This story originally appeared on gohavok.com on September 15, 2022
Guy Cosmo swiped away sweat as he stuffed stacks of crisp green cash into his briefcase. He pulled more from the safe and tried to neatly line up the bills, but his pudgy hands were shaking. Guy could practically hear his father’s voice calling him an idiot, regretting that he had given Guy the company that had taken so many years to build. After fumbling with the clasps and closing the case, he stood and found his shirt untucked and belt undone.
Guy glanced to the couch across the room. The woman, her name already forgotten, was buttoning her blouse, giving him a confused look. “Is everything okay?”
Guy shook his head, trying not to lose focus. “Where’s my phone?” he demanded, zipping up his pants. Out of breath, he wandered his office, scanning the floor for his cell phone.
“Here,” said the girl, bending down beside the couch. She brought up his phone. “You dropped it after you got that text. What’s going on?”
“Please, just shut up,” he said, swiping it from her. Before he could unlock it, it rang. Guy raised it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Did you get my text?” It was Mike, CFO of Cosmos Chemical. “Did you tell your wife to start packing?”
“I’m not at home, but I grabbed some cash.” Guy hesitated. “I was in the middle of something.”
A pause. “You’re still at the office?”
“Should I not be?”
“I know you know where this crap’s been happening,” said Mike. “That maniac in the mask will take out people right in their own office chairs.”
The killings started a week after Subject 266 escaped containment from the Long Island facility. Rumor had it he had a brother who died during experimentation. 266 started by beating the scientists in Human Advancement within inches of their lives, but soon after threw the department head from a twenty-story window. He wasn’t after the grunts; he wanted the ones at the top. Guy knew he should have terminated the program when he had the chance years ago, but the results showed promise of profitability.
Guy wiped his brow. “Maestro’s is twenty blocks away. I can make it to the car before that lunatic gets here. If he’s even coming.”
“You’re the CEO. Of course he’s coming.” Mike sighed. “I just can’t believe he got Simmons in his own restaurant. The man had a full security detail and was dead before he could finish his salad. We’re all screwed.”
“Consider me in Mexico,” said Guy, leading the woman out and locking the door behind him. “I’m booking tickets as soon as I get to the limo.” Entering the staff bullpen, he weaved through the cubicles of the now-empty fifty-third floor.
“We’re taking a limo?” asked the girl.
Guy glared at her. “You’ll be lucky if I hail you a cab.”
“What was that?” asked Mike.
“Nothing. Where are you going?”
“I’m thinking the Bahamas. Maybe an early retirement.”
“Sounds nice. I might meet you there.”
“Focus on getting out first. Call me when you get to the airport.”
“Will do.”
He and the girl stood in silence until the elevator doors opened. After entering and choosing the ground floor, Guy breathed deeply and closed his eyes. When the doors opened in a moment, it would only be a few steps until he was on the street and inside his limousine. In no time at all, he’d be on a beach in Mexico, sipping something sweet served by a bikini-clad waitress.
A thump from above interrupted Guy’s fantasy. “Did you hear that?” he asked, glancing at the ceiling.
The girl looked up. “Yeah, I think so.”
Guy clutched his briefcase tighter. “Either you know, or you don’t,” he snapped. Beads of sweat stung his eyes, and he felt the room close in around him. “Tell me, yes or no, did you hear something?”
“I did, I did,” she cried.
The sound of screeching steel tore through the tiny metal box, and the corner of the ceiling was pulled back, revealing the elevator shaft above. Guy fell backward, slumping to the floor as the girl sobbed beside him, but he couldn’t find the strength to scream or cry for help. His gaze was locked on the masked man, dressed only in black, who watched him from above.
The man jumped down into the elevator and took hold of Guy’s jacket. “No!” cried Guy. “Back the hell off!”
The woman, tears rolling down her cheeks, hid her face in her hands. “Please, don’t hurt me!” The man ignored her and yanked Guy to his feet.
As if he were light as a child, Guy was hurled up and onto the roof of the moving elevator car. The man bounded up after him. Guy shielded himself with his briefcase, but the man tore it from his hands and tossed it aside.
“Enough!” yelled Guy.
The man stopped and cocked his head.
Guy’s helplessness heated the fear and rage that boiled inside him. “Don’t lay another finger on me, you psycho!”
The man lunged forward, and with one hand, he took Guy by his neck and pulled him to his feet. “This is our floor.”
The man leapt into the air, and like an insect, he grasped the wall of the elevator shaft and held there. Guy, dangling from the man’s stiff grip on his neck, squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to imagine the elevator descending hundreds of feet below him.
“Why… are you… doing this?” Guy wheezed.
The man pulled him in, bringing Guy’s face inches from his mask. “People like you create people like me.”
And he dropped Guy Cosmo.
Guy didn’t scream as he plummeted down the elevator shaft. Rather, his mind turned to his father, who would have chewed him out for running Cosmos Chemical into the ground. “Nothing to leave behind for your son!” he would have yelled. Then Guy’s head hit the elevator at the bottom floor, and everything went black.
Ethan Swick 
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