Ian and I ended up in a house that belonged in the 1980s. The terrible wood paneling; the frosted, wedding cake ceilings; the tacky wallpaper. Who ever thought that this was a good idea?
"People lived here?" Ian asked, peeling up a dusty white covering off of an old couch. It was worn and flower printed, muted pastels that seemed more sad and gray than springy. "This place reminds me of my grandma's."
I had to agree. This place was certainly out of fashion. "Hey, it's better than nothing. We could be sleeping under the stars with no protection and no weapons."
"It's lucky that we're valuable hostages, then." Ian pointed at the stairs. "Should we go up there?"
"Let's get the lay of the land and fortify this place. No way in hell is an infected getting in here. This place already has enough weak spots. What I can control, I'm going to."
Ian and I took a lap around the house. We cleared all of the rooms on the ground floor. They were the basics: a kitchen, a dining room, a living room, and a study. The basement was unfinished and musty, the remnant of unfinished renovations littering the floors.
Upstairs was where it got a little crazy and I didn't just mean the wallpaper. All of the doors save one were wide open, the bedrooms furnished and decked out in old timey styles. One room looked stuck in the 90s, clutter and an old Windows computer.
Strange nostalgic memories crept over me, ones I didn't even realize I had until this room triggered my deepest recollection. I shivered. I remembered my childhood room and it was not pretty.
All of the rooms were empty. A simple lime green bathroom with gaudy blue towel and empty bedrooms. Nothing too exciting. All that was left was the Master bedroom.
The metal doorknob was icy under my grip. And locked. I jiggled it, wedging it with my good shoulder in case it was just jammed.
"It's locked," I said, ramming it one more time. "What the hell?"
Ian felt along the top of the doorframe and brandished a key. "Here."
I chuckled. "How did you know that was going to be there?"
He bit his lip. "I got in trouble a lot when I was a kid. Locking me in my room for timeout was a common punishment." He shrugged. "My parents hid the key above their door. Too bad it went missing."
"Young Ian was a sly dog," I said with a laugh, accepting the key.
"Warner was even worse," Ian insisted as I slid the key in the lock. "That kid was a disaster."
I turned the lock and pushed open the door with ease. "Isn't he still?" That elicited a laugh from Ian, always ready for a joke at his brother's expense.
After rolling my eyes at the sibling love, I turned to the open doorway. I sucked in a gasp. Ian flinched.
"Holy shit. What the hell happened here?"
The stench made me gag. Two bodies lay sprawled on the bed, covered in coagulated blood. A gold chain hung from one of their necks, a small bloodstained locket peeking out of the decomposing tissue.
Ian pulled the edge of his shirt over his nose. "How long have they been dead?"
His question wasn't are they dead, but rather how long. They were in a pretty advanced stage of decomposition. I wasn't a doctor. They could be dead for days, weeks, or hell, even months, and I wouldn't notice a difference.
Elizabeth wouldn't be fazed. She'd stride right up to the bodies and tell us exactly how they died. She'd use fancy medical jargon until she remembered we were lay people and gave us the sparknotes version. Her little smile at the end of a happy thought and a triumphant one when she figured out a problem or a diagnosis. How I wished she were here. Not even to solve this puzzle, but just to see her smile. To know that she was safe.
I let out a long breath, shaking my head. "I have no clue. At least a few days, I guess."
"So before this started?"
"Could be," I admitted. "But then we'd be dealing with people who willingly gave us this house despite the fact that they knew their neighbors were missing, or if you want to be real, dead."
"People suck," Ian declared, moving towards the master bathroom. "Let's check in here."
"Then we have to go report the bodies." I rubbed a hand on my head. "We've already stirred up so much shit and we've been here for only a few hours."
Ian grabbed the door handle, flinging the door open. A shrill scream echoed from the bathroom. I charged in weaponless.
Ian held his hands up in the air. "It's okay, we're not going to hurt you."
I peered closer. It was a child. Maybe seven or eight years old. Half-starved and ratty, but alive. Ian shot me a worried glance. What was this child doing locked in the bathroom? Why was no one looking for her?
She had scrambled into the corner, her eyes frenzied and body shaking. I remained where I was, not wanting to frighten her more. "Hey, my name's Luke and this Ian. We want to help you. Can you tell me your name?"
She started to pant, her chest rising and falling more rapidly than before. I reached out my hand but she started to shake her head aggressively. "No," she cried. "The monsters."
"It's okay. We know about the monsters. We're not going to let them hurt you." I took a very small step towards her. "We want to help you. Can you tell me your name?"
Her eyes were still wary, but her breaths relaxed slightly. "You know about the monsters? You've seen them? Nobody believes me."
I had assumed her monsters were the infected. Now I wasn't so sure. Either way, this little girl needed some help. "Yeah, I've seen them. We can protect you."
She nodded, standing up slowly. I slid off my jacket and extended it out to her. She disregarded it and flung her arms around me.
