While Rose had been talking, Jamie had found a half-rotted and very faded beach lounge chair and had folded it open. “Not from me,” she said as she sat down in the chair, crossing her outstretched legs and putting her hands behind her head. “You took all my stuff anyway. I’m just here for the show.”
Rose gave Jamie a half annoyed, half amused raise of the eyebrow before turning and walking toward the house. Adeline stayed at the bottom of the steps to the porch while Aaron and Rose approached the front door. Rose pushed aside a pile of pine needles that had accumulated below the front door with her foot. Looking inside the house she couldn’t see much through the small window in the wooden door as it was a prism, but she thought she could make out something large lying on the floor just inside the door. Rose tried the door knob and found the door to be unlocked. Rose glanced up at Aaron who was looking right back at her. Rose noded to Aaron then threw open the door leaving the entry wide open. Rose and Aaron waited on either side of the door outside the house for any movement inside, but everything seemed eerily still. Rose glanced in through the open door and saw what she’d seen through the window. A body was laying on the floor just inside the entryway on its back, arms outstretched to its sides and feet spread. Based on the clothing, Rose assumed it was an older man, but she couldn't see his head from the angle at which she was standing outside the house. “Ready?” she said to Aaron.
“Yup, let’s go,” he said.
Holding both handguns at the ready, she quickly entered the house and curled around to the corner of the entryway closest to her in case someone was waiting for her in the corner. Aaron, machete in hand, did the same for his corner, but both found the corners empty. Circling back around, Rose and Aaron quickly cleared the entryway then went over to the body on the floor. It had indeed been a man at some point, but he’d been dead for some time. Being inside the house, he’d been spared from the weather and had been mummified to some extent. The man was wearing some sort of uniform and was likely a park ranger. Rose assumed he was probably a very senior ranger if he was allowed to live in the park in this home if it was, in fact, his home. He was gaunt, his papery-leathery skin was tight on his skeletal face and arms, and his eyes were now gone leaving the dark sockets bare. The man’s skin had lost all humanly texture and color, now a yellowish, greyish brown that Rose felt like if she touched, would just disintegrate.
Looking around the man, Rose found a 22 caliber pistol near the man’s right hand. Rose noticed an entry wound on the man’s right temple but didn't find any exit wound. The bullet must have entered the man’s skull and bounced around inside instead of blasting out the other side, meaning a near instant death. Rose picked up the pistol, verified there were still bullets inside, and stuffed it into the back of her waistband.
“Let’s keep moving,” said Aaron. “This is a big house.”
“I haven’t heard anything yet, but keep your ears open,” said Rose. The entryway split into three directions: off to the left which appeared to be a kitchen, a hallway straight ahead leading to other rooms and a stairwell, and to the right, which appeared to be a living room. “You take left, I’ll take right. We’ll meet at the far end of the hall,” said Rose, motioning to the end of the hallway ahead of them.
Aaron noded in agreement and went off to the left toward the kitchen. Rose turned away from the dead man and made her way into the living room. Sunshine was streaming in through the windows of the house and Rose could see dust floating all around her as it was kicked up by her moving through the room. The house was very organized and orderly and everything was put away. It had a very un-lived in feel, almost like a showroom at a furniture store. Rose would have called it clean if not for all the dust covering everything. It was a rustic house one might expect in the middle of a national park, but it had all the comforts of a typical home. Lamps and a television meant that this house had power at some point as well.
Rose circled through the living room, past a recliner near the television and a few couches. On the far side was a doorway which led to the far end of the hallway they’d seen in the entryway. Across the hallway from Rose was another doorway that led into the dining room. Crossing the hallway and entering the dining room, Rose found it very much the same condition as the living room. The dining room was organized and the table was set with dinnerware, but everything was covered in dust. A large cobweb extended from a small chandelier above the center of the table down to a centerpiece of rotted flowers and ferns. Aaron was just coming through a side door from the kitchen into the dining room.
“Nothing in the kitchen,” he said softly. “Just the basement and second floor left.”
“Okay, nothing in the living room. Let’s do the basement first,” answered Rose softly. “Where’s the door?”
