The Fever

Andy arrived late to the office again that day. He swore that he was under the weather these past few weeks, but no medical checkup slip to prove his case. And it had been the third time in the last two weeks - qualifying him for an appointment with the manager, Mister Zainal. That was just perfect, everyone in the office thought. Mister Zainal was walking in a tight rope when the company’s director found out that he had squandered a hefty amount of money for his personal vacations and LV bags, only God knows for whom - we all suspected the director’s wife was having an affair with him. With all that pent up pressure on him, we all knew what he would do to Andy.

We fixed our eyes and ears on Andy as he dragged his feet across the rows of cubicles and knocked the manager’s door in the end of it. The only word we heard from inside the room: ‘Get in.’

Silence loomed over the entire office as we anticipated for the impending drama to come. We had seen our fair share of both characters. Hard-headed and never shy to scream at the top of their lungs when in disagreement. We expected their clash to be of epic proportions, a tense and often entertaining to talk about after the fact when hanging out in the pantry, it is as juicy as a gossip topic amongst the aunties in the janitor room.

A few moments passed without any utterance from the manager’s room, but we felt the rising tension and increasing heat in the air. Rufus, the overweight accountant with his out-of-the-world yellow ties was sweating profusely in his cubicle. He sat directly beneath the air-conditioning vent. Benjamin, my cubicle neighbour has started twisting and pulling the tie from his neck. Despite the heat, none of us dared to keep our eyes off the manager’s room.

‘They have started.’ A whisper passed across the room. It started with unintelligible mumbles between both men. Then silence, then we heard the table knocked and the voices from within starting to rise, and rise, and rise until it finally came to banging tables and yelling and screaming. It lasted for five minutes, then silence fell. About a minute later, Andy came out with a deathly pale, expressionless and cold. Along with it, the room temperature has dropped again to 16 degrees Celsius, the normal office room temperature.

He dragged his feet across the room and sat at his cubicle, turning on his computer and started working without saying a word. I walked towards him and asked: ‘Yo Andy, how was it?’ He stared at me blankly and said: ‘It was an okay meeting. The manager, he wish not to be disturb though.’ He then turned back to his computer and resumed his work. I could not help but realised that he was sweating profusely and his skin increasingly pale than few minutes ago. I tried to ask him about it but was largely ignored.

During recess, I heard murmur of more people getting mysteriously sick with cold and deathly pale across their face. They refused to socialise and have their lunch at the canteen or any other restaurant and preferred to stay in their cubicles. Mister Zainal has not been coming out of his room since the fight earlier.

Andik, my closest friend from the other department came to see me at my lunch table. ‘You know, our manager had a fight with one of the interns who was absent without notice for three days yesterday. She fired the intern on the spot and has not gone out from the office since then. Her door was locked when we tried to check on her. When we finally enter her room, thanks to auntie Jenny, her personal belongings were there but she was not around. We tried to call her, but she never answered.’

‘Have you called the police?’ I asked.

‘We did, but we have not received any news from them. Her family also went missing, probably ran out of country in a rush, her husband was notorious for his gambling problems. We thought they might be chased by the money lenders and decided that it might be best to disappear from this country.’

I looked at my watch, it has been three hours since Mister Zainal was last seen entering his room. The manager that we knew never had such gambling or money issues. But I may have taken too much thought about it. The day went by without any drama. At quarter past six in the evening, I completed the task of the day. Being the last person to log out of the office, i was responsible to turn off the lights and lock the door. As I was turning off the lights, I heard the manager’s doorknob twisted and the door creaking as the door swung open.

Mister Zainal emerged from the room with the same sweaty forehead and pale expression - like a corpse unwillingly brought back to the realm of the living. Being alone with him was always a terrifying experience, especially in the lift where you have nowhere to hide or run - he would ask loads of questions on your project and there were times, when he yelled at an employee for saying his name wrongly. But this time, the fear scale has taken another notch upward, the room temperature turned colder - it sent shivers to my whole body, I could feel every single strand of hair in my body stood intensely at his sight. My lips were getting dry but when I licked to moisten it, it tasted coppery like blood. My intuition and whole body screamed for me to run and yet I froze in fear.

He looked at me in a perplexed expression and smiled as spoke: ‘Why are you not back yet?’

I saw two elongated canines protruding downward like vampire bats when he smiled. I smiled back: ‘Just finishing up some…some works Mister Zainal. I am about to leave…’

‘Alright then, have a safe journey back.’ He said while waving his hand and smiled.

I walked backward against the office door, not daring to turn my back against him, swung open the door and dashed out into my sedan at the parking lot and sped as fast as I could, running over two red lights along the way and locked myself in the bedroom.

