Bottom Feeder

by Matt Cole

  “What happened? Where am I?”

  “It is okay, Arlene, you’re fine, relax,” a friendly voice said.

  Arlene lifted her head and saw her, kneeling on the bed beside her, Deena.

  “Deena?”

  “What is going on?” Arlene asked.

  “We were hoping that you could tell us,” Deena replied with a grand smile. “It is good to have you back. We were all worried about you.”

  “I had been anticipating for some weeks past, that things would become exciting—and they had—but hardly in the way which I could foresee. It was the old story of the unexpected happening. Suddenly events of the most extraordinary nature had come crowding on me from the most unlooked-for quarters,” Arlene stated.

  “Wait; slow down—what are you talking about?” Deena asked.

  “Let me try to tell them in something like their proper order,” Arlene explained.

  “To begin with, Steve has behaved very badly. So badly that it seems unlikely that I shall have to recast my whole conception of his character and our marriage. He is a jerk.”

  Deena frowned. “When did you realize this?”

  “When I returned to consciousness, of course. I found myself sitting up in bed, trembling like some frightened child. What had actually happened to me I do not know—I could not guess. I was conscious of an overwhelming sense of nausea, and, generally, I was feeling very far from well. I endeavored to arrange my thoughts, and to decide upon some plan of action. Finally, I decided to go for it—you know? Divorce!

  “One result the experience had on me was it wound me up. It had on me the revivifying effect of a cold douche. I realized that a woman like me, or any for that matter, could not stand to be abused anymore.”

  Deena had never heard Arlene speak like this before. A cold douche? She didn’t like to swear or use any sort of foul language.

  “When will you tell Steve?” Deena asked.

  “When I return home,” Arlene shot back. “I’ll let him have the news.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I have learned that the man whom I had married was not the man I wanted to be married to anymore.”

  * * * *

  Frank Marsden found reason to punish Maria Pinella when he caught her trying to move the plywood that covered the hole. The punishment was severe. She was forced to hang from the roof beam by a single handcuff attached to her wrist for several days. During this time, her condition deteriorated and she refused to eat. Marsden was losing control. The last women he’d thrown into the hole had disappeared down one of the tunnels.

  He was panicked. Had she escaped? What of the monster?

  Frank Marsden tried to force feed her pieces of bread. Towards the end of the week, even though she was vomiting and running a high fever, Frank continued to force feed her, often jamming food into her mouth and holding her mouth shut until she swallowed. The next day she lost consciousness. When Marsden couldn’t rouse her, he became angry and unlocked the handcuffs, dropping her to the ground.

  In the days following Maria’s condition worsening, the other girls, Angela and Tabitha, began to notice an even more sickening stench that filled the entire basement.

  Marsden’s activities became increasingly more out of the ordinary. He insisted the girls tell on each other with the assurance of improved surroundings for those who acted in accordance with his new rules.

  Left with little choice, he threw Maria’s lithe body into the hole, putting the cover over it as quickly as he could.

  Angela could tell that Marsden was deeply saddened by the loss of Maria Pinella.

  Following Maria’s “death,” Angela became Marsden’s constant companion, often accompanying him out of the basement and even on outings to restaurants and on shopping expeditions. On one such outing, Marsden told Angela that if he was ever caught, he would act as though he was insane as he knew how to manipulate the testing procedures. He told her that he had been fooling the authorities for years so that he could qualify for disability payments. Marsden also seemed to soften after Maria died and began to provide additional comforts for his captives, including mattresses, blankets, pillows and even a television set.

  On one particular trip, they were driving in the countryside outside of Virginia when Marsden stopped the car near a heavily wooded area and remarked that it would be a good place to make love. Angela knew one thing for certain; the sexual encounters between her and Frank Marsden were the farthest thing from love making.

  The next day, Marsden told her that he would need to find a “replacement” for Maria and suggested that they go out “cruising” together to find one. Later that night, the pair drove through the streets, looking for a likely subject.

