The Midnight Cleaning Company

Chapter 13

"You feel lost", I suddenly interrupted. "You feel as though you have no purpose to your life because no one will offer you a job that you can build a future around."
"Exactly!" she exclaimed and beamed a pretty smile that looked even more beautiful to me smeared in the fake blood.
"What if I offered you a job?... gave your life purpose."
I had come into this bar to find a brute of a man. A thug with physical strength but without the mental capacity to question orders. Perhaps this bright young girl could have something to offer, or perhaps I was merely justifying my desires.
"You can give me a job?" squealed the killer bee in a girly manner that made me question my offer. "What is the pay like? What are the hours?" She questioned excitedly.
"The hours are all night, every night, and there is no pay." I replied flatly.
The girl began to laugh but it died in her throat when she saw that I was not joking.
She looked disappointed. "Why would anyone ever take that shitty job?"
"Because I offer you something better than money or holidays", I said with my best attempt at charm.

The girl appeared intrigued.

"Follow me and I'll show you", I continued, "and don't scream".
" I can't promise anything" she said with a smile.

As we left the bar by the back door and pushed our way through the smokers area, she took my hand in hers and interlaced our fingers.
"Tell me about your family", I instructed more firmly than I had intended.

"Well, I told you already that they divorced when I was little. My Dad got remarried a few years ago to a woman he already had three kids with that my Mum didn't previously know about. This summer she met some Canadian bloke and decided to get married too. I'm pretty sure she did it just to get even with my Dad in her head. She sold the house I grew up in and moved to Vancouver with my new step-dad". She told the story bitterly and spat the words 'step-dad' with angry sarcasm.

"Sounds like they wouldn't miss you if you disappeared", I said with thinly veiled hope.
"They wouldn't even fucking notice", replied the girl with a depressed chuckle.
I ticked a box in my mental notes.

"So what's this offer then", she asked impatiently, wrapping her coat tightly around herself to fend off the cold of the night.
"This job comes with rather unusual benefits. It is not easy, not by any stretch of the imagination. There is no pay, no time off, you live where you work, and above all else you must know your place and stick to it at all times".
"You're not really selling it", giggled the girl, who had not yet made up her mind whether I was serious or not.
"But what you get in return for your service to the Elders is eternal life", I said.
The girl, who had sneaked her vodka and cranberry drink out of the bar and was in the process of finishing it, laughed so hard that she snorted the red liquid out of her nose, which made her laugh even more.

I waited for a moment for her amusement to fade. I had lost patience with her, so I drew my large knife from its sheathe behind my back.
"Whoa! What the fuck!" screamed the girl.
"The only way to show you I'm serious, is to actually show you", I said.

I tossed the combat knife into the air and caught it by the blade, offering the handle to her.

"Stab me in the stomach", I ordered.
"No! You're crazy", gasped the girl in shock, stepping backwards.

She looked around at our surroundings. We had walked a while away from the bar and were now at the far end of an alleyway that fed into a car-park surrounded by a small brick wall. There was no one else around. The cheers and chants of her noisy friends playing their drinking games were lost far behind us.
"Either you stab me... or I shall stab you", I threatened, thrusting the black handle towards her. I unzipped my jacket with my other hand and ripped open my black shirt, exposing my chest. The girl panicked and grasped the handle of the knife, and thrust it forwards and into my abdomen. She screamed as she felt the blade slide in. She let go of the handle and turned to run away through the car park.