Terror in itself is a helpless feeling that is usually injected immediately into our systems. Almost like it’s just sitting dormant, filling a needle that is already poking into our veins. It’s waiting for the perfect moment for the plunger to be pushed. It’s usually triggered by something you’ve seen or heard, and maybe on occasion a smell. The smell option was less likely for me being that my accident left my senses a series of shades duller than that of a normal person.
Anosmia wasn’t a term most would’ve commonly learned, but I learned it shortly after a T-ball accident when I was just twelve-years-old. We’d just lost the division finals and were doing a small pick-up game for fun to celebrate the season. We typically couldn’t even sniff the playoffs, so to a bunch of perennial failures, just making the finals was a big deal.
Coach Joe wasn’t paying attention to the friendly scrimmage, instead, he had his mustache aimed in the direction of Sara Sander’s freshly single mother. He was more concerned with a post-game hook-up than his kids hitting baseballs safely. With his back turned, he’d neglected to notice that there were two of us warming up in the batter’s box. It was me and this other girl named Christine Rivers.
She’d just finished a warm-up swing and, as the bat reached back over her shoulder, it cracked me right on the bridge of the nose. The Louisville Slugger hit directly in the perfect spot to generate a most unpleasant explosion. Blood flew out from the cavity everywhere, my white Landry’s Hardware jersey looked like someone doused it with paint. The end result was a deep nasal fracture which left my ability to smell faint on a good day.
That’s how I knew the man was a candidate for the Bissell. If I could smell it, then his place needed a serious cleansing. Once folks saw what I could do for them, they usually took the opportunity I offered. I had gotten a harsh hint of it when I entered the house and it continued to intensify. The closer we got to the bedroom, the more pungent it got. Once I found the specific area he wanted clean, all of the surrounding circumstances of the encounter clicked. It was like it took the last piece of the puzzle being inserted in place to understand the whole disturbing portrait.
I might’ve solved the puzzle that led me to this point, but now, I was faced with a completely different one. A stomach-churning wet pool of mutilation was the last thing I expected. Save for the mess my sister, Lisa, had left in her room, I’d never seen so much blood. Her brown hair had dried and begun to crust with her own crimson. She was naturally a brunette, but for all intents and purposes, she was now a redhead.
She was a small woman, or at least it appeared that way. However, it wasn’t obvious enough to bet on. Figuring out what was connected to what was hardly as simple as the children’s song so many of us knew by heart. She was now essentially just a pile of chunks and sections.
The torso and limbs had been divided up like pizza in a first-grade math problem. Each piece was skin-free, except for the hands and feet. The rest of the exterior casing had been ripped off and stacked up by itself right behind her head.
The other portions of her sat bone-in, the purple mass of meat still mixed in with the various organs people often picture in their heads but never expect to see in person. The disturbing jumble of violence laid out before me caused me to drop the Bissell immediately and bellow a bloodcurdling scream.
Everything I did next was all on instinct. I quickly understood that my scream alone could have been a grave mistake. The loud pitch I pushed out seemed to agitate The Slob. He made it clear to me that he wouldn’t accept that.
His puffy bulbous hand swatted me in the mouth and nose with a stiff, telegraphed backhand. His power was shocking for a man of his stature, the half-hearted blow sent me flying on my ass into the human gumbo below. It was like T-ball all over again, my uniform was covered in the horror. When I landed, I knocked the piles of woman over and my forearm scraped against the teeth in her open mouth. It left a deep slash that released some red from inside me.
I still hadn’t stopped screaming. I could see he was clearly upset with me, although the why didn’t connect so much. Was I just meant to be the next upcoming mountain of flesh? Would I be his latest destruction, or was it something else? I was still shell-shocked, sitting within the woman’s insides when he kicked me in the jaw. My upper body was sent flying backward, banging my head on the hardwood floor.
I stared up at the dingy yellow ceiling tiles above, which looked like they’d been stained from ages of exhaled tobacco smoke. I’d never had a chance to smoke in my life and I was kind of regretting it. Some secondhand intake when I was around my friends in high school was the closest I’d come. From what I understood, these were the situations that people smoked because of. It was a random thought but I would’ve given anything for a cigarette.
