A Crack in the Window

The scream was deafening, and the few employees left in the office all shot to their feet to see who was making the noise. A moment later and it came again – high pitched, wavering but strong – definitely female. Josie found herself moving before she could think, running toward the sound, instinctively ready to help, her adrenaline pumping. A few others, spurred on by her movement, trailed after her; the others lagged behind, heads raised, watching.

The screamer was huddled at the top of the stairs that led up to the editor’s office, which was perched above them all on a mezzanine floor, overlooking them through big smoked glass windows. A litter of dropped papers were scattered around her scuffed, low-heeled black shoes. She was staring into the editor’s office, her eyes wide and panicked, her mouth opening for another scream. Josie took the stairs three at a time and grabbed her arm before she could get it out.

“Hey!” she said softly. “What’s wrong?”

The woman – who Josie thought was called Sandra or Sarah – pointed with a trembling hand at the editor’s office. “He – he – he …” she began, then stopped and gulped in a lungful of air. “He killed her!”

Josie’s gaze immediately swung to the office. She squinted through the smoked glass, her pulse starting to pound. She couldn’t make anything out from this angle. “Who killed who?” she asked.

The others were starting to crowd round now; Josie turned and murmured for someone to call the police.

Sandra or Sarah shook her head, her soft brown hair falling around her face. “I couldn’t see who,” she replied. “I just saw a man – in the office – and there was a woman – and he hit her with – with a trophy or an ornament or something … and there was blood and she fell and he did it again and …”

Her eyes were streaming with tears now, and she dropped her face into her hands and started to sob. Josie rubbed her back comfortingly, not sure what to do.

Someone touched her arm. “Uh. Miss Kim?” She looked around to see Karl crouched awkwardly next to her on the stair.

“Uh, she’s new,” he whispered as if he was explaining everything. When Josie just stared at him, he went on: “She’s in Laura’s team, and she told me the other day that she’s been talking about how she’s like, a medium or something and she sees things that aren’t there.” He finished this by lifting one hand and twirling his finger by his temple. The universal sign of crazy.

Josie gave him an irritated glare. “Karl, why don’t you do something useful and go get her a glass of water or something.” She didn’t like Karl.

His face fell at that, and he got up and went downstairs without further comment. At least he’d done that much. Josie was pretty sure nobody had called the police. She leaned in close to Sandra or Sarah and said, “I don’t think anyone’s in there, sweetie, but I’m going to go check. Okay?”

Sandra or Sarah looked at her with horrified eyes. “No – don’t! I saw him – he might -”

“I’ll be careful,” Josie assured her, then stood up before she could object further. She took the last few steps up to the office door and put her hand on the door handle. She squinted again through the smoked glass, but all she could make out were the vague shapes of the furniture. If someone had been in there, she would have seen them moving about, but she didn’t know if she would have been able to make out any details.

The thing was, their editor, Aiden Snyder, had been acting really strangely lately. The magazine was struggling, even with their push to online issues, his wife was sick, and he’d just been getting more and more irritable and short-tempered. She had to admit (only to herself, of course) that he was getting kind of scary. She was pretty sure he wasn’t in tonight, but if he was (not out of the question – he’d been pulling all sorts of hours lately), the last thing she wanted to do was barge in on him unexpectedly, and have that temper focused on her.

She glanced back down at the stairs. Behind Sandra or Sarah, everyone left in the office was standing looking up, like an audience at a hanging. Josie gave them all a disapproving scowl before she took a deep breath and pushed down the door handle.

The door opened silently into the editor’s office; a large window opposite let in the artificial light from the night time city. The large desk was central, with comfortable leather-upholstered chairs on each side, a minibar behind it, and a state of the art computer set up on it. Everything seemed to be in order. The computer was turned off; the chairs were in place; the desk was set up for the editor’s return, with their notepad and ballpoint pen laid out, their coffee mug waiting on the coaster, the stone bust of whoever-it-was perched on the corner, overseeing it all. The artwork on the walls was hanging straight. The thick carpet was clean and without blemish. There was no one here.

Josie let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and stepped back out of the room, closing the door behind her.

“Nothing,” she announced.

The group gathered at the bottom of the stairs gave a quiet sigh and started to disperse. Sandra or Sarah was still huddled at the top of the stairs, her tear-streaked face turned up to her. Too late – as usual – Karl turned up with that glass of water, and Josie shook her head at him and waved him away. He gave a frustrated huff and turned around, abandoning the glass on a nearby desk as he made his way back to his own.

Josie crouched down next to Sandra or Sarah again. “Why don’t we go get a cup of tea,” she said, “And you tell me what you saw?”

The woman nodded gratefully, and Josie helped her up and steadied her as they descended the stairs. She led her over to the small kitchenette in the corner of the large open plan office, and sat her on a stool while she pulled out a couple of mugs and set about making the tea.

“So, Sandra -”

“Susan,” the woman corrected, with just a trace of irritation.

Josie winced. “Susan, right. Sorry. So, why don’t you tell me what happened?”

Susan sniffed and wiped at her cheeks with her hands. “Mr Snyder asked me to put a copy of my work on his desk for the morning, so that’s what I was going to do,” she said. “But as I was going up the stairs something shiny caught my eye. I looked and I saw there was this crack in the glass window – up high, like a stress crack, and it was reflecting the light in a funny way.”

Josie frowned. She hadn’t noticed any crack. “At the top of the window?” she asked, putting a cup of tea down in front of her.

Susan nodded. “I was looking at it, and thinking that I should report it to Maintenance, and then I saw movement inside. I couldn’t see who it was because of the smoky glass, but I could see figures – a man and a woman – and they were arguing. I couldn’t hear them through the glass -”

Also odd, Josie thought, because that office isn’t soundproofed. She thought of all the times she’d heard Snyder yelling at someone lately. But she didn’t interrupt.

