The Contract

I took a tentative step forward, as if the elevator would swallow me and crush me with its metal teeth. It was my imagination talking once again, and I could tell that my two associates were getting restless with me.

The redhead glared at me, but didn’t say anything. He was always pissed off whenever he couldn’t smoke. The brunette looked at me with the saddest eyes, which really bothered me the most.

I didn’t need any pity.

I signed up for this long ago. I had to go through with it, whether I wanted to or not. The elevator went up several more flights, until we reached the tenth floor. The redhead and the brunette stepped out of the elevator first, and I felt the redhead purposely brush his shoulder against my own.

I stepped out, my legs feeling wobbly for a moment. The brunette reached out to hold onto my shoulders, steadying me.

“Are you alright, man?”

I gulped.

“I have to be, don’t I? Otherwise, the boss will kill me.”

The redhead scoffed.

“You better hope he kills you.”

The brunette gave the redhead a look.

“Could you shut up for once in your life, man? You never help anybody. You’re so fucking selfish.”

“You’re barely learning this now?,” the redhead replied.

The brunette waved a nonchalant hand in his direction.

“Ignore him, Waylon. He’s an asshole. Do you want me to tell him to fuck off for you? You need to be comfortable for this.”

I shrugged.

“I’m going to hate this no matter what. He’s not getting to me. It’s…you know.”

The brunette gave my shoulders a comforting squeeze.

“I know. I was the same way. You’ll get used to this…hopefully.”

I gave him a weak smile, and the brunette wrapped an arm around my shoulders, murmuring soothing words as he led me down the hallway. Each apartment number was a blur to me, until we reached the final door on the left.

Number 13.

The redhead stepped forward, let out a long sigh, and knocked three times on the door. A loud sound erupted from the door, startling all three of us. The redhead fell back against the wall, leaving a blood trail. Blood was sprouting from his chest.

“Fuck!” He touched the blood, his entire hand covered in red.

“I just bought this suit!”

The brunette kicked the door down. An older man that was balding that looked to be in his forties was holding a shotgun. He was wearing a white tank top in blue boxer shorts. His gut was hanging, exposing his bellybutton.

People in the hallways had opened their doors, and several screams could be heard.

“STAY BACK! PLEASE DONT HURT ME!,” the man yelled.

“FUCK YOU, YOU PRICK! YOU SHOT MY ASS!,” the redhead shrieked.

The brunette raised his hands in the air, looking back and forth between the redhead and our target.

“Can you calm the fuck down? The police are going to be here soon!”

“FUCK YOU! I answered the fucking door like any normal fucking asshole would and I get SHOT!,” the redhead shot back.

For some reason I burst out laughing at this statement. The brunette slapped me across the face. I winced at the impact, and immediately shut up. Regret was in his eyes, but this was all about business.

“I’m calling the cops!,” the man yelled.

“I’m sure people already have,” the redhead muttered behind me. I turned around to find him standing behind me. His wound was already gone. A huge hole in his suit was left behind, leaving blood all over his chest. His hands were on his hips, anger radiating from him like a bomb that was about to blow up.

The brunette started to slowly walk toward the man, but he pulled the trigger again. This time he missed, and I flinched when the mirror on the wall next to me exploded. The brunette charged at the man, tackling him to the ground. He looked up at me, holding him in place.

“Do it, Waylon! Hurry up! Before the cops show up!”

The man struggled, waving his arms back and forth like a five-year-old child. Snot and tears were streaming down his face. I pulled out a revolver from my back pocket, pointing it at the man’s head. It was a clear shot.

My hand was shaking, and it took everything in me to be able to cock back the hammer. The redhead walked closer to me, whispering in my ear.

“He deserves it. Remember what he did?”

I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to think of the file. Even when it was read out loud by our boss, I couldn’t accept it. No human being was capable of such an evil action, but they existed. Like the one in front of me.

I didn’t realize I had pulled the trigger. Blood shot out of the man’s head, splattering all over the brunette. He dropped the man, and instantly bolted out of the apartment. The redhead followed, but then he went back around to grab me. I felt a sharp pain in my side.

“Fucking move it, dumbass!”

I jumped when the redhead took hold of my hair, dragging me out. It was painful, but it got me moving. We ran out of the apartment, toward the stairwell of the building. By the time we made it out, the brunette was waiting for us in the black van.

“Get in!,” he yelled.

The redhead shoved me through the open doors, then he slammed the doors shut. The brunette booked it out of there. I could hear police sirens barely arriving at the residence. The redhead slammed his head once against the van doors. “Fuck, that was close.”

I noticed a knife was in his hand, covered in blood. I touched the spot where he stabbed me. I lifted up my suit. The wound was gone. There was only a smear of blood.

“You’ll get used to it, Waylon.”

I looked up. The redhead was watching me. His eyes looked defeated, and it was the worse thing I could have seen that day. I let out a sob, the gun slipping from my fingers. The loud sound it made as it hit the van made the tears flow faster, and I buried my face in my legs.

“Now look at what you did,” I heard the brunette say softly.

“Fuck off,” the redhead said.

As the two men started to bicker, I thought of the day that my life changed forever. I was sleeping underneath the bridge somewhere in a big city. I didn’t know what the city was called, but that didn’t matter. I was homeless, I lost my job, and everything else followed right away.

In other words, I completely gave up.

I had woken up when I heard a huge commotion right beside me. Two men were trying to harm a teenage girl, and I stepped in to defend her.

One of the men had stabbed me with a knife straight into my stomach. I was glad she got away, but I knew that I wasn’t going to make it when I saw the size of the wound. The pain was unbearable, and I lay underneath that bridge, waiting for the end.

A man had appeared to me at that moment, and I had assumed it was an angel there to take me away to a better place. The man had bent down to address me, and I was shocked with how beautiful he was.

He was the exact replica of what an angel should look like. He had brown hair that appeared red in the sun, and his face was that of a supermodel. He batted his long eyelashes at me, his blue eyes studying me with wonder.

“Work for me, and I will make your troubles go away,” he said in a sultry manner.

I agreed without thinking, and then the man lifted up my chin to give me a kiss on the lips. The pain vanished in seconds, and I screamed when I saw my wound fade right before my eyes. The man smiled, and his beauty was no longer something to behold. I was looking into the face of a devil.

“Now, it’s time to come home,” he said with mock sweetness.

I wished I had died that day. I wished I had known what the consequences would have been, but I was a dying man. You’re not thinking when you’re losing so much blood, and this monster took advantage of that.

Even though my boss is pure evil, he doesn’t compare to the monsters he asks each of us to collect. Like my two new employees stated, I was going to get used to it. But for now, I was going to cry.

My tears were all I had left to let me know I was human.

Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn