Arms. Legs. Oranges. Kidneys. Cabbages. Jim scanned the carnage like it was a Picasso, looking for any semblance of order in the entropic space. His eyes were glassy and cool, like the Caribbean just before the onset of a major hurricane. Out of the corner, he could hear one faint call… "Pennsylvania Halpert, help me!"
He knew he shouldn’t have left the office unprotected when he skipped out for his daily wood-splitting session earlier that day. But man did Jim love to work with wood. He was overjoyed when he started dating Pam and found out that she loved wood as much as he did. His old girlfriend Karen did not. She also didn‘t float in water, as he found out when he’d dumped her in a fountain in New York. Luckily, she had dated and cheated on every member of the NYPD, so they dropped the murder charges and let him off with a warning not to do it again.
But really, splitting wood was his favorite pastime. He could rip through hundreds of pieces in a few hours. Sometimes though, he’d run into a knotty piece of ash that he really had to take his time with… a guy could get hurt that way. And don’t even get him started on the way his pulse fluttered as he thought about the tradition of tapping the maple trees and syrup-making during those murky winter days…
He was shaken from his daydream by the resonance of that same voice from the corner of the office. Jim wiped his forearm across his brow, sweat glistening like a million stars as it shone beneath his unruly mop of hair. Wading through the mountain of panties that had suddenly been heaped at his feet, he made his way to the sound.
"Phyllis!" He shouted at the sight of his coworker lying on the floor, body hewn in two. "Oh my God, you look so disgusting! Even worse than usual!"
"Thanks Jim. You sure know how to flatter a girl," Phyllis replied, the blood rushing into her cheeks and right on out through the claw marks covering them.
Concern was written across Jim’s features as he tried to comfort his elderly friend. He hoped the marker wasn‘t permanent. "So, Phyllis, who did this to you? And is everyone else here d-dead?" His voice cracked slightly as he wondered if his beloved was amongst them.
"Actually Jim, these are mostly mannequins, with a few paid actors thrown in should there be any speaking parts," Phyllis said flatly. "The Chupacabra kidnapped everyone else."
"Oh no!!" Jim bellowed, nearly inconsolable as the tears streamed down his face. He pointed at the TV in the break room… "The NASDAQ just dropped another 323 points today. My retirement fund is ruined!"
Phyllis began to cry as Jim turned back to face her. "Oh Jim, I fear my time is short. You must go… save everyone from the Chupacabra."
"Is there anything I can do for you…to make you more comfortable?" he said as he fingered the .44 magnum revolver at his side.
She thought for a brief moment, and then a smile crept across her face. "Oh Jim, you know you are so hot when you show off your compassionate, sensitive side like that! If I had the lower half of my body, I’d make love to you right now."
Jim fought back the dry heaves as he choked out, "Please Phyllis! Don’t you know there are ratings demographics to appease? The 18-34 year olds will not want to see you and me together, only more beautiful couples like Pam and I, or Ryan and the new receptionist, or Karen and a wood chipper."
Phyllis resignedly looked into his eyes, then gasped her last breath. Jim casually tossed a fire blanket over her and calmly walked back out of the office in search of the diabolical creature that held the thread of his heart in its hulking paw…and was threatening to snip it at any minute.
Fog grasped at Pennsylvania’s feet as he made his way up Montage Mountain, focused on his purpose. “Chupacabra is said to dwell in Mexico, Central America and South America… What is he doing all the way out here?” Pennsylvania recalled the facts he had looked up on Wikipedia before leaving the office. He had used Pam’s computer, since it had been the only one not destroyed by the horrendous creature. While waiting for the article to load, Pennsylvania looked around the desk, remembering the happy times he and Pam had had at that desk. Him leaning against it… eating jelly beans… her infectious smile and adorable grin whenever they planned a prank… the way her head tilted whenever she played Sudoku… Pennsylvania shook his head and forced himself to think about the task ahead.
“Halpert!” he heard in the distance. “Halpert!”
He momentarily closed his eyes and let out a sigh, recognizing the voice instantly. How did the Chupacabra kill everyone except Dwight? And why in the world was he here, on Montage Mountain, just twenty yards from him? He slowly turned around to see the fellow salesman coming towards him with blood on his mustard shirt.
“Halpert, I tried to kill it, but it would not succumb to my pepper spray,” Dwight said apologetically. “I reached for my ninja stars, but apparently someone in the office is a thief and stole them.”
“Didn’t Ryan ban weaponry from the office?”
“Leaving us susceptible to attack,” Dwight said darkly. “And you see what happened because of that? I knew Michael should’ve gotten that job.” He shook his head before continuing. “I’ve been tracking him up the mountain. I believe he’s hiding from us.”
