“Wait, what’s a nineties party? Weren’t we just in the nineties?” Jim put his pen down, surrendering his full attention to the matter at hand.

Karen was leaning against his desk, but facing reception.

“I don’t know, Michael came up with it. He said you guys had some ‘rockin’ eighties party a few years ago. Also, I’m pretty sure he’s planning on breaking out some dreadlocks to perform his own MilliVanilli impression.”

“Wow,” he sighed. “This should make for an interesting afternoon.”

“Yeah, he especially commissioned Pam, Kelly and me to come up with party games. Like, the ones you would play at a junior high party,” she rolled her eyes.

“Wait, you mean like… spin-the-bottle? Games like that?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at her.

Karen swatted him lightly on the shoulder, unable to resist a glance in Pam’s direction. “Uh, I doubt that. I mean, I really don’t want to have to kiss Creed or anything.”

Much to Angela’s dismay, the three chosen game-planners settled into the break room to discuss the party.

“Well, obviously, we need to play spin-the-bottle,” Kelly chattered excitedly.

“No, uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Karen said quickly, fidgeting with her soda can.

“Seven minutes in heaven?” Kelly offered instead as Pam nearly choked on her own Coke.

“No way,” Karen said a little too sharply, leaving Kelly glancing around nervously, obviously embarrassed.

“It’s just—I mean, you wouldn’t want anyone else to end up kissing Ryan would you?” Karen recovered.

“Oh my gosh—you are so right. That would be… awful. So, what else can we do? I mean, those are the only games I can remember playing in junior high.”

“How about suck-and-blow? That’s pretty tame I guess,” Pam shrugged. “We could even pick the order out of a hat or something, to make it more fair.”

“Ooh, yes!” Kelly clapped. “We could use an index card or something!”

“Okay, so what should we do about music?” Karen scribbled absently onto the pad in front of her.

“Not a problem,” Kelly held up a hand to silence her. She pulled out her iPod and began to scroll through. “I’ve got… Spice Girls, Ace of Base, MC Hammer, NSync, Britney Spears (the cute version, not the whacked-out 2007 version)..oh, Hanson!”

At 3 o’clock Michael emerged from his office, clad in MC Hammer-style parachute pants and a Rastafarian wig.

“It’s the nineties mon!” He exclaimed, repeatedly messing up the hand signals for ‘2-Legit-2-Quit.’

“Ugh,” Dwight grimaced as he walked up behind Michael, picking what appeared to be lint from his ratty wig. “Dust bunnies. Michael this wig is a safety hazard, I think you should remove it immediately and I will dispose of it for you.”

“Don’t be such a square, Dwight,” Michael scoffed, shooting a wink toward Jim, obviously trying to impress him with his ‘hip nineties lingo.’

After three exhausting rounds of Concentration (Creed insisted on using his middle finger as his “signal” which caused Angela to eventually storm out of the room) Kelly began drawing names for Suck-and-blow.

“Okay, here we go… Creed is first, then Michael, then Angela, Kevin, Meredith, Toby, Pam, Dwight, Karen, Jim, Oscar, me, and Ryan is last.” She sang the last bit a little as everyone began to form a line. Stanley was still sitting at his desk with his crossword, unwilling to participate in today’s activities.

“Lemme see that,” Ryan tried to snatch the last card away (the one that supposedly had his name on it), but Kelly quickly mixed it back in with the others.

“I am not going to do this,” Angela crossed her arms and scowled at Kevin, who was giggling loudly.

“Oh come on,” Karen chided, now in surprisingly better spirits. “Its just fun, no one’s lips ever even touch if you do it right.”

On the fourth try, the index card made its way successfully to Ryan (although Michael looked near ready to throw up after being in such close contact with Creed’s lips, and Kevin snickered every time the progression reached Jim and Oscar).

“Aw—Kelly!” Ryan exclaimed as he spit out a piece of gum.

“Oops,” Kelly shrugged innocently, bending to pick the card off of the floor where it had fallen “accidentally.”

“So what’s the next game?” Dwight asked skeptically. “This is a pretty dull party if you ask me.”

Angela couldn’t hide the pride leaking from her smile.

“Quick, think of something fast,” Kelly elbowed Pam as she pointed to Michael who was currently breaking out into the Macarena.

“Okay, okay, last game,” Pam spoke up as Kelly quickly turned off the music. “Kelly, may I have the hat of names?”

She quickly crossed out the names, scribbling something else over them and placing them back into the hat.

