Episode One.

It was another intolerably long Thursday.  It was pouring down outside and the store had that stuffy, damp, headachey feel about it, the coffee machines in the canteen had all broken down at once, the till drawer kept jamming and, even though it was only eleven o’clock, she had had to deal with three complaints already, including a particularly nasty one from Mrs. Belschaft who seemed to find something to gripe about on a weekly basis.  It was days like this one - especially Thursdays - which served to remind Pacifica (Pax for short) why she hated her job so much.  The only thing that made it bearable, really, were her colleagues.

Oh, sure, they had all ribbed her a fair bit for her name (My parents are kind of… New Age, was all she could manage by way of explanation) and even the nickname she had chosen had rather backfired (Pax will bag that for you!), but it was all good fun and she gave as good as she got.  And then there were the nights out, the wild, liberating release of tension they could bring; good times fuelled by good company and a few too many drinks.  It almost made the days worth it.

There was one colleague she just couldn’t get on with, however.  His name was Terry, he was slightly younger than she was, still a student and he had the infuriating tendency of taking everything so very seriously.  He rarely came with them to Imkihca or Drugged Monkeys or any of the other clubs they usually visited and when he did he usually just stayed for one drink, hardly spoke and left without even saying goodbye.  And to make matters worse he was the only other full-timer in her section, so she spent more time working with him than with anyone else.

A shift with Terry would just drag on so much.  There was something about the way he would answer any questions she had which would just annoy.  Sometimes she would go out of her way to avoid even asking him.  He did, however, have some positive attributes, she supposed.  He was kind and generous for a start, though it always left her feeling awkward if he gave her a pen or money to buy something from a vending machine at lunch.  And he was much the same with customers, going out of his way to get something done.  He was knowledgeable about all the products and good at his job.  And he always had time to help new starters find their way around the department and get to grips with the hundred thousand bolted-on systems they were forced to work with.  He was considered a ‘key employee’, which, as far as Pax was concerned, simply meant that there was no getting rid of him.

So, of course, he was working that Thursday too, making his way around the department with a duster and smiling at the few wet and bedraggled customers who would slouch by.  Pax just tried to get some of her own work done on the opposite side of the section, up a stepladder, wiring in a new wall light whilst occasionally fending off ‘helpful’ male customers who assumed she wasn’t competent with a screwdriver.  She had to work really hard to restrain the part of herself that wanted to show them just how adept at using it she really was.

And then the phone call came.  She often kept the phone nearby when she was working, because, aside from Terry, not many other people bothered to pick it up when it rang and it was much easier to hand the phone to him than it was to be hunted down by him.  She set down her screwdriver, climbed off the ladder and picked it up just as it rang out.  It wasn’t something that actually happened all that often, but her immediate reaction was to shake her head and grumble about how “this always happens when I’m up a ladder”.  She set the phone down again and was about to climb back  up to her wall light when it rang again.

“Oh for God’s sake,” she said a little too loudly, earning her a stern look from somewhere within a passing raincoat and forcing her to smile and mutter an apology before she picked the phone up again.  This time, she hit the ‘answer’ button before it could ring out and raised the phone to her ear.  There was a strange hiss of static, like the person on the other end was calling from a mobile whilst travelling through a tunnel or something and then the line suddenly went crystal clear.

“Hello, you’re through to Pax in lighting, how can I help you?” she said robotically and, after a pause just long enough for Pax to think she needed to repeat herself and no more, a voice, quiet, barely more than a whisper, in fact, and with a hint of some odd, hard to place accent replied, “I want Terrence.”  There was a buzz of static with every word.

“You want to speak to Terry?” Pax clarified.

“I want Terrence.”

Great, she thought, another one of those customers.  “Can I ask what it’s regarding?” she tried.

“I want Terrence.”

“Can I get a name, at least?”

“Tsunamy,” the speaker said each syllable distinctly and separately and Pax wondered if he or she (she still couldn’t tell) was actually Asian.  It was a pretty weird name, regardless.  “I want Terrence,” they said again.

“Sure, okay.” she replied, giving up before she lost her patience entirely.  “I’ll just see if he’s available.”

“Yes.”

Whatever, she thought as she took the phone away from her ear and glanced across the department to see where Terry had got to.  He’s welcome to you.

She spotted him over by the lampshades and made a beeline across the section to reach him.

“It’s for you,” she said, barely suppressing a cruel smile as she handed the phone over to him.

“Thanks”, he said, setting down his duster and taking the phone to his ear.  “Hello?”

Pax turned away, eager to maintain distance, and returned to her installation.  She didn’t think anything more about it until she was done and putting away her tools.  It was heading into the dead part of the afternoon, quieter still thanks to the weather and she struggled to see a single customer on the floor as she put her ladder away and then started to tidy some shelves.  It took her a couple of minutes to notice that Terry wasn’t around.

He’s probably just nipped into the stockroom, she thought and continued to move along the wall, straightening boxes and making sure that everything faced forwards.  But Terry was still nowhere to be seen fifteen minutes later, by which time she had made her way around the entire perimeter wall.  She could still see his abandoned duster over by the lampshades.  She spotted Suzy, a colleague who worked in clocks, the next section over and went over to speak to her.

“Have you seen Terry?” she asked.  “I haven’t seen him on the floor for ages.”

“Nope,” Suzy replied, lazily writing her name in the dust that covered a wooden mantel clock.  “Has he maybe gone on his break?”

“Breaks were over ages ago, Suze and you know he never takes a minute more than he needs to.”

“True,” she replied, stifling a yawn.  “Maybe he’s tidying the stockroom  or something.”

“Maybe.”  It wasn’t outside the realms of possibility, but it wasn’t like him to leave one job unfinished to start another.  “I’ll go check, I guess.”

“Sure, you do that,” Suzy replied and there was a look of mischievous glee in her eye that put Pax on the defensive.

“I just don’t want to be left on the floor by myself,” she said a little too quickly, “what if a flood of customers came in or…”

Suzy was giggling now and Pax could only turn away before her colleague saw her flushing bright red.  She hurried into the stockroom, then paused for breath.  It was ridiculous, really, she was just getting worked up over the suggestion, nothing more.  To think that her colleagues might think that she had a thing for Terry, well that was…

The stockroom was often overheated, but that afternoon it seemed to be more so than usual.  Pax could feel a bead of sweat forming on her forehead and threatening to drip down her nose.  It was also almost completely silent, with none of the usual sounds of air conditioning units or the goods lift to fill the vacuum.

Has everything stopped working?she wondered, but then she heard the one small sound that did permeate the silence, the gentle noises of someone crying and not wanting to be heard.

“Terry?” she called, trying to locate the source of the crying.  “Terry, are you in here?  Are you okay?”

The sound stopped dead, but Pax heard the sharp intake of breath beforehand and realised he was somewhere over in the aisle where the lampshades were stored.

“Terry, I know you’re in here,” she said as she started towards the aisle, “it’s okay, I won’t tell anyone.”

Silence.  Nothing but silence.  Only silence.

And then the sound of something wet hitting the floor, like an old mop or…

“Oh shit!” Pax yelled as she leapt into action, running towards the aisle to skid through the dust [slipping through the blood] around the corner and-

“Ohgodohgodohgod, what have you done, Terry?  What have you done?”