“In the kitchen,” said Aaron, turning and going back the way he came.
Rose poked her head outside briefly and let Adeline know what was going on. She seemed a little tense having to keep watch and guard Jamie and Jacob, but less scared than Rose had seen her in some time. Jacob was still sniffling in his chair and Jamie was still lounging in hers.
Rose rejoined Aaron and pulled a flashlight from her pocket. Opening the door, Rose went down the stairs first followed closely by Aaron. The basement was full of cobwebs, which they immediately walked into, and was even more dusty than the upstairs. The basement appeared to be used for storage as there were shelves of canned goods and jarred food. It had a dirt floor and the walls were very old, large stones patched with cement. The basement was also not very big. It had a crawlspace that extended the entire width of the first floor, but the only area that could be walked around in was about the size of the kitchen and half the dining room. Rose and Aaron were very likely the first people down there in many months, if not years.
They both climbed the stairs and closed the basement door behind them. Walking back to the entryway, they gave Adeline another thumbs up as they stepped over the dead body heading up to the second floor. The staircase was about a third of the way down the center hallway. Rose assumed that the upstairs mirrored the first floor so again Aaron decided to take the left side of the house while Rose took the right. Rose slowly crept up the stairs keeping her guns up and trained at the top of the stairs. As she got higher she slowly turned and stopped so she was facing the bannister overlooking the stairs giving her an easy shot should someone pop out. Aaron then slowly crept past her, machete at the ready, straight up to the top. Once he reached the top, he gave Rose the all clear and she hurried up the stairs.
The top of the stairs ended at an open area with the bathroom straight ahead. To the right were two bedrooms and off to the left were two bedrooms. All the doors were open. As Aaron went into the first bedroom on the left, Rose popped into the bathroom quickly to make sure no one was in there. The shower curtain was pulled closed so Rose slowly crept up to it and in one motion, threw it open. Inside was nothing more than an empty tub. Taking a deep breath, Rose then moved on to the bedrooms on the right side of the house. The bedroom closest to the bathroom appeared to be a girls room. The walls were bright pink in the daylight and as Rose moved through the door, she could see dressers topped with stuffed animals and toy boxes full of toys. Rose noted there were two twin beds in the room. She and Kate had never had time to have kids, but it was something that they’d talked about a lifetime ago. Rose had never had a desire to have any children biologically and had always been drawn to adoption, but that was her old life, a past life, gone forever.
She bent down and picked up a small pink elephant that was out of place on the floor and had probably fallen off one of the beds. Rose smiled at it as she picked it up. “Maybe someday when the world gets its act together, there will be a little girl that needs a mother,” Rose thought to herself.
Turning to place the elephant back onto the closest twin bed, Rose realized there was someone in it. Two little girls, the owners of the room, appeared to be asleep, one in each of their beds. Rose had an urge to shake
the little girls, to wake them, take them away from this house, but Rose realized, to her horror that their complexion was the same as the man in the entryway. Both their faces, twins by the looks of them and no more then three or four years old, were covered by straw-like blonde hair. Their skin was the same papery leather complete with dark, empty eye sockets and toothy gaping mouths. The happy thoughts of adoption and children shattered into a million pieces as she stared at these two dead little girls in their beds. Letting the elephant drop to the floor and bounce away, Rose quickly backed out of the room closing the door behind her. Rose could almost not breathe from the shock, she just stood there in the hallway, her back to the closed door, frozen. She managed to finally take a few deep breaths and slowly steadied her nerves. Death had never bothered Rose that much before, why now? Closing her eyes, Rose took a moment to relax, regaining her composure.
Looking around the hallway, there was thankfully still no sign of Aaron, so Rose continued on to the last room on her side. This room was blue and she could see baseball stickers and posters on the wall and on the door to the room. Rose peeked her head inside, dreading more dead children. She was just going to check quickly, just a peek in and out...Just like in the pink room, there was a boy laying on the single twin bed in the room. Closer to eight or nine, it appeared as if he’d rolled over before death took him and so he was barely covered by the sheets. He was wearing navy blue pajamas with white trim. His brown hair was cropped short and he was looking right at the doorway. Or would have been if his eyes had still been there. Like the others, his eyes were gone and the skin on his skull was gaunt, the sickly shade of rotted leather. Rose tried to look away but she felt paralyzed, locked in a death stare with the boy’s empty sockets. She felt as if she was being sucked into the black voids that the boy’s eyes used to occupy.