  Marsden found a new victim, Annie Stillman, who he convinced to go home with them.

  Shortly after getting to the house, Annie found herself stripped, chained and imprisoned in the basement with the others. She immediately recoiled—it smelled awful in here. Not like something had died, but like something had failed to empty a dumpsite worth of garbage that had built up over years.

  Despite the disgusting odor and the sudden violence Annie seemed like a willing participant, but she had other plans and was happy to wait for the right time to implement them. She knew her strengths and would apply them to her captor.

  Chapter 19

  Deena and Maggie stood in front of the shut basement door. The smell inside the house was still nearly unbearable. They had come prepared. Each wore a dust mask that had been heavily sprayed with perfume. In recent days they had been preoccupied with hearing Arlene’s tale of her disappearance and helping her recover. They had both agreed that something had to be done about Deena’s rental house and that something started in the basement. Although Arlene had said nothing of her ordeal as of yet, Deena—at least—was growing more and more weary of the basement and her peculiar landlord, Frank Marsden.

  He too had become more mysterious lately, coming out only at night and only very late at night. Deena had nearly fallen asleep as she kept a vigil on the house and Marsden’s late night antics. She knew something was up—err—down there that needed to be uncovered. Deena had wondered if this was a result of her own reasoning or that of Mike Leopold. Deena was becoming more and more infatuated with the supposedly crazy former tenant of the house she had rented from Marsden. She shared his belief that a monster was living in the basement—only Deena did not believe that the monster was anything more than a deranged man.

  In recent days she had been kept at bay by several heavy storms. The storms had ended in the wee hours; melting sleet gurgled through the downspouts and the sun made slanting shapes on cars that hadn’t moved since the first storm hit.

  “Tell me again why we are going down there?” Maggie Swader wearily asked. “And why don’t we just ask Mr. Marsden?”

  “Because I need to know what this horrible smell is, and because something is not right about that man or the basement…because we need to stop being afraid of him.”

  Maggie’s head drooped. “Won’t this just make matters worse with your landlord?”

  “How so?”

  “I mean he’s taking you to court over the smell, claiming that he can evict you over it.”

  “But I’m not the one creating this God awful stench!” Deena felt like exploding.

  “I know that,” Maggie said reassuringly. “But that is what Marsden is stating in the papers filed with the court.”

  “Even more reason for me to find the truth behind the smell,” Deena replied. She looked at Maggie. “What?”

  Maggie didn’t want to go down there, even in broad daylight with Deena riding shotgun. But she’d do it, because she was Deena’s friend and Deena was absolutely not going to be intimidated by a goddamn bad smell and basement.

  Deena ignored her friend’s reluctance and inserted the key. They had already removed the other items that Deena had installed to keep Marsden from entering the house from the basement. She only hoped that the son-
of-a-bitch hadn’t changed the locks. He hadn’t.

  She twisted the doorknob and tugged. The door stuck, and she felt a burst of hope that it would stay that way. Glancing at Maggie, it appeared that she too favored this outcome. But it squeaked open on the second, rather half-hearted attempt and light from the kitchen window spilled out on the upper landing.

  The disgusting odor was choking. The two immediately began to hack and cough. The air was humid, foul, and yet still managed to send chills down their spines.

  “I’ll stay right here,” Maggie said, her eyes welling up in tears.

  “Oh, no…” Deena cried. “You’re not leaving me alone.”

  “What if Marsden comes back?” Maggie quickly asked.

  “So, you want to stand guard, in case…” Deena said.

  “In case Marsden comes back or did you mean in case of what you find down there?”

  Deena started down the stairs; Maggie hung back a moment, then followed. Halfway down, two steps below the second landing, Deena saw the plywood covering the hole. Of course she did not see the hole. A quick scan of the basement was easier said than done as the lighting was nonexistent and her eyes burned so badly that Deena felt they may never recover completely. She thought she saw several figures in the corner.

