Enter the Janitor (The Cleaners) (Volume 1) (2 page)
Read Enter the Janitor (The Cleaners) (Volume 1) Online
Authors: Josh Vogt
“Gotcha.”
Without taking his gaze off the hole, Ben unzipped a breast pocket and pulled out a vial of bleach. He soaked the rag with this and wiped around both ends of the broken pipe. The muck clinging to the metal bubbled away in seconds until a shining copper ring capped the edges.
Another dribble of bleach went into the bucket. He plunged the mop into this and stirred. As he pulled it out, the solution sprayed across the black puddle. Wherever drops landed, steam rose and left the floor spotless.
Ben fought the urge to scratch his arm, which now burned up to the shoulder. He eased through several breaths, distancing himself from the pain. He shut out the sweat slicking his back, the electric buzz of the lights, and the raised voices from outside until only he and the broken pipe existed.
Drawing the mop back like a golf club, he prepared to swing.
O O O
Dani hugged herself and tried not to move. She’d never felt more exposed—not even on that night when Tim, her first—and last—college boyfriend, had coaxed her into that disastrous attempt at sex. She’d ended up missing classes for a week.
Never. Again.
She tried to ignore the stares of her fellow students. She knew her reputation as the “campus clean freak.” So what? She couldn’t comprehend how others wallowed in germs all the time. Didn’t they know eighty percent of infections spread through personal contact? Didn’t they know library desks had more than four hundred times the bacteria of a toilet?
As her thoughts circled back to bathrooms, her fear switched to fury, and she imagined several sensitive places where the janitor could go stick his toilet brush. How dare he treat her that way? He, above all people, should know the importance of sanitation, and yet he’d been the rudest, crudest human being she’d ever encountered. Even the smell of him lingered like a dog fart.
She gritted her teeth as she considered her options. The nearest women’s restroom sat on the far end of the building, and her full bladder might not survive the sprint—not to mention the warzone of contamination she’d be running through without protection. Use the guys’ restroom here? Women’s restrooms were bad enough. But her bladder made the situation clear. Relief first. Then damage control.
She turned to that door right as the librarian locked it and hung a sign on the knob. He didn’t meet her eyes as he mumbled, “Sorry. Closed for maintenance.”
She stopped just shy of grabbing him. Instead, she tore her headband off and threw it at the librarian, who ducked as it spun over his head.
“Are you kidding?” she asked through clenched teeth. “Come on. I just need, like, ten seconds.”
With a rueful shrug, he returned to his desk. Moments later he spoke in low tones on a handheld radio.
Dani raked fingers through her hair, silently cursing as she tugged a few snarls. This couldn’t be happening. How had things spiraled out of control so fast?
She forced her spine straight and made fists. No. She refused to let herself be bullied. She needed her gloves. Her gel and wipes. She couldn’t go anywhere without them. What was the janitor going to do? Have her arrested for retrieving personal property?
She glowered at the women’s room door. The thought of touching the handle set off mental sirens, but it’d be temporary exposure. Once she got her stuff back, everything would be okay. She could do this. She had to.
As she reached out, a screech echoed from within the restroom.
She paused. That didn’t sound like any kind of plunging or toilet-scrubbing. Her frown deepened. What was this geezer up to? A push opened the door an inch, but the janitor’s cart blocked anything more.
Screw this. With a wince, she lowered her shoulder and shoved.
O O O
Another growl shuddered up from the pipe, liquid and menacing. As Ben checked the cleansing ward he’d set up around the exit hole, someone thumped against the door.
“Keep your panties on,” he shouted. “Just a few more minutes.”
He whacked the pipe with the mop. Every strike sent sparks flying and a musical chime rang out. Each note melded with the others until the pipe and the wall around it vibrated with a pure tone.
Discordant howls rose in chorus to this. Ben tensed, waiting for his quarry to emerge. One hand went to the spray bottle.
The door burst open behind him. His cart skittered to one side and the redhead stumbled in, almost falling on her face.
Ben swore. “For Purity’s sake! I toldja to get lost.”
