(Photo by Maddy Freddie)

Devlynn hated her job. Sure the pay was great, and she got weekends and holidays off, not to mention the retirement and health insurance packages and the fact that her job wasn’t even all that hard, but that was where the positives stopped. Alright, she had to admit that there were a lot of good things about her job. They were the reasons why she took the job in the first place. Had she known more about the people she’d be working with, well, she would never have even sent in an application. Worse still was the fact that this wasn’t the sort of job someone could just walk away from either. Once a person started working here, they didn’t leave unless they finished their ten year contract or died. No one had mentioned that in the interviews but as soon as she was hired it had been impressed upon her in perfectly clear detail.

“Devlynn!” an overly friendly voice called out to her.

She’d been sitting at the long table in the large meeting room, staring off into space apparently, and her boss, a thin man she knew only as Mister Crest, called her name to bring her back to the present.

“You look a little distracted,” he said with an air of concern. “Everything going okay for you?”

“Sorry,” Devlynn apologized and shifted her weight in her seat. “I’m fine, just stayed up a bit later usual getting the last orders processed.”

“Well don’t work yourself too hard, okay?” Mister Crest smiled without showing any teeth. “It’s okay if a few orders are a day late from time to time. Our clients know how busy things can get around this time of year. They’ve all gotten their reminders to expect a certain amount of delay.”

“I know,” Devlynn sighed to conceal a yawn. She stopped herself before she could utter any complaints but Mister Crest always seemed to know what she wanted to say.

“If any of the clients ever give you trouble,” he said seriously, “you let me know. In the seven years since we hired you we’ve never received a single complaint about you or your work and that means a lot in our business. So if anyone’s giving you grief, I’m inclined to assume the fault is on their end. Not yours. You understand? You’re more valuable to us than any one of them.”

In any other business Devlynn would have felt grateful to have such a supportive boss, and even though she knew Mister Crest was being honest in his words she worried what would happen if she ever did need his help with a client.

“No one’s caused me any problems,” she told him. “I just never sleep well unless I can clear all the day’s orders.”

Mister Crest gave her another of his smiles, keeping his lips pressed together so that none of his teeth were ever exposed. It was the same smile most of the clients and people she worked with had.

“Well then,” Mister Crest said to the rest of the assembled people sitting around the table, “I believe we’re all here so we might as well get started.”

He waved a hand to the young woman, Cynthia, who was sitting nearest the door. She immediately stood, a broad grin on her face as she got up, and opened the door. A catering cart was wheeled into the room and on top of it were several extravagant cupcakes along with several filled glasses. Two of the cupcakes and one glass were set a little ways apart from the rest.

Cynthia helped pass around the cupcakes and drinks. The two separate cupcakes and drink were placed in front of Devlynn whereas everyone took from the larger collection. They looked fundamentally identical but Devlynn knew they were different. She concealed her shudder as she contemplated that difference by shifting her weight in her chair once again.

“Happy birthday, Devlynn,” Mister Crest said cheerfully, raising his glass towards her.

The others in the room followed suit and Devlynn raised her own in response, giving them all an appreciative nod.

They drank and for a few moments everyone was busy enjoying the treats. Devlynn bit into one of her cupcakes and, as expected, it was exquisite. The cake was warm but not too crumbly and the frosting was just the right amount of sweet and tangy to compliment the whole affair. It was a nice distraction and gave her an excuse not to watch the others as they ate and drank. Unfortunately, she couldn’t block out the sounds. Cupcakes weren’t supposed to crunch or spurt when they were bitten into and neither were people supposed to be so…ravenous when eating them.

Cynthia was kept busy, politely moving around those seated at the table with a washcloth to wipe up any messes before they could stain the table’s surface.

“You’ve come a long way, Devlynn,” Mister Crest said as he began removing the wrapper on his third cupcake. “I remember,” he chuckled as he paused in lifting the cupcake to his mouth, “Why, I remember your first day when you came in here to eat lunch with the rest of us.”

He laughed again, this time with his mouth open wide, hidden behind the cupcake, and took a loud bite. Bones snapped and some sort of dark, viscous liquid began to drip down between his fingers. Devlynn didn’t look away from him but wished that she could.

