worst job

trigger warning: this story contains both death and drug use.

  “Hey, you want to make some money?” Mark leaned over the couch and winked at me. I rolled my eyes knowing he wasn’t really implying what he was so obviously implying.

               “What did you have in mind?” I asked. Putting aside the book I had been staring blankly at for the past 10 minutes. I rolled up into a sitting position, stretched and got to my feet.

               “Tonight,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect of course “you sweep”

               “hurray” I said in a small voice, but then followed it with a grin. Rent wasn’t that expensive, but I had only been here a week, and without a steady job yet any way to lower expenses was a good idea. Besides, it's not like I knew anyone here, or had any plans, or money to spend even if I did. So, I grinned and swiped the broom from Mark's hands.

               “Where to, boss?” I asked and Mark led me down the hall.

               We boarded a large freight elevator and down and down and down it went. It's not really a long ride, it just feels that way because this thing creeks and shakes and makes squealing sounds that would put a horror junkie on edge. I should know, I am a horror junkie. A thousand movies, books, short stories start running through my mind that start off just like this. A creaky elevator. A long ride down the basement of an old factory, who knew what lurking in its bowls. I mentally kicked myself. I was about to be left down here alone. The last thing I should have been doing was scaring myself with what ifs. I took a deep breath. I got this I thought to myself.

               “…so, when you’re done just leave the garbage bags there and call the elevator back. I think there is a dustpan somewhere around here but I’m sure you’ll find it eventually. Make sure you take special care around the storage units. Mostly just make sure there are no visible rat droppings k?”

               I realized I’d missed half of what he said but this seemed straight forward enough. Find dustpan, sweep, stack garbage bags make sure there is no rat poop. Rat poop. Huh. That just registered. Well won't this be fun. Whatever, I tell myself, I’ve seen worse. Glad I wore my boots.

               I nodded at him, after he waved a hand in front of my face…” you ok there, sailor?” he asked, and I just grinned again.

               “What can I say, that was some damn fine weed.” He grins back and pats me on the shoulder.

               “Well, I’ll see you when you’re all done, you know where the elevator button is right?” and I nod. How hard could this be?

               And so, I begin to sweep, I finish the first room and realize that it leads into a second and a third. The next has a long hallway that leads into the dark room of its own. to the left another room and one more behind that. This is before I even manage to find the storage units. This was a much larger space than I had thought, and I wondered briefly if I could get lost down here. Sweeping, I recalled a book I’d read about a basement that ate people. They would wander lost as if in the cavernous bowls being digested one breath at a time. When all your breath had left the body, it would turn to paper, an irresistible urge to touch the walls one last time before crumbling into dust that settled gently upon the floor.

               I shuddered. That was a house. This was a factory, this is fine, I tell myself. This is about the time I nearly tripped over the dustpan. I had been so caught up in my musings that I had completely missed the bulky thing left haphazardly on the floor. It looked abandoned. Lost, left behind, and I must admit I felt a little sorry for it. It then occurred to me to wonder why it would be left here, of all places. Not near the garbage bags, or the entrance. Not near the stairs or the elevator, but here, in the near dark, far into the cavernous labyrinth that was the factory basement.

 Now at this point a normal person might have a few alarm bells going off. Maybe a few red flags fluttering int the breeze. This does, after all, have all the trappings of…well…a trap. But not me. nope. I shrugged my shoulders, popped the dust bin in my back pocket handle down and continued my sweeping. It was really getting dark down here and after a while I decided to make my way back. No one was going to see any rat droppings this far back. The walls were so old they looked like they were cut right out of the earth, and the smell. It smelled like deep earth and rot and dead things. The last visibility showed me there was a room to the right, I swept my way into it and began to make my way back in the direction of the elevator. Or so I thought, I instead found a dead end. Back tracking, I took another right, then a left, and though I had no idea where I was going the light did seem to be getting brighter so I followed it the best I could. I swept. I walked; I scooped little piles of dust into garbage bags.

