by Pete Altieri
The town had been dying since the late 1960’s the grade when the grade school and high school closed, and the kids were forced to consolidate with the other small towns to form the Olympia School District. When the railroad stopped coming through and the schools went away, Armington began its slow death. Kids grew up and fled to the larger towns and cities, and the older citizens eventually died off and sold their rich farm ground to the big corporations, who gladly bought up the acres.
There isn’t much of anything in Armington now. The tavern barely stays open, just like the Baptist church, and one tiny convenient store remains. The post office doesn’t even deliver mail, and the townsfolk have to go pick up their mail each day. Armington is the classic story of a small town gone down the tubes. The other two houses near mine, on Old Farm Road, are vacant. The “for sale” signs in the yard are rusty and have weeds growing up around them. So no one else would have ever noticed the strange visitor going in and out of the old church. It was all up to me to find out what was going on and help the police catch the bastard.
2
It was two weeks after he started going over to the old church that I got the nerve to go over there myself. He had a key and went in the front door the one time I saw him. Since it was locked up tight, I decided to go around back and try getting in where no one would be able to see me. Despite Armington being a ghost town the last 10 years, there was still the occasional passerby, and in a small town – everyone knows everyone. There are few secrets.
I’ve lived in Armington all my 44 years. I was raised by my grandparents, who both lived in the house on Old Farm Road, where I still reside. Grandma had a massive stroke in the fall of 1985, and it left her nearly incapacitated. Grandpa and I did our best to take care of her, but it wasn’t easy. Six months after the stroke, Grandma hadn’t improved. I walked in one night to Grandpa shoving a pillow into her face. Tears were streaming down his face while he did it. I knew it was an act of love, even though it was murder. She barely put up a fight, as if she wanted to die and pass on to the other side. Grandpa turned around to find me standing there in the bedroom doorway, and told me to keep my mouth shut about it. He told me that he hated to see her like that, and he couldn’t bear it for another day.
When the deputies showed up with the ambulance to pick up Grandma, they took me outside and away from Grandpa so we could talk. They knew what happened, but it was difficult to prove that he smothered her with the pillow. They threatened me and said I could go to jail as an accomplice to the murder if I didn’t tell them what happened. So I told them all about it. I figured they wouldn’t do much of anything to Grandpa since he was old and was a grieving widower, putting his wife out of her misery. I was wrong. They charged him with second degree murder, and his lawyer said that the jury would probably feel sorry for him and only give him ten years.
Two days before his trial was to begin, I found Grandpa in the basement, hanging from a noose he made with a bedsheet. He swayed beneath one of the galvanized water pipes, his eyes wide open and staring at me. Even though he was dead, I knew his eyes didn’t lie. He hated me for telling the police what happened. He never asked me about it, but he knew. I could tell by the way he acted around me. As he was swinging in the dim light of the basement, I felt an overwhelming guilt for putting him in this situation.
Now it was me all by myself in the big, 90-year-old, two-story Cape Cod-style house surrounded by cornfields on the north edge of town. I was surprised that Grandpa had left me a sizeable inheritance, and since there were only distant relatives, it all came to me. The old house was paid for, and the property taxes were relatively small. I now owned forty acres of farm ground that surrounded the house, and many years ago, Grandpa had leased it out to a local farmer to plant corn and beans for a nice sum of money. There were also the six wind turbines on the property that earned me $10,000 each on an annual basis. Thanks to Grandpa, I didn’t want for anything, as long as I was smart with what he left me.
As I made my way through the tall grass in the back of the church, I noticed a small window near the back door was broken. I was able to reach in to unlock the door and gain access inside. The pungent smell of mildew was striking as soon as I walked in, probably from the rain coming in the gaping holes on the roof. As I walked, floor boards creaked, and I could hear animals scurrying in the attic above my head. I knew enough to bring a good flashlight with me, because even though it was daytime, the boarded-up windows didn’t offer much light inside. The first floor was empty, aside from the few boxes left behind when the church closed down. There was also some broken furniture and piles of clothes in one corner, probably donations that never made it past the bin they kept for that purpose.
I stopped every few steps to listen for any noises. I didn’t hear any. I did notice another strong odor as I approached the door that apparently led to the basement. It was an odd smell, like rotting fruit, but a stomach-churning cocktail that almost forced me to vomit before my hand touched the door. I knew it was something bad coming from the basement, and I figured the police would really need an upstanding citizen like me to tell them all about it. I grabbed one of the t-shirts in the pile of donated clothes and placed it over my nose and mouth in a futile attempt to mask the horrible stench. The moldy odor of the shirt did little to hide the miasma of death ascending the stairs, as I opened the door and began my descent into the blackness.
The basement stairs creaked and groaned as I made my way down. I clutched the wobbly handrail, hoping the old wood wouldn’t give way and send me cascading into the unknown. I was also thinking about the stranger I had seen enter the church and hoped that I was not going to see him down here. The smell was overwhelming and became increasingly stronger with each step. The dampness of the basement was palpable, and the humidity amplified the pungent odor, making it feel as if I was walking through a dense fog. It was then that I heard what sounded like a female voice calling out.
