Peter was already inside, standing behind the counter where he’d rested his backpack. “Where should I put this?” he asked, gesturing towards the bag.
“In that office behind you. Maybe you and Fohi can hang out in there, just in case someone walks by. Then they won’t see you unless they actually come in.”
Peter raised an eyebrow at me. “Fohi’s staying too?”
I battled to keep a straight face. “He’s our demolitions expert,” I said, walking past him.
Peter followed. “More like an accident waiting to happen,” he grumbled. “You’ve put me in charge of babysitting.”
“And dog-sitting,” I added.
“The things I won’t do for you, Bryn Mathis …,” he said, shaking his head.
I dropped my bag on the ground and reaching inside the front pocket to pull the harmonica out, sliding it into my pocket. I walked back to Peter and pulled him into a big hug. “Be careful, please. Get your gun out and use it on anything that doesn’t look like one of us.”
“Will do,” he said into my shoulder.
Jamal and Ronald entered the office. “This where we’re waiting?” asked Ronald, looking around at the mess all over the floor and the overturned desk and chair.
“You guys are going to be here too?” asked Peter, pulling away from me and looking hopeful.
“Yep,” said Jamal. “We’re not really the fighting type … but we don’t want to go without you guys on to the prison, either, so …”
“Yeah. We’re gonna hang out with you, if that’s okay,” finished Ronald.
“No problem,” said Peter. “The more the merrier. Do you guys have guns?”
They both shook their heads.
Peter pulled his .357 out of his bag, breathing in puffs with the effort. “Don’t worry. Mine’s big enough for all of us.” He hefted it into the air, his arms practically wobbling with the effort.
Ronald reached out and took it from him gently. “Maybe I can take a look at this. And hold it while we wait,” he said.
Peter shrugged. “You said you’re not a fighter, but if you think you can shoot a canner in the head with it, then be my guest.”
Ronald handed it back, hurriedly. “Uh, no. That’s okay. You look like you can handle it.”
Peter smiled at me slyly and winked, addressing Ronald. “Yeah. Sure, no problem. Just make sure you’re behind me when it goes off. I don’t have the best aim in the world.”
“He’s not lying, either,” I said.
Ronald and Jamal moved quickly to the back of the office and sat down on the floor, talking quietly to each other and glancing from time to time at my fearless friend.
I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Hold the fort. We’ll be back in a jiff.”
“How long is a jiff, exactly?” asked Fohi, coming into the office dragging Rob’s and Winky’s backpacks in either hand next to him, his own still on his back.
“An hour?” I said. “Or eight? I’m not sure.”
Fohi rolled his eyes. “Okay. Ha. Good one. We’ll see you when we see you, I guess.”
I looked at Ronald. “I’m going to use your bike. If anything happens, you take mine and ride out of here without looking back, got it?”
Ronald nodded.
I left the office and joined Rob and Winky outside, grabbing Ronald’s mountain bike and getting on, my feet barely reaching the ground and the seat grinding uncomfortably into my crotch. My partners in crime were straddling their bikes, waiting for me.
“So, where to?” asked Rob.
“To Cannerville. First stop, the canner mansion.”
Neither of them said anything. They just pushed off, riding ahead of me as I struggled to stay on the seat and follow behind.
***
We rode down the streets of the neighborhood surrounding the canner mansion without talking. We knew from our previous trip that some of the houses contained spies for the canners, and none of us were interested in finding out whose side they were on now. The plan was to slip by without being detected.
We arrived at the canner place and I took the lead, riding my bike up over the curb and straight to the front of the house where Winky said she had last seen Bodo.
The front entrance was completely blackened. The sight of it made me feel sick to my stomach, imagining Bodo stuck inside there when the place blew up. All messing around aside, Fohi had done almost too good of a job causing a distraction here. The smell of rotting bodies hung in the air, which made me nervous and sick on several levels. Please don’t let it be Bodo.
I got off my bike and leaned it against a palm tree, motioning for Rob and Winky to stay there with it; but Winky ignored me and left her bike with Rob, following me a couple paces back. I looked over my shoulder and saw Rob was off his bike and standing behind a tree keeping a lookout, making me feel reasonably sure that at least we wouldn’t be snuck up on from behind.
We picked our way over the rubble on the stairs just before the entrance of the house. Most of the junk on the ground looked like pieces of the building, but there were smears of brown that could only have been old blood. The body parts that had put them there were gone, though, taken either by human hands or animals. Please let it be animals.
My heartbeat picked up as we got closer and closer to the front door. Our moccasins crunched over the grit beneath our feet. The humid breeze lifted some strands of my hair and plastered them to my sweating forehead. My breath sounded loud to my ears. I prayed it was only an illusion brought on by my panic and that I was the only one who could hear it. Winky moved closer to me until our arms were touching.
“What do you think?” she whispered when we were finally in the doorway. “Should we split up?”
I shook my head, motioning with my hand for her to stay with me. I didn’t see any value in being alone, and I was worried about a sneak attack.