She glared at him with bright green eyes as the door swung shut behind her. “Keep your diaper on. I need my backpack.”
He moved to shove her back out. “Go! This ain’t—” A snarl warned him. He whirled and lashed out with the business end of the mop.
In that instant of spinning and striking, the beast lunged from the six-inch pipe opening. A dark form swelled to the size of a mastiff, looking like a mad scientist’s experiment in mating snakes and hounds. Muscled forelegs reached for Ben’s face with obsidian claws that dripped venom. Purple and blue scales covered the sinuous body. Fangs extended; nostrils and yellow eyes flared.
The mop connected. Bleach water sizzled against the creature’s skin as the impact redirected the beast past the girl’s legs. It smacked into the wall and tiles cracked.
The girl shrieked and jumped aside, knocking Ben’s cart over. Water sloshed everywhere.
The blot-hound scrabbled upright. After shaking like a wet dog, the beast opened its maw as if to howl. Instead, it vomited a stringy black mass at the redhead. The sputum slapped her against the wall beside the door, where she stuck fast, feet dangling a few inches above the floor.
She writhed, eyes bugging, and keened, “Ohgodohgodohgodohgod …”
The blot-hound hunched, but Ben stepped in as it lunged. He caught it across the spine and slammed it to the ground, where it thrashed. Claws raked the legs of his jumpsuit but failed to shred the material.
Ben plunged the mop into the beast’s body, aiming for the core of Corruption that enlivened it. When the mop connected with a hard ball in the blot-hound’s chest, he twisted the handle and sent another surge of energy through it. Cloth strands twined around the ball and he wrenched upward, drawing the core out as it trailed black ichor.
The blot-hound screeched and kicked before going limp. Eyes dulled, its form began to ooze into the floor. Ben crushed the core beneath a heel and then waited until the trembling in his arms faded before going to the girl.
She stared, teeth chattering. “Wh … who are you? What was that … th-thing? Is it infectious?”
“You’re in college and can’t even read?” He tapped the name threaded on his uniform. “I’m Ben. And that was somethin’ you wouldn’t have had to worry about if you’d stayed out like I toldja.”
A splash of bleach water dissolved the sludge pinning her to the wall, and she dropped to her knees. Wet blotches stained her pant legs and crotch, but Ben pretended not to notice.
She huddled in on herself, shoulders heaving as she came dangerously close to hyperventilating. Ben sighed and leaned on the mop as the effort of eradicating the blot-hound caught up with his failing body.
“Don’tcha worry. The scrub-team’ll get here soon to give your memories a nice hose-down. By the time they’re done, you won’t even remember me. Ain’t that a relief?”
She blinked up at him, and he recognized the distant look people got when events didn’t align with their neat and tidy version of reality.
“Are you some sort of … crazy person?” she asked. “Please tell me it isn’t contagious.”
Ben grinned. “Crazy is the easiest explanation, ain’t it? Run with that and you’ll be just fine.” He frowned and flexed his right arm, which continued to burn. Why hadn’t the pain faded?
Shouts came from out in the library, along with chairs being overturned and feet thumping. The scuffle in the bathroom hadn’t gone unnoticed. Jason had better be running interference.
The girl whimpered and dropped to her butt, trembling.
Ben shook his head. “Look, princess, I ain’t gonna hurt you. I’m the good type of crazy—”
A scraping noise jerked him around in alarm. Yellow light flared in the blot-hound’s eyes as it clawed up, standing twice as tall as before, reformed legs knotted with muscle. The head rose, now as big as Ben’s torso and sporting slavering fangs. As the blot-hound fixed on him, a hungry growl made his guts quiver.
“Oh, cleanse my colon.” He snatched the radio from his toppled cart and hollered into it. “Francis, I need backup. Now!”
***
Chapter Two
The radio sputtered and the red power light flickered like a parting wink from the Devil. Cursing, Ben swept the mop along as he ran back and forth as fast as his arthritic knees allowed.
Carl splashed in the spray bottle, making it sway on his belt.
Ben grunted. “Shaddup. This is—” He skidded on a puddle and avoided face-planting by bracing on the mop. The tip jammed into his chest, and he wheezed. “I got it … under control.”