Rose was unsure how long she stood there staring at the boy but she jumped when Aaron put a hand on her shoulder. Embarrassed, Rose slammed the boy’s door shut.
“The other side was the same. That was probably the father downstairs. There is a woman and a dog in the master bedroom. The other room was an office which was empty,” said Aaron. As Aaron talked, Rose, half-listening, tried to shake off the shock from the bedrooms and bring herself back into the present.
“I also found this,” said Aaron, handing Rose a framed picture. In the picture was a family-this family. They were alive and well, nice pink healthy faces and eyes looking back at her from the past. The man downstairs, his wife and children, even the dog. Rose looked closer and realized there were four children in this picture-the twins, the little boy, and an older boy.
“Jacob,” said Aaron answering Rose’s thoughts. “This is probably why he lived in the cottage.”
Rose could hardly blame him. Rose walked over to a small table in the hallway and placed the picture down. “These people need a proper funeral. We can’t leave them to rot in this house forever,” said Rose stiffly, as she started back down the stairs to the front door. Rose could tell that Aaron wasn’t thrilled, but he would help. It was the right thing to do.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Emerging from the house, Rose felt pale and drained. Seeing that kind of death, innocent dead children, was something she hadn’t expected or ever really seen before and it’d taken her completely by surprise. The infected were one thing but what’d happened in this house was something else entirely. How much death had she seen on her journey north only to be stopped in her tracks so completely by this house? It was how they died, it must have been. For them to just give up and kill their children without even trying to escape or survive? That was something Rose just couldn’t understand.
“That bad huh?” asked Jamie, this time with only the slightest touch of sarcasm. Rose figured Jamie could tell how bad she felt just from how she looked.
Ignoring Jamie, Rose went over to Jacob. He was still sitting in the same chair and had stopped crying, his eyes now red and bloodshot. Rose tried to think of something she could say to him that might make him feel better, but she couldn't, her mind kept drawing her back to those sets of empty eyes in the house. Finally Rose managed, “We will help you.”
Jacob looked up at her through his red-rimmed eyes. There was no anger there, only sadness. Rose knew this sadness all too well. It was something that people didn't forget, it would be with her for the remainder of her life as it would no doubt be with Jacob.
Guilt was now a rising tide in her mind, slowly growing deeper and deeper as Rose stood there staring into Jacob’s eyes. All Jacob had been doing was surviving and they’d come and almost killed him to take that away from him. They’d invaded his life. They’d become what they were trying to escape.
Rose could feel the tears at the corners of her eyes as she stared into Jacob’s. “We will help you bury your family. If you’ll have us, we’d like to stay here and help you survive.”
Jacob was silent for a long time but he held Rose’s gaze. Rose couldn't tell what he was thinking, his expression unchanged. After several long, tense moments, Jacob nodded his head. “Thank you,” he said softly.
They’d made it. For the first time since she could remember, Rose breathed a sigh of relief, they’d found their sanctuary. Rose stood and patted Jacob on his shoulder. She looked up at the tree tops and the sunshine refracting through the pine trees scattering sunlight in every direction. Rose basked in the rays, their fall intensity warm on her cheeks. She looked around at the collection of people around her, survivors all of them. Rose allowed herself, for the first time, to think the unthinkable-they’d made it. The whole world had ended but they’d defied the odds and somehow made it here to this place.
Looking over to Adeline and Aaron, Rose could see they were holding hands and smiling at her, basking in the same peaceful glow. Rose wanted nothing more then to prolong that moment forever, but it wasn’t to be. The scream of an infected female, shrill and piercing in the distance, turned Rose’s head immediately.
Don’t miss the exciting conclusion to the Jordan Rose duology:
Homecoming
(To be released in 2015-16)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Jordan Rose Duology (Book 1): Break Away Page 25
