How to kill a wizard chapter 2

Chapter 2: The one where Alan finds out that Frank killed his boss


If you're a fan of movies like "Office Space" then you'll know how most forms of media tend to portray the average guy as someone who hates their job and their boss with a passion, and is often looking for a way to get back at his boss. Even if it involves murder.

In the real world, that isn't always so.

I tried convincing myself that the dead body in front of me was not one of the guys who sign my paycheck, but an evil priest with a fetish for dead children. Though as each second passed, it became increasingly obvious that Frank was full of shit.

I looked through the open wallet on the desk in hopes of finding something that would deny my fears, but the driver's licence ended up confirming it. I also found a picture of him posing next to a co-worker of mine named Neil. I always thought it was weird that they had the same last name, and the family resemblance was so blatant that I felt dumb for never noticing it before.

Other than that, the wallet was empty. The $300 Frank gave me was starting to burn a hole in my pocket.

I walked out of the office and began looking for Frank. Enough was enough. I may have needed money, but I hate being lied to. Oh, and the dead boss and dead kid thing. That's important too.

"Did he really kill those kids?" I asked. Frank was searching through the man's garage.

"Do you want me to tell the truth?" He said.

"Were you telling the truth earlier?"

"No. I merely described the first 5 minutes or so of that show Dexter".

"And what happened to his son?"

"His reckless use of magic led me here".

"So he's dead?"

"Did I not answer your question?"

"Well it was pretty vague."

"I don't know, the term wizard hunter seems specific"

Dammit, I thought he hated sarcasm.

"Well, if I'm gonna walk out of here with a clean conscience, you might as well take your money back. There's no way in hell that I'll take money from a dead man" I said.

"How do you think I've been paying you? I wouldn't use my own money".

Of course.

I began making my way towards the front door when Frank said "Hey, don't even bother calling the cops. I'll tell them myself that you helped out".

---

About a day later, I asked an acquaintance of mine named Tom to drive me to work because I don't feel like paying another $1.50. I've known Tom since we were kids,
and he's one of my three least favorite people in the world at the moment, with the other two being Carol (another childhood acquaintance), and Frank.

You know how on the internet, you could just be watching a video of a cat, and when you scroll down, you see a comment on the video that is just a giant rant about how bad our last president was? That's one way to describe a large majority of Tom's conversations. He'll take any topic, no matter how irrelevant, and start going on a (possibly poorly-researched) rant about politics or "the evils of large corporations".

The only other thing he talks about is a band that he's in with Carol and some other guy whose name I can't quite remember.

Though one thing he said did startle me for a second. I wasn't paying much attention, so excuse me if the dialogue isn't exactly accurate.

"Blah blah blah, down with starbucks, blah, have you seen Neil anywhere?" he asked.

"What?" I said.

"Have you seen Neil anywhere? He hasn't shown up for band practice yesterday,"

He isn't talking about that Neil, is he?

"You mean Neil Donovan?" I asked.

"No, Neil Flynn."

"Oh. Wait, isn't he the Janitor from Scrubs?"

"I was talking about Donovan, or 'the only Neil we know'. And what the hell is Scrubs?".

"It's an oddly surreal TV show about doctors"

"Please don't speak about television in here," Tom groaned, "It is nothing but a machine that brainwashes people so they could conform to corporate corruption".

And then I stopped paying attention to what Tom was saying, and he spent the rest of the drive to work talking to himself.

----

Now let me tell you about my job. In a record company, the whole place is divided into two branches: A&R, Production, Sales, and Business.

In A&R (Artist & Repitoire), the employees are in charge of finding and handing out contracts to all the bands and songwriters (yes, there are bands that can't write their own songs) that are willing to sell out their talent.

Originally, we were going to go in depth over what was in these contracts to reveal some kind of conspiracy over how "the record company is manipulating artists to do their bidding". But then the guy writing this story decided to abandon that concept in favor of a story about killing wizards. Which is an OK ideas and all, but it only raises one question: WHERE THE HELL ARE THE WIZARDS? I know it's only the second chapter, but you'd think we'd see a little more than a wizard's corpse by now.

Production is where the bands record their music. And...that's pretty much it.

Sales is in charge of selling the music to distributors and booking live preformances (which I don't reccomend seeing cause live preformances are rarely any good). There's a rumor going around that some guy in sales is leaking the music out on the internet, but nobody knows who.

Then there's the business branch, which is in charge of anything that isn't music related.

And at the bottom of all of this is the mail room, which is where I work at. Originally, the guys who work here were supposed to hand demo tapes we got in the mail to A&R. But now that everybody uses E-mail and Youtube, my job mainly consists of shredding fan letters and giving employees the mail they had shipped here because they don't want their spouses seeing what it is. Other than that, nobody really gives a damn if I do my work or not, so people usually leave me alone for my entire shift.

All in all, this job is nothing to write about. The most intresting part of the workplace is that pretty much everybody hates each other, leading to amusing conversations such as this:

Fat Man: I ain't working with a damn Muslim.

Outsourced Employee: Sir, for the last time, I am not a Muslim.

Fat Man: (Ignoring what outsourced said) It says in one of the ten commandments that "Thou shall worship no gods before me". He doesn't even worship god. He's a commandment breaker, and I am not going to hell for cooperating with him.

Outsourced Employee: It's ironic that you worship Jesus, my friend. Cause you look more like Buddha.

Other than that, nothing happens here. So I'll just skip to the end of my shift.

----

I was walking out of the building when I saw Tom & Carol standing outside, casting the same gaze Chris Hansen uses when a pedophile walks into the room.

"Hello, Alan." They said in unison. It's really really freaking creepy when they do that.

"Did you see Neil at work today?" Carol said.

"No, but I don't really leave the mail room a lot" I said.

"Well, his dad is dead, and both of their houses have been robbed" Tom said.

"Shit, really?" I said, trying to look worried for someone I've only spoken to once or twice.

"One of his dad's neighbors said that they saw someone who looks oddly similar to you walk out of his place yesterday". Carol said

"That's pretty odd".

"Where the hell is Neil?" They said again in unison. How the hell do they do that?

"I honestly have no idea where he is". That was the truth. Mostly.

Tom pulled out his phone. "Either tell us, or I'll call the cops and have Carol kick your ass".

"Oh goodie, it'll be just like the eleventh grade".

"Don't toy with us Alan." Carol said.

I was tempted to tell them everything that happened within the past few months. It wasn't Carol that scared me, but the fact that all the evidence pointed at me, and I would be placed in jail for something Frank did.

Tom was already dialing 911, and Carol was approaching me with both hands clenched into fists.

I took a deep sigh and said "I can tell you what happened to Neil. But please remember that it wasn't my fault".