An Ominous House

Wilson and Chao are called to the Wells house in Seattle. What they find is more than anyone expected.

           On November 17th, 2003, the Seattle PD received thirteen complaints about the noise in 2393 26th avenue, residence of Mr. and Mrs. Wells, along with their daughter of five. Callers from 2391 and 2395 both reported that it sounded as if both adults in the house had gotten into a serious fight, as the sound of breaking furniture and glass suggested. The daughter, Taylor, was well-liked locally, and every call voiced concern for her safety. At 10:37 PM, a pair of officers was dispatched to the house.

        When they arrived, they were surprised to find silence. The unfortunately named William Wilson, a newbie on the force, went up to the door. He knocked several times, but had no answer. His partner (older Asian man) retrieved two flashlights from their car, and they evaluated the scene. The house appeared to be in order; there were no broken windows, no open doors. There was no noise from the house, but that was to be expected from a working-class family at nearly 11 PM. They radioed back to the station, and they were informed that there had been a call received from 2395 that said, “Oh God… I-I think Mrs. Wells is dead… I heard her scream and then I heard a thud and I think Mr. Wells killed his wife… dear God…” Following this, the two men forced entry into the house.

        After the entryway, they turned to their right and stopped. Even though the lights were smashed, they could see source of the noise complaint. It seemed as though every single dish and glass that could have been broken had been broken; the splintered fragments of wooden chairs were spread across the floor; two floor-level cabinets had been kicked in, one was hanging off its bottom hinge, and three cabinet doors had been pulled fully off. Most worryingly, there was a knife missing from the knife stand: the carving knife. The two men drew their guns in almost the same movement. They called out, “Mr. and Mrs. Wells, this is Seattle PD. Give us a sign that everything is alright. Come into your kitchen with your hands up, and bring your daughter.”

        After a few minutes of silence, the two moved forwards into the living room, which was just as chaotic. The lamp that presumably had stood in the far corner of the room had been broken in half and jabbed into the wall, which was covered in scratches and dents. One couch had been broken in half, and the side panel was missing. The single source of light in the room came from the fire that was the other couch in the room. Wilson whispered to his senior, “This seems a little extreme for just two people, doesn’t it?”

        The older man, grim-faced, replied quietly, “If you’re hurt in love, you’re possible of things you’d think impossible right now. Keep quiet and keep your eyes peeled.”

        Together, they followed the natural layout of the house. There was a hallway next, five doors to the left, a cornered staircase to the right. Ominously, there was a dark red stain growing from under the second door on the right. The senior officer whispered, “I’ll take these rooms, you take upstairs. Once clear, you call me. I’ll call you when I’m done. Rendezvous back here in ten minutes.”

        “Yeah, okay…” said Wilson, nodding agreement. He amended himself, “I mean, yes sir.”

        Without further ado, the two men separated. Wilson took out his flashlight and held it to his gun, how he’d been instructed. Checking and double-checking everything he saw, he climbed the staircase. At the top landing, he saw a small foot - a child's foot - sticking out from a room. Swiftly, Wilson walked to the foot and looked at the child it belonged to. The poor girl was naked, covered in scratches and bruises, and must have been only five or six. What sort of sick b*****d does this to his daughter? He wondered to himself. He thought back to the report he’d read on the way over to the Wells’ house, and remembered that they had a small daughter… Taylor Harriet Wells.

        Wilson moved to her side and kneeled down, all observance lost in worry of this battered little girl. “Hey, little girl, can you move? Who did this? Where are your parents?” After a few seconds of no response, Wilson told her, “Alright. I’m going to pick you up and move you out to our police car, and then we’ll take you back to the station.” He carefully slung her limp body over his shoulder, fireman-style, and with gun in hand made his way back down to the floor of the house.

        He called out, “Sir! I’ve found Taylor Wells, I’m bringing her out to the car. I’ll be right back inside, sir!” Without waiting for a response, he tread gingerly around the wreckage inside the house and back outside. He carried Taylor to the car, set her down on her side in the back seat, and reached for the transmitter " but drew his hand back. What if he got the credit for this? He’d already heroically carried out the daughter, and what if he got Mr. Wells, too? Why, he’d be a hero! Maybe that cute redhead the desk over would notice him then.

        He deliberately closed the door and walked back into the house. He checked his radio when he got into the house again, and said, “I’ve carried young miss Taylor out of the house. No backup necessary, the situation is under control. There is a small fire inside the house, but is contained. Proceeding to Chao’s location within the house.” Again treading through the mess, he made his way past the flaming couch and into the hallway, where there were no signs of life. Wilson checked his watch " thirteen minutes had passed. Chao should have been here, waiting for him. Something was wrong.

