Hide and Seek: I'll Get You, My Pretty

"I used to play hide and seek with my father at his office. Well, it wasn't really his office, it was everybody's office, the kind with nothing but floors and floors of rows and rows of cubicles. I became the master at folding myself into empty filing cabinets, the real big kind, and holding my breath when my father would sneak by, his keys jingling.

"What happened that night? You don't want to know. You don't want to know.
... Fine. So the office building. I work there now. I took my dad's job when he retired a few years ago. Pretty high standing, big shoes to fill, you know?"

"You want to know why? What kind of a question is that, anyway? Everyone's always asking me why. Why? Because they were the most brilliant things I'd ever seen. I could stare at them for hours and never blink. They had these gold ridges in them that caught the light every now and again, just shone with... with life. I wanted them. So I took them. That answer your question? Because I wanted them."

"I was working late; there was a big project that we needed to get out ASAP. Everybody had gone home hours ago; it must have been near three in the morning. Kind of ridiculous, I know, but college gave me a degree in Layout Engineering and a free pass-fail course in Insomnia 101. Of course, once out of school you start to forget things. I'd broken rule number one and put my head down on my desk, just to rest my eyes. Computer screens are killer on the corneas. Not that that matters anymore."

Jane awoke suddenly to the sound of the elevator doors sliding noiselessly open on the other side of the building. Her tired eyes swept over her cluttered desk to the neon clock. 3:45.

"No one should be here," Jane mumbled to herself. "I shouldn't be here." Heaving a sigh, she stared blankly a moment at the screen saver on her monitor before wobbling the mouse. The project popped instantly into her weary vision, gloriously unfinished. Swearing under her breath, Jane returned to her work, half listening to the footsteps approaching her, muffled by the carpeted floors.

"Evening, Jane," Greg greeted jovially.

Jane sighed. "'llo, Greg, here for the Elleye Project?"

There was a slight pause before he responded. "Isn't everyone?"

"Yes, me and my obvious team of cooperatives."

"Everyone left, huh?"

Jane only nodded and returned to her screen.

Greg whistled long and low under his breath as he checked his watch. "You're one dedicated kid, Jane. I've always admired your capability, you know. You're so on top of things."

Jane snorted. "No need to flatter me."

"I don't mind. And even when you're tired your eyes are still... so..." he trailed off, wistful fogs softening his tones.

Jane turned at this, her eyebrow arched. "As much as I appreciate it, your attentions are misdirected. This is still a workplace, and don't you have a girlfriend?" Greg didn't reply, for the moment Jane had turned from her computer his eyes had locked onto hers, unmoving, casting a lightning chill through her chest.

"Greg?"

"So... so..." he stumbled for the word while fishing absent-mindedly through his pockets.

"Wait," she stood quickly. "You're not on Project Elleye. Why are you...?" Realization of the real danger, remembrance of this man's mental instability, crashed over her body as his hand locked around the object behind his denim pocket.
"Don't try to run," he spoke softly. "I may not move as fast as you, but you don't want to regret it." He stepped forward.
"What?"

Jane backed up against her desk as he approached. The sharp, glinting steel of the red handled pocketknife swam lethally through the air, drawing ever nearer.
"You stay away from me."

"It's far too late for that, Janie. They've drawn me in."

"Don't call me Janie," she hissed. "Only my father calls me that."

"Well, I-" She drew a sharp breath as her discreetly groping hand found the sharp pencil resting atop her desk. Greg's eyes met the weapon simultaneously with hers, then flashed back to Jane's now pale face.
"Don't even-" He was cut off by her instantaneous reaction, the plunging of the lead tip deep into his forearm, eliciting a bloodcurdling howl. She shoved her shoulder into his heaving gut and sent him crashing to the floor.
He laid against the hard carpet for several moments, watching the purple blood stream snakily over his damp skin. With a grimace, Greg snapped the mass of the pencil from his muscle, sharp lightning pain jabbing through his limbs. He smiled a yellow fanged smirk, his eyes alighting on the trail of the hunt.
"It'll only hurt for a little bit," he cooed as he rounded each sharp corner of the cubicle rows in hot pursuit.
"Keep going," Jane thought to herself. "You know this building better than anyone."
Greg's voice echoed through the tensed air. He was counting.
"One, two, three..."
Silent speed bit at her heels as she made a wide loop around the company's engineering laboratories and he still pursued.
"Four, five, six, seven..."
Easily she slipped into a meeting room at the end of the row, throwing herself below the heavy wooden table, near invisible between the large legs.
"Ready or not, here I come!" Greg's footsteps pounded outside the room, his tone slimed and mocking of her childhood games. Jane held her breath, wishing those weighted shoes from her proximity. She watched the leather soles with wide, horrified eyes. Every step drew nearer, closer to her concealment. Seconds passed as the feet seemed to contemplate her existence, lingering for an agonizing minute, as though awaiting her surrender. He passed her by.
The silence of the meeting room pressed in on her ears in unforgiving volume; all the dreadful sounds of the world were thrown into the air, thick and barreling on her ears. Stale air began to pass, relieved, from her lungs.
The slap of a sweaty palm smacked against the wood table as Greg's chilling smile jolted into view.
"Found you."
With a scream, Jane crawled desperately away from him until there was no longer table to cover her. From atop the surface came an arm, bloodied and cruel, catching Jane by the neck, demanding her to her feet, and shoving her roughly against the wall behind her.

"You're sneaky, little girl," Greg whispered harshly, tightening his grip on her writhing body. "But I'm sneakier. I can smell you anywhere you go." He buried his face in her hair, his chest pressing into hers, inhaling deeply as she attempted to jerk from his hold again. "And you smell so good. I love fear on a woman."

A sharp kick sent Jane sprawling back to the ground and the bulk of the man was atop her, pinning her wrists above her head with one enormous hand. The other still gripped the red handle, the blade slicing the lung burning seconds away, his prize so close.

"Now stop moving, you silly girl, and let me have them."

"Get off me, please!"

"You don't deserve such treasures." He slid the flat of the blade down her cheek, keeping her frozen still beneath him.

"And what makes you think you do?" Jane breathed heavily, the icy fear, white hot in her stomach forcing her eyes shut.

"They look at me; they want me."

"No."

"Singing to me, pleading me."

"No!"

"Lay still, I don't want to hurt them."

"Please."

With that, a huge hand came striking over her face, slamming her head so hard against the cement and carpet floor that blackness instantly converged over her vision.

The twisted, sweating face of Greg Kirk was the last thing she would ever see.

She runs a finger over the patches, black and cruel against her white skin and smiles sadly, as though sensing the horror stricken jaws gaping at her from every angle.

"I told you you didn't want to know."