If you’d ask me ten years ago where I’d see myself now, it definitely wouldn’t be working at a cleaning company. No, I’d tell you I’d run my own successful business.
I had high aspirations when I was younger, and I even dropped out of school to choose some vague, unrealistic dream. All hoping to make it big, to get rich. After things didn’t work out time and again, and I had nothing to show for my lofty ambitions, I had to face reality. It was time to find some work.
This cleaning job was supposed to be nothing but a temporary thing, but five years later, I was still here. To say I disliked the job would be an understatement, but it is what it is. There are some perks though, half the time I work alone, so I can listen to music or podcasts. The other half, I work with my superior, Mark, who was the most laid-back guy in the world.
I usually work in the early mornings, getting things ready before rush hour, and all the regular people arrive. I hated the early morning shift because there was never enough time to get everything done. The night shift was entirely different. You got all the time in the world, and there’s this sense of calm and quiet.
Tonight, Mark and I were dispatched to some high-rising office building, and we were told to clean up the premises of a promising start-up on the third floor. Apparently, those tech guys couldn’t be bothered cleaning up after themselves.
It should be a night I’d never forget.
We arrived at the building late in the evening. It was nothing but a dark monolith made of glass and steel rising high into the night sky. After Mark unlocked the door, I pushed our massive cleaning cart inside. The thing was a monstrosity, an amalgamation of anything we’d need for the job. It was stacked with various chemicals and detergents, a handful of mops and two floor cleaning machines. As I pushed the thing into the lobby, all I could see was a giant staircase in the back.
“Oh, come on, you’re telling me we have to carry all that up the stairs?”
I was in a foul mood that day, and I hated things already. Mark gave me a grin and waved a key-chain he was holding.
“No worries, there’s this nice little service elevator waiting for us around the corner. Come on.”
With that, he led me to a small, half-hidden elevator shaft, unlocked it, and we pushed the car inside.
“See, Tom, the job’s got its perks!” Mark said, laughing.
“Yeah, guess so,” I mumbled to myself.
I had to admit, though, I was more than happy we didn’t have to carry all that stuff upstairs. Once we’d made it to the third floor, Mark unlocked the company’s premises.
“Well, you ready for our little night time adventure?” Mark asked, while pushing the cart inside.
“I don’t get how you can always be so happy doing this shitty job.”
He shrugged.
“Gotta make the best of it, you know? Can’t be moping around. Come on, smile a little. This job ain’t so bad.”
“Yeah, why don’t you just fuck off,” I mumbled, but couldn’t help but laugh.
Mark sure wasn’t the smartest guy around, but he sure was one of the jolliest.
“All right, how do you want to do this?” he asked as we entered the pristine hallway covered in motivational pictures.
I used to like them, had them plastered all over my walls years ago. Now they meant nothing and seemed to mock me for my failures. Then I let my eyes wandered around before I turned back to Mark.
“Well, would make sense to divide things up, wouldn’t it? That way, we’ll be done sooner. I go left, you go right?”
“You want me to walk around here all on my own in the middle of the night?” he asked in a fake-shocked voice. “What if there’s some crazy serial killer on the loose, or, you know, ghosts, or-“ he rambled, but I cut him off.
“Stop joking around, man. You know I’m not in the mood for any of that creepy shit. Let’s get going.”
While Mark laughed his ass off, I stacked up on cleaning supplies and got my floor cleaning machine ready. I plugged it in, started the beast, and began on my way down the hallway. Those things were pretty damn awesome, I had to admit. I rumbled past the first glass door when I thought I saw a glimmer of light from inside. For a moment, I felt goosebumps all over my arms, as Mark’s stupid jokes came back to my mind. God, he’d laugh his ass off if he saw me right now. I shook my head and told myself it must’ve been my imagination.
