For a moment, I would like for you to follow my instructions.

1. Put the diarydown if it isn't yours.

2. If you insist on reading, despite the diary NOT being yours, please read the following statement in your best happy-go-lucky voice, "Hi! I'm an asshole, and I don't care about other people's privacy!"

3. If you REALLY insist on reading, then please read the rest of this journal in that same tone. If you'll be snooping around my thoughts, might as well make it sound a bit like me, and not some deep toned creepy dude.

Entry - 12/18/12 – Hotel Lovin'

When it came to jobs that people couldn't stomach, I was the one to call. No, I'm not some assassin for hire. I'm a Freelance Cleaner. Being a Freelance Cleaner doesn't mean all I did was scrub floors and wipe counters. I'll mow lawns, haul garbage, clean up poop, get rid of your ex-husband, and so on. My aim was to make whatever environment you drop me into spotless and free of filth. People get in touch and hire me to clean whatever it is they needed cleaned. I started this self-made job almost a decade ago. I was only fourteen then, and all I did before was rake leaves. Now that I think about, I kind of am an assassin for hire. An assassin of unknown stains and dirty laundry. Maybe you should ask for my number, but you already know all of that, don't you, Diary?

I suppose I'm heading to a different direction with this entry. Since the beginning of my very successful profession, it has become a little bit more complicated. At least now it is. I'm not lying, I'm still a cleaner, Diary. You call me, I'll clean it up. Whatever it is. I once had a request to clean up a barn literally full of horse shit. LI.TE.RA.LLY. (not sure if I did that right)

I didn't always get dirty jobs, but I welcomed them as they came. It never really bothered me, and the pay was always considerably better. It was only recently when my job took an unexpected turn and got more complicated.

Diary, hold your book spine.

The FBI called me.

Right? Don't even ask. Somehow, ten years into this job and four years into college, my reputation as a self-esteemed cleaner of many places, many things, and many suspicious corners reached even the ears of the FBI. Ridiculous, Diary? Maybe I'm just that good. I, myself, thought that it was just some kind of joke or prank that my fraternity plotted. Why in the hell would the FBI get in contact with an art college student like me? And something like that wouldn't be above them. I was reluctant at first, but I eventually gave them a call back and asked about the details of the job. Money is money. Scratch that, debt is death.

So I spoke with the "FBI" agent for a little bit and got the address of where I was supposed to meet him. I got to the location, and I ended up in some motel just outside of the city. When I got out and walked towards the building, a parked car a little bit further down the sidewalk honked at me. "Are you the cleaner?" someone asked.

"I am," I answered, but I was pretty nervous. The man got out of the car and walked towards me. He wore an all black expensive looking suit and dark glasses. Along the way he pulled out a badge to show to me. We started talking, and soon I was convinced that these guys really were the FBI.

"So, uh. What can I help you with tonight?" I asked him. "It's a little hard to believe that the actual FBI would contact me. I mean, all I do is clean."

"Don't worry, we won't be asking you to do anything different." He removed his glasses and placed them inside his suit. "You're here because the boss needs something cleaned, simple. Though, I do hope it won't prove more difficult for you to accomplish."

"I'm sure I can handle it. Shall we?" The agent nodded and we entered the motel. He led me up the stairs and into the third floor. We entered the hall, and at the other side was a room that had caution tape around it. Outside were two other agents chatting and standing guard. When we reached the room, I remained outside as the person who led me there went in. A minute later a different man came out.

"You're the cleaner, right?" he asked me as we shook hands. Strong ass grip, that one. I could've sworn he winked at me, but I was probably just imagining it.

"Yeah, I am. I'll just be cleaning something up today, right?"

"Yes, no worries." At this point, he introduced himself as the man who called me. He gave me a fake name over the phone, but I'd rather not say his real name. After we talked some more, he gave me something to read.

