Infection Runs Deep

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: SHRAPNEL

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.