I froze. I had younger siblings so I knew how to deal with children, just not traumatized ones. She started to sob, soft, huffing breaths. Gently, I tried to console her, murmuring words of encouragement. Ian gestured at me to do something more but I just returned it with a helpless look.
"Can you tell me your name?" I asked again, still waiting on an answer from her.
"Alexandra," she said into my shoulder. Finally, she pulled away from me sniffling, this time accepting my jacket, dirty and bloodstained as it was. "You can call me Alex."
"Okay, Alex. We're going to get you some help and keep you safe. I need to talk to my friend really quickly and then we'll get you out of here."
She nodded, clutching the jacket close. I kept an eye on her as I met with Ian in the doorway to the main bedroom, trying to block the gruesome scene with my body.
My voice was hushed, quiet enough that Alex couldn't hear me. "We need to get her out of here. Then, I'm going to find Sarah. See what she knows about this whole ordeal."
"Do you think that Sarah knew about this?" Ian swallowed hard. "The bodies and Alex?"
"I hope not," I said, surveying the bedroom again. Sure, I was used to gore and death from my time on the battlefield, but this was different. The hometown suburbia facade ripped to pieces by the coverup of these deaths. It made me sick to my stomach. "If she did, there's going to be hell to pay."
"What are we going to do with Alex?" Ian looked at her nervously. "She's just a kid, but it looks like whoever took care of her is dead and no one else here cared enough to look for her."
It was horrible. Painful, but the truth. Honestly, I hadn't made it that far in terms of what was going to happen. I worried more about her immediate safety.
"Try to find something to cover up the bodies, she doesn't need to see that. I'm going to see if I can get her to tell me what happened. Come back when it's all clear."
Ian nodded and stepped through the doorway. He gagged once before I closed the door, sealing off the scene.
I walked over to Alex and knelt by where she sat on the floor by the big porcelain tub. "Hey, Alex. Do you remember what happened? Why you went in here?"
Her eyes welled with tears, but she answered. "Grandma told me to hide in here and then locked me in. Said that we had to hide from the monsters." A big sniffle. "Is she here? Grandpa, too?"
Her big brown eyes were pleading. My heart ached, some visceral reaction to seeing a child in need. I hated to lie to her, but the truth would do more harm than good.
"They're not here right now," I started gently.
Ian poked his head in, tapping on the edge of the door. "Ready?"
"Where are they?" Alex asked, reluctant to stand up.
"I don't know," I said. "We need to take care of you first."
I helped her up and ushered her to the door, keeping my body between her and the gruesome scene. Ian had thrown a large quilt over the bodies, but it was impossible to hide the blood smears on the walls and on the floors.
She slammed her eyes shut and clutched my hand for dear life. I had never had a child instantly trust me like this. To close her eyes and let me lead her through danger. It was my responsibility to protect her now. There was no one left for her.
We made it through the house, exiting out the front door. Even though she opened her eyes, Alex kept hold of my hand. My new little shadow.
We hurried back to the main road, making a few wrong turns before we ended up at Sarah's house. Leah was back at her post outside, her brown curls glistening in the late afternoon golden hour.
She bolted to her feet when she saw us, staring at the girl, baffled beyond belief. "Hey, guys." The syllables were drawn out in subtle questioning in her wary greeting.
Ian hopped up the porch steps and whispered to her. Her face went through a rollercoaster of emotions. I didn't hear how he explained the story.
"Can you just go get your mom?" He finally asked. "We've got a lot to talk about."
An anxious glance at Alex and me. "I'll say." After opening the door, she turned back to us. "I can't say this will be a fun conversation, but I'll get her."
Moments later, Sarah burst through the door breathlessly, her hair whipped and falling out of her curls. A red-eyed Lindsay was hot on her heels, swiping at her cheeks.
"What's going on? Leah told me nothing." Sarah glanced between me, Luke, and Alex. "Anyone care to explain?"
Alex sidled closer to me, gripping my hand harder. "We found a friend," I said cautiously. "In the house that you put us up in."
Sarah's face had confusion written all over in. "What do you mean? That house has been empty since we set up this community."
"No," I said, my voice hard. "It isn't."
She caught onto the change in tone and the specificity of my words. Her eyebrows raised in partial understanding, eliciting a shake of her head. "We need to have a serious conversation about this."
"I can watch her. I've babysat most of the kids in this neighborhood," Leah volunteered. She walked over to Alex and me, sticking out her hand. "Hi, I'm Leah. What's your name?"
Alex's voice trembled as she told her.
"Hi, Alex. We are going to have a lot of fun together." She smiled widely, showing off her straight teeth. "Do you want to play a game with me?"
Alex looked at me questioningly. I didn't know when I became her supreme authority, but she obviously wasn't going to go unless I told her too. I may not have completely trusted everyone on this base, but I didn't think Leah would do anything to Alex. Besides, I needed to explain what happened and Alex didn't need to hear that.
