It Eats. ( COMPLETED )

Elliot

When I first began my job as Chief Editor at Revenues Touch, they informed me that things happen sometimes, though they did not clarify what that meant at the time. I thought they simply meant normal office work things like a printer jamming or an employee becoming upset at another for cheating on them - you know, normal office work things. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that this company was a front for producing hazardous materials for the government.

My first day was spent touring the grounds of the company with Mr. Granden Yarrow. He was a tall, thin man who lacked a sort of personability about him. We walked the whole perimeter of the building, greeting each employee, looking into each vacant office. Then finally, he stopped in front of the elevator. We had been chatting about the duties my role would need fulfilled for so long that the silence that suddenly consumed us made me shutter.

"Mr. Moore, I'd like to think you are a trustworthy man," his eyes stayed forward, focused on the warped reflection of the two of us standing awkwardly in front of the shined elevator door.

I nodded slowly, "Yes, Mr. Yarrow. Is everything alright?" I looked at him, unsure if I should remain standing there or if I should simply wait for him to make the first move.

The elevator dinged and threw its doors open, welcoming us in. Mr. Yarrow broke from his trance with a sharp inhale, stepping forward and onto the platform, "Well, come on then Mr. Moore. We still have a lot more to do today."

I had heard of the conspiracy theory that the local mattress store is actually selling drugs and the mattress part is just to hide from the police. Well, that theory is child's play compared to what we did at Revenues Touch. When the elevator approached its destination - the ground floor, one level below the first - the doors slid open and as I stepped off I could only blink at what I was seeing. Of course the company could not, or rather would not, get their shit together to pay their office employees a livable wage - as Isla had put it - they had a whole army of employees toiling away below them that they were surely paying far better. My eyes felt as if they would bulge out of my skull at the large machinery, the men and women in lab coats, the strange plants growing behind glass. It was all too much.

I turned to get back on the elevator but Mr. Yarrow grabbed my arm, "Son, you've already seen enough for me to have you killed and flowers sent to your mother. You better just be glad you're alive to see tomorrow and get back over here."

It was enough to find myself in a new position where I would have to manage an entire team of employees to churn out articles on topics I did not fully understand, it was another thing entirely to find out that there was a secret lab beneath that office. But then it was a different and absolutely horrific thing to have my life, my mother, threatened upon seeing whatever the fuck was going on in that lab, "At least explain to me why you've brought me down here."

"Well kid, we create God's greatest weapons for the big boys to play with," He held his hands up to display the room around us and the teeth decayed by years of smoking grinned at me. "And you're to manage one of the teams behind it all."

Like I said, owning a mattress store as a front to selling drugs is a lullaby compared to the horrors I witnessed down in that basement lab. Mayors, Senators, even the President were in on this big plan. God, it was revolting what we did. Clients who wanted to do more as government officials, start wars, or even just something so petty as get back at people they hated would put in requests with us for various items. We sold chemical agents, weapons, viruses, and most recently, molds. The mold was the newest undertaking.

Mr. Yarrow explained, as he showed me each project - carefully placed so that they were always on display like artwork in a museum - that what I was to be in charge of in the lab was what they called Stachybotrys Chartarum Toxicus. This was a mutated version of the common Black Mold that is known for being extremely harmful to anything that breathes. To enter my area, I had to put on a suit, respirator, and sign a sheet that indicated when I had entered and when I left.