with pity.
When Jeremiah filled his mug at the coffee station, he sniffed it to make sure it was really coffee. Even with Parker supposedly on his best behavior, you couldn’t be too careful.
Jeremiah sat at his desk and started working on the game. He fell into the screen, and for a few hours, the combination of creativity and problem solving distracted him from thinking about the slim distance that separated Hope and Parker at his desk this morning.
There was a knock on his half-open door. He jumped a little even though the knock had been so light it was barely there. When he was immersed in work, returning to reality was always a little startling.
Fortunately, it was a pleasant reality to return to. Hope was standing in the doorway, smiling at him. “Sorry to break your concentration,” she said. “Parker’s running out for sandwiches. You want one?”
“Sure, thanks,” Jeremiah said.
“Corned beef on rye with extra mustard, tortilla chips and pickle on the side?” Hope asked.
Was it pathetic how his heart leaped, hearing that she knew his sandwich order? “You know me too well,” he said, smiling at her.
“It’s the only kind of sandwich I’ve ever seen you eat,” Hope said.
“Sorry I’m so predictable.” Jeremiah felt suddenly sure that he was the most boring person in the world. No wonder Hope preferred the loose cannon that was Parker.
“Hey, predictable can be nice sometimes,” Hope said. “In an unpredictable world, it’s nice to know that a corned beef sandwich will always make you happy.”
You’re what would make me happy, Parker thought. But of course he didn’t say it. He just thanked Hope for taking his lunch order, then chided himself for his weakness, for being a boring, predictable, corned-beef-on-rye-eating coward who never had the courage to speak his true feelings.
He turned to his computer and fell back into the virtual world. He was having a lot more success there than he was in the real one.
Half an hour later, Hope appeared in his doorway again. “Hey, Parker and I are going to have lunch in the break room. You want to join us?”
“Sure,” Jeremiah said. He couldn’t help but feel he was being invited as an afterthought, but he couldn’t say no to any gathering that included Hope.
They sat around the table in the break room. Jeremiah opened his plastic takeout box. Corned beef sandwich, tortilla chips, and a pickle. His predictable favorite.
“Hey, did anybody watch Kingdom of Bones last night?” Parker asked, tearing off a chunk of his roast beef sandwich with his gigantic teeth. Jeremiah was reminded of a nature documentary he saw with lions tearing off big chunks of zebra with their huge fangs. He feared that Parker was the lion here, and he was the zebra.
“It’s on my DVR. I haven’t watched it yet, so no spoilers,” Jeremiah said.
“I don’t watch that show. It’s too violent for me,” Hope said, delicately nibbling at a corner of her veggie wrap. She was a vegetarian because she said animals were friends, not food. Jeremiah admired her kind heart, not to mention her conviction and self-discipline. “There’s already too much violence in the world. I don’t like to watch it simulated for entertainment.”
That was the thing about Hope, Jeremiah thought. She was a good person. She had principles.
“You’re such a girl,” Parker said in a tone that implied being a girl was a bad thing. “I bet you watch romantic comedies instead.”
Hope gave a small, embarrassed-looking smile. “Sometimes, yeah.”
Parker shook his head. “I would rather have my eyes burned out with a hot poker than watch a single romantic comedy.”
“Well, fortunately that’s probably a choice that will never come up in your life,” Jeremiah said.
“Unless you date a girl who’s super forceful about wanting you to watch romantic comedies,” Hope said, laughing her burbling little laugh.
Jeremiah felt a little tingle of happiness. Right now it felt like he and Hope were sharing a little joke at Parker’s expense. Enjoying Hope’s smiling face, he absentmindedly popped a chip into his mouth.
And he was on fire. Or at least, his mouth was. It felt like someone had filled his mouth with boiling lava. His lips, his cheeks, his tongue burned with an intensity that made fat tears spring to his eyes and spill down his cheeks.
“Jeremiah, what’s wrong? You’ve turned all red!” Hope said, getting up from the table to get closer to him.
He wanted to say “hot,” but his mouth was too much of an inferno to form words. Instead he made a fanning gesture in front of his mouth, hoping it would explain his problem. He jumped up from the table, ran over to the sink, and spat out whatever it was that had turned his mouth into a volcano. He turned on the faucet, stuck his head under it, and let the cold water flow into his scalded mouth. When he lifted up his head, gasping, he turned to see Parker laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath.
“Parker, what did you do to him?” Hope demanded. This time she wasn’t sharing in Parker’s laughter.
“Oh,” Parker said, holding his stomach. “Oh, that was too good!”
Jeremiah filled a paper cup with water and drank it down. The fire in his mouth had died down somewhat, but it still wasn’t totally extinguished. It felt like there wasn’t enough water in the world to cool him all the way down.
“What happened?” Hope asked, her tone testy.
“The deli was selling hot chips,” Parker said, still short of breath from laughing. “The kind people eat on a dare. I slipped one in with Jeremiah’s regular tortilla chips.” He doubled over in a fresh fit of giggles. “Which may have been the greatest thing I’ve ever done in my life!”
