Every Time I Clock In, Someone Dies

1: 1

I was about to be late for work when the supervisor who'd framed me for stealing my old company's R&D suddenly called:

Everard Gilbert, where are you? Are you at the office?

Don't clock in. You hear me? You can't clock in!

I froze. Why.

He was shaking all over, terror written across his face.

"Because... the second you clock in, I'm going to die."

I swore at him, called him crazy, and hung up. But the messages kept coming:

"Don't clock in! Whatever you do, don't clock in! I'm on my way, just don't clock in!"

I couldn't even deal with it.

Back when I worked there, he came after me every chance he got.

He even teamed up with other coworkers to frame me for stealing company R&D.

Got me fired, then blacklisted across the entire industry.

Now that I'd quit, he still wouldn't leave me alone.

Thinking about all that, I jabbed my finger at the time clock several times, furious.

"You're insane. You tell me not to clock in, so I won't? Watch me. I'll clock in and clock you out while I'm at it."

But the second I sat down, my phone lit up. Group chat, 99+ messages.

The first one stopped me cold:

"Oh my god! Someone's dead! Jordan Lambert... Jordan just got blown up!"

...

Something detonated in my skull. My mind went blank.

Jordan... dead?

I thought of him in that video call, face frozen in terror, screaming at me not to clock in.

My heartbeat nearly stopped.

But how was that even possible? I just clocked in for work. How could that kill anyone?

The group chat had already blown up:

"No way, seriously? How'd he die? He was fine, how does a guy just explode?"

"You think I'm joking? Little Li from R&D told me himself. Said Jordan was rushing out the door and boom, he just went off. The police are already there..."

The chat was all former Zenith Tech grunts venting about the place.

Any time some gossip came out of Zenith, someone would drop it in here to complain about.

I never expected this time it'd be Jordan's death.

I was about to ask for more when they sent over a photo.

In it, potbellied Jordan lay in a pool of blood. His head was gone.

My stomach lurched right there. I was scared out of my mind.

It was real. Jordan was actually dead.

I stared at the message he'd sent me before he died. Don't clock in. Those three words stabbed into my brain like needles.

My heart pounded so hard I couldn't stop it.

Why had Jordan called me before he died, telling me not to clock in?

It wasn't like I had some kind of superpower. There was no way clocking in could actually get him killed.

He'd framed me and cost me my job, sure, but I wasn't about to murder him over that.

Coincidence, I told myself. It had to be a coincidence.

But after work, something pulled me straight to Zenith Tech.

I leaned in for a look.

The blood at the entrance had already been scrubbed clean, and somehow people were still inside pulling overtime.

I couldn't help thinking: heartless corporate machine. Someone dies and the grunts still have to keep grinding.

I'd just turned to leave when Peter James from operations spotted me.

"Everard? What are you doing here?"

I felt awkward. When I'd quit, Jordan and I had thrown down right there in the office.

Now he was dead, and me showing up like this... it might stir up trouble.

I cleared my throat. "Nothing, just... just heard Jordan died..."

Peter sighed and pulled me off to the side, dropping his voice.

"Ugh, don't even get me started. This morning, he'd barely been at the office a few minutes when he suddenly jumped up from his desk!"

"Then he took off running like a madman. He'd just reached the door when boom, he blew up!"

"God, the sight of it. Terrifying. Everyone was shaken."

For no reason I could name, guilt crept over me. "So what are the police saying? He was fine. How does someone die in an explosion like that?"

"Right? Get this, his head self-detonated. Cops found a busted chip on him. Early read is it's some kind of high-tech crime."

The words high-tech let me breathe again.

High-tech? I didn't know the first thing about it.

And after I got fired, I never saw Jordan again.

Peter let out a cold laugh.

"High-tech. How are they supposed to trace that?"

"Our company does chip R&D. Supervisor Lambert threw his weight around here for years. You think he was short on enemies? Who's to say some coworker didn't take him out?"

I kept my head down and said nothing, but privately I agreed with him.

Back when Jordan deliberately framed me for stealing company R&D and got me fired,

then had me blacklisted across the whole industry, I really could have killed him.

But now I had a new job, steady income, and none of that misery.

If he hadn't suddenly called telling me not to clock in, I'd have half forgotten the guy existed.

Once I was sure this had nothing to do with me, I said my goodbyes and left.

But the moment I got home, someone yanked me into a corner.

The first thing they said nearly scared me to death:

"Everard, why did you kill Jordan?"

2: 2

My whole body jerked.

I looked closer, and it was Veronica Fox.

She was in admin at Zenith Tech. People said she was standing right there when Jordan Lambert died, that he'd died in front of her.

Right now her face was full of terror, and she couldn't stop shaking.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and dropped my voice into a furious hiss:

"Veronica, what are you talking about? When did I ever kill Jordan Lambert?"

But she just kept shaking as she opened a video on her phone.

"Then why... why did Supervisor Lambert call you before he died and tell you not to clock in?"

My scalp went tight in an instant.

