Ash-Ray Wednesday

by Mark Towse

My skin crawls. My stomach churns.

Placing his hands behind his head, my boss, Ray, leans back in his chair and exhales. “To-ny,” he says. He adjusts his tie and leans forward again. He drums his fingers on the desk. “To-ny, To-ny, To-ny.” He rotates his coffee cup on the coaster so the words “World’s Best Boss” face me. “What to do, To-ny? What to do?”

I hate him. I fucking hate him.

Exhaling again, he adjusts the position of the photo frame on his desk. “I’m assuming you know what this meeting is about, To-ny?”

He’s enjoying it. Plain to see. Glee radiates from his eyes. “Numbers,” I mutter. My eyes gravitate towards the frame and the picture of his wife and kids at the beach. I wonder why they’re smiling. Right now, I wonder that more than anything else in the world. He told me their names once, but I care more for my shower curtain.

“Numbers indeed,” he says. “Care to drill down a little further for me, To-ny? El-ab-or-ate, so we both know what we’re dealing with.”

Everything about the guy irritates me. Everything. The way he insists on always using my name in every sentence. The way he pronounces it. The way he moves. The way he breathes. His hair. His pristine white shirt. His smell. His smile. His wanky socks. I try to remain calm but feel my adrenaline rising. Not enough for him to drag me in here for all to see, but to talk to me like a child in the naughty corner.

“Just say it, To-ny,” he says, “so we can get onto discussing the next steps.”

I reach for his desk and grab the pen. His lips continue to move, but I’m over the line. It’s been a long time coming, months of frustration and rage bubbling to the surface. I feel myself rising from the chair, my fingers singing from clenching the pen. Before Ray can react, I bring it down into his neck. His eyes grow wide. His stubby fingers reach for his throat. I rip the pen out and bring it down again. This time, it pierces his right eye. He screams. I strike. He screams again. “You’re a fucking asshole, Ray,” I yell into his face. “A goddamn waste of flesh and bone.” I stab again. And again. Again. Blood spatters across his precious family. I laugh. I cry. I howl. His face becomes unrecognisable, his body a twitching mess. He begins to choke and slide down the chair. Still, I persist, puncturing his skin until blood drenches his stupid white shirt. Die, you bastard. Die you—

“To-ny?”

My body shudders as reality hits. “Missing my target,” I say. “For the quarter.”

The bastard nods and leans back in his chair, hands behind his head again. He stares at me, a look of pity and disappointment drawn across his face, one I imagine he’s rehearsed in the mirror a thousand times. “That’s right, To-ny.” The two rings under his armpits are bigger versions of the circles that surround his sallow eyes. Further patches of darkness decorate his cheeks and forehead, as though his soul seeps through his skin. Above him, a whiteboard lists his duties for the day, all of which could be scrubbed and replaced with the single main mission of being a complete and utter fuckhead. “Only it’s not just for this quarter, is it, To-ny? You haven’t hit your target in months.”

The flicker of a smile gets under my skin the most. Months of keeping us in late. The ban on holidays. The endless fucking meetings. Insistence on coming in at the weekends. The relentless texts and emails. All to try to fix the mess he has created since they made him manager. But that goddamn smile and the way he breathes.

“What are we going to do about it, To-ny?”

Words bounce around in my head, subtitles for the fantasy accompanying them. Thanks to Ray, I’ve come to despise the job. But I have nothing else lined up. No backup plan. No savings and a family to support. But this… this it too much.

“Are you with me, To-ny?”

I clasp my hands. My teeth grind. A bead of sweat runs down my cheek.

He clicks his fingers. “To-ny, are you with me?”

My knuckles are already white. Bottled rage has my skin tightening, and my head feels close to exploding. I feel myself shaking from head to toe, but it’s a memory of my daughter’s response that ignites the fire. “But you promised, Daddy. You promised!” Another late night at the office. Another disappointment. Another argument. Oh shit. I’m spiralling. I’m going. This train is leaving the station. Choo-fucking-choo. I straighten my posture and clear my throat. “Ray, you are a bona-fide, walking, talking piece of shit. Nobody, and I mean nobody, even comes close to being such a colossal prick. It’s an astounding achievement. Quite extraordinary.”

Silence. But his eyes say it all.

“You’re a scab on humanity, Ray. A maggot. A worthless bag of filth.” The relief at releasing such bile is instant, but I feel as though I’m just getting started. And it feels so good. “I mean, your ass must be so jealous of all the shit that comes out of your mouth.”

His Adam’s apple rises and falls, but other than that, he remains entirely still. His face freezes as though he’s malfunctioning, my words not part of his coding. No sign of that smile now. And the strangest thing… his right eyelid collapses. “We need a strategy, To-ny,” he mutters. “Something that will—”

“Did you not hear me, you stupid little fuck?”

