How It Ends

I worked as a biohazard clean up tech. The blood, guts, and bodily fluids never really phased me. Most of the time, the customers I came across were older men and women who had passed away in their sleep. Those were okay. Occationally, I’d have a suicide victim that slit their writsts or swallowed some pills but a little bleach and elbow-greese and the stains were gone. However, there were a select few suicidals who thankfully blew their brains all over the walls. It would sometimes take up to 6 hours of deep cleaning to make sure every last bit of skull and flesh had been scraped from the walls with no visible stains left behind. Those nastier cases happened to be my favorites. I could spend Hours in my head fantasizing about all the sticky, hot blood I was getting to play with. 

    I was sitting at my desk when I got a call about a lady who had been murdered in her farmhouse about 20 minutes outside of town. 

“Hey Jack, we got another murder case. Sounds pretty nasty. Let’s load the truck and head out in 5.” My middle aged partner and I had been working together since I started last year. Although he was nowhere close to my age, he was the closest that I’ve ever had to a best friend because he understood what it was like to be avoided because of how you smell. Even the easiest cases to clean still left us smelling of gangrenous flesh which had taken its toll on both our social and love lives. With that, we made sure to pack extra cologne for this one. 

    The ride to the farmhouse went by quickly. I found myself admiring the dozens of windmills that dotted the horizon like flocks of sheep outside the truck window. The countryside was beautiful but I often didn’t have time to admire it as I was busy trying to keep my grades from prompting my parents to beat me. I closed my eyes and listened to the old truck knock, excited to see what the murder had left for me.

***

    The door to my classroom opened to cut me off from reading. I took a breath to hold. 

    “Hey, I was wondering if I could get the work that I’m going to miss for the next couple of days.” He looked down at the story in my hands. “I hope you like it.” He grinned right into my eyes which made me uneasy. He had always been a twisted individual and the only reason I hesitated giving the free choice assignment to my Creative Writing class was because of him. 

    “Yes, Liam, it’s very nice.” I handed him his prepared make up work. “Have fun on your trip.” 

He then turned to leave but not before looking back to say, “See you soon,” with another sinister grin. I exhaled and went back to reading. 

***

    The first thing I noticed as we pulled up to the little farmhouse was the odd plumb purple colored trim around the windows. They stuck out like sore thumbs on the rest of the house, which was painted white, and made the house look like it had baggy under eyes. With a wrap-around porch painted in the same purple, the house was an overall odd choice for the middle of Indianna.   

    “Body’s downstairs. Make it quick,” the cop that was waiting instructed us. Little screams from the old staircase escaped as Jack and I made our way into the basement. The smell of a fresh crime scene got stronger as we descended. Though, it was different than usual. Sweeter. It made me chuckle because I knew something good was waiting for us. And when I saw the corpse, I giggled again. Her eyes had been scratched out and the room was splattered with their remains.

***

    The end-of-the-day bell rang and pulled me out of my train of thought again. I quickly packed up so that I could get home and finish grading. I always enjoyed my trips home because it gave me a chance to decompress and reflect about my day. Today being a Friday, I had a lot to think about as teaching took all the energy out of me. As I was driving, the windmills in the distance reminded me of Liam’s story. 

    “Scratched out eyes?” I murmured to myself. “Who thinks of that?” But as I pulled in front of my plumb purple trimmed house, my heart ached a little bit more. A chill ran through my spine and electrocuted all of my hair follicles into standing. “What a bizarre boy,” I shook my head to myself. I was sure he must have just seen a picture on Facebook or something. After making a cup of tea to calm my nerves, I got his story out to finish it. As I flipped it over to continue, however, it was blank and more than half way under the minimum word count.

I took the last sip of my calming tea thinking I was done grading now. But, the smiley face with two x’s over the eyes, staring at me from the bottom of the mug, told me that I wasn’t. The pain in my chest deepend with my tea into my stomach. That’s when the tapping started. With each last tick of my life’s clock, tick...tap...tick...tap. Its impatient and relentless nature naturally forced adrenaline throughout my body. Then, footsteps started coming from upstairs. Creek...creek...creek. Slow and creeping, like they were coming for me. I thought I must have been going crazy after a long week. I often panicked when I didn’t need to. It was an old house after all and I had just been reading a scary story. The footsteps then made it to me and the impatient, tapping fingers pulled me under.

***

    Jack and I started to bag the body and made small talk as we did. It was the only social interaction either of us got any more. 

“What kind of sicko kills a school teacher?” he prompted. But as we started to move the corpse, Jack noticed the little treasure that had left behind and switched his attention to it.

    “Hold on! There’s something in her mouth. Liam, hand me those pliers will ya?” He asked as he motioned to the pair laying next to me. I tossed them to him and from her mouth, he removed a little slip of paper. 

“What’s it say?” I jokingly asked because of course I already knew. I bit my lip to hide my smile but, when he unfolded the paper, I couldn’t hide it anymore. From memory and in unison, I read with a grinning smirk, “this is how it ends.”