Demonic Possession in the HR Department
Arianne Jaco

Monday
Alice didn't necessarily grumble when she came into work early Monday morning--it was more of a guttural slur of vowels that no longer resembled human language. Fortunately, it was only audible to herself and the security guard as she passed by. It was the abbreviated incantation, a whispered prayer, she had spoken to herself everyday upon arrival at her current job. Over time, it had devolved into something else entirely, and she wasn't sure if she was evoking the Holy Spirit anymore. 

When she walked through the breakroom, she stopped and filled her traveling mug with coffee. The taste was horrid, but since it was scorching hot and thus burned off her taste buds, it didn't much matter.  

She waved her badge over the magnetic reader to open the door to the human resources department. For obvious reasons, they were kept under tight security. They weren't supposed to leave any paperwork on their desks overnight or their computer screens unlocked if they left their cubicles. She admitted to herself that she had been lax about those policies. Sometimes she forgot to power down her computer at the end of the day. But what could happen? The dangers were overstated. 

When she arrived at her cubicle, something seemed off. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. She examined her desk, moving from one side to the next, and then determined that the janitor had moved her trash bin from under her desk to the back cubicle wall. That must be it. She returned it to its rightful place. She sat down and moved her mouse around to wake up her computer. The screen flashed a dark red color. 

"Well, that's strange."

And then before she could say anything else, the screen went back to the familiar desktop of icons, which were, she noticed, all slightly askew. 

"Hey, Sandra," she said to her coworker sitting in the cubicle in front of her. "Were they doing updates over the weekend?"

Sandra shrugged. "I ignore the memos they send out about that kind of crap now." 
Alice looked over her cubicle again. "Hm. I think I forgot to log off my computer on Friday." 


Tuesday
Alice came back from lunch. Her paperclips, a handful of which were scattered over her desk, were arranged into a geometric pattern atop her yellow legal pad, something she surely hadn't done. 

She turned it around, trying to figure out what it was. 

"What is this?" she asked.
Sandra peered over her cubicle wall. "Oh. A pentagram. Can I have some of those? I'm out of paperclips."

"Sure." 

Sandra scooped up two of the star's arms for her own use.


Wednesday
Alice was drafting an email that would go out to the entire department. She was responsible for Happy Hour and she usually spent the better part of an hour composing the message that was clever but didn't appear like she was trying too hard to be clever; something that said, Don't worry--You're only going to be evaluated on the Fun Metric! She then had to find and insert fun-looking pieces of clip art to add to the visual appeal. The font also needed tweaking. Nothing too outrageous like Comic Sans, but nothing plain like Arial. She settled on one that resembled cursive hand-writing. She checked for typos, combed through the distribution list to make sure no one would receive the email who shouldn't, admired it for a moment, and then clicked Send. 
After a moment of basking in her hard work, she grabbed her coffee mug and went to the breakroom. The coffee had a stale, flat reek. She thought that someone should rinse out the canister once in a while. She poured herself a cup and took it back to her desk. 
She checked her inbox. There were a few responses already. Most people had declined, but there were a few accepts, and someone had sent her an email: Haha! Fun metric! You're a riot! :)
She smiled. Lifting up her coffee cup, she blew to cool the steaming mug and then took a sip. It tasted a little saltier than usual. In fact, she had never tasted coffee like this before. She glanced down. It was a dark red color.

"Hey, Sandra. Have you tried the coffee today?"

"No, I don't drink that crap anymore. Why?"

"Something is off about it; it's sort of disgusting." 

"How is that different than any other day?" 

"Well, I think it's blood this time."

"That's why I switched to tea. The coffee here always gave me a stomach ache. And caffeine causes cancer." 

"Does it really?"

"That's what I heard." 

Alice shook her head. "They really need to rinse out those canisters once in a while." She took another sip. "I'm going to try the hazelnut creamer." 


Thursday
When Sandra arrived, she noticed that Alice was already there. Once she had put her purse in her desk drawer, she turned around to Alice. 

"You're here early. Are you behind in your I-9s or something?"

Alice said nothing. 

"Be careful about those. There was a government audit a year ago, and they came down hard on late I-9s."

A few hours later, Sandra turned back around. She said to Alice, "Rough day, huh? I know how you feel. And we still got until five," she sighed and returned to her computer monitor, but she felt a tingle on her spine. She gave the base of her neck a good rub but the sensation didn't go away. She swiveled around in her chair. 

