It's Just Another Job

Just Another Job

“What’s the matter with you?” she said.

“Nothing,” he replied.

“Nothing-nothing or something-nothing?” she shot back.

He looked at her and thought about her expression before he answered.

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” he continued.

She looked at him and her expression changed. Now she looked incredulous.

“No I won’t. Just tell me.”

He looked away from her a moment and shifted his position on the sofa. He scraped his fingernails along the ridges of the brown corduroy-like fabric. He had always loved the way that kind of fabric felt under his fingernails.

“Are you going to tell me?” she asked.

“You promise you won’t freak out?” he asked back.

“No, I won’t promise I won’t freak out. But now that you’re making such a big deal out of it, I might if you don’t tell me,” she replied.

He shifted his gaze away again, this time to the window and the quiet street outside. It was raining again, and getting dark. If he was going to tell her, it might as well be sooner rather than later, he thought.

“You remember I had a job at the Hansen house this morning?” he said.

“Yep,” she said quickly, looking more and more interested.

“Well, I got there and went inside, and I was unpacking everything and I looked up and there was this guy standing in the hallway just staring at me. Scared the shit outta me. He had greasy black hair and was wearing coveralls. I said ‘Whoa, you scared me!’ and he just looked at me. Didn’t move.”

“Weird,” she said.

He continued. “So, he looks me up and down, without saying anything and just starts walking towards me mumbling something like ‘It’s gone now, and you ain’t gonna stop it’ and pushes me out of the way of the door and walks out to the sidewalk and down the street. He didn’t even look around or back or anything.  Just kept on walking.”

“That’s weird. Was he a member of the family or another worker or something?” she asked.

“Dunno. When I met Yenta at the house (by the way, she’s the Hansen daughter that set up the cleaning), he wasn’t around, but I guess he could be. But that wasn’t the weirdest part,” he replied.

He picked up his full tumbler of whiskey and took a big gulp. It was getting dark fast. He didn’t have much time and he wanted to get out of town soon. The scotch was smoky and smooth, but not too smoky. He didn’t really like overly-smoky scotch. He sighed and looked back at her.

“The weird part was when I went into the house to start cleaning, the light in the basement was on. I thought maybe someone was down there, so I called out. Nobody answered, so I thought I should check it out and turn off the lights so the new owners didn’t get pissed that I left the lights on or something. I went down the stairs and there was this huge hole in the ground,” he said.

“A hole?” she interjected.

“Yeah, a hole,” he continued, “someone had torn up the concrete, and dug up the ground underneath. It was about, I dunno, six feet across or so, and maybe like five or six feet deep. At first, I thought someone had dug up some utility line, or a sump or something like that, but there wasn’t any lines of any kind in the hole. There was some kind of slime or sludge in the bottom though and it smelled like crap.”

“Someone took a crap in the hole?” she asked. Her face grimaced at the thought of someone crapping in a hole in the basement of a house.

“That’s disgusting!” she added.

“No, no. I don’t think it was actually crap. It was sludgy. More like oil or something, but it stunk like hell.  I dunno. It just smelled disgusting okay?” he said.

“Did you have to clean it?” she asked, sounding a bit worried.

“Hell no! The basement wasn’t in the contract, thank Christ. I just said ‘fuck it’ and started to go back up the stairs when I heard a voice. I thought I heard it say ‘by night’ or something. It was very faint and weak, so I couldn’t make it out. I turned around and there wasn’t anyone there. I said ‘Hello, is there someone down here?’ but nobody answered.

“That’s freaky,” she said. Her tense expression said more than her words did. She was biting her lower lip.

“I know,” he replied after taking another gulp of whiskey. His hand had started to shake but he put the glass down before she saw it and hoped she hadn’t noticed. The sun was almost down. He stood up and reached inside his jacket for his car keys.

“That voice. It spoke again. I couldn’t make out exactly where it was coming from. I couldn’t even tell if it was a guy or girl. It sounded kinda…watery, y’know? Like someone talking under water.  I dunno how to explain it. But this is the craziest part. You can decide whether you wanna believe me or not, I don’t care. After I tell you, I have to go – its getting dark and I gotta go.”

“Go? Go where? You just got home!” she replied. She noticed now that he was pale and nervous and that, combined with his bizarre story was making her scared.

“What the hell’s going on, Paul?” she demanded, shouting.

“Goddamit, I dunno! This weird voice told me to get out of town before dark and I believed it! So that’s what I’m gonna do, alright?” he shouted back.

“The fucking walls started breathing, and the oily shit in the hole started to bubble and turn red. Red like blood okay? I dropped my fuckin’ shit an’ ran.” He took a deep breath and steadied himself, swallowing the last of the whiskey.  His hands were shaking visibly now.

“I drove around a bit to calm down. The voice didn’t say I had to stay out of town for good, just be out of town tonight. So, are you coming with me or not? It sounds nuts, but I’m not taking chances,” he said.
“We can go to that motel you like up in Haverton. Just for the night. Have dinner, some drinks. Like old times,” he added nervously, looking at his watch.

Her mouth was open and her eyes were big. Then she shut her mouth and bit on her lip again. He looked outside. The sun was just a sliver of a sickly, dull red-orange on top of the mountain.

“Goddamit, Janet, I’m leaving,” he said. He started for the door.

“Wait!” she said. She grabbed her cell phone, purse, and keys and walked over to him.

“You might be fucking nuts, but if you are, we’ll know for sure in awhile,” she said. They both headed for the door. They walked outside after she turned on the outside porch light and locked the door. He was already in the car with the engine started. She walked to the passenger door and was about to open it when she stopped. He could only see up to her shoulders, so he didn’t know what she was doing or looking at.

“Are you getting in or not?” he shouted through the closed window at her. She ducked her head down to window level and said, “Holy shit, Paul, you gotta see this.”

He blanched. There was no time, but he needed to see whatever it was that made her face look like that. He quickly undid his seat belt and stepped out of the car. She was looking into the distance behind him still with a slack-jawed expression on her face. Her shoulders were limp and her right hand covered her mouth and nose.

He turned to look in the direction she was staring in and then he saw it. That was the last thing he remembered seeing for years afterward. In later remembrances, he was able to recall that whatever it was, it was larger than the biggest houses in town. It was bulbous and had long, ropey appendages all over it that gathered in the surrounding town like a rubbery ring. It gathered in the smashed bits of houses, the bodies, and the very earth itself. Gathered it all into its gaping, oil-dripping, toothless, lipless maw.

He never did recall how he got away or what happened to Janet. He only remembered that he had driven right through the wall into the lobby of the emergency ward at University Hospital in Creston over one hundred miles away. Apparently, he had killed two people and injured six others and they had to sedate him to get him out of the car and his foot off the accelerator.
They told him there had been an accident that night. A chemical explosion of some kind that had obliterated his small home town and killed almost everyone. He laughed.
“It was just another job,” he kept saying over and over. Even after they heavily sedated him.