“Help me!” she cried, and then I heard what sounded like fingernails on wood, followed by a soft pounding. I believed she was on the other side of the basement from where I was, frozen on the last stair.
“Who is there?” I called out, shocked to hear any signs of life in the pitch black. My heart was racing as I made it past the last stair and to the damp concrete floor. She didn’t reply, but I could hear a soft cry and whimpering in the void.
As I gingerly made my way across the floor, my eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness. My flashlight beam was strong, thanks to a fresh set of batteries, and I tried to figure out where the faint voice was coming from. It sounded very weak, from a woman in obvious distress. I could still hear the soft cries coming from across the basement. Then I tripped over something on the floor that sent me sprawling face-first into the concrete. My flashlight bounced and was sent sliding across the floor, several feet into the darkness. When it came to rest, the utter silence in the basement was maddening. I could see the beam of light pointing to my right as I struggled to get up. My face stung from the blow, and I could feel sharp pain in my right arm, where I attempted to cushion the fall. I felt something cold but sticky touch the side of my face, and I jumped back in terror!
I scrambled to get to my flashlight. I wish now I never found the light. I also wished I had never decided to go into the church or into the abyss of the basement. Undoing what I had already done was not possible, as I held the flashlight in my now quivering hands, shining its light upon the source of the cold and sticky thing that touched me. The sight of it was horrible and etched into my mind, no matter how hard I would try to make it go away. There was a large wooden table in the middle of the basement floor. On that table were various body parts strewn about, in pools of coagulated blood and other bodily fluids. These sickening, rotting human pieces were in various stages of decomposition. This display of carnage was obviously the source of the disgusting, rotten smell. There was a woman’s arm hanging off the side of the table, with three of the five fingers missing, and that is what I beli
eved touched the side of my face. Reaching up, I could still feel a nasty, wet slime that her mangled hand left behind. The mere thought of it forced me to hurl up whatever was in my stomach. The cacophony of odors was unreal.
I was reeling at the sight of what was before me on that large table. I could see hand saws of various sizes, and an old vice attached the edge of the table, with what appeared to be a woman’s leg in its grasp. The foot was clad in a nylon stocking, and barely hanging on, as flies swarmed to feast on the exposed flesh. Then I shined my light around the room, giving me a reprieve from the horror show before me, only to find a neat row of severed heads on an old dusty shelf! There were eight or nine of them, also in various stages of decomposition. It looked like they were all young women, or even younger girls. It was hard to tell their ages, as the gray pallor of the skin in the dim light gave a mercifully limited view. Their dead eyes were staring at me, as my beam of light seemed to disappear in the emptiness. It was incredibly terrifying! The stranger who I observed only two weeks ago had surely been coming down here for months, or even years, making it his workshop of horrors.
“Help me!”
The voice cut the tension like a chainsaw through a dollhouse.
“I’m coming,” I told her, making my way across the basement, hoping that maybe I could at least save one victim from this sadistic maniac.
As I approached the other side of the room, my flashlight picked up a ring of keys hanging on a rusted metal spike, firmly in one of the floor joists. I reached for the keys and began looking furiously for a door they would unlock. I could hear the woman crying only a few feet from where I was standing, behind one of three locked doors. The rooms were small, like the size of broom closets. My hands shook as I put the first key into the locked door. It obviously didn’t fit, and I tried the next one. My heart was racing, as I couldn’t help but feel someone was watching me. I wondered if the stranger could be somewhere in the darkness behind me. It was unsettling to say the least.
Suddenly I had the right key and turned it while I pulled the door open. A sickening smell of urine and feces swept over me. I winced and gagged slightly as I shined my light into the small room. There was nothing in the room aside from the bucket with the human waste and two sturdy chains that were bolted to the brick wall. The floor was concrete like the rest of the basement, and at one side was a pile of threadbare, filthy rags that were probably being used as bedding. It was horrendous, and I knew that it most likely was a makeshift cell used to keep someone for a period of time. The thought of what horrors the victim endured in her captivity, especially with the soundtrack of evil on the other side of the heavy door, was terrible.
I then opened the second door. I saw the same things in that cell. I did observe some dried blood on the floor and on one wall. It spoke of extreme misery and pain at the cruel hands of the sadist butcher. I quickly backed out of the cell, knowing now that the source of the subdued cries was in the third and final room before me. I glanced over my shoulder into the endless darkness of the basement and put the key into the lock, then pulled on the heavy door to reveal a quivering mess of a young girl. She was cowering against the back wall, where her wrists were chained to the brick. She was almost completely naked, except for a filthy pair of panties and part of a t-shirt. She couldn’t have been older than 11 or 12.
I reached my hand out, and she recoiled at the sight of me, her body shaking with fear.
“I’m here to help you. What is your name?”
She kept her head down while her brown hair stuck to her skin, soiled in sweat and grime from her occupation of the third cell. She was incredibly thin and looked like she was at the end of her time on this planet, likely from the severe neglect and hellish conditions. The dampness of the basement would escalate into a humid nightmare at the middle of the day, continuing on for hours, until the darkness outside helped cool it down. There was a dog bowl in the corner of her cell. It was empty.
