The Survivor Chronicles (Book 3): The Forsaken (25 page)

Xander was about to protest this when Mary Ellen spoke, "That will work."

He stared at her, wishing that she would meet his gaze but she remained focused on the home to their left. He understood her desire not to back down, but there was no reason to continue to put herself in jeopardy if she didn't have to. He took a step closer to speak with her but she shook her head at him and turned away.

She grabbed hold of Rochelle's shoulders. "Stay with Carl and John and do whatever they tell you to do."

"Mom..."

"It's better if you stay with them; they're going to need an extra set of eyes. Please don't argue about this."

"I can switch with you," John offered.

Mary Ellen shook her head and glanced over at Peter before speaking with them again. "It will be fine."

She kissed Rochelle on the forehead and walked over to join Peter, Josh, and Donald. Riley was peering in the back window at the cat curled up on the seat when Xander joined her. "We're going to have to let her out soon," Riley muttered.

Xander wrapped his hand around her shoulder and pulled her away from the window she had cracked open. Even with the window open, the cat wouldn't be able to stay in there for long. He glanced at the sky and then back at the cat. "Maybe we should let her out now."

"She'll take off."

"It's better that she runs away instead of dies from the heat. You never know, she might stick around. But even ten minutes in that car may be too much right now."

Riley glanced at the sky again and nodded. "You're right."

She walked around the car, opened the front door, and popped the trunk. From the trunk she pulled out the bowls and filled one with food while she placed some water in the other. Opening the door she placed both bowls on the floor of the car and left the door ajar. The gray cat yawned and stretched before jumping out of the vehicle. The cat didn't wander far as she explored the front yard and watched them with her ears perked forward.

"She'll stick around," Riley said.

"I'm sure she will." Xander prayed the cat didn't take off as he pulled Riley away from the car.

"Try not to shoot your guns unless you absolutely have to," Carl told them.

"We won't," Xander said.

Xander watched the cat as they made their way toward the black front door of a house that was easily five times the size of the one he had grown up in. He kept hold of Riley's hand as he peered into the windows with Bobby and Al. Riley kept an eye on the street but when Xander turned to look with her, he saw nothing moving amongst the homes surrounding them.

He turned back to the windows and peered in on a room that was probably the size of his old house. The room was floor to ceiling bookcases, there wasn't an inch of space on any of the hundreds of shelves as they were filled with books. A sense of awe filled him as he looked over the room. Carol and his mother would have spent weeks, if not months curled up in that room, lost within the pages of all those books. He may just lose Riley to it when they finally got in there.

"There's a lot of places to hide in this beast," Bobby said as he stepped away from the window and tilted his head to look up at the porch roof above them.

"We really don't have many options and there could be a good amount of food in there," Xander said.

"And weapons," Al said as he examined the front door.

Xander glanced over at Carl, John, and Rochelle gathered on the porch of the house beside them. They were only a hundred or so feet away but it seemed like a thousand as Bobby grabbed the doorknob. Xander had been expecting the door to be locked but it creaked as it swung open. He didn't look back before stepping into the darkened interior of the home.

John,

John remained behind Carl as his friend slid his hand through the window he'd broken out of the door, and pushed it open. "What do you think these people did for a living?" John inquired as he took in the airy, spotless interior of what could only be described as a foyer, though he'd never been in a foyer like this one before.

"Something neither of us was ever going to do," Carl answered as he stepped into the house.

"Something none of us have even probably
heard
of," Rochelle said.

His gaze fell on the security panel next to the door. All of the lights were off on it but he still couldn't shake the feeling that the cops would be pulling up with the sirens blaring at any second.

Their steps, echoing on the marble floor beneath them, caused John to wince as they walked toward the doublewide staircase in the center of the room. Halfway to the second floor, the staircase split and went in two separate directions to the hallway above. He'd never been so happy to step on a rug as he was when they finally made it to the blue oriental in the middle of the floor that silenced their steps.

"We'll start on the right," Carl said and nodded at the room across from them. "Rochelle, stay in the doorway and keep an eye out for anything coming this way. Just scream if you see something, don't try and take it on."

Rochelle nodded and shifted nervously. Carl pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans and handed it to her. Her eyes were troubled as Carl closed her hand around it. "Do
not
use this unless you absolutely have to and then you just point, shoot, and run. Do you understand me?"

Her jaw clenched as she nodded. "Yes."

"Rochelle..."

"I'll be fine, go on."

"What about those doors?" John asked as he nodded toward the three doors in the foyer.

