The Sewer

In 1973, on Finney Street, a gas explosion erupted from the basement at Harper’s Rooming Complex. It took the lives of sixty-seven tenants. The place was designed to house people either on a fixed income looking for cheap housing, and for other’s, like Barry Simms; he wa just trying to make ends meet after a few personal tragedies and mistakes. Like Barry, a few other people who lived at Harper’s, were trying to get ahead financially, and eventually move on to a better place. Other’s would just pack up and move on to another city with a tidy bankroll and start fresh.

Barry Simms lived on Finney Street for over a year and had managed to save over two-thousand dollars, all hidden in his mattress. His goal was five grand.

Barry worked in a small restaurant in the neighborhood where he eats all his meals free, and pays forty dollars a week in rent. He use to go to one movie a week, bought one new book at Maddie’s Book Emporium every week, and whatever was left over would go in his mattress.

Barry had no social life and he doesn’t care to have one. He just came out of a really bad marriage, and he wasn’t ready for any new involvements.

The day of the explosions, Barry Simms was in his one-room apartment and his first thought was to grab the cash inside the mattress. Then he bolted from his room, no less than on the fourth floor (no elevators). He was halfway to the second landing when a second explosion went off, directly underneath him, or so it felt, and the entire floor gave way, sending him hurtling below ground level, or, another fifty feet underneath the building itself.

He screamed until he hit bottom.

He kept screaming after he landed.

Barry Simms felt both legs snap on impact like twigs, along with his left arm that separated at the shoulder and broke at the elbow as well. A large portion of his face was burned away and the skin over his left eye seemed to melt over, leaving him with a very ugly scar.

Barry Simms couldn’t tell but only feel how bad things just became. All he really knew was that the pain that riddled through him, kept him screaming and crying for a very long time until his voice became hoarse. His cries of course, fell on deaf ears.

Barry Simms was shut off from the outside world. The rubble that followed him down from the fire, along with debris from Harper’s Rooming Complex, as well as part of the city street itself that erupted from the explosions, had now covered any chance of Barry Simms escape—or rescue.

Scattered about, the money was now useless. For Barry Simms, it was forgotten. No longer necessary.

Just as his screams echoed off the tunnel walls, he knew he wqas going to die in the dark and dank smell of the city’s underground.

Above him, firefighters were doing their best to extinguish the massive blaze engulfing Harper’s Rooming Complex.

No one knew Barry Simms was below ground.

No one.

May – 1975

On Finney Street, two years to the month where Harper’s Rooming Complex once stood, construction had been completed on a brand new apartment building.

Several city officials such as the Mayor, and Police Commissioner, were on hand for the grand opening, with the Mayor cutting the ribbon to officially signify tenants could now move in.

Twenty-three people who had survived the deadly blast were also on hand to become the first to move into this spacious three-hundred bedroom apartment complex, each with either one or two spacious bedrooms.

All in all it was a joyous moment as well as a tearful moment. Those who survived only had minor injuries or were at work on that horrible day. Now, these people and others like them would be able to get on with their lives again.

As part of the Mayor’s speech, he said, “This building will be a living reminder of what progress can bring, and today, I also wish to dedicate this building to the following individuals who perished.” With that, he read all the names of those who had died in the fire. Even Barry Simms name.

Within one month, the building was filled to capacity and it appeared that Finney Street was back to normal. The shops, restaurants, movie theater; each not far from the original devastation, prospered again, and the neighborhood became just that, a neighborhood.

In the basement of the new structure, close to one of the heater ducts, you could hear something akin to a shuffling sound. Some of the tenants who use the washer and dryer there, thought it might be mice crawling around, but how could that be? The building was brand new.

At night, when the basement was dark and void of movement, you would most certainly back up with fear and panic in your eyes, and your lungs just might fill heavily with screams.

On the other side of this particular duct was a disfigured face of the most hideous thing imaginable; with only one eye staring at you. Not a pretty sight to behold.

Not pretty at all.

