COSMIC HORROR CLEANERS, LLC

COSMIC HORROR CLEANERS, LLC
by Jason P. Burnham

To hide the residual scent of eldritch creatures in the homes she cleaned, Ashley always lit a few candles. The struck matches gave plausibility to acrid sulfur, and the vanilla candles covered it up pretty well. The fishy scent of amines on the other hand… those were the ones the clients would complain about. There was a text message to that effect waiting for her from Mrs. Miller, but Ashley had bigger fish to fry before she could respond.

Dripping from Mrs. Humphries’s ceiling above her was a thick, black goo. Ashley had not seen the creature that left it behind when the portal closed, but it was certainly making a mess out of Penelope Humphries’s white carpet.

Ashley got out her anti-horror-glop attachment for the wet-dry vacuum. She could at least debulk the problem. Of all the cosmic beasts, Ashley hated the residue from gooey horrors the most. Their portals weren’t any harder to close, but the sludge was just so sticky.

Splat. Another glob hit the carpet.

Ashley got to work with the vacuum. The faux-arctic wolf carpet was going to look more like a snow leopard after she was done. Mrs. Humphries was not one of her good clients and was not going to be pleased.

The houses Ashley and the other agency workers cleaned were in a rich neighborhood, but the homes were old and often had rodents or other pests in the walls. It gave her a go-to excuse if someone complained about the amine smell, rather than having to describe the beasts of cosmic horror that had tried to enter their house through a hidden portal under their rug or in their chimney or toilet or wherever it happened to open that week.

Splat. Ashley wiped a giblet of goo from her forehead and looked up to see her miscalculation. The portal was only now opening—a black, pulsating tentacle lunged toward her. She rolled across the floor, knocking over her cleaning kit in the process. She scrambled through the bottles trying to find the one she needed.

She pushed aside the Eye Bleach, for eye-horrors, and the Arm & Hammer & Crucifix, for humanoid horrors, before she found what she was looking for—Liquid-Octo-Plumr.

“Bingo.”

Ashley uncorked the bottle and shot it toward the flailing tentacle and its entryway from the other realm. The tentacle whipped frantically, pincers on the end snapping at Ashley as she ran out of the living room and into the foyer.

She flipped the bottle over, refreshing her memory on the instruction runes to make sure she had applied it correctly. And to see how long she was going to have to stay out of the living room.

Pour 1/5 of bottle into hell portal. Let sit for 15 minutes. When portal has closed, wash affected area with warm water to prevent reopening.

Hisssss. The tentacle vocalized from somewhere inside itself.

“Oh, hush!” Ashley shouted. But the tentacle didn’t understand English, or any human language for that matter.

Ashley glanced at the ceiling and saw the Liquid-Octo-Plumr beginning to work, but too slowly. The tentacle was pissed. Elongating, thinning in the process, it raced toward Ashley.

Ashley tossed a Lysoul bottle at it, even though she knew it was meant for shape-shifter horrors. The tentacle hesitated, as if tasting the spray.

When the tentacle lurched forward again, finally ignoring the Lysoul, Ashley ran out the front door with her cleaning kit. Time for a break while the Liquid-Octo-Plumr did its work.

Ashley pulled out her phone—now was a perfect time to respond to Mrs. Miller.

Ashley, when we got home today, the whole house smelled like rotten fish! What happened??

It could have been worse, sometimes people would berate her, threaten to report her to her boss at Cosmic Cleaners. But Mrs. Miller was nice and tipped very well at Christmas. Ashley had no reason to wish ill upon her and wanted to keep protecting her—Mrs. Miller was one of her better clients.

I’m so sorry. I don’t know, everything smelled okay when I left. Maybe you have a problem with rats? They smell awful when they get in the walls.

Oh no! I didn’t think about that! Those dang rats—I’ll call the pest guy. See you next Friday! Hopefully they’ll be dead by then.

The sounds of crushed gravel announced a car in the driveway.

“Shit,” Ashley breathed and tried to hide her phone.

Click-clack, click-clack. Mrs. Humphries’s heels advertised her approach.

“Ashley? What are you doing out here sitting on the porch? And playing on your phone? I don’t pay you to text your friends.” Mrs. Humphries hissed at Ashley, whose black hair was matted with sweat to her forehead. Ashley tried to catch her breath before answering, but the delay annoyed Mrs. Humphries.

“Ashley? Hello? Why aren’t you working?” Mrs. Humphries made a mopping motion.

Ashley rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Humphries. I understand what you said, I was just…”

“I don’t pay you to sit and enjoy my beautiful front yard—get back inside,” Mrs. Humphries said loudly, pointing to the door.