"We'll check them when we get back," Carl answered. "She'll be able to see if something opens one of these doors, we can't see if something is stalking us from the other rooms right now though. If one of those doors starts to open you get out of here."

John didn't know how many rooms there were beyond the sliding door on their right, but he didn't like the idea of leaving her here by herself. "If you hear us scream, if you hear any gunfire, or
anything
else you run out of this house and don't look back. If you feel spooked for any reason, you leave this house," John told her.

"I'll be fine," she said again and waved her hand at the rooms. "Go, just go."

John wasn't at all certain she would do what she said she would, but he didn't have time to argue with her over it as he turned away. He braced himself as they stepped into what he could only describe as a sitting room. In his mind's eye, he could picture little old women sitting on the delicate sofas, drinking tea as they ate crumpets and gossiped about men. He shook his head to clear the image but the scent of the tea his mother used to boil in the morning was stuck in his nose.

Carl glanced back at him as he approached a set of closed double doors. He gestured for John to open the doors while he stood in front of them with his gun at the ready. John flung the doors open and jumped to the side. He waited for something to charge out of whatever room lay beyond but nothing stirred. John leaned around the door and peered into the dining room.

An oak table with eight chairs around it was within the room. Flies buzzed around the remains of the three breakfast plates sitting on the table. Though John didn't want to look any closer at the bug-infested plates, he noticed the occupants of the house were eating bacon and eggs when the world had gone to hell. Not a bad last meal he decided, if it had been their last meal, bacon was definitely one of his favorites.

Though he was fairly certain he was never going to eat bacon again. It had nothing to do with the fact that he wasn't willing to slaughter Wilbur in order to get the bacon, and everything to do with what was moving around on those plates right now. He kept his eyes diverted from the table as he examined the corners of the room and the hutch tucked against the far wall.

Carl was already moving toward the door to the left of him, he poked his head around the corner before disappearing. John hurried to follow him into the gigantic kitchen. He couldn't help but release a low whistle as he took in the white cabinets, blue granite countertops, and a stove and fridge that could have been straight from Star Trek. He moved around the island in the center of the room and glanced up at the copper pots hanging from a rack over the middle of it.

He wasn't a cook, but even he got the urge to crack and fry an egg in this place. Carl pushed open a swinging door on their right and took a step back from it. "Pantry," he whispered. "There's a fair amount of food in it."

John nodded and followed him around the corner of the room and into a breakfast nook area. A small table was set to the side, the sun's rays spilled across the table and the three chairs tucked under it. John followed Carl out of the kitchen and into what he assumed was a music room. A grand piano sat before an enormous fireplace. From middle school music class, he recalled that the instrument sitting next to the piano was a cello.

Carl approached another set of doors that had been closed; John grabbed hold of one of them and slid it open. Rochelle jumped and spun toward them but she didn't lift the gun and point it at them. She brushed back a strand of her long brown hair before walking across the floor toward them.

"All clear?" she asked in a hushed voice.

"It is in these rooms," Carl assured her. "We'll check out those doors."

He nodded to the three doors set within the hall, two of them were behind the staircase but the first one was only ten feet away from him. "Wait here," John told her and followed Carl to the first door. Carl opened it to reveal a downstairs bathroom.

Carl closed the door and hurried to one of the doors beneath the stairs. A small bedroom lay beyond; John searched the room as they stepped into it. Carl was grabbing hold of the closet door when John knelt next to the full sized bed. His hand curled around the edge of the comforter, his breath froze in his chest as he cautiously bent forward with his gun at the ready. He was certain something was going to grab hold of his ankle and rip him under the bed before tearing into his flesh. He didn't care if there was only a dust bunny under there, if it so much as moved he was going to shoot it into oblivion.

The trembling beam of his flashlight revealed nothing under the bed though, not even a speck of dust. His breath rushed back into his lungs as he dropped the cover into place and sat up. He rested his hands on his knees as he met Carl's gaze across the room. "You ok?" Carl asked as he closed the closet door.

John took another steadying breath. "Yeah, just shaving some years off the life of my heart."

Carl snorted. "Know how you feel."

John pushed himself to his feet and walked far more calmly than he felt toward the door. Rochelle was peering around the stairs at them; he gave her a brief wave before turning toward the remaining door in the foyer. John readied himself as Carl pulled the door open to reveal a set of stairs that disappeared into total darkness halfway down to the basement. Carl closed the door again; he pushed in the lock on the handle and threw the deadbolt on the door.

"They liked their security," John said.

"Good thing the batteries on the alarm are dead, the last thing we need to do is attract a horde of those things," Carl said as he turned away from the door and hurried back to where they had left Rochelle. "All clear."