The smile, the sharp canine and the sudden drop in room temperature. What on earth is going on? My body was shaken to its core and I was still trembling even after thirty minutes sitting in the dark room. It must have been my wild imagination. I have been watching horror movies since last week. I felt ashamed looking at my state, running with tails between my legs because of some scary movies influenced my mind.

On the next day, i logged into the office as usual. Turned on my computer and prepared to perform my task. The manager’s door was shut tight like yesterday. Andy was absent from work, again. Surprisingly, Rufus was also not in the office. I bet he was getting a sick leave, it was an eyesore to watch him perspire all over his shirt yesterday. During lunch time at the canteen, it was less crowded as the days before, Andik sat with me and told me a number of people had taken sick leave in his department. He suspected that something must be happening in this company. People were getting sick left and right, it reminded me of the global pandemic that we had few years ago. How a simple flu left thousands dead and halt world economies in its track. However, something felt different this time, I can’t help but think of my encounter with Mister Zainal last evening. How terrified I was speaking to him. I had taken into account that my fear was solely a childish presumption yet it persisted throughout my conversation with Andik. ‘It does felt off.’ He said while chewing his fried rice.

This morning, when I woke up, my pyjamas were soaked in sweat. My bedroom felt cold, yet I could not stop perspiring. I contemplated getting a sick leave today but for some reason, I need to get answers to my condition not from the doctor, but in the office. I have to get Mister Zainal. What has he done to me?

I drove to the office, it was quieter this time. More people were getting sick leave as me. I guessed. I walked into the manager’s room. All quiet and dark, there was a lingering smell of rotten flesh and coppery aftertaste in my mouth. He must be here. I was convinced of that. So, I looked around, swung open the cupboard and cabinet. He was still nowhere to be seen. Then, I dialled his phone number. It rang from under his desk. I turned to under his desk, there he was. His eyes were tightly shut despite the loud ringtone playing in the air. The smell of rotten flesh emanated from him. I shook him, trying to wake him up yet he ignored me. The thing that horrified me the most was that his chest was not moving at all, i tried to check for his breathing, zero. He was practically dead at this point.

I rushed back to my cubicle and called for an ambulance. Fifteen minutes later, the ambulance came. Accompanied by fully armed police officers. They took him away and called me to the police station to make a statement.

I saw an armoured personnel carrier (APC) parked in front of our office building and several other armed police officers emerging from the APC and stood guard at the entrance as I drove to the police station. There, they put me in an empty room separated by a transparent glass, there was a table in the middle of the room, I sat at one side of the table while an officer sat across me on the other side of the table, with the glass dividing us.

I asked, ‘So, officer. May I know what is going on here? I thought I am here to make a statement on how I found Mister Zainal.’

He kept silent, ignoring me totally while jotting down few details on a piece of paper and asked ‘How did you know Mister Zainal was under the table?’

‘It smells like rotting flesh down there, so I looked there and found him.’

The officer wrote my statement and continued to prod me:’Have you been feeling sick these past few days? Feverish or cold?’

I paused for a moment. This might make or break my chance to come out of this place unscathed. It does not take a rocket scientist to know what would happen if a person was suspected to carry a highly contagious and probably dangerous virus in their system. They would either be quarantined and observed (no freedom) or subjected to torturous testing in a lab somewhere in the capital (no freedom). ‘I am cool as a cucumber, officer.’ I said, flashing a smile in the process. The officer wrote his paper and walked out of the room without uttering a word.

A few minutes later, a different officer who called himself Omar went into the room and passed me a glass of plain water and two pieces of cream cracker on a plate. Police hospitality he said. I took a small sip of the water and immediately felt my throat burning and hands shivering. He was observing me and taking notes of my behaviour, urging me to drink and eat the biscuits. I knew what he was trying to do by then.

I munched on the biscuits and swallowed the water whole. Pain reverberated through and through from my throat to the core of my being. He wrote a little longer this time, then left the room without saying a word.

I was left alone in the room for about thirty minutes. It was getting dark. The lights were turned off and there was no sound from outside. Then, I heard the hissing sound. Odourless smoke came in from all directions. I knew what was going on then, fear overwhelmed me and I started to bang on the door and walls. Pleading to be released until I could no longer feel my own body. I was there, lying on the floor. Fluids with copper tang flowed from every orifice in my body. I could no longer scream for the smoke had stung my throat so hard that it swole, even pushing the air through my lungs was close to impossible. I laid there, biding for my time to come. I felt numb. Perhaps…

Perhaps, dying wasn’t that scary at all.