The water made a spitting noise.
“Yes, I’m sure!”
Regaining his balance, he slapped the mop on the floor and activated the quarantine spell. All the spilled water from his cart flowed together and formed an inch-high band from one side of the bathroom to the other. He knelt and pressed a hand into this, infusing it with raw willpower. The effort left him shaking, but he forced himself to straighten and aimed the mop at the blot-hound across the boundary.
“All right, you sorry excuse for an overgrown tar pit. Think you can tussle with me?”
When the blot-hound didn’t move right away, Ben worked up a wad of phlegm and hacked it at the creature. It bit the snot out of mid-air. A purple tongue slithered over its lips and it peered curiously at Ben.
He scowled. “That was s’posed to be an insult, not a snack.”
The blot-hound slunk forward and tested the barrier with a paw. The water sizzled against its skin, but the beast didn’t relent. It pushed its head further, making it flatten like a mime’s hand against an invisible pane of glass.
Ben clenched his jaw, readying. Once the beast set a second paw in the water, he stuck the sparking tip of the mop handle into the band and released a charge.
Electric arcs writhed across the hound’s body. It howled, a bowel-trembling noise that scraped over Ben’s ears. Off to one side, the redhead clamped hands over her ears and writhed, but he kept his hands on the mop, channeling energy down through it.
With a final surge, the blot-hound crashed its bulk over the swath of water. Its size diminished by a quarter as it forced its way across, but the power Ben had invested in the barrier dissipated and only left the blot-beast stunned.
He stared in disbelief. Only when Carl made the spray bottle rock did he snap out of the shock.
“I ain’t gettin’ paid enough for this.”
As he reached for the bottle, the blot-hound shook itself and lurched forward. It knocked him aside like a bulldozer putting a Tonka truck in its place. His head smacked against the wall and the mop flew from his hands.
He dropped flat. The room danced for a moment, but steadied just as the blot-hound’s maw yawned above his face. Maybe letting it get a taste of him hadn’t been the wisest thing.
The door flew open, and Jason rushed in.
“Sure you don’t need any help?” He froze and gaped at the beast.
Students crowded behind the librarian, craning their necks to see inside. As soon as they got a peek at the bathroom monstrosity, however, everyone screamed and bolted. The blot-hound grunted and raised its head, discarding Ben for fresher meat.
Jason kicked the door shut behind him. He grabbed up the plunger from the fallen cart and shook it at the beast. “A-all right … J-just you and … me. I’m n-not going to let you h-hurt anyone!”
The blot-hound roared and charged. Jason stepped forward and swung the tool. The beast ducked the blow. A paw lashed out, raking the man’s throat into giblets. The plunger fell from limp fingers as he toppled into the girl’s lap, eyes blank, shirt stained crimson.
O O O
Dani screamed as she shoved the body away. Hot blood on her hands. Her clothes. Oh god. This couldn’t be real. As she fought to keep from vomiting, her mind resorted to analyzing potential threats.
Lyme Disease. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Toxoplasmosis.
Too many variables. She had to find out who this guy was. Get his medical records.
Her vision swam as nausea rammed up her throat. When her sight cleared, the bathroom door had splintered off its hinges beneath the beast’s charge. Beyond this, the monster pillaged the library, toppling shelves onto students and shattering tables. Screams echoed alongside cracking wood and brick.
Hepatitis B. Hepatitis C. Cryoglobulinemia.
The janitor—whoever and whatever he really was—lay dazed beside her. Blood oozed from a gash in his scalp. He clutched one of his arms and muttered something about restocking toilet paper rolls.
She got to her knees and crawled over to him. He had to stop this … thing. This monster. But she couldn’t bring herself to actually touch him, to try and shake him back to awareness.
Malaria. HIV. AIDS.
His mop lay by her, though. She picked it up—god, a
wooden
handle—and reached over to poke him with it.
“Mister … can you … mister, please—”
He jerked upright as if she’d hit him with defibrillator paddles. He grabbed the mop and yanked it over, pulling her with it. She fell forward and planted palms in the brackish water that coated the floor. Her mind cycled to water-borne contaminants.
