Purge, Inc.
Into the Vortex
By: Everleigh Allen
Chapter 2
.
"Oh no!" Angela shrieked. She was a small waif of a woman with short white hair that worked out of the darkest part of the office. Everyone stilled, peeking over their computers as she swatted at a large swampy figure coming out of a spirit board before it sauntered away, leaving footprints of mud and muck.
"Tulpa," Bella sighed as the thing moved past her desk. Angela followed with a file folder to bat at the creature into some sense of direction but it wasn't working. It was only effective in sending slimy mud and debris all over the walls and floor.
It was an improvement.
"Where are you going to send it?" Bella asked curiously.
It was Angela's job to man the spirit boards usually, but sometimes things that people created beyond the veil came into their department instead of being let out into the world. Bella didn't know exactly how it worked or who decided where they would go, but she also couldn't care enough to be bothered by it either.
"Um," Angela stilled and looked wide eyed back to Bella which made her smile.
"You don't know, do you?"
"I can't think of anywhere to send it!" Angela fretted, swatting at the monster. Suddenly it stilled, turned toward her, and roared right in her face, chunks and all.
Angela winced. Luckily, she closed her mouth.
"I think it likes you."
With a muddy glare, Angela wiped the sludge off her cheek.
"My name is m-m-m-mud," Jake sang with an air-guitar gesture and following the scratchy music on the speakers above. My name is Mud… Not to be confused with Bill or Jack or Pete or Dennis…My name is mud and it's always been,"
The muddy swamp monster watched Jake's performance curiously until a snake slithered out of the wilted seaweed flesh and he launched it at Jake's head.
Jake caught the snake before it disappeared in his hand, then plopped back onto his chair, bored. "Cause I'm the most boring sons-a-bitch you've ever seen."
Bella snickered. "Send it downstairs to level negative three to Jessica."
If there was such a thing as friends in her building, Jessica Stanley was it. She worked in accounting which was one of many departments that kept tabs on the people who were creating such creatures- not that she enjoyed any visits from them. She would be less than pleased to have a swamp creature on or around her desk ruining all her work with its slimy mud. It was all the more reason to send it to her and payback for her setting Bella up with a Slim Jim, which happened to be nothing more than a large piece of jerky that someone manifested in a birthday wish that was misdirected and thus placed in Purge, Inc.
Some wishes are best not answered.
Sometimes, Slim Jim would still linger onto their floor and they'd hack off chunks of it to eat, but it always gave them heartburn afterward.
Bella thought it was from the Slim Jim's broken heart if he had one…Or maybe it was from being hacked up.
Slim Jim and the swamp monsters were perfect examples of what people could create if they were not careful.
Depending on what was created, it could be a Tulpa or perhaps a Glimmer- or worse- but it was all about the energetic dynamic of the people when it was created and by whom.
People didn't realize their power in their dreams, actions, and wants.
They didn't realize their manifestations did often come true but they just didn't manifest where or how they wanted it, or in ways they wanted. It was up to various departments in Purge Inc. to not let most of those crazy things into the human plane and past the veil, especially if it didn't have a place to effectively hide- like the Loch Ness or Bermuda Triangle- which were other common vortexes which had their own team and division and complications and glimmers and sirens-
The swamper shuffled by and Bella could've sworn she saw another snake slithering within the muck, leaves, and bugs. At least she hoped it was a snake.
Ew.
"Jessica is going to love you," Bella gleamed. The swamper gave a bit of a grunt and a swipe of his arm in her direction probably in a high five if she had been so inclined. Instead she avoided the onslaught of sludge and shielded it with a manila folder makeshift shield.
"Karma Department heard that," Irina's sing-song voice flowed with her as she breezed through the room. She always smelled of old roses, probably from a recent visit of Persephone's black rose gardens which borders the deadly plant garden she created in the sizzle. Bella had never been invited there, but she heard stories about it from many. "You really need to learn to watch your words, Bella." She pointed to the swamp thing flippantly as if it proved her point.
"I was watching my words, Irina." Bella muttered to the whimsical woman in an old cotton dress from the turn of the century. There wasn't much information on Irina, or any visible sign of how she died, though they often thought it could have been some kind of poison because she could turn from sweet to acidic in an instant. She often breezed in and out wreaking havoc like a poltergeist in her wake.
"M'hm," Irina snickered. "I hear Jessica is helping out in Hexes."
Bella sneered. "You don't say?" She smiled but she could just see a file being made as they spoke and she wouldn't put it past Irina to create one with Jessica's name on it. Hopefully, the implications wouldn't be too severe with having sent the swamper and his undying love to her friend.
