Over the Wall Read online

Cass swallowed, her brain spinning as she tried desperately to think of something non-committal to say in response. “Uhhhh…” she ventured intelligently.

  The other woman turned back to her computer, apparently not needing any other acknowledgment.

  * * * * *

  Cass plodded dispiritedly into her house later that evening. She felt like the last salad in the cafeteria at closing. Limp, wilted, and icky. She pushed the door shut and then she leaned against it and heaved a giant sigh of relief. Finally. God, I really hope training doesn’t take too long. There is only so much a person wants to know about another person.

  She threw her backpack onto the side table beside the door and hung up her coat. Stretching her neck tiredly, she made her way into the kitchen.

  Tantrum yowled a greeting and proceeded to twine through her legs in a mistaken gesture of affection that always ended up tripping her instead. He pawed at her legs and loudly demanded his dinner.

  She pulled down a can and popped the lid, watching her cat freak out at the sound. He spun in circles and screeched. He did a little sideways dance hop as she scooped the contents into his bowl. She giggled, watching him. She set the bowl on the floor and he attacked with a rumbling purr-growl of ecstatic joy. Geez, wish I got this excited over a can of mushed up fish parts. Life would be a lot simpler.

  Now that he had his own needs taken care of, Tantrum ignored Cass with single-minded intensity. Who needed petting when one could have fish?

  She watched him for a few minutes before heading up to her bedroom to change into her sweats. They were old and comfortable, worn nearly threadbare by years of washing. She paused in front of her vanity and stared at herself in the mirror.

  Her sandy brown hair hung in limp strands down to the middle of her back, and her dark brown eyes were slightly sunken in. Ick. I look like I’ve been rode hard and put up wet. She grabbed a handful of her hair and twisted it onto her head and held it there. Lips pursed, she struck a pose. It didn’t improve her looks any, but she giggled at the image.

  Becoming serious, she inspected herself. Straight hair; it could do with a bit of life. She liked her eyes, a dark chocolate brown. Although, usually they didn’t have those dark circles under them. She blamed that on her first day of work. Her heavy breasts pressed against the front of her sweatshirt. They had been irritants since they had first popped out at puberty. The rest of her body flowed out in a voluptuous hourglass. She usually tried to hide it under baggy jeans and T-shirts. Eh, not bad. Maybe I should try that makeup thing again. Sans mascara caterpillars this time. And blue eye shadow. Uh, and fuchsia lipstick. Oh hell, forget makeup.

  She was the only woman she knew that could screw up with tinted lip balm.

  Cass shrugged, released her hair, and went back downstairs to the kitchen to find something to eat. On her way, she flipped on her laptop so it could load.

  She dug out a TV dinner and popped it into the microwave and again pondered why so many of them smelled like the cat food she fed her cat. The debate was still open as to whether the cat food smelled like the dinner or the dinner smelled like the cat food. She tried not to think about it too much. But she had stopped buying turkey dinners for her cat, and fish meals for herself.

  She ran back into the living room to log into the chat room and then darted back into the kitchen, her sock covered feet sliding to a stop on the slick linoleum. The microwave was still going, so she busied herself by pouring out a glass of cola and pulling a package of cookies out of the cupboard. She dropped those off on the table next to her chair. She ate her dinner in front of the TV and her computer every night. Could I possibly be more boring?

  Cass flipped channels and finally stopped at a channel showing reruns of old cartoons.

  The microwave beeped and she went for her dinner. When she returned to her chair, she noticed that the usual gang of idiots was hanging out in the chat room and she jumped into her chair and quickly added her two cents to the conversation going on and responded to the greetings that were sent to her.

  She noticed with some disappointment that Grim wasn’t in the room. She wondered briefly if he was planning on coming in.

  She eyed her TV dinner with distaste. It didn’t even look good. She made a mental note to spend the next weekend making some of her own. She had put it off to the point where she had been forced to go to the store and buy some pre-made ones. Not that she was the greatest cook, but it wasn’t too difficult to cook a pot roast and follow the directions in a cookbook to make gravy. It had taken more experimentation to figure out how to properly store it in the freezer for more than a week.

  Freezer burned chow was not her idea of a great meal. Mmm tasty.

  The rest of her evening passed quietly and Grim never put in an appearance. Cass suspected that he was out on the prowl.

