A New Adult
Written By: Stephen Kramer Avitabile
This harsh world was not designed for the weak, but the weak needed to decide if they were going to stay as they were designed. To change the design of one’s own core, well, that was the work of the strong, wasn’t it? I had plenty of time to think all of this over as I stayed hidden behind the desk, knees to my chest, silencing my own breath for fear of my location being found.
The depressing hue of the fluorescent light synonymous with corporate offices intensified above me as the surrounding motion lights turned off. The rest of the room was dark, other than the spotlight shining directly onto my small body. It must’ve been 10 minutes since I’d found my hiding spot. The last light above me would likely turn off in a few seconds as long as I just…
Scrape!
There went my foot sliding across the floor like that of a runner sliding for homebase. I realized that I had accidentally sat on a large piece of shrink-wrap, and the slippery devil sent my leg shooting out without a moment’s notice. I looked up. The light above me was still strong and bright. I’d have to wait another 10 minutes. I waited, sweat streaming down my forehead in a sudden attack of anxiety. The hairs above my forehead curled and tickled my skin. I had put my hair into pigtails as I did every day, but I hadn’t pulled them tightly enough. I refused to fix them; I refused to move. I was going to wait out this damn motion-sensor light so I could be submerged in darkness. Could I be so lucky, though? Could 10 minutes really pass before Abel stomped through all the halls of the office and stumbled upon my hiding spot? Could the motion lights above do me the favor of concealing my whereabouts before my pursuer neared?
This office building wasn’t that big. Abel owned many, but this was the smallest of them all. He’d had them all designed in the same confusing U shape, perhaps to emulate the two gel-soaked spikes he fashioned in his hair every day. I went for pigtails; he went for bull horns. This small office building, it was his china shop. I preferred not to be the china in this metaphor.
I had fled when Abel entered the bullpen that I worked out of in the northwest region of our U-shaped office. I had made it to the other side of the office, at the base of the U, but it wouldn’t take that snorting behemoth too long to search every room on his way to my position. He wasn’t fast because his days at the gym were filled with workouts to increase the size of his arms and shoulders and back and, among many other six-letter words, he couldn’t even spell cardio. But even Abel would be able to search the tiny premises quickly. Slow was slow, but small was small.
I heard something. I held my breath. Was it Abel?
No. Someone left a baseball game on in the breakroom. Sox were up. Dad would’ve been proud. Every swing was a strikeout or a homerun nowadays, though. Dad was probably rolling in his grave. The background noise of the game was a welcome cover for any noises I might accidentally make, but was I safe?
If I stayed here in this room in the southwest corner of the office, I ran the risk of Abel entering before my spotlight turned off. There was one door in and out of this room. I already felt like prey; if I were cornered… literally… I’d fulfill that destiny completely.
If I were to flee again, find a new hiding spot, I’d have to decide to do that soon. The longer I waited, the larger, more welcoming invitation I’d be handing to this predator. A predator to me, he was. An apex predator, he was not, though he fancied himself one. This world wasn’t designed for the weak, and it really wasn’t designed for anyone except for a select few with phenomenal power. This was a percentage of the population so small that it barely registered as a number; it was just a sliver of a shadow under the sun. But their power, their persuasion, their currency… that didn’t live in the shadows. That lived in the light. That was the light. They owned the light.
They owned everything.
To them, we were all prey… anyone could be devoured. But was anyone worth it to their large appetites? If they wanted me, they could’ve taken me out long ago. They had placed their surveillance eye in my home. I didn’t know how long it had sat on my mantle, positioned between two of my very first mystery novels, bright white cornea, coal black pupil, cobalt blue iris and all. The pupil was the deepest black I’d seen other than that of the massive headquarters of Colton Inc. The entire building was as black as oil, other than the cobalt blue Colton Inc. at the top. Colton had its hand in everything, including surveillance.
That solitary eyeball on my mantle, it should’ve stood out. I hadn’t looked at it or moved it when I noticed it. I had ignored it. For months. Only recently had I palmed it and pocketed it. I had grown tired of them watching my every move inside my home, waiting for someone to come and take me out.
They weren’t going to do it. I wasn’t a meal to Colton; I wasn’t even a snack. I was a dash of seasoning, a mere herb. I guess they just liked keeping tabs on everyone.
But Abel absolutely had an appetite for me. He had already taken out several other girls in the company. He started with the youngest and then worked his way up. Ever since the Adult Law was passed and former children became adults under law, me and all my fourth-grade classmates were put to work. Fourth graders born in May were the youngest of them all, and my class only had three. Abel had devoured them and their green paper completely until they were nothing but three shriveled sacks of bones and clothing. He’d move on to the next youngest after them. Lucky me, born on April 30th, I was who he was staring at while licking his lips, snorting through his nostrils, and stretching the mouth of his wallet.
The familiar, heathenistic snorts emanated past the open doorway followed by the scraping of a lumbering body against a wall. Abel was too close.
I leapt up from my hiding spot and dashed into the hall. It was a straight shot ahead of me and two halls branched off to the left and right. The snorting breaths grew closer and became more rapid, searching for scents in the air. A mirror hung on the wall opposite me. My bronze hair was frizzing around my forehead and at the base of my pigtails, and I could hardly see my face. This mirror wasn’t hung for a 10-year-old to check her reflection. It was hung for the adults. Excuse me, it was hung for the OA’s, Original Adults.