“You nearly didn’t make it through that first day,” he mused after swallowing.

Cynthia was right there, washcloth in hand, and quickly wiped the table around Mister Crest.

“I’m sure everyone in my position has had to adjust,” Devlynn replied as diplomatically as she could.

“Mmm, yes,” Mister Crest said, swallowing the rest of his cupcake whole and sucking the juices off his fingers, “but none of your predecessors ever seemed to have your grit.”

He gestured vaguely towards the rest of the people in the room. Devlynn made it a point not to look at the others if she could avoid it. They were always friendly enough, in their own way, and incredibly helpful and proficient in their several duties, but none of them ever spoke. They couldn’t. Not to Devlynn any way. Only Mister Crest ever spoke to her here.

As Devlynn shifted her attention away from Mister Crest and towards the others in the room, her stomach tightened and she regretted eating the cupcake. The sugars and fats churned and she thought she might throw up. Kind faces looked back at her and to a passing glance they all looked normal but the longer she looked the more she noticed. The occasional, jittery movement, the fingernails that were a bit too greenish yellow, the limp hair, the places where their skin didn’t hang quite right. Worst of all were their eyes. They stared at everything, never blinking, and yet never seemed to actually see any of it. Only Mister Crest could get them behave and appear normal, if he wanted to. Right now, with only himself and Devlynn to see them, Mister Crest didn’t waste the effort and so let them slip into their more passive state.

“Like I said when you first interviewed me,” Devlynn stated in an even tone, ignoring her stomach, “I never liked the idea of job hopping. I wanted a job that would grow with me and what you offered was just that.”

“And you’re happy working here?” Mister Crest asked, drawing Devlynn’s attention back to him.

“My happiness isn’t based on what I do for work, Mister Crest.”

It was a question and answer that the two of them had shared several times over the years. She wished he would stop asking her but she felt there was something more to his question than she was catching on to.

“But you are happy, are you not?”

Outside of work? Yes, Devlynn was happy enough. She had a good group of friends, her family relationships were strong, and she had enough vacation time each year to go on a few big trips.

“I am,” she said and left it at that.

“You know,” Mister Crest said, another cupcake in his hand but he wasn’t yet unwrapping it, “You have worked in your position longer than anyone else.”

This wasn’t a surprise to Devlynn, although she didn’t know how long any of her predecessors had actually lasted.

“Ben, over there,” he pointed and a man in a faded jacket sat up a bit more realistically, “he lasted almost four years. And Fatima,” Ben went back to his normal state and the woman sitting beside him perked up, “she made it into her fifth year. And now you’ve passed your seventh year. Less than three years left on your contract. I wonder,” he said, almost more to himself than to Devlynn, “will you renew your contract when the time comes? Or will you move on?”

He unwrapped the cupcake but didn’t eat it, instead turning it around in his hands, inspecting it with a careful eye.

Devlynn wasn’t sure if he was asking her to decide then and there whether or not she would renew her contract or if he was simply putting the thought of leaving the company in her mind. She’d been assured that, once her ten years were over, she would be free to go her own way without any repercussions. Her savings and investments were large enough that she could even retire and never work another day in her life. Not bad for someone in their mid forties.

“I think you’re something like this cupcake, Devlynn,” Mister Crest said after a while, still not yet eating it. “When I first hired you, I thought you would be like everyone else. You looked the same, acted the same, but the longer you’ve been here, the more I’ve gotten to know you,” he pulled the cupcake in half with both hands, ripping and snapping the…filling and holding it in such a way that it was just out of Devlynn view. Even still, there were speckles of it all over Mister Crest’s face and it was dripping onto the table where it pooled and glistened. Something inside the severed cupcake writhed and Mister Crest watched it with an expression more akin to a person watching kittens play.

