For the past couple of years, I have worked some pretty shady and highly illegal jobs. I am not a drug dealer, human trafficker, and in no way do I physically harm anyone else, all I do is clean.

It may seem cliché, but my official “title” is Private Janitor. When someone makes a mess that they need cleaned in a quick and discreet manner, I am the guy they call. I started the job just to help pay for college. An old friend of mine was in the business of selling hot vehicle parts. My job was to simply deliver the parts to the buyer. It was a simple job until one day, my friend ripped off someone that you just don’t rip off. They got their “payback,” and to make an example, they forced me to clean the shop up.

Well, one of the “enforcers” of the family that my friend ripped off liked the way I handled it all. It killed me inside to do it, but I was really afraid, so I made sure the job was done and more. The head enforcer talked to the “patriarch” of the family and I went to work for them — not like I had any choice in the matter, but still….

I did menial jobs for the family for a few months before they considered my debt paid. When they told me that I could leave on my own terms, they suggested that I become a private worker and that they would tell their friends that I was “the guy” to hire.

So for the past two years, I have done jobs for a multitude of people. Hell, if I decided to blackmail my clients, I could be a very rich man! But making $90,000 a year is enough for me. I call that the “soul tax.” I know that what I’ve done was wrong. I know that I have deprived thousands of people the justice they deserve, but I’ve always been able to disconnect my feelings from the job. Well, up until a month ago.

It was the 20th. Normally I don’t work on Fridays, but the guy that called in told me that it would be an easy job. I was pretty apprehensive when he told me that he would be at the spot. I’ve only done a handful of jobs like that due to the level of danger involved, but he was willing to pay $10,000 for a single person clean. On the phone the guy sounded really paranoid. His deep scratchy voice turned childlike as the conversation went on.

“Please hurry up, I want this to be over with.”

It was 11 at night and I wanted to go out, so I got there as quickly as I could. Shit, the spot was in a VERY suburban neighborhood. When I pulled up to the address I was shocked at how nice the house was — it was a lot nicer than mine.

I lugged my suitcase up to the front door and rang the bell. Within a few seconds, a man opened the door.

This guy easily had to be 6’8″ and looked to be 250. Red light that came from within the house glared off his bald head. His eyes darted crazily behind me and told me to please come in. Once inside. I could tell that something wasn’t right. From the front door there was a hallway that led directly into the kitchen. I lugged my suitcase down the hall but had to stop in the middle once I saw what was on the walls.

All these paintings that were hung up had been ripped to shreds. The only “painting” that was left untouched was what looked like a finger painting hung up at the end of the hall. On the canvas was a crudely drawn red kickball and the word “Love” painted at the top.

After staring at the paintings for a couple seconds, I walked into the kitchen. Holy shit it was beautiful! Next to the actual kitchen area sat a large oak table with five chairs all around and a red light hanging over it. The man who had hired me sat in one chair, his head in his hands, sobbing. In the middle of the table sat a shit ton of newspaper clippings, all about missing children and kidnappings that had gone on in the area. That’s when it hit me! I remember seeing this guy on the news last August begging for his daughter back. That’s when I assumed that he must have been the one to kill her and wanted me to clean it up.

“So where is she?” I asked the man.

He lifted his head and gave me a confused look.

“W…who?”

“Your daughter.”

I tossed my suitcase onto the table and was opening it up when he quickly grabbed both of my arms. My heart started racing. I tried to jerk back but he gripped them tighter.

“How did you know she was here?”

I finally fell backwards out of his grasp. I probably should’ve gotten out of there right then, but instead, I stayed.

“Listen, it doesn’t matter how I know, I’m not here to judge man just tell me where her body is.”

That’s when the man jumped to his feet with a desperate look on his face.

“Body? No no no, you’re not here for her. Well, she’s not her, she came back to me, but she’s different. Whoever took her… Changed her. I can’t…”

Before he could keep going I heard scratching from within a closet that was behind me. The man slammed his back against the wall behind the table, he looked terrified. I was about to ask him what the fuck was going on, but the closet door opened. It was pitch black, not even the red light illuminated inside. I took a step forward when something came rolling out and stopped at my feet. It was a red rubber ball. I went to pick the ball up when I heard the man scream.

“PLEASE DONT!”

But I had already picked it up. When I did, it seemed like all the noise was sucked out of the room. Well, until I heard a voice come from within the closet.

“Play?”

The voice sounded like an older man trying to imitate a little girl’s voice. I started to hear shuffling inside the closet, and finally, I could see her.

The red light acted as a guide, showing me what true horror looked like. She was about 4’5″, her pink dress was torn up pretty bad, her blonde hair looked like straw, she had cuts all over her pale arms and legs, and her eyes… Her eyes were sewn shut. She “looked” at me, cocked her head sideways, and repeated herself.

“Play?”

That’s when I heard a loud gunshot behind me. After a few seconds of feeling my body and looking at the monster’s in front of me, I saw that neither of us were wounded. Then I looked behind me, the man’s body was sliding down the back wall, he had a huge hole in his forehead.

Where the fuck did he get the gun from? He must have hidden it. Then I realized, I was there to clean him up.

Enough! I wasn’t sticking around any longer. The “girl” hadn’t moved from the closet doorway so I quickly snatched my suitcase from the table and ran out the front door.

While I was starting the car, I saw the little girl walk to the front door. She seemed to make eye contact with me, waved, and slammed the door shut. I drove off with no intentions of coming back.

After that night I decided to leave that life. It’s not an easy environment to leave, but I had always been trustworthy, so my regular clients accepted it.

Today, I work as a cashier at a popular clothing store. I avoid the news all the time and tuned myself out when the news broke that the man had killed himself. From what I unfortunately gathered, his daughter was still missing so the police assumed that he had killed himself over the guilt of killing his daughter. But I know the truth. Sometimes when I’m all alone in my apartment, I check all of my closets and empty rooms to make sure I won’t ever hear that voice again.

“Play?”