by Pete Altieri
Dan had been laid off for two years after the Firestone plant closed down. He was almost 50, and options were dwindling in this new fast-paced world. His wife got tired of him not working and loafing around the house depressed. She sued him for divorce and left town with some truck driver she had been seeing. Thankfully, they didn't have any kids. His unemployment was about to run out, and the bills were piling up like sandbags bracing for a flood. A neighbor stuck her neck out to get Dan this job, and he was determined to hang in no matter how bad things got. Standing in front of this junk heap that was once called home at 1312 E. Cypress Street, he wondered what could possibly be worse than this.
There were dozens of houses in the Near North Development of Decatur that the City was razing. They had been doing it for years through a federal grant. The City was suffering from the economic downturn that drove several factories out of business. Thousands of workers were fighting for the same minimum wage jobs, and some just gave up and turned to drugs and alcohol. The homeless problem had quadrupled in the past ten years because of it, and these abandoned houses that the City now owned, were a breeding ground for a variety of nefarious activity. Gangs and local degenerates were taking over the neighborhoods.
Dan walked down the driveway to the back of the house. This was the first survey he was doing on his own, and he could feel a lump in his throat. He also couldn't fight off the strange feeling that someone was watching him. He looked nervously over his shoulder but saw no one. Dan clenched his mag light and continued. He carried a small backpack filled with some of the things he needed to do his job, but going into these houses, what Dan really wished he had was a big gun. A really big gun. Maybe a flamethrower!
As he approached the back of the house, the smell of rotting garbage and mold was overwhelming. In the heat, the odor was powerful. A miasma of putrid foulness seemed to be making its way from the back entrance, where the door was completely gone. He learned the hard way to check the back door before spending lots of time trying to break down the front door. Many of them were open already – like this one. He had to duck down to get his large frame through the opening.
Sweat continued to pour down his face. Dan could feel his polo shirt soaked to his skin. Being overweight didn't help matters. He fought back the gag reflex to vomit as he entered the kitchen. Years of dirty dishes were piled high in a crusted tower, half empty cans of indistinguishable food were scattered on the counters and floor, and rodent droppings were like foul chocolate sprinkles on every possible horizontal surface he could see with the aid of his light. A mix of rot and growing mold got stronger as he made his way inside.
Dan continued into what was the dining room, through a makeshift path that had been cleared between the piles of garbage and various discarded clothes, furniture and more. He could hear water dripping somewhere in the house. To his right, Dan could hear something scurrying in the trash. His senses were at the point of exploding. He figured it was a mouse or a rat, but he did his best to not think about it. He knew enough to use rubber bands to cinch his pants at his ankles, to avoid something crawling up his legs. Dan heard more noises like this as he waded through the filth – scratching, moving, and gnawing. Despite the urge for him to take the notebook from his backpack to record the condition of the structure, Dan knew he needed to walk through the entire house to be sure no one else was there. During his training, he was taught to do a quick sweep to verify no other humans were present. As his light illuminated the blackness, Dan couldn't imagine anyone wanting to be inside such a terrible place.
As he entered what appeared to be a living room, Dan could see some daylight from above. There was a hole in the roof, causing the wood floor to be a little spongy beneath his feet. This was likely the source of the dripping sound. He shined his light to the floor to see what condition it was in when suddenly there was a dull creak, then the splintering of wood, and he began to fall through the floor into the dank basement below. Instinctively, he closed his eyes, and the last thing he remembered was how embarrassed he would be to have to call his boss to tell him what happened.
2
Across the street at 1313 E. Cypress Street, Duane Lanham watched the large man with the flashlight walk down the driveway to the back yard of the house. Duane had been staying at 1313 for the past three months, making himself a bed from an old mattress and some clothes he got from a local shelter. He managed to keep himself fed by standing in line every Tuesday and Thursday at the food pantry, taking whatever canned goods he could scrounge up. He had been homeless for the last five years since he lost his job at the glass factory. His drinking had spiraled out of control – putting him out on the street. Now he resorted to hand-outs to eat and a rat-infested old house that no one wanted for a place to sleep. Things couldn't get much lower. He avoided looking in mirrors these days, because seeing his graying hair, scraggly beard and gaunt face made him look 20 years older than he was.
From his second floor window, he wondered if the big man would make it out of 1312 alive. He knew all too well that something evil lived there, something in the blackness of the crawlspace.
3
Dan wasn't sure if he was dreaming. He remembered hearing the creaking and the splintering sounds, but now he found himself in complete darkness in a damp environment. He must have hit the back of his head hard when he fell, because there was a huge bump there. He carefully felt around for his flashlight or backpack, but neither was there. The cell phone he kept in his back pocket was smashed. He tried to turn it on, but nothing happened. It felt like the screen was shattered. Dan deliberately slowed down his breathing to try and not panic. He had enough emergency action training at Firestone over the years to teach him that freaking out was not the answer in an emergency. He did wonder how long he had been at the house, since it was company policy for field people to call in every hour for safety reasons. Maybe someone would be along to see if he was okay?