“Well, I doubt it was the greatest thing in Jeremiah’s life,” Hope said. “Those things cause people actual pain. I thought you said you were going to be on your best behavior today, Parker?”
“Well, I warned you that for me ‘best behavior’ means something different than it does for other people,” Parker said. “You know, when I see an opportunity for fun, I take it. No regrets.”
And no pity either, Jeremiah thought.
Hope stood at the refrigerator. She opened the freezer door and filled a paper cup with ice. “Well, I think you owe Jeremiah an apology.”
“You know my motto: no regrets and no apologies.” Parker shrugged, getting up from the table. “Once you start thinking about it, you’ll realize how hilarious it was. Later, losers.” He held up his finger and thumb in the shape of an L and strutted out of the break room.
“Here,” Hope said, holding out the paper cup to Jeremiah. “Suck on some ice cubes. It’ll help.”
“Thanks,” Jeremiah managed to say, but his voice sounded thick and strange. He felt like his lips and tongue were swelling.
“I usually think Parker’s pranks are funny,” Hope said. “But this one went too far. I mean, what if you had had an allergic reaction or something?”
“I’m okay,” Jeremiah said, not being entirely honest.
Actually, while his mouth felt like it might never be okay again, there was something better than okay about the attention Hope was giving him. It felt like she was really noticing him, like she was taking his side over Parker’s for once.
“Are you sure? I mean, are you even going to be able to work for the rest of the day?” Hope’s brow was knitted with concern. On her, even worry was cute.
It was nice to know she cared.
“Oh, I’ll be fine. Once I get into the game, I won’t even notice I’m in the world.”
“I like that about you,” Hope said. “I’ve often thought about putting a sign on your desk that says, Do not disturb. Genius at work.”
So Hope thought he was a genius? Jeremiah was pretty sure he was blushing. Or maybe it was just leftover heat from the chip. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said. “You’re much better with people than I am.”
Hope smiled at him. “Well, then we complement each other, don’t we?”
Now he knew he was blushing. “I guess we do.”
Every Tuesday night, Jeremiah met his friends Matt and Ty to play team trivia at Leonardo’s Pizza. It was Jeremiah’s one regular social engagement.
Jeremiah had met Matt and Ty in college, where they were all computer science majors who were obsessed with gaming. Back then, they would meet up in one of their dorm rooms and play for hours, fueled by soda and junk food. Most of the time, each of them was immersed in his own game on a laptop or console, though they traded enough banter back and forth that the experience was still social. When Jeremiah took a psychology class, he learned that when toddlers play in the same room but not together it was called parallel play. It amused him that he and his friends were in college but still engaged in parallel play.
There was no parallel play for them anymore. They were three full-grown men with grown-up jobs. Matt was married with a baby boy, and Ty had a steady girlfriend. Still, the three of them managed to meet once a week to eat pizza and play trivia and joke around in pretty much the same goofy way they had back in college.
Jeremiah walked into Leonardo’s and scanned the dining room, which was decorated in what could only be called cheeseball Italian style, with framed photos of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Coliseum, and red-and-white-checked plastic tablecloths. Matt and Ty already had a table and waved him over. Ty’s looks hadn’t changed a bit since college—he was still a boyish-looking Black guy wearing the same round, gold-framed glasses he had always worn. But marriage and fatherhood had caused Matt to gain what he jokingly called his “baby weight,” and there were dark circles under his eyes from exhaustion. He was genuinely starting to look like he could be somebody’s dad.
“Hey, J,” Ty said, gesturing for Jeremiah to sit down.
“I was just telling Ty I don’t know how much help I’m going to be at team trivia tonight,” Matt said, yawning theatrically. “Connor is teething, and I haven’t slept for three nights.”
“The joys of fatherhood, huh?” Ty said, smiling.
Matt didn’t return the smile. “Just you wait, buddy.”
“Oh, I plan to wait,” Ty said. “As long as possible.”
They were interrupted by the arrival of their usual server, who gave them a quick glance and rattled off, “Extra-large pepperoni and mushroom and three diet sodas?”
“And that’s how you know we’ve been coming here too long,” Ty said. After the server left, Ty turned to Jeremiah. “So how are things at your glamorous workplace?”
Both Matt and Ty had regular IT jobs with fairly boring businesses. They always playfully expressed jealousy that Jeremiah had landed a job in game development.
Jeremiah thought it was a trade-off. Sure, he had the cooler-sounding job, but unlike them, he was alone. No wife or girlfriend, no kids, not even a pet.
“It’s not that glamorous,” Jeremiah said. “It feels like we’re just barely keeping afloat in a tiny life raft. I hope this VR game is a big seller. It would be good for things to be on the upswing again.” He thought of his day at work, the hidden hot chip, followed by Hope’s protectiveness of him and her saying that the two of them complemented each other. “But I think things may be looking up with Hope.”
He relayed the whole story of his and Hope’s interactions and followed it with “So what do you think?”
