Page 41 of Clean Hack
“Some cat litter too. The kind with that odor absorbing crystal things in it.”
I was still unsure, as I very well should have been. Also, a little pissed that there was a witness. One I didn’t know what to do with. The man seemed harmless as he looked upon me, but there was something in his eye that told me he knew what was going on in that room all too well.
“I used to serve breakfast here. Got me one of them industrial meet grinders up in back of the office. Those things work real well when you want to make fresh sausage and whatnot. Grind up everything, even damn bones and teeth.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I finally said. It wasn’t something I’d ever used before or had ever planned on using. But I was in a bind and it would make things easier to transport.
The side of his mouth tipped up as if he knew just what my line of work was. He drew closer, his steps uneven from a limp.
“It’s been many a year since I cleaned anything,” he said, his eyes shifting over to look at the door to the room. “I wondered if I’d ever be able to smell it again. Went away for a long time. Guess you just get an aversion after a while. But at first, it sticks with you long after. Like a bad hooker with a case of the crabs.”
I nodded, understanding exactly what he was hinting at. It did. Those early jobs. That iron smell crawled into my nose and nothing I did worked to get it to go away. I couldn’t even dull it. Not with candles. Not with soaps. Not even with sage. But then there was that point where it just didn’t even phase me anymore. It was like I couldn’t even smell what was around me.
“You need some help in there, or would you rather I go warm up the grinder?” he asked, his bushy brows pinched together like he was trying to read me. I could tell he didn’t want to overstep and piss me off. Little did he know, that I wasn’t the violent type—usually. I didn’t feel threatened by him but I was still a little leery.
“There’s three more,” I said, feeling some sort of odd calm about the strange old man. “I could use some help.”
“Well, get to it, son. Ain’t got all day.”
I actually huffed out a laugh as I turned and walked to the door.
“The girl alright?” he asked just as I turned the handle.
“She will be,” I said in a sure and low tone, wondering if she was still in the bathroom. I was going to go check on her if so. It was past the point of being healthy. I knew it was a lot to take, but I didn’t want her to break. “I’ll make sure of it.” The last part came out as a whisper and I wasn’t even sure if he heard me.
“Oh!” Lucy said as we stepped into the room.
She stood there wrapped in only a towel, looking wide-eyed and unsure of what to do, stuck between the bathroom and the lined up bodies.
I felt a powerful urge to shield and protect her, but as I looked at the old stranger, I noticed his eyes weren’t even on her. As he gazed upon the carnage on the floor, I could see he was working out the best way to handle the situation in his head.
I took wide strides until I was in front of her, blocking her view from the rest of the room.
“What do you need?” I asked in a calm, smooth voice. Her eyes snapped to mine and she swallowed hard.
“I forgot my clothes,” she whispered. “I wasn’t thinking…and I forgot to grab something.”
“This looks like it makes things easier,” the old man said in the background. The buzz of my electric bone saw started up and I didn’t even turn around to look. “I was more of a hatchet man, myself. Granted, I had bigger arms and more power behind my swing back in the day.”
I didn’t take my eyes off of Lucy. I found myself both lost to her beauty and scared that if I turned away, she would break down. I searched her face, her eyes, for any signs that she was going to unravel. She was scared, I could see that clear as day. She was unsure. And she was a little lost. But she was strong, at least for the moment.
The urge to ask her questions was weighing on me with a forceful pull. I got the sense that this wasn’t the time and it sure as hell wasn’t the place. I had never felt so torn in two. Work needed to be done but I didn’t want to leave her alone.
“Get the girl some clothes,” the old man said and it was then that I realized I had been lost in my head or maybe it was her beautiful eyes. Whatever it was, I had completely forgotten that she was standing there in nothing but a cheap towel.
“Right. Sorry,” I said in almost a mumble. Then I snapped to, finding a bag on the bed, snatching it up quickly, and handing it to her.
“This one’s missing an eye. You know where it might be? Wouldn’t want to leave anything behind, that’s for sure,” the old man said just before she turned away.
“Under the b-bed.”
I got down on my hands and knees. I was hesitant to just reach into the darkness. I was honestly afraid of what might be under there, and it had nothing to do with a freed eyeball. My fingers collided with something hard and I pulled it out to inspect it. A knife. The blade pushed all the way through the dusty and wet looking ball. For some odd reason, a flash of pride hit me. She had fought for her life in this room. She’d won. And as horrible as all of this was, I was a little glad for the outcome. After all, it’d brought me to her.
“Found it,” I said moving back over to the tarps and tossing the impaled orb beside its owner’s body.
“I don’t think I want that back,” she said and I looked up to see her staring at the knife with a grimace on her face. With a few hard blinks, she turned and ducked back into the bathroom.
She stayed in there longer than I would have thought it took her to get dressed. I didn’t dare bother her, figuring it was best for us to keep working and get the bodies out of her view as soon as possible. With the old man’s help, we broke them down in no time. Then we wrapped the parts up as best as we could in the powdered covered tarps and carried them to the office.
“What would you recommend doing with the meat?” I asked as he started shoving body parts into the grinder, letting the mushed and mixed up meat fall into a large, white bucket that looked like it might have contained peanut butter at one point.
“Oh, I got a buncha feral cats out back that I’m sure would love a treat.”
With that, I asked nothing else. I wasn’t really secure with the way this job was going down but I felt like I had no other choice but to accept the help. And of course, be grateful about it.
We made it back to the room just in time to see Lucy sorting out her things. It looked like she was packing and getting ready to bolt. I worried that if I had been another five minutes longer, I would have missed her altogether.
Something about that didn’t sit right with me. How the hell was I going to keep her there and finish scrubbing the room? Right then, I wished there were two of me.