Eventually I managed to find a hallway that looked like it was illuminated. Thanks all that is I thought with relief as I finally made it to the storage lockers. It was a small hallway with large wooden compartments. A single bulb swung from a cord on the ceiling, but as I tilted my head, I realized there were two sources of light. One from above and one from the side. Oh my god I thought, another human. I was so elated at the prospect of seeing anyone that I did not take a few things into account.

1.      It could be literally anyone.

2.      I was in a creepy basement alone and I had not heard a single sound thus far (which should have been its own kind of creepy)

3.      That what might look like a window from the side could just as easily be something else.

I dropped the broom, padding over the one lit up unit and merrily stuck my face in the window to see who my new friend was. Only to be greeted by another face, so close to mine that I gasped and pulled away. Whoever was on the other side was dirty and smudged, hair sticking out and a ghoulish expression that panicked me for a second. I must have squeaked or something, but I heard nothing from the other side of the door. Not a scratch or a stumble. Not a breath or a hiss or even a whisper. Nothing. Dead silence. Except for my own breath, and heart pounding so loud I was sure I was about to summon the dead. But then a moment passed and then another. Soon my heart slowed, and curiosity got the better of me. I got low and stealthily made my way up to the small window, thinking I could surprise my foe I leaped up only to be met with the same face again. I nearly fell back, and as my position changed so did the light.

Oh, I thought, realization donning on me like a lightbulb going off in the dark.

 I stood, brushed the dust from my filthy clothes and examined my own face in the mirror. My hair was sticking out in odd places. My skin sweaty and covered in dust made me look haggard and frightful, and after my sixth sneeze I realized why my eyes were so red rimmed. I felt silly and decided it was time to get out of here. As I weaved between lockers and bins, I thought about why there would be poop but no other sounds and come to think of it I hadn’t seen a single rat. Not a squeak, not a scratch, not a whisper. The eerie silence finally got to me, and I bolted to the elevator. There was no echo off my footsteps. And I wondered briefly if I had lost my hearing somehow down here in the dark. I hit the button, but my hand slid off, barely making contact. I tried again but it was as though the button was covered with slime, with effort I finally managed to push the button, and the elevator began to squeal and creak and scrape its way down towards me. The sound was so comforting, that when my escape box arrived, I was nearly in tears with relief.

Mark opened the door after I spent what felt like hours banging. He looked pale and dishevelled but the look of shock on his face when he saw me take me a little by surprise. I know I took a while, but he looked like he'd just seen a ghost.

“I need a shower” I say miserably, and I slip past him into the apartment. I beeline for the bathroom and somehow manage to close the door behind me. 

It took me ages to get the water to work. For some reason my hands kept slipping off the handle and I could barely move it more than a tiny bit at a time. I try to scrub but the soap keeps dropping from my hands. In the end I just stand beneath the hot water, barley feeling it at all. Its like I’m in a dream.

When I finally stepped from the shower the trail behind me running down the drain was blacker than the goo from the x files.

Eventually I exited the bathroom and found Mark sitting head down at the kitchen table.

“I came down looking for you twice.” He tells the floor, or me I suppose since I’m the only other person in the room. I called you, walked the entire circuit of the basement and didn’t find you at all. “

“I was there the whole time. I kept finding rooms further and further back and I didn’t want to leave th….” I said, maybe a little defensively.

“I wonder what it was about you that made him finally accept.”

Mark’s face was streaked with tears as he looked up at me.

               “I honestly didn’t think it would work.” He said a little mystified “I mean I ‘d tried the ritual before, but this was the first time it worked. I’m just sorry It had to cost so much” he finished sadly. But there was no hiding the eager look in his eyes as he proceeded to explain in detail how and why he had sacrificed me to the Demon who now occupied the small wooden storage locker, hidden in the basement, locked behind a mirror.