Chapter 2
Chapter 2
It was April 26th, 1996. Tim was walking up a short flight of stairs, in a long series of short flights of stairs in the office building where he worked. His office was located on the 10th floor. Tim had secured a position at the advertising firm of Snyde & Hooper four years earlier, in 1992, and had quickly climbed the ladder of advertising success to have the official title of Vice President of Operations stamped across his embossed, gold-lettered business cards.
Long hours, fast-food lunches, and evenings filled with good beer had all attributed to Tim's slow-growing gut, not to mention sitting his ass at a desk all day. Occasionally, while getting ready for work in the morning, Tim would turn backwards, facing away from the full-length mirror in the bedroom, and then turn his head around to see if his ass was getting bigger as well. It was. Nicole, who had been his blissful-wedded-wife for nearly three years at this point, didn't care though. She would still slap his ass each morning as he was getting ready for the day, which was just enough to keep a smile on his face and know Nicole didn't care how big his ass or gut was getting.
Still... Tim took the stairs. It was his only means of exercise and he knew he needed some sort of exercise if he didn't want to die of a heart attack, or stroke, by the time he was 50. He was only 34 years old now, but he thought about shit like that.
He used to trim down, some, in the summer months when he would mow the front and back lawn of their house every Sunday. Or, when he and Nicole would go for evening walks around the neighborhood, after the sun began to set. But, they lived in Phoenix, and the older Tim got the less he wanted to mow the lawn when it was 116-degrees outside, not to mention the water restrictions in the suburb where they lived had begun to enforce on its residents. Not long after the water restrictions went into place the grass started burning, and not long after the grass started burning Tim hired a landscaping company to zero-scape his front and back yard. It ended up costing a shitload of money, not to mention he thought it looked like shit.
So, evening walks with Nicole and climbing the stairs to his 10th floor office were now the only exercise Tim got. His gut was still getting bigger, but Tim convinced himself it wasn't. He also told himself, almost every day after eating a fat-burger from the deli on the corner, that he was going to get a salad the next day, and by-god he was going to start eating healthier. Of course the next day turned into every other day and when Tim found himself standing at the deli counter, looking at the list of salads on the Coca-Cola menu board hung from the ceiling, Tim still ordered the #6; a double cheese-burger, with bacon, and a side of sweet potato fries. Fuck, at least the sweet-potato fries were healthier than regular fries, right?
Ten flights of short stairs, four times a day. Once when he got to work, and climbed up the stairs to his office. Then, back down at lunch time. Back up the stairs, with his gut larger and hanging over the top of this belt after devouring his burger, fries, and Diet Coke. Then, once more back down the stairs after his day was done and he walked out to his car for his drive back home.
Tim had been walking the 10 flights of stairs for nearly a year, 5 days a week. He wasn't' the only one either. Other people who worked in the building also walked the stairs, up and down, almost every day. Most of them were in much better shape than he was. At first he didn't notice that; he would smile, nod his head, and say "Hello." in his always upbeat and cheery voice. Tim had always been a positive, friendly person and liked to engage in conversations with folks, even if he didn't know them.
It wasn't until recently, within the past couple of months, that Tim noticed the difference between he and the other stair-climbers. Most of them had been lean and fit when they began climbing the stairs, and they were climbing the stairs to maintain their desired weight or shape, but there were a couple of other people who had been walking the stairs just as long as he had, even if not longer, who had begun to trim down and began to, noticeably, lose weight. One of them was a young lady who worked for Snyde & Hooper as well. Her name was Tammy, he thought. She was an assistant to one of the commercial advertising executives. They mainly handled the advertising for larger companies such as Facebook, Ford, and Scribner Publishing. She was attractive in the face, and was becoming more attractive in the body. Tim noticed she began to wear tighter, more revealing outfits as she continued to shed pounds. He was genuinely happy for her, and happier even to witness the physical results when she would meet him on their walks.
He wasn't so happy to see the transformation on the other person. No sir.
The other stair-walker who had begun to shed their extra pounds was a smug, arrogant man, who recently began giving jabs to Tim when they met on the staircase. Tim had always been polite and smiled or nodded during the weeks leading up to their first verbal encounter. Normally the man wore earbuds and kept his head down, so he likely never saw Tim's attempts at being friendly. Tim was no longer nice though, and with each passing day was becoming more angry. He felt his skin boil and get hot each time he would pass the man on the stairs, and sweat would instantly begin to drip from the tip of his nose; not due to climbing the stairs but rather due to the hate he felt.
The first day, when the verbal jabs began, Tim had a Styrofoam cup of Diet Coke in one hand and a white, grease soaked paper to-go bag, containing a cheeseburger and fries, in the other. Tim, who was approaching the landing to the 10th floor of the building, and was breathing heavy at this point, looked up the next flight of stairs and saw the man, who had become much more lean and trim, bounding down the stairs. There was a smile on his face; a shit-eating grin, actually.