“It sounds … Hope-ful,” Matt said, then laughed for far too long at his terrible pun.
Ty rolled his eyes. “Ignore Matt and his horrible dad jokes. I think it sounds like she definitely cares about you, man. She may not be totally into you yet, but the thing she said about you complementing each other sounds promising.”
“Why say promising when you can say Hope-ful?” Matt said.
“I think you’re so tired you’re punchy,” Ty said to Matt.
“Don’t you mean pun-chy?” Matt was cracking himself up.
“As your sane friend—unlike this one,” Ty said, chucking Matt on the shoulder, “I say you should ask her out.”
“Yeah, but what if she says no?” Jeremiah’s stomach knotted in anxiety.
“Well, that would suck, but at least you would’ve had the courage to ask her,” Ty said. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
“But what would the courage be worth? Especially if I have to see her at work every day after she turns me down?” Jeremiah couldn’t imagine the awkwardness. And then, too, if Parker got wind of the fact that Hope had rejected Jeremiah, he would never let Jeremiah forget it.
“I can tell by the look on your face that you’re worrying about problems you don’t have yet,” Ty said. “Just ask her out.”
Matt began rhythmically pounding on the table and chanting. “Ask. Her. Out. Ask. Her. Out.”
Ty joined him, and Jeremiah, laughing, finally said he’d think about it. But his friends only stopped pounding on their table when the pizza arrived.
Looking in the bathroom mirror, Jeremiah ran the razor over his foamy face. “Today’s the day,” he told his reflection. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to ask her out.”
He splashed warm water on his chin, dried off, and combed his hair. He looked himself over, something he hardly ever did. Not bad, he decided. True, he wasn’t slick or handsome like Parker, but there was also something about Parker’s face that made it seem exceptionally punchable. Jeremiah at least looked like a nice guy.
He was a nice guy, he told himself. He would be an excellent boyfriend if given the chance.
He put on an extra coat of deodorant because he knew the anxiety would make him sweaty. He squirted toothpaste on his toothbrush, and as he brushed, he remembered Matt and Ty’s rhythmic chant as they pounded on the table at Leonardo’s: Ask. Her. Out. Ask. Her. Out.
As he walked down the sidewalk to work, his feet pounded out the rhythm of their chant: Ask. Her. Out. Ask. Her. Out.
You need to ask her as soon as possible, he lectured himself. Don’t sit around all day trying to talk yourself into it. Just jump right in and ask.
He took out his phone and texted Matt and Ty. I’m gonna ask her.
Matt replied with a Go for it!
Ty sent a thumbs-up.
Jeremiah smiled. He was ready.
On the elevator, he kept his fingers crossed that when he entered the office he would find Hope alone so they could talk. But when the doors slid open, he saw that he had no such luck.
“Oh, good, he’s here!” Parker said. He was standing with Hope, who was looking heartbreakingly pretty in a robin’s egg–blue blouse that somehow made her eyes look even bigger and browner. Both Parker and Hope were holding VR headsets.
“Hi, guys,” Jeremiah muttered, trying to hide his disappointment.
“Hey, dude,” Parker said. “We were wondering if you could open up the testing room and get things running. I want to do a practice run on the game so far, and I thought Hope could help me.”
It was the exact opposite of the situation Jeremiah had wished for. Basically, Parker was asking Jeremiah for the privilege of being sealed in a dark room alone with Hope. “You want me to help out, too?” Jeremiah asked, fearing he already knew the answer.
“No, it’d be better if you stayed out here and monitored things on the computer,” Parker said, grinning his loathsome grin. “I figure Hope will bring a fresh take on things since she’s not actually working on the game development. She can experience it cold, from a player’s perspective.”
“Right,” Jeremiah said. “Well, let me get things set up.” He used his key card to open the door to the practice room and then sat down in front of his computer. How could he have been feeling so good when he woke up this morning and yet feel so despondent now?
“Okay, Hopey, ready to have some fun?” Parker asked, sounding like a demented game show host.
Also, where did he get off calling her Hopey? It sounded like dopey. He hated it.
“Sure,” Hope said, giggling.
They disappeared into the testing room, and Parker shut the door behind them.
Jeremiah tried to concentrate on his work, but for once, he couldn’t. He felt sick. Every couple of minutes, he heard a stray chuckle coming from the testing room. The intimate-sounding laughter made his mind go places he didn’t want it to go. Stop it, he ordered himself. They’re playing the game, that’s all. Of course they’re laughing. People tend to laugh after a good jump scare.
But then the what-ifs … started. What if they’re not playing the game? What if they’re laughing because they’re flirting with each other? What if it’s more than flirting? What if his greasy mouth is pressed up against her petal-like lips? What if his slimy paw is stroking her wavy, lustrous hair? The more Jeremiah didn’t want to picture these things, the more he saw them.
By the time Parker and Hope emerged laughing and disheveled from the testing room, Jeremiah was a shaky, sweaty mess. “You know what?” he said. “I may go on home. I think I’ve picked up a little bug or something.”