I stood at the threshold of her cell, in shock at what I was witness to. I knew I had to do something. My first instinct was to run across the street to my house and call the police. I didn’t have a cell phone, and in Armington, it wouldn’t have been much use with spotty reception. I considered that, but had second thoughts. I thought about the stranger, and how once the police showed up to the scene, he would never return. I couldn’t bear the thought of him not being captured. I thought about the young women and girls who perished here, and how this madman was displaying their heads like putrid trophies of his handiwork. I thought maybe I could help the police catch this killer by continuing my observation. I spent a few minutes weighing the options, and I decided the best option was to go for some food and water, and leaving her behind, in hopes the beast would return and be snared in the trap.
She didn’t make a sound when I put two bologna and cheese sandwiches in her bowl and gave her some water. She just flinched when I got near, shaking horribly at the sight of me. He had her so riddled with fear, it really bothered me to shut the door, but I knew it was for the greater good. When I got home, I made a lengthy entry into my diary to account for what I had just seen. I filled at least a dozen pages with the details. In the back of my mind, and through a fitful night of insomnia, I hoped the girl would survive the night.
3
The following week, I made it a point to go to the church every morning to check on the girl. I still couldn’t get her to talk, and she still flinched when I opened the door each day, as if she was scared to death at my presence. I considered that due to the lack of light in the basement, and her horrendous living conditions, she probably thought the deranged stranger and I were one in the same. Despite the fact that I was bringing her food each day and water to drink, she still shook uncontrollably while I was in the cell. I wanted to bring her fresh clothes and a blanket to lie on, but I knew the stranger would figure out someone was interfering, and the last thing I wanted to do was tip him off that the cops and I were on to his game.
Each day for that week, I stood vigil at my living room window, peering through the shades and recording every painstaking detail. One day an Ameren utility truck stopped in front of the church, with workers doing something at the top of the power pole along Old Farm Road. I figured it must have been the police, maybe installing some sort of surveillance camera, since I knew there was no electricity at the old church. I did not see the stranger again that week in broad daylight, but on Friday night, I observed what looked like flashlight beams in the basement. There were only two small basement windows that faced my house, but it looked like he was down there. The thought of what he might be doing to that poor, frightened girl enraged me. I debated whether or not to get my Grandpa’s shotgun from his bedroom closet and take the law into my own hands. I was afraid that if the stranger got himself a good lawyer, or if the Tazewell County Sheriff’s department, being inexperienced with a crime of this scope, would botch the investigation, it might set him free on a technicality. I was worried that if I waited another day, the girl wouldn’t make it. She looked terrible that morning when I brought food and water to her.
I paced around the house for a good hour, looking out my window every two or three minutes. I knew that my reluctance to call the police was likely causing her more pain, or worse, signing her death warrant. That’s when I decided the best choice was to grab Grandpa’s shotgun and make my way across the street, under the cover of darkness.
4
I made my way down the basement stairs once again. It was 11pm, and it was the first time I had been in the church at night. I could hear the raccoons scurrying in the attic. The stairway was even darker than my previous visits, which I had not thought possible. The horrible stench of death was hanging in the air, yet I was becoming used to the smell and didn’t vomit. I had the shotgun firmly in my grasp, not knowing if the killer was still in the basement, lurking in the shadows. I paused at each step, listening intently for any sound, but there was none. I hoped that I would hear the girl crying, or making
some sort of noise. There were no sounds at all. I tried to control my own breathing and kept my light off, so as not to give my own position away, in case the stranger was waiting for me below. My finger was on the trigger, ready to blast him into the unknown if necessary.
Having been in the basement now many times, I knew how to avoid the trip hazards and disgusting, festering body parts the killer kept out on the heavy wooden table. I reached for the keys, still hanging in their usual place, and then turned on my flashlight, to see if he was still there. I saw no one. The collection of severed heads were still arranged on the dusty shelf, staring at me as I made my way around, to avoid being surprised by someone lying in wait. I was surprised at how much cooler the basement was at night, as compared to what it was like during the heat of the day.
I made my way to the third cell, where the young girl would be huddled in fear. Not hearing any noise coming from the other side of the door worried me, but I thought it was possible she would be sleeping at this time. I unlocked the door to check on her. I was shocked to see she was not inside! The heavy chains with manacles hung from the wall, with no one attached. The small cell was empty, except for the bucket, her food bowl, and a few dirty rags she was using to sleep on. Where could she be?
I quickly turned around, my light frantically looking around the basement for her. That’s when I noticed something was different on the table. There was more added to the display of human carnage I had seen many times now. The body of the frail, young girl was naked and lying spread-eagle on the table, her rib cage filleted open, exposing her organs. Her hands were bound with twine to nails on the table, and her feet as well. I shined my light on her face, which was contorted in a display of sheer agony, as if she was alive when the maniac opened her up. My eyes welled up seeing her this way. My grief was endless, wondering if I had called the police when I first saw the lights in the basement, if she would have been saved. Her short life was met with a diabolical end, at the hands of this dark stranger, who invaded our small, simple town.