“He’s a mindless creature who eats anything in his way—”
“That is false. Fact: The Chupacabra has been known to stalk its prey and hide in the bushes until an opportune time.”
Pennsylvania sighed, pressing his fingertips to his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Where did he go?”
“Up the mountain, Halpert. You’re not paying attention, are you? Typical.”
“Just… show me which way and I’ll take care of it.”
“Fact: More attacks happen while alone. It’s better for us both to stay together.”
“Great.” Pennsylvania bit the inside of his lip. “Let’s go.” As he and Dwight headed up the mountain, Pennsylvania Halpert couldn’t help but think about the woman he loved. He recalled a time just last weekend when they had been on a date at his house. He was flipping channels and it landed on a college football game. Boise State was playing against Penn State. Jim couldn’t help but wonder at Pam’s reaction to the game. She was actually cheering for the Broncos! How could she go against her own state like that?
“I like the blue grass,” she said simply, taking a sip of her Diet Coke. “It’s pretty.”
“It’s like… Smurf-colored. You don’t think that’s a little… unnatural?” he had asked.
“No, I think it’s interesting. They want to be different. What’s wrong with that?”
Jim had merely rolled his eyes and switched the channel. Pam attacked him, attempting to change it back, but they ended up on the living room floor, and the rest… well, one can only imagine what happened next. That’s right. They spotted the cribbage box under the coffee table and played cribbage for three hours straight.
Dwight put his hand out in front of Pennsylvania and stopped him from proceeding. “I think I heard something,” he whispered. With careful movements, Dwight took a fish knife from under his pant leg and held it out, ready to attack. Pennsylvania took out his .44 magnum. Dwight made serious, finite motions, indicating that he would take the left route around a nearby bush, while Pennsylvania would go around the right.
The two men took their places and slowly walked around the bush. Pennsylvania stepped around the bush and pointed his gun downward. Dwight let out a samurai war cry as he rounded the bush, his knife poised in the air perilously.
“Chase Utley?” Pennsylvania uttered, putting his gun away.
“Um, hey,” the second baseman said shyly.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I was just…” he paused, wiping sweat from his brow with a dirty forearm. “I was hiking and this… this thing chased after me. I’ve been hiding here for…” He paused to check his watch. “Two hours. Damn, two hours? I need to get back!” The Phillie jumped to his feet and dashed down the mountain.
“Well, that was random,” Pennsylvania uttered, letting out a breath as they continued up the mountain. The pair made their way slowly up the ominous slope. With each breath, Pennsylvania hoped that his beloved had been spared. With each step, he remembered something special about her. He thought of her hair in the morning, messy and curly and glowing with the morning light pouring in behind her. He smiled at the way she would pile tartar sauce on her fish, no matter how many spices Jim had used to flavor it to her liking. He recalled her laugh as they would watch ridiculous TV shows like The Simpsons and Scrubs. He remembered how she would drink the remaining milk after eating a bowl of Captain Crunch cereal…
“Look!” Dwight said, pointing at a tree. A dark red liquid presented itself on the trunk of the tree. “It’s…” Dwight reached out and touched the sticky substance. “It’s… jam.”
“Jelly?”
“No, Halpert. Jam. Jelly is just the juice of the fruit while jam is the juice along with mashed up bits of the fruit. Haven’t you ever canned anything?”
Pennsylvania rolled his eyes and asked, “So it’s jam. So what?”
“Don’t you see, Halpert? The jam tells us that Chupacabra has a sweet tooth.”
Pennsylvania stared blankly at Dwight. “Well, at least we know which way it went.” Halpert walked past Dwight up the mountain, eager to end this quest and find his beautiful Pam. After all he had endured—watching her with Roy, her turning him down, him moving to Stamford, his mistake with K****—he couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not ever.
Pennsylvania looked out at the trail ahead of him, knowing it would be a difficult path. It had never been easy for him, but now, he had a reason to go on—a reason to put up with Dwight for however long it takes to find Pam…
“Oh, no,” Dwight mumbled, looking down at the ground. Pennsylvania looked in the same direction to find a steaming pile of… you get the picture.
“Is that from a Chupacabra?” Pennsylvania asked. “I thought they were only a little bigger than a dog. That looks way too big.”
“No, it’s not from Chupacabra,” Dwight said. “It’s from Bigfoot. They’ve joined forces.”
"So, tell me again why we’re walking around in the dark rather than setting up camp somewhere," Pennsylvania grumbled as he stumbled over another log jutting out from the pitchy darkness.