He tried to sit up and assess if he had broken any bones in the fall. Aside from a sharp pain in his lower back, Dan didn't think he broke anything. Looking above, he could see a large opening in the floor above, which must have been how he ended up where he was now. He must be in the basement.
Just then, he heard a loud noise coming from the space in front of him. His eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, but he still couldn't make out anything. Whatever it was, it was not a mouse or rat. It sounded much larger. Maybe it was a raccoon or opossum? Then it sounded again, and it was definitely bigger than that. His heart began to thump in his chest and despite his measured breathing, he felt panic begin to set in. Whatever this thing in the darkness was, it was moving toward him slowly, as if sizing him up. Dan could hear a low growl that was barely audible but seemed to surround him from all sides! The house felt like it shook slightly.
Then he heard rustling and movement from every direction - scraping sounds on the concrete floor and rustling in the garbage. He thought he heard heavy breathing! Before he could do anything, frozen in fear, Dan felt cold and clammy hands grabbing him from all sides. He flailed and kicked, but it was no use. The hands were getting a hold of him and dragging him across the floor toward the large mass before him. He didn't realize it, but he was being pulled toward the crawlspace that was beneath the original section of the house. Inside that dirt floor space was a dark shadow with eyes that glowed. It had an insatiable appetite, and now it was salivating at its next meal, which was squirming on the floor before it like a helpless mouse in a trap.
Dan was screaming. He was screaming himself hoarse as the hands that were pulling him kept dragging him closer to the crawlspace and closer to whatever was inside there that wanted him. They were like humble servants to the evil entity that now had Dan by the feet. He kept on screaming and thrashing about, but it was no use, as the thing sank its razor sharp teeth into his legs, slowly feasting on the offering.
4
Susan Price got out of her car outside 1312 E. Cypress Street, noting that Dan's truck was still there
. She was getting ready to leave the office for lunch when her boss asked if she would check on him. Dan had not called in for two hours, and they were worried. With the heat and Dan's weight, there was concern that maybe he was suffering from a heat injury or needed some medical assistance. Susan felt responsible for the company hiring Dan, despite the skepticism from her boss that he was too old and not in the best physical shape to be doing this type of work. She felt sorry for him after losing his job, then his wife. Susan and her husband, Scott, had been their neighbors for several years and felt like she needed to do something to help.
Just as Dan did two hours before, Susan felt like someone was watching her. She couldn't shake the eerie feeling as she made her way down the driveway toward the back of the house. She assumed that Dan must have entered from the back, since the front door was intact and the plywood was still screwed tightly over all the windows. The City did that and was adamant that if they had to take any plywood down, they secure it back to keep people out as much as they could. The smell coming from the house was sickening, and she took a handkerchief from her pocket to shield her nose with little avail. One of the engineers gave her a small but powerful flashlight to use, and she had it firmly in her grasp. The humidity was stifling. She was worried about Dan.
As she entered the kitchen, she could see a light coming from further inside the house. It looked like it was coming from the floor. She was worried that maybe Dan had fallen down. Her boss had told her to not enter the house and to call when she got there. But she thought it would be best to check to see if Dan was in trouble or not and didn't want to wait to call in to the office.
Susan tried to focus on anything but the filth surrounding her. She had been in a few houses like this during her tenure at Banner McBride, but it was only during a time when they were cross-training employees. Her boss wanted the office staff to know what it was like to be in the field. So Susan knew enough to change out of her dress pants and nice shoes into jeans and a pair of work boots she kept in her trunk.
She could see Dan's flashlight on the floor, pointed in her direction, which kept the gaping hole in the wood floor obscured in shadows. As she bent down to pick up the flashlight, Susan didn't hear anything as she suddenly fell into the hole, straight into the blackness below.
5
Duane was eating some cold pork n' beans from a can that he opened with his trusty P-38. It was one of the only good things he learned from his days as a grunt in the Army. He only served two years before he was medically discharged with a bad shoulder. He watched the pretty blonde woman slowly creep down the driveway like the big guy did earlier. Duane figured it was his wife or someone maybe checking on him. But Duane knew why he hadn't come out of 1312. No one ever did.
He knew about that thing in the crawlspace. One day a month or so ago, he wandered down into that basement and he saw that evil thing slithering around in the crawlspace. He about pissed his pants over the encounter. He begged and pleaded with the thing to let him go. He promised he would watch out and do what he could to get more people like him, the homeless from the neighborhood, to go down into the basement. Duane promised that he would feed him as much as he could. He did just that. With the gift of gab, Duane was able to talk several other homeless guys into going to the basement. He told them there was beer down there or some stored canned goods. He even led dogs and cats down there with a little tease of something to eat. Duane made up all kinds of stories, just so that horrible thing would stay in that crawlspace and not come out. He didn't want the monster looking for him.
So he stayed nearby and watched. He waited for anyone wandering down East Cypress Street. These two today were a bonus. Duane hoped that the thing in the crawlspace would live up to his end of the bargain and leave him alone. So he ate his cold beans and watched as the woman walked to the back of the house.
