The Roads That We Explore - 8. Hidden Secrets

The door had been nailed shut and hidden behind a new wall for a reason.

And for a very good reason as he was finding out.

He stared at the bodies that were piled on the floor, making him swallow the bile that was working its way up his throat. “Houses upon houses. Cemeteries and funeral homes. All of that and never once have I seen something like this,” Alex groaned.

Brian gagged before the spun around and staggered out of the room that they had just found while pulling down wallpaper. They had officially gotten the keys a week ago and had started to rip things out or up, wanting to get everything ready so that they could move in. Start work without having to worry about renovations on top of everything else. “Well, I’m guessing this is where they stored the victims that fed that thing,” he called from the living room as the window protested being shoved open.

Alex swallowed again, rubbing his lips as he followed his partner. “Yep. That was disgusting,” he said as he flopped down to sit next to Brian. His lover was leaning out of one of the few screen-free windows.

“That’s one way of describing it. How many bodies do you think there are in there?” Brian asked, pulling back to look at Alex.

Alex sighed and rubbed at his face. “A dozen. At the very least,” he finally said, pulling out his phone and dialing the one detective that they all trusted. “Hey, Kran. I got an issue with my new house...No. More like a dozen or more bodies, some rather…” He wrinkled his nose at the thought of the room. “Fresh is a good word.” He stopped and let the man curse up a blue streak, smirking. “Yeah. I suggest that you get a few dozen biohazard bags, someone used to dealing with gooey bodies and nasty situations, and a lot of SD cards for the cameras,” he drawled.

He listened as Kran asked something, Brian tilting his head, catching the words. “It’s not as if we’re sleeping here right now. Too much work to do. We haven’t even gotten into the kitchen and some of the plumbing still needs to be taken care of,” he replied. Alex relayed that answer for him. “I take it that we’re going to be stuck in the apartment for a while longer?” he asked once Alex had given Kran the address and hung up.

“Just for about a week or so longer if I’m thinking right. Since we know how the house worked for so long between our research into it and what the past owners who escaped have said, it’s likely they’ll exam the bodies. But in the long run it’ll be stated that the victims were sacrifices,” Alex said, rubbing at his face. “I don’t think I want to remember that room either. We’ll have to make sure that Brinda doesn’t get to it until we’ve cleaned, bleached and drenched that room in holy water.”

Brian groaned. “I’m just glad that I do have my experience with dead bodies,” he said, rubbing at his face. “And some nasty shit at that.”

“Yeah, working in a morgue is like that. You tend to see the worse of the worse come in, alongside with the saddest,” Alex replied. He reached out to pat the back of Brian’s calf. “Go ahead and move our shit into the garage. When we’re allowed back in, I want it here and ready for us. I’ll make sure to go get industrial strength cleaners and holy water for that room. And full body suits for us.” He rubbed at his head. “I’m kind of surprised that we didn’t catch that room when going through.”

“Did you see the wallboard that we had to pull off? It’s only because you hate wallpaper so much that we found out that it was there and that it wasn’t natural to the house,” Brian said, sitting next to his boyfriend. “Not to mention that it holds the bodies of the demon’s victims. You think that they got free of his hold?” he asked.

Alex tilted his head back to rest against the wall. “Yeah. I think that when we cut the ties that were holding it here, feeding it, it’s hold on the souls would have been broken along with it’s connections. Now it’s just a matter of getting any lingering souls to leave or give us enough information for them to leave knowing that whoever gave them over will get their ass kicked. If the idiots aren’t already dead,” he said. “I’m hoping that I can get to do that soon to be truthful. I’ll be calling in Marrian and have her talk to them after another blessing sweep. It should calm them down enough for her to do it without getting overwhelmed.”

Brian huffed out a laugh before he nodded as the sound of a van pulling up to the curb came through the window. Twisting around to look out of the window, he saw that it was just one of the three forensic vans and a plain clothes cop car. “They’re here,” he said, pushing to stand up. Alex grunted and pushed himself off the floor to, heading out to meet Kran and the others.

Alex was far from surprised to find that Kran had printed out the blueprints of the house from the day that it had been built until the present-day layout. With the blueprints, they were able to find two more rooms that had been hidden.

One was more of a storage room: Alex threatened to sue if the items were removed until he had time to cleanse them properly and find out if they needed to be returned. The other room was a ritual room. One of the newbies were sent to collect the evidence within and take pictures with his mentor carefully watching over him.

Three hours later and the teams were nearly done with their collecting. They were down to scraping the walls and floor for whatever bits they could take up without compromising any evidence. Alex and Brian locked up the house after they had packed up, leaving the cleaning supplies and their building supplies they were using to fix things up in the garage. They then locked the garage down and armed the alarm.

Alex muttered and complained about having to buy a power washer to get all the blood cleaned up in the rooms, just glad that they were sealed concrete. Brian mused as he loaded up their truck that the body room had probably been the laundry room at one time since their current one was right above it. His lover groaned and made him drive them back to their apartment so he could rent a high-powered power washer in a few weeks.

Kran shook his head, got into his own car, and headed back to his station. He told his partner that he had to find friends who didn’t create new paperwork for him nearly every time that they saw each other.