Jakarta Pandemic, The (53 page)

“Hey, honey, you there,” he asked.

“Yep. Nothing’s moving out there. What did you find?”

“You really don’t want to know. We have a very big problem here on Durham Road. I’m headed over to the Hayes’ to check out the situation there,” he said and started to walk across the snow toward the Hayes’ house.

“What happened to the Coopers?” she insisted.

“Are the kids listening?”

“Hold on,” she said. A few seconds later she was back on the radio. “Okay, I’m in the bathroom. They’re still crashed out.”

“They were killed in the bedroom. Looks like shotgun blasts. One took off the top of Paul’s head, and the other…”

“That’s enough…I get it. Why are you going to the Hayes’? It’s too dangerous. I think we know what you’ll find there.”

Alex considered her argument, which sounded reasonable, but didn’t satisfy him.

“I have to be sure. Charlie heard more shooting the other night. Someone might still be alive, though I seriously doubt it. I’ll take a quick look and scoot back home. I have Max with me. He’s fine.”

“Don’t take him over there. Why don’t you come home? Bring Max back, he must be scared out of his mind.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Plus, I feel better having him with me. Nothing can sneak up on us. I’ll be home in under ten minutes.”

“Can you find any food for Max at their house? I know you probably don’t want to go back in there.”

“I’m one step ahead of you. I have a thirty-pound bag waiting for the return trip. I’m almost at the house. Call you in a few.” He put the walkie away.

He reached the corner of the Hayes’ garage and looked across the street at Charlie Thorntons’ house.

Fuck
.

Alex had crossed between the two houses and couldn’t remember if the Murrays’ house had come into view. He’d been talking to Kate and not paying attention.

Too late now.

“Damn it. I can’t believe I did that,” he said aloud.

He decided to try the back door first and moved along the back of the garage, staying as close to the wall as possible. He couldn’t see the Murrays’ house, but he didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks.

He reached the door and noticed brown cardboard on the inside of the door’s window, which completely blocked his view into the garage. He pushed the door open with little effort, and Max pulled them both into the dark space. The smell of concentrated garbage overwhelmed his senses as he regained control of the dog and quickly scanned the garage.

He closed the door behind him, and the garage was plunged into complete darkness. He waited several seconds for his eyes to adjust and slowly walked forward. He moved past the neatly stacked firewood against the far wall and stumbled through several plastic trash bags as he slid along a minivan to get to the mudroom door.

He effortlessly opened the door and saw that it had been forced open just like the Coopers’. He took in the slack on Max’s leash and stepped in the house. A very fine layer of white dust blanketed the mudroom floor and a dark pine bench, on which lay several dust-coated jackets. He didn’t see any footprints in the powder, or anything else out of order in the mudroom.

Strange.

A faint, sickening odor confirmed his worst suspicions as he stepped inside the kitchen from the mudroom. He saw evidence of at least five shotgun blasts on the half-wall between the eat-in kitchen area and the family room. Like the Coopers’, the kitchen was ransacked.

Direct sunlight poured into the kitchen through the uncovered windows over the sink, fading beyond the kitchen and making it difficult to see into the family room, where all of the shades were closed. He noticed that the dust was thicker in the kitchen and covered every horizontal surface. Max was quiet, with his tail between his legs. He looked up at Alex and yawned.

I’m nervous too, buddy.

Alex edged forward, careful to navigate Max around any broken glass, wanting to get a closer look at the shotgun damage. The half-wall was capped with a glossy white trim shelf and extended from the back of the house to a point two-thirds of the way across the family room. A white, decorative pillar connected the top of the half-wall with the ceiling. The shotgun blasts were concentrated on the corner near the opening to the family room, punching holes clear through the wall and shredding the wooden trim cap. Surprisingly, the pillar was mostly intact, with only superficial damage around the base. He was perplexed by the multiple blasts focused on the corner of the wall. The intensity of the gunfire was at odds with what he’d seen in the Coopers’ bedroom, where each shot appeared to have had its own deadly purpose.

