Mrs. Butcher’s Cleaning Service

“You’ve reached Mrs. Butcher’s Cleaning Service. The finest cleaners in all of Pteetneet City. You need it dusted, we’re the ones to be trusted. This is Beverly Butcher, what can I clean for you?”

Everything on Mrs. Butcher’s desk was neat and in its place. She didn’t need to fiddle to achieve perfection. You could pull out your Rädsla brand double scale soft sewing ruler tape and measure from any given point and find that the desk was set up with mathematic efficiency.

“I’m sorry, can you please repeat that?”

If you had been standing next to Mrs. Butcher you would have heard heavy breathing on the receiving side of the handheld spiral-corded, no kinks, desk phone.

“Okay, let me repeat for efficiency, you would like to order the Deluxe Neat & Tidy package with the the bodily fluid bonus pack. You’d like it as soon as possible, yes’m’sir, at 17 Myriad Circle?”

A series of grunts, a couple microwave beeps, and seven seconds of chattering wind-up teeth burst from the phone.

“Yes’m’sir, we can be there within the hour. What’s that?”

A deep animal groan, a high pitch moan, and the double honk of a clown’s horn seeped out the phone.

“Yes’m’sir, the entire house except the second door in the first-floor hallway.”

A flock of crows cackled and cawed on the other end of the receiver as Mrs. Butcher hung up.

The home was a large Victorian bathed in black and purple paint. The gray clouds above, grumbling along to bursts of lightning buried in the layers, was a stark difference from the sunbathed homes to each side.

Mrs. Butcher pulled out her vacuum, mop, bucket, window spray, dust repellant, furniture polish, seventeen rags, all Rädsla brand of course, and her heirloom Butcher family meteor hammer. All the essentials balanced one atop the other for maximum efficency.

“Knock knock,” said Mrs. Butcher.

Mrs. Butcher waited for a response, but none came. She stood patiently still for (she checked her watch) seven minutes and six seconds. Then she remembered that the customer had sounded quite foreign.

Mrs. Butcher stomped her foot twice and neighed like a horse.

The door’s thirsty hinges creaked an ear-piercing scream as the door swung open with dramatic and menacing slowness.

“Where to begin,” Mrs. Butcher hummed with singsong. She surveyed grand ceilings and a wide staircase in Brazilian rosewood and stone. Two gargoyles stood sentry on each end of the banister. Gold threaded through the white marble of the massive stone guards.

“I believe I was to start in the first door in the first-floor hallway,” she walked up to the first door grabbing the knob.

“No, no, no,” said the right gargoyle, its ears bouncing up and down as it spoke in a raspy smokers voice, “you need to start in the first door in the first-floor hallway.”

“It’s the second door in the first-floor hallway I’m not to go, this is the first door on the first floor.”

“You’re on the seventh floor,” said a nasal voice. The left gargoyle’s nose jiggled as he spoke, “you need to go up a floor for the first. If you go up two you’ll be on the fifth floor. If you do that you’ll need to go down two flights and back up three before to get to the first again.”

“I know how floors work,” said Mrs. Butcher, who went up a flight of stairs and into the second door.

The only light from the room came from the roaring fireplace on the far end of the room. The flames illuminated a pentacle of thick ash on the ground.

“This won’t do,” Mrs. Butcher said and vacuumed the ash up lickety-split. The room was spick and span. She was back out the door before she could even see a ring of red appear on the floor like a glowing hot iron.

A broken porcelain doll made a mess of one room. Mrs. Butcher had to capture the doll, give it a good spank, and send it off to bed without dinner.

Mrs. Butcher brought each mirror to a sparkling shine, even the one where her reflection smiled back with a little too many teeth. She gave it a good lecture on proper dental care.

She had cleaned the entire house. Mrs. Butcher found her way back to the first floor and noticed the second door in the first-floor hallway ajar. Before she could scream “Sign Name Cuff” a bull-headed demon charged Mrs. Butcher.

Mrs. Butcher stood her ground, hands on her hips, wide in stance. She squinted and said, “Stop!”

The demon stopped. It stood, great heaving mass sloped under the ceiling, and scratched its head, unsure of Mrs. Butcher.

“This won’t do. Filthy,” Mrs. Butcher ran the beast a bath. It bellowed a hearty groan as she rubbed shampoo through the hair on its sinewy muscled arms. She helped him to blow dry off, trim his nails, and rubbed botanical oils into his crevasses.

“Find yourself some pants and get to bed,” she slapped him on the ass. Mrs. Butcher cleaned the remaining filth from the bathtub and put the towels into the wash.

Mrs. Butcher unzipped her vacuum to remove the bag and an arm flopped out of the zipper. The arm was quickly followed by a hairy leg.

“Who’s playin’ pranks with my vacuum?”

More arms and legs pushed their way out of her vacuum, bellies and butts pushed through windows, shoulders and knees bled through the walls until everything surrounding Mrs. Butcher was a writhing humanoid mass of body parts that squished, squashed, and melted together and dissolved leaving behind only sulfurous pools of stinking muck and pillars of burning stone.

A freshly groomed demon stood before Mrs. Butcher wearing an expensive pair of jeans. He opened his arms wide before her.

“I will need to charge you triple overtime if you want me to clean here,” said Mrs. Butcher.

“This place is a mess.”

THE END