Renovations

by John Stone

  Turning a corner, he moved out of the living room the stairs, making his way up to the second floor bedrooms. There seemed to be nothing out of place in the bedrooms either. The bed was made and the room was very tidy, no clothes or bags on the floor. Damianos felt a little jealousy—he wished his room was that clean.

  The bathrooms were just as undisturbed.

  However, when Damianos opened up Leon Edward's closet, it seemed a bit too undisturbed. It was as full as any rich man's closet would be. It was filled with a whole lot of polo shirts and variations of dress attire hanging up. It looked like every outfit he could possibly own was stuffed into the walk-in closet.

  If he was on vacation, he must have gone naked.

  The open book. The unfinished drink. The filled closet.

  It was looking more and more like Mr. Edward had just vanished.

  But Damianos knew better—people didn't vanish.

  **

  Damianos had noticed that the attic seemed to only be accessible through a small door at the end of one of the upstairs corridors. He thought about checking up there next but decided to put it off because it occurred to him that when he checked the first floor, he hadn't seen an entrance for the basement.

  Retracing his steps, he did a few more strolls through the ground floor, making sure that he wasn't missing anything but for the life of him, he couldn't find any sort of way into the basement. For a moment he thought, maybe there just wasn't one but then he recalled seeing a small window beneath the main structure of the house when he and the ladies had rounded the house. There was a basement beneath his feet—there had to be.

  Damianos quickly left the house through the back, walking a few strides before turning and looking back at the estate as a whole from the backyard. His two elderly accomplices cautiously approached him.

  “Did you find anything?”

  “No,” Damianos shook his head, still looking at the house in bewilderment. “Which is what worries me.”

  Damianos led them back to the side of the house and pointed out the small window that was almost covered by the bushes that had been well-tended alongside the house, almost completely hidden by the mulch.

  “I'm not crazy, right? That's clearly some kind of basement right there, yeah?”

  Both ladies seemed puzzled but gave him reassurance.

  “I'm not really used to houses like this, so...this might be a weird question...but where would a basement door be in a house like this?”

  Lillian was thankfully eager to answer.

  “In some old houses like these, the basement was just a cellar where folks would keep coal and wood. Sometimes they'd even keep winter supplies like jam jars or meats to be cured,” She spoke with confidence and Damianos was suddenly happy to have her at his side. “As for a doorway, well, a lot of the time they'd only have a door on the outside to dump the coal directly into the cellar.”

  “That makes sense,” Damianos said. “I couldn't find a door inside anywhere.”

  If Lillian was right, there had to be a door somewhere nearby.

  Chapter Three

  It was an undeniably enormous yard but there were only three walls that could reveal a door to the cellar.

  There it was. Like the window he had seen, the door was hidden behind some bushes, invisible at first glance and only partly visible under closer inspection. It didn't look like it had been opened for quite some time.

  “See that?” Damianos asked, kneeling down in front of the bushes.

  The two women looked closely at the bushes.

  “You think that's it?” Roberta asked, unconvinced.

  “Well of course it is, Roberta.” Lillian said harshly.

  “Okay, well...I have some tools in my shed that cut this stuff out of the way.” Roberta offered.

  “Do you think it's worth it, detective?” Lillian asked hesitantly. “Cutting up his shrubs without permission is a little...”

  Mr. Edward won't mind if he's never going to see those shrubs again. Damianos thought.

  “We have to cover all the bases. Make absolutely sure that he's not in the house somewhere. Like you said before, he's an older man. Never know if he's fallen or worse.”

  Roberta walked over to the shed in her backyard and after a few minutes, returned with some hedge clippers that Damianos gladly accepted. After a few minutes of cutting through the bushes, they had a clear path to the door.

  Damianos motioned for the two ladies to stay behind him while he kicked the door open.

  A steep staircase led down into the dark cellar but that wasn't what caught the attention of their senses.

  It was the stench.

  An odor of putrefaction emanated from the bottom of the stairs that made Roberta and Lillian gasp in horror. Damianos almost threw up a little in his mouth when the smell reached his nostrils. It was one of the foulest things he had ever smelt and usually, a foul smell doesn't come from something pleasant.

  The three of them stepped back from the cellar.

  “What is that!?” Roberta yelled, coughing.

  “I'm not sure,” Damianos said honestly. “Nothing good.”

  Damianos wasn't at all prepared for what was no doubt a nasty discovery. He pulled out his phone and called one of his most trusted friends and who had plenty of experience diving into the messiest situations.

  Alan Davros, the crime lab chief examiner.

  **

  “Damianos! We're swimming through hot shit again, eh?”

  Alan Davros had a smile that never seemed to leave his face.

  “What did he call you?” Lillian asked from behind Damianos.

  “Just a nickname they have for me back at the station.”

  Alan Davros was a shorter man who was rather scrawny, especially in comparison to the stockiness of Damianos. There was a youthfulness to him that always seemed to brighten up the mood. It rubbed some people the wrong way but Damianos appreciated that with all the messed up work Alan did, he was still able to have fun.

