Chelsea did a final check of her emails, before shutting down her work laptop. She was working from home that day, but was required to go into the office the following day as the Executive Vice President of Abbots and Bollsum’s was coming in. She was interested in meeting more of the staff in person, as so far she had only met Peter, Jody and Garry, and it had been two weeks.
…
She had moved to the quaint little town for the job. It had been a very odd interview and she had been ready to reject it, until they offered her double her salary and free accommodation. She packed up her scant belongings into a suitcase and drove across the country to the remote town, which, unless you had a map was difficult to find. It had hundreds of acres of forest in every direction and she had turned down numerous wrong roads before she found the old fashion wooden sign saying ‘Welcome to Bahuthamst’. The sun was getting into its orange hue by the time she had parked her car in the tiny parking spot outside the ‘so-called’ real estate agents office. She knocked on the glass panes of the door and a woman in late middle age came bustling out. She unlocked the door and snapped, “You’re Chelsea, come to collect the keys?” Chelsea nodded feeling unbelievably tired and just wanting to get to her new home and relax. The woman handed her a set of keys and a packet of documents, then slammed the door shut, without another word. Chelsea had felt quite annoyed by the woman’s rudeness, but she shrugged it off and started her car towards her new home.
The drive was very quick and she again almost missed the turn into a small road with numerous townhouses to each side. Some looked quite derelict, while others seemed in better condition. She avoided eye contact with an angry looking man, sitting on his front porch with a fat tabby cat on his lap. Some of the houses were missing their numbers so she squinted seeing an eleven on one and checked the next door for any sign of a number. Finding a almost disappeared painted thirteen, she parked in the spot and taking her suitcase ascended the rock steps to the little gate in the fence leading to the townhouse. She clambered up the path with her suitcase and started trying each of the numerous keys in the lock until she found one that fit. Breathing heavily with relief as she pushed open the door, she surveyed the small lounge room with a small two seater settee, a tiny television with wires sticking untidily out the back and a small round scuffed wooden coffee table in the centre. The carpet was a pale blue and had obviously been cleaned before she arrived. She walked up the rather steep steps to the second floor and saw it had a small back yard with a wooden fence. She had seen the house was on a rather steep hill side and she supposed that they had built the townhouses so they fit in the hills slope rather than the other way around. The kitchen sat to one side of the stairs and the other side had a small bathroom and across from it a bedroom with a single spring bed frame and mattress in the centre. She had known the first night would be rough as she needed to settle in and change had always been difficult. She lay the suitcase on the small bed and opened it to retrieve her childhood teddy bear. It had golden brown fake fur with black eyes and nose. She had wondered, since she was a child, why they hadn’t given her bear a mouth. But the world had never answered her question. She knew that being an adult, that she possibly shouldn’t be so clingy with a stuffed toy, but he had always given her comfort and moving to a strange place meant she needed it desperately. Feeling tears start to prick the back of her eyes, she shook her head and decided that she needed to find a pizza place and get a delivery. As she went down the stairs, it struck her at how white and clinical the walls appeared. It looked like they had just thrown a white coat of paint over everything except the lightbulbs and carpets. Pulling her mobile out of her pocket she looked up ‘pizza places near me’ and waited while it searched. The phone dinged and an error message showed ‘location not found’. She tried again by typing in the address and finally it showed a single match. There was no website, only a phone number and address displayed. Sighing, she dialled the number. “Connie’s pizza shop,” a bored male voice answered.
“Hi, I was wondering if I could get a pizza delivered?”
“Yeah, which type of pizza?”
“Um, if you have it could I get a vegetarian pizza? Oh and a garlic bread and coke if you have them.”
“Sure, it will be delivered in thirty minutes.”
“Thank…” the person hung up suddenly and Chelsea shrugged. Thirty minutes meant she could have a quick shower.
Grabbing her toiletry bag she unpacked it and cautiously turned the hot tap on and waiting for the warm water she added the cold water tap until getting the needed temperature. The water felt wonderful and she felt herself relaxing for the first time in days. As she lathered her hair with shampoo, she realised that she hadn’t given the man her address for the delivery. Cursing under her breath she rinsed the shampoo out quickly and looked with remorse at the conditioner bottle as she stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself and another around her hair. She looked for where she had left her phone and found it on the red kitchen countertop. She dropped it, as a sudden banging was heard from down the stairs and she cursed as she held onto her towel while racing down the steps. She looked out the window and saw a delivery driver in black jeans and jacket standing on the doorstep. Opening the door, while trying to keep her body hidden from view she smiled awkwardly and said, “So, sorry I just need to find my wallet. Do you mind waiting a moment?”
“No need, the first order is always free. Connie believes it will improve business to give a friendly first impression of our town,” the young man shrugged holding out the pizza, garlic bread and can of coke.
“Oh, thank you. That’s very sweet,” Chelsea tucked her towel more securely, feeling unbelievably uncomfortable as she took the items and watched as he went away, thanking the universe that her towel hadn’t caused her any embarrassment. Shutting the door, she placed the food on the table and ran back up the stairs to finish her shower and get dressed. Only after she had finished and was sitting on the sofa, while eating the slice of pizza, did she again question, how they had known where she lived…
The frst night was scary. It always seemed to be when arriving in a new place, trying to acclimatise and adapt to the new surroundings. She had tried to go to sleep, but even with the comfort of her teddy bear, she couldn’t rest her brain. When sleep was beconning her into it’s embrace, a sudden loud scream from a distance pierced her wakeful dream. She sat up in the small bed and felt a gnawing worry in the pit of her stomach as the scream faded and she straned her ears to try find the worrying sound again. She doubted her senses and dismissed the scream as a dream. But the worry kept her awake for more hours as she listened for the odd creak or whisper in the darkness.
