Changes (3 page)

The knocking sounded so intense that it woke him up instantly. Jimmy turned over, lying on his couch, and looked to the bay window at the front of his apartment. He had trouble seeing it clearly with a bright streak of sunlight coming in and flashing to his eyes with a shot of pain. His bursting head followed, shooting it with a bang that the knocking didn’t help. He responded to all of it with nothing but a shutter that flew through him like a blast of cold wind hitting you in the dead of winter. He closed his eyes, turned back to the back of the sofa, and rolled over. He faced it, and allowed the sun to disappear into its shadow. The knocking also thankfully stopped. With it, his head subsided. He allowed himself to slip off back to sleep, but it didn’t last long. A new set of banging came back, which made him roll over again, but this time, he avoided the window and turned straight to the door, towards the top of his head. He found it hard to do with the pain in his head feeling completely overwhelming. The stiffness of his neck didn’t help. The banging continued, so he sat up.

“Who is it?” He slowly pulled himself up into a seated position and let his feet slam to the floor. His entire body shuttered while doing it. His eyes saw nothing but haze. He felt very hung-over, that much was certain. The banging on the door only caused the hangover to flow to a point of dread. He slowly came to the understanding that he was going to kill whoever was doing it. If he didn’t stop them soon, they were going to break his skull. If he could find the strength to do it, he would do it to them first.

“Jimmy? It’s me Brandon.”

 Jimmy’s head wanted to cry out even more. Why was he here?
What the hell does he want?

“Come on, let me in?”

“Alright, hold your fucking water.” Jimmy pulled himself up slowly, bringing his wobbly legs beneath him. He wasn’t the drinking type, and that small fact showed its ugly face again. He stood up, having to use the sofa’s armrest for support and slowly, he made the short distance to the front door. Just as slowly, he reached for the knob and turned it. Painfully, he opened the door.

“Well, it’s about fucking time?” Brandon pushed his way through the door.

The action shoved Jimmy back and almost knocked him over. If he wasn’t holding the door as firmly as he was, he would have fallen to the floor. His head wasn’t the only thing swimming, and it made his legs feel even worse. “Fuck man. Why don’t you just fucking kill me?” He shut the door, and leaned up against it, trying to balance himself some first. It helped, but only a little. “What time is it?” His stomach swam some, making him have to swallow it back down. When he felt steady, he turned back and watched Brandon turn around and face him. Doing so, it took almost everything he had to keep his head straight.

“It’s almost noon, dude.” Brandon went to the sofa, turned, and looked back at Jimmy. He laughed at what he saw. He still looked drunk. He looked like total shit. Seeing him made him have to pause. He had to get himself to focus, just to remember what he came there to say. “I have some great news? I talked with the hiring guy at the office and got you an appointment.” He smiled.

“What are you talking about?” Jimmy tried to shake his head, but couldn’t. The aftereffects of alcohol made that seem almost impossible.

“An interview,
brother
, I got you an interview.” Brandon left the sofa and made his way to the bay window, and there he stopped in the middle of the room. There, he turned back. “They were really excited to meet you too.” His smile widened, almost consuming his face.

Jimmy heard him and instantly grew doubtful. “How?” His thoughts were too ragged and his mind felt so unfocused that it only added to the swimming of his eyes. He could barely keep himself standing, yet a lone trying to figure out what he just heard. He had to keep blinking just to help him focus. That too, was harder to do than it should have been.

“I gave them your resume. They loved it.” Brandon couldn’t help but laugh again, looking over his best friend. He noticed that he was still wearing the same clothes that he wore the night before at the bar. His balding hairline looked matted and mangled at the back of his head. His eyes looked completely fogged over and the smell of stale beer billowed from his mouth. It all confirmed to him that he was never able to hold his liquor. He hadn’t changed much. He was still that awkward kid that he knew back in high school.

“How did you get my resume?” Jimmy left the front door and made his way past the sofa towards the kitchen at the back of the apartment. He wobbled as he moved. He tried to register what he heard, but nothing made any sense. With being that, he had to get to his coffee pot, make coffee, and get his head back together again.

Again, Brandon laughed. “Remember that time, just before you met Sally, when you were looking for another job? You had me make you one on my computer, because yours was broken?” Brandon watched him, and followed him into the kitchen. He stopped at the doorway and stayed there. “Remember?”

