John Hanks was a salesman. Pretty dry introduction to a man I know, but then again, there weren't all that many dimensions to John. His job was pretty much his life, and his family understood. That was the thing about being a travelling salesman. It consumed you, it'd make you its slave. Most of the year spent going from one unfamiliar place to another, till you eventually never know where you actually belong.
But he had memories from almost all of them. The man in the motel room beside him in De Pere, Wisconsin who sang sinister and sordid rhymes till late into the night. The receptionist in the office at Fort Wayne, Indiana who used to take frequent breaks to inject herself with juice to make it through the day. John had noticed the needles. The toilet cubicle in Stratford, Connecticut which read, 'I saw Jim Morrison at Woodstock and I liked it!', accompanied by a very graphic and lewd drawing of an excited male reproductive organ. And the pair of stern father and timid girl he had seen at a bus stop in Portland, Maine once. He held her in a very peculiar and unsettling way, and she was evidently very uncomfortable but dared not utter a word. His gaze seemed to quell and threaten her at once. John could sense something amoral at foot.
But these were nothing more than imprints on his endlessly gray mind, the pattering of certain distinguishable moments from a sea of sameness. He would be taking none of this to his grave, no souvenir, no memory of his pointless life. He was just another number. Or so he thought, until that fateful day in Bangor, Maine on the evening of 19th June, 1984.
It was his call at The Transatlantic Food Packaging Company, on that day. He had a 6 'o clock appointment with the sales manager. John basically worked for a polythene production company who had patented a new variant of the substance and wanted to market it. That's where John and his trips to companies all over the country came into the picture. And so here he was, meeting the manager, a pleasant fellow to talk with, but one who wouldn't buy his pitch one bit. And so John there soon, another refusal on his record. He took the elevator from the 8th floor office to the ground, mind occupied with thoughts of his future if his luck with his sales didn't change. That was when the elevator suddenly ground to a halt midway, lights flickering. He groaned and cursed silently, pressing buttons futilely. The little box wouldn't budge. He leaned onto one side and sighed. Slid down and sat on the floor, casting his briefcase aside. The last thing he wanted was to be bored to death in a stuck elevator. Of course, that was never going to happen.
A minute passed. Then two. John had started dozing off already, when he heard something. He snapped up to listen carefully. It sounded like a low gurgle, like someone trying to say something underwater. Then he heard low murmurs, whispers. He could not make out what they were saying, but the tone was secretive and ominous. Then again the gurgling sound, a note of desperation creeping into it this time, more intense this time. Then again, more whispering, slightly louder this time. He caught a snippet or two.
'-that should do it?'
'Yeah that should take care of it'
'HEY!! HELP ME!! I'm trapped in here!!' John yelled as loud as he could. He didn't care who the voices belonged to, if they could help him out of here, that was all he wanted from them. The whispering stopped suddenly, and an unnervingly long silence followed. Just as John began wondering what was happening, the elevator suddenly sprung to life, but started going upwards. John sighed with relief. Now he could thank those voices for helping him and make his way to his motel room, where his warm bed awaited him.
The elevator kept climbing. 5,6,7,8,9,10...the building had 12 floors. It reached 12 and John wondered how he'd been able to hear whispers from the top floor. Then something happened that numbed him with shock and terror and suddenly he wondered if he were in a bad dream. The panel to his right had buttons for 12 floors, and he knew the building had only 12 floors.
The elevator had just gone past 12 and the little LCD display over the door softly glowed.
With the number 13...
No comments:
Post a Comment