She smiled as she followed them to the foot of the steps. John stared up the winding staircase to where it split off. "Stay on the stairs until we've searched up there," John told her. "Right or left?" he asked Carl.

"Left," Carl said and climbed up the set of stairs closest to him.

John stayed on his heels as they wound their way up to the hallway that ran in a circle around the second floor. He counted eight doors off of the main hallway as they stood at the top of the stairs. "This is going to take awhile," he muttered.

Carl walked toward the door across from them, the only one that was opened to the hall. He nudged it open with his foot to reveal the study within. John remained in the hallway, trying to watch every door at once as his eyes bounced around the hall and then the study. Carl left the door open as he exited the study and moved on to the next room.

The search went faster than he'd expected as they moved through the house. They encountered four bedrooms and two bathrooms. He was certain he could have gone swimming in the bathtub of one of the bathrooms but he wasn't going to get a chance to try it.

John's grasp on his gun had become slippery by the time they got to the final door. His heart was racing so fast that he could feel every beat of it in his throat. This house was so large; there were so many hiding places within it, and just one place left to look. Carl nodded to him and he thrust the door open for him. Carl went in low as he held his gun before him and pointed it around the only half bath in the house.

Finally able to take an easy breath, John took a step back. Carl left the door open as he exited the bathroom. John's head tilted back to examine the domed roof over top of them. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling caused colors of light to dance over the marble floor beneath them in the fading rays of the day. The house was empty of all threats, or at least everything above the basement was, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.

Carl remained standing beside him, his shoulders against his. From their angle they could both see Rochelle on the stairs. She was looking toward the front door but she didn't seem concerned as she remained leaning against the rail.

"Everything ok?" she inquired.

Carl smiled at her and nodded. "Everything's fine up here."

"Carl..." John started when Carl took a step forward.

Carl turned back to him but words failed John as he glanced around the vast house once more. "What is it?"

"Nothing," John said with a shake of his head. "Nothing."

"Everything will be fine. We'll look in the basement. Judging by the rest of this place it's probably only full of some kind of fancy wine or something."

"Yeah," John muttered but his feet felt heavy as he followed Carl down the stairs to where Rochelle stood.

She stepped away from the banister to meet them. "Just have the basement to go kid," John told her.

"Why don't we just keep it locked?" she suggested.

"We really don't need one of those things popping out at us," Carl said. "I don't think these people stuck around here after the quakes hit. I didn't see any cars in the drive so the basement should be clear."

"The cars are probably in the garage," Rochelle said.

John stopped walking and turned to face Carl as he realized why he couldn't shake the awful certainty that something was wrong. "We missed a door."

Carl frowned at him. "We searched the entire house."

"No, we missed something somewhere. I'm certain of it. Look around you Carl. I don't think these people walked outside in the rain to get to their cars."

"They probably had a driver bring it around for them," Carl said with a forced laugh. "We didn't miss a door; the garage isn't attached to the house. This place may have all the modern appliances, and even have the look of a newly built house, but it's easily a hundred years old."

"Are you sure?" John demanded as he tried to recall the setup of the outside of the property.

"I'm sure," Carl told him. "It was further up the drive, almost behind the house."

John glanced around the house and back toward the basement door. "Why don't we check the garage first," he suggested. Carl gave him a questioning look but John couldn't explain why he had to see it, he simply knew that he did. "I just can't shake this bad feeling, the dishes on the table..." he shook his head as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "There's something not right, or something that we're missing."

"We're not missing anything," Carl said. "But we'll check the garage first."

John knew Carl was only agreeing to this to ease his mind, but even still he felt relieved when they made their way to the backdoor. They stepped into what had probably been lush gardens, but the flowers had all wilted and died beneath the oppressive heat. Some of them were plastered to the flagstone walkway.

John stepped over a broken branch lying in the middle of the walk and moved around a toppled birdbath. "Must have been pretty once," Rochelle murmured.

"I'm sure it was," John agreed.

He spotted the double car garage as they rounded the privet hedge that had been split down the middle by a small oak that had toppled onto it. The branches of the privet were going in every direction, except the right one. The garage was set back from the house, tucked neatly in between some drooping maples. Though it looked as if it had been built after the house, it was still smaller than he had expected.

He walked up to the windows in one of the garage bay doors and stood on his tiptoes to peer inside. A silver bumper gleamed on a car but he saw little else of the inside. Carl led the way around the side of the building, he kicked aside a trashcan that had toppled over and grabbed hold of the knob. Carl pushed the door open and recoiled instantly as a putrid wave of odor drifted from within the building.