A moment later, however, anxiously, I turned off the floor cleaning machine and opened the door. When I entered, I found myself in a giant office, filled to the brim with desks and computers. When I stepped inside, a strange smell reached me. It was faint, but somewhat noticeable. A chair in the back had toppled over, and what looked like a… blouse, crumpled up and forgotten, lay next to it on the floor. Yet everything was quiet, and no one was around. What the hell? I took down my headphones and listened for a moment.
“Anyone there?” I called out, annoyed at the slight edge in my voice.
When I didn’t get an answer, my hand wandered to a nearby light switch. Before I could flip it, a guy’s head poked out from behind a computer. I jerked at his sudden appearance.
“Jesus Christ,” I blurted.
The guy’s eyes focused on me. He seemed fidgety, almost as if he was trying to hide behind the computer, afraid I’d approach him.
“Oh, hey. Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” the guy said in a nervous voice. “Just trying to fix the code. Someone messed with it, so…”
“Shit man, it’s like… eleven in the evening,” I said, glancing at my phone.
His eyes continued probing me. The way he held his body was defensive, as if he expected me to come for him or… do something to him. After a few seconds, however, he gave me a weak shrug.
“Yeah, it’s late, but hey, if you got to clean, go ahead. Maybe you could finish here last, though? Really got to fix this.”
As I looked at the guy, I saw how bloodshot his eyes were, how tired his face was, and somehow, I couldn’t help but feel for the guy. If he was still here at this hour, his job was even worse than mine. Finally, I shrugged and gave him a brief nod.
“Sure thing. I’ll take care of the other rooms first. You’re probably done by then.”
At first he was quiet, and just continued to stare at me, but after a few seconds, he opened his mouth again.
“Yeah, thanks man, all good, all good,” he mumbled in a slightly shaken voice.
What the hell was wrong with this guy?
Back in the hallway, I turned my cleaning machine back on, pressed play on my music, and continued on my merry way. After that, I took care of the toilets at the end of the hall, and once those were done, I cleaned the conference room and what appeared to be a storage room.
I returned to the hallway just to see the glass door to the office open up. My eyes met those of the guys I’d seen before. I saw his mouth move, but couldn’t hear him over my music. I took down the headphones once more and took a step toward him.
“Sorry, what was that?”
I got no answer. Instead, he just stood there in the doorway, half of his body hidden behind the door frame. Then he pushed his head outward, his eyes growing wide by the second.
“You know, why don’t you just keep on cleaning and leave me the hell alone?”
What did he just say?
“Yo, man, you know you’re having a rough day, but there’s no need to be an asshole!”
The guy started mumbling to himself. I could see his jaw tighten, saw his body growing tense.
“…calling me an asshole?” I heard between other, indistinguishable curses.
“Yeah, I’m calling you an-“ I started, but when I took a step forward, my foot got caught by the floor cleaning machine’s cable and I almost crashed to the floor.
I cursed and gave the machine a hard kick. A bottle of detergent I’d placed on top of it clattered to the floor and popped open.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.”
I quickly picked the bottle up and closed it, staring at the puddle on the floor. I sighed before I turned back to the guy who still hadn’t moved.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, trying my best to defuse the situation. “Guess I’m having a rough night, too. Let’s just forget about it. No need to tell your boss about our little argument, right?”
Eventually, the guy gave me a weak nod.
“All right, gotta get going,” I said before I turned around.
I don’t know what the guy’s problem was, but he gave me the creeps. Freaking computer nerds, I thought as I continued on my way to the kitchen. The place was a mass. To say it was untidy was an understatement. The floor was stained, as was the table and almost all other surfaces. I even found a woman’s handbag resting on the kitchen counter. I pulled out my phone and checked out our to-do list. Of course, we had to clean all surfaces in here. I sighed, what was, I glorified maid? For the next half hour, I was busy with half a dozen chemicals to return this dump of a kitchen back to pristine condition.
Once I was done, I was pretty proud of myself. Sure, the job sucked ass, but I had to admit, I wasn’t half bad at it. Well, that leaves the office. I pulled out my phone to hit up Mark, but of course he didn’t answer. He had this stupid habit of turning his phone off.
