This Isn't What I Signed Up For

Sulphur.

Smoke.

Suffocating.

WAKE UP!

I opened my eyes only to realize that I was face down in the dirt. I managed to get myself up and into a standing position, but I could barely catch a breath. I blew my nose on the hem of my blouse, and the smell of rotten eggs filled my nostrils. I had a flashback to the time I had a bout of dysentery when I lived out West. That same sulphur odor was everywhere, hovering in the air. My eyes watered as another fit of coughing overtook me. I was utterly confused.

My husband’s voice cut through my thoughts, “Well, I guess that’s that.”

I turned my head to the right to see Michael standing next to me. He was covered in red brick dust but otherwise appeared unscathed. I looked down quickly at myself. I, too, was covered in brick dust, but I couldn’t see any obvious injuries.

He grabbed my arm to turn me toward him. “Are you okay?”

Before I could respond, a line of flashing lights appeared driving down over the hill. I grabbed my husband’s hand, and we started to navigate through the rubble toward what remained of the parking lot on the other side of campus. It was slow going as there were bricks, concrete, and debris everywhere. Small fires were burning so we had to watch every step. It was hard to see through the smoke and dust, but I thought I could make out the shapes of other people on either side, also heading toward the emergency vehicles that had by now entered the edge of the parking lot.

A fireman reached us as we stepped gingerly over the half-charred library entrance sign, the edges of the metal sign holder bent and half melted. The fireman strapped an oxygen mask over my face first and then did the same for my husband. Another fireman reached us by that point, and we were led to the back of an ambulance. A large white tent was being put up as we sat down on some metal chairs. As the EMTs checked our vitals, a few of our colleagues made their way into the makeshift emergency village. They all appeared to only have minor injuries if they were injured at all.

Once the EMTs had decided I was okay, I stood up and walked to the edge of the still intact parking lot to get a better view of campus. Not one of the six buildings was standing anymore. In the spots where the buildings once stood were now just piles of brick and cement. The upheaved earth contained broken pipes that either were exuding flammable gases or spewing water. The dust was beginning to settle, and I could see that the flashing lights of police cars and ambulances were encircling the campus, mostly on the edges of the parking areas that once had vehicles and were now a mess of upturned asphalt and twisted hunks of metal that were once cars and trucks.

We were herded a short distance away from the campus to a wooded area where there were more ambulances, but even more police cars. There was also a plain white tractor trailer set up. This turned out to be a mobile response unit that contained not only additional medical staff and equipment, but also toilets. It turned out that all forty-five of the survivors were together in this space for more than just Band-aids and bathroom breaks. We were all here for interviews. I recognized the others, of course, but so far, the only survivors appeared to be the clerical, maintenance, cleaners, and IT staff. There wasn’t a supervisor or administrator in sight.

A short man in a trench coat stepped into view and extended his hand which contained a bottle of Poland Spring water. “Hello, I am Detective Pollick with the James Police Department. Can you tell me what the hell happened here?”

I took the water and gave the detective a small smile. “I’m Autumn and this is my husband, Michael. We work here. Or maybe we worked here? I don’t know.” I was starting to feel dazed and anxious, like I had taken too much CBD.

Michael took over, “We were eating lunch in our car over there” he waved toward the parking lot across campus, “when there was a very loud, strange growling noise so we got out and headed back toward the building just in case and then this.” He opened his arms wide as if he were about to hug the detective.

“A growling noise? What do you mean? Like a dog would growl or like a dragon?” The detective had his pencil poised over a blank sheet of paper in his notebook, looking quizzically at my husband.

“More like a dragon,” I interjected. “Not one of the small, silver-tongued dragons though. It was deep sounding like a Hellscape dragon.”

Detective Pollick nodded and wrote something down in his notebook. “We haven’t seen one of those around in at least a decade, ma’am. That would sure be something around these parts. Did you happen to see it?”

“Honestly. I don’t think it was a Hellscape dragon, detective. It just sounded like one before all the buildings collapsed.”

The detective looked back and forth between my husband and I and said “Well, what do you think it was?”

