My Short Story Compilation

The New Janitor

Tasked to clean the school's six-story main building, he got his cleaning equipment and set off to work from the first floor to the top. It was the janitor's first day on the job and he thought this feat would get him used to it. He was told not to work until dark though but, by the tone of the HR manager's voice, it must be a friendly suggestion.

There was a painting on each floor, just by the stairs and he took note of it as he climbed upwards. He cleaned the first floor where the kids were mostly from grade one or two and admired the painting of a particular fruit basket by the stairs.

He went up and cleaned the second floor where they probably teach the third graders and have some audio-visual presentations. The painting by the stairs was about a bunch of confusing colorful geometric shapes coming together in random forms. It was quite confusing to actually know what it was.

The third floor has a painting of a quite lively room where someone who kinda looks like the janitor's very rude classmate from his school days was writing something on a blank book. The letters were almost clear only that he was too lazy/busy to look at it upside down.

The fourth floor has the very painting of the school's principal probably because this is the floor where the principal's office is. With the painting hung by the stairs, he can't help but to chuckle as he pass by.

On the next floor was a painting of the ever so famous scene of the Last Supper. He almost forgot that it was a Catholic school. He doesn't know what that means but it must be like any other school but instead of calling it 'Theology', this school calls it 'Christian Living'. He shrugged his shoulders and continued to the sixth floor.

On the last story was a painting of the whole school in it's "epicness" and "glory". It was painted years ago so the new building by the gym wasn't in the painting just yet. Or maybe it looks good without it anyway. He cleans the last floor just as the sun disappeared and the lights automatically went on. His work was done. Just as he was climbing down the stairs, the janitor thought that he saw a shadowy figure on the main building's sixth floor in the painting but he quickly dismissed it, thinking that it was probably there all the time.

He went to the fifth floor and was greeted by the Last Supper painting. He gave a nod and continued off to the fourth floor.

But when he reached the fourth floor, the painting was still about the Last Supper. Thinking that maybe the fourth floor also had the same painting, he brought his cleaning materials down to the third floor.

When he went down to see the third floor's unique painting of his classmate-look-alike, before him was the very same painting of the Last Supper. It was like he never left the fifth floor at all.

Panicking now, he went down stairs with a wishful thought to tell him that maybe all of the floors have the same painting of the Last Supper. But when he reached the supposed ground floor, he wasn't in the first floor- he was still in the fifth floor, where the Last Supper painting is, and it's already getting way too dark. He poked his head out of the iron bars on the railing that prevented students from jumping off and saw that he was at least four floors above the ground. He was stuck in the fifth floor!

He left his cleaning supplies as to mark and ran down to see if that could solve the problem. But no, he was still in the same floor with the painting of the Last Supper. He looked down on the stairs and saw that his mop, broom, bucket and cleaning rags were there just where he left them. He tried to go down to get them only to find himself on the same floor and his cleaning materials on the lower level.

He looked at the painting by the stairs and came into a terrible realisation. "It's cursed," he said, looking at it, "The painting's cursed!"

* * *

There was a body found in the school's main building just by the bottom of the stairs in the following morning. He was wearing the school's janitor uniform and had the assigned ID design only that it was broken and covered in blood. The person's face was messed up like mashed potatoes so nobody could identify who he was. They inferred that he committed suicide yet six floors is theoretically impossible to mash up one's face.

Authorities investigated the entire building and found his cleaning equipment in the fourth floor. They also found traces of blood on all the stories but on the fifth floor, where there was the painting of the Last Supper.

And no, the Last Supper painting wasn't cursed. The stairs weren't cursed. The others were.