From History of Ruth Anthology of Short Stories by K.J. Kovacs

The city docks were deserted at night just like old industrial areas in movies where gangsters take the snitch to get rid of them. In the middle of the docks, in one of the warehouses, a well kept secret was ongoing since as long as anyone was aware. It wasn’t talked about. People who did became silent in the way that they were never heard from again from one day to the next. Nor was it open for the public or even employees to walk through that area. In the center of this urban desert, Warehouse 6 was guarded day and night by armed men. Any business around it carried on as if the whole building were invisible. Inside its walls was a bulletproof glass square container with a lone man inside of it, typing away at a computer setup with long, gaunt, spindle-fingers that would make a Guillermo Del Toro fever dream jealous. Endless searching, mumbling and assessment. He was locked inside of his task. Clicks of firing tendons through the miniscule padding of fingers create fascinating fasciculations that turn to words. 

Some would wonder at the fatigue that must be there, just behind his taut and constant drone. But, again, nobody could ask questions. As far as anyone was concerned who had the opportunity to witness this man in the glass–viewing his rhythm and work ethic–he was a ghost, and so was his task. Those that stood watch over him would shape their own ideas. And keep them to themselves. Like that fly working circles around the head of the man in glass, any theories of his purpose was just buzz about the banners, listless and detached, unnoticed due to task-at-hand. Should not be concerned, it’s one life that one simply cannot understand vicariously. Funnels into a whole. Same for thousands of years and to be the same thereafter. Shrug. Until Rent took watch. 

“Does this dude always just sit here and ramble on to himself in riddles?” Rent couldn’t take the silence anymore.

“Pretty much.” Pete lights another cigarette. 

“I’ve been sitting here for two months now. Haven’t heard or seen anything yet.”

“Yup.” Pulls a deep drag from cigarette. Pete: Man of many words. 

“What do they got us here for? You know?”

This time just a steady look and another drag, slow blink then he turns to stare out that dirty little window.

“OK, gotcha, man. Not supposed to talk about it.” Rent sits back down in the corner of the garage. The grey-painted concrete was sticky from the cool and humid night. Could be worse. Then he stands again.

“Pete. Ya’ know, I got a girl waiting for me back down on 5th Street.”

“That right.” Flat, unmoved. Rent doesn’t think Pete can even see anything through the window. 

“One day, Pete, you’re just gonna become one with that wall. Y’all have the same personality.”

Another flat stare for answers. Rent chuckles a little at the lack of response, then he sits and starts to busy his hands with a rolled cigarette. He can count on Pete to be the lookout while Rent dicks around and does whatever suits him, nothing happening anyways. 

Rent leans his head back and looks into the box harshly illuminated in the middle of the warehouse. That freak in there is just typing and mumbling away, he thinks. So weird. When he got into this gig in the first place, his cousin Larry said it was easy money. 

“All you have to do is sit there while this guy in the middle of the room types and talks to himself. You can’t talk to him or try to get his attention. And, you can’t talk about the job. It is strictly a need-to-know basis and I stuck my neck out for you to get inside because I know your in trouble with Kenny’s book boys, Rent. They needed a new guy and this will get you some fast cash. Don’t fuck it up and don’t gamble it all away again.”

Rent had laughed, but stopped when Larry looked at him, dead serious. He nodded and said. “Okay, I hear ya, Larry.”

Larry kept the stern demeanor and said, “You just need to sit there on one spot with your gun and if anybody tries to interrupt the guy, or finds the place, then you blast ‘em. That’s the only job.” Larry made the motion with his thumb and index finger of firing an invisible gun at Rent. 

Sounds easy enough, he thought. Especially for one grand per night of just sitting around. “Don’t worry,” Larry had said, “Never happens. Nothing happens. I’ve done this for years and all I do is sit around a few hours near my gun, bullshit with the other guy facing the other direction, then go home. Cash gets put on my windshield before I leave.  Never even seen the guy who puts it there. Easy money. No questions and no bosses that I’m aware of so far.” 

So far, Larry was right. This is the easiest money Rent has ever made. He pulls his long sleeve back from his wristwatch as smoke hisses from his nose. Eleven thirty-seven. Got a long way to go before dawn. He’s been at this for about 2 months now and it’s always the same. Nothing happens. He opens a can of beer and leans back against the wall considering the stroke of luck that Larry gave him by getting him in on this job. Kenny’s boys are off of his back since he paid back what he owed, with interest, of course. Since he is here most nights, he can’t go boozing and gambling. He got his place back from that conniving bitch, Samantha. Finally put down his divorce papers from her. Found a new girl who is as horny as a rabbit all the time. Sure, she’s a little fat, but Rent wouldn’t complain about things like that if she keeps his balls away from becoming cantaloupes from dry spells. He chuckled to himself and took another drag. 