        He readied his gun and steadied his hand, turning down the hallway. He noticed the same pool of darkness under that second door on the right that Chao had, but that door was open… Wilson stepped forward as silently as possible and opened the first door on the right. A small office, with a smashed computer and the books all fallen off the shelves. Nothing out of the ordinary for this house. He stepped inside, checked the room, and left the room, leaving the door open. He then checked the first room on the left.

A dead German Shephard lay in the middle of the concrete floor, its stomach jaggedly slit and its torn intestines piled on the floor next to it. Wilson vomited from the smell and the sight, and felt slightly guilty for contaminating the scene. This room was slightly larger than the office had been, and there were bowls for food and water inside the windowless room. The concrete walls were covered in what appeared to be scorch marks, but that didn’t make any sense. There was a washing and drying machine in the corner by the door he had entered, and a door in the far corner, presumably leading outside. Ignoring the dead dog, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary here. Wilson checked the door, and it did indeed lead to the outside. Exiting the room, Wilson again left the door open. That feeling that something was very wrong here grew stronger with each second that passed.

He checked the second door on the left, and found a bathroom. Little inspection was needed. The mirror was shattered, the shower curtain was down, but there was no blood, no fire, and less of a mess than anywhere else. He took a look at the medicine bottles in the cabinet behind the mirror, which had been categorized by shelf. “Antidepressants” were on the bottom row of the three. The second row was split equally between “Headaches” and “Fevers”. The third row was alcohol, labeled “Happiness”. Wilson might have laughed if he hadn’t just carried out a little beaten girl and seen a mutilated dog in a house that seemed as if a hurricane had swept through it.

Wilson again left the door open as he left. Avoiding looking at that last room on the right, he turned to open the door in the back - it led to a staircase that split at a landing, then head left and right. He had almost moved on before realizing that there were bloody footprints leading down and to the right. He’d investigate that later. If this was a video game, the conclusion would be down there. Dreadfully, he turned to the final door on the right. He stepped forward, and shining his flashlight down, realized that it was, in fact, blood that had pooled from under the door. He pushed open the door, which creaked on its way open… and saw hell.

This was the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. The floor was a soft white carpet, and the king-sized bed centered on the back wall. There were two dressers up against the wall, on either side of the bed, both black. There was a closet against the walls, on either side of the room; apparently, the couple had liked symmetry. The only problem was that the entire room had just gotten a fresh coating of Mrs. Wells. Her severed head had been lying by the door. There were shreds of her skin all around, splintered bones and torn flesh decorated the walls and floor, similar to how children draw on the walls with crayons and leave Legos all over the floor. Wilson started laughing to himself at that - likening the pieces of Mrs. Wells to the Legos left behind by a child. It was so twisted, so wrong, but he couldn’t stop laughing. This was insane… humans didn’t do this sort of thing.

He looked around for the knife that Mr. Wilson must have used for this, still chuckling. He saw two sagging, bloody weights pinned to the headboard of the bed with the knife, and realized that those were Mrs. Wilson’s breasts " cut off and impaled. His laughter turned hysterical, and he was frightened by the insanity he heard in his own voice… but he couldn’t stop laughing. It was like something out of a nightmare, it just couldn’t exist!

But that was what he saw. The evidence his own eyes were feeding him and the obvious conclusions were undeniable. Mr. Wells had insanely torn his wife to shreds and beaten his daughter. He had mutilated and chopped up his wife’s body, severing her head, breasts, and seemingly every joint. He had hacked off her feet at the ankles; her legs at the knees and hips; he had stabbed inside her genital region, down into the floor (perhaps something to do with a child conceived from another man as motive); he had cut off her breasts and pinned them to the headboard with the knife he used to butcher her. He had crushed her ribs and scattered them all over the room. Judging by the marks on the bone, that insane f****r had eaten the raw flesh off his wife’s arms… this was unnatural, and still Wilson had not found Chao.

When Wilson left the room, he closed the door.

Now, the only place left to go was down those stairs. Wilson’s insane laughter was gone now, and he was dead serious. He looked down the hall to his right, seeing the flickering light of the flaming couch through the opening to the living room, the shadows cast by the fragments of destroyed furniture and torn books on the wall of the hallway. There was no doubt in Wilson’s mind that he was going to see something horrific down in that basement, but he still didn’t radio for backup. Wilson figured that he’d shoot Mr. Wells if - when - he saw him, and that he’d try to find whatever became of Chao, and become a hero of the department.

Again steadying himself, he flicked off his flashlight, and putting the nightmare aside, Wilson descended the stairs with shaky hands and a quick pulse. He turned left instead of right at the broken landing, turning from the bloody footsteps, and crept slowly on his hands and knees down the second flight of stairs. He covered the corner when he got to the basement (where there were still no lights) and saw that the other side of the staircase did indeed lead into this same room. He listened for a little bit, and heard the ominous sound of tearing, snapping, and messy chewing. Oh God. Please don’t let that be what I think it is. Please don’t let that be Chao being eaten by that f****r.

