He stroked himself one last time before ejaculating on the bathroom stall. The third down the row, his favorite. The ancient chrome plumbing dripped with his vile and streaked down into a long line of what seemed to be mucus or ectoplasm or some other revile from a creature beyond human machinations. At the base of the toilet, on what little sheen there was on the pipes, his reflection showed somewhere in that blurry patina. The school’s pipes so wasted with age that when he went down to clean the handle (and floor) from his filth, he could not see a difference in the grime. His dick still hanging out of his janitor jumpsuit. The sweat still coming off him. His heart still hurting from the great pulses that left him without breath. He knelt with the rag and wiped the floor, holding still to breath deep and to zipper himself properly back up. The stall was small. Scribbles were behind him and to the right. Etched into the stall boards, just writing, random phone numbers, nothing in particular past what bored college girls wrote to scarify a legacy.

Out of the stall he washed his hands and then his face and then dried himself with paper napkins. He never looked fresh, never had, but he looked himself.

Someone knocked on the door. He breathed heavy and grabbed his mop and stepped outside. A young girl held her hand up and gasped. She eyed him, disgust forming on her. He pointed down at the yellow cone next to the door and she narrowed her eyes.

“Are you almost done cleaning it?” She asked.

A mumble meant to say yes. He looked down as he spoke. The woman crossed her arms and stepped back a bit.

He grabbed his yellow wringer and mop bucket and wheeled it through, hitting the corner of the door and spilling some soapy water onto the floor.

“Sorry,” He said.

“What?” She leaned in.

He shook his head and wiped the floor and left quick. Running back only to set down a caution sign. And then he didn’t want anything to do with her or the spill. He put on his headphones and wandered down the halls with music so loud he could hear his inner-ear ringing. The main hall of Building A as he knew it, what was the Dr. Lauker Great Hall to others, glass cabinets to his rear where the most astute and highest achievers had their faces celebrated in a little frame. Classroom’s A100 to 500 down across the first floor. Up a floor. B. Up another floor, C. And up a fourth - the library. Everything was quiet this late, but even more so around the library. Which seemed to him a kind of sanctuary or black hole of noise. He roamed the halls pressing out water from his mop and cleaning coffee stains off the floor.

He told himself it would be a good night. And he was smiling as he mopped. His head lowered and his headphones plugged into a phone on his breast pocket, routed from inside his shirt to come out his neck cuff. A gray jumpsuit - Havenbrook University, California. HBU for short.

Besides what he told himself, it was a quiet day of him cleaning. And of something else. Though he tried not to get excited about it. Never get too excited.

Around ten at night he wandered towards the library. With no other lights available but the wide fluorescents lining the hall straight from the elevator to the library. He started cleaning as he approached the big doors at the end. He got close to the doors, the giant letter’s “FAULKNER LIBRARY” in bold yellow metal. He looked through the glass panes at the top of the doors and peered into the lonely interior. A few hunched backs. Low warm lights on the dark furniture. He did this several times. Making sure no one was watching, making sure he was alone in the hall staring into the glass. Squirting detergent upon the glass. Playing pretend? Looking for a stain, perhaps? Or a mess? He would rub the glass down of the soap and leave only to do it again seconds, minutes, hours later.

He took a late lunch which he had in a small janitor’s closet on that very same floor. He stalked the halls, he passed no mind to the medical students or to-be-lawyers who occasional passed him off with sleepy blinks for his existence to them was that of a spider, a brown recluse to be ignored or killed. He certainly looked the part. At twelve in the morning, his shift was almost over. And the clock ticks stroked his stomach with waves and waves of excitement. He hugged the walls and rolled the mop head down on the same spot, waiting for whatever was behind that library door. Humming to himself some stupid tune, sniveling and giggling every so often as his imagination ran from him. Twelve flat, it was time.

He ran to the utilities closet and drained his blackened water into the corner of the room. A small hole that led somewhere beyond. He set down the mop. Set down the bucket and ran out, fumbling for his keys to lock the door. His eyes throwing sidelong glares at the opening library doors.

She was out.

He fumbled his hands. He locked the door and went to the opposite wing, running down the stairs.

He opened the back door. Drooling, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jumpsuit. The heat in his groin pitching and stretching across his pants. Out he went, taking off his suit as he came to a small room to the side of the building. A locker room for the janitors. The third shift guy hadn’t come in yet. Yes. He counted on him being late as he always was. Perfect. No one to see him. He dressed himself in a hood and folded his uniform neat in a square in his cubby and then his name tag upon that bundle.

Clint E. Rodolfo. Inside his locker, some chemical in a cheap blue plastic container. And a rag above it, drenched. He put the rag in his pocket.

Then he was out. With athletic sweat-wear head to toe and the shawl of baggy clothes about him like a vampire cloak. Night stalker. Blood taker.

Out he ran to the student parking. He went up the stairway. Second floor. He’d seen her do it a dozen times this way, she liked to take the elevator. But he was faster. Adrenaline through him, coursing and making the cable run glacial in comparison. She was there! Close to her car, and putting her coffee on the hood. She looked through her purse for her keys. As she always did. Alone. As she always was.

He wore shades. He wore a face mask. Gloves. And he wandered the edge of the parking lot avoiding light.

He knew the cameras were broken, knew they stopped turning long ago. That the “ALWAYS MONITORED” sign was little more than decoration. Money’s tight when it’s spent on the football stadium.

And he waited. Slipping in and out of the long columns, the fluorescent light above them flickering.

His car was parked here too. Somewhere down the sloping car lot. She looked up and must have noticed because her head tilted when she saw it, and Clint saw this. Down the parking lot, looking at that rusted red truck. Blue canvas covering the back trunk.

She cleared her throat and touched the handle of her BMW and looked for her keys.

He ran.

Did not even bother to sneak. Did not bother to finesse a movement at all. He ran down the asphalt. She heard him sprinting and screamed. She scrambled for her purse. Hand trying to grab keys, or something. Anything. He knocked it out her hands. And he grabbed her. One hand on her chin. One on the back of her neck. He slammed her face against the car. It dented the metal. Her legs wobbled, and he pressed her against the asphalt. Then he reached into his pocket and pressed a rag against her nose. She screamed into the rag. Cried - as her eyes rolled up to the back of her head.