Phalanx mystery

   Everyone that crossed William’s path was always amused by what he did for a living: he was the marketing manager in a company that sold condoms called Phalanx. He was very popular at parties, telling one and ten stories about the funny things that happened both in his department and in the factory where the condoms where actually made. He even knew some other stories about people that had called the Phalanx hotline in order to ask silly questions that no one ever knew if they were real or false.

 The point was that he had a lot of fun at work and out of it. However, for a person that saw condoms so often at work, he didn’t really get to use a lot. In one of those ironies of life, William had not had a real sexual encounter in a long time. He was a very busy person and he always failed to have time to party or socialize except for the events hosted by Phalanx. The few times he met people was in those parties but they were always funny for a while but not for the long haul.

 Every single Monday at the office, they held pitching sessions in which any of the employees of the company could present new ideas to make the product more attractive. Normally, they would laugh a lot more than do actual work but sometimes, once every six months almost, they got a very clever idea that could easily become a big thing in the world of condoms. Anyhow, it was a very fun thing to be in and most people were very serious about their ideas.

 There was the typical things like making condoms into different sizes or different flavors and colors, but then they were the crazy people telling them to sell condom certain foods in supermarkets, or not only having flavors but also smells, which everyone thought was absolutely awful. They laughed a lot the time that someone proposed to print images on the condoms and even the possibility of personalizing them with your signature. It seemed like a good idea but it wasn’t.

 There were some good ones like having a guy dressed like a penis or condom in some popular area and make him do funny dances and stuff and then handing out pamphlets about how important it was to use condoms. Others had made proposals about the packaging and image that they were really considering. As in any industry, they needed to keep innovating and doing different stuff or they would get obsolete.

 But there was one presenter William remembered for weeks after they moved on. William had always identified as a straight man but somehow that man had captivated him and he had no idea why. It was something more than looks and his idea. It was something he could really pinpoint.

 The man’s idea was very simple: in each one of the condom packaging’s, putting a drawing of a different position in order to kind of make it like a challenge towards the couple that was going to use the prophylactic. Everyone received the proposal to mild enthusiasm and only William seemed to be distracted by the guy that was in front of him. For weeks, he had him inside his head moving around, appearing in the weirdest moments and it was a long time after that, when they were executing some of the ideas people had pitched, when he realized why he thought of him so much: he knew him.

 That day, after all work was done, he went to the archive room and asked fro the file on that man. Apparently, he had been working in the office for as long as William had been there. He was his same age and had gone to the same college too. The difference was that that guy hadn’t been able to ascend in the company whereas William had climbed that ladder a lot faster than anyone else ever before. He was very talented at what he did.

 When he got home that day, he was relieved to realized he didn’t like the guy for his looks or something like that but because he unconsciously knew something weird about him. He couldn’t really remember him from any of the classes in college but apparently something inside his brain did remember him and had been curious to reveal that.

 As tired as he was, William relaxed that day with a bubble bath. He was so tired that he fell asleep inside and only woke up because he was slowly sinking into the water. When he got out of there, he just dried himself up and fell asleep naked as he was on the bed, above the sheets. He must have woken up at four in the morning only to crawl under the covers because of the cold.

 After the weekend, he stumbled into his old college partner in the elevator on the way to his office. It was kind of an awkward moment: there was some tension between them but William had no idea why. He knew now that he wasn’t interested in that guy physically and that was the only thing that had been weird before. But now everything was tension and looking down to their shoes and it was very strange.

 For the rest of that day he didn’t really pay attention to anything else because his mind was still trying to understand what had happened in that elevator. He tried to remember anything about that man but he just couldn’t remember him in college. Maybe crossing him one or twice in the hallways but that was it. He was so distracted during the pitching session that day, that he missed every single one of the funny presentations. His fellow managers would laugh and he would just smile.