He swallows again. A strange, garbled rasp leaves his lips. “We need to think outside the box, To-ny. More synergy. We need to give one hundred and ten percent.” 

“You’re a waste of fucking skin, Ray. Everyone here despises you—wishes you were dead. The number of times I have sat at my desk squeezing that stress ball, imagining it’s your scrawny little neck.”

His face tightens. He opens his mouth and closes it again. He looks lost, as though nobody has ever stood up to him. It makes me think he doesn’t even have the power to fire anyone. He raises his left hand and draws his eyelid back with his finger. “Numbers are low, To-ny. We need a new—”

“You’re a company pet. A fucking runt!”

He clasps his hands. His shoulders slump. A nervous cough escapes the pursed hole between his lips. He crosses his legs, his pants riding up to unveiling colourful Snoopy socks—a futile effort, no doubt, to portray himself as one of us. “Numbers, To-ny. Numbers.” His right eye begins twitching more aggressively. His head jerks. And again. He looks at me. He looks at the ground. He looks at me again. He places his finger behind his drab grey tie and wrestles it forward. “All about the numbers, To-ny.”

It dawns on me that I know nothing about this man. Yet, I despise him more than I can put into words. He came into my life and turned it upside down. Things were fine: plenty of commission, even talk of promotion as the company continued to expand. I was the top dog. King of the jungle. Then the stroke of genius of employing Ray to manage the expanding sales team—a man devoid of personality and with zero respect for the staff he commands. “I was the best salesperson five years in a row, Ray,” I say through gritted teeth. “Those trophies in the cabinet of the main sales floor, it’s my name on those fuckers. You’ve been here what—nine months? Nine months in middle management to singlehandedly bring this company to its knees. Fucking spectacular work, Ray. Out-fucking-standing!”

“That’s hardly fair, To-ny. The sales staff are responsible for—”

“You dumb cunt!”

He recoils. This time, his left eyelid collapses. He sweeps the hair from his face. His head jerks. “To-ny, I don’t think—”

“The first thing you did was strip all the good accounts away from seasoned players and hand them to the newbies. What is that, Ray—envy? Because the only other explanation is that some village somewhere is missing its idiot.”

Ray squirms in his seat. The tailored suit, likely purchased in slimmer times, begins to look even smaller on him, as though trying to constrict his ego. His left eye opens again but threatens to close almost immediately. “With all due respect, To-ny, I think—”

“Shut the fuck up, Ray!”

He recoils again. The hair that is too perfectly black drips a viscous liquid that rolls down his forehead and onto the bridge of his nose. His mouth opens and closes. Something strange is also going on with his eyes. Aside from the twitching, the dark surrounding rings grow and draw his eyes inward. He doesn’t look well at all, a shell of the man initially waiting for me. He clears his throat. “To-ny, I really think we need to—”

“Where did you learn to be such an asshole, Ray? Is there a special school that trains you up to be a first-class shithouse?”

Hand shaking, he reaches for the coffee cup. This act enrages me further. As he lifts it to his lips, I swipe it from his grip, sending it smashing into the glass office wall with a thunderous explosion. Momentarily, I imagine it’s his skull, the dark streaks of coffee splatter representing his blood. I’m on another level now. Through the semi-open blinds, I see others staring, mouths open, the faint murmur of gossip making its way around.

“To-ny, I think we—”

I snatch at his tie and heave him away from the protection of the desk. He hits the far wall with force, his head leaving a dent in the plasterboard. I’m inches away from his face. Clenching my right fist, I prepare to strike. “Well?” I say. “Have you anything to say, fuckhead?” As I stare into his lifeless eyes, the dark liquid continues to run down the side of his face. He opens his mouth and utters sheepishly, “I… I really need your forecast, T-To-ny.”

I can’t help but laugh. The situation is absurd, and the request for my sales projection is the icing on the cake. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

The twitch in his eye worsens until he’s winking at me with unfathomable speed. I can taste the fat on his breath. Smell his cheap aftershave. But something fouler permeates the air between us. “F-F-Forecast, T-T-To-ny,” he croaks.

As he works his tie further from his bulging throat, my eyes draw to the ring on his wedding finger. There’s a small jewel encrusted in the middle that I’ve never noticed before. Did it just flash? Yes, there it goes again. A ruby-red colour. And again. Again. As though pulsating. Unease washes over me. Something isn’t right. Aside from his twitching and jerking, the vein in his neck darkens. “Take it easy, Ray,” I say, stepping back. “Sit down. Take a breather.”

