The Cleaner Comes at Midnight

Tom sat in the dank room, his back to the wall, facing the lone window. His clothes were imbued with the moldy stench that permeated everywhere, at least since the sickness had visited itself upon Philadelphia. Ah yes, the sickness. People fainting mid stride, convulsing, then rising again, their irises filmed over in a milky white haze and lips drawn up into a humorless snarl. Once a person had succumbed to the sickness, they became crazed, violent psychopaths. Bare hands and teeth became weapons, tearing flesh away from any poor bastard unlucky enough to be nearby. Tom had seen dozens of people ripped to pieces. Old, young, black, white, the sickness knew no prejudice.

None of this was the worst of it. Not the murderous rage that filled them as they rose. Not the endless stream of murder. No, as far as Tom was concerned, the worst part was the laughter. Mad. Utterly insane. It seemed like a misnomer to even call it laughter; it was more like some sick mockery of what a human should sound like. Hollow, without inflection. In the two weeks since the sickness had come, Tom had spent each night terrified, balled up listening to the sick bastards laugh all night. They never slept and, as a result, neither did he.

He hated them for that.

The military had blockaded the city four days after the outbreak started and that seemed to do the job of containing the sickness. None of the infected had been able to scale the immense walls. In fact, at the portions he had seen, Tom couldn't recall seeing one even try. Instead, they just killed. They ran and laughed and killed. He had seen a group of them tear a young woman limb from limb, with one pulling her head from her neck. If he lived a million years, he would never forget how her scream grew higher in pitch as her vocal cords were stretched to their breaking point, or the sick pop as the head separated. After seeing this grisly ordeal, Tom had vomited and fainted.

That had been his first night in this damp, disgusting fucking room, all of a week ago. In the time since, he had scavenged off of the food he found in the safe parts of the building.

I might be locked in this dying city with those fucking monsters, but I don't have to starve, by god!

Thankfully, the electricity had remained on uninterrupted. Tom staved off insanity by scanning through the television (thank you DirecTV) and listening to the radio. Initially, he was somewhat relaxed by the fact that outside of Philly the incident was getting only spotty coverage. Even then, news outlets were regarding it as an almost non-event. Of course, he had only to look outside the small, cracked window to see the truth.

Few people had dared to go outside over the past three days. Then, yesterday morning, a small group emerged from an unremarkable brick apartment building across the street around 8 o'clock. Tom had been in a sleep-deprived waking coma when the laughing brought reality crashing back in on top of him. Two infected had the group pinned at the side of the building nearest to him. As Tom gazed wide-eyed at the scene, one of the survivors (for the time being, at least) lunged forward with a hunting knife, catching one of the infected in the throat, slashing it wide open.

The most disturbing part was that the laughter didn't stop, it just became garbled, choked with blood. The second attacker leapt at the men, only to be met face-first with the knife.

The group ran down the street towards the front of Tom's hideout before coming to a halt in front of a rusted Chevy panel van. The man with the hunting knife unlocked the driver's door and started to reach across to unlock the passenger side door when a swarm of infected flooded out from the lobby of Tom's building. He could actually feel the structure pulsating as the horde spilled into the street and enveloped the van. The knife fell from the man's hand, only to be collected by one of the assailants who then proceeded to stab the man at least forty times.

That's when Tom lost count and vomited.

After he had cleared his head and rubbed away the white specks from his vision, the carnage was over. All that was left were tatters of clothes, random body parts, and huge pools of gore.

Just thinking back to that horrific event made Tom want to break down. He slid down the side of the window fast enough that his ass slammed the floor with enough force to shake the TV. Hopelessness consumed him and he was thankful that his parents weren't alive to witness this nightmare and that he had no other family or loved ones to speak of. His next feeling was envy towards the mauled group, and he slowly shifted his gaze from his shaking hands to the open window.

Tom pulled himself up to the window, staring straight down eight stories to the street below. He eased his left leg out of the window slowly, and then his right. He planted his feet firmly on the ledge and leaned his head back against the side of the building, keeping his eyes squeezed shut. He took a deep breath in through his nose and opened his eyes to a remarkably clear sky. Just as he was about to step off of the ledge, he saw a sweeping spotlight and heard the unmistakable sound of helicopter rotors. Without thinking, he threw his hands in the air to try and signal the chopper, almost losing his balance and plummeting from his perch. He caught himself, managing to fall back inside the window.

His breath heaved in his chest and his leg was damp with fresh urine. Anger and despair suddenly rushed him as he felt he had missed a sure shot at rescue. Just as he was about to throw himself back out of the window headfirst, he heard an amplified but unmistakably human voice from the helicopter.

Stay indoors. Do not attempt to breach the barriers.

An official plan is in place and being enacted.

Tom was flush with joy and nearly went back out onto the ledge to dance a jig. He stopped when the voice returned to the air.

To all remaining armed forces, the cleaner comes at

midnight. I repeat, the cleaner comes at midnight.

Tom cocked his head like a dog trying to understand its master. He tried to make sense out of that last comment, but decided that he couldn't waste time thinking about it. Help was coming. He was going to make it out of this hellhole. He spun around, pumping his fists in the air like a madman. As he rotated on his right foot, he slid in his own vomit, tumbling headfirst into the TV stand and kissing consciousness goodbye.

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Tom came to groggily, rubbing his temples as the throbbing in his head reached a crescendo. He was just about to allow himself to fall back into the arms of sleep when something came to him.

The helicopter.

The voice.

The cleaner comes at midnight

Was it all a dream? No, couldn't be.

He remembered clocking himself after he slipped. That was real. Shaking off the last of the effects of his spill, he wheeled around to look at the clock on the radio.

11:50.

Almost time!

After two weeks of living like a refugee in the City of Brotherly Love, he was going to be a free man. He pulled himself into the windowsill, taking in a few deep breaths. He sat there for a few minutes, looking over the city that he had grown up in. He closed his eyes and tilted his head upward, as though accepting some heavenly grace.

"Almost time."

Nearly as soon as the words left his lips he heard something in the air. His lips parted and he smiled, almost maniacally he felt. It sounded like a jet, only…different.

Wait, they don't send jets in to rescue people. They…

Just as he was completing the thought, he saw a singular trail in the sky, way up high.

"Dear God."

The only thing louder than the coming rumble in the sky, was the deranged laughter crowing up from the streets. The sounds of insanity were pouring out from every pore of the city. Every alley echoed with crazed screams and laughter. As the cacophony reached its peak, Tom turned his head skyward. A moment later, there was a blinding flash that seemed to come from everywhere at once. Tom himself began laughing along with batshit crowd below as the sun consumed them all.

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At 12:01AM, The Cleaner, a tactical nuclear weapon, came and returned the city of Philadelphia to the dust from which it had once risen.