  They heard a car door slam shut and someone get out. They raced back up the stairs and put the locks and boards back on the door as fast as they could. They each crawled across the kitchen floor and peered out the window to see who had arrived. It was Frank Marsden’s car. They slowly and silently opened the front door and ran across the street, ducking behind a tree and some bushes. Deena was the first to look back and she saw nothing. They hadn’t been spotted.

  The two walked briskly back to Maggie’s house down the street, running inside as they got closer where Maggie slammed the door, pantomimed nailing it shut, and they both sagged against it, giggling nervously.

  “Maggie,” Deena finally said. “May I take a shower and burn these clothes?”

  “After me,” Maggie replied with a smile.

  * * * *

  Back at 1420 South Douty Street, Frank Marsden had watched the two women sneak away presumably thinking they had not been seen. It was only a matter of time, he thought, and the police would be here.

  He was prepared to go down into the basement and kill the remaining two women he held as hostages, then he would either run away or kill himself. He was not going to jail.

  In the basement, his choices had been eliminated. Each of the two remaining women was covered in slime; two tentacles extended from the hole, occasionally striking the walls, ceiling, and floor.

  But this was not the biggest surprise facing Frank Marsden. Standing before him, dressed in her business pant suit and her hair neatly done, was Arlene Balleza. On the face of it she seemed unfazed by the smell and haze in the basement.

  “What the fuck? How the hell?” he stammered.

  “Don’t worry about me, Frank. Your time has come. So here’s what you’re going to do….”

  Frank backhanded Arlene across the face. He then spit at her. “I don’t take orders from you, bitch!”

  The tentacles grabbed Frank, once wrapped his arms and legs like a boa constrictor would its prey, while the other wrapped around his neck and mouth, preventing him from speaking.

  “Listen to me, Frank.” Arlene spoke with clear, dark diction. “You will fill in this hole, then you will wait for the police to come and you will admit to kidnapping and killing all those women.”

  He tried to shake his head in refusal but the tentacle around his neck tightened and his eyes began to bulge.

  “Don’t struggle and do try to cooperate,” Arlene said calmly. “You messed this whole process up, Frank. He’s not happy with you. Be lucky that he has allowed you to survive. But know this: that he hasn’t been pleased with your work. In fact he called it pathetic and weak. And the fact that you defiled these women the way you did only worsens his thinking of you.

  “Now, he’s going to let you go and you’re going to begin filling in the hole immediately with the dirt and concrete you took out of it, understand?”

  Frank was going to argue when the pressure from the squeezing became almost too much for him. He shook his head.

  “Good boy,” Arlene said. “And Frank, one more thing…take your clothes off before you start.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Do it now,” Arlene commanded.

  Frank complied, stripping down to nothing before Arlene.

  “Good,” she said. “Now to make sure that you don’t run away…”

  Frank was not prepared as one of the tentacles shot out and up his anus. Frank screamed in agony, blood running down his legs, and he was lifted two feet off the floor.

  “Doesn’t feel good, does it, Frank?” Arlene said to him as he continued to cry in pain. “The longer it takes you to finish the more pain you’ll have to endure. Finish quickly and he will remove it. Try to escape and well…you get the picture, Frankie boy!”

  Do as Arlene commands, Frank, and all will be forgiven.

  The tentacles released Frank and grabbed the two gelatin coated women and then disappeared into the tunnels.

  Arlene’s quiet laughter would have unnerved Frank and sent chills down his spine, but currently he could not feel his spine or back. He by some means found the strength to begin filling in the hole.

  * * * *

  Soberly, he looked at his reflection in the mirror and wondered what had happened to that handsome man from high school and college. As a teenager, he’d been proud of his looks, his physique, flaunted his muscles, and his thick full head of hair.

  But that seemed like a lifetime ago.

  When life had been filled with laughter and promise.

