The Cleaner

Christie Augustine stared at the house where all the misery had started. She made her concentration on it complete, until she was unaware of the damp, sleet-filled wind blowing about her. When she had been small, this place intimidated the hell out of her. Now she realized that perhaps it wasn’t the house, but what happened inside. It surprised her how growing up could change one’s perspective on things—or make them clear. She closed her pale green eyes. She pictured the house as it was when she had lived there: the flaking blue and white paint chips littering the porch floor, and naked light bulbs hanging in all the rooms. She recalled her bedroom was more like a closet, adorned with a lumpy mattress, a four-drawer dresser with three broken drawers, and outdated paisley-print wallpaper. She opened her eyes. In the bitter February darkness, she saw that its black shutters and front door were now gone. The windows on the first floor were empty frames of mildewed wood. The ones on the second floor barely maintained their fragile grip on the glass within them. The frozen yard was a makeshift junkyard. A six-foot-high wire fence encircled the property. Where the cracked and broken sidewalk met the fence, there was a public notice saying that the house was condemned and scheduled for demolition within a few weeks. Maggie gave the sign a grim smile. She was about to save the taxpayers some money. It would not be standing by dawn. She pulled her wool hat down over her bald head until only her eyes peeked out. She shuddered in her thick coat, but not because she was cold. The feelings were coming back. They dogged her daily since she arrived in Mason City. The wounds were raw and burning, as if someone poured salt into them. They intensified the moment she saw the house again. She fought them back, and reached out for the canisters filled with kerosene. She touched the gate with gloved hands. It opened easily, but she knew it would. She checked her surroundings, not expecting to see anyone. On a night like this, the homes would be shut tight and the curtains drawn. Nevertheless, she reminded herself to check each room carefully. She did not want any unforeseen events marring her plans of revenge. Once inside the living room, she recalled the building’s structure, and the path she should take for maximum destruction. When she first scoped this place, she wanted to use her special accelerant here. Then she decided otherwise. This fire would be the first in a long line of them. It was important that these first few fires look like they were started by some juveniles, or a perhaps a homeless person trying to stay warm. By the time she was done, the one who had betrayed her most would be dead, and her heart finally cleansed of the misery and agony he had brought her. She started at the top of the home and went from room to room, pouring kerosene as she went. She made sure each room had an ample supply of it. She paused near a corner of the living room where her mother had routinely beaten her. There, she took out a squirt bottle and sprayed some of the kerosene in a deliberate pattern on the floor. She had left it at every place she torched. So far, no one knew what it meant. She knew, for she had read those final reports in the places where it was found. She walked backward to the front door and gave the house one last vengeful glance. She pulled a matchbook out of her pocket, lit it, and dropped it into the kerosene. The flames raced from the doorway to the edges of the room and up the rickety staircase. By the time she was at the gate, the first floor had ignited. By the time she had reached her car, the building was engulfed. She watched as the flames reached for the clouded sky above. She closed her eyes again. Some of the pain had gone away. In her head, she heard her father’s shrieks as he died, burning to death in his bed. She smiled at the memory. It had been one of the happiest moments of her life. That clean feeling she got whenever there was a successful fire spread through her body. She couldn’t wait to savor this feeling again. Unlike the others she had killed these past few years, she would stay and observe the final one, watching the look on his overly smug face disappear as he realized that he was about to die—and who had killed him.