Little Boy Bones? (537 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.6 on 8 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by JTC (View user info) at 2006-06-27 23:53:37 EDT
The house on Market Street never struck me as particularly creepy. The home had a solid foundation and an all brick exterior, so unlike the other houses built at the turn of the century, it wasn't yet caving in on itself. I'd worked rennovating several buildings around it--two for office space and an old home--and knew that one day we'd be working on this house. It wasn't some sort of premonition or anything; the same man had been buying up vacant buildings on this block for decades, spearheading a movement that would transform many downtrodden parts of Indy into profitable, attractive business and residential areas, and this house was just another step. No, it wasn't until we actually began work on the house that it got creepy.
The initial demo was done by a different crew, including asbestos removal, so by the time we got inside the upstairs was clear and access to the attic was cut off. The basement gave me the willies. Not the creeps, the willies. The willies are a much more advanced form of non-manliness than the creeps. With the creeps, you are just plain freaked out. But when you've got the willies, not only are you freaked out, you're afraid. The basement had the only running water, and after a day of tearing out ceiling joists, I wanted nothing more than to clean myself off before heading home for a shower, which meant I absolutely had to go into that basement.
The first room was furnished with a pink toilet and an old, washbasin sink and barely lit by two small windows. The back two rooms were completely dark, as was a closet beneath the stairs. After the first time down there, I walked back upstairs and said immediately to my foreman, "Man Al! That basement creeps me out!" A couple of us were up there, and Al leaned against a stud; it was story time.
Al was an old hippie; he'd had his fun, and we all knew he regretted it. At 52, he had several scarred gunshot wounds, bad joints, and numerous construction-related injuries. Nails through the hand, busted fingers, banged up from falling debris--you name, he'd been through it. Nevertheless, he retained a dry, manly sense of humor. "Well Tim," he began, "There's a bit of history behind this house. Let's see...At one point it was a brothel, and the last owner had a REAL business, but just before him this house was one of a three-house pedophile ring." The three of us just kind of stared at him.
"Wait, are you serious?" I asked him.
"Oh yeah," he said, nodding his head. It was a special nod, the "I'm not fooling around" nod. "One of the contractors told me that, and then an inspector. And you know, befored they demoed the upstairs...well, the rooms up there looked as if they could be locked from the outside, and each one had its own little 'theme.'" We stared again. "Yeah T, sick stuff."
After work the next day, I noticed that the floor in one room of the basement had been covered over with plywood. I checked the other rooms--all concrete. Why in the world would someone put plywood down in a musty basement? Then it hit me: to put something under it. I jumped up on the concrete ledge, about three feet wide, that ran along the front of the room, where the sink and toilet sat. This time it wasn't so much the willies as a simple, "Blech," and shake of the head.
I went back upstairs and started talking to Al again. "Hey Al, we gonna take up that floor in the basement?"
"I dunno T, depends on if Fred wants to pour down there. Why you ask?"
"Well its all plywood...and I was trying to figure out why they would put that down in a basement and then I remembered this used to be a little boy house...Any little boys ever go missing around here?"
"Hehe, you watch too much CSI. Yeah we'll take it up in a few days after we get the rest of the basement cleaned out."
A few more days followed of tearing out and replacing joists and bad headers, then it was time to clean out the basement. We took a lamp down to the basement to check out the rear rooms. A set of old, drooping cabinets, painted purple, sat against the wall. The overhead duct was painted purple. The piping was painted purple. The access hatch to the crawlspace was painted purple. "Another little boys' room Al," I joked. We went back into the main room to take up the boards. Al drove his hammer into the corner of one and pried at it. A chunk snapped off. "How d'ya like that, rotten. Humph." He drove in again at another point; this one stuck. The moment I had been dreading had arrived.
The first sheet began to come up. It came up painfully slow, nails screeching at they pulled free. I looked down in a sort of sick fascination, obsessed with what lay under those boards. It popped free and Al tossed it aside. I stared down at...brick. Brick had been laid. There were no little boy bones, no rotting corpses--just brick and crap 2x4s to level the floor.
"Well T how about that? Know you were hoping for a hand or something...sorry." I shrugged, and about that time Fred walked in. Al showed him the brick; we'd have to pull the bricks to pour, but the dirt beneath would be compacted so the pour would be relatively easy.
Most days I came in after lunch due to classes at the local campus, so I was going to miss most of the brick-tearing. To me, the most fun part of construction is the demolition. I certainly wouldn't miss the aching back, but still...I arrived just as they were finishing up and went to put on my tool belt. Al met me at the top of the stairs. "Hey T, don't bother, looks like we're through with this job for a while."
"Huh? What'd you get fired Al? Shoddy workmanship?"
"No...Go have a look in the basement."
I froze up momentarily. It couldn't be. Not possibly, we tore up the floor yesterday, no one would go to the effort of laying BRICK over a child's body. I took a slow, heavy step. Then another. I found myself running down the stairs. And then I saw them.
Several full skeletons lay stretched out on the dirt, bricks piled to the sides. I stared at them for a while. For all my violent talk, I'd never actually seen a skeleton. They looked a little big for boys, though, at least boys pedos would be interested in.
"Al...those aren't little boy bones. What are they doing down here? What are they?"
Al just shrugged and grinned lopsidedly. An instant before he said it, I knew it was coming...
"Dead hookers."
User Reviews
Submitted by Yams (user info) at 2006-06-28 14:37:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Of COURSE its real. Except for the dead hookers...Another guy stopped by today looking for work and reinforced the whorehouse story. And when three complete strangers say the same thing about the same house, I have a hard time believing anything else.
Submitted by Skatch (user info) at 2006-06-28 10:06:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well played
Submitted by LittleMonster (user info) at 2006-06-28 06:59:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Well done. real?
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-28 03:10:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What makes you think we didn't wanna blow eachother before?
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-06-28 02:59:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Ok that's it. I've made my decision. From now on I'm closing everything I write, be it for ubersite, for school, for job applications -- with "Dead hookers".
Submitted by Paul_Monroe (user info) at 2006-06-28 02:06:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-06-28 01:48:54 (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-27 23:57:00 (#)
Ranking: 2
All I read was dead hookers
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omg me 2.
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OMG !!!1111 ME 2!!!!!!!11111111111111111!!!!!!!!
do you wanna blow each other now?
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2006-06-28 01:48:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-27 23:57:00 (#)
Ranking: 2
All I read was dead hookers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
omg me 2.
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-06-27 23:57:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
All I read was dead hookers