We stepped over the threshold, peering into the dark interior which was lit from above by the stars and moon shining down into the hole in the roof. The back of the house still had some cover, but the front was open to the sky.
Pieces of drywall, concrete, and wood lay strewn across the once beautiful marble floors. My eyes scanned the large foyer and the stairs at the far end of it, looking for signs of human life - or former human life.
A misshapen lump of what looked like rags lay about twenty feet away, near the base of the stairs. I nodded my head at it and then looked pointedly at Winky. She nodded silently at me, and we walked across the floor together to investigate.
I could tell it was human as soon as we were about five feet away. Or it had been. It was larger than any kid I remembered seeing there, but that was probably due to the bloat that all of the dead seemed to suffer. One foot had a sneaker on it, cocked at a strange angle. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized it couldn’t be Bodo. He’d been wearing moccasins on the day we were here.
Winky held my arm and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Why is this still here?”
I frowned at her in confusion.
“Outside, all the parts were gone.”
I nodded. She was right. Something had taken the pieces-parts that had been strewn across the front patio but left the bigger parts here.
I took a few steps closer, trying to get a better look at the body. I held my hand up to my mouth and nose, trying to keep the smell of my own skin there and hold back the nausea that threatened. It was tough, being this close to the hideous signs of death. Even though he’d been a canner, he’d still been human to some degree - and death was not kind to humans.
The face was nearly black with pooled blood and dead skin, the surface of it puffy and blistering. It wasn’t from the blast. I’d seen this effect before. I knew if something jiggled the body hard enough or if it were touched somehow, the skin would just fall off the skull. I was in no hurry to see that happen, so I stayed far enough away that I wouldn’t create any percussions with my feet that might hasten that process. This definitely was not Bodo. The hair was wrong, even if the face was unrecognizable.
I walked backwards until I was even with Winky, whispering, “No scavengers or people have been near this guy - or have touched him, anyway. That’s weird right?”
Winky nodded and took my arm, pulling me to our left, moving to go around the body and into a room at the side of the foyer.
There were more canner bodies there, these less twisted and bent but no less dead and disgusting. The smell was worse because of the number of dead, but still, none of them had been ravaged by animals. Winky pointed at the back of one of them, showing me the bullet hole that had spread blood for a while until his life had drained from him. He was wearing high-top basketball shoes. I stared at him almost mesmerized, wondering if it had been Bodo who’d fired the shot.
Winky and I made our way through three more rooms before ending the circle that brought us back to the front entrance. We’d located three more bodies, but no Bodo.
I looked up the stairs and then over at Winky.
She nodded.
We walked together towards the bottom of the staircase and looked up. The first eight stairs were heavily damaged, so we had to grab the railing that was still intact to pull ourselves over the larger holes. Burn marks ran up the wall to our left, and the remnants of spray-painted graffiti showed through parts of it. Plaster was flaking off nearly to the ceiling.
Once we were halfway up, the holes and scorched wood of the steps were less of a problem and we were able to move faster. We paused at the top of the stairs, not sure whether to go left or right.
Winky nudged me and motioned to the right, where a long hallway with several doors off of it stood waiting. I took the first tentative steps in that direction with Winky right on my heels.
We tiptoed down the carpeted pathway that was worn with mud and other disgusting stains I didn’t want to think about too much. The brownish-colored drag marks could only have meant a bleeding person or part of a person had been this way before us. The smell of death was here too, but not as strong as below.
As we reached each door, we pushed it open. Most of them revealed bedrooms in various states of disarray, thankfully none of them containing bodies, but all of them smelling at the very least like unwashed bodies and a complete lack of any attempt at hygiene. My lip curled at the odors that rose up to assault my nostrils, despite my constant attempts to only breathe in through my mouth.
One last set of double doors remained at the end of the hall, the only ones that were fully closed. I imagined a monster beyond, breathing heavily and panting with the anticipation of surprising us and then murdering us, making us his dinner. I held Winky’s hand in mine for a couple seconds, squeezing it to build up the courage to do what had to be done.
I took a deep breath and let it out before gripping the door handle and pushing it down slowly. The door hardware disengaged from its catch with a faint click. The door swung open with a long almost sad-sounding squeak.
A rush of humid hair hit us in the faces, sending chills down my spine. It was as if something was alive in there.
The room was shockingly pristine. The walls were white and unmarked by graffiti or bloodstains. Framed prints hung on the walls, and thick decorative ropes held back long silk curtains from the window’s edge. Even the carpeted floors looked newly done, not a stain in sight. There was no smell of death here. The perfection of it all bothered me more than anything else I’d seen so far in the house, including the dead and rotting bodies below.
Winky put her hands on my shoulders from behind, making my heart stop beating for a full three seconds before it spasmed hard and then started again, racing to get to its new accelerated pace. She leaned in and whispered in my ear as quietly as humanly possible.
“There’s something wrong. It’s too clean.”
I nodded. She was exactly right, but I had no idea what it meant.
I was just thinking of making my next move into the room, my foot a split-second from lifting up and taking the fateful step, when a voice came from within, making my blood instantly go cold.