This is a direct sequel to The Afterparty, making the two of these part of a series I think I’ll do on our down on his luck exterminator.
I was having a decent day for once. Simple calls, no herds, I even got a tip for the first time in months. All of that lifted me up a bit, I was gonna eat out, treat myself a little. This email made all that evaporate.
Dear Sir or Madame,
It has come to our attention that during the service carried out on Wednesday September 18th, 2029, you failed to follow all protocol and violated clause 19-J of the Crichton Act, leaving hazardous biowaste in an area accessible to wildlife, violated clause 39-P of the Private Hazardous Biotic Control Officers Obligations, failure to secure issued equipment. These violations have resulted in a temporary suspension of your license as a Hazardous Biotic Control Officer in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in order for your license to be reinstated you must participate in a mandatory 3 unpaid services supervised by a licensed evaluator chosen by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Should any of these 3 unpaid services be evaluated at a less than passable measure, your license will be permanently suspended. If you wish to appeal this decision, you may send an appeal request through the HBCO board website. Should you wish to participate in license reinstatement your first assignment will be at 9:00 AM on October 13th, 2029, at the HBCO Main Office parking lot, you will meet your assigned evaluator and be guided to your first site.
HBCO Board of Trustees
(617)021-9210
I stared at this for a few minutes, refreshing my phone to see if it somehow vanished and I could continue on with my life, but no, it stayed, making my migraine worse. Some government dickhead must have been following my work, checking my jobs until I fucked up, and leaving out the poison and fence definitely was pushing my luck by themselves. My hands are shaking so bad, and I can’t stop sweating, how the fuck am I gonna pay for my loans or rent without a job for an undisclosed amount of time? I have no savings, nothing valuable to sell apart from my van, but its been caked in so much fluffy gore and shit that I couldn’t even get a couple hundred from it if I sold it. I tap frantically on my cracked phone screen, trying to formulate an appeal email on the site. I know I’m fucked, no appeal from a private exterminator has been accepted since some dipshit left rotting bodies by the side of a road, but I gotta try somehow.
“huuu, wowstest huwties…pwease sabe fwuffy, huuuu”
You gotta be fucking kidding me. One of the bags in the back is crying. How fucking stupid am I, I swore I killed all of them before I bagged them, and any that I wasn’t totally sure couldn’t have survived this long. I take a deep breath, it can’t live for much longer, I need to finish this appeal letter…
“Chirp! Pwease, nu feew pwetty, weggies hab huwties, chestie hab huwties, thinkie pwace hab huwties, see pwaces nu am wowkin, nu smeww pwetty, need nummies, need huggies, huuuu…Chirp!”
It’ll die any second now…
“Wan mummah, wan daddeh, wan speciaw fwend, pwease bwing fwuffy to speciaw fwend, speciaw fwend am soon-mummah, need huggies…”
I slam my phone down in a cup holder, and move to the back of the van, rapidly punching all the bags I can see, horrible squelching echoing in the van from them but the voice keeps coming.
“NUUUU! Scawy noises! Pwease gu way! Fwuffy hab su many huwties! Nu wan mow! Fwuffy am foh huggies an wu-EEEEEEE!”
I finally find it, it was better shape than I hoped, and as I beat it through the bag, I could see the outline of it, trying to crawl away, I hit it where I think the head is, and eventually the voice dies down. I keep hitting until I stop seeing movement.
When I crawl back to the drivers seat and pick up my phone, I find the cherry on top of this situation. My phone is now broken, screen won’t turn on. If there really is a god, he’s laughing at me.
After a bit of time eating ramen and cumberland farms hot dogs, I drive my van to the pick up point to get my new babysitter. Phone’s still broken, but at least I was able clean my van a bit. Dumping the bags was more expensive than I remembered, but I hope it was worth it to make the van smell better. I pull into the parking lot of the HBCO office building, and see the guy who has my career in the palm of his hand now. He’s the epitome of average, not tall or short or especially overweight, nor does he look that athletic. But his face, it’s a mix of smug narcissism and exhaustion, dark circles under his eyes but his chin is still high. I step out and hold out my hand.
“Hi, I’m-”
“You’re late. Time was changed to 8:30. You were notified 24 hours ago.”
“Wha-Oh, uh, Sorry, my phone hasn’t been working-”
“Doesn’t matter, already a mark on today’s service. Don’t plan on messing up again.”
He’s holding a clipboard and a pen, and walks past without shaking my hand. He begins to circle my van, taking notes.
“Open the doors. And give me your registration and most recent inspection papers.”
I hastily do as he says, fumbling through the glove compartment to grab the paperwork, before handing it over. He glances over them, then pokes his head in the van.
“God, how do you work in this thing? It stinks like butcher’s dumpster.”
“Uh, sorry, I uh, been meaning to deep clean it…”
I chuckle nervously, but he doesn’t notice and just keeps writing. Finally, he turns to me, tucking his pen into his pocket.
