“Alright Sweetie, have a good day at school.”

Martha watched with a content smirk as the younger brunette hurried out the front door, backpack strapped over her shoulders. Normally she’d have worried about her young little five year old walking to school. Not since Dianne Trent had become President at least. The streets were safer now. Admittedly, Martha was a bit skeptical of the female Commander and Chief at first, but the results really did speak for themselves. Certainly didn’t hurt that the woman got to feel the unimaginable satisfaction of her Ex-Husband popping under her foot after years of flagrant neglect.

Thoughts for later she supposed. For now she only had about seven hours to get the house cleaned, do some grocery shopping, laundry, prepare dinner, and pay the bills. Ideally she’d also like a moment to breathe somewhere in there. So without a moment to waste she was off.

Upon entering the living room she noted the familiar furniture with a discerning, motherly eye. The couch seemed fine but she could spot the dust beginning to form along the table as well as the TV stand. In the corner a stand with a flower pot stood adjacent to a black bookshelf that was filled with a mixture of books and knick knacks. Pictures hung from the walls around a mirror depicting various friends and family. If one squinted hard enough they could see the first stands of cobwebs in the corners or the room. To an outside perspective it looked perfectly clean, but to a mother it was appallingly filthy.

As she began to move Martha caught the flicker of herself in the mirror. At the proud age of 40 she still had a decent amount of youthfulness to her, or so she liked to tell herself. Wavy black hair rested along the shoulders of a woman who’d put on a couple extra bounds. She frowned as she glanced at her stomach, although an incidental upside to that at least was her chest seemed to swell a tad too.

“I need to start going to the gym.” The woman sighed and kept walking. She knew she wouldn’t. This thought process happened every time she saw her mature face in a mirror.

CR-UNCH

A familiar sound came from below, Martha barely feeling something under her bare sole. “Oh God.” She didn’t even have to look but she did anyway. Stuck to the bottom of her doughy foot was the crushed body of a man. About...two inches tall if she had to guesstimate. With an annoyed frown Martha scrapped the lowly creature’s bones and guts with a fingernail, pasting it all between her digits as she looked down.

“Now I’m gonna have to clean this up.” She sighed at the red stain defacing her fine wooden floors; not without catching a glimpse of movement from the corner of her eye however. More men. Some slightly taller. Some vastly shorter. All pests. Seemed like Martha’s lovely little daughter accidentally let her pets out again. Perhaps her lunch too if some of the larger ones were a sign.

Normally Martha rather enjoyed a good bit of male slaughter. There was just something so right about it. Something that never got old and always felt immensely satisfying. Right now she just didn’t have time though. So she didn’t do her usual playful chase routine. Instead, she wasted no time at all in stamping down another man beneath her sole. Fortunately for her, she intended to mop down the floors anyway.

Realizing they’d been discovered, the various men all screamed and ran as far as their little legs would take them. People who’d once had families, lives, perhaps even lives in this very neighborhood. Now mere household pests when they weren’t in a proper container. They ran like the wind. Alas, even the largest among them couldn’t run further than a single footstep before Martha came upon them with booming stomps.

Martha’s tanned foot was relentless in administering death to the lowly creatures. “Why is it all you men know how to do is run away?” She grumbled, remember just a bit too much of her Ex. At least the deaths felt satisfying. Each human life was a pop beneath her foot. In some of the smaller cases it wasn’t even that much. Just a dozen or so kills executed in quick succession beneath the worn sole of the mother.

Once the last one had been crushed Martha lifted her foot, unable to stop a smug smirk once she saw the myriad of stains now there. “Serves you right.” She chuckled and wiped it off with a wave of her hand.

With that taken care of at last, Martha exited the room for a moment and returned with a mop and bucket. Without batting an eye she wetted her cleaning tool and slid it along the floor. Much to her pleasant surprise the stains were coming off the floor seamlessly. “Gotta remember to buy more of this brand.” She made a mental note and kept cleaning before more movement caught her eye.

“Ugh, missed one.” The raven-haired woman rolled her eyes and slid the mop forward. The man, at a towering three whole inches tall, fled as best he could from the mop, venturing beneath the living room couch. The sweeping, sponge of the mop was right behind him and rapidly gaining, sizzling with the cleansing chemicals that could melt his skin like acid. Provided the sponge didn’t just crush him outright.

Martha watched passively from on high as her mop caught up to the man and bowled him over. The soaking yellow sponge completely enveloped him, immediately crushing the bones in his body as the cleanser did the rest. His skin all but melted away beneath the mop, any blood promptly absorbed by the sponge as he quickly and painfully passed away.

