“Thanks for calling Happy Toasting Toasters, my name is Darwin and I’ll be your troubleshooting assistant for the evening. This call may be monitored for quality assurance. For starters, can I get your name, Ma’am?” I looked at the clock, wondering who the hell was making toast at two in the morning; but then, if people weren’t making toast at two in the morning I would be out of a job. What a pleasant thought. Instantly my mood darkened a little more.
“My toaster isn’t working!” The voice on the other end of the line was exasperated, high-pitched, and nasally. I knew. I knew that this was going to be one of those calls.
“Yes, Ma’am, I would expect that is why you’re calling tonight. Can I get your name please?” The clock changed to the next minute, taunting me; this was going to be a long call.
“Jessica.”
“Okay, Jessica. Is your toa-” She cut me off mid-sentence, and I found myself reaching up to pinch the bridge of my nose. A headache was forming already behind my eyes, and I had to tell myself it wasn’t the customer, it was the late hour.
“Jessie.”
“My apologies, Ma’am. Is your toaster plu--” If there is one thing I can’t stand, it’s being cut off. She seemed to enjoy it. A lot.
“Look, my toaster isn’t working and you’re asking me my name? How is my name important to this situation?”
“Ma’am, it’s just a formality. I’m trying to fix your toaster. Now, is your toaster plugged in?” You’d be really surprised how many people call in every night, and half of them just forgot to plug the damn thing in. The first few hundred times it’s actually amusing, after that though you start getting tired of the morons.
“Yes. Of course it is.”
“Are you sure, 100% sure that the toaster is plugged in?” Sometimes it helps to repeat yourself, because most of these people are so dense that it takes three or four tries before information gets through to their brains. Her tone turned snotty….er.
“Yes! For fuck’s sake!”
“Are you quite certain, Jessica,” At this point, all politeness had been thrown to the wind. It’s two o’clock in the morning, this woman is about to make me flip out, and I just don’t even care anymore, “that your toaster is plugged into the socket and electricity is running to that socket?”
“YES! YES IT’S PLUGGED I..Oh..” I can just imagine her picking the toaster up off the counter, lifting it in the air as if to demonstrate to me that it is, in fact, attached to the wall… only to find that it comes away easily and the cord is still bound with a twist tie. “I guess not.”
Click. Dial tone. I take off my headset and try not to punch the cubicle wall, or the computer screen, or the forehead and bespectacled pair of eyes that have suddenly appeared over the partition.
“Another moron?”
“Yeap.”
“It’s that time of night.”
“Yeap.”
“Do you want some mango?”
“Do I want some what?” I look up, puzzled, but end up shaking my head before he can continue. “No.. no.. what I want… is..” What I want I couldn’t say outloud without getting strange looks. It’s an idea I cooked up on a night just like tonight, after a phone call that was remarkably similar to Jessica’s. Selective Darwinism; cull the herd type of thing, so to speak. But instead of picking the weaker animals, just pick the stupid ones.
“I need a break..” I muttered to my co-worker as I stood from my seat. The wheels on my chair squeaked loudly as they rolled over the white tiles. The forehead and eyes disappeared and I wandered down the narrow hallway to the break room door. In retrospect, I should have noticed the bloody handprint on the frosted glass a little sooner. If I had, it might have registered that our other overnight tech, Tanner, had been mysteriously absent for a while. It might have made me hesitate to open the door. Since I was oblivious, neither of these things occurred.
The door swung open easily, until it hit the thigh of what was left of a leg that appeared to have been torn from the socket. I started to squeeze into the space between door and frame, leaning into the room with what I can only imagine was a puzzled expression. Tanner was sitting next to our shift leader, Joan. Joan was missing a leg, and Tanner was chewing on her bicep.
I stared for a few moments, trying to figure out what was going on. Tanner looked ill, and it had nothing to do with his choice of dinner. He had dark circles around his eyes, and I had to wonder if he’d been sleeping well or if whatever bug he’d come down with was hitting him that hard. There was no color to him either, except for the dark red blood that had splattered his face.
