For full context, I am a crime scene cleaner. I’m not normally allowed to discuss my work in any means, but it’s more a risk of getting fired than it is any legal trouble - and I could not possibly care any less about getting fired at this point. I might quit, if anything.
I’ve been in this job for about six years now. I clean up anything crime related from hoarding situations to violent murders. It doesn’t affect me too much anymore, but I can’t say it doesn’t disgust me every time. It’s nothing I lose sleep over by now, though.
I’m not always cleaning by myself. There’s other people around, detectives, family, other cleaners, whatever. It’s more rare for me to be completely alone on the job, really. But today, I was.
It was thought to be a suicide. That’s why they let me stay on the scene alone to clean. With murders and such, there’s always detectives and police around, without fail. Today, I was by myself, save for the single police officer sitting a few rooms away going through all the notes the victim wrote to himself.
The scene was as gross as I often deal with. Blood and dirty gray brain matter splattered out against the wall and floor, tiny bone fragments from where he shot himself through the skull. The body had already been removed, the bathroom examined in detail. All that remained was for me to eradicate the mess.
It was eerily quiet that morning, once everyone else had left. For a while I could hear the officer shuffling through papers, occasionally scribbling down some notes of his own. I didn’t think much of it when the rustling stopped. He’s probably just looking at a long note, or analyzing it in detail. Then I heard a thud, and a door opening.
I stopped what I was doing - relentlessly scrubbing down the sink - and listened. It was dead silent now, other than the air conditioning. Hesitant, I stuck my head out of the bathroom and glanced down the hall, calling out to the officer I knew was only a good ten feet away in the study. “Officer Parks?”
There was no reply.
I exited the bathroom and took a few steps to the study. The door was open, and as I leaned in, I saw Officer Parks sitting with his head on the desk. His back still rose and fell, telling me he was alive, but the shallow pace said it wasn’t by much. Certainly not conscious.
I thought about going in and shaking him, or just grabbing his radio and calling for backup, but my hands were under several layers of bloody gloves. So I started taking them off - when I noticed an unnatural smell.
I didn’t recognize what it was, but it certainly wasn’t a normal house scent. It was some kind of gas. Definitely not about to take off my hazmat suit mask to investigate, I instead started to look for a source with the weak lead while still struggling my gloves off. Then I heard the footsteps.
I couldn’t turn all the way around in time. Cold metal slammed against my skull, and I was out with no second to spare.
When I found my consciousness floating to the surface, I wasn’t quite sure where I was. The ground my cheek was squished against did not feel like the hardwood floors of that house, or even the carpet in the study. It was soft, gentle. Welcoming.
I gathered my strength and breath, then lifted my head. In front of me was a wide, sprawling staircase. I couldn’t bring myself to look up any further, so I reached up and placed one hand on the bottom step. It was cold. Moving my other hand forward to the second step, I began to pull myself to the top of the stairs. The process was slow, arduous, painful - but there was this undeniable voice in my head begging me to keep going up.
Finally, one reach of my left hand seized nothing. I was at even ground. I continued to crawl forward until my hand scraped what seemed to be a fence. Using it as a ladder, I pulled myself to my feet, finally looking up at my surroundings.
I did not stand on clouds, but rather, souls. They glowed gently beneath me, but quivered when I tried to step forward. The fence I leaned against was pearly white with quartz-like pillars that stretched beyond my eyesight. Dark veins ran through it, pulsing, as if the very material they were built from was alive. There was a heavy-looking lock on the gate that was marked with a strange symbol. It had no key or passcode. Just a small hole. I did not dare look beyond the gate yet.
I turned my head a little more, looking for any sign of life. There was only a little lamb, sitting asleep in front of the gate. It was the purest white I’d ever seen.
Slowly, I started towards it, falling to my knees next to the delicate sleeping lamb. My hand rested on its head almost instinctively. It did not move. I scratched behind its little ears and it began to stir, much to my relief. It was just a small animal. But any life was comfort at that moment.
The lamb opened its eyes and looked at me. My whole body felt like it froze. It had such human eyes. It stared so deeply into me, like it could read my every thought and feeling.
It gave a gentle “baa” and looked beyond the gate. I finally worked up the courage to follow its gaze, and see into the Kingdom of God.
I cannot truly describe what I saw. It was otherworldly, unlike anything I’ve ever experienced with my senses before. There are few words I could possibly use to express Heaven.
Awe-inspiring.
Daunting.
Devastating.
A magnificent desolation.
In the truest sense I could ever mean it - completely terrifying.
I tore my eyes from the unseemly sight and faced the lamb again. It still stared at me with its horrible human gaze. I looked dead into the eyes of God and wept.
I sobbed, crying terribly like I never had before. My body seized up, practically convulsing, until the tears bore me back into unconsciousness.
When I could open my eyes again, all I could see were a pair of shoes. Someone standing in front of me. My vision was blurred, blood dripping into my eyes, but I could just barely make out the person walking away from me holding a metal mallet. He was tall and with slick black hair, and he turned to face me only once before walking out the back door. I suppose my eyes were glazed over enough that he thought I was out.
I laid there for a long time. I don’t know how long, exactly. My head was brimming with thoughts I had never truly experienced. Violence.
Being a crime scene cleaner only made me ever more against violence, but then, as I laid there concussed, it’s all I could think about. What it means to sin.
I thought about this blurry man and his mallet. Whatever he had done to Officer Parks. What he may have done to the person whose body I had just been cleaning up. If he may come back.
That was what did it. The thought he might come back and finish me off was enough to make me force myself up. I dragged myself back out to my car, flopping down in the driver’s seat and sitting there. I looked down at my hands. I was still in my hazmat suit, which I usually have to take off before I get back in the car. But I don’t care anymore.
I drove home. Definitely not my smartest idea, considering the throbbing pain in my head, but I returned to my apartment anyway.
To be honest, I’m only writing this out because I’ve been trying to drive the thoughts away. It hasn’t helped.
I want absolutely nothing more than to buy my ticket to hell with bloody hands.
I should make that man pay for what he made me see.
I am going to find him and make him witness what I had to. He will face retribution and one day, so will I once again.