“This game is called Bloody Murder. Everyone will draw a piece of paper, and on that paper will be their secret assignment. Most of the cards say ‘Victim,’ but there is also a ‘Detective’ and an ‘Assistant Detective.’ There is also one card that reads ‘Murderer.’

“Now, we are going to turn the lights off and everyone is going to start at different points around the office and simply wander around until you find someone else. When you find someone you will reach out and shake their hand. If they squeeze your hand, that means you’ve just been murdered. Only the murderer can kill someone, and once someone is killed the lights will come on and the detectives will have to figure out who the murderer is. Got it?”

She held the hat out as everyone picked a slip of paper and she desperately hoped that Dwight was neither the murderer nor the detective.

“Alright, everyone know what they are?” Pam asked loudly as the group dispersed around the office. “I’m turning the lights off… now!”

It had been raining that day and it was winter so the sky outside was nearly dark, leaving the office nearly black. As she knocked her knee against Phyllis’ desk she started to wonder if this had been such a good idea.

“Ouch, watch it!” she heard Meredith cry out from across the office as she knocked into Kevin.

As she fumbled in the near dark she found her way to the break room door and retreated into the girls’ bathroom. The moment the door closed behind her she realized her mistake, it was even darker in here and she thought she could hear steady breathing.

“Um… hello?” she said tentatively, hoping that Creed or someone wasn’t about to jump out and scare the living daylights out of her.

She heard the footsteps walking toward her and took a deep breath, knowing who it was the moment his fingers grazed her hip, searching for her hand, which she had forgotten to extend to him.

His hand brushed across the fabric of her skirt, his fingers tracing their way from her elbow to her wrist, leaving a trail of standing hairs in their wake. He fit his hand into her own and held it gently, shaking it slowly up and down, up and down. She thought she felt her knees give out for a moment.

He had probably been holding onto her hand like that for thirty seconds (a year? A lifetime?) before she felt him squeeze hard and she realized that she had just been murdered.

“I think you’re supposed to scream now or something.” His voice was heavy in her ear as he whispered and she felt her neck tingle.

Without thinking she let her hands run from his shoulders to his elbows and back. She stopped hearing the steady sound of his breathing as she ran her hands across his chest and down to his stomach, and then his hips.

“Pam?” His voice strained and cracked on the vowel. She let her fingers graze across his jaw before mustering up a scream and dropping to the tile.

She heard the door swing shut as Jim ducked silently out of the bathroom.

Moments later the entire office was standing in what turned out to be the men’s bathroom, huddled around “dead” Pam.

“Alright, I think I know who the culprit here is,” Michael said loudly.

“Michael, I’m the detective,” Toby shook his head. “I’ll handle this.”

“Yeah, but I’m Assistant Detective,” Michael pouted.

“Assistant to the Detective,” Toby countered and Pam could hear Meredith snicker into her hand.

“That’s not what Pam said!” Michael clenched his fists.

“Fine, who do you think it is?” Toby rolled his eyes.

“Angela! I think it was Angela!” Michael proclaimed, narrowing his eyes at Toby once again. “Or… it was you.”

“Michael, it couldn’t have been me, I’m the detective.”

“Yeah whatever, if you’re so smart who do you think it is?”

Toby paused for a moment, scanning the group. “Jim. I think it was Jim.”

Karen glanced up at Jim, who was leaning against the door jam with his hands in his pockets.

“You only get one guess, or the murderer wins,” Dwight said sternly. “You have to pick one or the other.”

“Fine, let’s rock-paper-scissors for it,” Michael suggested.

“Rock, paper, scissors—shoot!” Dwight refereed as Michael and Toby threw their hands out.

Toby’s hand was out in a fist, while Michael had his fist wrapped with his other hand.

“Michael, what is that supposed to be?” Toby sighed. “Mine’s rock.”

“Mine’s… a BIG rock—which beats your obviously much smaller rock.”

Dwight ruled out Michael’s “big rock” and they threw again, this time Toby trumping Michael with scissors over paper.

“Jim?” Dwight held out his hand for Jim’s slip of paper as Michael tapped his foot impatiently.

Jim stole a sideways glance at Karen as he handed Dwight the paper.

“I always knew you were a murderer,” Dwight crumpled up the paper after reading it. Everyone took turns patting Toby on the back, save for Michael and Karen, who had immediately walked out of the bathroom.

“Can I assist you to the coroner?” Jim held his hand out to the dead body.

“Thanks,” Pam smiled nervously as she took his hand, allowing him to help her to her feet. “I guess I better get going.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, watching the door swing closed behind her.