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CHARLOTTE COULDN’T believe that after all her planning and hard work, it was finally the evening of the party.
She scanned the room. Despite her usual disinterest in her co-workers, she couldn’t help but be a little intrigued by everyone’s dates. Wally had left his pregnant wife at home, opting to bring Mr. Primate instead. The little monkey was dressed in a tiny tuxedo with a teensy little checkered cummerbund and bowtie. Wally had let his long, golden hair flow freely down his lanky back. He was wearing an odd black-on-black ensemble. Twice already people had gotten him confused with Alfredo’s models.
Shane, who was typically hush-hush about his personal life, had a beautiful woman on his arm. The rumor flying was that she was a prostitute from Jackson, Wyoming, who was his hired go-to party date.
Bob and Bitsy O’Leery were present, looking appropriately rich and haughty. Bitsy wore a floor-length gown and long black gloves. There was a tiara on her head. Charlotte had even overheard her telling Tammy from human resources that her mink stole wasn’t mink at all, but made of thousands of exotic caterpillar pelts.
At half past six, once everyone had thrown back a few cocktails, Bitsy’s chef and his helpers began serving everyone their dinner. Charlotte scanned the room for Ensar. She’d barely had a chance to make eye contact with him all evening. Shane was keeping him busy with tedious tasks like salting the parking lot and scraping everyone’s windows over and over again.
She also hadn’t had much of a chance to talk with Alfredo. He and his crew had done a practice run of their show earlier in the day before the party started, but she’d been too busy preparing the awards ceremony certificates to talk to him. He and the models and the rest of his performers were all crowded in a conference room eating take-out pizzas, waiting to go on. Charlotte hoped his show would be as exciting as he’d promised. Or else, she told herself. Then, for the zillionth time, she reminded herself that she planned to quit anyway, so what was the difference?
“Can I take your plate away from you or are you gonna eat the rest of this food?” asked a nervous high school student. Clearly, he’d never worked a big event like this before.
“I’m done,” said Charlotte, since she needed to focus on the next part of the evening: The awards ceremony.
She’d arranged the awards in the order they’d be announced—naturally, they were all for the salesmen, with no recognition going to any other employees. By the time she’d reviewed them again and reread the notecards she’d prepared for Bob O’Leery, the tables had been cleared and pushed to the sides of the breakroom, and the awards portion of the evening was ready to start.
Bitsy was supposed to start things off with a few words, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“I guess she must be in the little girls’ room,” said her husband, laughing awkwardly, doing his best to downplay it. Charlotte hoped he wouldn’t notice that their fearless leader Shane was also missing this part of the evening’s events.
Bob O’Leery took the notecards from Charlotte, gave a little speech thanking the salesforce, and launched into the awards ceremony. One by one the salesmen stepped up to accept their awards, each acting reasonably humble and well-behaved compared to what Charlotte was used to seeing on workdays. Partway through, Charlotte noticed Bitsy sneak back into the room. A moment later Shane appeared, his tie crooked and his hair tousled. His date, who had been drinking a glass of white wine alone in the corner, noticed him reappear and went over to his side. Charlotte watched her lips form the words I’m bored. She straightened his tie and then rubbed away the lipstick on his jaw with her thumb, a comically overdone pout on her face. She was definitely hired, Charlotte decided. A real date would be furious.
Wally Dingle was the last salesman to receive an award, but when he went up to the front of the room to accept it, he wasn’t smiling.
“Thank you for this award,” he said, nervously twisting his hair around his finger. He took the microphone from Bob O’Leery and continued, “Forgive me if I don’t seem more excited about it. My wife just called and she thinks she’s in labor...”
The room broke into cheers, but Wally shook his head, indicating he hadn’t been finished speaking. When the cheers quieted down, he said, “First things first, though. Mr. Primate’s missing again.”
“Who?” asked Bob O’Leery.
“My monkey,” Wally said to Bob. He turned his attention to the roomful of people. “Has anyone seen him? He’s a little guy, about yay-big, wearing a tuxedo?”
The roomful of people shook their heads sympathetically.
“Seriously?” snapped Wally. “No one’s seen him? This is an emergency! There are so many people here who he doesn’t know! He’s got to be scared out of his mind! He seems outgoing, but he’s actually incredibly shy.”
“We haven’t seen him,” yelled Brent Pritchard.
“Well, watch out for him, would you all?” said Wally. “Give him back to me if you see him. I’m going to look for him. Is anyone coming with me?”