“I’m glad my work here has always been so satisfactory,” Devlynn managed to say. Her mouth and throat were dry and she had to place her hands in her lap to stop them from shaking. Even after seven years, these meetings were never predictable and always terrifying. Most days she just had to deal with the others, giving them paperwork to file or else having them help her assemble orders to be sent out. Even on delivery days when she would be dealing with clients she mostly just had to hand them their supplies and take a signature. Sometimes a client might insist on inspecting the delivery before letting her go but as Mister Crest had mentioned, she was thorough and never made any mistakes on the orders. Of course, there were the clients themselves, many of whom didn’t hide their natures nearly as well as Mister Crest. Some of them, she was pretty certain, weren’t even trying. Those deliveries were her least favorite but she couldn’t hold it against them since they were in their own homes. Who was she to tell people how to act in their own homes, as long as they weren’t breaking any laws.

“Satisfactory doesn’t come close to defining the excellency of your work,” Mister Crest stated. “We need a human who can go out and be be our go-between and make the deliveries. The difficulty in finding a person capable of not only doing this job, but also willing to persevere is…well I’ve been running this business for a verylong time and I’ve never had someone with quite your, oh what’s the word? Panache!” He exclaimed, squeezing one of the cupcake halves so firmly in his grasp that it burst outward from him, splattering himself and a large portion of the table around him.

Cynthia busied herself for quite some time, cleaning up the mess. Devlynn was thankful that none of the mess had reached her. That was one thing about Mister Crest. He was terrifying and often disgusting, but he never got a fleck on her. She was always untouched, even when she had to wade through it all, metaphorically and not so metaphorically speaking. If anything, Mister Crest seemed to take great pride in keeping the messier jobs away from her even though he technically could have her assigned to some of them.

“I know it isn’t easy for you,” Mister Crest spoke in more subdued tones now as he finished eating what was left of the cupcake. “I admit that I do test you from time to time, but it’s not out of spite. No, I do it to make sure I can still trust you with our clients. The calm and confident manner in which you have always handled yourself here is a true testament to your quality.”

“Thank you Mister Crest,” Devlynn nodded her thanks, unsure what else to do.

He was often complimentary of her but not to this level. On the one hand it was flattering but on the other it made her worry. Any change in behavior meant she was entering unknown waters and she wasn’t sure if there were rapids ahead or not.

“I’ve been thinking it over these last couple of months,” Mister Crest went on, pushing away the remaining cupcakes and fixing his whole attention onto Devlynn.

His eyes seemed to pierce right through her and Devlynn’s breath caught in her throat. Here it was, whatever Mister Crest had been planning, whatever the reason for this latest test, he was about to tell her and she hoped she would be able to still go home at the end of the day and curl up with her dog on the couch tonight.

“I know this job takes its toll on people, and so I don’t expect you’ll continue on with us once your ten years are up. It will be a great loss to the company when you go. Productivity will be drop as we hire and train your replacement, and many of our clients have expressed concern over the idea of anyone else besides you handling their delicate needs.”

He was going to kill her. Devlynn fought back that thought but couldn’t push it away. He was telling her he couldn’t afford to lose her and so he was going to make sure he never did. There was nothing she could do about it, of course. The certainty that any resistance on her part would be so marginal that she doubted Mister Crest would even notice. With such an understanding, Devlynn forced herself to breathe steadily, slow her heart rate, and maintain the calm demeanor Mister Crest was so proud of. At the very least she could deny him the pleasure of having ever broken her will.

“That is why I’ve decided to hire you an apprentice, raise your salary by eighty percent, and triple your retirement payout when the time comes.”

Devlynn hesitated. Had she heard him correctly? An apprentice? And how much was she going to be making now?

“I…I don’t know what to say,” she stammered.

“Again, I do apologize for the fear I put you through,” Mister Crest said. “An unfortunate necessity in this line of work, I’m afraid.”

He waved for Cynthia to clear away the remaining cupcakes and drinks. The woman obeyed as she hurried around the room, gathering everything up and placing them back onto the cart before wheeling it out of the room.

“I wholeheartedly and eagerly look forward to your successful completion of your contract,” Mister Crest told her before rising from his seat. The others in the room followed suit and, one by one, left the room until it was only Devlynn remaining.

She let out a slow sigh of relief and waited a few minutes to finish calming down before she got up herself and left the room. Just another day at work.