  Alan approached with some protective garments draped over one arm and what he liked to call his “bag of goodies” in the other. He walked over with his usual care-free floppiness.

  It wasn't an official call, but Alan seemed well-prepared, nonetheless.

  Damianos looked over to the two women who were looking rather pale.

  “Ladies, I appreciate all of the assistance you've given me, but I'm going to have to ask you to return to your homes. I'm sure you don't want to see what's in there.”

  I'm not even sure I do, he thought.

  “Thank you, detective.” Lillian said.

  Roberta and her both retreated toward the house next door. It was good they were sticking together. A little calming conversation would help with the stress of the day.

  When Damianos brought his attention back to the scene at hand, Alan had apparently already gone down the stairs, leaving a protective garment in his wake. Damianos appreciated his friend's fearlessness.

  Damianos put on the garments that had been left for him. The slippers felt as awkward to wear as ever but he appreciated the mask. It seemed to dull that foul odor just a little as he slid it over his nose and mouth.

  Trying not to touch the walls with his gloved hands, he moved down each step cautiously and with each small bit of descent he made, he felt he was walking into Hell. At least, it was probably the closest something could get to being what Hell probably smelled like.

  Damianos finally made it to the final step and found Alan a little ways inside the nearly pitch black cellar.

  Thankfully, Alan turned on a large torch light from his tripod, illuminating the room and clearing out the unsettling darkness.

  Unfortunately, Damianos wished he hadn't been able to see what was inside.

  The scene that met his eyes was like something out of the worst horror movie he'd ever seen.

  There was a man lying on his back at the center of the room.

  His face was mutilated nearly beyond all possible rec
ognition, bits of flesh ripped and torn at like paper. His hands were no better, the skin in some places flayed almost to the bone.

  But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part were the culprits.

  Rats.

  Most of them had scurried about the room the moment the light had been turn on but some still lingered on their meal. They nibbled and scratched at the corpse relentlessly, as if they were enjoying a great feast. One particular rat's tail slithered against the body's mouth as it chewed away at his ear, its clawed feet digging into his cheeks with each bite it took of his ear.

  Damianos took a few slow steps toward the disgusting display, causing the remaining rats to flee from the corpse.

  “What the hell...?” Alan asked.

  For the briefest of moments, Alan's seemingly permanent smile vanished.

  “I think we found Mr. Edward.” Damianos said.

  Alan, who had a much stronger stomach for these kinds of things, casually walked up to the corpse and crouched beside it, examining it closely. It took Damianos a few extra moments to muster up the determination to do the same, crouching on the other side of the old man's body.

  “You see this?” Alan pointed the man's face.

  Which part? The lips that were eaten or the nose that was eaten? Damianos had the urge to ask.

  “What?” He asked simply instead.

  “These.”

  Alan pointed his gloved hand closer to the body, toward some strange little blotches of—something—on the man's face. He moved his pointer finger from the face across the man's arms, hands, and body.

  Damianos looked at it closely.

  “Is that...rat poison?”

  “Indeed. Little rat poison nuggets...”

  If the body didn't tempt the rats to eat it, the rat poison definitely did.

  Damianos looked around to see dozens of rodents sprawled across the floor of the coal cellar. They're little bodies were distended, a clear result of the poison that had killed them.

  It was the door on the far wall, however, that caught Damianos's attention.

  “We have to call this in.”

  Chapter Four

  In the next hour and a half, police cruisers had converged on the beautiful house, furthering its descent from its once picture-perfect image. The yard's perimeter had been cordoned off by police tape. Several officers were spread around the property, most of them gathered in the backyard—and the cellar entrance.

  “Well, this is certainly something.” John Avers said to himself.

  Detective John Avers—always calm, collected, well-dressed, and Damianos's partner.

  In their years working together, John had proven himself to be an invaluable ally in taking on the worst cases in San Diego. Sure, people dubbed Damianos as “the tamer” but, in truth, just as much of that credit should go to John Avers.

  But John never liked the attention. That was just the type of guy he was. He was the kind who would read a book while everyone else watched TV.

  Even now, looking down at the cellar of horror, Damianos saw no real fear or disgust in his partner. John just straightened his tie and kept his usual unwavering calmness.

  When he had arrived, he first took statements from Lillian and Roberta, helping him catch up to the same page as his partner. He had also made sure to call the CSI lab to remove Leon Edward's car from the garage.

  Now, with some of the loose ends taken care of, he stared down into the abyss that reeked of death.

  “You may want to put on some scrubs and mask,” Damianos said. “Trust me, it's not pretty down there.”

  “I've gathered that much,” John said, sniffing for effect. “But no, I'll keep things straight up here for now. I trust you two can look further into whatever you have to down there.”

  “Aw, what's the matter, John? Afraid to get your nice suit dirty?” Damianos teased.

  “Ha,” John shrugged. “Not a big fan of rats.”

  “Fair enough. There's definitely plenty down there,” Alan chimed in with a smirk. “And not all of them have poisoned themselves.”

  Damianos and Alan made their way back down to the cellar.

  They made sure to stay clear of the rats' meal—Mr. Edward.