 The following day, he was lucky enough to have dinner with a friend from college he had not seen in a while. She had always been one of his best friends back in college and now she worked out of the country in a job that paid very well. So they got together and talked and laughed and drank and ate. It was a very fun evening. When the dessert was brought to them, William remembered the man from his office and instantly asked his friend about him. He described him as well as he could and she was surprised by the degree of detail he was able to give her.

 His friend had no idea of whom he was talking about. Then, William looked for a picture on his cellphone and showed it to her. Crazy as it seemed, William had taken a picture of the file on the guy in order to remember his face the next time he saw him and now he got to show to his friend so he didn’t see how awkward it was.

 Then, she immediately recognized him. Trying not to laugh at her friend for having some random guy’s picture on his cellphone, she reminded him that that guy had been a good friend of the people they used to hang out with during college. He would even go to some parties with them although she didn’t even remember his name. He wasn’t a particularly social person but she knew she had seen him a number of times around there with them.

 William thought about that for a long time. He looked at the guy’s picture that night before going to bed and then spent a good half hour trying to sleep but really thinking about why he had no idea of who that person was. The next day at the office, he got the rumor that many people were being laid off because the company had decided to wipe out a whole section in order to make room for new people that were going to be in charge of social media and such.

 As he went to get coffee, he saw the guy from college with a single box, eyes very red, standing in front of the elevator. He had no idea why, but he walked towards him and asked what was wrong. The guy was obviously surprised to see William but he just answered the question: he had been fired. William offered to help him with the box and in the time from there to the first floor, he was able to remember who that guy was.

 They had kissed once in a party. William had been very drunk. He was sure to have vomited at least a couple of times that night. And somehow, in between all that, they had kissed. He gave the box to the guy and told him to call him if he needed any help. The guy seemed confused by that and honestly William was too. He didn’t know why he had said it but he thought it was the right thing to do.

Inheritance

   When Katherine opened the door, a very strong smell came out of gymnasium, which hadn’t opened in a while. She grabbed her flashlight and went straight for the electricity box where she activated the breakers needed to let the lights back on. They turned on slowly, as if the whole building was waking its time waking up in the morning. As the lights turned one by one, Kath walked to the cafeteria and checked the refrigerators. As she had suspected, someone hade left some franks in one of the fridges and when they rotted, the smell settled in the gym.

 When she came out of the kitchen, every single light was on. She turned off the flashlight and walked through the machines as if she had never been in a gym before. The whole place smelled like humidity and it was very dusty. So much, that every step she took in any direction formed a cloud in overt he floor that took a rather long time settling in. The place hadn’t been visited for almost a year and it was already like not any human had been there ever.

 Katherine walked all over the place, checking the state of the building as such and of some of the machine. The walking ones still worked and many of the weight in the weightlifting part had not suffered the passing of time or at least the didn’t seem to. It was difficult to appreciate such a place with so much going on against it. And yet, it had a different feel than many other places.

 Katherine had inherited the gym from her boyfriend. Her story was very tragic: she had been married for about six months, until her boyfriend was diagnoses with cancer of the blood, also called leukemia. She had tried to make his last days the best of his life and had no idea if she had succeeded or not. Most of the time she spent it in the bathroom crying and tryng to be strong for him, which wasn’t easy at all.

 The moment she saw him without any hair, was the moment she realized he wasn’t going to make it. It’s difficult to explain but she just knew it. So what Kath did was making everything fun, no matter what it was. It was a very tiring task for her but she couldn’t stop thinking of the many people that had such a disease and died alone in a hospital. She did no want that for the love of her life.

 His father was a world-renowned boxer. He had even participated in some Olympic Games but hadn’t won any medals. That’s why there was such a large boxing ring in the middle of the gym. It was him who left it to his son and that son gave it to Katherine as he though t he could be helping her by giving her something she could use to win some money by selling on a very high price.

