The Gory Details (Gross)

Gory Detail #41 "Maggots Part 2"

"All right. Rolling right along. Nancy has left us and We've been joined by Andy another government nurse who also has had a great run in with maggots. Thanks for joining us Andy."

"No problem."

"Just in your own word, tell my readers how it started."

"Well, I like to sleep in if I can but my girlfriend Lydia came and woke me up early one morning to tell me there were strange bugs on the floor in the bathroom. I got up to take a look and said, 'Those aren't just bugs. They're maggots.'"

"You had maggots just crawling around the floor of the bathroom?"

"Yep. You know how they move? Kind of like a little inch worm? That's what they were doing all over floor like they thought they belonged there. There were only a handful of them but you know, with maggots any is to many."

"How did they get there?"

"That's what we couldn't figure out. It wasn't like we had a dead cat in bathtub or anything. I looked in the drawers, around the toilet, everywhere. I couldn't find the source. All of a sudden, I had a bad thought like from outer space. I said, 'Lydia, when's the last time you heard Mrs. Hinkel moving around?'"

"Who's Mrs. Hinkel?"

"She's...She was our upstairs neighbor. She was a shut in and walked with a walker. We would hear her moving around in the apartment because the floorboards would creak. But when I asked Lydia, she couldn't remember hearing Mrs. Hinkel moving in a long, long time. That's when I started getting a sick feeling."

"Wait. Let me get this straight. You found maggots on your bathroom floor and it made you worry about your upstairs neighbor?"

"Yeah, well. We didn't have any other explanation."

"So what'd you do?"

"We called the police and then went on to work. I got a call at about 10:00 from the officer who'd responded. She was dead. She was laying in her hall which was right above our bathroom."

"So you'd been brushing your teeth underneath a dead woman?"

"Yep."

"For how long?"

"They estimated she'd been dead for five weeks. Long enough for the maggots to get into the walls and crawl out my baseboard. I snuck out of work early to go see what was going on. They had all kinds of people going in and out; cops and crime scene guys and the guys with the hearse. What was weird to me was the footprints. All up and down the steps and along the walkways everyone was leaving wet footprints. Then it hit me: decomposition."

"What?"

"The human body is about two-thirds water right? So a three hundred pound woman has two hundred pounds of water in her right? So she dies, not out in the sun where the water can evaporate but in a carpeted hallway. Where does the water go? The carpet."

"Sweet joy of a violent death! You're right! So these guys were soaking up the decomposition fluids from this woman's carpet and tracking them around the apartment complex?"

"Yep."

*Ecstatic Shudder* "Please go on."

"Well they took her out that afternoon but they never did determine a cause of death. Apparently, there wasn't enough left. That was really only the beginning of the problem though. Right about the time they took her out the flies started appearing. Now you really shouldn't ask where a fly came from just on principal but when your apartment is suddenly being filled with these fat, black flies and you know they squirmed around in the lady upstairs, well that's pretty gross. I couldn't hardly stand to squish one 'cause when their guts came out...well, you know what I mean."

"Did they re-rent the apartment?"

"Eventually. They had to completely gut it first though. Everything in there had spent five weeks marinating with a dead body. And I mean everything. They took out the furniture and the carpet and even the wallpaper. They threw this woman's china away rather than try to clean it"

"Very thorough."

"Yes but not very smart. They got one of those giant dumpster things and their crew just stood up there throwing everything down into the dumpster."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. Except that the dumpster wasn't sealed and they left it out there for five days. First it rained then the sun came out. This nasty little stream thing formed running from the dumpster across the parking lot. Then, when the sun came out it dried up into this white crusty stuff. Disgusting."

"This is a wonderful, wonderful story. Thank you so much for sharing Andy."

"No problem."

"Do you think I could," *sniff* "have a moment alone to think it all over."

"Sure Gory. Don't forget you promised me lunch for this."

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