”Nobody Told me There was a Plan B”

But when the elevator got stuck on the fifth sublevel, it was hard not to in the silence under the hum of the lights. Tom stared at the buttons, willing them to descend, urging them with his glare to keep dropping. He hated moments of pause like this. Moments where he accidentally remembers he’s been at work for only four hours. With likely six more to go.

The elevator was old. Stainless steel walls smeared with fingerprints reflected his shape in weird and convex illusions. The overhead lights were buzzing loudly with each floor it passed. Now it was just him and that damn droning noise from the light.
Tom tried to think of what to do. He was alone with his shuddering breath, clenched palms and cold sweat. His work shirt was clinging to his back like a second damp skin.
He considered that spending the rest of this shitty night stuck in the elevator wasn't such a bad alternative to running around at the Vildegaards commands. Whether or not there'd be a restaurant to come to work to tomorrow though depended on him making it back with the meal.
Just when he was deciding to be content with his situation, it changed on him. The elevator shuddered forward like an old car tumbling into gear, and descended the rest of the way.

A small amber light marked -3. The basement level he'd come in on. Just a few short hours ago he'd come in here to his halloween shift, sure that no matter what horrors awaited him, he and Juan would make it through to the end alright.
He'd had no idea how wrong he was.

The hum of machinery vibrated through the floor, deeper with every level. A single droplet of condensation plinked onto the metal handrail.
Tom wiped his forehead with a crimson-stained napkin.

Probably wine. Hopefully wine.

Dong.

The doors opened.

The lights in the hallway flickered like dying insects were trapped inside. One long fluorescent tube above him gave off a subliminal, electric whine. He couldn’t escape the droning noise anywhere he went in this building, except of course in the noisy kitchen or the banquet hall.
Tom stepped into the cold of the hallway. He dragged the cart down and went to the loading dock. On a regular night, he and Juan would be taking their smoke breaks down here, eating some hot fries Chef had whipped up for them.
As Tom pushed his cart down towards the ramp, he thought about the past year, last halloween. It had been a really rough one, but he hadn't been alone. Full staffed, fully capable, service had been running well.
It was nothing like what he'd seen tonight.

It had been easy when he was running around for the Vildegaards, but now, free of their baleful, hungry stares, he couldn't stop it.
It pained him, but he couldn't remember when he'd last seen Juan. Not at work, but out at life. He could remember a shift they'd ended out on the loading dock, smoking and drinking rum and cokes out of coffee to go cups.
Juan had asked him all these peculiar questions.

"Tom?" Juan had asked him, as he drew deep from a cigarette and recovered from coughing. He shook his head. "Do you think you'll ever settle down? Maybe move?"
Tom had thought about it, as the smoke rolled cooly down his throat only to rush hot out his nostrils.
He didn't look at Juan as he thought about the job down in Florida.
He had wanted to tell Juan about the margaritaville kitchsy position, about banging spring breaking college girls and drinking as the sun rose and fell back down in endless rotation.
It sounded at the time like a bad idea. Too close to abandonment. So he'd just shrugged and said "All the time."
But Juan had shook his head. "No, I'm serious. You ever think you'll leave the job?"
Can we? Tom had thought.

If he took that job in florida, he'd lose his car, his credit, and be buried under all sorts of payment plans he'd lashed himself to over the years. No, maybe next year he'd be in a better financial spot to change jobs. Maybe next year...he couldn't worry about how to disentangle himself from a job he'd worked for more than twenty years.
After all, after two decades, what's one more roll around the sun?

He realized now that he should have asked the obvious next question: Was Juan thinking of leaving?
True to form, Tom had been too focused on himself.
Tom missed his coworker, but he found he missed his friend more. What the hell was he doing hanging around the knifepoint right now? Working his shift? Was he insane? Juan's girlfriend Katie was sitting all alone, probably having to talk to the cops and deal with medical shit.
They had no family, and no other friends besides those they made at the Knifepoint.
Why are you still at work? Tom asked himself. Incredulously, he felt himself leave the cart rolling in the middle of the hallway. He walked on without it.
He thought of how Chris had been on the phone. Tom have you ever thought that maybe some of us want it all to burn?
Had Juan wanted the place to crash? To fall apart without him? Had he wanted it all to burn too?