“You look a little gray,” Hope said, sounding concerned.
“I feel it,” Jeremiah said.
“Wow, you must,” Parker added. “You never miss work.”
“I know.” Jeremiah was already on his feet and putting on his jacket. “But I just can’t … be here.”
“Well, rest up so you can be sure to come in tomorrow!” Parker said.
The last thing he saw before closing the door was Hope, biting her lower lip like she did when she was excited about something.
At home, Jeremiah put on his pajamas and got into bed just as he would if he were really sick. But he was really sick, wasn’t he? He was heartsick, and that had to count. He would happily take a stomach bug or a bad cold over how he felt now.
Lying in bed, Jeremiah couldn’t imagine a time in his life when he wouldn’t be alone. And then he remembered something that under the present circumstances made him even more miserable: Tomorrow was his birthday.
As Jeremiah plowed through his cereal without really tasting it, he decided the easiest thing to do would be to pretend it wasn’t his birthday. Certainly nobody at the office would remember. Parker and Hope would probably be too busy canoodling in the dark testing room to even know he was there. If he just pretended this was another ordinary day at work, maybe he could avoid the nagging disappointment of a forgotten birthday. If he ignored it first, he couldn’t be that upset that other people were ignoring it, too, right?
Jeremiah’s phone vibrated. He picked it up to see a text from his mom: Happy birthday! Wish I could be there for Pancakes and Presents. Gift card in the mail. As he was replying with a thanks and a heart emoji, memories of his childhood birthdays flooded back to him.
Jeremiah had always been so excited to see what his birthday presents were that he couldn’t wait without feeling like he was going to explode. Finally, probably to save herself from spending a nerve-racking day with an overexcited child, his mom had started the tradition of Pancakes and Presents. Since Jeremiah always woke up early on his birthday (Who could sleep with all that excitement?), his mom started the tradition of making him a big birthday breakfast: the cheesy scrambled eggs he liked, bacon, and a stack of buttermilk pancakes with a candle in them. After he ate breakfast, he could open his presents.
It had been a stroke of genius on his mom’s part, really. That way, he had had all day to play with his new toys or games instead of spending the day pestering her about when he could tear into his gifts. On the evening of his birthday, Mom and Dad had always taken him and a friend of his choosing to Freddy’s for pizza and games.
Jeremiah felt himself tearing up a little at the thought of those perfect birthdays of his past. There were no birthdays like childhood birthdays. After all that fun and fanfare, adult birthdays always felt disappointing.
Maybe he should have gone out for pancakes this morning.
He hadn’t noticed it was raining until he stepped outside his apartment building. He cast a glance back inside. His umbrella was in his apartment, six floors up. It didn’t seem worth the trouble to go back up and get it. He zipped up his jacket and walked in that strange, hunched way people walk when it’s raining on them.
On the elevator, he tried to mentally prepare himself for the scene he was going to walk into today. Would Hope and Parker be tittering over something at Parker’s desk? Would they already be locked in the testing room? Would they announce their engagement?
Don’t get caught up in the drama, he told himself. Just do your job and go home. Maybe you can order takeout and watch a movie or something.
When the elevator doors slid open, Jeremiah was genuinely surprised by what he saw. The office was lit by strings of tiny fairy lights. A huge banner with balloons surrounding it said, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEREMIAH!
He smiled. They had remembered. Or even better, she had remembered.
But there was nobody around. Were they waiting to jump out and yell “Surprise”? Had they not heard him come in?
“Hey, guys,” Jeremiah said, loud enough for his voice to carry to wherever they were hiding. “Thanks. This is really nice.”
There was no answer, no movement, no sign of anyone being there but him.
He walked down the hall to the break area. On the table where the now-infamous Hot Chip Lunch had taken place, a birthday cake sat, looking just like he remembered from childhood: a white-frosted grocery store bakery sheet cake trimmed with piped royal blue icing. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JEREMY was written in blue icing on top. He smiled. It was close enough. And whoever had put the candles on—Hope, probably—had put on the right number.
Maybe he had been wrong about adult birthdays. If someone, especially someone you loved, demonstrated thoughtfulness, then birthdays could be magical at any age.
But where was everybody? He walked the rest of the way down the hall, peeking inside empty offices and conference rooms.
Maybe they were waiting to jump out when he least expected it. He had to hand it to them. They were doing an awfully good job at hiding.
“Hope? Parker?” he called. “You can come out. You’ve already surprised me enough!”
There was no response.
Not knowing what else to do, Jeremiah went to his desk. Maybe they were waiting for him to get deeply immersed in his work, then they were going to jump out and surprise him.
“Jeremiah.” The voice was coming from the loudspeaker, which was never used since their office staff had dwindled to such a small number. The voice sounded deep and electronic, like when people are interviewed anonymously on TV and don’t want anybody to hear their real voice.
But there was no doubt in Jeremiah’s mind who the distorted voice belonged to. He knew that Parker had decided to make him the victim of a birthday prank.
