Response to post above, I used to work as a environmental services "clean-up technician" about 35 years ago, basically a glorified cleaner of the sewage system, crime scenes and the houses of hoarders who's family finally decided to call them out on it. At time it paid well and I was someone who was always into the macabe so I made a good fit. Most jobs were just go in, clean something that would make someone with a less strong stomach throw up and then fumigate the place. I had been working for 3-4 years at this point and we had been told about a small public market that had been closed down under mysterious circumstances a few months ago at that point, the owners of the market just vanished and so did a few of the farmers who investigated why they weren't getting the split of profit promised. We were the last company contacted as the other cleaning companies saw the building and refused to even enter the building, I understood why at that point as it was late summer and the dry heat of the desert area would make the rottage even more apparent.
A week or two had passed and the company moved our usual equipment with a large orange garbage container, a pallet of red bags labeled "biohazard" and a few oxygen tanks that were usually reserved for jobs in sewers but they had provided us with some equipment from the health department including a small tractor that looked more like a lawnmower with a bucket on the front and a pesticide sprayer due to the idea of flaming rats descending on the neighborhood being seen as a great idea. We were all instructed to come to the site in our full body suits, the kind that you slip on from the legs and put a respirator on before slipping the hood over to protect your hair. The building was large, larger than most of the stores in the area were at the time so they had us wear headlamps as well. When we arrived and putting on the oxygen tanks I was one of the two assigned to pest duty, they always seemed to pick me to do it as I was always the one who would find a insect nest first. The building itself was in pretty good condition, an old brick building with murals of the eastern countryside painted all over it, arched windows were spread out every so often on the side of the building, they were coated in a thick grime and the movement from legs of small pests. A sign reading "Deilay's Public Market" hung above the arched store entrance, the sign was in good condition although covered in flowering vines, the kind usual for people to plant in the desert for greenery on brick walls which only aided in it's country theme. The entrance door had been taped over by police although by the time we had arrived the tape was cut by some vandal, the sign on the entrance door had a cheery "Come on in we're open!" another thing done by the vandal as it was more grimy than the rest of the door and the area around the sign looked slightly more clean like the sign was stuck onto the window, peeled off and put back.
The 8 people including me at the building had split into two groups, one going in through the back loading bay and one going through the front entrance. As the group with the tractor went around the back of the building, my co-workers pushed me to go in first. I entered and the first thing that hit me was the stench, a horrid sulfury stench like rotten eggs coated the air. Our respirators were the top of the line at the time, rated for both particules and vapors, I had a pretty strong stomach so I kept on telling the others at the door about how the smell got through. I turned around after taking a few steps inside the abandoned storefront to look at the lack of light coming through the window, a whole colony of cockroaches seemed to just be living on the window itself consuming the grime on the wall. I sprayed the insecticide at the whole window, despite most insecticides being labeled as "kill on contact" they take a few minutes to start working, most of the time it only appears the insect is dead due to it being used on flying insects who take a moment to get up after being knocked to the ground. Most of the other workers entered after most of the roaches scuttered away to be taken by the poison in the following minutes. The floor inside was slightly sticky like someone had spilled soda that had dried on the floor. The group walked through the empty registers to head towards the deli, the place had a rat infestation as we saw their droppings everywhere and could hear the tiny pitter patter of their feet on the ceiling panels above us. The whole deli aisle was filled with what could be only described as gray goop shrink wrapped and a few packages of red meat that seemed to twitch to life despite it's molding surface, the gas from the decomposition made the shrink wrap look like a car's airbag after it had been inflated. Numerous rats were strewn across the coolers, some of them were still alive although they were often covered in the flies and roaches that were feeding alongside them. The only thing that looked in somewhat edible condition were the packaged lunch meats. I have no clue why but what stuck out to me the most was the lunch meat, despite being there for months in the scortching heat they just sat there in almost perfect condition. The only thing stopping me from taking them home was the fact that the grime was all over them turning the yellow and red packages a slight brownish colour.