The traversing tunnels below the concrete sidewalks winding in half and quarter circles were new streets to Barry Simms when he first made his grand entrance.

In the beginning, it was a forgone conclusion Barry Simms wouldn’t survive his injuries. The first several weeks, Barry Simms went in and out of his feverish attacks of pain, drifting in and out of death many times.

Over the months that followed, Barry Simms legs mended in their own crippled and twisted way. Both knees protruded in such a savage angle, constantly giving him fits of untimely pain whenever he bumped or banged into wet concrete walls, now part of his new home.

Though no doctor, Barry Simms worked on himself the best he could. In the beginning, when his legs were inflamed, he would tear pieces of dead flesh seemingly rotting from his body, causing the puss from the infection to drain. Barry Simms did this day and night until the swelling ended and then his legs began to mend. He couldn’t do anything about his face except pick at the scabs allowing both puss and blood to drain away.

Of all his body, his face was the most devastating of all. Badly burned and scarred, scabs covering ninety per cent of his face and it never fully healed as he had hoped. He didn’t have a mirror to see the damage done, but each time he ran his fingers over his face, he could only imagine the terrible deformity he carried.

Before the accident, Barry Simms could have been described as almost handsome. Now he looked like someone that should be on display at a freak show. The overlay of skin stretched from his forehead over his right eye and blended in with his scarred face rather well. Think of it as a large bump attached to his face. You couldn’t tell where the burnt skin began or where it ended; it was just one large mass of misbegotten fear seemingly sewed onto his face.

As he went through his self-healing process, Barry Simms tried to find a way out of his hell. In the very beginning he had screamed loudly for help, cried, pleaded for help, and prayed that God would save him from all of this and lead him back to safety. Help never came and God never gave him directions.

The tunnels were very dark and it took him a long time for his one good eye to adjust. Because of his legs, traveling was very slow. He would stop and survey certain items he thought he recognized that became trapped with him; bits and pieces from a past he could barely remember any longer.

It was nearly a month after the new complex was built, Barry Simms was able to find a set of metal rungs attached to a wall to climb, and for the first time since he was trapped, he was able to daylight, though he kept his view slight so not to be seen. The light hurt his eye but he finally found what he needed to regain his freedom, a manhole cover, and let everyone know he was still alive.

His strength was still too weak to push it aside. What with the two deformed legs and one useless arm, Barry Simms knew he had to get stronger and that meant eating and exercising.

That was his other problem in the beginning.

Hunger.

In that beginning, fear took over in place of hunger but starvation was finally winning the battle. Barry Simms managed to stay alive without food for three months, a near impossible feat for a healthy person, and he depended solely on water that trickled down from the underground walls. During that time, Barry Simms had dropped over seventy pounds. This made his physical appearance look like a walking skeleton. At six-three and one-eighty, what else could be expected.

Then came the day Barry Simms could no longer fight off the need to not eat. His need for nourishment became far too great.

A sewer rat, perhaps ten pounds in weight, came within Barry Simms reach. Grabbing it by the tail, he violently slammed it hard against a wall, shattering its large head until the rat screamed no longer and hung limply in Barry Simms grasp.

He looked crookedly with one eye at his meal and felt the bile, what little there was, rush forward and splatter down the front of his chest.

After his initial revulsion, Barry Simms ripped open the rat’s belly with his fingers and teeth, cleaning out the insides to remove as much of the putrid disease and waste as possible, pulling flesh away from the rat’s hide and began to eat.

He ate nearly ten minutes, chewing the stringy belly and began to feel better. He was beginning to get that stuffed feeling in his belly, then, he felt his stomach twist and turn, and his insides came up on himself one more time.

Since that first moment Barry Simms gnawed on the dead rat, he has known no other meal he can kill in the sewer.

Barry Simms was preparing for the future.

He was going to get above ground and make himself known, and pity the poor soul who got in his way. Barry Simms is a very angry man at being left behind. Angry at being forgotten. Angry that they built a new building over him like it was a headstone for his grave.