Tom found he was already walking down the loading dock ramp.
The slope felt good, weirdly, on his calves, and the stretch seemed to invigorate him. That perpetual motion machine of his that dragged him up every morning from hangover and tomb-like bed got him going–this time in the right direction.
He felt weirdly giddy as he looked over his shoulder at the Knifepoint. He was in the parking lot now, headed towards his car. He suppressed a life.
I'm going to the hospital. I'm calling Katie. I'll find her. I promised Juan.
He felt naked, afraid.
But excited all the same.
He was running away from his shift.
The only people he'd ever known to do this were new hires or addicts. Tom liked to think he was neither, and yet here he was, running in loping, half-sneaky strides for his car.
This. THIS was the real plan b. He was going to get out of this fucking place once and for all. No plan, no worries, just his own two feet and the –

His car was locked.
He tugged a few times, hard and harder, before he realized the keys were in his locker. He looked back up across the dewy fog of the parking lot at the lights of the Knifepoint, twinkling warmly.
He could sneak back in and grab his keys couldn't he?
Sure...but he knew it wasn't possible.
He'd see something needing done. Food needing ran or a fresh order from the bar for Mr. vildegaard and he'd rush to please the masters of his small world.
He knew it was over if he went back.

He turned away from all it's lurking malevolence in the fog and shoved his hands in his pockets for a long haul to the other side of the river and his apartment.
He smiled as he set himself to his course. The way was clear now.

Tom hadn’t gone twenty steps before he heard the crackling sigh of tires over asphalt.
A pair of headlights cut sideways through the fog. Quiet, like a scalpel sliding between ribs.
Tom stopped.
The truck came in slow, too slow. As if it were stalking something. As if he were the something.
White. No branding. The kind of plain that made it more ominous.
It was a truck Tom recognized. He saw it every year.
It curved up the drive and came to a full stop at the loading dock, the same ramp he’d just climbed down from like a victorious escapee.

A man got out. Clipboard in hand. One of those tan work jackets with flannel lining. His boots hissed on the wet pavement as he made a line straight for Tom.

“You Tom?” The driver said.
Tom blinked. “Uh… yeah”
“Cool. You didn't have to come meet us all the way out here. We got a drop-off for Vildegaard. Uhhhh, let’s see– David Everman? Said you’d sign.” He turned without waiting and flicked open the cargo latch.

The back of the truck let out a staccato ratcheted clanking. The man leaned in and yanked on some straps. A long steel cooler glided forward on locking casters, its chrome sides wet with condensation.

Tom took a step back.

The driver motioned him forward with the pen. “Fresh as they come. Paid for priority. Said he wanted it raw. You guys got a prep table ready?”
Tom looked past him into the dark of the truck.
There were more coolers. Three, maybe four. This one was smaller than the rest.

The red tape around the lid said:
FRAGILE / ORGANIC.
Among other things.
Tom swallowed. “You said Vildegaard?”
“That’s the name on the order.” The driver smiled. “Y’all do high-end shit in there, huh? They said this was some kinda special wagyu pork. ”

Tom didn’t answer.

He looked back at the hotel. Its windows glowed dim, warped yellow through the fog. The Knifepoint was waiting. Hungry. Always hungry.
The driver cleared his throat. “You signing or what?”
Tom hesitated.

Whatever was left of the crew would be wondering where plan B was. The whole night's success or failure hinged on his next words.
Or, he could say no words and just turn and walk off. What was the guy gonna do? Stop him? Call corporate on him?
Tom wanted to laugh.
Then he thought of chef Jon facing hungry Vildegaards alone, with no one to run food. He thought of Robbie— no, fuck the new kid.
He could crash and burn.
Tom owed him nothing. That kid shouldn't be here.
But with Juan gone, chef and the line were the only friends he had.
He was about to turn around. He could feel the start of the twist in his shoes.

Then, like a man slipping back into well worn work shoes, he stepped forward, took the pen, and scribbled a name that looked enough like his to count.
Twenty years.....Whats one night more?