I can’t tell you much about my organization. The only reason I’m being permitted to tell you these stories is because they simply don’t think anyone will believe me. And if you value your sanity, I'd suggest you follow suit. I can’t share any company secrets but I can tell you about some of the shit I’ve seen. You see, we’re the guys who clean up messes. Messes that don’t make sense. Is your son speaking backwards and doing backflips on the ceiling? You need the Janitors. Your dog stand up on its hind legs and tell you he’s God? You need the Janitors. We’re above all branches of the government for a reason. We handle shit they couldn’t even fathom. The job pays extremely well and our employees are pretty much permitted to break any crimes as they see fit. But the things you see. The things you sacrifice. I don’t feel human anymore. If there’s to be any chance that I can retain some of my humanity and raise my baby like a normal person, I have to retire. But before I do, I finally feel like talking about it. Not to a shrink or a doctor but to strangers who probably won’t even believe me. I don’t understand it myself but I’ve made up my mind. Maybe I’m trying to talk myself out of it. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself that I’m not insane. But you don’t care about any of that. I’ll see what else I can tell you about Us at a later date. For now I have some stories.
One memorable call was to a house in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. This one wasn’t even in my top 10 most terrifying but it was one of the most memorable. You see, there are these jars that are found deep in uninhabited woodlands. These jars have two substances in them. They’re mostly full of this hard yellow substance that is similar in composition to lead. In the space that’s not occupied by the yellow material, there’s a gray liquid. Not too crazy right? Now the weird part is what happens if someone drinks from it. If you drink from it, you are granted one wish. There is of course a catch. The liquid will do its best to fuck your wish up in the worst way possible. That’s right, monkey’s paws are real. We had found 7 jars before this one but this particular mix was the most potent. Let me give you an example. A man named Austin wanted to be a dog. You know, run around, eat scraps, live carefree, etc. Pretty simple right? How do you fuck that up? Well as soon as he made his wish a rusty yellow van pulled into his driveway. The man driving the vehicle was described as “too ordinary”. The man hopped down and without any explanation he grabbed Austin from his window with unearthly strength and dragged him into his van. Austin was not seen for 4 months. Both the police and FBI were baffled by the ordeal but that's par for the course in our line of work. When he was returned, he had been surgically altered to be what one may call a “dog”. His fingers were severed at the knuckles and surgically altered to look like paws. His spine was pulled through his back to serve as his tail. His tongue was purple, swollen, and elongated. I don’t even want to talk about the “snout”. What was more horrifying than the alterations was the fact that he was still alive. The thing would just whimper and stare at you with it’s very human eyes. He was returned to his family in a shopping cart, collar and all. They say we’re still doing tests on it but there’s a rumor that our Chief of Staff got a new pet that day. I don’t like to think about it too much.
The booze is making me feel a bit giddy so I’ll give you one of the more jovial cases. The town's head surgeon became obsessed with the jar after hearing folktales about it for decades. He searched and searched, even had a run in with Us where he took a bullet to the stomach. He was convinced that he would be the one to beat the monkey’s paw. Eventually, he found what he was looking for. He took a sip and simply said, “I want the power of a God”. Smart right? If he’s God he can essentially undo any problematic outcome of the wish while still retaining his power. But that jar is one devious anomaly. If anyone could truly beat this thing, it would probably be an etymologist. He said A God not THE God or the Abrahamic God. The jar had its pick of the millions of Gods that humanity has believed in. It chose Xochipilli. If you aren’t familiar, Xochipilli was the Aztec God of not only homosexual prostitutes but also hallucinogens. So now the good doctor roams the streets of Baltimore with his all male harem of fellow prostitutes tripping divine balls. Oddly enough, we later discovered that the surgeon was a closeted homosexual who valued his image and standing in his church over seemingly everything. We got the chance to interview him both before and after his wish and let me tell you he’s a lot happier as a tripping gigolo God than he ever was as a Christian surgeon. By some miracle, the jar lost by unintentionally giving him what he desired most. His freedom. He can’t summon plagues or change reality but he can suck cock better than your mother and his shrooms are top notch. Speaking of which, I should put an order in.
Okay, I’ll give you one more before I turn in. A church in Georgia was reported to be kidnapping children and “bringing them to heaven”. Now this sounds like some shit that can be easily taken care of by the police or FBI but there's a twist. One of the nuns thought she was an angel and to be honest she might’ve been. I’ve seen proof of demons, warlocks, and Satan himself but never God or any angels. And if that makes you concerned it very well should because we’ve been searching for God for over 2000 years and have found nothing. And we’re the guys who convinced the world that trees aren’t sentient so we’re pretty damn good. The church was pretty normal at first, as many of our cases are. We were greeted by the nun and a priest who seemed pretty normal. Although, the cookie she gave our camera guy lulled him into an eternal sleep. No seriously he just fell asleep and never woke up. He’s in the rec room now being used as a doorstop. Anyway, when we asked about the missing kids things changed. Pretty quickly if I do say so myself. The nun shrieked at us as her bones began to vibrate and shift.
Then she started saying something but we couldn’t understand her. It was a language we still haven’t been able to decipher. And her voice sounded like thousands of people speaking in unison. All of those voices were childlike. Her ribs protruded from her back and seemed to grab the air around her. I don’t know how to describe it better than that. The priest disintegrated and then she flew into the sun. I’m talking right through the roof and into the fucking sun until we couldn’t see her. Our satellites detected her leaving the atmosphere and began tracking her. We’ve sent numerous crafts into space and even to the sun itself and there's no sign of her. Our trackers must’ve been permanently damaged too because whenever we tried to locate her, the ping would always be right behind whoever was searching. She was the closest to “God” we think we’ve gotten. The search of the church was pretty fucking bleak. We found the bones of some children in the basement. Oddly enough, none of them were the kids that went missing. We still don’t know what that was about. Maybe decoys? Something tells me kids we were looking for were very much alive. Ever since then, every time I’m around holy water I hear faint crying and stifled screams. Fuck I gotta freshen up my resume.
