Boxes

I knew I should have stayed out of the archives. But something inside me had to know. It all started two evenings ago, on my way to my shift. I was walking my rounds. At the end of corridor five, I saw someone. He looked like a person. He could have been a person. But he was standing in a corridor that ends in a sealed door. And he didn't move when my flashlight hit him. The next night, the door in corridor seven glitched. I tried to close it and it was suddenly already closed. For a second, the building forgot what order things go in. So tonight I drove back to the Yard. I needed to know if someone else had seen what I'd seen. The Yard's archive holds the things they don't want talked about. Rule seventeen says I'm not supposed to be in there. But rule seventeen is the reason it has answers. I'm not the kind of man who breaks rules. Tonight I'm going to be. I needed to know if the Yard had taken something from me. And if I'd let it. At the end of my sixth round, Vince went to check the perimeter. I had ten minutes. The lights flickered on when I crossed the threshold. Fluorescents do that when they've been off a while. But every corridor in the Yard flickers when I walk in. Every room. Every breaker. I'm getting tired of pretending it's a coincidence. Fourteen months at the Yard. One log per month, by procedure. I picked the oldest. Opened it mid-way. Archived material transferred to Storage Annex C. Reference. K. M. Names that start with K. Last names with M. That's what I told myself. Then I saw the handwriting. Same slant. Same habit of crossing the t too low. My handwriting. On a log from a year before I started at the Yard. Either there was another K. Michaels here before me. Or someone with my handwriting had been here. Or — and this one I didn't want to think — I'd been here before. And I didn't remember. If someone with my name had been here, they'd have a personnel file. Personnel files get archived. With the storage records. K. Michaels had a box. The room was small. Shelves. Boxes. I shouldn't have known the code on the door. But I did. Second row. Third. M section. K. Michaels. In black letters. Like a piece of equipment. I opened the box.

There was a dog tag. Sasha. That was the first thing in the box that made me angry. Not scared. Angry. Because strange hallways are one thing. Old logs are another. But Sasha? They don't get to put my dog in their filing system. Then the cassette drew my attention. There was a player in the box too. Like it had been left for me. I pressed play.

If you're hearing this, it means you started looking again. Don't turn it off. You always turn it off the first time. I always come back. So will you. You're trying to decide whether someone is doing this to you. They are. But not the way you think. The Yard doesn't lie like people lie. It arranges things until the truth becomes inconvenient.

Klein. Listen to me. He's at the end of the aisle. Right now. Don't turn around. I don't know if he saw me. He's not moving. He's — he just moved. It moved like me. I told myself it wasn't. I'm between the shelves. Flashlight off. I can hear him. Closer. He stopped.

He's walked past. He hasn't seen me. I don't know how. I'm not going to find out. He recorded that warning. For this moment. For me. I took the cassette. The notebook. Sasha's tag. Evidence. Or anchors. I didn't know which. I shouldn't come back. I know that now. Klein. You came back. Of course you did. So did I.