Be a Good Girl

Amy arrived back at the office at 7pm. She was feeling frustrated. She had only just got home and said hello to Jasper, when the text from Jonathan arrived.

Hey Amy. I’m so sorry about everything. You were right - it was stupid of me to try to move you out the team. Could you pop back to the office, please? I’d like a chance to explain myself.

Amy was a bit uneasy. As a woman, a man asking you to meet him alone was always a red flag. But she didn’t think Jonathan was a bad guy. Just kind of stupid.

It was perhaps naive of her, but Amy felt that in the last few years of working as one of the only women in an office filled with men, she had worked out how to separate the harmless from the harmful. Guys like Wojtek, who might initially seem a bit creepy, but are actually only obsessed with anime girls. She didn’t judge guys like that - she liked them, in fact.

But there were other types of guys. Like those she still saw at the pub sometimes. Who seemed nice at first, but really that niceness was just a facade, carefully constructed to get a girl’s guard down. Then he'd buy her a drink, maybe two, just one more, and then, when she seemed too drunk to resist, try to stick his hand up her top.

Thank God she’d found someone like Jasper.

Anyway, she had assessed Jonathan, rightly or wrongly, to be one of the harmless guys. Still a man, with all the negative traits that came from having a penis between one’s legs. But someone who genuinely cared about making a great game and doing right by his team.

Mostly, she just wanted to make up with Jonathan. She wanted to stay on the Project Mole team. And so if that required her to take the bus back to the office right after getting home, so she could listen to Jonathan’s apology and apologise herself, then so be it. Otherwise, she'd likely be sent back to QA, spending all day shooting barely distinguishable guns at barely distinguishable patches of wall to check that bullet penetration was being applied correctly. All the while trying to ignore the overpowering smell of man sweat that permeated the air of the QA Pit.

Amy scanned her pass and entered the building. She paused at the phone lockers. A voice in the back of her head told her to keep her phone in her pocket, just in case. But no. It wasn’t worth the risk. One of her old colleagues in QA had been found with their phone inside the testing area - they’d been in a rush that morning and had forgotten to lock it up before coming in. They were fired instantly.

She went upstairs to the Project Mole area. As soon as the door shut behind her, the lights went out.

“Jonathan?”

Suddenly, a loud whirring sound from outside - the sound of scraping metal. Shit. Angus must have thought everyone had gone home and locked up the building. The illumination from the street lamps outside diminished as the shutters descended over the windows. Where before it had been dark, it was now becoming almost pitch black.

Amy tried pulling on the door behind her, but it wouldn’t budge. Maybe the internal security doors all stopped working after the building was locked down. Amy didn’t know.

“Hello! Angus! Someone’s still here!” She pounded her small fists against the glass door, but there was no response.

She turned back towards the office. Maybe she could power on her PC and send a message to someone from there, to tell them she’d been locked inside. She would look like an idiot, but that was better than spending the night in the building.

Arms outstretched, Amy blindly made her way towards her desk. Where was Jonathan? Her mind went to a dark place. Was this his doing? Was it some sort of revenge for her talking back to him, for criticising him? His fragile ego, as the creator of some semi-famous indie game from nearly a decade ago, couldn’t handle this girl from QA pointing out his biases.

She didn’t want to think so, but she couldn’t deny the possibility entirely.

Eventually she reached her workstation. She leant down and powered on her PC, then sat back in her chair with a sigh of relief, listening to the machine whirr to life. The monitor switched on, temporarily blinding her as the only source of light in the otherwise pitch black room. She squeezed her eyes shut, and as she did so, heard a rustling behind her.

Amy spun around in her chair.

The knife, which had been aimed at the back of her neck, instead slid past her cheek, drawing a small sliver of blood.

The attacker’s momentum carried them forward, causing them to fall heavily against Amy. Amy’s chair toppled from the weight. She found herself sprawled on the floor.

Dazed, she struggled to work out what was happening. She felt more confusion than fear.

She watched the figure put their hands on Amy’s desk to pull themselves up. Their features were momentarily illuminated by Amy’s login screen. They were taller than Amy, but still short. They wore dark, tight-fitting trousers and a dark, long-sleeved top with exposed shoulders. Long red hair fell in curls around their face. But the face itself…

The screen flickered off into power-saving mode.

Amy knew she had to move. She scrambled backwards, still on the floor, trying to put some distance between herself and her attacker. Her head collided with something hard, and she let out a yelp of pain. She then flinched as various things fell on top of her. Her first thought was that the attacker had thrown something at her, when she realised what she’d smacked into was Wojtek’s desk; his lighters and cigarette packs had been knocked off.

She heard a grunt from above, and instinctively rolled to the left. She then heard a dull thud as the knife plunged into the carpet where she had just been lying.

She needed to get out. But how? The security door had been deactivated. The windows were all shuttered. She couldn’t see anything.

Was she going to die?

Amy pushed her hands against the ground, giving herself leverage to get onto all fours, when she felt something in her palm. Her fingers closed around it. She had an idea.

Keeping low and quiet, she scurried away from Wojtek’s desk. The attacker was panting heavily. That was good. She knew where to avoid.

On her hands and knees, Amy crawled in what she hoped was the direction of her desk. Her hand brushed against something metal. Round. Her waste paper bin.

“Come on, Amy.” A voice was calling to her. “Be a good girl, now. It’s what Jonny would want!”

The voice was close, and coming closer. She couldn’t afford to go slowly anymore. Getting to her feet, bin in her left hand, she sprinted towards Jonathan’s desk. If she misjudged it, she knew she could easily fall over some obstacle in the darkness, tumbling onto the floor, defenceless. Dead.

But in the short time she’d been here, she’d walked from her desk to Jonathan’s many times. She could do this.

The footsteps behind her also quickened their pace. After a few moments, Amy reached out her right hand. If she was right, this was where Jonathan’s desk was… If not…

It was. Her hand made contact with solid wood. She quickly ducked to the side, moving underneath the desk. As she had hoped, the attacker kept going forward, passing her hiding spot.

“Amyyyyyyyyyy! Don’t make this difficult!”

She didn’t have much time. She flicked the lighter in her right hand, producing a steady flame. She held it inside the waste paper bin. Instantly, the fire caught - the discarded doodles, half-scribbled notes. She hoped it would be enough.

She left the burning bin where it was and crawled out from under the desk. Before she could stand, a kick caught her on the chin with a sharp crack. Amy screamed.

“What are you doing to Jonny’s desk, you stupid little bitch?”

Amy couldn’t afford to feel pain right now. She crawled away from her attacker, towards the wall. The fire was growing, and even from under the desk, it was casting shadowy light over the office. There was nowhere to hide now.

They stood before her. Smiling widely. The knife reflecting the dancing flames.

“I’m sorry, Amy. I didn’t want to do this. But Jonny doesn’t know any better. He told me that you’re a great girl. What a dummy! When he already has the greatest girl of all. So that’s why Ruby has to kill you.”

Suddenly there was a loud clunk behind Amy. A cold gust of wind blew into the room.

Just as she’d hoped, the fire door had triggered.

She turned and ran.