No one moved, except for Bitsy, who abruptly reached her capacity for listening to Wally carry on about his missing monkey. She strutted up to the front of the room, grabbed the microphone, and said, “I’m sure your monkey is fine. Everyone, enjoy another cocktail and get ready for whatever Charlotte and her friends have planned for you.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Wally muttered, running off toward the back of the building.
Ensar had been summoned from outside and was now helping to remove some more of the tables from the room so they could transition on to the next part of the evening. He and Charlotte briefly caught each other‘s eyes and smiled, but that was all they were going to get for the moment.
And then, finally, after weeks of planning, it was time for Alfredo’s fashion show to start. Charlotte was pretty sure she was even more nervous than he was.
She took the microphone, tapped it a couple of times, and cleared her throat. “All right, everyone,” she said. “We have a great show planned for you. From the fashion designs to the choreography and specially curated lineup, this is all the work of my good friend Alfredo Giuseppe. He’s a Windy Pines native, and he lives in New York now. He’s on his way to becoming a household name in the world of fashion. He’s an artist in every sense of the word. I’m honored to share his talent with you all tonight. Ensar, could you please dim the lights?”
Ensar reached for the switch, just as Wally raced back into the breakroom, holding Mr. Primate. “I’ve found him! You can all relax!” Wally exclaimed. “It’s going to be okay! Everyone can calm down!” He held up the little monkey who was shoving pecans in his mouth with one hand, and waving what appeared to be a paint can label in the other. “I found him way down in the dungeon,” Wally continued. “He was...”
“The show must go on,” Bitsy declared, interrupting Wally’s rant. She stepped forward from the back of the breakroom, where she’d been leaning against the countertop and looking bored out of her mind a moment earlier. Now her Botoxed face was set in a furious frown. “Charlotte here has a nice show planned for us. Enough about that silly little monkey!”
“I agree,” said Bob O’Leery. “Dim the lights.”
“But wait,” yelled Wally. He passed Mr. Primate to Charlotte, telling her, “Do me a favor and watch him for a second.” He tried to approach the O’Leerys, just as Ensar dimmed the lights all the way down to complete darkness.
Techno music began to play and the strobe lights started. The first model stepped out, making her way across the breakroom while the music blared. Dressed almost entirely in black, with a cloud of long, white-blonde hair, she appeared more like a floating head than a person modeling clothing. Alfredo’s great designs and hard work were lost in this ineffective show. When he and his models had practiced earlier in the day, with natural light flooding the breakroom through its gigantic windows, they’d underestimated how much light they’d need to put on a good show. As more and more models stepped out, all of them barely visible and bumping into one another, Charlotte realized the whole show was turning out to be a major flop.
In the weak pulsing light, she could, however, see that Mr. Primate was still holding the label in his hand. She took it from him, rolled it up, and slid it into the pocket of her skirt. She tried to catch Ensar’s attention to indicate that he needed to raise the lights a little more, but it was too dark and chaotic for him to see her.
More and more models came out, stomping down the makeshift runway that cut diagonally through the breakroom. Charlotte could still hear Wally carrying on about finding Mr. Primate, but she couldn’t quite make out what he was saying over the blaring music, since she had accidentally positioned herself right in front of a speaker.
She thought she heard Bitsy O’Leery telling Wally to shut up, but it was hard to be sure over the pulsing beat and screaming pterodactyl sound effects.
The music got even louder, and the strobe light slowed, until the entire roomful of people was left standing in a riotously loud chamber of darkness, punctuated by sporadic flashes of light.
When Charlotte heard the first scream, she thought it was part of the show. At the second scream, Mr. Primate started screaming too. At either the third or fourth or fifth scream—they happened so close together that she couldn’t be sure—she felt something warm splatter on her face, and reality set in.
“What’s going on?” she yelled, to anyone who would listen. “Ensar! Can you hear me? Turn on the lights! Turn the lights back on!” she yelled.
When the lights finally came back on, Wally lay dead on the floor, an axe in his back, blood pooling around him. Several models also lay dead or moaning.
Charlotte quickly scanned the room. Aside from the bodies on the floor, and Ensar and the DJ across the room, blocked in by the DJ’s turntable, the breakroom was already almost empty. The partygoers were running for their lives. Through the reflection in the breakroom windows, Charlotte could decipher the headlights and taillights of the cars and trucks pouring from the parking lot as everyone made a mad dash to escape.
Alfredo, a model wearing the grand finale evening gown, and the scent wizard stepped in from the hallway. Alfredo’s face was scrunched up in a glare. “What’s happening? Why are the lights on?” he began to say, before his eyes fell on the grisly scene.
“We need to get out of here! Now! Hurry! Before we’re all next!” Charlotte shouted.
They all raced outside, piled into Ensar’s SUV, and made their escape.