"You may need to take the stairs a few more times a day, if you're going to keep eating that."
He pointed to the bag in Tim's hand as he passed him on the the 10th floor landing and continued down the stairs. Tim smiled and laughed, thinking the man was making a lighthearted joke, at the expense of Tim's extra large gut, but in the days following Tim's smiles stopped and the anger began.
A few days later, after more verbal insults had been handed out on a daily basis, Tim was making his first climb of the day up the flight of stairs, with his briefcase in hand, when he met the man just past the landing to the 3rd floor. Again, the young man had a crooked, shit-eating grin on his face; it almost seemed to appear the moment he saw Tim on the bottom step of the flight of stairs.
"I think you may actually be getting bigger, BIG GUY."
Tim stopped, after he had taken another step, turned around and watched as the man hit the landing to the 3rd floor and continued down the rest of the stairs. He was in shock. He had to replay what he had heard. Had he really been so flat-out rude? And why? Tim had never even spoken a word to him and surely didn't know his name or where he worked in the building.
The rest of the day, Tim hung his head down low. He kept the door to his office closed. The anger had long since subsided and had evolved into sorrow, as several times he looked down and saw his large, protruding gut smashed up against the front drawer of his desk as he looked through contracts and business documents.
He didn't eat that day, not one thing. When he left for home, he kept his head down and was almost deaf to the voices of people telling him to have a good evening. When he got home his wife Nicole had prepared an amazing dinner, as usual, but to her surprise, as well as Tim's, he declined dinner telling her he was not feeling well and went straight to bed. He didn't sleep though. Even when his wife came in the room, nearly at 10 that evening, Tim closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, but when the alarm sounded on his nightstand, at 5:15 the next morning, Tim was still awake.
Self pity was the only drive powering Tim through the morning routine of showering, getting dressed, having two cups of coffee, and finally driving in to work. Tim pulled his SUV into the parking spot, marked with his name, and turned off the car. He sat for a moment. In silence. What he really wanted to do was turn around and drive back home.
"No." He thought to himself. "Just take the elevator."
Just as he was about to pull the key out of the ignition, something in the rear-view mirror caught his attention. It was a person walking behind his car, towards the staircase. Tim saw it was the same man who had verbally berated him the previous day. He quickly pulled the keys from the ignition, reached over and grabbed his briefcase from the passenger side seat of his car, and stepped out of the driver's door. He walked to the back of the car, hit the door lock on his key fab, and walked double time to get to the staircase.
The man opened the door to the staircase, stepped inside, and the large, metal entry door slammed closed behind him. The sound echoed throughout the parking garage. Twenty feet away, with his legs moving as quickly as they could without running, Tim was approaching the door. A few moments later Tim stretched is arm out towards the handle of the door, yanked it open, and looked up. He could hear the sound of feet as they bounced off the concrete stairs. It sounded as though they were leaping in the air before meeting another stair. Suddenly, Tim realized the young man was taking the stairs two at a time.
Tim had no idea where the energy had come from, but he almost felt as though a super-power had been gifted upon him. Without realizing, Tim began to climb the stairs, also two at a time. His briefcase bounced up and down in his right hand, as his left hand slid up the metal railing of the stairs that had been bolted to the wall of the stairwell. His heart was pounding in his chest, but he didn't feel it or the sweat dripping from under his chin until he had reached the 6th floor. Tim stopped for a moment and looked up again. The sweat from his chin began to puddle on the concrete floor as it fell . He caught the sound of the man's footsteps, still bounding up the stairs above him, and instantly took back to his climb.
The 7th floor. 8th. 9th. Then the 10th floor.
He passed by the entry door he normally stopped at, leading to his office. But, not today.
At the 11th floor he heard the metal entry door, from the 12th floor landing, close above him. He hurried up the staircase and pulled back the metal entry door leading to the 12th floor offices. The door revealed a long hallway leading to smaller offices. He looked to his right, but saw nothing. After he turned his head he looked to his left and saw the man approaching a windowless, dark wood door on the right side of the hallway.
"Hey!" Tim called out. Although he didn't know why. He didn't really know what he was going to do next
The man looked over his shoulder, towards Tim, and smiled. Tim looked up, above the door, and saw a sign sticking out from the wall. It read: 'Mark Meeker. C.P.A.'
"Making your climb to the 12th floor now? Normally I see you get off at the 10th."
"Normally, yes. Say, there is something out in the stairwell; not sure if you saw it but wanted to ask if you'd take a look at it."
Mark Meeker pulled the key back from the door lock and dropped the keys in his front, right slacks pocket.