Barry Simms is preparing for his revenge.

July – 1975

Two fourteen year old boys crossed over McNally Street, a block away from Finney. It was late, just past eleven on a Friday night and neither boy should have been out this late. As they crossed into the center of Finney, one of the boys thought he heard a noise.

“Jeff,” questioned Andy, “did you hear that? Sounded like metal rubbing against something.”

Jeff shook his head.

“Nah, you’re hearing things. Hurry up, will you? We promised mom we’d be home from the movies by now.”

Less than fifty feet away, a manhole cover slipped off its base and went sliding to one side.

“Yeah, but I wonder what mom would do if she found out we were out with Linda and Mary beth down by the riverfront instead?”

Jeff shivered at the thought. “I don’t even want to think about what she’d do. C’mon Andy, hurry it up already.”

A darkened shadow approached them less than ten feet away from the apartment building and both boys froze in their tracks. Before either could react to the shadow’s advance, Jeff was quickly smacked down to the street and Andy was raised high in the air and smashed into the asphalt until his skull was a mushy pulp. Turning back to Jeff, who was groggy, the shadow quickly grabbed him by the throat and squeezed the life from him.

The shadow then dragged both boys to the manhole opening and dropped them below where two dull thuds hitting concrete could be heard.

The shadow dropped back down into the hole, looked around, and then slid the manhole cover back into position with his good hand. Climbing down the metal ladder, he sat in front of both bodies.

“I’m so glad you could join me for dinner tonight.”

The rest of the night on Finney Street was quiet except for the rain that fell an hour after the boys disappeared. It rained the hardest it had in three weeks and the blood from both boys were washed away into a gutter.

It was shortly after the rain started falling; Mrs. Millburn, the mother of Andy and Jeff, called the police to report them missing.

Down below, Barry Simms knew where they were, and he wasn’t telling. He wasn’t about to give up his dinner for anyone.

One Week Later

Mrs. Johnston was coming home after working overtime at Lindy’s Sewing Mill. Mrs. Johnston had been a widow eight years and took the job for something to do. She had also been one of the original survivor’s from Harper’s Rooming Complex. The insurance money from her husband’s death left her in pretty good shape, but working at Lindy’s gave her something to do with the idle time she had on her hands, so she thought why not put her hands to work.

One of her co-workers, a gentleman named Herbert, asked her out to dinner on Tuesday, four days away. She wasn’t going to accept the invitation at first, but thought it wouldn’t hurt anything. He seemed like a nice enough man and let’s face it, Bernice, you ain’t dead yet. You might be sixty but Herbert’s, who’s fifty-four, thinks you look good enough to ask out, then go for it.

It was this night she came home for the first time in years with a whistling smile on her face.

As she approached the steps to the apartment building, Bernice Johnston heard a scraping noise. She took the first of six steps leading to the front door when she turned in the direction the sound came from and wanted to scream at the unholiest of sights. Before she could utter a sound, a hand came from nowhere and drove deeply into her windpipe cutting off any screams.

The hand became a steel vice around her throat as she felt the life being choked out of her. Just before she died, she had two thoughts. Herbert would have to eat alone, and that isn’t that young man, oh what’s-his-name, Barry something. Silly me, he’s dead.

Down in the dank and smelly confines of Barry Simms home, he ate heartily once again.

If you had been in the basement of the apartment building, you would have heard the echoes of laughter ringing loudly as Barry Simms laughed the laugh of the powerfully insane.

June – 1976

Finney Street looked normal to people passing by. The shops min the neighborhood still flourished, and people still walked the street by day, but the apartment building had a FOR SALE sign strung up in a ten-foot banner over the front door.

Less than two months ago, twenty-nine tenants moved out. In the course of a year since the building was first opened, forty-three other tenants mysteriously disappeared. All of their belongings were still in their apartments but the tenants simply vanished.

