When people find out what I do for a living, there tends to be a pretty standard set of questions that come up.
One of the most common questions I get is “what is one of your most memorable jobs?”. To understand what made this job even more memorable for me, a little background might be in order.
Before I went to work for ABT I was a first-responder with many years of experience. It was a rewarding job but it had its pitfalls. I spent 70-80 hours a week working all manners of emergency situations and spent 24 hours a day with a pager on me like it was a part of me. Like I said, I loved the job but it took a huge toll on my family.
One day my wife said that even though she was married she had the job of a single mom. It cut me to the core to hear that but I couldn’t argue with cold truth so I made a decision and got a job with ABT. They’re a professional company, sympathetic with their clients and always safe and professional.It was a line of work I was familiar with and it would allow me the freedom to spend more time with my family.
One of my first jobs with the company came short notice (as a lot of them tend to be). We were dispatched outside Raleigh, NC for what we were told was an unattended death. We grabbed our equipment: the body suits and masks to protect us from any potentially hazardous chemicals, blood or other pathogens; the EPA graded hospital cleansers to properly disinfect and sanitize contaminated areas; all the other little gadgets and tools we use to get the job done quickly and properly.
We pull up to our job site which was located way out in the country at a farmhouse that you could tell hadn’t been looked after in years. No running water, no electricity. From appearances it seemed nothing short of miraculous that the building was still standing.
As the team and I threw open the door to start our work, the overwhelming stench hit us so hard it stopped me dead in my tracks. Armed with our flashlights, we went inside and took stock of what the situation was.
Beams of light dancing all over the floors had us discovering piles of feces, cigarette butts, and a variety of bottles. Some of them were empty, others were full of urine. It truly was an assault on the senses. The further into the farmhouse we went, the darker it got and this foreboding feeling washed over me.
We knew the house was empty but there was still this feeling of being watched. No matter where you turned it felt like this presence was looking over your shoulder, watching your every move and this presence just felt…evil. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck and made my heart race like I just did a flat out sprint across a football field.
Once we made our way to the back bedroom we discovered the reason why we were called in the first place. There was a body laying on the floor that had to be there at LEAST two weeks judging by the level of decomposition. Your usual accompanying sights were there as well: A swarm of flies and maggots, intestinal fluids and chunks of viscera seeping into the floor and of course, the death poop.
Around this time we were losing light so we hooked up a generator so we would be able to actually see while we worked. Once we had light in the back bedroom with our “guest” we were shocked at what we saw. All over the walls were drawings of pentagrams and other occult symbols, some of them in blood. The floor had candles that had seen their use in a circle drawn around our guest.
Us techs have seen and heard everything or so we thought but this was just beyond me at the time. All we knew were the customary things that we hear from True Crime novels or crazy mystical stories and it definitely felt like the tension in the air became quite palpable at the discovery of what we had walked into. It became hard to focus on work and not let your imagination run wild.
Further examination of our guest of honor revealed a lot deep cuts and burns and other weird markings.
All the signs of what happened pointed to some kind of ritualistic sacrifice, at least that’s the only thing I was able to come up with.
Creeped out beyond belief or not, we still had a job to do. We gritted our teeth and focused on the work and got everything as pristine as possible (for the condition of the house anyways). We did a final sweep of the house to make sure everything was in order and that we were leaving with everything we came with (I surely never wanted to step foot in there again) and we all but ran out of there.
The ride home brought a time of reflection for me. I thought I had seen and done it all but that day I was reminded that humans will always find some kind of weird or twisted ways to kill each other. No matter what you’ve seen, this job can bring something new. Excitement, terror and sadness all at once.
I had seen some of the most gruesome sights any man could bare to witness. But this. This was disturbing beyond measure. It’s a scene that I can still see some nights when I close my eyes.
The first thing I did when I got home was take a long, hot shower. I had to get that stench off me. After that I gave my wife a kiss and hugged my kids extra hard. They are the reason I do this after all.
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