Toys

            What would be on level nine, she thought as she wheeled the toys to the elevator. Aliza waited for the elevator the sky behind her darkened as if storm clouds rolled over the summer sun. Aliza turned to look, and sure enough the sky had turned black.

            She walked to the window, just one of the many gawkers wondering what would make the sky so dark. The air in the building seemed to be running fine, and they could make out people at the new Marriot hotel across the way. They too were staring out the bright windows looking at the sky.

            “Look!” Someone shouted pointing down.

            All their eyes went to the man running for his life on the street three stories down. He frantically looked over his shoulder, his foot hit the edge of the sidewalk and he went down. He managed to turn around looking at the sky. Head shaking, he scooted back some then stopped. He placed his hands over his ears and it looked like he was screaming. They saw nothing, nothing at all. And in a blink of an eye the man’s head exploded. Popped like a balloon. His torso fell to the gore splattered sidewalk leaking out dark fluid.

            The very quiet people all around Aliza started screaming, yelling or talking at the same time. The noise level reached throbbing when someone else screamed pointing down. At that moment groves of terrified people ran past their building. Some screaming as others fell lifeless to the grounds missing heads.

            “What is going on?” Preston asked her.

            “I have to get to level nine,” she said shaking her head at the terrified mail-room clerk. “I think we should all stay inside. So far nothing is happening in the buildings.” She watched him nod, his eyes big blue saucers, as she turned back to the elevator.

            Someone was peeking at the cart that she had parked there. “Excuse me, those are not for you,” she said to the person.

            “Why do you have a cart filled with toys?”

            “That is none of your business either.”

            “I am one of the heads of this level,” The horse-faced brunet said.

            Aliza looked the lady over. Her dress clearly not meant for someone with such man shoulders and no hips. It strained at the top but bellowed down almost looking like a sack. Her shoes were something else. It looked like she wore Dalmatian puppies, that didn’t match the off blue-green of the dress.

            “Well excuse me but I have direct orders to deliver these to the ninth level. I believe there is something more important you should be worrying about as she motioned over her shoulder to the window.

            “No one goes to level nine,” she said smugly.

            “Really we are coming to this,” she sighed grabbing her folder and pulling out the note she was given down in the basement. She really hated coming to the other levels. Everyone seemed so hot headed and power hungry. But rarely you moved up levels.

            “No it can’t be. You are nothing. NOTHING!”

            “No ma’am, nothing, just doing my job,” Aliza said grabbing the note, and entered the elevator as the door opened.

            She looked down at the note. “Why me?” she asked. She didn’t see the nicely dressed man behind her.

            “If I knew I’d tell you,” he said with a cocky smile.

            She jumped. “Sorry,” she said looking at the man in his nice business suit.

            He looked her over. “Black slacks and polo, let me guess, mail clerk?” She nodded. “You are far away from the mail-room.”

            “I was given a task,” she said taking in his rich caramel eyes and hazelnut hair. His suit of browns and tans made his eyes stand out.

            “Curious. Either you have been extremely bad, or extremely good,” he said pondering her with a small smile.

            “Excuse me?”

            “Those are the only two reasons to be moving up levels.” She looked and they were now on level five. The elevator opened at each level for ten minutes and waits for someone to walk in or out. It closes and moves slowly to the next floor. Not many people get very close to the elevator unless they have direct orders to go somewhere.

            “I work and mind my own business.”

            “You smell of copper,” he said behind her his nose flared invading her space. “Blood and secrets.” His eyes closed as he sniffed her again as she watched in the mirrored wall. He moved forward and hit the elevator stop button.

            His back blocked the control panel as he looked at her. “How long have you been here?”

            “A long time,” she said quietly. Her heart started to speed up.

            “And why would they want you on level nine?”

            “How do you know where I am heading?” she asked her voice small and scared.

            “It says so on the envelope,” he said as he started to remove his tie.

            “I am just doing as I am told,” she said backing up.

            The man shrugged his jacket off as each hand gripped an end of the tie. Her back hit the warm glass of the elevator. He his eyes had glazed over to insane, as he slowly walked to her.

            “I have worked hard to move up to the next level. And you, a peasant pee-on, is skipping every damn level!”  He quickly went to use the tie to strangle her. But as he got close she kneed him in the crotch. He shrunk to his knees grabbing the cart of toys knocking it over.

            They clattered to the ground making her wince. He looked at her even more crazy eyed as before as he got back to his feet.

            “You bitch. You basement level stealing BITCH! I was going to kill you as easily as I could. But now,” he said reaching into his pocket, “Now it’s going to be messy I’ll show them on level nine.” He hit the small trigger and a blade popped out of the thing he pulled from his pocket. “I am going to carve you up real slow.”