“Today’s service is at Malcolm’s Auto Salvage, medium group varying sizes and ages, multiple aggressive targets and multiple morbid recovery targets. This is a leave no trace operation, all evidence of Biotic hazardous waste must be removed. You drive.”
The drive to the site is silent, the fed doesn’t even check his phone, just stares out the windshield, occasionally flicking his eyes over to watch me drive, probably hopeful I speed or a light pops up on the dash. We reach the Salvage yard, and I pull in when he turns to me.
“You missed the office. Don’t you want to check in with the owner, get as much information as you can?”
“Oh, uh, Yeah, uh, I uh, usually I just come to sites to do the work though…”
“So you work with poor information, great.”
Another note on his clipboard.
“The owner also isn’t in today anyways, so it doesn’t matter. Park by the compactor, The target zone is in the southwest corner, they’re using a couple of minivans as shelters.”
I park where he points, then we both get out. I nervously grab my supplies, and make sure to put on all the proper PPE. When I slip my snake grabber into my belt, the fed looks up with a raised eyebrow.
“That’s not standard issue. Let me see it.”
I reluctantly hand it over, and he immediately writes a few sentences before making comments.
“This is a hazard, the uncovered metal on the claw could easily breach a target’s skin, causing unnecessary biohazardous waste. Have you been using it for every job?”
“N-No, sir, I, just thought it might be helpful-”
“You thought wrong. Leave it behind, bring only standard issue equipment.”
We approach the site, but before we even arrive, the fed points out the first part. Between two sedans, is a pile of corpses in varying states of decay. Some of them are too far along to guess at a cause of death, some of them fresh and still bleeding. I take a bag, and begin to stuff them in, all under the gaze of the fed. This was the easy part, something usually would save for last, but protocol states that corpses are the most hazardous targets and should be contained first. After finishing with the corpses, I also shovel up the first layer of dirt that was beneath the corpses into the bag as well. Another thing I would never do, but with big brother watching, I have to remember every second of my training I slept through a half decade ago. Finally, we can move on to the living fluffies, and as we approach the minivan’s I can hear their voices, high and grating.
“Dummeh Mawe! Smawty sade onwy gib miwkies tu gud babbehs! Nu dummeh babbehs!”
“Huu, buh mummah nu wan be bad mummah, wubs aww babbehs, babbehs am foh huggies an wub!”
“Dummeh! Smawty am Smawty! Nu gib bad babbehs miwkies! Take sowwy hoofsies!”
“SCREEE! Uuuuhuuu, otay, mummah wiww wisten tu smawty, uuuuhhuuu, sowwy babbehs…”
I round a final corner and catch sight of the herd, six adult fluffies, three stallions and three mares. One of the mares is very pregnant, her belly has started to drag on the ground. The other two have foals, luckily neither have more than three. The three stallions are obviously the smarty and his toughies, one red pegasus flanked by a grey earthie and a pink unicorn. They move on from the mare they were tormenting, which is still crying as she shoos away one of her foals from her teats. All the foals are also still crawling, gives me a bit of a break.
“Okay, there are your targets. Contain them all, don’t spill any unnecessary waste. You know the drill, right?”
I take a deep breath, then approach, a fresh bag in hand. The Smarty immediately notices, but unfortunately, he seems to be the cowardly type.
“MUNSTAH! Toughies! Pwotect Smawty wand! Dummeh Mawes fowwow Smawty to nestie!”
The toughies approach me, with their cheeks puffed and stomping their hooves.
“Dis am Smawty Wand! Gu way Munsta-EUURK!”
I need to be fast and efficient, anything to send the message that I’m more competent than the fed thinks. I shoot both my hands down, luckily grabbing both toughies at the back of the neck, and press them down to the ground, tightening my hands into fists and pulverizing their spines. I stuff them both into the bag, and quickly move to the mares and smarty. One mare, one of the one’s with foals is following the Smarty into one of the minivans, while the other two are left behind, one helping the pregnant one while her foals cry and chirp from her back.
“Huuu, pwease gu fastew fwend, munstah gabe toughie fwends fowevah sweepies.”
“Am twyin fwend, huuu, weggies nu am wowkin, dis nu am gud foh tummeh-babbehs, huuuu.”
I step in front of them, blocking access to the nest, and repeat the same spine crush on the mare with foals, but miss the pregnant one.
“NUUUU! FWEND AM FOWEVAH SWEEPIES! EEEEEE! BIGGEST POOPIES! NUUUU! IT AM TU SOON BABBEHS! PWEASE NU COME OUT!”
“SHIT! shitshitshitshitshit!”
I quickly stuff the dead mare into the bag with her foals still chirping, and try and grab the pregnant one before she pops. I get a grip on her scruff, but as I lift her, a wet tearing noise comes, followed by multiple plops.
