Walton's World: Chapter Ten

  I dropped to the ground as another arrow struck Doctor Prendick in the chest. Allison fell to the ground next to me as a third arrow sailed overhead. 

"Easterners!" I yelled. 

Allison glanced up.

"The shots are coming from up high." She said, "We're sitting ducks."

I looked around. There were a few feet of open ground between us and apparel, and the racks of shirts would break up the line of sight of anything above us. 

Another arrow struck the linoleum near my head, and a thought flashed across my mind, as I started to count. 

I ran. 

"Patterson!" Allison shouted.

I counted. One, two, three, four, five. 

I heard a snap somewhere in the distance, and a second later, an arrow soared past my head from somewhere in the rafters. I ducked behind a rack of shirts, then quickly dove for the rack next to me, hoping the sniper had lost my position.

"It's one guy." I said, as loud as I dared. 

"What?" Allison said. 

"It takes five seconds to reload a crossbow." I said, holding out a hand and rocking it back and forth, "Give or take. If there was more than one shooter, they could stagger their shots, but they're not, so there's only one of them. 

Allison glanced up, then back to me. 

"I'll draw his fire." I said, "I'm faster on my feet, after the next shot, you go for the clothes on the other side of the avenue."

"You're going to split the party?" Allison said. 

"You have the keys, and you'll know how to restore power." I said, "Find some coupons on your way, and that takes care of Denise."

Allison glanced up, then over to me.

"And you're just gonna sit here and get shot at?"

I glanced up, then nodded.

"I guess so?"

"That's really fucking stupid," Allison said, then glanced up. She reached up and grabbed a flashlight from Doctor Prendick’s belt and slid it across the floor. I reached out and grabbed it, dodging another crossbow bolt. 

"Thank you." She said, 

I nodded, then stood up and ran for the next rack of clothes. A bolt fired, and I dove right while Allison rolled across the open ground, disappearing into an impenetrable thicket of big and tall jeans. 

I glanced back into the rafters and started to slowly move out of cover. A snap signaled my time to move, and I dove out of the way. The arrow streaked past my head. I glanced back and tried to follow the path the arrow had taken in flight. I was struck by inspiration, and drew the flashlight, shining it into the rafters. 

A figure with a crossbow recoiled at the light and slipped behind a support column, the figure was clad in what I assumed were black tactical pants, and he wore a dark shirt that made him hard to spot against the ceiling. 

"Yeah, there you are, you jerk," I said under my breath. 

I took a few hoping steps sideways, working towards some dressing rooms. After five seconds, I shut off the flashlight and leapt for the dressing room. 

The sniper had already moved from cover, and he hoped to use the light of the flashlight as his target. Instead, he saw a whole lot of nothing.

I poked my head out of cover, in time to see him notice something moving on the opposite side of the avenue. 

"Shoot!" I said, grabbing the flashlight and shining back into the rafters. 

"Allison! Move" I shouted as the light illuminated the sniper as he was taking aim on who I presumed was Allison. Instead, annoyed, he turned and shot towards me. The arrow buried itself in the wooded frame of the dressing room just an inch above my head.

I leapt out of cover and kept the flashlight on the rafters. The sniper started down one of the supports, moving along with me. He was somewhere directly above the southern avenue. I'd need to get him to follow me away from that if I was to have any chance of keeping him from taking pot shots at Allison. 

I started moving back to the East, and slightly north. The sniper took the bait, and moved off of one girder at an intersection and began negotiating the crossbars that made their way east and west across the ceiling. 

The sniper had evidently loaded on the move, and suddenly, the snap of the crossbow took me out of my momentary revelry. I stepped to the side, the arrow sailing past me. My focus on the ceiling had come back to bite me in the form of a bin of discounted cotton socks. I fell over onto the flat of my back, my legs flailing up into the air. I scrambled to get out, but a big bin of cotton socks is about as easy to navigate, and a five lane interchange designed by MC Escher. 

The little timer in my head that'd been keeping me alive so far ticked past five, six, seven. At any second, I could expect a snap, followed by a swift death. 

Then, nothing happened. 

I opened my eyes and moved the beam of my light into the rafters. 

"Hey!" I called out "Don't think I'm done with you yet!" Get back here!" 

It might be dooming me to death by anachronism, but I couldn't let him focus his aim on Allison, but as I scanned the rafters, the best I could catch was the occasional trickle of dust, but no sign of the sniper. 

I turned off the light, and let it fall to my side. Either he'd run out of ammo, or decided he had better things to do.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I'd done it, I'd been useful, and heroic, and successful. Take that, Dad! 

My moment of revelry was interrupted by all my arms and legs being seized by once, and a bag being forced over my head. 

I spent the better part of the next five minutes hoisted aloft as I was carried in a direction I hadn't quite registered during the initial struggle. I was half tempted to close my eyes and catch a quick nap while being carried. Either I'd get a little bit of rest before being subjected to yet another mundane horror; or, my head injury would prove fatal, and I'd slip into a coma and die, it wouldn't be the worst way to go, but on the other hand, I was pretty sure I'd be entitled to some compensation from the company if I made it out of here alive, at minimum as it was well past midnight, I was going to be making holiday pay. 

My attackers carried me up a staircase, which struck me as odd. I didn't think we were close enough to the east tower, and the only other staircase I could think of was...

The bag was removed from my head, which only resulted in a slight increase in the amount of light around me. My hands were yanked behind my back and bound with duct tape while my feet were taped together. I rocked forward and back and was surprised when I nearly fell backward. 

