The Murder Factory - A Short Story

Written in 2021 | Rewritten in 2024 | 1,225 words

The story you are about to read is a “vomit draft.” This means that it is in its rawest form of writing and has no professional editing done whatsoever. But I welcome any corrections, grammatical or otherwise, you may find.

Harold looked down at the tie hanging from his neck and grimaced at the stain, noticeable under the fluorescent light in the bathroom. Robbie, his odd neighbor, brought him a suit from a dead man, claiming he was a John Doe and no one would be around to claim it. As Robbie was a rather stout man, he knew the suit wouldn’t fit him but figured it might fit Harold.

Harold never owned a suit before and therefore never learned how to tie a tie properly. In his line of work, he never needed to. Harold pulled the tie from around his neck and tossed it aside. He had seen plenty of men wearing suits without a tie on. It was the suit that he liked most anyhow. It was a light gray with black stripes. He wondered if it was terribly morbid to wear a dead man’s clothes while also secretly wishing it would fit him. He held the pants against his waist and looked in the full length mirror. It looked like a good fit. Before he changed his mind, he decided to try them on.

As he pulled the zipper up and fastened the button he could feel there was something in one of the pockets. He reached inside and pulled out a folded piece of paper, still slightly wet from having been washed. Harold sighed with relief that Robbie wasn’t lying when he said the clothes had been washed and dried. 

Unfolding the paper he could just make out two words written on it: The Dispatch. There was a phone number underneath but the numbers had completely washed away. Curiosity had always gotten the better of Harold and he quickly flipped through his Yellow Pages to try and find The Dispatch. He followed his finger down one side of the page containing several places of business starting with the letter “D” then stopped when he saw it. The Dispatch: For all your employment needs.

“An employment agency?” Harold thought to himself. “How sad.” He looked at the suit differently now. Realizing the man who wore it must’ve been on his way to a job interview. It was likely he died on the way. Probably penniless.

Suddenly, a light bulb went off and Harold let his curiosity take him just one step too far. He quickly put on the rest of the suit, looked himself over in the mirror, committed the address to memory and hurried out the door. Harold felt he owed the man he never even met the opportunity to at least keep his appointment, even if posthumously. Besides, Harold thought to himself, if this agency happened to present him with a better job than the one he currently had, there would be no harm done.

The taxi stopped in front of an industrial building and Harold was surprised. Surrounded by other high-rise business building the smoke stacks and pipes that weaved in and out and around The Dispatch made it stick out like a sore thumb. Harold thanked the driver, paid his fair, and promptly proceeded to the entrance.

The lobby was completely empty. There was no reception area. No security guard. Just one camera that Harold could hear and feel following him as he walked across the floor towards the elevator bank. He wanted to look over his shoulder and wave at whoever was watching him, but for whatever reason decided not to. Directly under the sign marked “Elevators” was a large plaque that listed names and floors beside them. As he wasn’t sure who the previous owner of the suit was meant to visit with he simply followed the instructions at the bottom of the sign which directed him to push a red button for assistance.

Within minutes he would hear heels walked towards him but couldn’t quite make out from which direction they were coming from until a woman appeared at the opposite end of the bank of elevators.

“Follow me, please.”

Without another word she was gone around the corner and Harold quick-stepped behind her. She held a door open for him to step through, leading to a stairwell. He could hear a familiar click as the door locked when it closed and for the first time wondered if he hadn’t made a mistake.

“Now, tell me, what are your qualifications?” she asked him.

Harold unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and glanced at the corner above the door to see a camera trained directly on him. “My qualifications?” he managed to repeat back. 

“Yes. What are you good at? What is your skill set? Come now, we don’t have all day,” she said, tapping her shoe and looking at her wrist watch.

“Well, I, uh… Well,” Harold said, clearing his throat to buy more time, “I used to be a plumber.” Which was true in so far as to say he was currently a plumber.

“Ah, that’s excellent,” she said, giving him a large smile. The kind of smile that managed to put him at ease. “I’m sure we can find you something suitable.” She started to walk up the stairs and he followed behind her. He had no choice as he knew the door they walked through was locked. She turned and looked down at him and asked, “Tell me, do you have your own tools?”

“Yes,” he answered shakily. It wasn’t an unusual question to be asked. The last two plumbers he worked for preferred a man who had his own tools. It meant they wouldn’t have to expense buying second hand ones. But Harold was hoping for something different. A new line of work. “But, excuse me, miss? I was sort of hoping I could do something else?”

When they reached the next landing she pressed her thumb against a pad on the wall and the door clicked, unlocking it. She pulled it open to reveal a sea of cubicles as far as Harold’s eyes could see. Each of them having loud conversations. So loud Harold could hardly make out what anyone was saying. It seemed to Harold that The Dispatch was in high demand.

The woman walked around the perimeter of the cubicles. Harold couldn’t help but notice the names hanging from the ceiling over clusters of cubicles.

His vision blurred as he tried to keep up with the woman and read them at the same time. His heart began to race and he didn’t notice when she had stopped, bumping right into her.

“I’m sorry, I think there’s been a mistake,” Harold managed to say before she pushed him into an office. Harold turned as she closed the door and could just make out the words “BRUTAL BEATING” on the door.

The office had a large desk and a chair with its back facing Harold. 

“Do sit down.” The voice in the chair said and Harold, feeling a bit wobbly on his knees, promptly sat down in a chair that was two inches from where he stood. The chair spun around to reveal a man wearing the same exact suit that Harold was wearing. “Name?”

“H--Harold?”

“Now then, Harold,” the man said as he leaned forward, placing his elbows on the desk in front of him and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “Tell me, how do you feel about blood?”

THE END