“It’s brand-new.”
“A terrible accident while the entire town is at a community event is a lot more palatable than mass murder by shape-shifters.”
He stepped out of the gymnasium and I followed. “The building is brick, how you gonna burn it?”
“Don’t worry; I’ve done it before.”
A quick trip to the Hummer produced gasoline and a few sticks of dynamite.
“Isn’t that going to seem suspicious?”
“People see what they want to see. No one left in town to say otherwise, it’ll look like an accident. I’ll make it look like one.”
Ten minutes later, flames shot toward the neon-blue sky. Jimmy turned, but instead of heading toward the car, he went toward town. “We need to make sure there isn’t anyone left.”
“You think there might be?”
“No. Werewolves are pretty thorough. But we’ll look.”
He didn’t have to say we were searching for both human and non. When we’d returned to the Hummer for the gas, we’d also restocked our supply of silver bullets.
Noon had come and gone before we’d searched every house and business. We didn’t find anyone else, dead, alive, or anything in between. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. I decided not to think about it at all. Yep. I was definitely starting to catch on to this job.
“We’ll clean up, grab some fresh clothes and food, then get on the road,” Jimmy said.
I didn’t like the idea of using dead people’s things, but what choice did we have? We couldn’t ride around Kansas, or any other state for that matter, covered in blood and ashes. That was bound to raise some eyebrows.
“This one.” Jimmy flicked a finger at a three-story clapboard, painted a soothing robin’s-egg blue. The shutters were white; spring flowers sprouted all over the yard, mocking the scent of death and smoke that hung over Hardeyville.
He climbed the porch steps and walked right in. No one locked their doors here. I’d discovered that for myself as we’d meandered through the town searching for survivors and werewolves.
The house was shadowed and cool, all the shades still drawn. The inhabitants hadn’t woken up this morning. They’d been a little dead.
I rubbed my forehead, wishing my mind would stop talking.
“Why this one?” I asked.
“Young couple, near our age and size,” he answered shortly. “I’m gonna shower first.” He started upstairs.
I opened my mouth to argue, then snapped it shut as a picture in the living room caught my gaze. I forgot all about Jimmy and his selfish, rude, typical behavior, drawn inexorably toward the photograph.
They could have been us. Or the us Jimmy and I might have become if we were different people. Hell—
“If one of us was people,” I muttered.
In a different world.
The husband was dark-haired, but the wife was blond. From the photo, they’d been married in springtime, perhaps only the last one, perhaps this one. Hard to say.
He was tall and rangy, his dark tux a perfect accent for his coloring. She shone with joy in an ivory sheath. No veil, her hair tumbling in curls around her bare shoulders. They’d had their whole lives ahead of them.
And now they didn’t.
I wandered around the room, peering at other pictures. The happy couple skiing. Dancing. The wife and her parents. The husband and his. They’d both had siblings. I thought I recognized a few from the gymnasium. By the time I’d made the circuit, I was shivering again.
The water still ran upstairs. I hunted around for a second bathroom, found one on the first floor that only housed a sink and toilet, then stomped upward, intent on kicking Jimmy out before all the hot water disappeared.
Not that I couldn’t just stroll to the next house on the block and use their hot water, but right now I wanted to argue. I needed to. I was mad. I was scared. I wanted to punch someone. Jimmy would let me punch him.
On the second floor, I took inventory—master bedroom, guest room, office—
“Son of a—” I muttered, staling at the pastel green walls with a border of giraffes and elephants. There wasn’t any furniture. Yet.
Had she been pregnant, or just hoping?
I didn’t know, would probably never know. Right now, I couldn’t bear to know.
I crossed the hall to the bathroom, planning to rattle the door, shout for Jimmy to hurry up. But when my hand touched the knob, the door swung open. Steam flowed out. The water still ran, but other than that the room was eerily silent.
The chill came back. I shoved the door wider with my foot, drawing my gun, bracing for a wash of red across the white shower curtain, another body, the end of a life with Jimmy in it.
I tried to breathe. Couldn’t. No blood. No body either.
Not a shadow beyond that white curtain. His gun lay on the toilet seat, but where was he?
“Jimmy?”