Herb Milton brushed the cookie crumbs off of his wrinkled Allied Security Services shirt, took a sip of the coffee his wife, Shirley, had brewed for him, and rose up and out of the uncomfortable folding metal chair the company had provided.  He leaned backwards and stretched his aching back.

"Oh me, oh my," he groaned.  "Cheap bastards.  Allied Security Services - A.S.S.  Should be Allied Security Services Have Only Loser Executive Shitheads - ****!!!"

The elevator door opened and Maria, the night cleanup lady from Guatamala, exited pushing her cart full of trash.

"Oh Laaaa!" Herb exagerated trying to sound like he cared to learn her language.  Maria smiled shyly.

"Hola."

As Maria moved down the corridor, Herb grabbed the timekey hanging from the rusty nail on the wall behind him, and started off on his first rounds of the night.  He headed down the same long corridor, which led from his station at the rear warehouse doors to the generator room.  Across the hall was the communications room, which led to more storage rooms and eventually to the trash compactor where Maria would dump the trash.

Herb meandered slowly.  They called him "Flash" - a term of endearment for his steady pace that never exceeded "snail."  His compatriot, Marv Furbich, was nicknamed "Crash" for his ability to sleep anywhere, anytime.  "Don't worry, everybody, Flash and Crash are protecting us," was the joke of the medical campus.

Herb didn't care what people thought.  He wasn't fast but at least he was awake.  He approached the time clock outside of the generator room, and inserted the key to record his time on the round.  He heard the familiar click.  What he didn't hear was Maria coming back up the corridor.  She usually dumped the trash and passed him just about the time he turned his first key.  Oh, well, he thought.  Maybe she found something to good to read in the trash.  Someone was always throwing out an old magazine.

Herb turned from the timeclock and saw something that made him want to run.  The problem was, he didn't know which way to go - away from Maria or towards her.  She wasn't bad looking naked.  Nice hips, great bosoms, and he always liked Spanish food.  He smiled as she motioned for him to come to her with her left hand.  He didn't know about the knife in her right hand, nor about the dreamcatcher tucked lovingly in her smock laying neatly folded on her cart.