  Frowning, dispelling the image, he found his back-up gun, buckled it around his calf.

  He was no longer all of those things that had been important to him in his youth. “Sexy.” Or “macho.” Whichever was in vogue today, he was not sure.

  Which was fine with him; he was approaching his mid-forties and could care less about how he looked. He had much more important things on his mind—like seven missing women and one missing man.

  His cell phone rang and it sounded dull, as his ears were still plugged. He scrounged it out of his pocket and flipped it open. “Detective Chapel.”

  “We may have found them.” Sheriff Lindsey Hill sounded delighted and disgusted at the same time.

  “Who?” Chapel demanded.

  “All of them, all seven of the women.”

  “Alive?” Gary Chapel had been in law enforcement long enough to know the chances of this were astronomical. He had to hope.

  “No. It’s unbelievable, Gary. It’s totally disgusting and unimaginable.”

  “What is?” Chapel asked.

  “You need to get over to 1420 South Douty Street,” Sheriff Hill said.

  “What’s happened, chief?”

  “Words cannot describe the smell…those poor women…” Sheriff Hill hung up. Gary sensed that she was crying, though she had never admitted as much to him or anyone else.

  * * * *

  The drive was not long in time, but seemed longer in Gary Chapel’s mind as many thoughts raced through it.

  He arrived and immediately sought out Sheriff Hill amongst the chaos that was once a peaceful house.

  “How’d all this come about?” Chapel asked.

  “Frank Marsden was arrested after midnight at the local gas station where he called to confess early this morning,” Sheriff Hill began. “It’s the damnest thing.”

  “That he would confess?”

  “No, why he says he did it,” Sheriff Hill continued. “He says…ah, hell, you should talk to him yourself, detective.”

  Gary Chapel made his way into the house and found Frank Marsden in cuffs and surrounded by two uniformed officers. Marsden looked dazed and confused.

  Dauphin County Sheriff Department Detective Sergeant Pat
rick Townsend had obviously been speaking to Marsden since he had arrived.

  “Been on call for the last five and a half hours, waiting for command to do something,” Townsend said in a gruff, harsh voice. “I guess you’re the something. He’s all yours.”

  “So, Frank, can I call you Frank?” Chapel asked.

  “Good luck getting him to talk,” Townsend remarked as he was packing up his belongings. “The man’s not much of a conservationist.”

  “Frank, I’m Dauphin County Detective Gary Chapel,” he said. “You understand that I want to help you, right? Tell me what you told the other police officers, Frank.”

  “Chapel,” Sheriff Hill shouted. “Walk with me down into the basement, will you?”

  Chapel was on his feet and motioned for the two uniformed officers to stay behind with Marsden.

  The stairway leading to the basement was barely visible when Sheriff Hill opened the door in the kitchen.

  “What is that smell?” Chapel asked, gagging and pulling his shirt up over his mouth and nose.

  “Someone get me two respirators, will you!” Sheriff Hill ordered. A uniformed officer, straight from the academy by the looks of him, came running, as if he were a dog fetching the morning the paper, with two respirators in his hands.

  “Put this on,” the Sheriff instructed Chapel. He happily obliged.

  All around the basement, Chapel noted, were piles of dirt, block, and some pieces of wood. A mattress was lying in the middle of the room and on it were numerous stains, though visibility was bad.

  Chapel noted the area that had once been the “hole”.

  “What’s in there?” he asked the Sheriff.

  “If you believe, Frank Marsden,” she replied. “That is where the monster lived.”

  “In the hole?” Chapel asked. He pushed away some top debris and slid the plywood board aside. Squatting over the area, Gary squinted to make out anything in the pile of rubble. He could see nothing. “Nothing in there now, it appears. Better have it excavated.”

  “Isn’t this the most unnerving and horrendous site you’ve seen?” Sheriff Hill asked.

  “I believe it is,” Chapel shot back.