Jude Potts

Listen to Jude read her story

Content Warning

euthanasia

The needle slid in easy at The Wander’s Rest today. The first sensation akin to rapid falling. They always closed their eyes. The Cleaner had no idea if it helped. 

She gave the guest’s shoulder a quick pat and indicated two white pills and a glass of water on the side table for the agonising headache that would be the precursor to loss of consciousness. His handsome, hawkish face offered a beatific smile as his incisors began slowly shrinking, willing his soulless immortality to cease. 

She rolled her squeaky-wheeled trolley from the room. All theatrics. The trolley, her dove grey cleaners’ tabard. It made the locals more comfortable, calling her the Cleaner, so she played the part. She’d be back later to tidy this mess.

#

Before the Cleaner arrived, Exodus in tourist season was little more than threadbare. In winter, it became a tumbleweed town. Folks got leaner, meaner, black-eyed or split-knuckled; sometimes both. Doc bulk-ordered tape for the epidemic level of broken ribs. Only the Endzone ‘sports’ bar with its blacked-out windows and moonshine did good business in the off-season. There, and the funeral home.

The Cleaner appeared a few years back, rented a trailer at Old Tom’s lot on the edge of town, kept living there long after Tom vanished. Same time all the road signs disappeared. 

Been cleaning ever since.

The usual brand of tourists, dissatisfied and demanding, dried up. A new breed of visitors arrived. Far fewer, yet somehow the town prospered. Folks walked a little taller. Drank a little less. The Endzone cleaned its black-painted windows, swept away the bloodied sawdust, fixed the jukebox. The Doc needed less and less tape. Held regular blood drives in the church hall, always well-attended. 

Then Mary-Anne Harris disappeared. Always was a little firecracker, bound to run off sometime. No one asked how she escaped Exodus, given that the bridge – the only connection to the mainland – had burned down after the new tourists arrived.

No one asked how these mournful tourists got onto the island. Or why they never mixed with the locals, preferring shuttered rooms at the Wander’s Rest, ordering specialised room service. Folks just took the money they didn’t earn and looked the other way. They couldn’t afford the answers. With full bellies, nice clothes, all the tv channels they could ask for, why rock the boat?

#

The Cleaner reached the end of the corridor, announced ‘Cleaning service.’ 

She swiped her keycard, the door clicked open. The trolley squeak-wheeled into the darkened room. 

Empty. 

However lost and lonely the visitors seemed, immortality remained intoxicating for some. They still hungered.

The Cleaner recalled Mary-Anne’s blank-eyed face. Her violated body, drained of blood. A hungry tourist; fighting against their departure tooth and claw. The Cleaner fingered a scar, hidden by her crucifix, grabbed her needle of holy water and blasted out a warning text to the Doc and the barkeep at the Endzone. 

‘Watch Out. It’s Tourist Season.’

Jude’s prompts were: A Town Cut off from Everything, a Hotel Cleaner, and a Severe Headache

She said of the challenge: “One thing about the prompts – if I hadn’t done the ‘splurge’ I wouldn’t have ended up with lots of ways the town was cut off ‘indefinitely’ (instead of a snowstorm or thunderstorm or something short-term). That made me ask – if the town was cut off long term why would it need a hotel cleaner, where would all the tourists coming from if the town is cut off? Asking that question unlocked the whole thing for me.”

Jude Potts: 75% toxic fumes/25% sarcasm. Full-time carer from near Pompey. Tea drinker, lover of cats,  wordplay and creative swearing. Writes a bit, farts about more. Writing published in Urban Pigs Hunger Anthology, Free Flash Fiction, Does It Have Pockets? and Punk Noir. (Allegedly) writing a dark comedy/ crime novel, though there’s not enough evidence to convict.
Twitter (@judepickledplum) Insta/ Threads (@jude_pickledplum)
Joint editor at www.neitherfishnorfoul.com