The Other Eight Read Online Free PDF

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sip from his wife’s full-calorie cola.
    “Festival hula,” the waitress said, prompting
another twitch from him at the precise moment he put the glass to
his lips. The result was a splash of cola that got up his nose,
down his shirt, and all over his pants.
    She marched quickly toward the kitchen again,
a satisfied grin on her face as the man sputtered and yelled about
this outrage. “Mom! I’m taking my break!” she called out, no trace
of an accent in her words this time. She set down her pitchers at
the nearest table and started to work at her apron strings. “And
get someone to cover for me. I’m heading out of town for a
while!”
    #
    In an office building in Indiana at the end
of a long day, a maintenance man was just finishing up his last
shift before his vacation. He was gliding out of middle age, with
the patchy scatterings of gray beginning to claim his previously
black hair and peppering his neatly trimmed mustache. A lifetime of
hard work had left him with a formidable build on a towering
six-foot-three-inch frame. Hanging by his side was a canvas
messenger bag, bulging slightly with its contents.
    “You sure you want to do this, Floyd?” asked
his partner, a shorter, fatter man, who was balding rather than
graying. A blue cap to match their jumpsuits represented his
halfhearted attempt to cover it up.
    “I’d say I have to, John,” said Floyd. “I’m
proud of the work I’ve done here, but I’ve only got a few good
years left in me before my health starts to slide. And let’s face
it, I haven’t exactly been adventurous. I mean, when’s the last
time I even left town? Before you were hired, probably. This is my
last chance at serving a higher purpose, no doubt about it.”
    “A higher purpose than general maintenance
and electronics work at the third regional headquarters of
Flemington Toiletry Sales and Distribution Incorporated—does such a
thing exist?” John asked, removing his hat and putting it to his
heart as he said the name. “Seriously, though. You’ll be up against
kids half your age. What good you figure you’ll be? There’s
probably an age limit on these things.”
    “If so, then that’s all she wrote. I’ll come
back here and get back to doing all the work so you can do whatever
it is you do in the backroom all day.”
    “Just the way God intended it.”
    Floyd tightened the last few screws on the
casing of a drinking fountain and pressed the lever, sending an arc
of water spritzing into the air.
    “There. That’s that. End of my shift. I got
an awful lot of vacation saved up. Probably won’t be back for a
while. Shucks. Might never be back, for all I know. My bags are all
packed and in my car, so I figure I’ll head out directly.”
    He shook hands and slapped his partner on the
back.
    “Pleasure working with ya, Floyd,” John
remarked. “See you in a few days when ya wash outta this whole
mess.”
    “Thanks for the vote of confidence, John. Now
before I go, I’ll ask you one last time. You were supposed to
replace all of the bulbs around here that came out of my bag. Are
you sure you got them all?”
    “Sure I’m sure, Floyd,” John said. “What do
you take me for, some sort of lazy idiot?”
    “You said it, not me. All right then, so long
John.”
    “So long, Floyd. Figure I’ll stay on and do
some overtime.”
    “Take it while you can get it.”
    The older man paced down the hall and out
through the service exit. A minute later the beat-up engine of a
1976 Ford Granada coughed to life, and he rode off toward the
interstate. Twenty minutes after that, just as John was rethinking
his overtime plans in favor of a night of chicken wings and fishing
shows, he heard an odd rattling noise. Looking up, he saw three of
four fluorescent tubes in the ceiling fixture shuddering in place.
A similar sound began to radiate from the hall, and from just about
every door along its length as well. Finally there was a puff of
yellow-white smoke, and the rattling