"I'm going to need you to sign this," the agent turned to one of the others standing guard and handed him a clipboard. It was then handed to me, and I saw that it was some kind of contract or agreement.

"What's this?" I asked them.

"It's an agreement," the agent answered.

No shit?!  I almost said, but I'm bigger than that, Diary. "Well yeah, I can see that, but what for?"

He took a deep breath. "Soon, and if you sign the agreement, you will be entering a crime scene. A very, very messy crime scene. This right here is like a non-disclosure agreement. If you don't want to read it, I can summarize it for you. This agreement states that, if signed, you will speak no word of what you are about to see unless it is with the FBI." The guy then put his face close to mine, and I could tell this dude had fish for lunch. "Absolutely no one. Failing to do so will result in a consequence of at least one year in prison. That year in prison is a promise, not a possibility."

And it is also a THREAT. Then he went on and on and on of all the bad stuff that would happen to me. See, this is why I didn't even want to say this guy's name. I might get kidnapped and probed for my inhuman cleaning skills.

Then again, I'm writing about my experience with them now, but this is my diary. A very manly diary, if I may add, fully studded. They won't find it...right? If this does end up being found and I go to jail, please tell my mother I didn't kill anyone and to calm down. She'll probably freak out and make assumptions, shit she might even try to break me out (Please don't, Mom.) Maybe I should start working out to be buff, just in case I do go. That way I'll be intimidating and no one will tell me to drop the soap.

Sorry, Diary, back to the story. Did I really want to sign this agreement? That's what I was thinking then. I felt a little uneasy, and I think that if it wasn't for the pay I would've definitely turned them down. I signed it after contemplating for a little bit. I then entered the motel room and saw the first agent I encountered standing in front of the bathroom and taking notes with a sour look on his face. And by sour, I mean Warhead candy sour. Never had one? Go get one, you'll thank me.

Before we reached the bathroom, I asked the agent why they couldn't do something like this themselves. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure they have people in the FBI who clean up crime scenes. And why the FBI? Where was the local police? I feel like there should be some type of ladder you climbed down before you reach all the way to 'some guy who does cleaning.' All he could tell me then was that the person responsible for clean up was new, and that the scene was too much for him to handle. The moment he said that, I looked inside the bathroom.

This was the second time in my life that I gagged from the sight of something so horrific.

The first time was from a job I got from a neighbor when I was a teenager. I was hired to take care of cleaning up their garbage filled backyard. Apparently, the couple were hoarders and didn't want to throw away any of their food, even if it was take-out. Yuck. I was raking off garbage from the top of one of the multiple garbage mounds when my rake dug into something hard and crunchy. I pulled down multiple times before I was able to break off whatever it was stuck to, and I immediately dropped my rake when I saw it pierced through the head of a dead puppy. The body was left at the top with some dried out innards hanging out.

But Diary, what I saw at the motel that day was something else, something entirely different. When the agent mentioned that it would be messy, I think he could've done a much better job at describing it. I don't know, maybe 'fucked up beyond anything you've ever seen?' Fucking Christ, I was expecting blood splattered all over the walls, a pool of blood in the middle of the room, love stains on the blankets. Something like that I could handle with no problem.

Well actually, those factors were present (minus the love stains, for all I know)

But to actually see the murdered person's lifeless, naked body? I may not be fazed by many things, but this was someone that I had to deal with, someone who used to be alive, and the way she died was just damn demonic, Diary, as if it was some sort of ritual.

She hung from the ceiling at about a forty-five degree angle, her hands pierced with hanging hooks. Both of her feet were nailed into the wall with scissors, knives, forks, and wooden stakes. Blood was spread all over the bathroom, and under the body was a pool of it. But her eyes were the worst. They were hollowed out, like someone dug a spoon into them and scooped them up like ice cream.

What in the name of God was I doing here?

"Did no one hear her screaming for help or something?" I asked them, "It's a little hard to believe that no one would hear her scream in a motel."