“Good riddance.” Martha grimaced. For good measure she peeked beneath the couch; and what she saw made her gasp.

Men. Dozens of the little bastards. Maybe even a hundred. Maybe more if there were microbes among them. A colony of the vermin. Hiding away where they wouldn’t be seen. They all turned to the massive visage of the woman just outside, stunned. “I’m gonna have to have a long chat with that girl.” The towering female grumbled before pulling back. The men wisely took the chance to begin fleeing in various directions.

“How many times do I have to tell her not to let them go? Men aren’t people anymore. Doesn’t matter what her Daddy was. Sometimes that girl’s too nice I swear.” She muttered in an annoyed tone while stomping away. Sure, she could leave them be but the last time Martha wanted was male droppings on her pristine floors. Especially near her daughter. Who knew where those men had been?

Stomping them was tempting, but the number of them made it possible she could miss one. Same with the mop. Thankfully, it was time for a mother’s secret weapon.

After a minute Martha returned, dragging along a vacuum behind her. The great machine towered menacingly over the bugs along the floor as she calmly plugged it in and pulled out the tube at its side. Martha levied a dangerous look at the men before flicking the machine on. It whirred to life instantly, roaring louder than anything the men had ever heard in their lives. The sound was crippling and brought many to their knees clutching their head. Certainly made things easier.

Martha walked over, her powerful steps completely eclipsed entirely by the shriek of the vacuum. Without a moment’s hesitation the vacuum’s tube was pointed right at a man. Where she could watch happily as he was ripped from the ground by the great suction of her handy little machine. His peers all struggled to move away, unable to fight the invisible force even when it wasn’t directed at them. With the same cruel calm look in her eyes Martha sweeped the vacuum over them all.

One by one they were sucked inside. Nothing they did could stop it or save themselves, and Martha was a very thorough woman when it came to cleaning. No hiding place was safe. The closest a man came to escape was when he held onto the bottom of the couch so hard the vacuum ripped him in two. It’s alright, Martha didn’t stop until both halves were sucked up.

From there she took the chance to vacuum the rest of the room and gather up all the dust and dirt. Turned out another colony was behind the bookshelf. Not for long it was. Martha wasn’t tolerating any such vermin on her watch.

She never so much as spared a thought towards those now trapped within the vacuum. Buried underneath literal mountains of filth. Bits of dust and fluff that weighed virtually nothing but were now heavier than cars. There they were trapped, compressed in the thick, filth-ridden air with the dirt, grime, and corpses of their fellows. Where the vacuum was at its loudest and outright popped the ears of the men within.

Martha didn’t care. She just cleaned the room as she always did. Once the vacuuming was done it was time to wipe the TV stand and table, finish mopping the floors, dust the corners, and so on. What few men remained inside the vacuum could only watch from the glass pane as the immense woman carried out her routine. Eventually she returned to the vacuum and unhinged the dispenser that held them, never even glancing at them.

She entered the kitchen with the dispenser, ready to dump it in the trash and be done with it, when a thought hit her. If she just threw them away, any surviving men could escape. Worse yet, they’d make a hole in her trash bag and let the dirt out. Her mind instantly weighed her options before quickly settling on a solution.

Martha hurried to the door and slid on her favorite sandals. She reached the front yard, where she finally upended the canister and gave it a few good smacks along the back, watching as its contents fell into the grass below. Before even a moment passed she lifted her sandaled foot over the pile of dust and stomped as hard as she physically could. “Come back from that.” She sneered, twisting her foot a little.

At last, after stomping them out and wiping the dust from her sandal, Martha was done cleaning the living room. Next up was the kitchen, where the woman spotted a number of familiar figures by the kitchen sink.

“I’m going to kill that girl.” She groused before stomping on over. There just wasn’t any time for this. Even more hurriedly than she’d killed the last colony, her fingers carelessly brushed the men over into the sink. Did they survive the fall? Did they die? She didn’t care. Without wasting time she turned on the sink, ushering in a massive flood of water to those below. She watched as they got swept up in the tide and carried along helplessly.

Then her fingers hit a small switch just below the counter, triggering a grinding sound from the drain: the garbage disposal. “Can’t risk clogging the pipes.” The woman reasoned to herself with a nod, still watching passively as the handful of men were carried by the rushing water into the drain. Although unheard, she had no doubts they were screaming as the grinding blades of the garbage disposal tore them to bloody shreds. Only for the overpowering water to wash away any and all evidence they’d ever existed.

Once she was sure all of them were dead Martha turned it all off and sighed. One look at the floor revealed more men near the refrigerator. “She’s so grounded.” The mother pouted.

Looks like she was gonna have to be thorough with this room too.