The running footsteps were magnified tenfold on a silent night in a cobbled, deserted, secluded alley. A woman came running in to view wearing a navy-blue dress. She would have looked graceful in the dress if she wasn’t running. The plunging neckline not revealing but just low enough to tease the imagination. Her hair, black as midnight curled to just above her shoulder length. The shoes on her feet, like her teardrop-shaped necklace, would have complimented her dress if she hadn’t lost one of them while running.

Running for her life, she looked around hoping she had lost her pursuer. She knew better, knowing that her pursuer was not human in a real sense, her hopes were just wishful thinking. Now the question was only that how long she could outrun her pursuer. She reached the end of the alley and bent on her knees to catch her breath. She looked behind her, rubbing a stitch on her side. Just when she relaxed thinking that she had lost her pursuer, a hand, covered in crimson blood reached out to touch her. A hand that had once belonged to her fiance’s face. The hand of her night’s date.

***

She stood in the alley, covered in blood, shaken to the core. She hadn’t expected this. She looked down at what was left of the former fiance. She could get rid of the body but dipping into her memories a face came to the forefront. The face that she had called for when she had met her fiance for the first time. The face she had met when she was still the high profile PR agent for her former boss and fiance. The face she remembered was simply called ‘The Specialist”; No name, no known address, he simply went by the name – The Specialist. Although, there was a number.

She realized, having him would help her be clean.

***

He analyzed at his handiwork – clean. They called him The Specialist but he had never liked the name. He thought himself to be more of a cleaner rather than a specialist. A specialist knew the problems that would arise in his field and had a set of answers. He was no specialist.

The clients called him when they were in a mess – and he came to them with a figurative mop. You wanted to get out of a country under the radar, each path he devised for you was different and he cleaned up after you. You wanted some dirt on you go away? he came to you with a new type of duster each time. Each mess was different and each mess required a different solution to clean. He wouldn’t know whether to use a Clorox or a Swiffer or a bleach until he analyzed every nook and cranny the mess was in. So, he preferred Cleaner rather than a Specialist.

He realized it was time to leave, as the EMT team carried away the body from the crash into the ambulance with strobe lights flashing. He had always thought that the Strobe lights were too cheerful for the somber purposes an Ambulance served.

As he walked to his car with the sound of receding sirens, he left a message for his latest client: “Your house has been cleared off of all the pests, sir. Thank you for choosing A-Z cleaning Services. We appreciate your business.”

He had just gotten into his car when the phone rang but was hung up before he could answer. This happened to him always. These were the clients who knew they needed his help but weren’t sure if they could trust this stranger.  They needn’t have worried as for him his business was more important than your petty images in the society. In fact, he would go to extra lengths to save that image if you were his client – he would charge you appropriately of course.

 As he exited the road on to the freeway, his phone rang from the same number, this time twice. He smiled for he knew, he would have this business as when a client called twice it wasn’t the doubt about him but rather self-doubt. He knew humans by nature had Ego bigger than self-doubt. So, Ego would always win and when they called with that Ego it was more than their mess he would clean.

He was pulling into a parking lot when the phone rang again and continued to ring. He answered “A-Z Cleaning Services.”

“Hello.” The voice on the other end sounded small and scared.

“A-Z Cleaning Services, how may I help you?” He asked being careful.

“Can I please speak to The Specialist?” The voice asked after a brief pause.

He ground his teeth. “Who is speaking?”

“My name is Minerva.”

He stood in a daze. How had he not recognized Minerva’s voice? Agreed it had been more than a year when he had cleaned her apparel industry boss’s mess when she had to get rid of bags of illegal substances and complications that came with it without a trace. He had struggled with a conflict of interest in the job until she had become the fiance of her boss.

“How can I be of  help to you?” He kept it professional.

“I… I need help cleaning up.”

“What exactly am I cleaning up?”

He couldn’t quite believe it when she gave the name. So, he had to ask twice. When he could clearly see the situation he asked: “Where are you?”

When she gave the address.

“How much are you willing to pay?”

“Anything you ask,” She replied.

He smiled, although there were other things he would have considered if the client was someone else but the answer of “Anything” from Minerva made him make a decision, he would consider things later as time was of the essence now.

***

He parked his car and got down by the alley, Minerva who had been pacing at the mouth of the abandoned alley saw him and ran up to him and hugged. The whiff of her Chanel perfume was intoxicating.

“Thank you so much!” She was crying. “I didn’t know what to do. It happened so fast.”

That is what they all said, taking his eyes off of Minerva, he walked into the alley to take a look at the situation. The moment he saw the body, he knew there was something wrong. For the dead body was wearing a navy-blue, woman’s cocktail dress and missing a face as if someone had surgically removed the skin and he knew Minerva’s fiance was a man.

He turned around to ask “Can you tell me what happened here?” but he never got the words out as the last thing he saw was Minerva’s enraged face coming at him with a huge brick in her hand. He slumped to the ground and the darkness took him.

Minerva, looked around to make sure there was no one else around, she hummed as she worked on his face. When she was done, the alley had two bodies.

The specialist… The Cleaner, he corrected himself was happy to add another face to his collection and valuable skill set to not have any enthusiastic sniffers or police on his back with the number of murders he would have to commit in the future.

Now for the cleaning, the-Face-stealer with the face of the Cleaner smiled as he walked to his car, to bring in the cleaning supplies.

***The End***

Note: Shapeshifting is a myth where a shapeshifter steals another person’s face, skill, and thoughts (in essence identity), A shapeshifter can switch gender, voice, etc.