He hoped it was a good-natured prank at least.
“Jeremiah,” the distorted voice repeated, “I have taken your coworkers Parker and Hope hostage. If you call the police, I will kill them immediately.”
“Uh-huh,” Jeremiah said, sounding as unconvinced as he felt. The distorted voice was obviously Parker’s.
“You have a choice to make, Birthday Boy. You can flee the building with the confidence that you will live to see another birthday even though your friends won’t. Or you can try to save your friends. If you take this option, you have thirty minutes. The longer you take, the worse shape they’ll be in when you find them. Now, what is your choice?”
“I choose to save my friends,” Jeremiah said with a sigh. In truth, he considered Parker a bully, not a friend. But he wanted to make a good impression on Hope, and triumphing over one of Parker’s pranks seemed like a good way to do it. Plus, it was just a stupid game anyway, right? Like those escape rooms people chose to get themselves locked into so they could have the fun of finding the clues that would get them out.
It was his birthday after all. He might as well play a game.
“Very well,” the distorted voice said. “Use your time wisely, or your friends may be missing a few pieces. Your time starts … NOW.”
Jeremiah stood up. He had to hand it to Parker. This was certainly darker and more imaginative than his usual pranks. He looked around the workroom, trying to find clues. He looked on top of Parker’s desk and even pulled the drawers open and looked inside. Nothing out of the ordinary. He went to the reception desk where Hope usually kept her stuff. Her purse was stored in the usual drawer, which meant she had definitely come in this morning. He wouldn’t stoop so low as to invade her privacy by digging through her purse.
So Hope was somewhere in the building because her purse was here. And he knew Parker was here because he had heard him on the loudspeaker. To win this game—to beat Parker and impress Hope—he had to turn himself into a combination of an action hero and a sharp-minded detective. What was it Sherlock Holmes used to say in the stories Jeremiah had liked back in his middle school days? The game is afoot.
“Since you’re at a desk, you might as well write something down,” the distorted voice over the loudspeaker boomed. “Your first clue is an anagram. Write it down: STINGER MOOT.”
“Stinger moot?” Jeremiah yelled back at the voice on the loudspeaker. Parker’s voice. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t have to make sense,” the voice bellowed. “It’s an anagram. You’re wasting precious time, Jeremiah. Write it down. S-T-I-N-G-E-R space M-O-O-T.”
Jeremiah did as he was told, but he wasn’t going to let Parker intimidate or pressure him. Not this time. He wanted Hope to see the kind of person he really was, that he wasn’t just a hapless foil for Parker’s pranks.
Anagrams. It had been a long time since Jeremiah had thought about anagrams. Those were the ones where the letters were scrambled up, weren’t they? He looked at the nonsensical combination of words. If this was truly a clue, then it was probably directing him to a location in the building. He spotted the letters R-O-O-M quickly, so room must be the second word. With those letters eliminated, it didn’t take him long to figure out that the remaining letters could be rearranged to spell testing.
“The testing room,” he said, feeling an undeniable sense of accomplishment. “I need to go to the testing room.”
He walked instead of running. He didn’t want Parker to think he was feeling pressured. It was just a game, after all.
He used his key card to open the door to the testing room, then turned on the light.
In the middle of the floor sat a small gift box, the size that most often contained jewelry. The little box was wrapped in colorful paper with a shiny purple bow on top. So this was a birthday treasure hunt with a horror/suspense theme? Jeremiah could live with that. At least he could say that this birthday wasn’t like every other day.
He walked across the room, crouched down, and picked up the small box. He unwrapped it carefully just in case there might be a clue written on the inside of the wrapping paper. The hinged box was a deep crimson, flocked with velvet, the kind of box that might cradle an engagement ring. He flipped the lid open.
His stomach lurched.
Teeth. The velvet-lined box was filled with teeth. Some large, some perhaps small enough to be baby teeth. One molar was flecked with blood on the bottom where it had been yanked out by the root. Jeremiah wanted to keep his cool but couldn’t help but visibly shudder.
Where had Parker managed to get teeth, of all things? Was he friends with a dentist who had a sick sense of humor?
Jeremiah took a deep breath. A clue, he told himself. The teeth are supposed to be a clue. Stop freaking out and start thinking.
He didn’t want to touch the teeth, but he knew he needed to examine them for possible clues. He took a tissue from his pocket, spread it over the palm of his left hand, and shook the teeth onto the tissue. They contained no distinguishing markings or features. There were seven of them. Could the number be significant? Seven certainly didn’t feel like a lucky number when it referred to a bunch of extracted teeth.
He set the teeth aside and examined the box. He pulled out the velvet liner. In the bottom of the box was a small piece of paper that had been folded into a tiny square. Jeremiah unfolded the paper. On it, a typed message read:
SINK YOUR TEETH INTO THIS CLUE, JEREMIAH!
GIVE ME ONE, AND I’LL MAKE MORE.
EACH ONE LIKE THE ONE BEFORE.
WHAT AM I?
