Every few days, something small vanished from Alan’s house. First, it was a toothbrush. Then a sock. A spoon. A single chopstick. Not pairs and never sets—just one of each item, missing. At first, he blamed himself. He lived alone and was forgetful. Maybe he’d discarded them without realizing it.
But then came the shadows. They flickered in his peripheral vision, darting across the hallway and clinging to the corners of his ceiling when the lights were low. Every time he looked closer, he saw nothing—just dust motes and drywall. Perhaps he had ghosts.
“I think I’m losing it,” Alan muttered one night, staring into his empty silverware drawer.
His therapist diagnosed it as stress. His neighbor suggested raccoons. His mom recommended prayer.
In desperation, Alan called an exterminator.
“Something keeps taking my things,” he said on the phone. “And how do I say this? It’s embarrassing to mention, but I keep seeing something in the shadows. Or someone. Maybe I’m hallucinating?”
The voice on the other end of the phone listened intently. “You ever hear of ninja infestations?” he asked.
Alan blinked. “Is that…a metaphor?”
“No, sir. Ninjas. Real ones. It’s rare, but they get into old buildings. Usually, they move in after a divorce or during a midlife crisis. They like emotional vulnerability. And clutter.”
Alan looked around his cluttered, emotionally vulnerable house and asked, “How soon can you get here?”
###
The exterminator, a sun-wrinkled man in a beige jumpsuit with a name tag that read “Doug,” drove up the next morning in his truck. Doug reached into his toolbox and pulled out what appeared to be a mousetrap merged with a bonsai tree.
Doug said, “These will do the trick.”
Doug strategically placed the traps behind the toilet, inside the pantry, and above the coat rack. Afterward, he tipped his cap and left, promising to return in 48 hours.
Alan spent the next two days sleeping with the lights turned on.
When Doug returned, he wore the smile of someone who knew his craft well.
“Well,” Doug said as he stepped into the pantry, “looks like I was right.”
A tiny man in black was inside the trap, folded neatly like origami.
Alan gasped.
Doug moved efficiently through the house, retrieving all of his traps. “Caught thirteen,” Doug said. “Three in the vents. Two behind the sofa. One in the blender.”
Alan watched in stunned silence as Doug deposited the last of the wriggling, silent ninjas into a large, unmarked crate.
“What…what are you going to do with them?” Alan asked.
“Oh, turn ’em over to ICE,” Doug said casually, snapping the crate shut. “They got a special unit for undocumented stealth operatives. There is a big backlog right now. Lots of demand. Lots of private contractors need invisible labor.”
Alan stared. “That sounds…morally ambiguous.”
Doug shrugged. “Hey, I just trap ’em. Bureaucracy handles the rest.”
Alan nodded slowly and said, “Uh huh.”
Doug tipped his cap to say goodbye. “Call if you hear whispering.”
He drove away with the crate rattling in the back.
Alan stood on the porch and watched as the truck vanished from sight.
###
The house was quiet and tranquil. Nothing stirred in the corners. For the first time in weeks, Alan felt a sense of solitude. He discovered his missing sock folded neatly on his pillow and smiled.