  * * * * *

  “Good morning, Cass,” Mabel-Ann chirped brightly. She scurried over with a coffee cup in her hand. “I just have to change my shoes and we can get started.”

  Cass cringed as Mabel-Ann’s voice scraped over her morning nerves like nails down a chalkboard. She sucked down a long swallow of her coffee. “Hey, Mabel-Ann…” she mumbled. “Be with you in a bit. Dawn wanted me to take some time to set up my desk and make a list of the supplies I’ll need.”

  “That’s fine,” the other woman burbled happily. She took off her shoes and opened the lowest drawer in her desk.

  Cass peered into the drawer curiously. It was filled with shoes.

  Mabel-Ann reached in, oblivious to Cass’s horrified gaze, and pulled out a pair of blue pumps that matched her outfit. She then adjusted the gingerbread man-shaped brooch pinned to her lapel and began booting her computer.

  Cass slinked into her cubicle, contemplating the brooch. It was January. A tad bit late for gingerbread men, or way too early, depending on how you looked at it. She drank more coffee and wondered if the last person to sit there was fired for alcoholism. Because she was starting to think drinking on the job was a good idea.

  Mabel-Ann popped over the low wall separating their cubicles, startling Cass into dumping coffee down the front of her blouse. “Only three hundred forty days of shopping left till Christmas,” she piped, oblivious to the swearing as Cass tried to pull the hot cloth away from her breasts. She popped back down.

  Another member of Cass’s new team strolled by and looked at her. “You drink coffee; you don’t wear it,” she said, sneering. Fluffing her hair, she stalked off. The woman paused at another co-worker’s desk, bent down, and whispered in her ear.

  The other woman turned and looked at Cass and started laughing.

  Cass sighed and let go of the now cold and clammy cloth. It stuck to her chest with a wet sound. Great. I think I’m gonna hate it here.

  * * * * *

  ScarlettO: Okay, Rikki, you’ve had two weeks at the new job, let’s hear it!

  OsirisWings: Yup, time to spill it, Rikki.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Aww c’mon, guys, I just got here! *whines*

  Grimalkin: No way, babe, you’ve made us wait. Now we wanna hear about the new co-workers.

  RikkiTikkiTavi sighs gustily.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Okay fine. First in the lineup at what I am now calling Bedlam High: The Crazy Lady. The woman who trained me is insane. She pretty much informed me of this on my first day. But, she doesn’t have to take her medication. Really.

  ScarlettO: lol.

  OsirisWings: dude, I think I work with her too.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: doesn’t everyone? Then there’s The Mouth. She seems to think that she gets paid to talk, bitch, whine, and throw hissy fits while prying into everyone else’s business. Then telling everyone else about it.

  Grimalkin: Oh yeah, I know there’s one of those everywhere.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Oh, here’s a new favorite. I like to call her the Clown Ballerina. She shows up for work every day. Goes into the bathroom. Washes off yesterday’s makeup. Shaves her eyebrows. Then proceeds to repaint her face. And adds these freaky I
-saw-a-rat arch eyebrows. She looks like one of those ballerina dolls you see in jewelry boxes.

  ScarlettO: Wow, that is a new one! And kinda creepy. I swear you are a freak magnet, Rikki.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: I know *mournfully*

  OsirisWings is enthralled.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: lol, brat!

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Okay, there’s this guy, I call him the Furry Meister… He’s got these weird drawings of half naked, humanoid animals all over his desk. All female. And he pets them. Ew.

  OsirisWings: Wow, that’s gross. Bet he dates a lot.

  Grimalkin: Hey, some of those anime cuties are kinda hot.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Uh, no. They aren’t anime, babe, wayyy too furry for that. As in I do not want to shave those legs.

  ScarlettO snickers.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Then there’s Shroom. She wears her pants so tight that her ample center overflows the top. *gags*

  Grimalkin: Okay, that’s an image I didn’t need in my head. Thanks, babe.

  RikkiTikkiTavi giggles.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Apparently it’s okay to listen to headphones in Bedlam High. I’m going to bring some to tune out The Crazy Lady. Anyway, there’s the Cubicle Diva. She’s very passionate about her lip-synching. And she does it silently. With her eyes closed. Her face turned purple today. I think she was listening to Queen. It was most surreal.