Jeremiah didn’t have to think for long. He had always been good at riddles. “That’s easy. The copying machine.”
“Don’t get too confident, Jeremiah,” the distorted voice boomed out of the loudspeaker, making him jump. “The time is ticking away. Only twenty minutes left. And the slower you are, the more they’ll suffer. I wonder … if you do manage to find your friends, will you even be able to recognize them?”
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you, Parker?” Jeremiah said as he exited the testing room, leaving the teeth behind. “Stop nagging me. I’m on my way to the copy room.”
In no particular hurry, Jeremiah made his way down the dark hallway.
The copy room was the third door on the left. When he walked inside, lights from the machine emanated an eerie glow. At first he went to the machine itself, but found nothing out of the ordinary. He scanned the room. It was small, so there weren’t many hiding places. Other than the machine, there was just a wastebasket, a recycling bin, and a long table where people could collate their copies. He looked on the table and saw only the usual office supplies: a cup holding pens and scissors, a stapler, a small jar of paper clips.
Wait. Those aren’t paper clips.
They were small, translucent ovals, white-tipped on the top and flecked with red on the bottom.
Fingernails. They’re fingernails. And not fingernail clippings but whole fingernails that had been … removed, somehow.
Jeremiah felt the bile rising in his throat. He gagged.
He took a deep breath and told himself to calm down. These couldn’t be real fingernails. They were props—extremely realistic props, the kind you’d see in a horror movie with a decent budget, but props nonetheless. He supposed it wasn’t so outrageous that Parker could get his hands on such things. You could buy anything off the internet these days.
But where was the next clue? There was nothing else unusual on the table. With a shaky hand, he picked up the jar of “fingernails.” He upended it, scattering the nails across the table. A small, folded piece of paper fell out of the bottom of the jar. He didn’t like touching it since it had been in the jar with all those fingernails, but he knew it was the next clue, and he wasn’t going to chicken out now. He wouldn’t give Parker the satisfaction. He unfolded the slip of paper and read: YOU NAILED THIS CHALLENGE! Jeremiah could almost hear Parker’s annoying hee-hee-hee. He kept reading: YOUR NEXT CLUE CONTAINS EVEN MORE FRIGHTS/TO GET THERE YOU JUST NEED TO FOLLOW THE LIGHTS.
Jeremiah stepped out into the hall. A string of tiny lights was stretched from the doorway of the copy room down the hall. He followed them, which was certainly easier than deciphering another cryptic clue. Maybe he was getting close to the end of the game. It hadn’t been fun—it was too disturbing for that—but it had been interesting. He would definitely come out of this experience with a story to tell.
“Time’s a-wasting, Jeremiah,” the voice on the loudspeaker announced. “Only ten minutes left. Better get to your friends soon, or they’ll be all to pieces!” The laughter sounded like a distorted version of Parker’s hee-hee-hee.
“You really put some work into this, Parker, I’ll give you that,” Jeremiah said.
The lights stopped at a doorway to a conference room that hadn’t been used since the company’s downsizing. He turned the knob and walked in.
Sitting on the table, lined up as if staring at him, were three eyeballs. Two of them, Jeremiah noticed, had brown irises; the third one was blue. Seeing intact eyeballs separated from their owners made Jeremiah think of how delicate the eye was, soft and squishable, like a peeled grape. He felt a wave of nausea, a sensation that was now becoming familiar.
These eyes had to be real. Even an excellent special effects artist couldn’t make something this convincing. So where was Parker getting this stuff?
A thought popped into Jeremiah’s head that explained everything. On the third floor of their building there was a medical supply company. Jeremiah had never thought that much about what kind of supplies they provided—he had thought scrubs and maybe masks and gloves, that kind of thing. But what if they dealt with medical waste? Body parts left over from surgeries that were going to be sent to medical schools for study and dissection? If so, Parker could have just bought some spare parts from them.
Jeremiah felt better suddenly, confident that no one had been harmed in the creation of this elaborate prank. He spotted a slip of paper sticking out from under the blue eyeball. He didn’t want to touch it, so he nudged it with the blunt end of a ballpoint pen. The eye rolled back, and he grabbed the note and unfolded it: I SEE THAT YOU’RE MOVING CLOSER TO YOUR GOAL. FOLLOW THE LIGHTS TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT!
A new string of lights started at the conference room doorway and led farther down the hall. They stopped at the office, which had belonged to the PR person before she was laid off. He tried the door and walked inside.
A medium-sized gift sat on the desk. It was wrapped in white paper decorated with shiny multicolored letters spelling HAPPY BIRTHDAY and topped with a big silver bow.
Jeremiah was starting to lose the pleasure he had always felt in unwrapping gifts.
Still, he tore through the paper and lifted the lid off the box.
Resting inside a nest of light blue tissue paper was a pile of fingers—maybe as many as twelve or thirteen, but it was hard to say because many of them had been chopped into fragments. Two of them were missing fingernails.
Jeremiah couldn’t help it. Prank or no prank, he vomited into the wastebasket.