"Look over there," the agent instructed (I'll call him Baldy from now on. I'm sure you can imagine why) as he pointed at the toilet. On top of it were a tongue and a bloody rag. A tongue, Diary. A damn tongue.

"We've already done the investigation here, and no one heard a thing." Baldy began rubbing his head, and I couldn't help but imagine it as a bowling ball being shined. "The person who was sleeping in the room next to this one said he heard some thumping and moans, but thought that they were just having some intense sex. He didn't want to ruin their night, so he never complained about it. He felt horrible after we told him about what happened, saying that he could've prevented it if he had just said something." 

If you ask me, Diary, I think that guy was getting off of it.

Baldy then took a step inside the bathroom and pointed at the drain below the shower head. I gagged again at this point when I saw her eyes resting there, looking like they had little worms attached to them.

"Can you handle this, or is it too much for you also?" After taking a couple of deep breaths, I told him I could still do it. Like I said, the pay was good, way too damn good to pass up and, since I was still in college, I needed it.

Without further delay, I went back to my car and grabbed the necessary supplies from my trunk. When I got back up in the room, the agents had brought in a metal cart to put the body on top of. The first thing I did was get rid of the all of blood that was beneath the body. Since a little puddle was made from the blood, it didn't completely dry (which was a good thing) and I was able to clean most of it up with just towels. Lots and lots of towels that I will definitely throw away. I felt really uneasy, because it felt like the victim was watching me the whole time. I looked up maybe only twice, and both times I immediately looked back down. Those hollowed eye sockets still give me goose bumps. Don't mean to sound too poetic, Diary, but looking into those holes felt like I was staring deeper at something else, like a never ending well or a black hole. It was scary.

Next, of course, was the body. I had to get it unhooked from the ceiling. Knowing damn well I wouldn't be able to do this by myself, I asked one of the agents for help. They answered back by telling me to shut up. Rude, right? I looked out and saw them talking in a circle, one of them holding up a phone that was on speaker. The agent who guided me in from outside pointed up a finger, a gesture asking me to wait. I wanted to raise my middle one and smile. But, since it looked important, I chose to focus on something else in the meantime.

I was going to have to do it sooner or later, so I decided to clean up the tongue and eyeballs to get it over with. When I began walking towards the tongue, the dangling body suddenly moved and rattled the chains it hung from. I flinched hard, harder than the times someone had threatened me with a rubber-band gun, causing me to slip and fall flat on my ass. I looked up at the body, and from this angle I saw something spectacular. (No, Diary, I'm not talking about her lady parts. I have internet for that.) 

The way she was positioned and the way the blood was spread behind her made it appear as if she had crimson wings. It all looked random at first, but everything came together like a blurry vision clearing up. Her hands seemed to be reaching for something, so I looked toward the direction they were pointing. The blood there was fashioned like clouds with something circular hiding behind them, maybe a sun, maybe a moon, but it was a little hard to tell since everything was red. It was almost like a work of art, and I was actually mesmerized by it for a while. Now, she looked to me as if she were a dark angel flying to heaven. Then I wondered - was she purposely positioned this way, or was it just an accident? I've watched a few shows and movies where the murderers thought of their victims as pieces of art, so they would then do something similar to this woman hanging. Sometimes they'll even leave something behind, like a rose or a coin, to tell others who did it. I think it was called a calling card. There was nothing like that here, at least not that I know, but seeing how she was placed the former could be very possible. So I decided to tell the FBI agents as soon as they were done with their call. Maybe they missed it.

Then I heard a soft, sort of fleshy liquid noise. To my horror, the various sharp objects that kept her feet nailed to the wall began to loosen and then released her. She swung forward with the force of Mike Tyson and my face was sent to the next dimension with a knee, which then caused the hands to wiggle, unhook, and dropped the body on top of me.

Diary, I became scared of her again. And I panicked. And maybe screamed. Don't tell anyone.