We both shook our heads but didn’t have an answer for him. Just as the silence started to become a little bit uncomfortable, a few other plains clothed officers walked over. The whole group, including Detective Pollick, moved away from us a bit and began to talk. They kept glancing around and eventually broke up and went their separate ways.

“Hello everyone! Please step forward to where I am. I am Detective Balder.” A tall officer was standing on a chair a few yards away. He was beckoning to the group of survivors to come closer. We all headed closer toward him, encircling the chair on which he was perched. “I want to thank you all for your patience as we have been interviewing you all when I am sure all you want to do is go home and take a nice, hot shower.” Detective Balder gave us all a sympathetic smile. “It seems that most of you are reporting that there was a deep growling noise like a dragon that happened just before the incident.” He cleared his throat, “Our team has explored the site extensively and there are no signs of a bomb or any other explosives. There is no sign of anything, really.” The detective shuffled around on the chair a bit, clearly uncomfortable, but he continued nonetheless, “Based on all of our detective work we feel that we have no choice but to call in the Agency for Spiritual Investigation.” The crowd gasped and muttered in disbelief. “We have found some evidence of otherworldly causes of this disaster.”

“Was it a dragon then?” One of the long-time cleaners yelled over the mumbling of the crowd.

“We wish it were that simple. No, beyond the growling sound, there is zero evidence that it was a dragon.” Detective Balder stepped down off the chair but held the microphone up to his mouth still. “Everyone calm down! We WILL get to the bottom of this. We have our suspicions based on our interviews, but we will let the Academy do their work before we make any final determinations. For the time being, please go home and try to remain calm. Someone will be in touch.”

Brad, one of the maintenance guys, yelled “How can we go home? Our vehicles are destroyed!” There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd.

Detective Pollick grabbed the microphone from Detective Ballard. “We have busses on the way to take you home. Please line up by that ambulance over there and we will get everyone loaded up and on their way home as soon as we can.”

Forty-five minutes later Michael and I boarded the last yellow school bus. As we sat on the bus waiting to leave, I took another long hard look at what used to be the college campus. By now the fires had been contained and at least twenty hazmat suited people were sifting through the rubble. I had to assume that these were agents from the Agency for Spiritual Investigation. Besides the hazmat suits, they all had tails, a clear sign that they were agents as the Academy only employed those with magical abilities. Every now and then one would pick up a piece of paper and place it in an evidence bag after closer inspection. “Michael,” I said, “what do you think they are doing?” Michael squinted his eyes a bit and said “It looks like they are picking up paperwork from those red folders. You know what those are, don’t you?” I shook my head no. Michael smirked and said, “Those are those special, water and fireproof Human Resources personnel files.”

I turned back toward the window as the driver started up the bus and began to drive away. The last glimpse I saw was two of the hazmat suited men lifting a green and gold Steelcase filing cabinet overflowing with red folders out of the pond in the middle of campus.

Weeks passed as we did our best to file paperwork with the unemployment office, field telephone calls from curious friends and family and conduct interview after interview with Special Agent Daphne from the Agency. She had been assigned to our case and spoke to us at least once a day since the incident. Special Agent Daphne was at least seven feet tall and had a griffin tail with a tuft of blonde fur at the end. Despite her formidable presence, she was quite easy to talk to. After the first few days of going over the day of the incident, Special Agent Daphne changed her line of questioning to what had happened before the day of the incident. In fact, she asked us questions about everything that had happened all the way back to our first days on the job.

“So, you said yesterday that you were both Union officers at the college?” Special Agent Daphne was sitting across from us at our kitchen table, a tall glass of Coke in front of her, her tail twitching slightly. We had given her our ottoman to use as a chair so she didn’t loom quite as far above the table.

“Yes, I was the Grievance Chair and Michael was the President. We did that for about seven years.” I was wondering what this had to do with the college being reduced to rubble, but it was always a little bit therapeutic to talk about all the crazy stuff that had gone on behind the scenes at college. “We met with Human Resources a lot over those years. I must have filed at least forty grievances. One time I had submitted a grievance that was over one hundred pages!”

