Cleaning House

Cleaning House

It was supposed to be a simple job. Nothing is ever simple in the Wasteland. Kadota learned this the hard way.

Today, he was restoring an old kitchen. Kadota had been working on another old house for three days. Everything had been going normally for the first two days. No ghosts, no creepy hidden rooms, no hidden abusers, nothing that would fit in a horror movie. Kadota was relieved, to tell the truth.

That was until the third day.

Everything started off fine. The job looked like it would be finished in a couple of days. First, the old appliances would have to be moved out. With that done, the shiny new ones were coming in. The new owners already ordered the new oven. Kadota just saw the old one off. Now it was time to clean around where it had been before the new one arrived.

It didn't look like he had much to do today. Kadota had just gotten the floor done. He sat back to wipe his forehead when something fell from the ceiling.

"What the hell?" he asked. The man reached forward and picked it up. Kadota saw some sort of an old-looking photograph. A large part of it looked water-damaged. From what he saw, there was a child about two or three years old lying on their back, sucking on a bottle. Kadota thought that he recognized the onesie and the white sneakers. Didn't a child go missing from this neighborhood ten years ago? He couldn't tell if it was that child in the photograph. Something about it looked unsettling.

His walkie-talkie crackled to life. Kadota about jumped at the sound.

"Yeah?"

"Kadota, how are you doing over there?" the client asked.

"Fine. Just found something weird." Kadota turned the picture in his hand. There was nothing written on the back.

"Weird? In what way?"

"Just some old photo of a baby. It might be nothing." He kept turning the picture back and forth in his hands.

"Anything else?" the client asked.

"No," Kadota said. He set the photograph down on the counter. "Is there anything you wanted?"

"No, I was just checking in on you. And to let you know that the oven might be getting there a little bit earlier. I don't know when, but you're going to have to be on the lookout when they come."

"Yes, ma'am, thank you for letting me know." Kadota clicked off his walkie-talkie and went back to work. Even then, he couldn't help but get the feeling that he was being watched. At least there weren't any creepy sounds around. No sounds of children laughing. No footsteps running around. No voices in his head. Just quiet. Somehow, that made it worse.

Despite this, Kadota managed to get his work done for the day. He packed up his things and headed out the door.

He still didn't have a good feeling about this.

That weird photograph that fell from the ceiling was left behind on the newly replaced counter.