Entry 40

Even with the door open the smell was still overbearing. I tried to go back inside but the smell was so overpowering that as I would near the bedroom I would start to retch. The flies were also hundreds of times worse than they had been the day before. The only chance I had at ever being able to go through the apartment was to get them out of it.

The utility room had some cleaning supplies so I was able to find some thick rubber gloves. There were also some thicker sheets of clear plastic they used when they were renovating and removed the door or windows. Sadly, there were no masks. I went through the bathrooms in the apartments and found some chest rub. I remembered seeing in movies they would rub it under their nose to be able to handle the smell of bodies.

I put some chest rub under my nose, put on the gloves, grabbed the plastic, and headed back into the apartment. The smell was still hard to handle; the chest rub did help make it a bit more tolerable though. As I reached the bedroom door the smell still was too strong to handle and the flies were so thick it was hard to even breathe. I headed back and tied a shirt on as a make-shift mask. I then put more chest rub on the mask and tried again. This time, although still gut-retching, I was finally able to make it into the bedroom.

Two years ago what I saw would never be shown to the public. Only the unfortunate police officers and people who handled the cleanup would have seen this. One person in the bed had not been asleep but was instead on top of the covers facing the foot of the bed. The person next to the chair was almost missing their head; the majority of the blood on the wall was centered on the ceiling above the chair. The shotgun lying in front of the chair was probably the cause of all the gore on the walls and ceiling. There were three shells on the floor.

As I looked across the room it felt like I was watching a movie. It was so horrible and yet I felt numb and detached as I examined the bodies. Even the horrible smell seemed to fade as if my mind had retreated, leaving me only with the most basic thoughts. Through the haze of my mind I had a moment of clarity. The person in the bed, who I assume was a guy based on the clothing, must have stayed home sick. The person on the floor next to the chair, who was likely a girl because of the pink shirt, had stayed home to take care of him or perhaps worked a late shift. He must have changed into one of them and she shot him. Then at some point she shot herself. Maybe she knew she was changing or perhaps she realized what lay ahead and did not want to face it alone.

Moving the bodies out of the apartment was horrible. I had to go outside countless times to try and recover. Even then I threw up almost every time I moved one of them. It is the worst thing I have ever seen or done. Using the plastic and blankets I was able fight off retching long enough to drag the oozing bodies to the other side of the building and push them off the second floor. With the bodies out there was still a horrible mess from the rotting corpses. I took the blankets, bed, clothes and everything from the room that could harbor the smell and tossed it with the bodies. Even then the smell and flies were overwhelming.

I poured bleach over the spot on the floor where the one body had been and splashed it around the rest of the room. It helped a bit, and what had become a cloud of black flies seemed to thin quickly. I did not dare try to breathe without the mask and the chest rub. I left the bleach to hopefully fix the smell and went back to my apartment.

Before entering, I took off my shoes and left them outside. Then I walked straight to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and stepped in clothes and all. Once I had scrubbed myself once, I stripped off my clothes and tried to scrub out the wretched smell from my skin. Even after I was out of hot water the smell still seemed to linger. I finally gave up and put more chest rub under my nose. I threw my ruined clothes over the railing. I will never be able to forget today.