I looked down, and there on the screen was Lambert, wild-eyed, screaming into his phone:

"Everard Gilbert, don't clock in, do you hear me? You can't clock in!"

"You clock in and I'll die!"

So Veronica had seen Lambert call me, and she'd even filmed it.

I snatched the phone out of her hand.

"That's him losing his mind. His death has nothing to do with me! You can't take that seriously. Have you... told anyone?"

"I didn't say anything to the police!" she answered right away. "You always looked out for me back at the company. Why would I ever try to hurt you?"

But then she flinched like a child who'd done something wrong, her neck ducking as she stared at me.

"But I heard Chad Acevedo tell the police that you killed Jordan Lambert. He even told them to arrest you right away and haul you in for questioning..."

"That's bullshit!"

Chad Acevedo, that bastard!

Back when Lambert framed me, it was Chad who gave the false testimony, claiming he'd seen me steal company R&D, and that's what got me fired.

I fired off a message to Chad on the spot.

Warned him that if he dared to spread lies about me again, I'd sue him for defamation.

Seeing how shaken and uncertain Veronica still looked, I patted her shoulder.

"Veronica, thank you for telling me all this today."

"Trust me, Lambert's death really has nothing to do with me. I haven't seen him in half a year. I wasn't anywhere near the scene when he died. How could I have killed him?"

At that, Veronica finally let go of her doubt.

"Okay. I understand."

After I saw Veronica off, I went back inside, took a cold shower, played a few rounds of games, and then went to bed.

Except the moment I fell asleep, I dreamed of the time Lambert and Chad beat me and humiliated me at the company.

Everyone around us was laughing, and Chad crouched down with a time clock in his hands.

"Here, clock in!"

"This'll be your last time ever clocking in at Zenith Tech!"

I was shaking with rage, and I grabbed the clock and stabbed at it over and over.

The whole time one thing kept running through my head: Die! Die! Every last one of you, go to hell!

But the next second, his head snapped like a twig, a sharp crack, and it thudded to the floor at my feet.

Right after that, every single person's head dropped down in front of me.

And in my ears came Lambert's raw, screaming roar:

"Don't clock in!"

"Don't clock in!"

"Don't clock in!

I woke from the dream in terror, cold sweat soaking through my clothes.

I'd actually dreamed that Chad kicked it too!

I grabbed my phone right away to see if Chad had answered my message.

Turned out he'd sent something taunting:

"Everard Gilbert, you're the killer, no question. You just wait. Tomorrow I'm putting you behind bars!"

I lost it, fired back "You're out of your damn mind," and then blocked him outright.

But after that, no matter what I did, I couldn't get back to sleep.

That one line of Lambert's kept echoing in my ears:

"You clock in and I'll die."

The next day I dragged myself to work half asleep.

I'd barely come out of the subway when I saw Chad at the breakfast-sandwich place by subway Exit B, stuffing his face.

I rolled my eyes, muttered a curse about bad luck, and turned to head upstairs.

I'd just clocked in and was about to go to my desk when my phone suddenly buzzed like crazy:

"Oh my God, Chad Acevedo is dead too! He split his own head open with a blade!"

3: 3

WhatChad was dead too?

The room went black for a second, and I nearly lost my footing.

What the hell was going on?

My hand shook as I raised it, staring at the time clock in front of me, terror crawling all the way up my spine.

Once could be coincidence. But twice?

Why was it that the moment I clocked in, someone dropped dead the very next second, at the exact time on my punch?

Just yesterday, Veronica had said a few coworkers at the company had died out of nowhere before this.

There was no way that was because of my clocking in too, right?

My head was a snarled mess, and I couldn't make sense of any of it.

Then a crowd suddenly poured through the company doors. I looked closerevery one of them was a former coworker of mine.

"Everard, get out here!"

"Was it you who killed Supervisor Lambert and Chad?"

They came at me without a word. I couldn't dodge in time, and someone slammed a brick into my forehead.

Blood came pouring out at once, and the pain nearly knocked me out cold right there.

My coworkers saw it and rushed to hold them back, shouting furiously:

"What do you think you're doing? Someone died at your companycall the cops, get the police! What are you doing storming in here to raise hell?"

But the enraged crowd didn't care about any of that.

Every one of them was worked up, glaring at me through gritted teeth:

"Who else could it be, if not him?"

"In that whole company, he's the only one who had bad blood with Supervisor Lambert and Chad! Even Blake, Alex, Keith and a couple others clashed with him, and every single one of them is dead now!"

Someone shot back:

"So on what grounds do you decide he killed them? Just because they had bad blood?"

"You need evidence to accuse someone of murder, don't you? No footage, no fingerprints, no witnessesnot a thing. On what grounds are you calling him a killer?"

My coworkers backed me up one after another, demanding they produce proof.

The Zenith Tech crowd suddenly lost their nerve.

"But Chad told us Supervisor Lambert was killed by Everard, and he said he had proof!"

I fired back at once, furious:

"If he had proof, then why didn't he hand it to the police?"