Once he was able to normalize his breathing, he looked inside the box again. One of the fingers was small and obviously had belonged to a female. It was wearing a delicate silver ring with a light blue gemstone in it.
Aquamarine. Hope’s birthstone.
He realized with horror that it was Hope’s ring, the one she always wore on her right ring finger. Did this mean that the severed finger belonged to Hope? He bent over to examine it more closely. There was a small, dark freckle just below the finger’s first joint.
Jeremiah had spent so much time looking at Hope that he had memorized her face, her hair, her hands. This was not her freckle, not her finger. He felt a brief moment of relief, but then felt bad for feeling relieved. Even if none of these fingers were Hope’s, they were still human fingers. This had gone beyond a prank. It was a sick game, and it had gone too far. Jeremiah had often said that Parker didn’t know when to stop. He was only realizing now how true that statement was.
And even if it wasn’t Hope’s finger, it was still Hope’s ring. What did that mean? Could Hope be in some kind of danger? Was Parker hurting her?
“Enough is enough, Parker!” Jeremiah yelled. The game had gone on too long. “This needs to stop now!”
“Feeling like things are getting out of hand?” the voice on the loudspeaker said, laughing. “There’s only one way that this game ends. Follow the lights before it’s too late for your friends.”
Jeremiah ran. Before, he didn’t want to let Parker see him sweat, but if Hope was truly in danger, he had to get to her. He had wasted too much time already.
The lights ended at another empty office, the large one occupied by the boss when he actually bothered to show up. Jeremiah couldn’t even remember when the last time had been. On the large oak desk was a cardboard box with two round holes cut into the lid. A note attached to the box said, For the key to where your friends hide, roll up your sleeves and reach inside.
Jeremiah pushed up his shirtsleeves and plunged his hands through the two holes in the box. Instantly, he was up to his wrists in something cold, wet, and squishy.
It would be more accurate to say some things that were cold, wet, and squishy because the more Jeremiah felt around in the depths of the box, the more he became aware that he wasn’t just feeling one slimy mass, but individual items. His hands were tangled up long, snaky tubes. Intestines.
Jeremiah hoped that the innards he was feeling had come from some unfortunate livestock and had been acquired at a butcher’s shop. But in his mind, he knew better.
The medical supply company, he told himself. All this stuff came from the medical supply company. It was from people who had died from natural causes, who donated their bodies to scientific research.
But even as he tried to convince himself, the words were sounding more and more desperate and ridiculous. If these body parts were for study or dissection, wouldn’t they be preserved in some way? All the parts he had encountered during this horrible game seemed disturbingly … fresh.
Jeremiah feared he might be losing his mind. Was this how you lost the game, by losing your sanity?
He fought off wave after wave of nausea to rummage through the offal in search of the key. Finally, his right hand felt something hard and metallic. He grabbed it and withdrew his arms from the holes in the box. When he looked at his hands, they were stained red past the wrists.
He held up the key. “Okay, I’ve got the key! Is the game over? Do I win now? Because I am done! Do you hear me, Parker? I’m done!”
“What quest ends with just finding a key, Jeremiah?” the voice on the loudspeaker boomed. “Don’t you have to find out what it’s a key to? Don’t you want to save your friends … or what’s left of them?”
“You’re not my friend, Parker!” Jeremiah yelled. It felt like something he should have said a long time ago.
But Hope was his friend. And she could be in danger or in pain. If she needed saving, he could do it.
He took the key and closed the office door behind him, staining the doorknob with a bloody handprint.
The trail of lights continued. He followed.
The next room had probably been an office at some point, but now it was crammed full of old office furniture. Sitting on an obviously broken desk chair was another box, wrapped for his birthday, this time with a candy-pink bow. It was a medium-sized, flat box, the kind that he had always opened last at Christmas as a kid because he had known it contained clothing, not toys or games.
He was pretty sure this box did not contain clothing. He didn’t want to open it, didn’t want to see what was inside, but if he was going to play the game all the way through on the chance of saving Hope, he had no choice.
He tore off the brightly colored wrapping paper and lifted off the box’s cardboard lid.
When he saw what was inside, he screamed. He tried to muffle the scream with his fist but tasted the blood that still covered his hands. He looked at the contents of the box, driven by a need to make sense of what he had seen.
Jeremiah was looking at a face that had been stripped from a human skull along with part of the scalp and hair. It took him a moment longer to recognize who the face belonged to. But then he started to put the pieces together—the brown hair with the distinctive forelock, the full lips that had so often been stretched into a self-satisfied smile. He almost expected the lips to part in a hee-hee-hee.
“You still think this is Parker?” the distorted voice on the loudspeaker said.
“No,” Jeremiah said, surprised to hear the sob in his voice. “No. Parker’s right here.” He didn’t want to, but he found himself looking again at Parker’s peeled-away face. Jeremiah wiped tears from his eyes.
