“I’m going with you.”
“No, you need to stay out here—”
“I’m going, Jem.”
Unhappiness creased Jem’s forehead, but he said, “Let me go first.”
They approached from the back, passing a grill with collapsible legs, a boarded-over well, a clothesline still clipped with wooden pins that were white from the sun.A room extended off the house, and it appeared to be some kind of combination of a porch and a shed—instead of a door, an opening left it exposed to the elements, and inside, it was full of what Tean could only generously describe as junk: the bulk of a decaying lawnmower, spare parts furred with orange rust, faded tarps.It smelled like gasoline and dry rot, and an out-of-season wasp crawled lazily on a nest high in one corner.
A door connected to the house proper.It was locked, but Jem did something with a thin piece of metal and shouldered into the door, and it popped open.It wasn’t loud by any measure, but in the silence, the thud was unmistakable.
Jem held up a hand for Tean to wait, but no sound came—no shouts, no questions, not even the whisper of movement.
They stepped into a kitchen.Curtains stitched with poppies hung at the window over the sink.The countertops were laminate, and along with the appliances, were avocado green.A Formica table with metal banding occupied the center of the room, and yellowing newspapers, tied into bundles with baling twine, were piled on the table.Mail spilled over the piles like a snowdrift.The smell of old paper was overpowering, combined with an ammonia-like stink that Tean traced, after a moment, to the droppings on the table and chairs, and the chewed edges of the newspapers.
“Fuh,” Jem whispered, pulling his T-shirt over his nose.
Tean squeezed his arm once, and Jem started moving again.
A doorway to the left led into a pantry.It was still stocked, although everything looked older than Tean: canned goods with faded labels, storage canisters of dented aluminum, even the giant buckets that Tean knew had once been the primary form of Mormon food storage, part of their plan to have a year’s supply of food held in reserve against disasters.
Across the kitchen, another door led into a bedroom.Jem made that “Fuh” sound again, but this time, the smell that rose was unmistakably that of dog—or more likely, dogs.The furniture was cherrywood, with spindle legs and scuffed brass fittings.A homemade quilt covered the bed, and the mattress sagged in the middle.On a picture rail overhead hung dozens of dolls still in their packaging.The packaging seemed oddly bulky until Tean took a closer look and realized that each doll was accompanied by a novel—also sealed inside the plastic.Rowena was packed withThe Pirate’s Princess.Courtney went withSavage Temptation.Sabrina held a white cane, and her book was calledSight Unseen.
Jem opened a closet, where clothes hung in dry-cleaning bags, and then moved to another door.This one led into a small bathroom.The tub was ringed with black.The sink didn’t look much better.And the less said about the toilet, the better.
They had to pass through the kitchen again to reach what had probably been called the parlor.A window looked out on the empty rangeland in front of the house.Jem checked the front door and whispered, “Locked.”
The walls were papered with flower baskets and trailing flowers, and a fireplace took up one side of the room.A sofa and matching chairs, all of them with delicate claw feet and blue velveteen upholstery, were marked by time and use with oily splotches on the back and arms of the furniture, anywhere that hands might have touched again and again over the years.
Jem poked his head through the remaining doorway.“Dining room.”
Tean motioned to a flight of stairs.
Grimacing, Jem nodded.He started toward the stairs, and a board creaked underfoot.The sound was sharp.Tean froze.He strained to listen, but he couldn’t hear anything except the blood pounding in his ears.
Jem gave a single, tightly furious shake of his head before proceeding up the stairs again.
Tean followed, trying to avoid the spot where Jem had stepped, copying his way of moving up the stairs.
At the top, a small landing offered four doors.They all stood open, and through them, bedrooms were visible.Jem stepped into the closest one, and Tean started to follow.Then he saw the lock.On the outside of the door.He stopped.
“Jem,” he whispered.
When Jem glanced back, Tean pointed.
A moment, and then comprehension filled Jem’s face.He gave another of those furious shakes of his head and moved back into the room.
They finished quickly with that bedroom and moved to the next, and then the one after that.The rooms were nearly identical, with little to see: dressers that still held clothing twenty or thirty years out of style, beds with homemade quilts, bare floorboards.In one room, Tean found a pair of Reeboks under the bed, one shoe askew, as though they’d been pushed there in a hurry.It didn’t make any sense.It was as though a family had been living here, a full household, and then, one day, had simply vanished.
And then Jem stepped into the fourth bedroom and said, “Fuck me.”
The volume, as much as the words themselves, made Tean hurry.He stopped in the doorway.
On the dresser perched a set of teeth.
It took his brain a few seconds to catch up with what he was seeing.His first, confused thought was that he was seeing some strange set of dentures.But then he realized, no, because heknewwhat he was looking at.He stepped closer, though, to get a better look.
“What the fuck is that?”Jem asked.