"Oh, Halpert, there is so much you need to learn about outdoorsmanship," Dwight sneered back. "Fact: Bigfoot is nocturnal." He pushed one of the raised fingers on his left down with the opposite hand and continued. "Also a fact: Bigfoot can run faster than a black bear…which is pretty fast. Third fact: the chupacabra has an excellent sense of hearing and combined with the Bigfoot’s ability to smell and see in the dark, it forms an almost impenetrable field of detection capabilities. It’s like RADAR and SONAR all rolled into one. Fact-"
"Da-wight still plays with plastic swords as a 35 year old man," Pennsylvania cut in.
"OK, obviously you have no idea what this is, Halpert. You will be thanking me should we run into any storm troopers out here" the older man chided, clutching the deluxe light saber like a proud parent.
"Or 8 year old George Lucas fans…" Pennsylvania said, raising his eyebrows in a quizzical manner. He heard the plop of three bodies hitting the ground nearby, writhing in ecstasy at the mere sight of one of his many faces.
Dwight tensed at the affront to his manhood but stopped short of responding. "Well, now if you’d quit interrupting, I was just going to suggest that we walk single file in order to minimize the posterior surface area of the group in case of an attack."
Pennsylvania had to bite his lip to keep from chuckling, but he figured that it would be best not to cause any more internal strife. "OK," he replied, and they continued to wind and twist their way through the ebony maze of downed trees and untold dangers.
They’d traversed but a few hundred yards when they came upon a large cemented ditch bubbling with hot sticky material, likely honey, coursing through a landscape of remains of the unfortunate souls that had found their way into the bottom of it and gotten stuck. Over time, the remnants had petrified so that they were almost statuesque in appearance…like busts of ancient passers-by, trapped for all eternity. Pennsylvania had to shield his nose from the foul smell, turning to Dwight to see if he had any idea what this was…and how to make their way around it.
"This is the Gutter of Eternal Peril. Those who fall into here never escape," Dwight whispered, responding to the questions unasked. It was touching, really, and he thought of the only other person in the world who could read his mind in such a manner. He thought of hot sauce packets and children’s books, long nights spent doing laundry and trips to the zoo…the way her hair literally formed a halo around her head when she leaned back onto the pillows as they made love, and how if he lost her for a second time, his life would be without meaning, without joy, without Italian food.
He broke free from the shackles of that daydream, his eye catching the glint of a flicker diving through the treetops above as he asked the obvious follow-up question. "Well, how do we get across then?"
The bespectacled salesman pondered for a moment, his eyes flashing wide as he landed upon the solution.. "There are bridges that cross the gutter set up periodically along the way. We just need to walk along the banks until we find one."
They deftly made their way along the embankment, slipping over the sedimentary rocks that jutted above the flow below. They walked for nearly an hour before they came upon a small wooden bridge guarded by a haggard old woman sitting in a chair and hunched over a tree stump covered with a game board of some type. As they closed to within feet of the passage, the tired figure sprang to action, standing and blocking their way.
"Who goes there?!?" she cried in a foul, prickly tone.
"It is but I, Pennsylvania Halpert and my sidekick Da-wight," Pennsylvania responded. "We seek safe passage to the other side of the gorge and were hoping we could use your bridge to…"
"Nonsense!" came the retort. "No one passes here without first challenging me to a game of…cribbage!" Ominous sounding instrumentation reverberated through the woodlot as the old crone cackled with glee. She hobbled her way over to the stump as she gestured toward Pennsylvania to take the seat on the opposite side.
He peered on quizzically. "What’s to stop us from just walking across right now?" he asked.
She pointed down to the ground. A small rodent, perhaps a mouse or a shrew, was scurrying toward the bridge. As its paws touched the timber, a great jolt of energy shook the ground and a flash of light lit the dark forest as though it were Times Square. They looked back to see only the charred remains of whatever the creature was. Dwight’s eyes went wide and Jim took the hint that he wanted nothing to do with the electrified bridge. He still wasn’t sure how the wood hadn’t been incinerated itself though…must have been some special enhanced wood, he guessed.
He quickly scooted into the seat facing the old woman. "Let’s do this then," he sneered. Luckily for him, he was sort of a cribbage expert. He and Pam spent most of their free time playing cribbage… on the bed, in the shower, on the kitchen counter, on the couch, out on the porch, in the conference room at Dunder Mifflin if there was nowhere more convenient…he’d gotten so good at it that she was practically begging him to lay down the board and get the pegs flying into the holes within minutes of waking up every morning.. He could definitely take out an aged, senile, nearly blind nonagenarian.