When I stepped back into the hallway, I hesitated. Something felt off, and a strange feeling washed over me. Was that guy still… here? Finally, I pushed open the door to the office and found it quiet. Even the dim light from earlier was gone.
“Yo, programmer dude, you still around?” I called out.
Thankfully, he seemed to have left. I was about to get the floor cleaning machine when I noticed a bunch of dark splotches on the floor. Great, guess he left me a little goodbye present. Freaking asshole. Well, doesn’t matter, get rid of it and be done. I flicked the light switch on and came to a stop. For a moment, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. I’d thought it was just a small puddle, but as my eyes wandered across the room, I saw splotches, splatters, and even… footprints. I knelt down to clean up the mess he’d left, but when the rag touched the liquid, it stuck to it. It was thick and syrupy. I froze. What was that stuff, anyway? Then the smell hit me, a sharp, metallic smell. Don’t tell me this was… blood?!
Then I noticed a discarded piece of clothing on the floor nearby, the blouse I’d seen early, also stained in dark red. What the hell was this? Don’t tell me… As I inched closer, step by step, I thought about the way the guy had acted, how nervous and fidgety he’d been, how… creepy. I followed the trail of liquid, dark red liquid that was most likely blood.
“Fucking hell,” I cursed when I noticed the first outlines of a pool of corrugated blood below a desk.
“Shit, fucking shit,” I cursed to myself.
I was trembling, my heart was pounding in my chest, and with shaking hands I pulled out my phone, ready to call 911. Then I made my way around the desk. What I saw made me catch my breath, my body went cold, and time stopped. On the floor, right in front of me, lay a woman in a pool of her own blood.
“Oh, dear God…” I whispered, backing away.
My legs buckled under me, and I crashed to the floor. I opened my mouth to call out to her, to ask her if she was still alive, but her eyes were wide open, and her mouth distorted by a perpetual scream. This can’t be real, it can’t… A second later, my heart pounding in my chest, a scrambled away, and threw up into a trash can. What the hell happened here? That guy, that guy I’d seen, he must’ve…
Instantly, my head jerked around, half-anticipating this deranged psycho to come for me. Sweat ran down my face as I backed up against the office wall, my eyes darting left and right, desperately scanning the area. All was quiet, and I saw no movements. For all I knew, he really was gone. Then something clicked. The only exit was at the other end of the hallway, where Mark was. What if he’d run into Mark, and… Shit!
I tried to hit him up on the phone, but it was still turned off. Shit, why did he always have to do that!? I opened my mouth to call out for him, but then closed it again. What if that guy was still inside the building? What if he was lying in wait for me somewhere? As quietly as I could, I inched forward, carefully passing every door.
When I arrived at the service elevator, I found the doors closed, and the elevator gone. But you needed a key to operate it, didn’t you? The key that mark had. I continued down the hallway, my own fears forgotten, desperately calling his name, but I got no answer. It didn’t take long for me to find him. Mark was lying on the floor at the other end of the hallway. His floor cleaning machine was still rumbling on next to him, soaking up the blood that was leaking from his body.
“No, Mark, goddammit! Say something!” I cursed out, trying to lift his body, shaking him.
Yet his body was limp, his eyes unseeing and empty.
“Dammit…”
His body slid from my hands, and I slumped down beside him, hands trembling, cursing myself for not having realized things sooner.
Then minutes later, when I’d calmed down, I finally called 911, and explained the situation as best as I could, given my condition. While I waited for the police to arrive, half-catatonic, with the lifeless body of my co-worker next to me, I slowly put things together.
The blouse, the handbag… that must’ve been those woman’s things. That guy, whoever he was, was probably never supposed to be here. What if he snuck in to… and when we arrived, he had no way out?
Then something else crawled into my mind and began growing there like a festering wound. The office, the guy’s behavior, and those dark splatters and splotches. The blood. It hadn’t been there when I’d first entered it.