Random blotches of dampness begin decorating his shirt. Another one spreads across the front of his chinos. The dark rings under his eyes continue to expand, threatening to consume the entirety of his face. “F-f-f-f-forecast,” he says. “Need it, T-T-T-o-ny.”

I suddenly feel out of my depth, the hairs on the back of my neck prickling with fear. A shudder rattles down my spine. And is that gasoline I can smell?

“All about the n-n-numbers.” His shirt is soaked. Streams of black work their way down his face like wax down a candle. Even from here, I feel their heat as they fizz on his cheek. Hands to his throat, he begins sliding down the wall.

“What the hell is this, Ray? What’s going on?”

“He said it would be easy,” he croaks.

The veins in his bulbous neck turn from black to fiery orange. The sizzling intensifies, accompanied by tiny wisps of smoke that lift from his skin. I take another step back. And another. My heart pounds. My left leg buckles, and my stomach somersaults. That smell—sickening—an acrid cocktail of cologne, sweat and gasoline.

He clutches at the ring, trying to rip it from his finger. “I don’t want to go back,” he cries. “Don’t make me go back!” His body spasms, legs and arms jerking as though attached to the strings of a puppetmaster. “Pleeeeeaaaase!” With a crack, his nose twists out of shape. Black treacle-like liquid oozes from the wound, sizzling against his skin as it streams down both cheeks. He screams and writhes. The skin on his face splits, leaking out darkness that smoulders onto the carpet. Bones snap as his body contorts like a child possessed. His hair is no longer jet-black but a mousy grey that begins to crisp and fall out, the number 666 materialising across his scalp.

All I can do is watch, stunned, frozen to the spot as his body smokes in front of me. Momentarily, I wonder how anything so damp can burn, but another whiff of gasoline sets my alarm bells ringing. Unable to look away, I double over and dry heave, my eyes drawing to the flashing jewel on his finger.

A croaky voice emerges from the carnage. “F-f-f-forecast, T-T-T-To-ny.”

With a whoosh, he erupts into flames. A thousand blood-curdling howls rolled into one fill the office. Skin continues to split. Bones crack. It’s a slow, painful process that I take no pleasure from. Pieces of fabric float towards the dirty fluorescent lights, and the smell of cooking flesh becomes rife. Limbs slow to a twitch. His cries dampen. Like a freshly cracked egg, his right eye leaks down his cheek. Bubbling and charring, it blends with the slab of now lifeless meat that was once my boss. Flesh continues melting, sizzling, the dancing flames unnaturally ravaging every part of him until hardly anything remains.

I hack at the ground. And hack some more. Along with the high-pitched cries that will haunt me forever, the word “forecast” echoes in my head. Visions of Snoopy on fire induce a wave of guilt. All I did, though, was stand firm and face up to the bully. Tell it how it was. Behind me, the door swings open, and voices leak into the office. Kate is first across the threshold, wide-eyed and holding the fire extinguisher.

“It’s a little late for that,” I say, returning my attention to what is now a pile of ash.

More of my colleagues gather around the charred carpet tiles and what remains of our boss. After a lengthy stalemate of confusion, shocks and murmurs, Paul from accounts finally utters, “Should I get the Dyson?”

I crouch and run my fingers through the ashes. After pulling the dull ring from the pile, I lift it and rotate it in my fingers. It takes a while for the inscription written on the inside to sink in: Congratulations on graduating from middle management school, Ray. Now get out there and bring some hell to their day. Yours, Lucifer.

Days come and go at the office. Although it can never be like it was pre-Ray, the number of meetings is back to a reasonable level, and the right people oversee the right accounts. And at least for now, the position of department manager remains unfilled.

F-f-f-forecast, To-ny.

His voice still haunts me. The twitching. The screams. The smell of charred flesh in my nostrils. Conversation about it still dominates the break room, too, people affectionately referring to it now as “Ash-Ray Wednesday.’ It wasn’t long before word got out that the picture in his photo frame was a cutting from a lifestyle magazine they found in the second drawer of his desk. It stands to reason, as I never really bought those smiles, that guy incapable of bringing anything but darkness.

I’ve been following the press coverage closely. People on the other side of the world claiming to recognise the person I saw turn to ash. Only this man didn’t go by the name of Ray; this was a guy called John Stacey who had attempted to murder his wife and two children. Poured gasoline all over the carpets and curtains of the family home before tossing the match, getting into his car, and driving head-on into a tree without wearing his seatbelt. They lived, but he died of massive head trauma. I mean, where else would such a failure go but into middle management?

These souls who walk the office floor, bringing despair, gloom, endless meetings and circles of sweat, are here to make our lives hell. They are the Devil’s minions, hiding under the guise of middle management. Having walked this earth before but on the wrong path, they have been recruited and sent back to do his work.

They are not one of us.

And they must be stopped.