Yes, what a term. Both Dad and Mom were rolling in their graves at that one.
Although the mirror wasn’t for me, I’d use it for myself. I’d use it to my advantage. I craned my neck to the left, scanning the hall to the right in the reflection of the mirror. Nothing. I craned to the right, checking the hall to the left.
A shadow at the base of the wall stretched upwards. It was a head with two spiked pieces of hair on either side. It was Abel. I dashed to the right, searching frantically for any safe haven I might find. I was excellent at hiding, at playing it safe, so I had no worry about that. I’d been doing that all my life.
But as I searched the hall for rooms to hide out in, I wondered if even the best hiding place was good enough. Abel would comb through every hair of this office, intent on rooting out any lice he could find. I’d produced for him for a while now, but his greed was hungrier for more than that which I could produce. He wanted to go straight for the source.
That became all too clear as I passed by a solitary desk of one of the May Girls. Her corpse sat in the office chair, skin withered, bones nearly protruding through. Red splotches stained the corners of her mouth, eyes, and along her jugular leading down to the festering wound. Green paper embedded under her fingernails in a last-ditch effort to hold onto what was hers.
What was now Abel’s.
A thump and an animalistic snort far behind me jolted me back into the moment.
I could keep silent and give myself some time. I saw multiple rooms surrounding me with multiple hiding spots. One hiding spot between the heavy refrigerator and tall cabinets extended my timer another three minutes roughly. I’d seen Abel slide furniture several feet with one arm before, his biceps wouldn’t have much trouble moving a refrigerator. A different hiding spot in a locked filing cabinet probably gave me five minutes. Abel didn’t care about locks. They were merely invitations to rip doorknobs out of their resting places; how do you think the second May Girl was found?
The best hiding spot of all was in the farthest room in the farthest corner behind the copier and printer where other girls and I had stashed bottles of water and snacks. Many a breakdown in the office saw a girl hide back there, eat comfort food, and shield themselves from the new terrors of adulthood until their anxiety had been clouded by calories and they were ready to get back to the spreadsheets. That hiding spot could grant me eight minutes. Was another eight minutes worth it if it led to the same inevitable demise?
Another thump. Closer.
I could allow myself the same delayed outcome as the May Girls, or I could do something drastic. It might shorten my timer to nothing but zeroes. In that possible outcome, I wouldn’t prolong my life; it would meet an instant end. But with a drastic choice, there was always hope for the prey.
The spiky horns of Abel grew on the wall behind me, a two-pronged death sentence stretching for the ceiling. In his mind, he was a bull. He fancied himself a predator. What an imbecile. A bull wasn’t even a predator. He thought he was on top of everyone.
I located a nearby mirror on the wall and smashed it into thousands of shards of glass. The floor was littered with the destruction and wet crimson puddles dripping from my fist. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the contents of it entirely. A wad of green paper, and one cobalt blue eyeball. I tossed them into the pile of blood and glass.
The next snort was the loudest. It was the cockiest. It was full of contempt.
I dashed to the end of the hall, smashed my bloodied hand into the back wall, and spun around to see Abel lumber around the corner. His spiky horns of hair stretched up towards the fluorescent lights. His eyes darted around, analyzing the glass, blood, currency… and his serpent-like tongue darted out and licked his lips entirely. I swore I heard his belly growl.
Abel stepped carefully around the broken glass and marched towards me slowly. He was savoring the moment, eyes focusing on my throat. I knew he’d start there. I just forgot to look into if that would put me out of misery right away… or if it did quite the opposite.
I took a deep breath… and exhaled. I blinked hard once, hoping to shut away this reality. I couldn’t. It was there. It was happening.
Abel blinked lightly, probably trying to decipher if he had really just become so lucky as to have been handed this meal of platelets and paper on a silver platter.
One more blink… from one eye. Not mine. Not Abel’s.
The cobalt blue eye… taking in the sight of Abel just in front of it.
I shielded myself. Abel frowned in confusion, but before he could figure out what was going on, he was done.
I swore, the massive black jaws came around the corner before the rest of the enormous, oil-colored body. The sharp teeth the size of traffic cones sunk into Abel’s body and put him in a vice grip. He was plucked from the spot he stood and sucked down a gaping maw, hurtling down into the pit of a stomach that could never be satiated, but devoured beings and money and properties in a transactional way.
The being gulped hard. Its skin was the color of midnight through and through, not another color to be found anywhere on it, besides those cobalt blue eyes. A true apex predator… wanting nothing to do with the likes of small prey like me, that was, unless its meal needed some seasoning. It looked at me in a way that one would look at single pine needle that had fallen to the sidewalk, realizing in a fraction of a second that this miniscule object wasn’t worth any time. It retreated in a hurry and was gone before I could blink.
This harsh world was not designed for the weak, but sometimes it paid to be small.
Stephen Kramer Avitabile is a New-England-born, Los-Angeles-based writer. He writes short stories, novellas, novels, screenplays, and even dabbled in stand-up. He’s had his work appear in publications like Adelaide Literary Magazine, Boudin Literary Magazine, Sci Phi Journal, Cosmic Crime Stories, Helix Literary Magazine, and Spadina Literary Review, among others. His script “A Tale of Two Tales“ won Best Feature Script at the New York Tri-State International Film Festival. When not writing, he spends his time with his partner Evelyn, exploring Southern California, taking care of their tortoise Joey, and feeding the animals outside their home.
Website: https://www.stephenavitabilewriting.com/