  OsirisWings: lol, nice

  Cass grinned and took a swig from her beer. She had been wondering how long it would take before they started asking questions about her co-workers. It had become a game among them to see if they could match up personalities with each other’s co-workers. She munched on the taco she had picked up on her way home and prepared to regale them with the next candidate.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: We have a whole plethora of White Trash Barbies, Scarlett. I think this is where they came after they got fired from where you work. Oh! And there’s this manager… She spends a good portion of the day walking the rows of Bedlam in search of potlucks. If she finds one, she grabs a plate and ravages like Viking raider! She always wears these nasty mustard yellow polyester knit skirts and blazers that cling in all the wrong places. Seriously, I had no clue there were so many shades of puke yellow. I kinda wonder where she shops.

  Grimalkin turns green

  OsirisWings hurls

  ScarlettO: OMG. Lmao

  Cass giggled. She thought that would creep the guys out.

  OsirisWings: Hey, Rikki, did you get a Giggle Gaggle this time? Ya know, the ones that just seem to walk around chatting and giggling?

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Yuppers, got at least one of those. The Mouth keeps trying to make friends with them, but they aren’t interested because her tan isn’t good enough.

  ScarlettO: What about a Basset? *sings* Do your boobs hang low, do they wobble to and fro; can you tie ’em in a knot, can you tie ’em in a bow?

  RikkiTikkiTavi: lol, I haven’t seen one yet, but the minute I see a woman with boobs like a Basset hound’s ears, I’ll letcha know. *snickers*

  RikkiTikkiTavi: I do have a Disco Dan, though. Does that redeem me? He even wears a medallion!

  Grimalkin: lol, I have one of those! I seem to remember a Shroom too!

  ScarlettO: Hey! Don’t forget I have Urg The Barbarian! What an ass. A steroid-driven, chauvinist crotch climber. Gawd, I can’t stand him. Bet he can’t get it up from all the pills.

  RikkiTikkiTavi: Wow, Scarlett, tell us how you really feel, lol. Poor thing is so shy. O.o

  RikkiTikkiTavi: There’s the Game Boy too. I saw him carrying around an armful of video game guides, and at lunch he was making notes. Obsess much? And, there’s the guy who never changes his shirt. Seriously, you can tell because he wears shirts with print on them. He’s had the same one on all week and the stains are starting to overlap. It’s really creepy.

  ScarlettO: that’s just gross.

  Grimalkin: Bet he still lives with his mom too. And keeps her in the attic. *hums the Psycho theme song*

  Grimalkin: Speaking of which, I have a new co-worker. She just started. I like to call her Samara. She’s so Goth it hurts, and she glares at everyone from under her hair and makes weird hand gestures like she’s trying to hex us when we piss her off, and apparently breathing is enough to piss her off. I’ve started dropping little tokens on her desk. The pink teddy bear holding a heart really tipped her over the edge. Last time I walked by she had drawn red ink blood all over it and had it hanging from a noose on the wall of her cube. Classy, huh?

  Cass started laughing. That was just like something he would do.

  * * * * *

  “And just how do you plan to get us out of this mess?” a high-pitched voice snarled.

  “I don’t know. I’m working on it,” said a second voice.

  “Well, work faster. He was right behind us, and if he finds us before we release the disease, it’s all over.”

  “I said I’m working on it! Quiet, that thing is coming!”

  Chapter Three

  Dar peered over the wall of his cubicle at the man who had just passed. Yup, he was right. Seventies haircut. Polyester print shirt with a large collar and deep v-neck, bushy chest hair liberally peppered with gray twined around a thick gold chain that supported a large faux gold pendant. It looked like he had a Disco Dan too. Rikki was going to laugh her ass off when he told her. He shook his head and dropped back into his chair.

  Samara, also known as Kelly, stalked by in all her Goth glory and sneered at him when he gave her an overly bright smile and a cheerful good morning.

  He waited.

  A muffled curse sounded a moment later and he bent his head industriously over a bit of paperwork. He stifled a snicker. She had found his latest “gift.”

  A big-eyed baby doll in a little white dress slammed down in front of him a minute later. It slid across his desk and hit his coffee cup, causing its contents to slop over.