"Go with Leah. But if you play a game, you gotta win, okay?"
She nodded affirmatively as she released my hand hesitantly. Leah replaced her own hand where mine had once been and hurried her inside.
We followed, making a sharp right down the hallway. Sarah bolted the door behind, leaving herself and Lindsay to stare openly at Ian and me.
"Want to tell me what the hell happened? All I did was give you an empty house and you come back with a malnourished child." Sarah sat in her chair. "You two are magnets for trouble."
"We didn't even tell you about the dead bodies yet," Ian protested. "That really makes up trouble magnets."
Lindsay looked taken aback. "Bodies? As in more than one?"
Ian nodded in affirmation.
"I need a drink." Sarah yanked open her bottom desk drawer. With a rough clatter, she set a handle of whiskey on the desk. "Any takers?"
"God, I love Americans," said Lindsay as she grabbed the two-finger full glass. Her nails tinkled on the edge of the glass as she gripped it tightly and held it up to us. "Cheers." In one sip, she drained the entire glass. Guess she could hold her liquor.
Sarah took a shot and refilled her glass, nursing the rich brown alcohol. She offered one to me and Ian, who accepted his with fervor. The kid sputtered after he took a large sip. He was only 18 and never went to college. He never learned how to hold his liquor.
I patted him on the back. "Take it slow, Ian. It's not a race."
Sarah set her half-empty glass on her desk, covering up the many water rings left behind from old drinks. "Now that we're all properly inebriated, care to tell the full story."
Ian set down his glass, staring at it in a combination of horror and wonder. Welcome to the real world.
Judging by his expression, he was leaving me to tell the story. I took a long sip before speaking.
"After we got fixed up at the hospital house, Leah gave us our temporary residence. Said you gave her the all clear." Sarah nodded, picking her glass back up. "We got there and wanted to do a sweep. You know, making sure that everything was in order after being empty so long."
"You mean, make sure that there weren't any infected. Did you think I would purposefully set you up?"
"I don't know what you are capable of," I said carefully. "I'm not sure that I want to find out."
She arched an eyebrow, calling bullshit on my answer but seeking the truth of our house more than my opinion of her. "Go on."
"We cleared the basement and ground floor, leaving us with just upstairs. Every door but the master's was unlocked. So, we left that for last. We didn't think much of it, but we entered the room and found two dead bodies on the bed. They were old, maybe a few days to a week, but I'm not an expert. All I know is that they were definitely dead.
"The door to the master bathroom was locked, too. We weren't sure what we were going to find. We didn't have weapons or any form of protection. But we went in anyway, finding Alex hiding in the corner."
I shook my head sadly. "That poor girl had been locked in there since her grandparents died. From her story and the state of the room, these deaths weren't an accident."
Sarah downed the rest of her glass. "More goddamn problems."
"And?" I gave her a quizzical look. "What should we do about it?"
"Which part?" she said miserably. "The bodies? The house? The girl?"
"All of it. Any of it." I got up in her face, making her look at me. "You're supposed to be in charge here. Sober up and act like a leader."
She slammed the glass on the table. "You want a leader. Fine. Do it yourself. Fuck this. I'm done."
Lindsay gasped, dropping her glass. It shattered into millions of twinkling shards doused in a pale brown coating. "Sarah, you can't. Think about this whole community."
"No," she said firmly. It wasn't just a response. It was an answer. A finality. A fact. She was done. She just couldn't take it anymore.
"Where does that leave us?" Ian asked. "What about all of the people here?"
"It's up to them now. I'm getting the hell out of her like I should've from the minute that this shitshow started. I'm grabbing Leah and meetin' my husband where I should have damn well gone like he told me."
Lindsay put a hand on her shoulder, but Sarah shrugged it off. Lindsay turned as red as her hair. "Do you think that you're the only one who has a lot on their plate? That your the only one that has lost someone? That needs to drown their sorrows in Jack? Because news flash, you're not." Lindsay swiped the bottle of whiskey from her and handed it to Ian, who held it cautiously. "I lost my best friend today. And it hurts so bad that I want to curl up and I die. But here I am. I am still fighting. You can't just give up because things have gotten hard. You have to keep fighting."
"To what end, Lindsay?" Sarah scoffed. "Does there ever come a point where it just isn't worth it anymore? Where the benefits of fighting no longer outweigh the alternatives? Because that's where I am at right now. I see no light. There are no more options for me. I am done."
"But you're not. You can still do this," Lindsay pleaded. "Please, Sarah. We need you."
"No, I'm done." She stared at her empty glass. "I'll make a speech to the residents but then I'm gone. Good luck keeping this disaster in one piece. You'll soon realize how inevitable it is that everything falls apart." She snagged the bottle of whiskey from where Ian had abandoned it on the floor. After swigging straight from the bottle, she smiled. "To the end."
She walked out, leaving Lindsay, Ian, and me behind with a shattered glass and shattered hopes. Like the glass, there was nothing to do to salvage them.