Jimmy took his empty coffee pot to the sink and filled it with fresh water. “Yeah, I guess?” He took the full pot and moved it back across the counter to the maker. He poured the water into the back of it, and then set the pot on the burner. He then looked back to Brandon.

“Well, I used that, and as I said, they loved it. They want you there this afternoon.” Brandon’s smile consumed even more of his face. The two of them were beyond opposites; any fool could have seen it. He not only looked half of Jimmy’s age, but he acted like it too.

“I don’t know.” Jimmy started the coffee brewing and went to the kitchen table in the center of the room, sat down in one of the two chairs around the table, and rushed his hands to his face. He tried hard to wipe the hangover off him, but it didn’t work. In fact, he almost felt worse. As for what Brandon said, he didn’t know what to say or what to think about that either.

“Know what? You need to do something, and I think this will be great for you to take some time and get out of your element for a while? You need a break from the norm, my friend?”

“I—still.” He looked to his friend and met his stare. He saw nothing but excitement oozing out of him, and it told him that it obviously meant a lot to him. In fact, it looked like the world to him. He knew him well enough to know that when his mind was set on something, he wouldn’t be able to change it. He couldn’t think of any reason to say no. He did need a job. He did need something to do. He had to get his mind off everything. It made sense, so he decided with a nod, while looking down at his hands. “What time do I have to be there?” He sighed heavily.

“Two.” Brandon laughed. He crossed his arms across his chest. Now, he felt excited. He felt proud. He knew that Jimmy was going to love it. Why wouldn’t he?

Jimmy nodded. There was nothing else left to say, so he didn’t.

The interview went well. Things moved along just fine. Meeting with
Ever-Safe Security
lasted only about half-an-hour, and Brandon was right, they loved what he had to offer them. He took the entrance exam, which was easier than any test he had ever taken, and passed it with flying colors. Later, he met with the Scheduling Manager of the company and she found him a site that she told him was perfect for him, a place called Ravenswood Labs. The next thing he needed to do was to go to the labs and meet with their head of security for an appointment and an interview, so he drove out there after leaving
Ever-Safe
. During the drive over, he thought of nothing else with everything happening too fast for any direct thought.

Ravenswood Laboratory looked like a big place. He found it out in the middle of nowhere, off
Route 46
just outside of town. He found it odd that such a big place was even there, nestled in the trees. In fact, he couldn’t ever remember seeing the place before. Redford Forge wasn’t that big of a town, so he should have known about the place, but didn’t. That alone felt odd. That alone bedazzled his still somewhat hung-over mind.

Driving down the main access road to the labs, he found a very large and spacious parking lot, just at the front of a large two-story building, and drove into the lot. He parked in the visitor’s parking lot and turned off the engine. He stood out of the car calmly, and looked at the building.

It looked red, and looked made out of bricks. The entire front of the building looked covered with a green colored glass. A long sidewalk ran from the parking lot towards the center of the building. At the end of the sidewalk, right in the center of the bright green glass, he could see a set of double doors that also looked like glass.

Seeing everything, his mind went blank. He thought of nothing as he made it up the sidewalk, walked to the double glass doors, and walked through them into a large spacious two-storied lobby.

Inside, everything looked massive. The lobby looked bright. Directly in front of him was a long wooded counter, so he walked to it next, before he took the time to think of anything else.

“Can I help you?” a young man said to him from behind the counter.

Jimmy reached it, tried to smile, but couldn’t. “Yes, I’m Jimmy—or—James Walls.” The counter seemed tall enough for him to lean an elbow up on, so he did. “I’m here to see a Captain Fairchild for an interview.” He sighed. He tried to get his mind to focus. The hangover still sat heavily over him, but at least it felt far more relaxed. He felt thankful for that. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

The young man, maybe ten years younger than he was, wore a light blue colored uniform. On the left shoulder, he could see Ever Safe Security on a patch on the sleeve. The young guard smiled and then turned away and looked down towards the other side of the counter.

Jimmy watched him look to a computer that was just in front of him.

After some typing on the keyboard, he looked back up to him. “Okay, just a minute.”

He turned again, and went to a black handheld radio that sat next to the computer screen on his left, and brought it up towards his face. “Front lobby to Captain,” he spoke into the receiver.