If Parker wasn’t running this sick show, then who was? Jeremiah realized that as long has he had thought Parker was in charge, he could entertain the notion that no matter how bad or cruel things seemed, it was all an elaborate prank. But now it became clear that this was no prank.
It was real.
There was only one word that made sense to Jeremiah right now: Run.
He ran, ignoring the trail of lights, ignoring everything except what appeared to be the quickest route out of the building. The halls took on a mazelike quality. To the left, to the right, with no seeming way of escape. He reached the elevator and pushed the button. No light came on. Clearly whatever psychopath he was dealing with had tampered with the elevator. He ran for the stairwell.
He opened the door marked STAIRS. Jeremiah had always found the dimly lit stairwell creepy, even under much calmer circumstances, but there was no time to reflect on his feelings now. There was only time to run.
As he made his way down the first flight of stairs, he noticed a red smear across the white cinder-block wall. Blood. Relatively fresh blood, judging from its brightness. But whose blood was it? He couldn’t slow down to think about it, or the blood that next spattered the walls could be his.
Down, down, down, he ran. Down fifteen flights of stairs, sweating, panting, his heart pounding like a snare drum. He checked the doors on the way down in hopes of being able to access the elevator from another floor. Locked. Locked. Locked. Finally, he reached the door marked 1, the door that led to the lobby and the exit. He pushed it.
It didn’t budge.
He pushed again.
It appeared to have been locked from the other side. He pounded on the door with both fists. “Help!” he yelled. “Help me! I’m trapped in here!” He hoped he could at least get a security guard’s attention.
But there was no one there to hear him.
He pounded and yelled a few more minutes just in case, but it was no use. He wiped tears of frustration from his eyes. Now what?
There was no place to go but back up.
Jeremiah was beyond winded. Going up the stairs was much more tiring than going down. He stopped on the landing of the sixth floor to catch his breath and saw something he hadn’t noticed on the way down.
The sixth-floor door was outlined in a string of tiny lights, the same kind that had lit his way throughout the horrendous birthday game.
He pushed on the door. It opened.
Jeremiah went inside the sixth floor, an office space that had been vacant since he had taken the job with the game company. He knew going inside was probably a bad idea—no, was definitely a bad idea—but what other choice did he have? He could go back up to his office, which was littered with viscera and ruled by a malevolent presence on the loudspeaker, or he could take his chances here.
The only illumination on the sixth floor came from the strings of tiny lights hung along the ceiling. There were no computers, no office furniture, no other signs of human activity. There were only the tiny lights leading down a dark hallway. At the end of the hallway was some kind of faint glow.
Almost as if he had been hypnotized to do so, Jeremiah followed the lights. He was going to see this thing through.
The glow was coming from a room at the end of the hall. As he drew nearer, the source of the glow became obvious. An old TV, the kind he could remember from his grandmother’s house, was sitting in the empty room. It was turned on, but the screen showed only the black-and-white pattern his grandmother had always referred to as “snow.” On the shelf below the TV was an equally ancient piece of audiovisual equipment, a VCR. Jeremiah hadn’t seen one of those since his childhood.
The green power button on the VCR glowed in a reassuringly familiar way. On a whim, Jeremiah pressed PLAY.
The “snow” on the screen disappeared and was replaced by the smiling faces of Parker and Hope. “Surprise!” Hope said, laughing in her soft, tinkly way.
“Got ya!” Parker said. “Got you good this time. Oh and—” He looked over at Hope.
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” the two of them yelled together.
“I hope you appreciate all our efforts, Jeremiah,” Hope said. “It was a lot of work putting all this together, even though it was totally worth it.”
“I never thought we’d get it put together in time,” Parker said. “Between setting up the motion sensors and the loudspeaker—”
“But it couldn’t have gone better, could it?” Hope said, flashing her familiar, sweet-looking smile.
Jeremiah didn’t recognize the room in which Hope and Parker had been filmed. It was too dark to make out much of the setting; however, he could discern what was on the table at which they stood: the kind of sharp kitchen scissors used for boning meat, a variety of knives ranging in size from a small scalpel to a huge cleaver.
“It was perfect,” Parker said to Hope; then he turned to face the camera. “But now that you’ve had your birthday surprise, there’s a good chance that Hope and I need to get to a hospital!” He grinned like a game show host.
“I bet we do,” Hope said, laughing.
The smile faded from Parker’s face. “Okay, Parker!” he yelled into the camera. “He’s ready! Give us a knock!”
Knock. Knock.
At first Jeremiah thought the knocking was coming from the videotape, but then he realized the source of the noise was a supply closet a few feet away from him. Someone—something?—was knocking very low on the closet door from the inside. Without even thinking about it, Jeremiah started backing out of the room, though his gaze was still fixed on the TV screen.
“Now if you’ll excuse us,” the Parker on the video said, “Hope and I have some work to do!” Parker leaned over toward the camera. He was holding a big pair of pliers, which he opened and closed menacingly, then let out his trademark hee-hee-hee.
The screen went black.
Jeremiah stood, frozen in confusion and terror, as the supply closet door slowly inched open.