 The gymnasium was actually that expensive, not only for the very good location it had, but for all the machines inside, which were very last generation. Or at least the last generation in the times they had been opened. It was tragic to think that her boyfriend’s dad had died and only months after his own son had suffered the same faith. And between all of that, there was her. She had no idea what to do but she knew fro moment one that she wanted to check the place out and maybe then she could come up with a clear idea of what to do.

 That night, she couldn’t asleep. The memories of her husband always invaded her mind late in the afternoon. Besides, the gym certainly made her feel strange because it was something that was supposed to be his but he never got to properly enjoyed it. Jay, that was his name, had always loved to go to the gym and workout a lot. She told him that he shouldn’t force himself so much but he still did anyway.

 Katherine did not have a very long time to think about the future of the place. That was because the bills had also been inherited and they became coming in rather fast. For a closed place, the consumption of energy was pretty high and also of water. She would have to make repairs before selling if that was her plan. So she looked for the best people and paid them to fix whatever was wrong with the place.

 Thankfully, Jay had also left some money to actually do the repairs. He actually remembered about the repairs and had taken it all out into consideration. So some weeks later, several workers moved around the machines trying to make the electric network work properly and cleaning ever single part of the park. They also had to fix several water pipes and even the air conditioning, which hadn’t been working for a very ling time.

 As an accountant, Katherine’s job was one of those that required a certain amount of dedication. She couldn’t stop doing it for a moment because then all of her calculations and proceedings would become meaningless and she would have to start all over again. But the gym started to grow on her slowly and she often wondered what would happen if she decided to keep it, instead of following her husband’s desires to make someone else make it work.

 She had been reading a lot and thought she new what the place needed and how she could manage it. Besides, the place was already a very costly spot in the city, so giving it up just like that would prove a little bit stupid from the real estate point of view. It was an easy decision. After all, she still needed to earn a living in order no to depend on the gym in any case, whether she sold it or kept it.

 Katherine visited the workers who were about to finish the repairs. The foul smell had left the building and, although the dust was already there, the overall ambiance of the place had become quite nice. As she wondered through the boxing area, a man of about fifty years old came in out of nowhere and stood like a statue, watching the ring as if he was watching something rather incredible. His eyes seemed to become watery but he didn’t cleaned them with anything.

 Kath walked towards him and asked who he was. He presented himself as Mr. Burke, a trainer for boxers that had retired not so long ago. He was a friend of Jay’s father and had worked in the gym as a trainer for the young kids that wanted to learn how to box in order to become world champions. For many, it was an actual dream to become an important athlete and be recognized around the globe. After all, the neighborhood was very different several years ago.

 The young woman listened to the man’s stories and realized there were lots of people that really love a space like that one where they could become whatever they wanted to be. She didn’t like the idea of having people telling you what to do but it was nice to have people that could help you if you asked them. And then she realized she had already decided to make the gym come back to life, once more.

 The amount of money she spent was astronomical. She had to work twice as hard, pay a lot of people for more repairs and creating a safer environment respecting all the rules that had to be respected. She was able to sell many of the older machines for good prices in order to buy some more that were more modern. The cafeteria area was improved but she decided to eliminate the enormous kitchen and instead use some of that space for a nutritionist office, which she thought was very necessary.

 Every single Sunday, when no one was there, she loved to come by and check how things are coming. The works would still take some more time but she was already seeing the future before her eyes. It was exciting to possibly give back to the community something they had lost such a long time go, a place where not only they could come to exercise but also to find like minded people and grow in various ways.

 Every night she thought of the many things she still had to do in order to make the gym work and be able to properly run it. But when she was done thinking about numbers and possibilities, Katherine would close her eyes and try to imagine her husband right there, caressing her hair, telling her everything was going to work out fine. She cried and fell asleep every night.

The ninja (Part 2)

  The ninja covered his face again, being able to stand up after being smashed against the ground. Kevin was still in shock, almost paralyzed, very close to were he had stood when that familiar face had looked at him with the eye that had gazed upon his so many times in the past. The ninja did not stay to chat; he was agile enough to open the wind and exit through there. How did he not fall to his death? Kevin had no idea. To be honest, he wasn’t even thinking of that.