Giardia. Amoebiasis. Botulism.
The janitor looked all around, as if getting his bearings. He frowned at her, and then the young man’s body snagged his attention. His shoulders and face sagged.
“Aw, kid. I toldja to leave it be …” He struggled to his feet, groaning the whole way. “Ready to work some unpaid overtime, buddy?”
Dani stared up at him. “What?”
“Not talkin’ to you, princess.” He cocked his head. “I know. Probably. But it’s our job, ain’t it?”
Oh, he was a Grade A lunatic, for sure.
He stepped past and grabbed her bottle of gel off the counter. “Can I borrow this?”
“No!”
“Thanks.”
She snatched at it, desperate to pour the contents over her head. Considering all she’d been exposed to—
HGV. Chagas diseases. HHV-8
—it might already be too late, but her sanity demanded she salvage what she could.
He moved out of reach, though, and unscrewed the cap. Heading to the doorway, he squeezed gobs of gel out to coat the outside of the bottle as well as his hands. Then he leaned over the threshold and shouted.
“Hey, tall, dark, and ugly. Catch!”
He lobbed the bottle. There came a squelch and a yowl of pain. The janitor plodded out, mop at the ready, leaving Dani frozen on all fours.
What the hell was happening? Janitors duking it out with pipe-monsters? It had to be a hallucination. Or she’d died and this was her private hell. Both were preferable options.
She tried to find a clean corner to crawl into, but contamination taunted her everywhere she looked. Only the sink counter remained untouched by the blood, dirty water, and muck.
Her skin buzzed, and she felt as if her mind strained against the confines of her skull. A bubble of energy surrounded her, a crackling field of power fueled by her horror and dismay. Was she going insane?
Even as she fought to regain control, the sensation grew until she felt like a balloon about to burst. She shook as a foreign power took control. Her bones felt aflame. Coherent thought flew apart as her mind seethed with new sensations. Faint air currents cut over her skin like hot razors, while the tiles chilled her as if carved from ice.
An enormous, invisible hand grabbed her by the spine and lifted her out of her body so she viewed it from above. Glowing lines spread out from her hands and into the floor. As they snaked along, her senses followed and formed a vision of what occurred in the next room.
Vibrations rippled out from the janitor’s feet as he ran at the beast. She saw through the light bulbs as he yanked the spray bottle off his hip and squeezed the trigger. Water squirted but didn’t disperse. Instead, the stream consolidated into a four-foot liquid whip that snapped through the air. More water flowed over the bottle and sealed it to his hand.
The harsh reek of the beast stabbed her sinuses like a rusty blade. She tried to recoil, fearing infection even in this disembodied form, but the possessing energy forced her to watch. A portion of the creature’s head looked eaten away as if by acid.
The janitor charged in and lashed the water-whip like a geriatric Indiana Jones. The watery cord wrapped around the beast’s hind leg. It tightened, sliced the limb off at the joint, and wrenched it away.
The beast yowled and collapsed mid-lunge. But it dragged itself around and snapped at the janitor with a maw that put a shark to shame.
The janitor lurched aside while grabbing the tip of his whip and bending it to touch itself. The cord blended into a noose which he snapped over the creature’s head and cinched tight. When the beast jerked forward, however, it pulled the janitor against its sloppy backside. The hand holding the mop sank an inch into its hide, and steam erupted from the spot.
Bellowing, the man yanked his hand free and stabbed the metal tip of the mop handle into the beast’s back. Using the mop and water-whip as leverage, he hauled himself up onto its torso. The creature reared and threw him off.
Dani had the despairing realization that the janitor would lose this struggle—and once he fell, the entire college would be at the beast’s mercy. She clutched for anything she could do while trying to make sense of her new perceptions.
To her elevated mind, the creature appeared as a pulsing, infected wound in the center of reality. A corruption to be scrubbed out of existence. This monster caused all this horribleness. It had to be destroyed. Cleansed.
She realized she could sense other elements as well. The water pipes coursing through the walls. The air churning through the ducts. The electricity racing through the wiring. All of it just needing a push.