Alice hadn't moved. In fact, she hadn't moved all morning. 

"Are you okay?"

No response. 

"You sound like you got that bug that's been going around. Walter just had it. I'm sure he gave it to you. He never covers his face when he sneezes. And I know he drops those PCN forms off at your desk, instead of posting them in the H: drive like he should. Someone should talk to him about it." 

Without changing her expression, Alice said, "Death and hell fire will rain down upon you." 
"I know, I shouldn't go around telling other people how to do their job...but we have these processes for a reason, you know." 

"I will consume the flesh of your first born." 

"Well, you should eat something. You look pale. You wanna go to the cafeteria and get a muffin or something?" 

Alice's head began to slowly turn. It made a complete rotation around her neck. Sandra could hear the popping and cracking of bone and sinew. 

"I simple 'no' would have sufficed," Sandra said. 


Friday
There was definitely a noticeable increase in the work load for everyone. A sense of dreariness pervaded the office floor. There was also something wrong with the air vents—dust or mold spores were causing people to sneeze and complain about allergies. The combinations of those things seemed to affect Alice quite noticeably. She wasn't herself lately. People tried to ignore it, let it pass. Everyone handled stress differently. 

"You're going to Happy Hour, right?" Ted asked Alice as he was leaving. "I got my wife to pick up the kids. I told her, 'I've missed the last two Happy Hours--so you owe me.' Nothing like spreading the guilt around."

Alice gave a guttural moan. 

"Half-priced margaritas, right?"
​
She didn't seem to know.


Three Mondays later... 
When Sandra arrived at work, she noticed a putrid smell coming from Alice's desk. Alice had been staying late and showing up early. Stress, Sandra thought. It was the stink of stress. She must be swamped. And yet, she never seemed to get anything done. 

"Hey, are you wearing the same thing you wore Friday? Oh my gawd. I've done that before! I swear, I washed them and everything over the weekend, and then completely forget that I wore the same outfit on Friday. The funny thing is, nobody notices. I just realized it because you have that same coffee stain on your cardigan you had last week." 

As she was talking, she noticed that Alice's eyes had turned completely black. Sandra was pretty sure that Alice had blue eyes, or at least ones that didn't resemble the vacuum of space. She attributed it to the lighting.  

Miretta picked up the trash bin and dumped it into her large trash bag that she dragged through the HR department. She would clean out every cubicle by ten. 

While she was on the onboarding specialists’ row, she heard a low snarl, something hideous and unnatural. She thought perhaps a possum had gotten in the building. She turned on her walkie-talkie. "Raoul, bring the baseball bat." 

The growling turned into harsh laughter. It was coming from under a desk. Miretta followed the sound to one of the empty cubicles and pulled away a trash bin from under the desk and put it against the wall. 

"That's not where it goes!" the creature said, and leapt from under the desk. It flew at Miretta's head, before landing on the copier machine behind her. It gave a final hiss and then ducked behind a cubicle wall. 

Miretta recognized her as one of the HR coordinators, who was suddenly possessed by a demon. She continued to clean out the trash bins. Every now and then, she felt its presence lurking around on the periphery of her vision. She only caught a glance of red eyes glowing in the darkness, before it would slip away again into the maze of cubicles. 


Tuesday
By lunch time, it became generally known that Alice was roaming about the office in a rather disturbing manner. She was crouching in the upper corner where the walls met the ceiling and would hiss at anyone who passed by. But all things considered, it wasn't nearly as annoying as the sound that Don made when he cleared his sinuses at his desk. That was truly repulsive. 


Wednesday
Everyone's computer went black. There was a universal groan as people looked around at each other, their work ruined or lost. 

The broom closet was ajar only a few inches, but from the darkness a cackling laughter emerged. 

Sandra approached the closet. "Is that you in there, Alice?"

No response. The laughter continued. "If you did this, just know that I didn't save my spreadsheet and I've been working on it for about an hour. That's an hour's worth of work--all down the drain." 

The laughter grew until its deep bass tones rattled the walls.


Thursday
A memo from the director of facilities went out to the department:

Please be aware that members of the board of directors will be touring the facility tomorrow. We ask that you please keep this in mind by not congregating in the breakroom area or using the hall way around the conference room. Also, do not park in the front parking lot as that will be reserved for our visitors; please use the parking lot at the back of the building or the parking garage.
Finally, please make sure you are following the policies for Personal Attire and Hygiene. And, if you could, please don't climb up the walls like a tarantula. The board of directors might find this disturbing. 


