Chapter 1 Calm before the storm
It was so comfortable to be bathed in brilliant sunshine in winter, especially in this cold heavy industry city frequently hit by smog.
Elvis White leaned on the chair, letting the sun spread all over his body. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the rare sunshine. He felt too warm to remember that he was in a small cubical in a building of both commercial and residential use. Just behind him was the cold wall.
"Hey, hey! What are you doing here? Have you finished the performance for this month? Stop enjoying the sunshine there! Make phone calls. Get going!" Said a man in a black suit.
The company Elvis was working for was none too big. With no more than ten workers here, it had two department managers and two sale directors. The man who shouted at Elvis just now was one of the sale directors, and Elvis was one of his two subordinates.
Elvis held back his displeasure and turned his head to smile at the so-called “director" apologetically. He then moved the chair forward to go back to the small cubicle. He did not belong here, yet he was unable to escape. He kept doing telemarketing, which he thought to be repetitive, monotonous and meaningless.
“Hello, Lynn. This is Elvis speaking. How are you doing? I’m calling to talk about the training we discussed before. Can it be finalized? As we have talked, the development of your company has hit the limit, and professional guidance from our company can be provided to help solve it.” Elvis talked down the phone in an unusually kind voice but kept a numbingly straight face. “Please be rest assured, I will give you a 15% kickback and pay you in cash!” Elvis added in a low voice before hanging up.
“What's the smell? Why is there smog again? It is yellow smog this time! I am just about to go out and sign a contract. Just my luck!” Linda complained. Her long, beautiful hair fluttered across the desk as she swept her head to the side in frustration.
“Linda, "You lucky son-of-a-b***h, you've got a signed order! Why not give it to me if you are unwilling to go out! I will help you out with the poisonous air outside.” Said Elvis, getting up to close the window beside him.
"You wish! To get this order, I have had meals with the clients twice, went to the bar three times, and even let them take advantage of me! How easy you think it is for me to win an order?”
Putting on her down jacket and breathing mask, she turned to leave, slamming the door behind her.
Looking at Linda’s departing figure, Elvis sighed and complained to Mike who sat in the cubical opposite, “Nowadays good looks matter so much. If I were her, I’d let them do whatever they wanted to me, as long as they placed their orders.”
You may just laugh such kind of statement off. However, it was known to all that that’s the crude reality.
People in the company were still busy working, without knowing that death was approaching. Human beings were about to become lambs to be slaughtered
“Mr. Green, This is… Hello? Hello? Mr. Green, are you there? What’s wrong?” Said Elvis, but there was no sound, then suddenly a scream. As closely as he listened, Elvis was unable to figure out what people on the other side of the phone were talking about.
Elvis held the phone nervously and kept calling Mr. Green. But there was no reply, just the ongoing clatter of background noise.
Then, just as Elvis hesitated whether to hang up the phone or not, he heard something strange. He heard a chewing sound mixed the gnawing of bone.
What to do next? Elvis was at a loss, unable to make heads or tails of what he'd just heard. The constant no answer and dreadful sound on the phone made his blood run cold.
As he thought about calling the police, he heard a man scream from the manager's office. Then came the sound of his shouting and heavy objects hitting the ground.
Elvis kicked the swivel chair out and stood up. The sale director beside him also stood up. they glanced to each other and then back to the manager’s office. They heard that it was their manager, Alexander William, who was making strange noises.
The loud crashing sound inside the office lasted for more than ten seconds before it stopped. However, their manager kept shouting as if his life was diminishing with the yelling until the last second.
“Should we check it out?” Asked Elvis
The director was just about to answer when a man tackled him down from behind. The man was his co-worker. His face and hands were weirdly greyish black, and his pupils had become slack and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot.
Then, he opened his mouth wide and lunged at the back of the director’s neck, pulling out vessels like rubber bands, snapping back bloodily.
His teeth penetrated the director’s skin and muscle fibers.
“Help!” The director on the ground struggled and yelled. Since he was attacked from behind, his weasand arteries hadn’t hurt by the bite. He would not die that quick.
He wanted to get up to get rid of the devil on his back. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not break free from the claws of the devil, leaving his flesh and blood to be swallowed bit by bit.