Missing In Action

   On a Friday , at about 7 pm. , Police came knocking at my door . It seems that one of my neighbors has gone missing . Actually , it was a family of four . A wife , a father and two small toddler boys . No one has seen them for over a week . Their van has been gone from the parking lot . Yet , their bikes , strollers and a red wagon were still in the laundry room .
   That's not what brought the police knocking on our doors . The family living below them in the basement has been smelling an odor . Flies were coming through their vents . All of that plus the missing family living above them . . . . well , they made their own conclusions . They called the police and the management company , voicing their concerns .
  After bringing all of us tenants into the hallway , it was discovered that we all had experienced a fly problem . Unlocking the door proved to be difficult , taking an entire twenty minutes . The  minute the door was opened a stench came pouring out . It was dark , equipped with only a flashlight , the manager went inside .
   The place was filthy , with at least  200 flies on the walls and maggots on the floor . It was littered  with clothes and garbage strewn everywhere as if someone left in a hurry or was ransacked . A walk-through of the apartment found no bodies laying around in plain sight .
   The police could not go in because there was no justifiable cause . Apparently , if a tenant has paid his rent , no one can go in until the month is over . Whether or not these tenants were paid up for the month , I'm not sure . The manager was the only one who could enter . The place was locked again and a man brought to fumagate the hallways until a cleaning crew could come in to clean the place up .
   What has happened to that family ? I'm not sure . I thought about them all weekend , expecting them to come home any minute . They were not filthy people . We didn't have flies and a smell before . Something happened in that apartment and that something wasn't good .
   I thought about the first time we met . They were the first family to welcome us into the building . Emily would bake treats for the kids and all four of them would come over to thank her . The mother would take her two boys for a walk every evening after 6 pm. either in the wagon or the stroller . They were good people or they seemed to be .
   Garbage strewn around could not produce so many flies and so many maggots . I don't have any idea what was in there to have caused that to happen . A real mystery here . A mystery , I hope we can solve . Take care of yourself , everyone .