Tim still didn't know exactly what he was doing; it wasn't something premeditated. There was nothing in the stairwell.
He was calm, even though his heart should have continued pounding inside his chest after taking the stairs two at a time, trying to catch up to the little prick. And the sweat, which had been dripping from his chin, was suddenly gone, which was a surprise to Tim as he reached his left hand up to the lower section of his jaw and felt nothing.
The asshole accountant, Mark Meeker, tilted his head, while he stepped away from his office door and began walking towards Tim.
"I didn't see anything."
"I'm surprised. As keen as your vision seems to be. It will only take a second."
Tim took a step back, closer to the entry door, pressed his hand down on the chrome bar and pushed the door open into the stairwell. He stood back as Mark Meeker approached him, and then walked past him into the stairwell. Once Mark Meeker was inside, standing on the 12th floor landing, Tim entered the stairwell and allowed the metal door to shut behind him. Tim stood just inside the door and listened for a moment. The stairwell was quiet. There was no echoes of shoes padding upon the concrete stairs, voices bouncing off the walls from people talking on their cell phones, or sounds of someone out of breathe from making their morning climb up the staircase to their office floor.
"What is it you wanted me to see, buddy?"
Mark Meeker was looking up the stairs leading to the 13th floor, and then down the stairs leading to the 11th floor.
"I don't see anything."
'Buddy?' I'm not your buddy, Tim thought.
Mark began to turn around to look at Tim, and that's when Tim moved towards him.
Tim quickly stepped forward, with his briefcase in his right hand. He pushed out his gut, pulling his ass inward, which made it protrude out in front of him 6-inches more than it normally stuck out. Mark Meeker's eyes grew wide and a scream almost left his mouth.
Almost.
Tim's gut hit Mark Meeker waist with force, like a freight train running over a cow that had wandered onto the tracks, and Mark went tumbling down the flight of stairs, leading down to the 1/2 landing between the 11th and 12th floors. His arms sprawled out, waving wildly, hoping to grab on to something. Mark's brown,, leather satchel bag flew out from the grip of his left hand. Tim was quite impressed with the amount of force he had used. Mark Meeker flew through the air, tumbling, and didn't come down until he fell on the 7th step down from the 12th floor landing Tim was standing on.
CRACK! The sound of his head smashing against the concrete step was loud. It echoed up and down the concrete enclosed stairwell.
Mark Meeker's body instantly fell limp, and as it continued to roll down the final few steps Tim caught a glimpse of his eyes. They were open, but were pure white, almost as if Mark Meeker had been born without any pupils or color to his eyes. Blood sprayed along the wall of the staircase, just above the handrail, as Mark's body bounced off the 2nd to the last step before reaching the 1/2 landing. Tim was certain he heard the sound of bones breaking and cracking as Mark's body continued to spiral down the concrete stairs.
When his body came to a stop it fell into the corner of the 1/2 landing, between the 11th and 12th floor, and it landed in a ball. It reminded Tim of an image from a scary movie where the person hiding from the murdered was crouched into a ball in the dark corner of a room, trying not to be seen. Tim stood, motionless, at the landing of the 12th floor. He felt calm. Unnerved. Until the blood began pooling on the concrete landing, under Mark Meeker's body. Then, suddenly, Tim felt sick to his stomach.
A voice came from lower in the stairwell, likely from a few flights down, but it was hard to tell. Tim didn't have any fucking clue.
"Did you hear that?" A man's voice said.
"Yeah. What was it?." Replied a woman.
Tim calmly took a step back from the staircase, turned, and gently pressed down on the door release, just above the handle. The door opened silently as he pulled it back towards him, and after it was open enough for him to fit through he stepped into the hallway and pulled the door shut, holding down on the push bar so it didn't make a loud 'click' when the latch released inside the door frame. He looked though the small, square window of the stairwell door, and after not seeing anyone he turned and walked a few paces down to the elevator.
Now, sweat began to form, again, at the top of his forehead, and his hands began to shake. The odd thing about it though was that he wasn't sweating and shaking because he realized he had just killed another human being, but because he enjoyed the thrill of it. Tim was smiling.
The elevator make a ding, after it arrived on the 12th floor, and the doors slid open. The elevator was empty. Tim stepped inside, pressed the button to the 10th floor, and waited while the doors finally began to shut. Suddenly, the metal entry door to the stairwell drew open and made a large bang noise as it smashed against the inside concrete wall of the stairwell.
"IS ANYONE HERE?" A woman's voice called out. It may have been the same voice he heard in the stairwell, but Tim wasn't sure. "SOMEONE CALL 911!"
Tim continued to smile, as the doors to the elevator gently closed. He pressed the number 10 on the elevator board.
(All rights reserved. Written by Aaron Clayton. Published 12/5/19)