 That night, he wasn’t able to sleep. He decided to go to work early and check on the records again for the incident that had taken the life of his husband almost two years ago. As he drove to work in the middle of the night, he remembered that day clearly. They had been fighting a lot, the reason been that Paul wanted to have more missions on his own. He didn’t want to be paired up with his husband every single time. Kevin took this the wrong way.

 For a week, the tension in their home had been very high. They would only spoke to each other if they had to, avoiding each other completely at work. However, they were assigned to the same mission once again and Paul wasn’t up to complaining about it with his superiors. He knew it wasn’t a good way to try to start his own thing as an agent so, in order to win everybody’s trust as a capable guy, he accepted the mission without asking any questions.

 It was a very straightforward mission: they had to infiltrate a very secure compound where a very wealthy businessman kept his private documents. In them, he supposedly had proof of the existence of several chemical and biological weapons that had been sold illegally to countries that wouldn’t know how to manage any of that. Their mission was only to copy the documents and come out as soon as possible.

 Entering the compound was very simple. The three agents they had sent were able to step in undetected, all very well trained in martial arts and everything needed in order not to make noise or activate any of the alarms of the place. They were able to reach the library, where the documents were being kept. It was Paul who took the pictures of what they needed and finished just when Kevin stepped in the wrong direction and activated an alarm.

 They had to knockout several of the businessman’s thugs, which was easy at the beginning. But on their way out, one of them was able to take hold of Paul and Kevin was sure he had heard the snapping of his neck and his body falling to the ground. He was sure he had seen his body hit the ground just as his body went numb and the other agent had to help him run faster.

 The information was lost that day. However, they were able to retrieve all of it months later, in a raid the special forces of the state had been authorized to do in the compound. Of course, they had no opposition of any kind. They didn’t find any bodies on the premises or recently dug areas. Even like that, it was very unlikely that Paul had survived that. The guy that grabbed him was taller and bigger in every sense, his hands being larger than Paul’s face. He had to be dead, that’s what Kevin had to convince himself to believe

 There was a funeral for Paul and everyone in the agency attended. Kevin got to meet his parents, which he had never met before. He didn’t get close to share his grief, instead looking from afar and realizing that, despite having gotten married in secret, they still didn’t know a lo about each other. The fact that he had no idea what Paul’s mom looked like before the funeral made him feel awful.

 And that was two years ago. As he drove into the office building, he realized he had no idea what route he had chose to get there. He had barely paid attention to the road and he felt bad for that for a second, before returning to those days once again, before Paul disappeared and they were happy, back when they had decided that they wanted to live together forever and ever.

 It had been a very easy thing to decide. They had been dating for a little more than a year after the relationship had started in the strangest of ways: not four months before commencing their love story, Kevin had finished another one with a former girlfriend with which he had been engaged to be married. He decided to call off the wedding when he realized he couldn’t deny that he felt different inside and needed to process that. Beside, work had been hard, as usual.

 Paul had been working with them for a while, not too long. He barely knew him well and the truth was they didn’t really like each other. Paul saw Kevin as the typical guy that thinks he’s better than everyone else at anything, form his physical appearance to anything he could do with his body and his mind. And Kevin thought Paul was a very smug guy, never really accepting his mistakes or accepting his obvious flaws.

 It was on a mission that took several months to complete, where Paul had saved Kevin from a bomb, practically using himself as a shield in order to protect his partner. From then on, they gained a certain respect for each other that enabled them to form a relationship that grew to be a very stable friendship. But even then, they felt something was off with all of it.

 At the same time, Kevin began his problems with his girlfriend. They got worse as the date of their wedding got near and, after another intense mission where he and Paul single handedly completed the task at hand; he realized she was not what he wanted from life. So he cancelled the engagement and tried to think about everything for a while. Just two weeks after that, he kissed Paul for the first time. And another two weeks after, they had sex. It was then when Kevin realized that he had been very close to making a very big mistake.

