Page 5 of Serial Killer Games

Ensconced in a corner office, her long blue-black hair twirled into a perfect knot on the nape of her neck, her winged eyeliner like little black knife blades, her lipstick the onlysplash of color in this monochrome environment, she’s been watching me through the floor-to-ceiling window that makes up one wall of her office with a stony expression.

I smile a bright, fake, shit-for-brains grin at her.

Fancy seeing you here!

She doesn’t even blink. She holds my gaze for five seconds, then turns back to her computer.

—

Now, my life is likethis:

On Monday, Dolores walks in with lips as red and sticky and sweet as a Halloween candied apple with a razor blade inside, plucks up the coffee labeledDollyfrom her desk, and holds my eye while she drops it in the trash. Which is fair. I wouldn’t drink a coffee bought by me, either.

On Tuesday, my Post-its and pens are smacked out of order when I arrive at work, and the pervasive pong of fish reveals itself to be one of Jared-from-Accounts’s dirty tuna cans, taken from the kitchenette and hidden in my waste basket.

On Wednesday, my user account has been wiped from the computer. I make eye contact with Dolores as I pull a flash drive out of my messenger bag and restore my lost files.

On Thursday, I festoon my cubicle with strings of braided garlic and pour a salt ring onto the carpet around my desk.

On Friday, she cranks up her true crime podcasts to full tilt, daring me with a glance to protest. But the grisly podcasts just make the place feel homier. I decide to stay, and dear old Doug, pleased with my productivity, lets me.

It’s clear she isn’t happy about my intrusion. She never asks me what I’m doing here or how long I’ll stay. In the beginning she doesn’t talk to me at all, but some days I look up from mydesk, my gaze drawn as if by an industrial magnet, and there she is, staring right at me through the glass window of her office with a bored, dissatisfied expression, like an apex predator considering something quite beneath her on the food chain.

When she’s not there, I pick the lock of her office door with a pair of paper clips and snoop her computer. It wakes when I touch the space bar, and she’s left open a browser tab for me: a Google search forHow to tell the office nutjob you know he’s snooping on your computer after hours.I leave a new search for her:How do I gently let down an infatuated coworker?

There’s nothing personal on her computer, and I can’t make out anything work related, either. She spends all her time on her laptop, and that goes home with her.

I look up her podcasts and download an episode ofMurderers at Workon my phone. I press play, and that eerie, now familiar opening jingle tinkles like a mallet sweeping over a skeleton’s ribs. I open her drawers and look through each one, just as she did to me, and as I lean back in her chair, I notice that the black stone vase sitting on her desk is angled just right so that she can see my workstation reflected in one of its flat, rectangular sides.

It’s a mystery to me what Dolores does. She doesn’t participate in any meetings. She doesn’t seem to be afflicted with a recurring appearance of paunchy middle management knocking on her door to “check in.” I watch her all day, and see nothing.

And all the while, there’ssomething. Something irresistible. I feel like a kid who keeps teasing the cat that scratches him. I feel like a cold, rubbery lab frog twitching to life every time she jabs me with an electrode.

—

At the end of thefirst week, we find ourselves alone in an elevator again.

“Dolores,” I say.

“Jake,” she says, stiffly.

And in my best imitation of a normal human being, setting aside for the moment that she poured an entire cup of coffee on my messenger bag earlier, I ask, “Plans tonight, Dolores?”

“No. But I know what you’re doing.”

“What?”

“Putting the finishing touches on your human skin suit. I’m an expert on serial killers. I can always spot one in the wild. It’s the stench of bleach and the aura of despair.”

“Don’t have time tonight,” I say. “I’m defrosting my freezer for my next victim.”

“Do you use your fake golden retriever to lure them in?”

“My fake golden retriever?”

“The one whose picture you have as your desktop image.”

“What makes you think he’s fake?”

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