He looks out into the night at the empty docks and back at the man in glass. Listens to the far-off sound of water lapping on the bulkheads as he wonders what the man in glass is doing. What is so important or intense that this guy is here every night typing away like the world was ending? Is the man trying to get some vital information down, or to steer something with these words at the rate he’s going? Rent can’t even see his face clearly from this distance. There are marks on the ground where the lookouts are supposed to stand, since another rule is don’t approach the glass or go past those marks. Pete and Rent can hear the man uttering to himself at times, random words or phrases, but no clear pattern about the topics. 

The air starts to chill and Rent is shaking his legs, blowing his balmy, beer-tinged breath into his hands to keep warm. He looks at his watch again. One-seventeen. Jesus, this night is lasting forever, he thinks. It isn’t even that cold out yet. He wondered what this job will be like in the dead of winter. He’ll have to get a new coat. And practice firing his pistol with gloves. Just in case. 

Rent continues fidgeting, distracted by the thought of oncoming winter and preparations he will need to make. He gets up to stretch his legs when his whole right side fell asleep and felt like tingling fire. Weariness, shivering, and–okay, yeah–a few beers made him slightly uncoordinated. As he went to unfurl and stomp on his burning leg to bring it back to life, he kicks a beer can clear across the warehouse into the middle of the room. Pete’s head snaps around from the noise, his gun drawn and pointed toward the sudden movements. Rent puts his hands up and he and Pete watch, in agonizing slow-motion of terrible mistakes, as the beer can careens across the floor with metallic clinks echoing through the warehouse as it bounces along toward the man in glass. 

Rent puts his hands out as if to grasp the projectile object, knowing it is too late. He absently takes several steps toward it, unsure of what else to do. He vaguely hears Pete screaming in the background, something about crossing lines. He immediately feels the weight of shame. Yes, all my life, he thinks. I am always crossing the wrong lines. Suddenly, all of his senses converge with a sharpness never before felt in his life. Not figurative lines, idiot. He looks down at where he is standing, well within the marked borders of what is acceptable. Shit. There were only like three rules and he couldn’t even follow them. As he starts to panic, his hands cover his face except his eyes, which bulged with the unfolding events. Realizing he is helpless, Rent looks back at Pete, who stares in horror at the box in the middle of the room. 

The man in the glass had looked up with a creaking neck when the beer can hit the glass. At once, he glares at Rent and the ground begins to shake. His neck is cocked slightly to the side and his slender fingers hover over his keyboard in mid stroke. A shiver runs down Rent’s back as he realizes the man looks dead, grey, unnaturally frozen in his position of inaction. Not even blinking. Rent struggles to grab onto the door frame as the quake intensifies, nails scraping the plywood and bending backwards on themselves trying to gain purchase. In his peripheral vision, the lanky dead man stands up from his workstation. His stiff posture lends tortured clicks of his joints as he rises. Rent is overcome with nausea from the sound.

The glass shatters all around them. The man is taking one measured step after another toward Rent as debris shakes loose from the ceiling and falls in crumbles around them. Pete is nowhere to be seen. The man’s computer station had been suddenly sucked into the ground. A red glow and intense heat is wafting off of the sinkhole and the whole warehouse floor began to list like a funhouse leaning down toward the opening. The hole in the ceiling above the workstation had a similar diameter and beams down pure white sunlight. Where the heat and the light meet forms a mist quickly filling the space around it. 

Rent lies on the cold concrete grasping the corner of the entryway to prevent sliding down into the sinkhole, eyes fixed on the man approaching him in shock. The man leans down and curls a hand of cold, long fingers around Rent’s neck and lifts him against the wall. The tremors around them subside as Rent gasps for air, looking down into the expressionless grey face of the man that was supposed to stay in the glass. 

The man opens his mouth to speak. Rent smells rot through his staccato breathing and begins to choke on his own bile forcing its way through the pressure of the man’s hand on his throat. The world dims as Rent feels the blood vessels in his eyes popping from the pressure.  

“I am Enoch.” His voice is a dry rasp with a gurgling underneath of long dried mucus. “You call me from my work. Let us be judged for ascension.” The man’s face tilts upward, catching the faint glow from the light shining down on them. The man sniffs deeply and his hand constricts further as the mist from the center of the room filters out visibility. Rent is aware of the far-off sensation of flying, air pushing past him. He realizes the pressure has been released from his neck and he makes a desperate attempt to refill his lungs, now soaked in vomit. He had been pried from his hold on the doorway and was thrown toward the sinkhole with unnatural effort, hitting the ground near it with a thud that knocked the rest of the wind out of him. As he wills his chest to expand one more time, his fingers claw against the concrete sloping down toward the maw of Hell before him. They are scraped clean down to the bone as he slides into the pit. His last awareness is drowning in his regurgitation and intense heat. Bloody tracks of his fingers with bits of pulp are the only evidence left that Rent had stood watch over the man in glass.