"Oh, careful." Came a rather twisty voice from behind me. "We borrowed these chairs from the food court, and they're actually surprisingly light."

"Do not fraternize with the accused!" Came a voice that would have likely sounded booming, save for the fact that it was spoken at a near whisper "It is not becoming of a manager to fraternize with associates, so sayeth the Book!"

"So Sayeth the Book!" Said a chorus of whispered voices from around me. 

I glanced around and noticed that everyone was wearing pressed khaki pants, a crisp white, long-sleeved shirt, and blue vests. Their outfit was nearly identical to mine, though associates weren't allowed to wear dress shirts, which was a privilege reserved for managers. 

The other key difference between my uniform and theirs was the matching black hoods they all wore, hastily stitched to their collars. 

I looked around.

"You're all managers?" I asked.

"Silence, plebian!" came the booming whisper.

"Oh yeah," said the twisty voice "we're all department managers, shift managers, got a lot of brain power up here in south tower ya know."

"Why are you here?" I said "Most of you wouldn't have been on shift."

"Silence!" the voice tried to boom again, this time less confident.

"Well, once your management, you gotta go above and beyond." came another voice "You're new right? If you ever want to move up here at Walton's World, you're gonna need to give 110%, and sometimes that means staying the night at your office, just in case."

"I see," I said.

"Oh for fucks sake." the booming whisper said "Can we just get on with this? I thought we were doing a cult thing, you're all making me look like an idiot in front of the new hire."

"Oh, sorry Steve." The twisty voice said. 

Steve cleared his voice, then spoke in the booming whisper. 

"We have gathered here to pass judgement on this associate, to determine if he is within compliance with The Book."

"The Book!" the crowd whispered.

Steve held up a thick tome, bound in white, with a logo made up of two intertwined w's.

"That's the employee handbook." I said.

"Yes, it’s the employee handbook." Steve said "it's the book with all the rules that must be followed by all employees at all times."

"I feel like at this point the cult thing just isn't working out." said one of the voices."

"Yeah, if he isn't going to play along, I don't want to either." Another came.

"No!" Boomed the voice "We all agreed, we cannot lower our standards just because the employees aren't in compliance!"

"Besides, we already have the hoods." The twisty voice said.

"Yeah, I spent a lot of time on these." Came a sad voice from the back.

"The hoods are nice," I said. I'd learned sewing in Boy Scouts and had put together costumes for my high school plays. Game recognizes game. 

"Thanks," said the sad voice. "Sorry we're going to execute you for not being in uniform."

"I'm sorry, what was that?" I said.

"You are an associate of Walton's World, are you not?" Steve boomed.

"I..." Actually, I didn't know where my employment status stood.

"Did you or did you not sign a copy of this handbook agreeing to its terms?" Boomed the voice.

"I did." I admitted, "But I'm not sure if I could still technically be considered an employee, considering..." I gestured broadly at everything. 

"Did you ever provide the company with the requisite two weeks’ notice of intent to terminate employment?"

"Uhm, no..." I admitted.

"Or the six names of acceptable potential replacements, and their background check clearances." 

"No." I said.

"Did you ever receive an official termination notice and subsequent trespass notice?"

"Nope." I said, growing bored of the tedium of the proceedings. 

"Then you are still bound by the terms of The Book!" 

"The Book!" Chanted the drones. 

"Well neither are you." I said.

The crowd grew silent. 

"First of all." I said, "Show me where, in that book, it states that black hoods are part of the uniform."

"Ah!" Came the twisty voice. "Page 110, uniform discretion. Managers may wear a dress shirt of any style or color, so long as it is conducive to the duties and responsibilities of the manager, as deemed by corporate."

"We sewed the hoods to the shirts." Came the sad voice, "So technically they're part of the shirt."

"And on page 178," the twisty voice continued, "In the event of the loss of communication with corporate, resulting in either force majeure or the passage of an income tax code with actual enforcement mechanisms, management will, temporarily, be blessed with additional discretion over the day to day operations of the store."

My mind raced. 

"Okay, sure." I said "But, right now, none of you are the acting manager."

No one spoke. 

"We've lost communication with the active manager." Said Steve, "And, given the circumstances, we have to assume he's been killed."

"He wasn't." I said.

Again, silence. 

"How would you possibly know?"

"I came from north tower, he was there, and alive."

"So much could have happened since you left."

I looked around at the desks until I saw what I was looking for.

"You have a manager's radio right there." I said "Have you tried using it?"

Silence.

"I told you we should have tried it." Came the sad voice.

"And I said," Steve seethed "That so long as we didn't try, we could have plausible deniability."

"So you were all just going to sit up here and play cult without actually trying to fix anything?" I said "I mean, how are you all this bad at running things? Look around, this is the only tower that hasn't gotten some form of lighting going on."

"We got the hoods made." The sad voice said. 

"Well you can't expect us to do all the work." The twisty voice said "That's what associates are for."

"And this associate is out of uniform." Steve boomed "So sayeth the book."

"So sayeth the book." the group said, anger at me, overcoming whatever doubts they’d had about playing along.

"We sentence you," the voice boomed as I prepared myself for the worst.

"To Customer Service!" 

I glanced about.

"Customer Service?" I asked.

"Yeah." The twisty voice said, "there's only one customer in the store, and you're going to service them."

"That sounds dirty." I sneered.

"Oh for fucks sake." Steve Said "Just feed him to the customer."

My chair was hoisted into the air with a chorus of "The customer's always right, the customers always right!" As I was carried back down the stairs, stumbling only occasionally as the managers tripped in the darkness.