Page 19 of Bad Girl
Another person ran past my desk holding their arse cheeks together with both hands and the focused expression of someone who had never wanted anything more in their life than a vacant cubicle.
“Nooooo,” someone screamed from the direction of the bathrooms.
I sipped my coffee.
My head turned slowly across the floor. Carla was curled up beside the pillar near the printer bank, sobbing quietly, one hand braced against the carpet tile the other on her arse.
The wet farting sound that followed confirmed what the position had suggested.
She’d followed through.
I sipped my coffee.
Andy had never returned from the toilet. That had been forty minutes ago. I assumed he was still in there. I hoped he’d had the foresight to bring his phone.
From somewhere down the corridor came the distant, rhythmic banging of someone trying to get into an occupied cubicle. Then a second set of banging. Then what sounded like a negotiation.
Yes, there were of course people who hadn’t eaten the cake. Good for them. Good decision. Very wise.
The smell hit around the same time Claire appeared from her office.
I sniffed the air and immediately regretted it.
Francis, seated two desks away, did the same. Our eyes met briefly over the rising fog of human catastrophe.
“Everybody.” Claire’s voice was admirably steady for someone surveying what was effectively a biohazard situation.“Get yourselves home or to a medical facility if needed. Keep hydrated. Watch your emails for further updates.”
The working from home protocol had been implemented.
Around us the office was evacuating itself in stages—some people power-walking, some hunched, some making sounds that had no business being made in a professional environment. Graham was somewhere near the fire exit, pale and focused. Carla had stopped sobbing and started making different sounds.
The smell was evolving.
“Right,” Francis said, her voice muffled behind the hand pressed firmly over her nose and mouth.“We need to leave. Now. Before I add to this.”
“Fancy lunch before you head home?”
She stared at me.
“Yes,” she said finally.“Absolutely yes. I need fresh air and something that will make me believe in humanity again.”
We gathered our things with quiet efficiency—bags, laptops, coats—moving through the chaos like two people navigating a very specific kind of natural disaster. I couldn’t help letting my gaze drift across the floor. The hunched shoulders. The speed-walking. The general atmosphere of a people who had made a terrible mistake and were living with the consequences in real time.
“I wonder what made everyone so sick,” I mused.
Francis looked at Graham, then at Carla, who was now being assisted toward the lift by someone who clearly drew the short straw.
“Could be many things,” she said thoughtfully.“Or it might just be all the evil oozing out of people.”
I hid my smile and followed her through the wreckage.
Three bottles, the voice said, warm and deeply satisfied.
The perfect amount.
Chapter 11
Conrí