We had thrown many packages of the meat into the red bags when the tractor came around with the guy waving at us happily, I didn't really know the guy who drove the tractor well. All I really knew is that his name was Arnell and he had a cheery demeaner in every circumstance, despite being quiet most of the time. Arnell pushed the bags we had left lying on the ground to the front door, scraping the floors to show it was actually a white speckled tile floor instead of the rustic brown tiles we originally thought adorned the floors. We looped the back of the store to the sweets aisle. Each of the aisles had their own little shop of horrors with the sweets having packages of melted chocolate, molding marshmellows and torn packages of hard candies lined the aisles. There were a considerable amount of insects, enough for us to have to wipe our visors of the pests in order to see every few seconds. Of course I sprayed the insecticide but once the flies dropped to the floor some of them would just be able to fly back up and obscure our vision. I suspect the number of insects had to come from the amount of dead rodents in this particular aisle, the smell of death penetrated our respirators as if some magic spell had been cast on our filters to make them not work that day. Every aisle was filled with complaints of the smell and the sound of the tractor coming in to push the biohazard bags away to the front door, I saw a few of the workers throw the bags in the orange container outside as we kept going. As we crossed our way to the canned goods sectioned I noticed that the snack cakes didn't appear to be torn into at all or have any sign of wear other than surface damage. The canned goods all were perfectly good as well, only feces being on the shelves and a few insects crawling around. We of course trashed the canned goods and made our way to the fruits. The fruits themselves were just shrivled up versions of themselves with some having visible mold spots and others having bites and small nibbles on them from the pests. This area was sprayed heavily by me due to the amount of fruit flies that swarmed the area, the only notable things here other than the flies was the stickers on the "fresh" produce that had a seperate sticker on them to tell which farm they came from, this was the mid 80s when computers were first starting to be used in the retail space so this gave us a clue on why this place may have closed, an experimental store where the owners saw their losses and just fled the country. The other interesting thing was that the freeze dried fruits on the sides of the stands didn't have as so much of a tear in them as if the rats were not interested in anything non-perishable. After a few rounds of tying bags and the tractor pushing them around we headed towards the vegetable coolers to see it's own personal nightmare.
Various formally pure green vegetables in the coolers were a sickly pale green and brown colour, I walked down to see every single vegetable I knew of in a horrid brown state, being coated by insects swarming all over them and a few being their own nests with maggots crawling all over them. I was stuck in a trance looking at the sickening rotten mess walking down the coolers until I was hit in the face. I jumped back in terror and looked at what had smacked me in the head. There was a decomposing rat with it's neck wrapped around a vine with a white flower on it, the same that covered the front sign. I had felt queasy the entire time I was in the store, unsual for my strong stomach but that sight sent me and I ran out to take a minute. As I depositing my lunch into one of the empty biohazard bags a garbage truck came around to get the bags that were already filling up the orange container to the brim. It was getting late, almost sunset as I started to head inside. Most of everyone was tired of the smell and the stickiness of the floors at this point but I really didn't expect for the day to wrap up like it did. Arnell started to yell about some guy attacking him as it sounded like cans were being thrown at him and the tractor. The other 3 stuck to themselves as I went over to try and stop the would-be attacker, by the time I had ran over I saw Arnell's legs being dragged into the loading bay doors. I was starting to feel anxious as the others watched me head towards the loading bay.
The loading bay was the area the other half of the group went through, stepping inside my balance was lost. The floor was covered in a slick oil like substance and the the walls were painted with sludge. The thing noticable was the lack of a smear to indicate Arnell being dragged away. I walked around, looking in the employee's restroom for a second to see it be the most biohazardous room of the building to that point, a mildewey scent mixed with sulfur imminated from the room and especially from the toilet which had the same vines coming out of the bowl, although they were rotten and shriveled like the vegetables in the coolers. I headed to the managers office after taking in the sight to be met by a patch of the same vines covering the entire office. The vines were moving like snakes, an oroborus of vines wriggling and crawling over a hunched figure. The front of the store started to fill with the screams of my co-workers. The mass of vines started to rise like someone was under them, disturbing them. My fight or flight kicked in and I chose flight, I tried to run to the still open loading bay where the tractor first came in but due to the oil on the floor I slipped and fell. The floor was so slick I couldn't make myself rise up again, I started to crawl and it worked a bit. The hunched figure opened the door and started to approach me as I crawled towards the open door. I was almost onto the back lot as it reached for me, I did the only thing I could and sprayed it with the insecticide. That gave me enough time to get my bearings and get up and run, I ran as far away from that building as my body let me. By the time I needed a rest I was on top of a hill about half a mile away from the market.
Weeks later and I'm under witness protection for the incident, ironically in the same eastern countryside the murals depicted. Nobody but me had survived the clean-up, the store is left abandoned despite further efforts to "sanatize" it. I have gained a deep fear of any food that can spoil or rot due to this incident, the only food I eat now is the same shit I saw on those shelves untouched. I'm not supposed to disclose any of this but as someone in their mid 60's who doesn't even have contact with any of their old friends or even family I feel this story is important enough to share despite the risk.
In times of extreme stress all I can see is the view from that hill, the open door and Arnell standing in it waving at me to come back in. The biggest thing to me in all of it, why didn't I see the other three?
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