"She's rather good at it, too. So good that I probably would have had her hanged for such things if we were alive." She sighed wistfully. For some reason, Irina still loathed the idea of witches which was ironic since she was one of the worst.
"I didn't think she had such time to Hex anyone with the time you both spend in the Glimmer department. I hear there's a few Jensen Ackle's that have gone missing. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Irina? Perhaps I should ask Jessica?"
Irina hissed before she sauntered off waving her hand as if Bella had been dismissed.
Bella snickered.
"So?" Jake grunted in exasperation, his patience was thin as the buttons turned from green to yellow and some to red. "Want to trade or not?"
Bella didn't really have any other choice. She couldn't handle another Lauren Mallory at this moment and although she usually stuck with vampiric energy sucking people since there was at least a give and take, she couldn't help but be curious on what demons Edward Cullen had under his leather jacket.
"Sure."
Bella and Jake stretched the spans of their cubicles and traded.
She took the file and looked at the face before her.
At first glance she thought he was handsome. He was bald though it wasn't apparent to whether he was balding or shaved his head, not that it mattered to her.
She looked at his eyes.
They were dark, so there were pain issues there, but they were also kind. She looked deeper into the picture- drawing it closer and turning it a bit and could see that he wasn't the abusive type nor was there any apparent alcohol or drug look to him.
He just looked lost.
"Don't lick him." Jake snickered.
Bella dropped the file with a glare at Jake who just snickered. "You should get to work minding your business." She huffed but she put the file folder off to the side and sat scowling at her computer screen.
Her job wasn't her favorite job of jobs in this rotation, but she was glad not to be Jessica or Angela at the moment. She could still hear the random streaks from the souls who swamper fumbled by.
"Scissors!" Jake suddenly yelled out loud at another woman on the screen in front of him, which everyone studiously ignored. He pushed the scissors button three more times before his human recalled that that was- in fact- what she was looking for and actually made it through the doorway vortex remembering to get them.
"It's always scissors, it seems," Bella sighed in exasperation. Even the scissors symbol had worn off from use.
"Or tape," Jake added with just as much enthusiasm, "sometimes paper." That response deserved a nod and a shrug.
"Or a pen," Ben muttered from his cubical alerting every one of his presence. He was always dressed like he was on vacation somewhere tropical though Bella suspected it was a mental thing to help him with his current job. He was currently facing a small rectangle door which emitted copious amounts of steaming heat. Every once in a while he'd open the door quickly and reach in and pull out a scorching hot sock and throw it onto the large mountain of socks behind him, laughing maniacally.
Bella secretly wondered if he was trying to use Sock Mountain to climb to the second level, but it could also be a fort.
Knowing Ben, it was most likely a fort.
Whatever it was, she stayed away from it. Bella once witnessed the socks topple over on Ben causing a vastly entertaining battle but it had also been enchanted into a monster so it could have also been that.
That was a fun day.
She wasn't taking her chances.
Her time suck was stealing some of the random socks that didn't make the pile and creating sock character dolls which she placed sporadically around the office floor and elsewhere. There were sock characters everywhere in every imaginable way. Angel socks, ankle socks, superhero socks. She liked to take the socks and knot them into heads, arms and legs. Some had clothes pins for arms or feet and she'd often click them onto some unsuspecting souls which often helped the monotony of their situation.
It was also a talent since socks don't usually cooperate.
Bella looked at Ben as he hunched over the dryer door vortex with a menacing smile and wild eyes. He especially loved manning the dryers in the early mornings when he could hear the many various yells from people on the other side frantically searching for the socks they knew were in the dryer at the time- which suddenly disappeared almost right before their eyes.
Ben enjoyed making people late and irritated. He'd give a guttural chuckle before stealthily reaching in for another before anyone on the other side would notice.
That's why he would never reach the next floor, Bella mused. She wasn't likely either, but that was neither here or there.
"What if she suddenly fell on her scissors? Do you think I'd get in trouble for it because she is seriously annoying?" Jake asked quietly but sinisterly while pushing the button.
Bella snickered but said nothing. She was watching her words, after all.
"Maybe I could give her a little paper cut, but the kinds with the flesh eating bacteria on the paper… they make that here, right?"
"Just push the damn button like a good little worker bee, Emo."
"Don't call me that."
Bella rolled her eyes and gave a side glance at Edward. She was itching to get into his file. He was really quite growing on her. It was as if he was watching her from his little three inch photo that was paper clipped to his file. She wondered if he would lurch right out of the picture if he hadn't had the paperclip holding him back.
"Oh, damn it all to Hell," Her screen lit up which instantly diverted her attention.