After he rocked my jaw, there were no longer any screams escaping from it. I felt dazed and possibly concussed. I could see him in my peripheral vision on the floor as he ventured into the corner of his closet. He rummaged about somewhat before turning back toward me.
His hands were now covered in yellow kitchen gloves that, judging from what was still stuck to them, seemed to have been used when he cut up the woman. In one hand, he clutched a black garbage bag, in the other, he gripped a long-jagged bread knife. I knew I’d already prodded the hornets’ nest but how bad was the sting going to be?
When he began to close in, I thought that bedroom was where everything would end for me. For that moment to be my definitive one would be a fantasy I could have only dreamed of. My nightmare was only just blooming. The hell that surrounded me was merely a blueprint at the time.
He dropped to his knees in front of the head, ignoring me as he grabbed the woman’s cranium. He rested it sideways in front of him and, beginning at the hairline, he started sawing around the edges of her scalp.
Once he felt he’d made enough cuts, he pressed down on her head with all of his weight using the point of his flabby knee. Then, with his hand, he pulled the hair away from it. The living wig ripped loose just as her skull caved in. The Slob’s knee crashed through the front, literally driving the thoughts from her mind.
I gawked down blankly at the pool of gooey cranial contents that lay on the carpet. He continued about his business like it all meant nothing. He tossed her scalp into the garbage bag before gathering up the remainder of the meat that was heaped up around me.
I laid motionless, only moving to avoid contacting him as he gathered up parts of the woman that were closest to me. The bag was mostly full by the time he finished, all that was left was some of the puddles and globs that had erupted or been trimmed from her.
His eyes stopped on the purse that had remained slung over my shoulder. He grabbed hold of it and tore it away from me, ripping the strap in the process. He shook it about fiercely and listened to the keys inside clink before tossing it in with the body parts.
He dragged the bag toward the door but paused before exiting. He sat down the squishy contents and his knife before returning to where I dropped the vacuum. He kicked it towards me imprecisely, brandishing his rotten teeth in the direction of my petrified demeanor. He seemed much more at ease now that I was no longer hysterical.
“Clean it,” he grunted.
His voice sounded unpredictably average, contrary to the fact that there was almost nothing else I could point to that was ordinary about him. After providing me the task, he left me in the room alone. I listened to the door lock activate behind him once he’d exited. I broke down almost immediately after he left me but tried not to let my tears make me completely useless.
I bawled as inaudibly as I could while beginning to case the room. All the doors were locked outside of the closet. But upon inspection, it only held old clothing and shoes, nothing else of value or that could be used as a weapon. I moved onto the windows only to find that they were all nailed shut, and furthermore, even if they weren’t, escape was restricted by the thick metal barring that shielded the exterior. I now knew those weren’t designed to keep prowlers out, they were designed to keep the captured in.
At least, at first, that seemed to be my conclusion. I realized laying out the next logical step wouldn’t be simple. How could I have been so fucking stupid, why didn’t I listen to Daniel? I should’ve known something was wrong with this ugly place. All the signs were there. I’d gotten too damn greedy; the money had become more important than my safety and, more importantly, the safety of my child. Our child.
The real root of the issue was that I hadn’t taken Daniel’s perspective seriously. I sat there like I knew everything before anything had even happened. While the prospect of his fears transpiring was remote, that didn’t make them invalid. If I had just shown a tad more respect for them, I’d probably be back home, by his side and preparing for motherhood.
Instead, I was rooming with the devil. An evil that people are only supposed to hear about but never encounter. A viciousness that we only see on the big screen. A monster so deviant that it seemed fit for Hollywood, but at the same time, was too real and gritty for their polished cinematography to capture.
I didn’t even have the sense to bring the pepper spray canister Daniel had bought for me. It sat uselessly in my glovebox. Not that it would’ve solved all of my problems, but maybe I could’ve given myself another option for defense or an exit.
