Hell Incorporated
an excerpt

There would be no lies today. No affairs started, no homework eaten by pet hamsters, no crooked policemen receiving bribes from the sleazy owners of sleazy gambling dens. The gambling dens themselves would close their doors for the day. There would be no snide remarks made about the biggest girl in the school PE changing rooms and no Burberry-clad teenagers shoplifting bottles of nail varnish from Boots. Just for today, the devil that sits on your shoulder and pushed you into something you ordinarily would not even entertain, would hold his tongue and leave you be. That's what happens when the corporation shuts down. No one there to push the buttons and make you do those things you shouldn't. That's what they did, that was their job.

Most people assume that a person makes choices to act a certain way. People have free will and it's their choices that determine who they are. Some people are just born inclined to walk just off to the left of the side of good. Others are so inherently evil that they do things that shock and repulse the general public. Others believe every action and event is determined prior to birth. Fate or destiny decides which route your life will take and nothing you can do can stop it. There is no free will. Well, unfortunately for everyone concerned, neither are strictly true. The corporation controls every act of evil that befalls the world. From the minor and mundane, such as a child stealing their friend's toys, to the monstrous, like the massacre of the family down the street, by the unassuming neighbour who used to help at the local church.

The corporation can not function without people to direct the madness, those born from the Core to administer the human race. Strangely enough though, today, they were, for the first time in centuries, not at their desks. They were loitering in small groups at water coolers. A large group had congregated in the cafeteria. Many of them had not come in to work at all, preferring to wait at home for news. The ones that did were nervous and emotional. They shuffled their feet and clung to their neighbours in desperation. Cotton hankies were passed around and dabbed in corners of eyes to wipe the silent tears that fell there. None of them expected this day to have happened so soon, in fact, most of them had never believed the day would ever happen. He'd be part of the family forever wouldn't he? That's what he used to call the office. Family. It was never a family and he never believed it either, he was in charge and that was for certain, but that was what he called it. He'd ruled over them for longer than the company's records began and gave orders as though he was born for the job.

It's true that none of his employees would miss him dreadfully, he has no misgivings about driving his workers to death and did so often, but they still cried for him and themselves. They cried in shock more than anything, for what changes would occur now that he'd died, what would they do without him? They spoke in hushed tones and illicit whispers; what had happened? It seemed almost impossible for them to comprehend the corporation without him at the helm. He built this place from the first stone to the gilded lettering on the wall, which flickered as though lit by candlelight. This was big and they all knew it. Temps and paper pushers stood shoulder to shoulder with department heads all wondering and discussing the same thing; what had killed Luther Holden?