Duane thought he could hear her screaming and a distant rumble. It was really faint, but he was sure he heard it. They all screamed like that. It was a terrible sound. Better them and not him. He clanged on the can of beans with his spoon, his own version of whistling in the graveyard.
6
Two weeks passed since Duane had watched the big man and that blonde woman go into 1312 East Cypress Street and not come out again. He saw a police cruiser come by. Two cops got out and looked inside the house. But they came out just fine. Duane was surprised. He had never seen anyone go into that house and come out alive. During the past two weeks, no one had been walking around that Duane was able to lure in the house. He started to worry. The last few nights he found it hard to sleep, wondering if that evil thing in the crawlspace would come looking for him. He barricaded the front door with a heavy dresser he found, and a couch. He even put some old tires he found in the alley along the staircase that led to his bedroom; anything to slow down something that wanted to get him. None of those things made him feel much better when he lay down at night. He could barely sleep.
On this night, he noticed that even the rats were quiet. Usually he would hear the vermin scratching in the walls or attic. Tonight he heard nothing. Maybe they sensed something wasn't right. Duane wasn't sure. He just knew if he wasn't able to find someone to feed to that shadowy monster, then that thing would come looking for him. He would want to feed. He thought about leaving the house and running away. But he was sure the creature would know where he was.
It was almost midnight, and the night air was humid. Duane was wide awake on his mattress, afraid to fall asleep. That was when he heard the noise. In the stillness, he heard a rumble. It was a deep menacing growl that shook the house. Duane knew that the thing was coming to get him. He began to panic, trying desperately to open the bedroom window so he could escape out to the porch roof. But the window was frozen in place. Several coats of old paint and humidity made it impossible to open. He looked around the bedroom for something to defend himself with as the growling noise got louder. Duane heard what sounded like wood creaking as something came up the stairway toward him. In a frenzied dash he took his mattress and shoved it up against the bedroom door. But he knew that it was no use.
It only took a few minutes before the bedroom door shattered into sawdust as the thing closed in on its next meal. Duane was crying in the corner of the bedroom, with only his P-38 to defend himself with. He screamed as the shadows closed in, and the sharp teeth clamped down on his legs, pulling him into a bottomless pit that he could not escape. The fetid breath felt like a hot oven door had opened, enveloping him in a rotting stench of a mouth. In the end, Duane screamed like the rest. He tried to satisfy the creature from the crawlspace, but despite his efforts, darkness had come to call.
Blackened Spiral Down
1
I had been watching him for the past two weeks. I just knew the bastard was up to no good. There is just no good reason a man would be going into an old, abandoned church at all hours of the day and night. No good reason at all. After two days of it, I began to keep a diary of the visits. I took good, accurate notes, including times, what the weather was like, and other pertinent information. It took two weeks for me to get the courage to go over there to see what was going on. I only wish I had done so much sooner. I could have stopped the horrible things that were happening in the basement and maybe saved some lives. No one deserved what that sick bastard was doing to them over there at the old church. I only actually saw him going inside the church one time, but I could see light from a flashlight or maybe a camping lantern coming from the basement. I knew it was him, and I kept account of everything in my diary. I knew the police would want to know the information I was gathering at some point. In some strange way, it felt like I was doing a good deed, a sort of civic duty.
Living in the small village of Armington, Illinois, doesn’t offer many distractions from the daily grind of a dying, small Midwestern town. Not much ever happened in Armington, and most of the business and younger residents left many years ago. It is surrounded by several similar small towns and is 25 miles from Bloom
ington to the northeast. With barely 300 residents, it seems hard to believe that Armington was once a wealthy farming community, three times the current population, with a busy downtown, albeit only four square blocks. At one time, the Norfolk &Western Railroad came through, providing steady business with the conductors and railroad employees. Mama Norma’s Diner served the best biscuits and gravy around and did a great lunch business with her famous horseshoe sandwiches. There was also a hardware store, a few retail shops, a barber, a tavern, and of course a grain elevator which served the corn and soy farmers for miles. There was a Baptist church that has stayed open (somehow) and the Our Redeemer Christian Church that closed down more than 10 years ago. It sits across the street from my house on Old Farm Road, on the far north edge of town.
It was fast becoming an eyesore from neglect, and now that the roof was starting to cave in, raccoons and other small animals were taking up residence in the attic. It was only a matter of time before they took over the entire church. The couple that owned the land and building retired to Florida, and while they paid the property taxes, both were unwilling to do anything else to keep the building and grounds presentable. Residents complained to the Village of Armington, with no response. Thankfully, one long-time resident had a nephew on the board at Tazewell County, and he was able to appropriate the funds to demolish the old church, and force the owners to either pay for it or give the land back to the Village. The nephew scored lots of political points in closing the deal, and the Village of Armington was pleased to have the demolition planned for the fall, when the crops would be in and the local contractor would have the time to raze the old church.