 The guard at the office building recognized him and he was able to enter without any problem. Outside, the first glimmer of the new day could be seen very far into the horizon. As he sat in his office, he looked for the files of their last mission and checked every single paper the Special Forces had submitted about their mission there, when the whole place had been swept.

He couldn’t understand what was missing, what had happened. Paul was dead; he had heard his neck snap. He was sure of it. He had been convincing himself of that for years. But now he was alive. Even with that scar on his face and those wild eyes,  it was still him beneath that ninja outfit. He looked in the computer again and discovered that a similar ninja vigilante had been reported before, in a couple of missions by the agency. It seemed he was very skilled and worked both against and with them.

 It was difficult for Kevin not to think about the guy with whom he had slept so many times, kissed so often and felt so close during so many nights. During their life together, they had slept in the nude and Kevin had learned to love to wake up and feel Paul just by his side. He would often hug him tight and kissed him softly. It was difficult to understand why and how he loved him so much but he did. Maybe that’s why it was so hard to see him alive.

 A stack of papers fell from a nearby table. Kevin woke up from his daydreaming and looked in all directions. The papers had been stable moments before and there was no window opened. He got near it in order to check out the exterior but they were too high above the ground. He knew it was stupid to be worried. He decided to grab something to drink from a machine, unaware that the picture he kept there of the two of them had been taken away.

 In the rooftop, Paul removed the cover over his face, revealing his very pale skin and the scar across the side. He looked at the picture, without any particular expression. He seemed to be on the edge of tears for a moment but then he threw the picture from the rooftop and put on his face cover again. The shadow of a soul that had been visible for a moment, was not there anymore.

The ninja

   The city below was pretty much silent. It was very dark and lonely and the sun wasn’t going to rise for another four hours. People would be starting their day in some time but in those moments they were sleeping, barely imagining what was happening on their rooftops.

 A group of three people were chasing another one that had a very big lead in their chase. The character they were chasing was wearing a ninja outfit, all the uniform being black and his eyes being the only thing the people that were chasing him could distinguish from the darkness of the night.

 As they jumped from one roof to the other, one of the persecutors slipped on the edge of the building and fell backwards, being caught in the last second by one of his peers. The woman that had gotten hold of his ankle, could barely cope with the weight of her companion. The other man that came with them, the one closest to the ninja, stopped short from jumping to the next building and went back to his companions to help the woman lift their buddy to the rooftop.

 The ninja stopped running when he didn’t hear the sound of steps following him anymore. He turned around and looked on, as the man and the woman pulled their friend towards them, saving their life. The ninja blinked several times, very confused. He started to sweat right then, and not before when he was running.

 The man that had almost fallen realized the ninja was looking at them and attempted to stand up and chase him again but as he tried standing up, he felt terrible pain in his ankle, the one that his companion had grabbed him by. Apparently, in all that chaos, he had hurt himself so bad that he couldn’t walk by himself. His two friends helped him up again and, when he tried to locate the ninja again, he didn’t saw anyone anywhere.

 Hours later, the persecutors were in a hospital. The one in the bed, named Kevin, was asleep and the other two, Martha and Philip, were also asleep but in two armchairs in front of the bed. It was the middle of the day, a warm day outside. As they slept, the ninja appeared out of nowhere, standing in a corner, and just looking at the three of them. He walked, making no noise, towards Kevin in the bed.

 He looked at his leg, which was in a cast and elevated to avoid pain. The ninja looked at it, with the clear intention of doing something, but he didn’t. The movement of his hands, the sweat drops on his forehead, were telling of how nervous he was to be there. Outside, a door was slammed just as he had been looking at Kevin very closely. When the patient opened his eyes, the doctor was there. He had dreamt again about the ninja.

