The Watch – Part 109:

We materialised in front of a similar office building except smaller. The sun was behind the building, meaning we were standing in its shadow. It also wasn’t as busy as the other one as the entire place was deserted. I was willing to bet, however, that everyone would be inside instead. I wasn’t particularly worried about there being a load of people, but I would have preferred if it was empty save for a few people that may be able to help us, but you can’t have everything.

My first plan of action was to go inside and have a word with the receptionist, to see if Tom’s parents were inside.

‘I’m not sure what to do if they’re not here?’ I asked.

‘We can cross that bridge if and when we get to it,’ Amy said. ‘Right now, we need to focus on going inside and talking to the receptionist. If you start planning for what might not happen, you’re going to get even more confused than you already are.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ I said, rubbing my head. This is really affecting me more than I want it to. I know that everything’s going to be alright, but the shock of what happened will not go away. The only thing I can do is try and vent my shock via doing something about it as well as waiting for everything to be the way it was. Once everything is back to normal and Tom’s parents are alive once more, then my head can start thinking about getting rid of any unnecessary thoughts.

‘Shall we,’ Amy said. We both entered the building together and got a nice surprise. It was completely empty save from the person behind the desk. There was no one anywhere, walking around or doing anything similar to what we saw people doing back at the previous office block. Maybe, just once, we can have everything. This made me relax a little. I know that it wouldn’t have mattered even this place was heaving since they probably wouldn’t have even noticed us two being here, but it’s the little things that counts. It was so quiet in here that when we were up against the receptionist’s desk, we could hear the pen’s tip scratching on the piece of paper as she wrote furiously on many sheets of documents and other forms of paperwork before sorting them into the correct folder. I guess once you’re on your own you can really get stuff down without being distracted every five seconds or less.

‘Hello,’ I said. She was so into her work that she jumped upwards, snapping out of her train of thought and looked up.

‘Sorry,’ I said immediately.

‘No, don’t be,’ she said smiling. She put aside what she was doing and asked, ‘how can I help you?’

Once again, I explained who we are and why we’re here, and as before, she asked if we had an appointment. We were making progress. They were in this building. However, the problem now is actually getting to meet with them as soon as possible.

‘We don’t, but we were wondering if we could just have a word with them.’

‘I’m sorry, but I can’t let you up unless you have an appointment,’ she said professionally sympathetically.

‘Ok,’ I said, thinking fast, ‘is there any way we can make an appointment as soon as possible?’ I asked. ‘It’s urgent that we speak with them.’

‘I understand that it is urgent,’ she said before grabbing her mouse and keyboard and started to click through a load of tabs and files before tapping on the keyboard to bring up the necessary information. As she was reading through what was on the computer, I could tell that it was going to be bad news before she even told me – she made that expression just before delivering bad news. ‘Unfortunately, they don’t have anything at the moment. They don’t deal with any appointments on a Tuesday, however, they do have an opening tomorrow at nine-thirty,’ she explained. I couldn’t accept that. I needed to meet with them immediately.

‘Maybe, if you wouldn’t mind explaining what it is that you would like to talk about, I could pass on that message and they might be able to make an exception, considering it is urgent,’ she said trying to compromise. She wouldn’t have believed me even if I did tell her, but I couldn’t say that as that would make the situation turn a corner and make things awkward and confusing. Amy could tell that I was struggling to come up with a decent response, she decided to take over my end of the conversation.

‘The matter that we would like to discuss is rather private. Couldn’t you say that instead?’ Amy was good at this kind of stuff. The receptionist was trained to stand her ground and not give in until the proper procedure was met from beginning to end, but even she nearly caved from that response. Of course, she must have had that answer chucked at her many times, but I guess it was just the way Amy said it so firmly that shook the receptionist a bit. The key word in that sentence was ‘nearly’.

‘The reason I cannot say yes straight away is because we only deal with people from other offices or people with appointments. I’m sorry, but we must follow our rules, and we cannot let anyone who has just come from outside asking to see someone without an appointment.’ I didn’t even know whether that made sense or not. I wasn’t really listening after she stated that she couldn’t do anything. ‘If you would like to come back tomorrow at nine-thirty, they’ll be able to see you, or catch them after work.’

‘There’s no time,’ I couldn’t help but say. This made the receptionist mad. She didn’t flinch; she was used to this sort of stuff.

‘I’m going up there,’ I said before breaking away from the desk and heading towards the stairs. Amy was right beside me. I didn’t want to take drastic actions as that could lead to serious consequences, especially with my head the way it is and my having the watch, but I have to do what is necessary to save my friends.

‘Wait,’ she said. ‘You can’t go up there. You don’t have the permission.’ I wasn’t listening. Maybe this would lead to a scene that I wanted to prevent, but I didn’t care less. ‘If you go up there, I’ll be forced to call security,’ she called as I slammed open the doors with my hands. They crashed against the walls, the sound echoing all around the empty reception area.

‘You can’t do this,’ the woman said as I was heading upstairs, climbing two at a time.

‘You’re going to create something you don’t want to deal with,’ she said again.

‘Just stop,’ she shouted before grabbing my arm. I was angry. How dare she grab my arm and expect to get away with it. I turned around and readied to shout merry hell at her, before realising that it wasn’t the woman at all, but Amy. She looked worried, as if I wasn’t myself. I immediately knew my mistake and deflated, letting everything about me flood back inside my head.

‘What’s gotten into you?’ Amy said sternly. ‘I thought you were going to handle this properly. I knew something like this would happen,’ Amy started to raise her voice, not caring that it was vibrating the walls. ‘I knew that you would let anger take control. And even if it wasn’t anger, then it most certainly was grief, or maybe it was the combination of the two. ‘You have to be more careful, more in control of yourself,’ Amy continued. I nodded in agreement, silently apologising for my actions. She knew that I meant it and so stopped.

And then the doors at the bottom of the stairs flew open and in stepped two security guards; one for each of us I presume, and started towards us, getting ready to tackle us to the ground if ever we decided to make a break for it and fight back. Now we’re in trouble.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)