"Get it off, get it off, get it off!" I hurriedly and loudly whined, trying to push up the body. Now that I thought about it, her body was pretty light, and I would've been able to get her off me myself, but I wasn't really thinking all that when a dead person was on me. Then I gave a brief, high pitched yelp and let go when I realized my hands were on her breasts. "I'm sorry!"

...I said I was sorry...like, did that even matter? It wasn't like she was gonna hear me, she didn't even feel it. Also, she was the one that fell on me, she had it coming being all naked.

A few seconds later, I heard the muffled footsteps of two agents stopping behind me, finding me in a frozen state with my hands outreached and staying that way until they pulled the body off. They both looked at me with raised brows before the agent who called me came in the room. "What the hell happened?" he sighed.

"The body fell on me," I answered from the floor. "Then I screamed."

"Yeah, we heard that last part. Very clearly," one of the others said trying to hide a chuckle.

"Alright, alright. Get up and continue with the cleaning."

They all began to leave the room again, but I stopped them. "Wait. I need to tell you all something." They stopped, looking annoyed at first until I began to explain. It was like a switch. Immediately, one of them started taking notes. In order to see what I saw, they decided to hang her body again. "You want to do what?"

"We need to see if what you're saying is true, and there's no other way to prove it other than putting her back there."

"But isn't that a little, I don't know, disrespectful or something? (Maybe that's why I said sorry?) Her body is already like this, and now you want to put her back up there?"

"She's already dead," one of the other agents stated, "so it doesn't really matter. It's not like she'll feel anything." (Well, at least we're in agreement there, Dick.)

Before I could say anything back, Baldy raised a hand at us. "Okay, okay, how about this," he started, obviously irritated with the situation. "You three hold her up. You two," he pointed at the agents, "support her arms and stomach — one side each. And you," he shifted his gaze to me with a stare colder than Antarctica, "hold her feet against the wall at the same spot they were nailed at."

We did just that. I had to remove the various things that pierced her feet first, causing some more bleeding that I'd need to clean up. Once she was lifted up by the other two agents I got on my knees, faced towards the wall, got a hold of her feet, and carefully held them in place where they were before. Behind me, I heard Baldy's camera snap several photos hoping to capture what I described, but he wouldn't be able to if he isn't seeing it at the same angle.

"Sit down right beneath her and look up. You'll see what I mean," I told him.

"Don't tell me what to do," he replied. What the hell was he? A little kid? I'll drop kick his ass.

I pulled my head back just in time to see him sit down. When he looked up, his jaw dropped and his eyes widened. He snapped one photo. "Well I'll be damned. She actually does look like an angel." After a few more shots, we were finally able to place her on the metal cart.

"See? What'd I tell you?" I said proudly.

"Yeah, you were right. Thank you for noticing. Something like this will greatly help our investigation," Baldy replied. "Let me take a few more pictures of the room before you start cleaning up again. We might've missed something."

"No problem. Let me know when to finish." With that, the rest of the night went smoothly. I went back inside after a few minutes and finished cleaning up within a couple of hours. In the following days, the news covered the topic of that same murder, and I also I received an email from a seemingly random email address, but something told me it was Baldy. And it was. The email basically said I've been paid and was then followed by a 'thank you' and a 'we'll be calling you again.' But honestly, Diary, I don't want another one from them, maybe not anytime soon. Working for them was not good for the heart.

A week later, I received yet another email from Baldy, this time saying that they caught the murderer. It turns out that the murderer was a serial killer and an artist, a painter. His most recent painting looked exactly like the scene we saw back at the motel, the only difference being the angel in the painting actually having eyes and much more color other than red. At the end of it, he said that because I was instrumental in helping them find the culprit, even if it was by accident, I was going to be paid again. He didn't say an amount, but when I checked my bank account later that day, I nearly fainted. I'm not talking about receiving millions of dollars, but it was much more than enough for me.

So, scratch that, Diary. Maybe I'll answer their call again.