chapter five

“There isn’t much to say I guess. We’re locked in here. Our friends and co-workers are dead and we can’t get a hold of the police.” Harmon folded his arms and turned his back on Remo’s office where they had placed Remo and Todd’s dead bodies. “The only thing we can do now is say a few good words about those that have left us.”

The group stood in tight quarters, muddled together with a feeling of safety in numbers. Dr. Gonzo went first, “My favorite story of Remo was a night we all came back here after Costello’s. Everybody had been drinking and he had gone into the girl’s bathroom by accident. I don’t know what he was doing in there but he locked himself in. I was banging on the door yelling at him: let me in, let me in, and he was shouting at me I: can’t, I can’t. So I threw up and all the vomit went underneath the door in this thin, digested beer river. That, of course, made him throw up too. He was a real sweetheart when it came to both of us cleaning it up though.”

Mule spoke next, “I remember when Harmon and I convinced him that there was a six foot seven transvestite trying to get a hold of him. We kept pretending to be her, calling his phone all day and telling him we were waiting outside the building. What was the name of the tranny again?”

“Claudette, I think.” A smile wrinkling up the corners of Harmon’s mouth as he continued to stare down at his feet.

“Yeah, Claudette or something like that. We even had a friend of ours at Sex World fax him over pictures of dildos that Claudette was going to use on him that night. The poor bastard didn’t want to leave the office.” Mule paused from looked up, “Funny, I don’t think we ever told him we made that up.”

The group shuffled their feet nobody knowing who should speak next. Johnny Bookreport spoke up, “Shouldn’t somebody say something about Todd?”

Another moment of silence fell on the group. Chuck Funk, who stood closest to Harmon elbowed Harmon in the ribs. “Todd was,” Harmon started then cleared his throat. “Todd was always here. Even though we usually did not want him to be here. Todd was always here.”

Balddee shut the door to Remo’s office. The group looked around the office trying not to establish eye contact.

“What do we do now?” Dirty Orpheus asked.

Mule looked up from the floor. “The only thing we can: we wait.”

Satchel or Bel shrieked and everybody turned around to see the corpses of Dead Simon #1 and Dead Simon #2 moving down the hallway, their bloody jaws open, dripping saliva; unblinking, dead eyes staring, their hands extended to grab the nearest living person.