Friday
Janice, the director of HR, found Alice by the copier machine. It looked like she was deliberately shuffling the collated printed copies. 

"Hi, Alice," she said, interrupting her as she took a newly printed and warm piece of paper and stuffed it at the bottom of the stack. "It looks like you're busy right now, but when you have a moment, can I see you in my office?" 

Alice shuffled a few more papers before arriving at Janice's office. She knocked on the door, and Janice looked up from the note she was writing. Sara, HR representative for HR, was waiting for her as well. 

"Ah yes, please have a seat. So," Janice said after Alice had settled in. "We wanted to talk with you about a few things. We’ve grown a bit concerned with your performance lately." Alice's eyes were now completely black and slowly lifted to meet Janice's. 

"As you know, we do weekly metrics to track people's productivity."

"It's not the only thing we look at, of course," Sara interjected. "We also look at our customer service surveys." 

"Yes, we try to take as holistic an approach as possible," Janice said. 

"We're not trying to micro-manage you or anything."

"We want to help you grow as a professional and as a person." 

Alice's head titled unnaturally. A festering pustule on her cheek popped, leaking blood and yellow fluid down her neck. 

"Anyway," Janice continued. "We've grown concerned that you're no longer thriving here. Your metrics have, well, diminished in quality. Your turnaround time has spiked. Let me show you." She pivoted the monitor display that showed a bar graph. 

"Here is where you were only a month ago," she said, pointing at the line at the top of the graph, and here's where you are this week," and pointed to the line that had fallen precipitously. 
Sara steepled her fingers and put them under her chin. "We know this job can be stressful. And you've been a wonderful employee for us for so long. We're just simply concerned because this seems out of character for you. Is there anything you would like to tell us at this point? We definitely want to know if there are any mitigating circumstances."

Alice's eyes went from black to a dark red. A growling sound rumbling through the office. She opened her mouth and vomited blood. It dribbled down her shirt and pooled in her lap. 
"We're going to be frank with you, Alice. We think you might be getting burned out. Perhaps it's time for you to take a leave of absence. Just for a while." 

"It happens to us all. And we know you haven't taken a vacation in years. Now is the opportunity for you. To travel, to do some reflection." 

"Does that sound like a good idea?"

Alice gurgled and continued to growl and hiss. 

"Carrie will get all the paper work set up for you." 

They stood and escorted Alice to Carrie's desk. Alice leaned against the cubicle partition while Sara and Janice informed Carrie that Alice was taking a leave of absence, though Carrie already had the paperwork out.  

"Sign here," Carrie said, pointing to a space on a piece of paper. "And here's your copy. You'll want to turn this in by next week if you want your PTO paid out on your next paycheck."  
Alice accepted the clip of papers and balled it up in her fist.

"We'll walk you out," Janice. 

Once they reached the foyer, they turned her over to the security guard. 

"All right, Alice" Janice said. "We wish you the best of luck."     

"Yes, please come back when you are more rested." 

Alice's face had deteriorated and her flesh sagged and was marked with dark black scars. Her hair was ratted and missing in patches. A few teeth had fallen out. Sara thought briefly about giving her a hug, but instead patted her sturdily on the back. Janice gave a respectful nod. 
The security guard stepped out from his post and held open the door for Alice. She gazed out of the door into the open space and lunged, staggering and stumbling her way forward. 

"Oh--her badge," Janice said. "We forgot to get her badge." 

"I'll get it," the security guard said. 
​
Alice was just under the pathway from the building to the parking garage. She emerged from the shadow of the building into the streaming white hot sunlight. Her body convulsed and crumpled in on itself. Her clothing and body disintegrated, and from it a flock of crows burst forth and scattered. They cawed and screeched and soon scattered in the sky. In their wake, something clattered to the ground. Sara and Janice cringed and shuddered at what they just saw. They shielded their eyes from the sun to see what had fallen, but they didn't dare move out from under the awning. The security guard bent down to look at the object. Lying on the pavement and glinting in the sun was Alice's security badge.

About the Author:
Arianne Jaco was born and raised in Texas and completed her Master's degree in English Literature at Texas Tech University. She currently lives and works in Seattle Washington.

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