Jimmy smiled, listening to him sound as professional as he could probably stand to be, waited, and took the time to look over the room around him. He looked everywhere and noticed that the glass windows lined the entire entrance. Just to the left of the counter, he could see two doors that seemed to go nowhere at all. He could see that the one on the right was marked with a blue colored plaque to the right side of the door. It had a white colored generic picture of a stick-figured man directly in the center of the plaque, with the word
Men
directly under the picture. The other door wasn’t marked.
The men’s room I presume.
He didn’t see a women’s room with it, that made him wonder some, but not much. He figured that it had to be there somewhere, but just wasn’t where he could see it.

He turned from the two doors and looked directly behind the counter. Behind it was a hallway that stretched out away from him and the lobby. He could see that it had doors lining it on each side. To the right of the counter stood a large staircase that went up one floor to a railing made out of glass. He could barely make out what looked like offices that lined several hallways from the stairs. To the right of the staircase was another set of doors. One of them was open and he could see that it led to another hallway that went down the front of the building. Turning from that hallway, he looked back to the double glass doors that he had just come through, and could see on the opposite sides of the sidewalk, a huge front lawn that stretched out back to the parking lot. In the center of the lawn, stood three massively tall flagpoles, each with separate flags that barely moved with the lack of breeze outside. Seeing the poles, he couldn’t for the life of him remember seeing them when he pulled into the lot. It told him that his mind seemed to be a thousand miles away. Aware of it, he knew that he had to focus. He was there for an interview, and if he couldn’t notice a flagpole, than he knew he could mess up everything. He had to pull himself back together again, so he turned back to the counter and tried to focus on it. Maybe if he studied it some, it would help.

It looked like wood, but was probably made of something else. He rubbed his open right palm on its surface. It felt like wood but probably wasn’t. It had none of a wood’s coarseness to it. It came up shoulder height at the front of it, but behind it, it looked only waist high, which made it look more like a desk. He could see the top of the computer and the keyboard, and followed it to a phone that sat to the left of the board. He didn’t see a mouse. To the right of the computer, and to his left, the counter ran out until it met the wall. On the wall was what looked some type of an alarm panel with lights, some flashing, some not, in neat rows through the center of its two feet by two feet case. A glass door covered it and it made it look like a cabinet.

That looks complicated.
He stared at all of the flashing lights. He’d never used a panel like that before, and it dawned on him that he might actually have to do it. The thought worried him some, but not a lot. To the right of the panel, he noticed a large red button about midway down from the center of the cabinet. It seemed about the size of his hand’s palm and had a small red colored plaque beneath it, with its white letters, it read just one word,
Emergency.
Seeing it and trying to take everything in, he didn’t hear the young guard say something to him, so he looked back to him and had to ask, “What?”

“I said that I got a hold of the Captain. He’ll be down shortly.” The young security guard had to raise his voice the second time, and the effect of it carried it all around the glass. It sounded eerie as it bounced back with an echo. Now that he finally got the man’s attention, he looked back to the computer screen and went back to work. He didn’t say anything else.

Jimmy gave him a simple nod and watched his blonde hair look down. He obviously didn’t want to talk, so he left the counter and walked back out into the middle of the lobby, and there he stopped. He looked straight up to the glass ceiling above him and to the world outside it. The glass looked shaded, but he could still see through it clearly. The clear blue sky stretched out as far as he could see it. It all looked so magnificent. It all looked so magical. His stores never looked like this and it made everything feel so different. This all looked so much better. The sunlight flooded the lobby and feeling it against him, it made him feel somewhat excited. It told him that he could this. He could work in a place like this.

“Mister Walls?” a deep voice came from behind him.

He turned to the sound, and watched a tall, large, firm looking man wearing a dark blue suit jacket and carrying a radio, come towards him, walking down the stairs to the bottom step. His round, white shirted belly protruded some from the center of the suit jacket, and the red tie he wore probably made it look bigger than it actually was.

“I’m Frank Fairchild.” He held out his right hand after he slid the handheld radio over to his left.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Jimmy took the man’s hand and shook it. He tried a firm grip but it felt too hard to do, so he stopped it in mid grip. The man had a much firmer hand than he had.