The game progressed quickly, with Jim using his sharp sense of anticipation to play nearly every game perfectly. He was within 15 slots of the finish line and figured he could finish off his opponent, who lagged a solid dozen holes further back, in one more hand. After a volley of cards, he counted his hand and found that he was one peg short of finishing the game. He was shocked to find that his opponent had three fives and a jack in hand with a 5 in the middle, for 28 points and an unbelievable win.
Quickly the woman stood as if to dispatch him into the gutter, but Jim had a secret weapon on his side. As he looked longingly into her eyes, he mesmerized her with a 27 second stare down. Then, as if to finish her off, stubble began magically sprouting from his chin and cheeks, growing into full-blown scruff within seconds. It was a bloodbath. The old wretch, being female as she was, was rendered helpless…she turned and plunged head-first into the gutter, never to be seen again.
"How did you do that?" Dwight stammered, completely awestruck by the display he’d witnessed.
"Oh, it was in the Complete Guide to Hotness, right after the forearm flash." Dwight simply nodded. "Well, shall we?" Pennsylvania motioned, and they both stepped across the bridge onto the other side of the gutter. They would never have guessed what would happen next.
As soon as Da-wight and Penn Halpert were on the other side of the bridge, Da-wight stopped abruptly. He put his hand up, signaling a stop, and nearly hitting Penn in the face. He sniffed the air, looked up into the sky, and shook his head. “Sundown is approaching, Halpert. The Chupacabra is nocturnal. We will need to be extra wary once the sun goes down.”
“How much further do you think we’ll need to go?” Pennsylvania wondered.
“Oh, about a league.”
“A league? Who uses those measurements anymore?” Pennsylvania muttered as they trudged along a narrow path.
“It is an accurate form of measurement, Halpert,” Dwight shot back, irritated. “Aha!” he suddenly shouted, sprinting up the hill. Penn rolled his eyes, wondering what “discovery” Dwight had made that caused him to run so fast up the hill. “There,” he pointed. They were now at the ridge of Montage Mountain and Dwight was pointing downhill, towards a deep canyon, the sides spotted with trees. “He should be in that canyon.”
“Great, let’s go,” Penn said, eager to kill the monster and save the receptionist.
“Not so fast, Halpert,” Dwight said, clutching Penn’s shoulder. “We must be cautious. The Chupacabra is a very sensitive creature. We must be careful not to provoke it. Do you have meat on you?” Penn shook his head slowly. “Good. Alright, we must also be careful not to offend it. No snarkiness at all, or it WILL attack. Also, no mention of Disney sequels. He abhors them. No need to anger him.” Dwight paused in thought. “Do you have any pictures of you?”
“Of myself? No; why?”
“The creature is distracted—and strangely delighted—with pictures of its enemies.”
“Wait,” Penn said, realizing he did have one picture… Michael had taken it at the Christmas party years ago, but Penn had stolen it from Michael’s desk and kept it in his wallet. He meant to destroy it one day, but he seemed to keep forgetting. That, and he discovered that Pam liked looking at it. He handed the picture to Dwight, blushing slightly at the revealing picture. Dwight took a look at it, raised an eyebrow, and looked at Penn. “Don’t ask,” he begged, hanging his head.
Dwight let out a breath and tucked the picture into his shirt pocket. “Alright, well, let’s get going.” Dwight led the way into the canyon, Penn following close behind.
“Da-wight, look out!” Penn said, ducking low. A black, furry creature lunged at them, leaping over a nearby boulder. Penn pulled out his .44 Magnum and pointed it at the creature as it growled and snarled, drooled and frothed. The creature faced Penn and readied itself to pounce once again. Penn pulled the trigger and the creature fell back. Penn stepped forward to ensure that it was dead, but it sprang back to life and charged towards Penn. Dwight pulled out his ninja stars and began hurling them towards the creature. He aimed poorly, however, and one grazed Penn’s shoulder. “Da-wight, you idiot!”
“You were in my way!” Dwight argued.
Penn let out a groan as he pulled the trigger again. The creature fell back, but neither man trusted that it was dead. Dwight pulled out his fish knife and began to stab it mercilessly. As he did so, green blood oozed out, spilling onto the forest floor. The creature changed before their eyes. Soon the men had their heads tilted, looking down at a familiar face. Lying before them was K****, complete with business suit pants and a muffin top. Penn shook his head. “I don’t understand,” he muttered.
