Kith and Kin ✔️

13. Kooky Contract

"I'm a contract engineer." He clearly remembered her cute confused expression when she heard this on their first date.
"Well honestly, I got my first contract today. You can't expect a newly graduated student to get many." He laughed nervously and so did she.
After the dinner, Chris dropped her home and went back to his apartment. He had gotten his first contract and he just had a date with a girl he had been crushing on since forever. Life seemed too good.

The next morning, he went to the office of the man who had signed him a contract. It was just for three months and his first pay was a little above average. The office's floor and walls had been glazed and a table was set up in the corner.
"Excuse me? I'm Christopher —- and I've an appointment with Mr. Banks. Can you please tell him I am here?" He asked the receptionist who had been ignoring everyone that walked in through the front door and was busy typing something on an old typewriter.
"Umm... Sorry sir. Mr. Banks is not free yet. You can wait here. He'll be free in minimum one hour and maximum eight hours. Thank you." Saying this, she went back to her work and Chris just stared at her with his mouth opened. Eight hours. Eight hours. He couldn't wait for that long! Or maybe he could, it was his first contract after all.

It was around 9 p.m. when Chris woke up in the office couch and saw the receptionist packing her stuff in a bag.
"Where are you going?" He asked yawning.
"Home. My office hours are over. Mr. Banks is still busy. I think you should go home." The receptionist left the office before Chris could realise what had happened. Confused and annoyed, he waited for a little more to have a not-so-professional chat with Mr. Banks.

Another hour passed and he felt the need to pee so he left the sofa and moved around the building to find a toilet. He had been there in the evening so it wasn't much of a problem. The only problem was that he feared that his dear contractor would leave the office without showing him his pretty face. He hurriedly went back but stopped dead in his tracks when he heard many many footsteps leaving the office. He hadn't expected so many people to be in that room so his natural instincts kicked in and he waited for them to leave the building first. He was lucky that they hadn't locked the building so he left as soon as they were out of footsteps-hearing range. He was curious about the odd group that quietly walked towards the darker streets of the cities.

"Curiosity killed the cat." He stopped as the thought came to him.
"Who cares? Satisfaction would reincarnate it as a tiger." He kept following them silently until they all were in the run down part of the city. The group stopped around a corner and Chris saw a tall man with the brown jacket pull out something from his pocket. Was that a knife or a gun? His question was answered when the man shot someone in that street and gestured his fellows to follow him inside. His heart almost stopped. He shouldn't be here. He was not a cop and he didn't work in the army. But he knew how to shoot and fight. Maybe he would get out of it alive.
He was still thinking about this possibilities when his feet started moving towards the street and he again found himself following them. They had killed a man. He saw his dead body and the expression of horror on his face but he walked past it. He should get help or maybe not. The group stopped moving and the man in brown jacket started talking to the rest of them. He couldn't hear them but was sure that the man seemed a little angry.

They all entered a building that was fairly lit as compared to the ones around it. He was again stumped. Should he enter or not? Maybe he could go home and inform the cops? Maybe he can leave the town and never come back? Maybe he could go in and find out what these people are exactly up to? Yeah, he would surely do that. So being as stupid as humanly possible, he entered the building and quickly ruffled his hair so they now covered his eyes. No one would recognise him here and he was nicely dressed, very much like the people at the bar so he didn't even stand out. He waited for something to happen but nothing did. Almost everyone had left except the group he came with and five other men, all sitting in a corner alone like him.