F Paul Wilson - Sims 03 by Meerm (v5.0) Page B

time,” she said. “And it
could be worse. At least it’s cold; that slows down decomposition. Imagine if
this were August.”
                 Patrick made no reply. Romy stared at
the dark opening of the cellar doorway. She wished there were someone else she
could dump this on, but couldn’t think of a soul.
                 Steeling herself, she flicked on the
flashlight and started down into the blackness. She kept the beam on the steps,
moving carefully because there was no railing. The odor was indescribable. It
made her eyes water. Even with her nostrils pinched, it wormed its way around
the cinnamon gum in her mouth and made a rear entry to her nasal passages by
seeping up past her palate.
                 When she reached the bottom Romy
angled the beam ahead, moving it across the concrete. At first she thought
someone had started painting the floor black and run out of paint
three-quarters of the way through; then she realized it was blood. Old, dried blood. The cellar must have been awash in it.
                 She flicked the beam left and right
to get her bearings and stopped when it lit up what looked like a pile of dirty
rope. She remembered what the cop had said—dragged all their guts out and piled
them in the middle of the cellar floor—and knew she wasn’t looking at rope.
                 She swallowed back a surge of bile
and forced herself forward, trying not to step in the dried blood—might be
evidence there—as she moved. She stopped again when her beam reflected off
staring eyes and bared teeth. She’d found the dead sims .
Clad only in caked blood, their bodies ripped from stem to stern, they’d been
stacked like cordwood against one of the walls. Their dead eyes and slack
mouths seemed to be asking, Why ? Why? And she wanted
to scream that she didn’t know.
                 Behind her she heard Patrick retch.
She turned and saw him leaning against one of the support columns.
                 “You okay?” she said through her
tissue.
                 “No.” His voice was hoarse. He held
up a thumb and forefinger; they appeared to be touching. “I’m just this far
away from losing my lunch.”
                 “I skipped lunch, thank God.” She
paused, then, “Look, I need to get closer.”
                 “I don’t. I’ll stay back here and
guard the steps, if you don’t mind.”
                 “I appreciate it,” she told him. He’d
already proved himself as far as she was concerned.
                 Turning, she spotted fresh, dusty
prints ahead in the dried blood, leading to the cadavers; one of the cops, no
doubt. To avoid further contamination of the scene she used them as stepping
stones to move forward, knowing all along that it was wasted effort—no one was
going to spend much time sifting this abattoir for clues. But there was a right
way to do something, and then there was every other way.
                 Closer now she flashed her beam into
the gaping incision running the length of the nearest cadaver’s naked torso. A female. Her ribs had been ripped back, revealing lungs but
no heart. Romy leaned forward and checked the abdominal cavity. Liver and kidneys gone. She craned her neck to see into the
pelvis—uterus and ovaries missing too.
                 She moved onto another, a male this
time, and the results were similar except that his testicles had been removed.
                 Romy straightened. They’d been
gutted, all of them, and the males castrated. She took a quick turn around the
rest of the basement but found no sign of the excised organs. The intestines
had been removed and discarded in a pile because they were valueless and only
got in the way. But all the rest were missing.
                 “Let’s go,” Romy said, taking
Patrick’s arm and pointing up the steps toward daylight and fresher air.