Wait a minute, I know what happened.

He stopped at the end of the kitchen island and turned around, immediately confirming his suspicions. He saw a bullet hole in the white trim around the doorway leading into the mudroom, and three more holes were visible in the light blue mudroom wall just beyond the kitchen entrance.

Alex’s eyes wandered the kitchen to the left of the doorway. He saw another bullet hole in the refrigerator and one more in the cherry wood cabinet above the stove.

Small caliber. Probably the pistol shots Charlie heard before the shotgun blasts.

He shook his head and turned back around to face the half-wall. The shotgun blasts and bullet holes told him everything he really needed to know about what had happened to the Hayes’. He crept forward, mentally fortifying himself for the scene beyond the half-wall.

The smell intensified and became excruciating as he approached the family room, so he breathed shallowly; a trick he’d learned in Iraq. He caught a quick glimpse of the carnage through one of the holes in the wall, but couldn’t really determine what he saw. He fought the urge to turn around, knowing what he’d find there.

Same as the Coopers’
.

He pressed forward, keeping Max on an extremely short lead. The entire family room came into view and Alex stood frozen. An intense anger and hatred arose in him as he stared at the twisted sight in the family room.

The entire room was blanketed in the same dust he’d found throughout the house, but it appeared thicker. He assumed that the fine dust had come from the blasted drywall. Having cut the drywall for his own attic conversion, he knew firsthand the mess it could leave behind.

A light blue slipcovered couch sat against the half-wall a few feet down from the blasted corner, and a rectangular oak coffee table sat a few feet in front of the couch. Paper plates and cups littered the table along with chunks of drywall. He saw that one of the plates held several pieces of thick tubular pasta, partially buried under white powder. Several small caliber shell casings lay covered with powder on the floor near the obliterated corner.

Without actually stepping into the room, Alex leaned in and saw that the back of the corner wall had been vaporized by the blasts, confirming his theory about the layer of drywall dust. Two oversized tan chairs were up against the interior wall of the house, with a large oak table between them. He couldn’t see any damage to the chairs, or the pictures of the Hayes’ that adorned the walls behind the twin chairs.

A large flat-screen TV sat atop a three-foot-high black entertainment center in the corner of the room to the right of a fireplace, appearing undamaged. A small stack of wood sat in a black wrought iron wood carrier on the other side of the fireplace, and a giant family portrait, taken at one of the local beaches, dominated the wall above the fireplace mantel. He saw three rolled up sleeping bags stuffed behind the chair closest to the fireplace.

Now for the body.

Kenneth Hayes was not right behind the wall where Alex had expected to find him. A wide reddish-brown stain, thick and pasty from the drywall powder, extended from the hardwood floor near the corner of the wall to his body lying in front of the coffee table several feet away. A thicker pool of dried blood extended from his torso toward a window-height bookcase underneath the rear picture window which, like everything else, was sheathed in fine powder.

Kenneth lay on his stomach, a gaping hole in the middle of his upper back, squarely hit by at least one blast at close range.

Shot in the back, crawling away.

He glanced again at the bloody trail in front of him and assumed that Ken was also hit somewhere in the chest or stomach as he crouched to fire at his attackers.

All right…that’s one of them. What about the others?

He was pretty sure that Michelle Hayes hadn’t been in the house, having been taken to a triage center by Ken a few weeks before, along with the children. He had heard that Ken had returned with the kids, but not Michelle.

His attention was drawn to the two-tiered bookcase, filled with a mix of children’s and adult books, that extended the entire length of the back picture window. Several board games were stored on the bottom shelf closest to the couch. The end of the bookcase almost reached the corner of the coach, creating an open space in the corner of the room where the half-wall met the back wall of the house. He saw something on the corner walls and walked a few more feet into the room.