“NUUUUUU! BABBEHS! NU WEAVE TUMMEH! IT AM TOO SOON! HUUUHUU WAI NU HEAW CHIWPIES? NU CAN SEE BABBEHS HUUUU!”
I twist her neck, then stuff her in the bag. Breathing heavily, I look up to the fed. He has a smug smile on his face.
“Already a mark, forget about it, get the rest of the living ones before they become more of a time consumption.”
I grit my teeth, then turn to the van. I can hear crying from inside.
“Huuuu, pwease Smawty, pwease wet mummah an babbehs in hidey nestie, nu wan munstah to find mummah an babbehs….”
“Shaddup dummeh mawe! Hidey nestie am fow Smawty! Gu way an make Munstah weave Smawty awone!”
I duck in, and see the mare desperately pawing at the space under the back seats, I can also see red fluff peaking out from under it as well. I’m able to get a grip on the mare, but as I grab her, her foals fall off of her back and tumble all over the van.
“NUUUU! BABBEHS! EEEE MUNSTAH! MUNSTAH HAB MUMMAH! NU HUWT MUMMAH MUNSTAH, BABBEHS NEED MUMMAH! BABBEHS! COME BACK TO MUMMAH BABBEHS! NU AM WEADY TO BE SPWOWING BABBEHS!”
The mare switches her attention back and forth from me to her lost foals, but I’m able to snap her neck and stuff her in the bag quickly enough. I then turn my attention to the smarty, which is trying to fit itself deeper under the back seats.
“Dummah Munstah nu find Smawty, Smawty hab bestest hidey nestie, munstah am dumme-EEEEEEE!”
I drag it out by its back legs, but before I can grab its neck, a torrent of shit spurts from its ass.
“TAKE SOWWY POOPIES DUMMEH MUNSTAH! WEAVE SMAWTY AWONE AN GU WAY! SMAWTY AM BESTEST FWUFFY!”
It screams insults and proclamations about how great it is, until I grab the top of its skull and sink my fingers into its temporals. It jerks for a second, then goes limp, drooling and its eyes unfocused. Then I take a second to notice the damage, the entire front of my body is covered in shit, great. I can hear the dull peeping of the dropped foals, and fumble around the van as I try to grab them. I’m able to get two and snap their necks without issue, but the last one has somehow rolled into a spot I can barely reach, and as I grab around blindly, I crush the foal’s skull against the wall of the van. Smearing more gore and waste around. I pull the bleeding remains out and stuff it in the bag. As I leave the minivan, I can finally see how bad the miscarriage was. A pile of pink blobs covered in red slime, but on top of it is a turkey vulture, picking through the slime and pulling the dead fetuses out, swallowing them whole. It stares at me with its beady, black eyes, before flying away, clutching another fetus in its beak. I look at the fed, who is sitting on the tailgate of an SUV, an amused look on his face. I sigh, clean up the last remnants, and approach him.
“Letting wildlife access your work site is another mark, by the way.”
“Come on man, you couldn’t have tried scaring it off?”
“Not supposed to interfere. You could have ensured it wouldn’t have happened.”
“You told me to leave it alone.”
“And you listened when you shouldn’t have. You’re supposed to be a professional, you should have known better.” We’re stopping by the landfill before you drop me off, you need to dispose of that uniform.”
A trip to the landfill later, and we are back in front of the HBCO office. We both step out, and the fed approaches me, this time without a smug expression.
“Well, that’s service one complete, you got two more before final evaluation.”
“So I passed this one?”
“Not for me to say, you will face a final evaluation at the completion of your last service.”
“What? So I could have failed today and the next two would be a waste of time? And I still have to do them?”
“Yep, if you want your license reinstated, that’s protocol. Your next service assignment will be on October 16th, 8:30 AM, make sure to keep an eye on your email.”
“Wait! How does that make sense? Why wouldn’t you just fail me when I actually fail?”
Even as I asked, I knew the answer. Some of my fellow private exterminators faced similar situations, if they weren’t sued into bankruptcy. As federal and state population control teams grew, they wanted less chance of competition. Everyone wanted answers to the fluffy problem, and blame was already on private entities for some incidents of negligent disposal. So, new guidelines and protocols were put in place through heavily streamlined channels, and private exterminators started getting hit with fines and suspensions until most of them quit. Now, my head was one the chopping block. The fed tucked his clipboard under his arm and stared at me.
“You know, I didn’t want to be doing this. I went to school for science, studied freshwater ecology. I loved that shit. Then everything I was studying died. Because of dipshits like you. I had to spend an extra year in college after switching majors, because every potential job I could go into went extinct along with my research. Now, my job is babysitting idiots who love to create messes and not clean them up. You want to know why you have to deal with so much bullshit, why it feels like the world suddenly turned against you?”
He leaned in, pointing a finger into my chest.
“Because fuck you, that’s why.”