Graham’s house was the first on the left, tucked into the thick forest behind a short turn in the narrow road. His father had spared no expense on the employee homes, building each with its own character and style. Graham’s was a brick, cape cod style with two dormers and gray shutters. The chef had said his Nordic blood demanded a sauna, and James had complied upon hiring him, building a small addition onto the already completed house.
The smoke that almost always curled from the little chimney atop the sauna was absent as he approached and Quinn sighed, mounting the steps to the front porch. He knocked hard on the front door and waited only seconds before trying the knob. It turned and he stepped inside.
The house smelled much like the kitchen he’d just left. Garlic, cilantro, and the scent of homemade dinner rolls permeated the air, but beneath it there was something else. Quinn paused after closing the door and set the chicken broth down on the counter.
“Graham?” Silence chased his voice from the house, and he listened for the rustle of sheets, a squeaking floorboard, something, but there was nothing, only the same quiet that filled his own home.
He moved across the wide living room and into a hallway. The smell was stronger here, choking out the aromas of food with its stench. It hung in the hall like something alive, festooning the air with a message that couldn’t be denied. Only death lives here now.
Quinn shivered and stopped before Graham’s bedroom door. It stood partially open, a slash of afternoon sunshine beating through the window and ending near his feet.
“Graham?”
He braced himself and pushed the door all the way open.
The room was in shambles.
A heavy oak dresser lay on its side, the mirror at its top shattered and reflecting the ceiling in its shards. Sets of clothes were piled and scattered everywhere as if Graham had been trying them on and discarding them in haste. Blankets and pillows were strewn across floor and beneath the bed. The bed itself was stripped bare and there were several puffs of fabric pulled up at its center.
Quinn moved into the room, stepping around the broken mirror until he stood beside the bed. The smell of putrescent fish was so thick here he could barely breathe. He placed a hand to his nose, but it did no good so he dropped it away. The mattress was partly discolored; its deep red fabric stained a darker brown in some places. When he reached out to touch it, he found that it was wet, soaking almost. A clear fluid dripped from the bedframe and added to a puddle on the floor he hadn’t noticed at first. The tufts of material near the center of the bed had long scratches at their edges along with trails of red that could only be blood.
He swallowed the gorge rising up from his stomach and stepped back, stumbling over on overturned chair. The puddle on the floor, it was Graham, it had to be. He had succumbed faster to the sickness and completely disintegrated into the foul-smelling fluid. This was what was happening to his father and Teresa right now, down in the damp ground where he’d buried them.
Quinn turned and half walked, half ran from the room, sucking in great lungfuls of stinking air that only choked him. He stopped in the living room, knowing he would be sick but trying to hold it at bay. The back of the sofa was under his hand and he swayed there, drunk with the knowledge that he was now truly alone. A sound along with movement came from the rear of the house, startling him. He swung his head to the left, a cold hand clamping down in the center of his chest.
The back door eased open and then closed, banging against the frame beneath the wind’s insistence.
Quinn watched it for a moment and then moved to the front door, leaving the broth on the counter.
~