I had started to feel like I’d become part of the gossip that people didn’t believe could happen to them. The dreadful things that happened in the world that were always in another state or another town. Except, now, they’d found me. The evil had materialized and sought me out.
The Slob was undoubtedly a ruthless killer. He slaughtered that woman’s carcass with the callousness of a butcher. It was as if she wasn’t human to him. She was just meat and nothing else. He didn’t kill me though, why? I pondered.
Instead of chopping me down, he gave me instructions and, based on his previous temper, I was thinking that I’d better not upset him again. He brought me inside to clean—to solve a problem for him. If I could make myself useful, I might just be able to stretch my lifespan a little further. It was the most sensible plan that I could think of. Just fucking do what he says.
There had to be a way out of this place. If there was, I would find it. I just needed to stay alive long enough to. I had to. I could feel a growing fear inside me for my unborn child. My motherly predispositions kicking in before I technically was one.
A new horror sunk in, the unsettling knowledge that I wouldn’t be going home tonight, if ever. There was now a very malicious force separating me from the single person I felt sick not being around. I couldn’t even remember the last time I slept alone.
I began to compose myself, searching for the strength to push through the fiendish mess around me. The best thing I could do while waiting to craft an escape route was exactly what The Slob said. If I cleaned up, hopefully, I could avoid any further danger and conflict by appeasing him. I reached over to the Bissell and plugged it into the wall socket.
Getting everything up was a process. I had to run over it about four times to snag all of the bits of biology and, even then, it was far from perfect. It was so reminiscent of what I’d done with Lisa, the sickening task was grinding the wound back open again. At least I had a tool to clean the carpet this time, a battle I lost long ago. I actually had a chance this time around.
It was just as I was finishing sucking up the remainder of the brain pool when the door unlocked. The floor still had dark red undertones but I assume the minor stain would be expected. Given the sort of massacre that had occurred upon the rug, the Bissell had worked a steam-cleaning miracle. There was no telling how long the lady had been sitting there but I felt, given the task, I’d done about as well as I could’ve hoped for.
The Slob entered again, holding a plate with both hands, which held a lump of meat with a bone inserted deep inside it. He was careful not to spill any of the gravy that was riding on top of it. He set the steaming dish among the clutter on the dresser. A soiled pair of women’s underwear spilled over into the plate. He looked at me and inspected the area I’d just finished cleaning.
“Now you will eat,” he ordered before heading back for the door.
“Wait, please, I finished doing what you asked, may I please leave now? This is all just between us. I can’t tell anyone that I helped clean-up with you anyway, it’s illegal to do that, I’d be in trouble too,” I pleaded. Trying to reason with him was pointless, he just walked out on me, not listening to a word I said.
Again, the door locked and I was left to wonder: Will I ever get out? What is the fatty-looking meat on the plate? If I don’t get away, will I be destined to have a similar fate as the woman I cleaned up?
They were all valid questions, but sadly, none were addressable. For now, there was no way I was eating anything that hideous pig gave me. Will it be that fucking slob or his food that kills me first?
He didn’t return for the rest of the day or during the evening. I couldn’t hear much outside of the familiar sound of rats clawing in the walls and rustling over the ceiling tiles. It’d been a long time since I’d heard those rumblings, I thought while slowly stroking my belly. I couldn’t sleep without Daniel. He must’ve been ill with worry. He was probably talking with the police right now, maybe he could somehow lead them to me. Maybe, but I was doubtful.
I heard a car start up out front and rushed over to the window to pull a blind aside. I peered out from my penitentiary perspective. I could see the specifically shaped headlights of my Spectrum carving their way through the darkness. He appeared to be moving the car away from the front of the house, moving it out of sight…
That meant that if someone was going to find me, they wouldn’t be seeing my car upfront. It wasn’t as if there was traffic around here and no one knew I went down this odd road anyway. It was far off the beaten path and on a dead-end.
Rescue from outside powers was seeming less and less probable. Daniel had an idea of the vicinity I was in, but how much could that help really? I was coming to grips with the hard facts of the matter; if I was somehow going to survive this depraved ordeal, it was going to have to be because of my own actions.
