This Isn't the Zombie Apocalypse

33. It's Always a Cliché

Calvin led the way inside.

The door creaked and groaned, and one of the lights was flickering. There was a rather obvious hole in the ceiling down the hall, faded afternoon light filtering in, with water puddles and mold growing underneath it. The building as a whole looked ready to keel over. I was afraid that if I took one wrong step, no one would make it out alive, buried underneath tons of rubble.

Well, I was already dead, so there was that.

Also, I had the dented metal baseball bat, which could do absolutely nothing to something.

Despite the overall about-to-fall-apart feel of the building, it was obviously still in use. The floors were vacuumed, the furniture freshly dusted, and toys, still flashing their colorful lights, covered the floor. There was even the smell of cooking food wafting through the house. It was all... rather homey, actually. Comfortable.

"This way," Calvin whispered, waving his hand.

"Why are we whispering?" I whispered back.

Calvin gave me a dirty look and hissed, "Because they might be here," and then he made a finger gun.

I felt sort of stupid, so I said, "Just making sure you knew."

Rolling his eyes, Calvin crouched down as far as he could and tip-toed into the next room. It was pretty cool, actually, that old Dr. Calvin was sneaking around a house, except for the fact it looked like he'd lose his balance if I tapped him too hard on the shoulder. I almost decided to crouch down, too, like I was some sort of super spy, but decided not to. I walked behind him instead, keeping my footsteps light. Still, my backpack thumped against my back with every step.

We started making our way through the house. First it was the living room, where the pillows were nicely fluffed on the couches but a blue stain marked the carpet. Next, the kitchen, where there was food cooking—a pot of soup simmering on the stove. When I tried to get a taste, Calvin smacked my hand away and turned off the fire, muttering, "Do they want the house to burn down?" Then we moved on to the bedrooms. At first, Calvin had wanted us to split up to cover more ground before I pointed out that people always died in horror movies when they did that.

The first bedroom we hit was the master. The bed was neatly made, corners crisp and edges clean. The dressers were locked up, and the closet and bathroom doors were closed. Besides that, not much else was in the room. It was freakishly empty and lacked the homey feeling the rest of the house had. The next few rooms were obviously the kids'. There was one with bunk beds, planets hanging from the ceiling, Lego buildings placed around like trophies. There was also a picture placed on each of the two dressers, each depicting an identical boy. In front of them were wilting flowers. The next room was much the same, except with a disgusting amount of blue and books scattered in every corner. On the overflowing bookshelf, there was another picture of an older teenage girl; more decaying flowers lay in front of it. The last bedroom was messy—Barbie dolls lying about next to an absurd number of GI Joes. There was no picture or flowers, but I felt as if they were coming soon enough.

As there was no sign of anybody in any of the rooms, we moved on. The backyard, and then the garage, where the evil green minivan was hidden. I pointed at the car (with a unique finger) and told it, "You're a terrible, weird green minivan." I would have said something more extreme, maybe vandalized it with the baseball bat, but Calvin was right next to me and Ana was somewhere in this house. On second thought, maybe I should have said something of the sort; Ana would have popped up from wherever she was hidden to tell me off.

After all that, our searching proved even more futile. Nobody was in the house, it seemed. "We could wait here," I suggested. "See if they come back."

Pacing, Calvin muttered to himself, shaking his head. Then he stopped, thought for a moment, and continued on again, this time staring at the ground. "Somewhere... somewhere... somewhere around here...," he murmured. I followed behind him, wondering what was going on, before Calvin stopped with a triumphant, "Aha!"

"What?" I asked. "What?"

Calvin nodded and pointed at the worn carpet on the ground. "The basement. They're in the basement."

I paused, mouth dry. I swallowed. "Of course it's the basement. Of course they're in the fu—reaking basement." Running a hand through my hair, I whined, "Why does it have to be in the basement?"

Calvin shrugged. "Only one way to find out." He rolled the carpet up, and I yanked open the door. Then Calvin led the way down.