The Fly On The Wall
Loud clicks of her shoes as they echoed along the hallways finally reached my ears as she opened the door to my office, sighing I recline in my chair, eyes calmly surveying the woman, her wide eyes and her quickened pace of breath. She should have every right to be nervous, she was late to her meeting with me, and nobody is late to my meetings. Gesturing silently for her to sit down I got up from my chair and stalked my way over to the window, peered out between the narrow slits of daylight obscured by blinds and wondering what I should say to her.
“Miss. Olivia Faye? That is you right?”
“Yes sir.”
At least she had the decency to be polite, you never knew these days when these people would turn on you, if they were secretly infected or not. My watch ticked softly as it hung from its chain, clasping it in my hands the covers springs open to reveal the time, giving her the hint that she was late and I wasn’t happy about it.
If she was on time I might have listened to her pitiful excuse for a sob story to try and save herself but now, I was not in the mood; they didn’t give me the nickname the Executioner for nothing. It’s not like I looked overly scary, in fact, I was rather thin myself, my brown hair was longer than it should have been for office regulations and even though I wore a suit it was one of the less formal ones.
“I suspect you know why you are here?”
Flickering fear crossed her eyes and I smirked, not like I deliberately enjoyed this but through the couple of months that I’ve had to tell people the bad news I’ve had to let myself adjust into this new sort of twisted way of seeing them.
“Yes sir.”
This was not improving my mood, if the girl knew she was practically going to die why wasn’t she trying to run away, why wasn’t she trying to persuade me, to beg me to choose another and keep her alive? But, there was something about this girl that I couldn’t put my finger on the calmness that she showed made her different to all the other tarts who had even tried to sell themselves to me for a ticket out of where they were headed.
“Can you say anything different than yes sir?”
Smirk turned into a smile as I tried to place the girl at ease, since she was being so compliant I may as well try to be nice to her that was until she turned ugly which they almost always did. The fleeting smile that crossed her face was a little reassuring, but I had to shake my head, clear these thoughts of me being compassionate towards this girl, otherwise it would be my head on the chopping block. Or rather, my arm in the tourniquet.
“Of course, I um, I’d rather that we just get this over with.”
Now this was something different, someone wanting to get rushed to their deaths?
“Why? Do you not know what’s going to happen to you? I thought everybody knew what happened to them once you came in here?”
“Of course I know what happens I’m not stupid, I just don’t see the point in making a big deal out of it when nothing I can say or do can stop them from taking me so I’d rather just go now and avoid the waiting.”
When Olivia spoke, the harshness of the tone shocked me a little bit, there had never been someone who had ever spoken to me like this, not even on the first couple of people I had to tell but I supposed I was glad, it meant I didn’t have to struggle against her, and the more I found myself looking at her, the more I didn’t want that to happen.
“You are different you are not afraid of this? Not even a little bit?”
Quite selfishly I realised I kept talking to her, kept prolonging the time between the treatment because a rather sick twisted part of me wanted to see if she would break down if I kept her talking, but another part wanted to find out why she felt like this before I send her to her death. Olivia’s posture slumped, she realised what I was doing and she would have to answer my questions, her soft sigh made me more than a little saddened at my own selfish desire to speak to her.
“Forgive me...you don’t have to answer I shall order them to take you now if you wish.”
“Please.”
Was all that she whispered, and even at that one word I felt my heart soften, but with a growl I forced myself to press the button on the underside of my desk, a panic button just in case I couldn’t handle the person who I was delivering the news to, it was a direct wire through to the medical bay and they would come to take them away before they could harm me.
“For what it is worth Olivia, I am truly sorry, you might survive, and I hope that you do.”
“You want to know why I’m not scared?”
Olivia asked, her eyes looked into my own, large and baleful not out of fear but out of some other emotion that I couldn’t quite place. Silently I nodded my head, this might be a bad idea to hear her story, unlike everyone else it might have a slight hold on me, and some sway over my actions but I steeled my mind, I was a killer. I was The Executioner. This was my job.
“I don’t have anyone left here, they were all taken by the disease, I know I’m not going to be immune and I just want to get this over with, my family was the world to me and I really just want to become like them.”
I should have guessed this was the story, I’d heard it before and it was nothing new to me, as the door opened and two medical guards dressed in their green uniforms appeared I waved my hand dismissively at Olivia bidding her to leave. I was bored of her now and if she wanted to die she’d better hurry up and get along to do it.
“Good luck with your needle.”
My voice was devoid of emotion, despite her being different to every other person who had walked in here Olivia wanted to die and there was nothing I could do to stop this from happening even if I had wanted to, even if she had wanted him to. Sighing as I watched her stand up, move from the chair and cast a sad smile back at me, I waited for the phone call to tell me the next poor sod that I would have to track down and bring here.
As per my request as the last person, Olivia, went off to the testing room the results of the last tester were sent to me, opening up the folder containing a photograph of a rather well built man and what he had become next to it, his skin had become yellow studded with patches of red bleeding dryness, the little hair that he had possessed had turned into a wiry mess on top of his head, his eyes had the customary white iris and traces of madness within them. It seemed like even though they had tried over 80 combinations of this new vaccine it still wasn’t working, not clean enough to distribute yet. The diluted version they had been passing off as the real thing and allowing to be distributed to the public wasn’t doing anything it was just a placebo.
I sighed again, placed my head in my hands and stared into the faded wood of the desk, and the phone begun to ring.