“I suppose,” Dwight began, scratching his chin, “the Chupacabra is like a werewolf of sorts. Interesting…”
Penn sighed. “Well, we better move on,” he sighed. “We still haven’t found… the other people from the office.” As they continued on, Penn thought back on his happy times with Pam. What would he ever do if he lost her forever? Even the simplest of times would be lost to him. The times when they folded laundry together, or when they went to the zoo to look at the capybaras… And the more special times, when they went to the Poconos to ski in the winter, or golf in the spring. Pam was an excellent golfer, and Penn didn’t mind at all spending incredible amounts of money to buy her the proper shoes and clothes.
The sun finally descended below the horizon and in the dusk, Dwight pointed out a cave not very far away. They heard a scuffling and a growl, and the approached cautiously.
“It must be the Sasquatch,” Dwight whispered. Penn nodded in agreement. Dwight pulled out his ninja stars as Jim readied his gun. Simultaneously, they drew their weapons and aimed for the tall, hairy creature in the dim light. They heard him groan and snarl. Dwight ran in first, screaming as he hoisted his fishing knife over his head. As with the Chupacabra, Dwight stabbed the creature repeatedly. Dwight then pulled out a flashlight and shined it around the cave.
“Uh, Da-wight?” Penn said, looking at the Sasquatch. The hairy beast soon changed (though only slightly) into another familiar face—it was R**.
“Both Chupacabra and Sasquatch are were-creatures?!” he exclaimed in surprise. “Incredible!”
Penn sighed. “Let’s see if there’s anyone here.” The two men wandered further into the cave, shining the flashlight here and there, trying to see in the low light.
“Here!” Dwight called out, standing over a slight figure. He shined his light down on the person, who was covered in a rough blanket. Dwight pulled back the blanket to reveal the seemingly sleeping form of Pam.
Penn knelt down slowly, laying a hand on her shoulder. He rolled her onto her back and touched her face gently. Penn felt no breath coming from her nose or mouth. He tried to take her pulse at her neck, but felt nothing. Tears streamed down Jim’s face as he looked at Pam. After so long, when they were finally together, only to be taken from her—and by K**** and R** no less! The tears flowed freely, down his stubbled cheeks and landing on his oxford shirt. He breathed heavily, his shoulders shaking violently as he wept for his beloved. “NO!” he called out. “No, no, no…” he muttered, holding her face in his hands. He bent down and kissed her lips softly. “Go away, Da-wight,” Penn ordered.
“But--”
“GO!!!”
Dwight slowly walked towards the entrance to the cave. As he was about to reach the mouth of the cave, he heard a loud gunshot. Dwight ran back to where he had left Penn and found him lying on the ground beside Pam.
“Jiiiiiiiiiiiim!” Dwight called out in pain. Losing the other morons in the office was difficult, but he had shared intimate parts of his life with Jim, and though he hated to admit it, Jim was kind of his friend. Shortly after Dwight began to cry for Jim, he heard a staggered breath come from Pam. She gasped for breath and Dwight helped her to sit up. He shook his head. Pam was still alive, and Jim… Jim had killed himself because he had lost her… What a quandary the couple was in now!
Pam looked around her, confused. She saw Jim’s lifeless body, a large hole in his head (and the back of his head blown out) by the .44 Magnum. She shook her head angrily. “Why, Jim??”
“He thought you were dead,” Dwight said quietly.
“How will I live without you?” she asked rhetorically of the dead man beside her. Weeping, she took up the gun in his hand. Dwight tried to take it from her, but she pointed it at Dwight. “Go now, Dwight.”
“Pam, no,” he argued. “Don’t take your own life—you can move on! You’re strong!”
“Dwight, what would you do if Angela was dead?”
Dwight looked down, knowing that Angela was dead, along with Michael and the rest of the office staff. “She is, Pam. But I’m still here.”
“You’re here because you had a mission,” she said. “You had a reason to move forward—to keep living. You were hunting the creatures that stole us, and now that they’re dead, and Angela’s dead, what reason do you have to keep living?”
“Well, I… I have my beet farm… and Mose… Mose needs me.”
Pam nodded. “I’m glad someone needs you, Dwight. But I don’t have a Mose. I had a Jim, but now he’s gone. Please don’t stop me.”
Dwight sighed. “Fine.” Dwight let out a breath and got up to leave. As he exited the cave, he heard the gun shot ring out. He cringed and shed a few tears. He worked his way towards civilization, deciding that it was appropriate that Jim and Pam had ended that way. It seemed senseless, but in a way, it was romantic. It was like Romeo and Juliet—the Claire Danes version, of course.
Dwight found himself weeping as he went home that night, realizing that not only had he lost the love of his life, but he had also lost his two best friends.