“The same.” Fairchild released his hand and dropped his back to his side. “Thank you for coming so quickly. We’ve been waiting for someone like you for so long that I was beginning to think that the office was never going to send someone.” He smiled and laughed some, but his voice sounded calm. No echo bounced off the glass.

Jimmy nodded and smiled. “Whatever happened to the last guy?” The laugh that Fairchild used sounded shallow. It also sounded polite. Hearing him made him worried some. Everything looked clean cut and cut out. Everything looked formal, and he had trouble with formal. He had trouble with
cookie cutter
. He wasn’t like everyone else.

Fairchild shook his head and shrugged his shoulders with a sigh. “He left one night and never came back.” He laughed again with this one sounding even more shallow than the one before it did. “It happens.” He nodded. “Security can be hard to find good people sometimes.”

“I’m sure.” Jimmy also nodded. “The retail world can be the same way.”

Fairchild laughed again. It sounded like the kind one makes when they don’t seem to care if what they said was funny or not. “Yeah, well.” He turned back to the staircase. “Shall we go on a tour?” He motioned with his right arm to the case with a wave.

Jimmy nodded. So far, he couldn’t find any reason to say no. He started to like what he saw. What could it hurt to find out more?

Fairchild turned, headed to the staircase, and started up it. He took his time, allowing his interview to follow along behind him.

Jimmy did. They reached the top of the stairs and there they stopped.

“You were told that this is a graveyard shift right?” Fairchild looked at him fully, giving him his full attention.

The look told him that he was studying him intently. “Yeah, they did.” He swallowed hollowly.

“Good. Sometimes they forget to tell someone that, thinking that they’ll lose them before I can get them here.” Fairchild laughed his typical hollowness again.

And again, Jimmy winced.

“Like I’ve said, we’ve been searching for someone to do it for a while now. Nobody today seems to want to work overnights anymore. It’s a tough shift to work.”

“How many have you gone through?” Jimmy looked around and saw that he was now facing three long hallways that stretched out from the stairs and headed into three opposite directions. Along each hallway, he could see a line of doors on each side of them. They made the place look huge. It looked far bigger inside than what it looked like outside.

“Four in the last six months.” Fairchild left the stairs and started out down the middle hallway.

“That seems like a lot of people? Why have there been so many?” Jimmy followed closely behind him.

“Well—most people they send me are family oriented. They think it’s easier to have someone like that working in a place like this. Well, what they don‘t seem to understand is that most people with families don‘t want to work the graveyard shift. The kids and family are more important, and right they should be, but it doesn‘t help me much.”

“Yeah?”

“How about you? Family?”

“I‘m in the middle of being single I guess.”

Fairchild nodded and the attempt at his laugh came again.

Jimmy felt the need to change the subject. He didn‘t want to think anything more about Sally. “This is a big place.” He watched as they passed the doors along the hallway as they walked, and could see that some were open to small offices, while others were closed. Some of the open ones, had people in them, sitting behind their desks, while the others looked quiet, dark, and even a little deserted.

“It’s one of our biggest sites. Half of the building is offices.” Fairchild pointed to everything as he walked.

Jimmy looked to both his left and his right as they moved.

“The other half of the site is the labs.”

“What kind of labs are they?” Jimmy still tried to take everything in. His mind still felt somewhat foggy, but seeing everything as he was, it helped him focus. He felt thankful that it was, but he started feeling somewhat nervous as well. Seeing everything, he knew he was going to get lost in this maze of doors and hallways more often than not.

“Their genetic research I think? They do a lot of things for the military as well as other national groups.” Fairchild reached the end of the hallway, and turned right. He started down a new one, which looked the same as the one they just left. “You’re going to be responsible to do tours throughout the building at night. Checking to see if all of the lights are off, making sure most of the doors are locked and secured. You’re going to have to check on some of the boilers and chillers in the basement. There really isn’t that many employees that work overnight, so you’re not going to have to deal with that many people. The ones that you do see you’re going to have to make sure that you check them for identification. We have to make sure they are supposed to be in the building. That’s not all that hard. All of the employees that work here have ID badges that they need to get through the doors. You’re going to have a master card that will get you through most of the building. It won’t work on some of the rooms in the labs, which is fine, being that you’re going to be sticking pretty much to the office part of the building anyway.”