  Stepping over many of the little rodent corpses, they moved toward the mysterious door on the far end.

  “This place could really use a mouse trap or two....or twenty.” Alan said.

  Damianos knew that some felt put off by Alan's sarcasm and snarl while on cases but he understood where it came from. Working in forensics, dealing with murders on a daily basis, you had to have someway to keep sane, to make it seem almost normal. So Alan would detach himself, from the horror, make light of it to ease his mind into not cracking at the sights he had seen.

  “...or maybe just a dabble of rat poison.” Damianos said in return.

  Truth was, making light of things was something Damianos was familiar with too.

  After successfully avoiding stepping on anything they shouldn't, they made it to the old door on the other side of the room.

  Damianos took solace that whatever was behind the door couldn't possibly be worse than the poor old man on the floor.

  When they opened the door, he realized, that that wasn't the case at all.

  The room was small, with nothing but an old-fashion hole in the ground. It must have been the toilet of the house way back in the day.

  It wasn't, by any means, just a hole in the ground.

  Looking down into it, it was clear that it was filled with a disgusting sort of paste; visibly made of bones, half-eaten pieces of limbs, and other assorted body parts.

  Damianos wasn't usually very squeamish and Alan definitely wasn't but the sight of this even more extreme display of murder, combined with the still pervasive stench, was just too much.

  Gagging and coughing, he ran with Alan close behind past the rats and Mr. Edward, up the stairs and out of the basement. There was no joke that could calm him down or make him forget what he just saw, even for just a moment.

  The fresh air hit him like a wall, but he was happy to feel it fill his lungs. Escaping the foul stench of death in the cellar was a huge relief but it still lingered just a little. Damianos vomited into the nearby flowerbed and with his puke, his nausea seemed to be expelled.

  Damianos heard Alan throw up beside him and then John Avers's voice from behind.

  “I take it you found something.”

  With the new discovery piling onto the already disturbing one, the CSI and hazmat teams took the scene into their hands, being far more prepared than Damianos could ever be to deal with such grotesque matters.

  They worked well into the night to get Leon Edward's mutilated body out of his once untainted home. The teams also made sure to empty the septic hole in the far room, which was thankfully not that deep.

  “A forensic anthropologist is going to be identifying all of the body parts for us—if he even can,” John Avers explained in the back yard. “It'll probably take weeks.”

  “Great.” Damianos said, sitting on the backyard bench.

  “Quite a fine discovery you made today, Andre.” John said, glancing around at the police lights.

  John was one of the only people who called Damianos by his real name on a regular basis. He didn't mind. It was a way of keeping them on the safe level; no earned title to make it seem that Damianos was somehow more of a “tamer” than John was.

  “We should really get a new desk clerk. If Hughes had kept up his usual charm with the ladies, we probably never would've stumbled on all this.”

  “Or it at least wouldn't have been awhile, yeah.” John nodded.

  The two partners sat beside each other on the bench, still in awe of what a mess they'd now be wrapped up in. They solved plenty of cases together, but they weren't usually anything this gruesome.

  “I've got to get home to Annie.” Damianos said, rising. “We had plans tonight but I think I'm going to have to cancel...not really feeling well.”

&nb
sp; “Can't imagine why,” John stood up as well. “Say hi to Annie for me.”

  “Will do. Let me know if you hear any developments on this thing.” Damianos said, gesturing toward the large house.

  With that, he went walking across the property toward his car. It had certainly been a long day and while he knew Annie would be disappointed that they'd have to cancel their night on the town, she'd just have to understand.

  After all, she wasn't the one who just saw a man become rat food.

  As he reached his car, he noticed Lillian and Roberta standing over in Lillian's street across the yard, looking flustered and shaken by the whole situation. Still, they managed to give a few waves to him and he waved back before getting into his vehicle and left the house on the end of the street.

  **

  On Sunday morning, the cell phone rang.

  Damianos slowly began to waken, having only had a few hours of rest. He looked through his morning haze at the number—the precinct. That was never good. He grudgingly answered it.

  As soon as he heard the first sentence, he slumped back onto his pillow: a neighbor had found another body in a cellar and like Mr. Edward, the man had also been eaten by poisoned rats. It sounded just like the disgusting display he had witnessed before.

  There was one significant difference though—there was no septic hole nearby—instead, a compost bin in the back garden filled with another two dismembered bodies.

  **

  Damianos sat at his desk in the precinct, feeling on edge.

  The body count was already mounting. Seven bodies were already reassembled at the morgue; three were from that septic hole he'd had the pleasure of finding, and four more from two other separate discoveries. By mid-afternoon, another two had been found.

  All of the victims were elderly men.

  “Someone is tracking them. Going to their homes, killing them, and burying them in a place where they can decompose naturally, speeding the process along by luring the rats into eating them.”

  Damianos explained to some fellow cops and forensics analysts in their captain's office. John Avers stood at his side.

  “No need for a grave. Whoever is doing this just finds a compost bin or septic tank nearby and slips the bodies in. Then...it's just bout waiting until they're decomposed.”