The police were baffled, city officials had no concrete explanation for their whereabouts; they just up and disappeared. The police knew there was foul play ever since the two boys vanished, but if they couldn’t find the boys or even a suspect, they had no place to begin looking. Their investigation was at a standstill.

In the depths of the sewer, Barry Simms knew. At every winding turn of each corridor of his dark home, you would find the remains of all those missing. Skulls, empty of eyes, eaten as part of Barry Simms lunch or evening meal. In some places, half-eaten brains would be discarded because Barry Simms was just too full. The bones of the ribs were like a maze to the rats as they self-entertained themselves weaving in and out. Sometimes, the rats would feed off pieces of discarded flesh, or a torn piece of liver or the remains of a brain left behind, and attack it without thought.

The rats.

Barry Simms didn’t want to kill rats for his meals any longer. Human flesh became far tastier to his palate.

Ever since the first night he was able to show himself and display the creaturous strength he developed, he knew where all the bodies were. He knew all too well.

May – 1977

A construction crew came in and leveled the apartment building on Finney Street. A developer bought the property and plans were made to turn the location into a mini-mall.

From his vantage point, Barry Simms heard all the noise going on as sounds of what was happening echoed off the walls around him. At night, he would venture above ground to find fresh meat in order to survive. He had long since forgotten why he even did this. To him, it wasn’t murder; only a hunter after his prey in order to survive. Barry Simms taste for vengeance had long since given away for his taste for human flesh.

Each night he would go out, he was finding it harder and harder to find his food. Since the wrecking crew came to Finney Street, since the apartment closed, his meals walked the streets less and less until he could see no one walking in the night.

After three nights of finding nothing, Barry Simms resigned himself to staying below, and began chewing on himself until he was full.

That night, all the skin from his useless deformed arm was chewed away from the bone, three inches above the elbow. Even though Barry Simms gave out guttural screams of his newly found pain, the taste was too pleasant, too sweet for him to stop.

His screams caught the rats attention for a few seconds, then they went back to foraging for what they could find.

Several others crouched low, just watching him.

July – 1977

Three men from a city maintenance crew were sent below the city streets to repair a possible sewer outlet that may have blockage which seemed to be the cause of a back-flow in several toilets in the neighborhood.

As they tramped through the winding corridors, brandishing their heavy-duty flashlights, complaining about the smell, all three of them stumbled across several bones resembling human remains. As they slowly continued on, they spotted the remains of a man propped against one of the corridor walls; more remains than human, and it appeared he had been eaten alive. Both legs were gone, as well as both arms. There was a huge torn opening where the chest and stomach use to be. It was a living horror.

Each man wretched and threw up and were sickened by the stench of death piled around them, but the real revulsion was the face.

It was still being gnawed on by the rats.

The rats were chewing in angry tremors on this once human form.

The rats were getting even.

October – 1978

Finney’s Mini-Mall was completed. A few of the old neighborhood business owners were against it in the beginning, but after a small business owner’s meeting, they agreed it would prove to be a wise move to change with the times. Besides, it made for good controversy since the story broke on what was found below Finney Street. It made front page news and anchor crews from CNN, ABC, FOX and CBS came to interview the Mayor, and Chief of Police, as well as residents for their thoughts on such a gruesome find.

The case files on the murders is still under investigation to this day. The Mayor and Chief of Police have stated on repeated occasions, “We will not rest until the murderer of these horrific and brutal slayings is apprehended and locked away for life.” The District Attorney stated, “If and once the killer is caught, I will press the courts for the death penalty.”

If they only knew.

But they didn’t. They couldn’t.

No one even knew one of the bodies they recovered belonged to Barry Simms.

Why would they? There weren’t any fingerprints. The teeth had long since rotted away to nothing, and didn’t the city provide a funeral for Barry Simms in 1973 (along with the others who died with him), at their expense even though they never recovered his body from the wreckage?

Certainly they did.

All that time, Barry Simms believed he was forgotten.

The city didn’t forget.

Neither did the rats.