        Wilson crept silently through the expansive basement towards the sound. If he hadn’t been terrified for his friend’s life and his own, in addition to feeling totally out of his depth, Wilson would have been impressed. The room was three times the size of the bedroom, and had massive speakers at the back, surrounding a 78” 4K HD curved television on a mahogany stand that was hooked up to a giant black box that had too many DVD ports to be modern…

        There were three cushy couches arranged in a U-shape in the center of the room. Various paintings hung up around the wall. And in the corner was a shaking figure frantically digging into Chao’s stomach with its mouth. It sounded like a f*****g animal, the snuffling and satisfied noises, the slurping. Wilson was filled with rage at the sight of his closest friend on the force being eaten by this m**********r who had committed such atrocities that he surely had a special place in hell reserved just for him. He took a big breathe in, and released it heavily - f**k! Mr. Wells whipped his head around, and in that moment, Wilson saw evil.

        He saw the blood-covered face of a monster, shiny colorless eyes flashing in the light, a tooth- and bone-filled Cheshire grin. He saw hands so contorted they appeared to be claws, nails filed to points. This was no madman who had snapped on his family; this was a monster, let out of its cage and ecstatic to be feasting on the wife of what was once a man, on Wilson’s friend. With a scream, Wilson aimed right between that f****r’s eyes and pulled the trigger. He watched as the monster’s head jerked back, slammed by the bullet " but he didn’t go down. Still screaming, Wilson shot again; his hands were shaking so badly that instead of between its eyes, he shot directly in its eye. Now the monster had stopped grinning. Not seeming to notice the pain from that it had gone blind in one eye and had blood pouring out of it, it slowly advanced on Wilson, dripping from its blood-drenched body. He took a breath and resumed screaming as he shot a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh time.

        Now the monster was on its back, motionless. Seven bullets had destroyed its eyes and its chest. Wilson was breathing heavily, still terrified of this insanity. He saw the monster’s arms twitch and watched in horror as it began to get up. He stood stock-still for a moment, then ran at the body that was rising as if immortal.

        “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!” shrieked Wilson as he stomped on the monster’s head and chest and arms and legs, kicking it and stomping and crushing until there was bloody pulp scattered over the basement floor and halfway up his pants. He looked around, in the suddenly silent house. He stared at the gory scene before him and realized what he had just done, and vomited for the second time that day. He felt something break in him.

        Suddenly, everything seemed clear. He still had one round in his gun, and that barrel looked delicious. Wilson raised the gun to his mouth and put the barrel in his mouth, making sure to angle it right so that it would go through his brain. All thoughts of heroism forgotten, Wilson pulled the trigger.

                   …     …     …

        At 11:40 PM, the Seattle PD received a phone call from 2395 26th Ave reporting a gunshot from inside the 2393 house. They replied that they already had a team over there, and that they were going to contact them now. After ten minutes of no replies, they sent another team over to the house, and they found everything as Wilson and Chao had found it. They cleared the house and found Taylor in the backseat of the squad car. They both went downstairs and found the double-homicide/cannibalism/suicide scene, and both officers ran out of the house, having pissed their pants. The two intact bodies were removed from the house and taken away in body bags. A specialist was called in to pick up the pieces of Mr. Wells’ body and to piece back together Mrs. Wells " unable to find much of her flesh, she concluded that Mr. Wells had eaten his wife as well.

        There was a short legal battle over the custody of the young Taylor Wells, where the paternal grandparents had to be physically restrained twice, convincing the justice to give custody to the maternal grandmother, Cindy Strauss. In addition, the maternal grandfather had died the same year that Taylor had been killed. When the little girl was interviewed, all she had to say was “Daddy didn’t do it.”

        This was, of course, disregarded, as there was absolutely overwhelming evidence that clearly showed that it was Mr. Wells who had committed the atrocities in the Wells house. What slightly alarmed the police was the lack of crying that would normally accompany a child whose parents had died. Their child specialist decided that she should be watched for the next five years, but that there should be no action taken as of now. Cole Larson was assigned to keeping track of Taylor. On January 12th, Taylor Harriet Wells moved in with her grandmother in Philadelphia.

NAME	TIME OF DEATH	CAUSE OF DEATH
Wilson, Gregory S.	11:40 PM	Suicide (Glock 22)
Chao, Evan F.	11:32 PM	Blunt force trauma
Wells, Lindsy C.	10:46 PM	Blunt force trauma
Wells, Quentin R.	11:39 PM	Blunt force trauma, multiple gunshot wounds to head and chest (Glock 22)

Author's Note

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