I’m on a bit of a spree at the moment, having a run of good luck.

My short story ‘Hello! Housekeeping!’ has been accepted by The Dark City Crime & Mystery Magazine and will be published in its October issue!

A hotel cleaner finds a dead body in the bathroom along with a bag full of drugs. What to do, what to do?

(Teaser below)

Aside from the actual crime elements, this story is close to home for me. I was working as a housekeeper in a hostel when I wrote it, and you’ll find it contains a lot of (potentially tedious) detail of what the job entails. It’s not all bad, actually.

The Dark City Magazine is published by Dark City Books, and you can bet I’ll keep anyone who’ll listen up to date on when the issue is published.

You can check out their website here.

Hello! Housekeeping!

As I scrubbed the toilet I thought about what Liz the manager always said: “If you don’t provide a guest with a clean toilet, you are inviting them to shit on the floor.” So I scrubbed and mentally told the guest they should change their diet.

With the toilet clean I did the finishing touches before mopping the floor: a fresh bin bag in the wastebasket, a clean shower mat, and some paper cups wrapped in plastic on the desk. I did this wearing the same blue, latex gloves I had been wearing when I cleaned the toilet. I had twelve departs, I didn’t have time to change them after every toilet. Also, they were disposable, but supply wasn’t infinite. Don’t ever use the cups in a hotel room, always bring your own.

I moved down the corridor to room 516.

“Hello! Housekeeping!” I knocked and put my ear to the door: nothing. I put my keycard in the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open a little. With it still mostly closed I knocked again and repeated, “Hello! Housekeeping!” The ‘double-knock’ is a good habit to develop. It avoids all sorts of embarrassment, because people get up to all sorts of embarrassing things in hotel rooms. You don’t need to be a housekeeper to know that…

Read the full story soon!