I apologize for not writing yesterday. I’m still having trouble keeping my fingers from shaking. That may have been the worst thing I have seen in my life so far.

I waited till well after dark and made my way into the apartment across the hall. The layout was the same as mine, first a spacious living room and then a kitchen off to the right and two bedrooms on the left. The first thing to greet me was the smell, but it wasn’t that bad. It had been almost a month, which was enough time for the bodily gasses to release and the skin to start to dry out. There was no mistaking it though; death was in the air.

I turned on the light switch and my sight was assaulted next. Even though a month had passed the attack on this sense was no less violent. The blood had gone from red to muddy brown, and it was everywhere. The floor, the walls, the ceiling. The living things that were feasting on the carnage scurried from the illumination, creating the illusion that the streaks of blood were moving.

I knew it was going to be bad, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality of the situation. This mess, all this blood came from people I knew. People I interacted with every day. It took a few minutes for me to move through the living room and inspect the rest of the place, mostly because I was in no rush to see any more.

The kitchen was streaked with blood as well, and I began to notice there were patterns and symbols smeared throughout the place. Most I couldn’t recognize, but they looked very old. Maybe Egyptian or Sumerian. I tried to stop making sense of it and continued to search the place for the bodies. I know I could have just grabbed what I needed and ran, but I wanted some sort of closure. I wanted to know how they died, or at least I thought I did at the time.

Now I’m not so sure.

The master bedroom was my last stop and what I saw made me recoil in horror. The parents were both bound and gagged, tied to chairs facing the center of the room, their lifeless eyes still open and mouths stretched tight in fits of rage. Their hands were swollen and it looked as if they both struggled so hard with their bonds that they nearly cut straight through their skin. It was easy to see why when I looked to the center of the floor and saw their children laying there with their hands tied tightly to the heavy wooden bed frame behind them. They were so mutilated and tortured that they were beyond recognition. There were no gags in their mouths, most likely so that mom and dad could hear the screams. A crude pentagram was laid out on the floor and the same symbols found throughout the apartment were carved into the hardwood.

This was more than a kill. This was torture and sacrifice in front of two witnesses, and then those witnesses were bled out and used to decorate the interior for whatever sick deity was being praised.

I’m not sure how long it took me to get myself together, but it was a long time. I got up, grabbed my shotgun, and walked back out through the door. No supplies, no checking for batteries or other useful items, I just got the fuck out of there and went back to my place to wash the taste of puke from my mouth. I polished off the last of my whiskey and crawled into bed, knowing I was in shock but unsure what to do about it. No scouting mission yesterday morning, and now the weather is so bad that I am not sure when I will get the next chance. Today I finally got the balls to go back across the hall and grab some food from the kitchen, but I haven’t searched the rest of the place yet. I’m no pussy, but everyone has their limits.

Except for whoever did that in there. He’s probably got no limits at all.