“Mrs. Humphries, I’m sorry, but,” Ashley stopped, wondering why she was trying to protect this woman, then remembered how well Cosmic Cleaners paid her. “But I’ve made a bit of a mess in there and I wouldn’t go in right now if I were you. I promise I’ll clean it all up before I leave.”

“What do you mean you made a mess? You’re supposed to clean mess, not make mess. I’ve got a mind to…” Penelope Humphries trailed off as she stormed in the front door.

“Mrs. Humphries!” Ashley yelled, wincing, waiting for the squelch of a tentacle grabbing Mrs. Humphries.

Ashley followed timidly behind when she heard the shriek.

“What the hell happened to my rug?”

Turning the corner, Ashley saw the dying tentacle slowly retracting into the ceiling, Mrs. Humphries apparently oblivious to everything but the black muck stains on her faux-fur carpet.

“I’m so sorry Mrs. Humphries, one of the cleaning products spilled and I was working on trying to wipe it up.”

“How?” Mrs. Humphries’s voice shriller than Ashley had ever heard it. “How could you ever wipe this up?” Mrs. Humphries’s hands were balled into fists at her sides. “I’ll get you fired for this!” She yelled, stomping her feet like a petulant child.

Ashley raised an eyebrow at the threat of coerced unemployment, then the other brow at the purple-black claw reaching out of a widening pool in the floor behind Mrs. Humphries.

“Mrs. Humphries, I really think we should be going or-”

“Nonsense! I’m calling your boss right now.”

Mrs. Humphries pulled out her phone and glared at Ashley. Behind Mrs. Humphries, out of her view, the claw had continued its ascent, now two joints past the wrist and a wing-tip beginning to show. Ashley knew she had some Wingdex that would solve this problem rather expediently and reached for her bag—she still had time if she moved quickly.

“Hey, hey! Don’t move! I have a gun out in my glove compartment! You’re not going anywhere until I make sure you’ve been severely reprimanded, maybe even fired.” Mrs. Humphries pointed a finger menacingly at Ashley.

Ashley froze as the head of the creature peaked out from the floor, the glint of impending hunger satiation in its eye.

“Mrs. Humphries, might I suggest you turn around?” Ashley said, hands trembling, itching to reach for her cleaning supplies, but simultaneously knowing what clients like Mrs. Humphries were capable of if she disobeyed one of their direct orders.

Ashley saw Mrs. Humphries’s perplexed look as she turned, but only glimpsed the quickest flash of terror on her face as the bat demon leapt toward her to begin its evisceration. The shriek of panic was ear-piercing.

Ashley gulped and sprang for her Wingdex. The beast was too keenly eating to pay Ashley any mind, much to her relief.

“I can’t imagine she tastes good,” she said to the creature who looked up impassively, not seeing Ashley as a threat. Ashley sprayed the bat demon and watched it melt back into its own dimension, leaving behind the few remnants of Penelope Humphries that it hadn’t already digested.

Ashley sighed and pulled out her phone.

Hey boss, can you put a delay notice out to all my clients for the rest of the day? Maybe get someone else to cover my last house? Something broke through at Penelope Humphries’s house.

…Is Mrs. Humphries okay? Does she need memory reconditioning to prevent insanity?

I tried to Wingdex the bat demon, but she threatened me and told me not to touch my supplies, so it ate her. I’m sorry. I’ll clean up.

Ashley, we really prefer if the cosmic horrors don’t eat the clients. The automatons we replace them with are never quite as mean and sometimes the families notice.

Ashley fumed. She threatened to pull a gun on me as I was cleaning tentacle goo out of her carpet!

Ah. That is completely inappropriate. We’ll find you more gracious clients.

Thanks.

Ashley got out the hydrogen fluoride to dissolve what was left of Mrs. Humphries and OxiClean for the blood stains.

She felt a twinge of guilt for not ignoring Mrs. Humphries’s threat and Wingdex-ing the bat demon before it ate her. On the other hand, she had tried to get her fired, and threatened her with bodily harm. Ashley started to contemplate her moral position on the matter and then a big glob of sticky black goo fell from the ceiling onto the carpet and reminded her she still had a house to clean.

Ashley returned to scrubbing blood and black tentacle glop out of the Humphries’s white faux-fur rug. Just another day working for Cosmic Horror Cleaners, LLC.

Fiction © Copyright Jason P. Burnham
Image by svklimkin from Pixabay

Jason P. Burnham loves to spend time with his wife, children, and dog. His work has previously appeared in Mixtape: 1986, Nature: Futures, and Strange Horizons, among others. Find him on Twitter at @AndGalen.