“- and I could see them gesturing at each other, pointing, and then the woman reached over the desk and slapped him, and then he grabbed something off the desk – like a trophy, or something – and he just … he just hit her over the head with it!” Susan lifted her arm and mimed bringing it down on an imaginary foe. “And I saw blood fly up, and she fell down in front of the desk … And then he went round and hit her again, and again … and that’s when I screamed.”

Josie sat opposite her and sipped at her own tea, considering. Her mind settled on that stone bust on Snyder’s desk, as tall as her forearm. “And you couldn’t see who they were at all?” she asked.

Susan shook her head sadly. “I could see that the man was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up,” she said, “And the woman had on a jacket or a coat that was really baggy, like it was too big for her, and I think it was blue. And her hair was tied back. But that’s all I could make out through the glass.”

“And you didn’t see them come out?” There was only the one entrance to that office; if they’d come out, they would have walked right into her. And she could see that Susan knew it. The woman sniffed again and picked up her mug of tea in both hands. Staring into it, she said quietly, “They were there up until you touched my arm. When I looked at you, when I looked back they were gone.” She paused, and added, “I thought he might have ducked down behind the desk or something …”

Josie shook her head. “There was nobody in there,” she assured her. “No blood on the carpet. There was nothing.”

Susan took a deep breath, then released it in a shuddering sigh.

Josie paused, then said “Um … Karl said that you … you see things?”

Susan frowned. “Sometimes,” she replied. “I’m sensitive.”

“Sensitive?”

“To … things other people don’t see … it doesn’t matter.” Susan caught Josie’s incredulous look and shrugged. “I guess I just imagined it … and made a fool of myself.” She paused. “Oh, I dropped my papers all over -”

“Don’t worry about that,” Josie replied. “I think you need to go home and get an early night. I’ll go pick up the papers and I’ll put then on Mr Snyder’s desk for you.”

Susan gave a weak smile. “Thank you,” she said softly.

“It’s fine.” Josie put down her cup and stood up. “And maybe don’t pull so many late-nighters in future, okay? Don’t wear yourself out.”

Susan looked back at her with the resigned look of someone who knows they’re being condescended to, but has long since given up arguing. “I won’t,” she replied. “Thank you, Miss Kim.”

Josie left her in the kitchenette and climbed back up the stairs to where the pile of papers still lay. Crouching, she gathered them all up and tried to straighten them into a manageable pile, then stood up. She looked up at the smoked glass windows, her eyes lifting up to the very tops, where the glass panels met the ceiling panels.

No cracks – except for a bit of dust, the glass was pristine.

She shrugged and opened the office door. If Susan had imagined all that other stuff, it wasn’t a big stretch to think she’d imagined the crack in the glass too. She placed the pile of papers on Snyder’s desk, next to the stone bust. She looked at it for a second – its weirdly blank, scowling face; it had no plaque or anything to say who it was meant to be – then hurried out of the office. Now she was getting the creeps.

….

“Oh, shit!” Josie cried as her hand hit the coffee mug on her desk, sending it toppling over and splashing her with hot, pungent coffee. She jumped up, cursing, and Karl looked up from his desk across the way and winced.

“Ah – ow!” Pinching her blouse away from her skin, Josie ran to the kitchenette and grabbed a handful of disposable towels from the dispenser. Running them under the cold tap, she stood in front of the sink and dabbed at the rapidly growing stain on the ivory fabric. All she succeeded in doing was cooling it down and making it wetter. She looked down at it – ruined and turning see-through – and felt her cheeks growing hot.

Karl came over, shrugging off his blazer. Because of course he was the kind of guy who voluntarily wore blazers, Josie thought irritably. “Here you go,” he said.

Josie looked down at the offered blazer and sighed. Now she felt bad. But they were the only two in the office, and she didn’t have another top. She took it with a grateful smile. “Thanks,” she replied. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Overtired, I guess.”

“Stressing too much about that report,” he countered. “When does Snyder want it for again?”

“Yesterday,” Josie replied morosely, turning to go to the toilets to change.

Karl snorted. “Sounds about right.”

In the toilets, she stripped off her ruined blouse and pulled on the blazer. It was far too big, and obnoxiously blue, but it would do for an hour or two, until she got this report done. Then she’d go home and drink several glasses of wine. She pulled her ponytail free, straightened the collar, brushed a few errant black hairs out of her face, and stuffed her blouse into one of the pockets. She was going to have to be nicer to Karl for a while.

Back in the office, she was halfway to her desk when a strong voice rang out across the room. “Kim. My office. Now.”

She looked up to see Snyder just disappearing into his office. He looked harried and untidy, his shirt rumpled, the sleeves pushed up past his elbows, his tie askew. He slammed the door behind him, making the glass windows rattle. She flinched and looked over at Karl. “When did he get in?” she whispered, as if he would overhear.

“He walked in right after you went into the bathroom,” Karl replied. “Wanted to know where you were. I told him you’d just popped to the loo, but …” He shrugged apologetically.

Josie sighed. Snyder had been riding her for the last week. Oh well, nothing for it. She lifted her head and walked to the stairs, hoping she didn’t look as nervous as she felt. As she got to the top of the stairs, her eyes flitted over the smoked glass windows … and settled on a small crack in the top right-hand corner of the panel nearest the door. It seemed to glitter as it reflected the office’s fluorescent lights.

Josie paused. She didn’t remember that being there before. She made a mental note to report it to Maintenance. A crack like that would grow. Getting to the door, she put her hand on the door handle and paused. She had a bad feeling … sort of like deja vu, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. Something about that crack …

“Kim!” Snyder’s voice barked from inside, the office, and she jumped. Putting the crack out of her mind, she opened the door and went inside.