 Many days afterwards, Kevin was recuperating in his house. He had flowers all over the place and had visitors almost every day. He had never felt so popular in the agency and had to make an effort not to look to annoyed by the amount of people coming and going from his home. He knew they all did it out of concern for him but he also knew they came because they wanted to know more about the mysterious ninja figure he almost died because.

 Everyone wanted to know what he had seen about him. The truth was that Kevin had consciously tried to stop recalling those moments because when he fell asleep, he would always relive the moment he fell and it wasn’t something very fun to experience. It felt as if the floor was suddenly removed from beneath his feet and he didn’t thought that was something great to tell anyone.

 But people knew how adamant he had been before the mission to catch the ninja. After all, he had attacked them before, as they tried to infiltrate a chemical plant, several months ago. As security agents, they were tasked with a lot of different mission in order to preserve the order in the world and in the country. The man and women of that agency were just the best of the best, always being very good at handling themselves and their opinions in front of people and under pressure.

 However, with the ninja, Kevin easily lost his mind. After he had seen him kill some people in order to steal some classified documents, Kevin realized the ninja was a persona that had no moral compass and that seemed to work for anyone who paid the price he asked for. He was only a mercenary and those people were sickening to Kevin as they just sold themselves for whatever they asked in order to be able to kill for sport.

 When they met the first time, Kevin fought the ninja for a long time before they had to declare the fight a draw and just run out of the chemical plant before it blew to the sky. From that moment on, Kevin tried to investigate whatever he could about the ninja but he was very unsuccessful. In other encounters, and there were not many, he tried to get some DNA to use a sample for testing but the ninja did not spit and it was very hard to grab his head.

 He even scouted the places of their fights in order to pick up anything he might be able to do but there was nothing or, at least, nothing important enough to pinpoint any particularities about this person. The worst thing was that Kevin had realized some of the moves the ninja used were the ones they learned at the academy. 

 He talked with one of the trainers there who assured him that no one outside the agency knew about many of those moves as they were created specifically for some exact situations and in order to use maximum force if necessary. That was the first real clue Kevin got. But he failed to tell his companions before the rooftop mission and, when he told them in the hospital, they were very mad at him for not revealing something so important to them.

 They decided to launch a full investigation and they had to check every single agent that had deserted the agency. They even did some surveillance work on some of them, discovering how boring people’s lives were when they wanted to be far away from all the chaos of the agency. But none of those guys, none of that people had any similarities or set of skills that resembled the ones of the ninja.

 Frustrated, Kevin returned to proper work after being a full week in the hospital. He had to use a crutch to walk but the pain was much less intense than before. He was assigned some office work in the agency and tried to forget all about the ninja killer. After much thought, it was obvious that person didn’t wanted to be caught and, he had been an agent, he wasn’t going to be so stupid as to leave any single clue around. After all it was a game of intellects to the end, in order to see who survived and who did not.

 As he thought this in his office, Kevin almost fell from his chair because he had realized something: when checking past agents, he had omitted to check on the deceased ones. It was a long shot but he decided to try to find the ninja there. In order not to be reprimanded by his superiors, he took copies of the files and took them home with no one knowing. Each night, he would check some of them and then fall asleep as he read them all.

 Almost a month after the incident in the rooftop, the ninja appeared in his room as he slept. He came closely to the desk and grabbed his file: it had been there all along but Kevin had not wanted to look at it. The ninja read it and then looked at the agent. He left the file back in the desk. As his eyes became watery, he leaned down to kiss Kevin on the cheek. Caught of guard, Kevin grabbed him by the neck and slammed him to the floor. With a fast move of the hand, he removed the ninja’s mask.

 As in a horror movie, Kevin pulled away from the dizzy ninja with wide opened eyes. He was seeing a ghost, one he had not wanted to see. He had a scar on his face and he looked paler than ever. His eyes looked empty and his body seemed to be fitter than he remembered it. But it was him. It was really him, his husband, just back from the dead as if nothing had happened.