SALVATION chapter 8

Salvation
chapter 8

Atlanta, Georgia

Sal Fox crouched against the wall just outside the door of Julie Westgrove's office.
Clutching the pink waste basket like a security blanket.
The unusual silence that had raised his curiosity earlier was now replaced.
A constant buzzing of office phones ringing unanswered.
The hall on the 23rd floor remained empty..
He had persisted leaning against the hallway for some time.
Holding back for the nausea to subside, and his strength to return..
The ceiling shook twice while he waited..The result of something
heavy finding the carpet on the floor immediately above him.
There were muffled cries and screams. Sal couldn't pin point their exact location..
He checked his watch the time was 2:55 pm.
Fourteen minutes had passed since he first entered Julie Westgrove's office..
Fourteen minutes and what felt like fifteen years.
He needed to stand up. Fight off the sickness and wobble in his legs.
He sensed that what had occurred in the office behind him had duplicated
in offices through out the 23rd floor..
Everyone except himself had been audio-intimate with the new single
"King of the World."

Something unthinkable had gone wrong in the minds of those who'd listened to it..
"What have we done?"..
His eyes burned with the sweat of tears.
His mind bearing witness the events leading up to this moment..
The skyrocketing internet sales.."How many are infected now?"..
The scheduled radio broadcast release of the single in Los Angeles through a popular AM rock station.
Corporate owned and operated by Universal Music..
"That was 10 am Los Angeles time"...
Quickly computing the 3 hours time difference it would be almost Noon in Los Angeles now..

He set the waste pale on the carpet between his feet..
Forcing his palms against the wall he slid up using the strength in his
arms and legs..
"There still might be time."..If he could get to his office and call the radio station.
Often the scheduled time of air play was postponed due to complications..
It could be any little glitch causing a scheduled format to change..
A technical problem with equipment..
A hung over radio producer simply behind in their work load for that day.
Or a missed cue..
An unnoticed new slot to be filled in the song rotation..

His head swung suddenly left..
An office door opened down the hall five doors from his own on the opposite side of the hallway.
Sal shook and sucked down a deep breath.
For a moment, nothing.
Then slowly, meticulously a man emerged walking backwards into the hall.
Stereo headphones framed the man's pale balding skull.
A quarter harvest moon of fuzzy beard circled the lower jaw line.
Sal recognized the man immediately.
It was Carl Medford..
A senior account representative who'd been passed over for promotion.
Carl was of the opinion Sal now occupied his chair and his rightly deserved office space.
The grudge was fresh. Sitting on his shoulder spitting venom since Carl arrived at work today learning of the news.

Sal watched as Carl methodically unrolled a 25 foot wire extension cable plugged into the headset's 3 foot original equipment.
Robotically dropping the cable a foot at a time increasing his distance from the office he appeared from.
Carl's intended destination lay directly across the hall.
A large brown door with a big blue plastic 'men's room' identifier bolted to the face.
His expression was one of self accomplishment.
Like the triumph of a disability overcome.
He had ingeniously devised a method to an end.
Resolving a desire in meeting a dual purpose.
He needed to take a shit. And needed to hear 'King of the world' while doing it..

It wasn't that listening to 'King of the World' made Carl a happier fella.
He simply could not live without it.
The throbbing bass lines and back beat of percussion did not fill his blood
with a rhythmic sense of celebration.
A closer definition might in fact be the combination of music and lyrics
pounding through his eardrums was in the process of...subtraction.
Sucking, and feeding..
Taking what had been the totality of Carl Medford at the beginning of the day, and drinking it down into a void.
A void of blackness that's sole purpose was an attempt to fill a space
that could not be filled.
A boundless, fathomless space that held no properties established within a world of matter.
Even the cold dark forbidding aspects of the universe know as 'black holes' were
somehow tame in comparison.
For they at least were explainable..Knowable.
Kin to the fabric of a logical place and time.
Gravity existed there.

Sal stood perfectly still.
Willing his body to meld with the hallway.
Hoping to escape unnoticed by way of Carl's engrossment of deliberateness.
No such luck..
As Carl turned to confirm his distance from the men's room doorway
his eyes spat a silver flash taking in Sal pinned against the wall.
He wore the same identical grin Sal had seen on Shari Galloway's face.
"Maybe they should date," his mind interjected in an effort to maintain a footing in sanity.
And in that moment his mind followed with a reflection of a semblance..
It suddenly occurred to Sal what the grinning jowls and vacant eyes of both Shari and Carl had in common..
They were the faces of starving wolves.

For a moment that seemed an hour, the two men stared.
Then slowly, seductively, Carl's grin widened..
Sal could not ascertain recognition in those eyes.
He was absolutely certain Carl had no idea who Sal was.
He was also absolutely certain Carl didn't care.
The loping grin froze.
A single index finger protruded from Carl's right fist.
A fist that slowly rose..
The finger kissed his lips then descended pointing directly at the cable snaked before him on the floor.
Carl's head began to swing side to side as did the index finger keeping time.
Sal got the message loud and clear.

It made him recall his 3rd grade elementary school teacher.
Miss Eagelman..An elderly spinster..
Scrawny and lanky with short blue hair cut like a man's.
Ichabod Crane in drag..
Her adam's apple curtsied when she spoke and the skin around her neck reminded Sal of a turkey.
"Do not touch!"...Her long index finger wagged like a dog inches from his face, attached to a fist of lumpy red rolling knuckles.

Sal didn't realize until Carl had finished his Miss Eagelman impersonation that
his own head was mimicking Carl's robotic side to side motion..
Seeming satisfied, Carl returned his attention to the cable.
Resuming his backward trek pushing through the restroom door.

Sal inched along the wall closing the gap between himself and the door to his office.
Slipping inside he closed the door quietly behind him.
Damning the office door for no locking device, he slid the computer chair under the door nob jamming it like he'd seen done in the movies.
The closed quarters helped muffle the constant ringing of phones in neighboring offices.
Squatting at the desk he moved the computer mouse disabling the screen saver.
Sales for 'King of the World' had continued to climb to over 700,000.
But now the screen seemed frozen..No new numbers were being posted.
Sal clicked the browser refresh thinking it to be the problem.
Instead of the page returning, a new page flashed up on the monitor.
'Error 504..Gateway Timeout'...Please contact the administrator..
It seemed the site was currently offline.
He picked up the desk phone and punched through five lit lines routed to his office.
There was no one holding on any of them.
He speed dialed the Los Angeles radio station in hopes of cancelling the release
of 'King of the World'.
The number wasn't busy..
Like the office phones here at Universal the line rang, and rang.
He hung up and picked up again.
This time he dialed 911.

San Diego, California

Ed Hoffman had an advantage.
The 19 inch Zenith portable color television perched a top
two metal gray filing cabinets probably saved his life.
It was his custom to flick it on daily catching the mid morning news.
The Zenith was a trooper..It hadn't failed him in over twelve years.

Sal Fox hadn't mentioned the MENACE single promotion kicking off in Los Angeles.
Ed had to hear it for himself via a special news report breaking just as Fanny Sutherland of Omaha was preparing to spin the wheel on 'Price Is Right'.
The first initial report came over about 10:40 am.
Preliminary reports were sketchy and emotional.
It wasn't until almost 11:45 am..After a series of live updates..
The determining cause of the chaos linked to a kind of hypnosis..
An embedded subconscious suggestion contained in the
music of a band called MENACE.

It took another five minutes or so to dawn on Ed his secretary didn't have the same advantage.
By that time it was almost noon.
Lunch time..
Margie wasn't hungry though.
She'd been listening to 'King of the World' for over an hour.