The smell of decomposition and feces immediately overwhelmed his shallow breathing trick, and he raised his left arm to his nose to breathe into his Gore-Tex jacket sleeve, which did little to help. Max did not seem to be having any problems with the horrifying odor and was straining on the end of the leash. Alex was convinced that the dog would try to lick the blood-paste mixture on the floor, so he kept a constant tension on the leash to prevent Max’s muzzle from reaching the floor.

That’ll make us both puke.

He stepped toward the fireplace to put a little more space between Max and the body. As he moved forward, he caught sight of a small foot protruding from the small gap between the bookcase and the corner of the couch. His chest tightened, and he started grinding his teeth, immediately fighting back tears.

No, no, no…this…is not happening. This did not happen. NO.

Holding Max’s leash tightly, he edged forward with the knowledge that what he was about to see would stay with him forever. He stopped and stared at the wall behind the corner.

I don’t need to do this to myself.

He tried to rationalize leaving, but finally concluded that he had to be sure. He switched the leash to his left hand and took a few more steps. He continued to edge forward until small quarter-sized splotches began to materialize on the wall just below the arm of the couch. A few more steps and he pulled back when he thought he could see the top of a head appear against the exterior wall of the house.

He backed up a few more feet and almost tripped over Max, staring again at the little foot protruding from the small gap between the couch and bookcase. It lay in a separate pool of blood that extended from the bookcase and reached the coffee table, stopping short of joining the pool of blood spilled from Ken’s body.

I will kill every single one of them for this.

Alex stopped to process the scene.

I can’t leave until I know what happened to all of them. What if one of the kids is hiding in the house?

His shoulders slumped, and he swallowed hard. He carefully stepped back and tied Max to the leg of the oak table between the oversized chairs on the other side of the room before he walked angrily past Ken’s body toward the dark corner of the room.

Several minutes later, he stood with Max in the mudroom, physically ready to leave the grisly scene behind. Mentally, he knew that what he saw in the corner of that room would never leave him.

He spit a few more small chucks of vomit onto the gray tile floor and wiped the remaining tears from his eyes. The rest of the vomit was sprayed on the couch and coffee table in the family room, some of it ending up on Ken’s body. Strangely, Alex felt terrible about that.

“You ready, buddy?” he asked Max in a normal tone.

Max looked up at him and yawned again.

“I don’t blame you, Max. Well, let’s get out of here. I know some people who can’t wait to see you.”

He opened the door and stepped into the darkened garage. The smell of rotting garbage was a welcome relief to both Alex and Max, who immediately started pulling to get at the trash. Alex fought his way through the debris, pulling Max along the whole way. He got to the door and opened it, nearly tripping on the dog as they simultaneously exited the garage door.

Dammit, Max.

Max started barking and straining against the leash.

What is it now?

“Oh shit,” he mumbled, quickly reaching for the pistol behind his back.

A man stood close to the border of the Murrays’ property, still several yards on the Hayes’ side. Alex’s hand remained behind his back, gripping the pistol and trembling slightly.

Jesus, if I had opened that door one minute earlier.

The man’s body was pointed toward the Murrays’ yard, but his head was turned toward Alex. He was wearing faded jeans and a brown leather jacket, and a black winter cap stretched tightly over his head. Matted, shoulder-length brown hair protruded from the sides of the hat, splayed on the shoulders of the jacket. A goatee unmistakably identified him as Daryll
.
He held an oversized load of firewood in front of him and stared at Alex, clearly contemplating his options.
Keep walking or go for it?
A hunting shotgun was slung over his right shoulder.

Alex calculated the range between them to be about forty yards, which was too far for him to guarantee a hit with his pistol; forty yards for a shotgun was also less than optimal. The shotgun blasts in the house indicated that these guys were using “double ought” buckshot, which could certainly reach Alex at forty yards, but would require a proficient shooter.

He hoped that the man kept walking. As much as Alex would like a chance to kill the man in his tracks, he knew that the gun battle’s outcome couldn’t be guaranteed, especially with Max in the middle of the fight.