            Her eyes took in the glint of the knife and for a second she remembered something she hadn’t in years. It seemed to be happening a lot lately. Memories of her past. She pulled the memory closer. She smelled skin; hot flesh, warm sand, suntan lotion and then the tang of blood. It made her nipples hard and twisted things in her belly making her feel warm all over. All these years, she had been buried away from herself.

            She looked on the ground at the toys that littered the floor. Her toys. How sharp shells were when you made them into toys. She picked up one not even interested in the oncoming crazy man. The wooden handle felt smooth and familiar. And she, the real Aliza, broke free. The abalone blade shined under the elevator lights.

            Crazy brown suit guy came for her ignoring the toy in her hand. She planted her feet, the fear she felt now gone. She no longer gave off the timid mail-room clerk she had been for so many years. Brown suit man stopped, feeling the change in her.

            “Do you think that will stop me?” he asked.

            “I know why you can’t move up levels. No guts little boy. Is that what mommy told you? Did she like to make you wet yourself and laugh? I bet she did. I bet she made you do things in front of people. She made you so mad, so when you got older you hurt mommy. You hurt her and made her do things. Naughty things. And when you were done you found other girls who reminded you of mommy. How many girls did you hurt? Probably not as many as me.”

            “You don’t know me,” he said voice wavering.

            “I’m done with you I have a job to finish,” she said and stalked over to him. Her knife bit into the flesh of his neck easy like slicing into butter. She grabbed him, turning him so he could see himself in the mirror wall of the elevator. She sliced off one ear as he tried to protest, his neck bleeding out his life juices. His hands tried to keep the bleeding down as he fell to his knees. She cut his other ear off to make him even.

            “I was called the Shell Carver. I used my pretty toys to carve people’s faces. The part I enjoyed the most was watching their soul leave their body, seeing them fully die.”

            Her free hand grabbed his hazelnut hair and she forced him to look at himself. “Watch yourself die,” she said. “You can see the light drain from your own eyes. They called it the soul. But see,” she got down to whisper into what had been his ear “you have already died and came here. What happens when you die again?”

            The last few seconds of his life you could see the question in his scared eyes. She could feel when he finally died, his dead flesh became heavy, she let go of his hair. His face plopped down into a puddle of his own blood, which was already disappearing. She grabbed the body and pushed it against the side of the elevator. She turned her back. A wet smacking sound filled the elevator, and then it burped.

            “You’re welcome,” she said as she busied herself to pick up all the nice toys from the ground, placing them back on the cart. She then hit the continue button on the elevator. She stood there waiting for the elevator to hit level nine, and there seemed nothing left of brown suit man.

            Finally the door opened and she pushed the cart out and walked out. She had delivered mail to level one, two and three, but never any higher. She walked down the hall passing numbered doors until she reached the main door at the end. The name on the door made her pause; she took in a deep breath and pushed it open. A secretary dressed in Goth black looked up from the magazine she read.

            “Go on in, he’s been waiting for you.”

            Lucifer came over from his large window. “Aliza, I have been trying to find some way to make you remember who you were. The elevator, your toys and the person seemed my last resort. At least it worked. I was kind of getting worried.

            You see I need an agent just like you to be part of my team. I have been recruiting now for some time, which is rather hard with Hell being over populated. So many souls, so much to take in.”

            “So the heads exploding is population control?”

            “Need new souls to work in the shitholes to make new room for the extra souls coming in. I have scheduled a meeting with the man above in a month. For some reason I think he’s given up or someone isn’t doing his job properly. I sure know I am doing my job.”

            “So does this mean I am not going back to the basement?”

            Lucifer laughed. “No, Aliza, you became level nine as soon as you regained yourself in the elevator. Like I said I need you and people like you. You have these gifts, and when the final battle is decided on you will play a very big roll.”

            “Final battle?”

            He sat down in his big black leather chair. “Oh you know which one I’m talking about. And it sure seems closer to reality then just talk. That would explain the over population. Oh maybe I should be looking on match.com to start spawning mini-antichrists.” He looked to the computer on his desk.

            “Sir,” Aliza said, “Um, what would you like me to do with the toys?”

            He looked back at her with his dark eyes. “Those are yours, why not go and get settled into your new office. It would be number three in the hall you walked through, and don’t forget to talk to your neighbors. Great bunch you guys, you all should have lots of stories to share.”

            And like that she was dismissed. Before she closed the door, she heard him talk to himself, “Really online dating I have to shrink to their level?”