The Cleaner

The Silence

The moments in the immediate aftermath of the explosion felt like they dragged forever. To all intents and purposes, to whoever was out there still, he would have to fill the shoes of the stranger.

"Oakley, he could get used to that name" he thought, but could he?

The idea of it was far easier to accomplish then actually answering to it. He shook his head, he would have to, if he wanted any chance at finding out what was going on or surviving any further. Part of his mind was telling him that the situation wasn't this at all, he hadn't survived the crash, and this was some sort of limbo, or he had, and this was simple a coma induced dream. He stuck his head in the snow to be sure. The cold felt like daggers on his face, he was alive and well.

Oakley's attention turned to the houses around him, he swivelled around, much the way he had the night before when he was checking nobody had seen the crash. The lack of people had really begun to unsettle him now, as if the rest of the morning so far hadn't done enough. He toyed with what to do next and decided he would head for the house, pull on another layer, maybe two, and venture out to see if he stood any chance in finding out what was going on.

He walked back into the cabin-like house unsteadily, yet with purpose, as he sifted through the streams of clothing the former Oakley had, a noise whirred from the study down the hall. It caused him to freeze for a moment to listen harder to what it could be. The sound immediately transported him back in time to when he was younger, it resonated with him, he headed toward the study. Oakley somehow knew what kind of machine he was looking for and found it. A grey coloured fax machine sat atop the sideboard at the edge of the room, it had a document hanging from its mouth. Oakley picked it up, scanning over it he realized it contained very little information but just enough for him to know his next steps for the day.

The Order will extend communication to you at 17:00hrs.

Oakley looked at the Casio watch 14:00, it took him a moment to remember how to set an alarm, but he managed. He'd given himself half an hour to prepare for the communication in whatever circumstance that would be, he would need to do some hunting around the cabin to begin with for any sign of the person he was now supposed to be. This left him a couple of hours he thought, to go look for any signs of life, looking out the window once more at the untouched roads had raised the concern again. Ensuring he was wrapped up and protected from the cold he ventured out the door. He would systematically go to each house one by one it wasn't as if the village was very big.

The afternoon drew on, and his success so far was very limited though he had noted not a single house had their curtains or blinds open. It was as if the whole neighbourhood was still sleeping soundly. He'd knocked on every door he come across and had been met with silence at each. He was onto the final residential street he could find in the area, a house on the end had caught his attention. As Oakley approached the house, he could see that the window coverings had not been drawn the night before. This was his only chance, he walked up to the windows and peered in.

The first room he was met with was the lounge, it was empty, but the television screen was flickering and illuminating the grey corner sofa, he couldn't make out the picture it was showing as it was facing away from the window. Oakley wrapped on the window and the front door as he had done with each of the houses before him, again nothing but silence.

The wind blew a cold chill and through his shivering he caught the sound of a rattle. He stood for a second while a second gust filtered through the valley surrounded village. There was a rattle again, it was coming from down the side of the house. The gate into the back garden banged against the fence as the wind blistered. Oakley walked down the small alleyway squeezing past the bins he reached out his arm and swung the back gate open wide. The garden was much the same as the rest of the village, covered in a white sheet of thick snow which was untouched.

He took himself further into the garden and even though by now the idea of anyone being around seemed lunacy, he was steady and careful about where he put his feet and took his steps. "I guess old habits really do die hard" he thought as he ventured further around the back of the house.

He peered into the windows covering almost the whole side of this house and realized he could see very clearly into the kitchen. Carefully he edged himself closer to the windows to really get a look in. He could see a modern fitted kitchen, finely finished by all accounts, but it was the island in the centre that really caught his attention. Slumped over the island was a body, he could see it was a male. The head was resting on the white granite surface against a half empty glass of water, the hand still clasped around it. Oakley banged on the window repeatedly, the body still did not move.

"Hey! Hey!" he yelled through the glass.

The body still did not stir. He took himself round to the backdoor, picking up a stone from the floor and dusting off the snow. Taking a few steps back he threw the stone through the top windowpane, enough to get his hand in and click open the door. He ran over to the slumped body and shook him, he didn't move. He pulled up his head to look and recoiled at what he saw, he placed the head back down and ran over to the sink, once again emptying anything that was in his stomach. The body's face looked like he had been asphyxiated, an expression Oakley knew all too familiarly, only there were no ligature marks around the neck.

"How is that possible?" he thought to himself.

He knew for certain that was the cause of death, he considered that he may have choked but saw no evidence of what on or how. It didn't make any sense. After a few seconds and deep breaths later, he had concluded that he truly was alone, he was going to look around. The house was eerily quiet, the new draft caused by the hole in the door was whistling through the cabin like structure. Oakley quite liked that about this little village, the cabin like residencies, it was like a ski resort only without slopes.

The upstairs was as quiet as the outside world and the downstairs had been, nevertheless he tread carefully, just in case. Every time a floorboard would creek, he would have to still his pounding heart and close off the rush in his ears. He slowly made his way to the first door and threshold on the corridor. Carefully twisting the doorknob, he gently swung open the door, and peered inside, it was an office and empty albeit unkept. The computer light flashed, and papers were spread across the desk, the chair to it swung slightly towards the door were someone clearly had stepped out of it. He quietly left the room and moved towards the door opposite, upon the slightest opening he could see this was a bedroom and steadied his breathing for the outcome. He peered slowly round the door, unsure of what he was expecting to find.

The bed had bodies in it, that he was certain of, something certainly wasn't right. It was the middle of the afternoon; Oakley knew for sure they were as dead as the guy downstairs. He wandered over to them, all inhibitions dissipated, rolled over the first body, and recognised instantly the cause of death. Asphyxiated. Both bodies. Today had gone from crazy to crazier to the craziest day of his life. As with the body downstairs, there was no sign of how or why and instead of answering any questions he harboured, his little trip away from the house had caused many more. He was rolling the second body back round when he spotted a photo frame, the faces of the two people in the bed could be made out, the other by deduction had to be the young man downstairs.

An eerie thought passed through his mind, and he couldn't quite shake the idea that all the other houses that hadn't stirred when he knocked, held more bodies. Though the theory filled him with an unnerving sense of dread, he decided he would check it on his way back to where he had been staying.