Special Agent Daphne took a long drink of her Coke and set it back down before leaning slightly forward. “So, you would say that the College violated the Union contract a lot?”

“Definitely,” I said, “The worst part was that even though we did our best to hold the college accountable, they always found a way out of it. It was a tough time for us.”

“You eventually got out of the Union, correct? Did you just get tired of fighting?” Special Agent Daphne seemed genuinely interested in our Union years, even taking notes.

“Well, yes. Both Michael and I were starting to experience health issues from all the stress. There was a few months where both of us turned a shade of blue! The college was retaliating against us, too. We finally just decided to let someone else take the helm so we could feel slightly normal again. It wasn’t easy to step down.” I remembered telling the members that day many years ago. I had felt like a failure, but my health needed to be a priority.

Special Agent Daphne put her pen down on top of her notebook and looked out the window beyond Blake and me. After a few minutes of quiet she turned her gaze back to us and said, “The other special agents have been told many comparable stories from the other survivors about the college violating the contract and even stories about bad supervisors. It seems to be a common thread.” She let out a deep sigh. “Did you know that there were absolutely no survivors from management? Not one supervisor or administrator.”

Michael lowered his head a little as if the news were sad, but then again Michael had always been a forgiving person. “Yes, we knew.” he replied quietly, “It is very sad.” I kept quiet as I didn’t really have anything nice to say and my dad used to always tell me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say then I shouldn’t say anything at all.

Special Agent Daphne gathered her things and stood up from the table. She promised us she would be drafting up her final report on the matter along with the other agents assigned to the incident and would be reaching out soon.

Several weeks passed before we were called in along with the rest of the survivors for the final report on what had happened that day. We all gathered in city hall’s main conference room when Special Agent Daphne took walked up behind the podium.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for coming today. The Agency greatly appreciates your cooperation during the past months. I know that all of you have anxiously been awaiting the final report so that you can move on with your lives and collect on the settlement offer that the State has offered.” There was a murmur of agreement throughout the room. “The Agency of Spiritual Investigation has, after extensive investigation and interviews, concluded that the college was buried under the weight of its’ own evil deeds. We discovered that there was indeed a Portal to Hell directly under the campus and all the bad deeds opened that portal.” There was a collective gasp throughout the crowd. “There is not need to be afraid any longer as the beast that did manage to crawl out of the portal and infiltrate the management here have been dealt with.”

Eight months after the incident at the college, the City of James began the cleanup process and held a public memorial on the site where the college once stood. Michael, I, Special Agent Daphne, Detective Pollick, and Detective Balder stood off to one side. I was impressed as the mayor didn’t sugar coat the events but instead spoke of the lessons to be learned from not properly managing toxic work environments. “There is no place in our great city for toxicity. This college campus was one of the most beautiful places around. My office had no idea that the pristine appearance of the campus was hiding such a horrible workplace for those that survived. We truly hope that our great city will never see another case like this where surface beauty was hiding a nightmare.” The mayor looked out across the room with tears in his eyes. “To all of those that worked at the college and survived this nightmare, please know that we see you and sincerely hope that you know the city thanks you for your dedication to the college.”

Detective Balder leaned toward us and whispered “Well, what’s that old saying? ‘Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company’ or something like that.” He looked wistfully off into the distance, a slight smile on his lips.

Detective Pollick looked at him and said “That’s a Mark Twain quote and I am pretty sure when he said to go to Hell for the company he meant that Hell would have more interesting people to be around than Heaven and not to actually go to Hell for the company you work for.” Detective Pollick looked at me and rolled his eyes a bit.

“Oh, yeah that makes sense!” Detective Balder exclaimed and smiled a big toothy grin.

After the mayor ended his speech and the crowd was breaking up, Detective Pollick asked us “Well, what are you going to do next? I don’t think this place will be opening again anytime soon.”

I looked at my husband and without any hesitation we both blurted out at the same time, “We’ll look for a small business to work for.” We chuckled.

I looked at Detective Pollick and said, “Seriously though, we will never work in academia ever again because,” I opened my arms wide, “this isn’t what I signed up for.”