“Hey, man… you okay?” I asked warily, pushing the door a little harder. The disembodied leg rolled a little, giving me plenty of space to slide into the break room. “You’re just looking a little under the weather is all..” I don’t know why but I couldn’t address the fact that he was eating our manager, but I’m pretty sure it was probably in the company policy manual about respecting other people’s traditions and beliefs. Who am I to tell this guy he can’t eat Joan?
He didn’t respond right away, but his head snapped up quick and I got a good visual of the chunks of sinew and muscle stuck in his teeth.
“You, uh.. Got a little.. Joan.. There..” I started to back out the door once more. Something about the look in his eye weirded me out a little. Tanner stood from his seat by Joan, and I noticed that his limbs were a little disjointed, giving him the look of a rag doll that has been through the wash a few times too many.
“Uh.. Hey.. Rick.. Maybe we should call someone to come pick up Tanner… he‘s not looking so good.” I called down the hall to our other coworker, trying to pull the door closed without getting all the way out of it first. Tanner was making his way, speedily, across the break room to me. I know it wasn’t my place to say anything about him eating Joan, but I didn’t want to turn into dessert today. Rick didn’t respond, so I stepped back again. My jacket pocket got caught on the doorknob, and as I pulled away from the door I stumbled, tripping out into the hallway and into the wall of Tanner’s cubicle. It collapsed under my weight with a noise like cardboard tearing, and I felt the chair on the other side roll away, dropping me further to the floor.
I could hear my heart pounding as I scrambled away from Tanner, who had opened the door and was lurching across the hall at me. I felt the cubicle wall break beneath my weight as I gathered myself and got to my feet once more, stumbling backwards.
“Rick!” I called again, holding my hands out in front of me to stop Tanner from getting closer. “Dude, Tanner, this isn’t cool man. There’s a policy about personal space! You know that! You’re the one who filed a complaint against me for it! Back off dude!”
He bum rushed me almost as soon as the words had left my mouth, and I used one of those neat wrestling techniques that you’ve only seen on tv and don’t really know how to do or if they actually work. I circled my arms around his torso, trying with all my might to shove him back as my shoes slid across the plastic mat under his desk chair, and then wound up on my ass being shoved back into the still standing cubicle wall.
As I felt his teeth tear into the flesh of my hip, I heard a high pitched squeal from somewhere in the office. It couldn’t be me, because I’d suddenly remembered what it was to be a man and my hand floundered for something to use as a weapon, and my fingers closed on the flimsy material of the cubicle wall. There was another girly scream, and I wondered what sort of horror Rick must have been experiencing to make him scream like that. Meanwhile, Tanner tore his way through my shirt with his teeth. It was my favorite shirt.
I began beating him about the head with the piece of cubicle I had picked up, trying to dislodge him from my side to no avail, so I did what any sane, smart person would do. I curled up into a ball and played dead. Apparently, this trick only works on bears. Tanner kept gnawing on my exposed limbs as though I’d just offered him a buffet.

I heard my name being called from the break room, and I don’t know how, but I knew. I knew what was going on down there, just like I knew this mango could have been left out to ripen another day, maybe even two days. I reached under my desk where old Lucky was taped securely, both hands grabbing onto the barrel and giving a sharp tug. The shotgun came free easily, though the tape tore part of the desk away too. Note to self, for future reference, use less duct tape.
I checked the chambers to be sure it was still loaded, and then clicked the safety off as I stalked down the hallway where Darwin and Tanner were wrestling over the broken bits of the cubicle. That was sure to come out of their paychecks. They both sat up simultaneously and stared at me with filmy eyes.
I reached up and pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose, smearing mango pulp on my face. That didn’t matter right now. What mattered was these two taking unscheduled breaks, and fighting in the office building. They were in clear violation of the policy.