Pesticide
It’s just a normal day in my normal life. I get up, and curse at the rising sun for disrupting my quasi-death. I don’t have the guts to kill myself, so I resort to lots of sleeping for now. It passes time. When you are in a rotten mood, the best thing you can do is pass time as quickly as possible so you don’t have to deal with it.
My name is Derik Hendel by the way. I am an exterminator. Yeah, I know it’s not the greatest of professions, go to hell. Who asked you anyway? I’ve no problem with money. I live by myself and I live in a small apartment. My expenses are not exactly up there so this is more than adequate.
After some debate between my brain and body, I get up and get ready for work. I have an appointment at eight today. Some lady has a pest problem. I doubt she has much in the way of money judging by the address, but that’s not my problem.
After eating some bagels and vinegar, I grab a bottle of water for the road and jump in my truck. I turn the key and after a brief warble, it starts and I drive off to my appointment. I throw a CD into the player. Some African lullaby fills the air. I like soothing music before a job. It gets me in the mood so that I can better appreciate what I am doing. If you like your job you do it better I always say, and I do enjoy mine. The benefits of being self-employed in this particular profession are quite numerous. For one I do not have a boss constantly breathing down my back about not doing my job properly. That and when you deal with customers directly the profit margin is a higher per job, and I do not have any trouble finding business, that’s for sure, especially in this city. I don’t know what it is with this place, but the bothersome creatures seem to multiply like rabbits here. Everyone knows I am the best at what I do. I get the job done quickly and without any messes. People like that, so my name gets around.
I slow to a stop in front of an apartment building. This seems to be the place. The lady who called me was someone by the name of Rasha Zana. Odd name, must be from India or something. I hit a button at the gate and after a few seconds a garbled voice struggles out of the intercom speaker, “Mfff Heffl?”
“Ya that’s me, I’m here to see a Mrs. Zana about pest control?”
“Uff uffy, cfff r’up.”
With the garble gone there is a brief buzz and a click as the door opened. I walk in with my tools in a case on my back, which gets caught on the bloody gate. I mutter some curses and kick it closed behind me. After a short walk through a hallway, I get on an elevator and head up to the room. As I get to the door, it opens and a woman walks out to greet me. She is kind of short, but cute enough. She approaches with a disturbingly beautiful smile. She is wearing a T-shirt, and it doesn’t appear to be anything else. “Are you Mrs. Zana then?”
She nods and says “Yes, and thank you for coming. Do come in.”
She ushers me in and I survey the area. She appears to have hardwood floors. That’s good. Messes are easier to clean up on hard surfaces. “So where are the pests in now?”
She indicates two doors and says “Well they are in my bedroom and the children’s bedrooms.”
I nod and head off to the doors. “This should not take long at all, do you mind if I use gas?”
“No not at all, I won’t be in any danger will I? Should I go outside?”
“Nah, it’ll be fine so long as you leave the doors closed while it works, they’ll be out of your hair in no time.”
I walk into the first door and look about. It was a typical child’s room. Toys scattered around the floor in a pattern designed either to cover the most floor space possible, or to maximize the chance of someone breaking a bone from slipping. Perhaps both. I hate kids. I put a canister on the floor, and pull off the top. It immediately begins to hiss and I leave the room to let the gas do it’s job before I come back to finish up.
I walk through the other door and survey the area. There was little more to see than a bed and some dressers. Not even nice dressers at that. Eh, who am I to judge? I take another canister out of my case and pull off it’s top. No hiss, must be a dud. Piece of garbage. I mutter some assorted curses at the canister and pull out another one. I pop it open and quietly leave as the gas starts the fill the room. I put some towels under the doors to keep the gas in and barricade them shut to keep her from opening the doors up. You’d be surprised at what some people have done while I was working. You’d think they loved the buggers by the way some of them blubber about it. Must be because of that bloody equal rights crap. I hate those kinds of people. Next thing you know, someone is gonna start crying when I bite into a hamburger.
I walk back to the living room where Rasha is seated on the couch, sniffling and trying her hardest to keep back tears. Great, another one of them. Why the heck to they hire me if they are gonna cry when I’ve done my job? Gah, this job used to be a lot easier when my customers would just say “Go in there an kill the buggers and I’ll pay you when yer done.”
I sigh and sit next to her and console her, though I feel like an idiot doing so. She asks me, “Will they suffer much?”
How the heck would I know? I’ve never tried to kill myself with the stuff. It’s easier just to tell her what she wants to hear. “No miss, they die peacefully in their sleep. Won’t even realize they are dying.”
She totally breaks down in tears. Gah, what they hell am I supposed to do? I pat her on the back gently as I pull her into what I hope is a comforting hug. She sniffles and looks up at me. “Thank you,” she says as she presses her lips to mine.
This is another thing that I don’t understand, though I don’t mind it as much. For some reason, when the ladies realize that my job is done, the idea that lives have been taken makes them very horny. I don’t know why, maybe they feel like I am playing God by deciding what lives and what dies. Or maybe they just need something to fill their loss, stupid as it may sound. Whatever the reason, I don’t argue if this is how they want to pay.
When she is done I get up, but she clings onto me. I struggle out of her grasp and walk over to the doors and move the barricades and towels away, the gas should have done its job by now. I open up the first door and pick up my canister and look at the little bodies to make sure they are in fact dead. Pests are annoying that way, sometimes they don’t die the first time. Well there doesn’t appear to be any signs of life. That’s good. This room’s done then.
I go to the next room and open the door. Heh, looks like this one put up a bit of a fight when he realized what was happening. He was laying dead slumped up against the door. Heh, you’d think that the buggers would think of a better way out if they knew they were gonna die, but then I’m glad they don’t that’d just make my job harder. I pick him up and put him on the bed, that way she’ll just think he died in his sleep and not blubber about it anymore. Crazy people.
I tell Rasha that this job was free and to tell her friends. What can I say, I can’t take money from a crying woman. I walk out and start to close the door behind me then remember to say one last thing. I pop my head in and say, “Just make sure none of those friends are cops, it’s easier for the both of us if they just assume it was carbon monoxide poisoning and nothing else.”
Yeah I know it's common sense, but then, people are stupid. Better safe than sorry.
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