The unseen hand dropped her back into her body, where serpents of flame and ice coiled around her spine. She writhed with power that demanded to be unleashed, squeezing until she gave in and turned it loose—
Her head snapped back. Her furious scream echoed further than the walls should’ve allowed. The power rushed out of her to scour the bathroom and library clean.
Every electrical socket in the library spouted fire. Flames raced across the carpet and turned shelves to ash in seconds. They ate up the walls and scorched the ceiling black. Any remaining students fled, some with smoking hair and clothes.
A tremor shook the building. The fire alarm went off, flashing yellow lights around the room. With a grinding noise, the carpeted floor split beneath the beast’s remaining legs. It gripped the edges to keep from plummeting into the crevasse Dani had summoned. The cool smell of wet earth wafted up as the ground shook.
The janitor tugged hard on the noose from the side, trying to tumble the beast into the hole.
Energy continued to pour out of Dani. Her body bucked as her eyes turned up in their sockets, yet somehow she remained aware of everything around her.
The ceiling sprinklers broke open and waterspouts curved to strike the beast from every side. The streams hit with the force of a dozen fire hoses and shredded its inky skin. As its size diminished under the blast, the beast made a last desperate lunge to break free. Another tremor shook the ground and widened the crack.
Screeching, the beast was swept into the fissure. The floor snapped closed with a squish, and black ooze traced the crack left behind.
From one heartbeat to the next, the energy vanished. Dani’s mind and body floated free for a few precious seconds. Then exhaustion bear-hugged her and squeezed out the last burps of her strength. Her cheek slapped the floor. She maintained just enough presence of mind to keep her mouth clamped tight against the filth she lay in. Out in the library, the ongoing spray from the sprinklers warred with the flames eating up the desks, shelves, and books.
A pop of light, like a camera flash, momentarily blinded her. The bathroom mirror shimmered and brightened into a rectangle of sunlight. Dani shaded her eyes with a heavy arm as a figure strode through the glass.
The glow faded but the newcomer retained a golden aura as he stepped down from the counter. He wore a white three-piece suit with a spotless tie and fedora. Polished white loafers landed inches from her nose, and she couldn’t help but notice they remained spotless despite his standing in the same mess that coated her. In fact, the muck had receded from his soles. This seemed entirely unfair.
He looked down at her and shook his head as if she’d been caught out past her curfew. His ebony skin provided a hard contrast to the outfit, but the sharp angles of his face matched the creases in his jacket and suit well enough.
“What have we here?” His words clipped out as if measured by a ruler and compass.
Before Dani could summon the wits to retort, the janitor trudged back in. He stood panting, soaking wet, and with his jumpsuit charred in spots. He stared at Dani for a moment before swinging his gaze to the suit.
“Ascendant Francis. A bit late, ain’tcha?”
Francis showed a tight, perfect smile. “Hail to you, Janitor Benjamin, servant of Purity. Your message was sparse on the details.”
“Oh, so I gotta schedule in advance for backup in unexpected emergencies?”
Francis cocked an eyebrow.
“Don’t gimme that look.” Ben spat at the other’s shoes. The spittle struck an invisible barrier and ricocheted over Dani’s ear. “I’m filin’ for a full review. Ain’t never seen anything like what happened here.”
The suit remained unmoved. “Save your excuses for Destin.”
“Excuses. You use that word a lot when I’m around. Ever consider exercisin’ your verbosity, eh?”
“I’m shocked you used such complicated words in proper context. Did you steal them from a crossword puzzle or is Carl tutoring you?”
“Hey, don’t be makin’ this personal. Even you could learn a few things from Carl.”
“I highly doubt that.” Francis’ flat gaze shifted to Dani. “I see we have a new recruit.”
“Just take her feet already. I’ll grab her shoulders. Then get the scrub-team in here, pronto.”
As they lifted her, she stared up at their faces and tried to comprehend what was happening. Francis’ glow expanded to surround the three of them. Through an increasing mental fog, the golden hue and unexpected warmth made her think about being carried to heaven.