Jake snickered as he looked over to Bella's desk. "What?" His attention went completely off his screens yet he was still pushing buttons randomly. It caused his humans to grow more confused and frustrated, but he didn't care. They annoyed him, too. "Did your human die prematurely without your cursed touch?"
"Why would they give me an almost dead one?" She scoffed, rolling her eyes at such an absurdity. The question was rhetorical and they both knew it since they didn't usually get the ones that go quickly into the light. They got the lingerers... The ones that haven't been that good or that bad, but they still needed to decide their place before it was decided for them.
Edward was savable, she thought, even if she had yet to read his file. She would've liked someone on her side of things here and now that thought the same for her.
Instead, she probably had Ben who was concentrating of his Fantasy football team and building a sock mountain fort. Or perhaps Eric, who was an angry troll or Jake, who was a wayward hair band rocker without a band, or the glossy feathered hair, sense of music, style, or sense of self.
"But you like the almost dead ones," Jake supplied without little thought.
Bella never really thought about that until that very moment. "Do I?" She didn't remember having a preference, she just did her job.
Jake nodded as if it was obvious. "You like to hit it and quit it- sending them on their way."
"Huh, I never really thought about it." Bella remembered Tanya's file and wondered if she was the almost dead type or if she was actually drawn to Edward because he was and that's why she wanted to trade.
But it didn't matter for either of them, really. Their fate was already sealed the moment their files landed on the desk.
Bella eyed Edward's picture for a slight second before pushing a button on her screen.
"Fate sealed." She whispered but couldn't help but feel the slight tinge of guilt she felt pushing the button.
"See ruthless!"
"What?"
"Was that your new guy, Mr. Car Part name?"
"No, I haven't even opened his file yet!"
Jake snickered as he looked around Bella to the man on the screen. They both watched as the man fumbled out his door and over the ground before a large tree limb crashed over him and lay across his chest. The man squirmed a few more times before blood dripped from his nose and mouth.
"Oh, man!" Jake moved from his desk and into her cubicle to get a closer look at the man on the screen. There was a huge car moving through the screen and quickly landed just outside of the house. "See? Brutal. You don't mess around."
"Correction. I didn't let him linger."
"You killed him with a tornado!"
"A tree branch, actually." Bella frowned, rolling her chair away from him but he just took it as an invitation to move closer. "Had he made it to the car that would have complicated the task, alright?"
One would think that would be obvious.
"Semantics. You always get the best vortices."
"Whirl winded vortices are not the best ones, Emo, so don't start on the tornados and hurricanes either." She rolled her eyes for dramatic effect, but she secretly kind-of loved watching it all go down and how it'd play out once she pushed her button.
That wasn't always up to her.
"But still," he pointed to the guy on his screen as if it proved his point. "All I do is make people remember the stuff they forget when walking through their door vortexes. Barely ever do I get to off them- if ever. You took that guy out! Ruthless!"
Bella frowned, getting agitated since this is not something she ever really thought much about. She went in and did her job but when the thoughts came up, she often wondered how her, whirl-wind-and-all-there-of-station made it into the department with mini- vortices full of souls that didn't usually harm anyone, let alone make people meet their end violently-with-nature. She quickly snubbed the thoughts before they became too much of a burden to care about.
Even though he complained about not getting the fated death button on his station, Jake did get a few people that tripped or ran into the door jamb. He rarely ever got to use his station to end their life, unless they were drunk or running with the scissors and then ran into the door, stabbing themselves. Usually, if he had one that was on the line, he took his files and found others that could do the job more effectively, like Bella.
Not many knew, but Bella suspected that Jake usually tried to outsource and save them all.
Which is why he took Lauren Mallory and not Edward Cullen.
"I don't know what you're talking about being ruthless." Bella hissed, avoiding Jake's eyes. "He was clearly already almost dead."
"How so?"
"He made the decision to run from his house to hide outside during the tornado, which he knew about! When you hide from a tornado under a tree like that, there's clearly no saving someone if he's going to be that dense and run straight into it."
"Clearly," Jake scoffed. "Except that he was relatively safe inside the house until you pushed a button- then he ran out."
"Semantics."
A tube came in from over her desk and she grumbled. It opened and splayed a bunch of papers over her desk that would keep her busy for the next several hours.
"Wait. You started the tornado without permission, didn't you?" Jake whispered conspiratorially, his dark eyes sparking with malice.
"Not really," She lied.
"Oh, but you did." He chuckled darkly pointing to the stack of papers that just arrived on her desk. "They have your number."
"I know. It's 2 o'clock." She smirked.
.
A/N: I know it teases about death and the like, but stay with me on this since.. 40k of this story is pre-written so it'll give you something to do while you wait for The Journals. Hee hee
Thanks for reading and you kind reviews and see you next week if not sooner!