dodraibeid

So I wrote this story.

I don't know if many or any of you will get it, but here it is.
It's about my job. There's a few things you need to know. They won't make it funny, but they'll keep you form being confused. Here goes:

[*]Charles, Karen, and Dougherty are management.
[*]The bridge is basically the control center of my job. The brain of the building, if you will.
[*]CAE is what I am.
[*] Terry is a dick that has a different job than me.
[*] LMC is a different department.
[*] Vaughn has a thing wherein he wants to jumpstart the Apocalypse by way of ferrets with lasers in their heads.
[*] Everyone else mentioned in this story has the same job as me.

It was a Tuesday when Kaminari came back to work. I have to admit I was a little surprised to see him. He was still wearing the same suit, only now he was translucent and a little bit blue. He said its because disembodied souls are always blue. He didnt really tell us why he came back, just mumbled something about it being this or an eternity of All your base jokes. Then he got really serious and said Looks like somebody set us up the bomb. This was very funny to him. A bit odd, I thought, considering the circumstances.
Work went on almost like nothing changed for a while. Kaminari was really pissed in the beginning, because they took his breaks away. Charles said that since he was dead, he didnt really need to eat, and smoking helped him die, so he couldnt imagine that Kaminari would want to smoke, either. I remember when Charles told him, Kaminari was storming out of Charles office looking pretty mad, and Charles calling after him Its Hell, Kaminari! Youre not supposed to enjoy it!
But life went on. It was kind of nice to have him around, even though he was dead. His hours were a little different, because he was here twenty-four hours a day. He was in the top of the queue all the time, which (even though I hate saying it) was pretty cool for the rest of us. None of us felt too bad for him. He didnt have to worry about losing his job, so he got to curse out management on a pretty regular basis. For some reason, though, he wasnt allowed to yell at customers. Every so often hed snap and tell someone to fuck off. (I guess the dead have pretty short tempers.) Hed vanish from his seat, and come back a few minutes later. The first time it happened, he looked like hed been crying. When we asked him what happened, he didnt really say much. Same thing theyd been doing all along. was all we got. So we really cant be sure what happened, but he never sat down for at least a few hours afterwards. Aside from all that, though, things were relatively normal. Until, that is, the day Vaughn died.
It was in all the papers. Even the New York Times ran a story about it. Man Dies Jump-Starting Armageddon Alone at night, in our rooms, when no one was around, we all secretly laughed to ourselves. What were the odds that hed ever get that ferret idea off the ground? Probably the same that one of them would shoot its master in the face. The great irony was that about six months before, hed faked his own death for the money from the companys insurance policy to get his research off the ground, he found some college kids to do the actual research, and lo and behold, a couple of kids had their thesises, and Vaughn had his killer ferrets. The one thing that he forgot to do was train them. I guess he figured that ferrets with lasers embedded in their foreheads would just sort of instinctively know who the bad guys were.
He unleashed them on the pentagon on the fourth of July. We told him it was a silly idea, but he wouldnt listen. The kept saying that if he didnt, all of his ferrets would get nuked before they hit Canada. Well, wouldnt you know it, the minute he let them out of the cages, one of those little bastards turned around and smoked him with his cranial laser cannon. His widow gave him a nice funeral. She could afford to, seeing as how she sold the ferrets to Lockheed-Martin for a fortune. Theyd been working on gorillas with chainsaws for hands, but Vaughns ferrets were years ahead of the company in the field of bio-weaponry.
I was off they day Vaughn came back. Bobbin and Fuller said that he tried to go to lunch but couldnt log off his phone. One of the side effects of having no substance, it seems. When I saw him, he looked, well hollow. When he was alive and having a bad day, hed get that look on his face. I used to wonder where it came from. Now I know. He was thinking that he was in Hell. Turns out, he was right.
After that, people just started dropping like flies. Bobbin and Dougie were next, car accident. They both showed up two days later. Mike Z. and his wife died when their house caught fire. I felt really bad for her. It seemed like she was going to be in training forever, and now she was. Poor thing. We started to hear about dead cable reps showing up for work. Terry drowned while he was fishing on some lake up in PA. That one kind of threw us for a loop. Up until him, it was only CAEs coming back to work after death. Now it seemed like no one was safe. I walked by LMC and there were a few guys in there who were blue and see-through. Next thing I knew, half of the people in the building were damned souls. Management was elated. With all of those people working around the clock with no breaks, we were making close to ninety-five percent service level every day.
Never one for being quick on the uptake, I got a little suspicious. I went to see Dougherty. His office door was closed, but I heard music coming from inside. I thought about knocking, but then I remembered his open door policy. I turned the knob, and went in. I know its a clich, but nothing, and by God I mean absolutely nothing, even dead co-workers showing up and working overtime, could have prepared me for what I saw.
I opened the door, and gazed upon Hell. Black rocks reaching up to the sky, flames and explosions bursting all around me, and hot. Oh my God was it hot. They might as well have had a guy standing at the door with a t-shirt that said HEAT on it waiting to hit you with a baseball bat the minute you walked in. Thats how fucking hot it was. I stepped inside, and of course the door slammed behind me. It must have only been for effect, because when I tried the knob, the door was unlocked. I could still hear the music, so I decided to follow it. As I got closer, I could see a little stage set up in the distance. I crept close and hid behind a rock. I peeked out, and let me tell you. If I was shocked when I found out the door to Doughertys office was actually the gate to Hell, I was fucking flabbergasted now. In front of the stage, Dougherty, Charles, and Karen were sitting in big easy chairs watching, I swear to God, watching as Satan himself serenaded them with The Wind Beneath My Wings. As Satan sang, it became clear to me that we had, in fact, been set up the bomb.

Did you ever know that youre my hero
And everything I would like to be

Wed been sold out. Management supplied the location. Satan supplied the souls. Hell was now in the call center business. I booked for the door. The three remained in rapt attention as Satan continued to sing.

I can fly higher than an eagle,
For you are the wind beneath my wings

I burst through the door and locked it. Then I threw all of the furniture I could against it. I was praying as hard as I could that it would hold them in case they tried to come out. I knew where all of this was being done. The only place anything like this could be done. I ran for the Bridge. The door was locked, so I broke through the glass wall with a chair. I probably could have knocked, but Id always wanted to do that. Once inside, one look at the screens confirmed my worst fears. Lists of names miles long. And next to their names was either PAID or "IN SERVITUDE". I wasted no time I smashed the entire computer system to bits. I pulled out plugs, hit it with the chair, tore out wires with my bare hands, anything to bring this electronic juggernaut down. Then, everything was dark. No sparks, no flames, no information. Everything that was in there was gone. Then I heard it. Yelling. No. Cheering. I ran out on the floor to see the souls of the damned rising up, out of their chairs, and through the ceiling. Outside, they swirled and swooped and flew in circles. They were shouting incoherently. I knew they werent saying anything of consequence, they were just glad to finally be free.