…
Being two weeks previously, Chelsea had quickly settled into a routine and had become less unsettled by the strange behaviours of the town’s community. While she still hadn’t explored the social activities of the town, she had met a few people and didn’t feel quite so threatened by the odd noises and isolation of the first few nights. She woke early, while it was still dark outside and got ready to start her morning run into the office. She had decided to work on her fitness and lose the lazy weight she had been gaining since the pandemic a few years previously.
She put on her running shoes and grabbing her prepacked bag, left the house and began a gentle jog up to the oval, down the road from her. The warm up was necessary as the hills made the inclines energy stealers durng the first parts of her run and she needed to preserve her energy for the long straight road after the bridge. She could see a very faint glimmer of light starting to stretch lazily along the horizon, threatening the impending dawn fast approaching. As she ran, she thought about the day ahead and let her mind follow it’s own pathways to find clarity on frustrations.
When she had first started the job, she had been shocked at how easy it was. But then actually became insulted by their assumption that a person with her experience and background would suit this mindless repetative task. She was quite certain that she could train a blind chimpanzee to do the work that the people she was working with seemed to find challenging. She had come to realise that she was overqualified to do the very basic job and while her mind fought with her about the morality of arragonce or pride and the fact she was unhappy not to be challenged or in anyway fulfilled by the job versus the good pay and freedoms it gained her. She knew she should be grateful, but unfortunatly the way she understood of human nature, was that humans couldn’t survive without conflict or challenges. If they were not given, they would create them. Even though people strived for peace, they kept creating strife. Even in entertainment which was meant to be a peaceful endevour, they created the horror, drama, tragedy and hardships to make people keep reading books, playing video games, watching television and movies. Humans looked to the conflict as needed factors in their lives. If there wasn’t a problem, they would create one. Some with enough power could create wars. It’s why the idea of heaven was flawed as it couldn’t change the nature of people, she often argued, or they would cease to be themselves anymore. So, technically heaven couldn’t exist. You could see it happening on Earth as well. Humans given everything like money and power, would still crave more. They wouldn’t be thankful, just keep needing more and more until they ultimately became a monster…
Chelsea could feel herself becoming tired as she approached the office. She shut down her ponderings and sprinted the last few meters, only slowing as she passed the corner cafe, which was not yet open, but the staff were busily unstacking chairs and setting the tables for the morning rush. The dawn was fully upon the ramshackle building and she swiped her card to gain access to the heavy door. Making her way in the foyer she glanced at the still distrusted elevators and opening the side door, started to ascend the darkened fire staircase. Each time she had to go up and down the fire stairs, she felt like she had stepped into a bad horror film. The walls were a very dark grey, with a side bar only on the right hand and the cement steps were painted black with the luminescent arrows pointing their way down as a safety precaution. The flickering stair lights overhead, gave it a claustrophobic atmosphere and at each turn she felt a tension for who might be lurking there.
She opened the third floor door and made her way to a back desk at the far side of the large open floor plan. She didn’t want to seem unfriendly, she just needed distance from too much distraction and noise. Peter had turned out to be harmless, even though he appeared a bit creepy. He was just a bit lonely after his wife had left him and tended to get overzelous in his greetings. His main problem was that he was overhelpful and didn’t understand boundaries. Jody was the complete opposite. She held up shields each time a personal topic came up and literally pushed Chelsea away, when she had asked her about her home life. Garry had shown up for a literal five seconds to show her how to access the systems and what to do. He then left by mentioning, that when she finished to let him know and he would bring her more work. She realised that she couldn’t even remember what he looked like. He was average in every sense of the word.
Her laptop hit the desk with a thump and she focused on logging in. Without warning a voice sounded and she looked over to see a smiling man. She shook her head with confusion as he seemed to think she had heard him, “Pardon, sorry.”
She looked closely at him and felt an odd warning bell ringing. She guessed it was how mice felt when meeting a cat for the first time. He seemed like he was ready to pounce. She shook her head to dispell the imagining of him leaping over the partition to attack her and smiled politely, “Hi, sorry, I am Chelsea.”
He looked at her closely as he considered her. He was bald except for the few stray hairs clinging to the the under ear sections of his scalp and his skin tone was tanned. He wore a large overcoat which was stark white and oval glasses which she associated with one of those old timey doctors from the television shows, changing suddenly he smiled and asked in a fake tone, “Hi Chelsea, how are you doing today?”He held out his hand to shake hers and she felt an instant reaction of fear.
“So sorry, mind if I don’t, I have a cold and don’t want to infect you,” she said without missing a beat.
“No need to worry Chelsea, you suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder?” He asked gently.
“No, of course not. I just have a cold and don’t want to be touched,” Chelsea admonished, feeling slightly awkward by his stare.
“Not to worry, I won’t touch you, you have my word,” he looked around and when turnng back asked, “How do you find this office? Are the people alright?”
“Fine,” she answered quickly, not trusting his fake smile. He seemed to be waiting for something and she couldn’t understand what.
“Good, I’ll see you later on at the meeting?” He questioned and she could only nod in response as he left. She felt a strange warning coming from him, and while she couldn’t say why, she also knew that she had to stay on alert…
TBC 6/03/2026
Maxine the Magnificent 