In the middle of December,

I drove to a lovely old mansion

Abandon by the renter.

A man greeted me

When I arrived

With an eerily sweet smile.

He said he was the realtor.

I should come in,

I should stay for awhile.

When I went in though,

It was the strangest thing,

I began to smell something odd.

Not like a scummy mouth of tooth decay,

But like something ungodly

Beginning to rot.

I followed the smell

For quite some time.

I was on my own

Obsessively searching

For something that died!

I thumped down spiraling staircases

And crept through hidden hallways

Until I came upon a door.

Leading down to the dark.

And something in the back of my mind

Began whispering to me.

Danger! Danger!

Go back to the light

Something lurks in the dark,

Something unkind.

 

I descended anyway,

Following the smell

It was clearly coming from the heart

Of this ominous hell.

The Dark was crushing,

Heavy,

Like the realtor who grabbed me

And covered my mouth.

There was no point in screaming.

It was over.

He broke my neck.

He cut me open.

I couldn’t move,

I couldn’t breathe.

He thought I was dead.

I felt him rape me.

He dragged me across

The cold, hard floor.

An ugly yellow light

Was gushing from under the door

Where blood danced with dust.

I found the smell.

It came from that room

Where he left me

Alone

To die

Bleeding out

Like the other poor girls