"Chad loved running his mouth and talking big. He says something and you all just believe it? Well, I say I didn't kill anyonewhy don't you believe that?"

They looked at me, hesitating:

"But he also said... you'd kill every one of us."

I almost laughed from sheer anger.

I pulled up the company security footage right there, jabbed a finger at myself on the screen, and snapped:

"Take a good look. When Jordan Lambert and Chad died, I wasn't anywhere near the scene."

"I don't have a damn body double. How the hell could I have killed them?"

I watched myself on the footage, clocking in at the front desk, my palm tightening without meaning to.

Yes, the times Lambert and the others died lined up exactly with the times I clocked in.

But that didn't prove I killed them.

Even if they noticed that, it couldn't convict me!

By the afternoon, though, they had me cornered at the company doors again.

"Everard, you're still saying it wasn't you?"

I stood there, lost.

Then they shoved Veronica out to the front. She looked at me, her face full of guilt:

"Everard, I'm sorry, the video... they found the video!"

Something detonated inside my skull.

Hadn't she deleted that video right in front of me last night?

"It wasn't me, I didn't kill anyone!"

I waved my hands, panicking, but they threw down a set of attendance records:

"Still lying? If you didn't kill anyone, then explain these clock-in times!"

"Chad already had it all pieced together. From the day you joined this company, they started dying one by one, in the strangest ways. You planned every one of these murders!"

I looked down, and the clock-in times on those attendance records

lined up perfectly with the times Jordan Lambert, Keith, and the others had died!

I stood there, stunned to my core.

"No, I didn't! I'm being framed!"

I was about to explain when a group of police officers walked in:

"Everard Gilbert, we suspect you of involvement in the deaths of Jordan Lambert, Chad, and the others. Please come with us to the police department for questioning."

4: 4

Because of that video and my attendance records, I was hauled into the police department.

I explained frantically that Jordan Lambert's death, all of their deaths, had nothing to do with me. It was all coincidence.

They didn't buy a word of it. Still lying! We've already verified it. The times of death for all five victims match your clock-in times exactly!

And you had a serious grudge against Lambert and the others. He framed you for stealing company R&D, got you blacklisted across the whole industry. You've got a strong motive.

The truth was, I couldn't explain it either. Why did the times I clocked in for work

match the exact moments Lambert and the other four died?

But I knew one thing for certain. I hadn't killed anyone.

I looked up, defeated, at the homicide captain across from me.

Captain Mitchell, please, believe me. I didn't kill anyone!

Yes, I had bad blood with them before, but I'm not going to murder that many people over something so small!

I didn't even know clocking in could kill people. So how did Lambert know?

Clearly, Captain Mitchell wasn't buying it.

Don't try to change the subject. You had grudges against several of the victims. It's no surprise Lambert suspected you.

He looked into you quietly, found that three of the victims died at the same times you clocked in. There's nothing contradictory about him suspecting you.

Your company's time clock was linked to their phones. The moment it read your fingerprint, it killed them. Isn't that right?

I was so furious I couldn't even speak.

Just when I thought I was about to be beaten into a murderer, an officer walked in holding a report.

Captain, the results are in. It's just an ordinary time clock. And there's no hidden software of any kind installed on the victims' phones.

Captain Mitchell's face changed at once.

In the end, with no substantial evidence, they had no choice but to let me go.

Once I got home, I collapsed onto the bed like every ounce of strength had been drained out of me.

My head was full of the images from the past two days, Lambert and Acevedo dying horribly.

Just then, in the quiet, pitch-black room, a familiar sound suddenly came out of nowhere.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

I shot upright, every hair on my body standing on end.

That sound

Step by step, I moved toward where it was coming from, and pulled open the drawer.

A time clock. The same familiar machine, sitting right there in my drawer.

My pupils shrank to points. This... how is this here?

I picked up the time clock with shaking hands, and a wave of raw terror closed over me.

Before I could even make sense of it, the door slammed open from outside with a bang.

Captain Mitchell charged in with a squad of officers, and I was pinned face-down against the desk on the spot.

Everard Gilbert, what have you done? Are you trying to kill every single employee at Zenith Tech?

As he spoke, he held up his phone and opened a photo.

My former coworkers, every one of them covered in blood, collapsed on the ground with agony written across their faces.

Just then, Veronica came in, weak, propped up by an officer. She stared at me, horror all over her face.

Everard, why did you want to kill me too?

I shook my head, panicked. It wasn't me! I never clocked in!

Captain Mitchell drove a fist into me, furious.

The killer time clock turns up in your own home, and you're still trying to talk your way out of it!

With that, they moved to drag me away.

Sheer survival instinct made me fight with everything I had, and my body slammed hard into the time clock on the desk.

Bang! The machine hit the floor, and a flash of red light streaked across it.

My mind roared, and all at once I understood everything.

I finally knew why someone died every time I clocked in.

I wrenched myself free and screamed until my voice tore.

Wait! I'm not the one who killed them! I already know who the real murderer is!