Day 8

‘How do you know if you can die?’

Greg could barely contain his glee at popping such a leftfield question.

I looked around the office, and noticed Gemma was now standing in the meeting room in front of a small crowd of people, cheerily gesticulating while the TV displayed ‘How to Grieve at Work’.

‘How do I know? Are you not aware of the happy happy death day going on right now, Greg?’

‘Sure, but I mean you!’

I honestly can’t even.

‘Greg, I’m tired, I’m bored, I’m not going to speak to you for the rest of the day.’’

Greg actually looked crushed.

‘OK, I guess it is a little early for such a challenging question.’ He said and coasted back to his desk.

Challenging questions. That was something Alex said, that I didn’t like being challenged. I’m pretty sure I just don’t like being asked stupid questions, but it seems these guys have the scales lifted from their eyes on a daily basis.

I placed my hands delicately above the keyboard, primed to start the day proper: check emails, browse permitted sections of the internet, and ignore instant messages, when everything went momentarily dim, screens flickered and some people made involuntary confused mewling sounds. A power surge? Then it happened again, only this time there was a deafening pop followed by silence and complete darkness. Somehow the light outside was also extinguished. How was that possible? Before I could really comprehend what had just happened there was a scream, and the office was illuminated once more.

The screaming continued. I felt I should describe it as blood-curdling, but the sound was chilling for another reason, it sounded happy. I then realised it was Gemma, and the screaming was coming from the meeting room at the centre of the office, and people were rushing towards it.

The screaming had now distinctly turned to laughter, joyous, manic laughter.

I moved towards the centre, a mass of people had gathered and I could not see inside. A hand grabbed me painfully by the arm, I looked down and met Glen’s wild, rapturous gaze, he was laughing and gibbering:

‘You’ll see! Now you’ll see, you fucking bitch!’

I pulled away, almost tipping him off his chair. I had to get to the room, I had a sick feeling I was going to see something awful. I was compelled to see, like the beheadings on the internet.

As I pushed further into the crowd it became harder and harder to squeeze through, the bodies constricted around me, and I could only inch forward. And then I was at the glass, jostled and crushed, but I could see inside.

Gemma was dancing, she was dancing around the table. There was something on the table, a body. It was naked, a naked man. Oh fuck. Slight relief. This is a joke. But then confusion and fear came together and my knees buckled, I should have fallen, but the crowd held me up. It was Paul, dead Paul. Paul who got impaled at the construction site.  Dead Paul was lying in the middle of the main conference room.

And then Dead Paul sat up.