  “Do you know anything about this?” a snarling voice asked.

  He looked up slowly. She stood over him like a black cloud, an expression of abject disgust on her face. He picked up the doll with a finger and thumb and moved it off his paperwork, then grabbed a tissue to sop up the spilled coffee. “No, should I?” he muttered, not looking at her so he could keep a straight face.

  A growl sounded above his bent head.

  “You may think you’re hot with the whole Asian-anime-look thing going on” ‑‑ her gaze lingered on his calendar, which featured still shots from the movie The Crow ‑‑ “but you’re as big a loser as the rest of these freaks. I know someone is leaving this shit on my desk to fuck with me and you’re always here before anyone else in the morning. So, if it’s not you, you know who’s doing it.”

  He smirked. “Nope, sorry, no clue. Maybe someone likes you. Ever think of that?”

  Another snarl sounded and she stomped off.

  He picked up the doll and dangled it. “Hey, don’t forget your dolly!” He waved it back and forth. It smiled sappily at him. He snickered when she flipped him the bird without turning. God, he loved messing with her. If she would at least try to be pleasant to those around her he’d probably leave her alone. Maybe.

  Having managed to once again irritate his esteemed colleague, he kicked back at his desk to plot the next move in his little game. Hmmm… Maybe a collection of cartoon music. Bet she’d just love the new Sweethearts CD! He rubbed his hands together and smirked to himself with evil glee. That might work very nicely… He was quite willing to invest his hard earned coins into annoying the locals.

  A flicker of movement caught his eye. He watched a heavyset woman in a mustard yellow pantsuit huff by like a woman on a mission. Dar blinked. No way. Under his disbelieving gaze, she paused at the empty cubicle his team used for potlucks and peered in. Not finding anything, she snuffled in a disturbingly porcine way and continued to puff her way down the aisles.

  He watched her until she turned a corner and was out of sight. What are the chances? Slim to nil? He stepped out of his
cubicle and looked around. What’s next? Rikki’s Ballerina Clown?

  * * * * *

  Cass’s head jerked up as a large crash sounded across the room. She stood up to see what was going on and noticed heads popping up all over the area like meerkats poking their heads out of their warrens.

  As one, heads began to swivel as the inhabitants of Bedlam High tried to locate the source of the sound that indicated a possible break in the dull monotony of their work rut. She almost expected to start seeing whiskers wiggle.

  A tall, dark-haired man caught her eye. Whoa. He stepped out of his cube and she drank in the sight. Oh man… She licked her lips. He had shoulder length wavy black-brown hair and dusky skin. Heat pooled in her belly. His body was a perfect V of muscular masculinity. I have found Nirvana… And he looks like Brandon Lee… She took careful note of his clothing. He was wearing black leather pants and a tight black T-shirt that clung to his shoulders; it laced up from the middle of his chest to just below his collarbone. She drooled. He hadn’t laced it. Oh yum. Smooth brown skin peeked out from between the laces like a tease on prom night. As she watched, he ran his fingers through his hair; dark red glints flickered in the fluorescent lighting. His features had a distinctly Asian cast to them, which served to highlight his cheekbones and full lips. He’s got the Brandon vibe, but the pure sex appeal of that guy in House of Flying Daggers. Tasty.

  He turned and caught her eye for a moment. He smiled briefly before returning his attention back to finding what had caused the ruckus.

  The Giggle Gaggle paused in their daily rounds to simper at him for a moment. He ignored them after a distracted greeting.

  She sighed. He’s so pretty, I bet he’s gay. She flopped back into her chair and pondered sexy gay men. ’Cuz, if he was gorgeous, stylish, and made her drool, he was gay. And he’ll want to be your best friend. Why couldn’t they at least be bi? Her chat room gang thought it was hilarious the way she attracted gay men. They loved her. Grim said it was because they liked hanging out with women less feminine than they were. Sometimes she really wanted to smack him stupid.

  The Mouth stopped by her desk, chattering a mile a minute at a washed-out blonde with dark roots who was walking beside her. “So, he sez, what the hell is arugula? And I sez, if ya had some class, ya’d know. Then he gets all pissy and takes off to ‘have a beer with the guys.’ Like women don’t drink beer? Then he…” She paused and stared down her nose at Cass. “Yes?”