Beaches

Part 4

The old house stood at the top of the hill, surrounded by other large houses and grand chalets, hidden now behind walls of tall grass and overgrown trees. The only part he could see was the roof, a crooked weather vane testament to the storm of last summer. He approached on shaking legs, feeling his heart beating a staccato in his throat.

What if they were still there? He had survived and, if there was a genetic reason for it, they might have done as well. Then he thought about Emma

(Why weren't you there?)

and that terrible dread found him again, only worse. He felt short of breath; if it was something genetic then she would have survived as well.

There was the nightmare, as fresh as if he'd just woken; his parents had died, and Emma hadn't. She'd woken up one morning and no one had come to get her. Alone in her cot with no way to get out and no way to help herself, even if she managed that. She couldn't speak, but in his nightmares she always asked why he wasn't there to help her.

How long would it have taken her to pass? Die, he meant, there was no point pretending anything else. That was the real nightmare, his sister trapped in her bed, moaning, screaming - she was perfectly capable of those noises - and not being able to understand why no one was coming to get her. The thought of it made him feel sick. The knowledge that he could have been there, made it worse.

He had to know that she'd died of the virus, preferably before their parents. She wasn't strong enough to fight it off. It was the only explanation, but he had to see for himself. If he wanted the nightmares to stop then he had to know for sure.

Jacob climbed the hill slowly. There were loose rocks and plenty of sharp branches to catch himself on if he wasn't careful. He could hardly see the path, but a deeper instinct had taken over and he made it to the house without getting lost once.

The cracked paint, abundance of weeds and dirt smeared windows were not the happy place he recalled from childhood, but it was far from the gothic monstrosity of his imagination.

He stopped on the path that ran between the two rows of houses and led to a narrow river and fields at the end. All he had to do now was walk through the garden to the front door, go inside and find out what had happened to them. To Emma.

He pulled the scarf over his nose and mouth in anticipation of the smell. The smell of his mother, father and sister decaying in the darkness. He closed his eyes, pushed the door and found it locked. He had a curious compulsion to knock, but stopped himself

(what if someone answered?)

and walked around to the back garden where he would either find the back door unlocked, or a rock to unlock it with.

All the windows were closed, and the curtains pulled shut. Nothing unusual about that per-se, when people got sick they often tried to shut themselves away. Unfortunately, for him, it also meant that they shut in the smell when they died.

The back garden was also overgrown. He pushed aside overhanging branches and caught his hand on a thorn. He swore under his breath and wiped a thick bubble of blood on his jeans. Hopefully there was a stocked medicine box inside, he had seen plenty of people die from more ridiculous injuries.

The back door was locked. He found a good-sized rock and hesitated. It felt wrong to break in, this had been his grandfather's house, his family's home. The discomfort passed, and he broke the glass easily, then cleared hanging shards out of the frame.

It took a moment for him to realise that the bitter smell of death that he associated with breaking and entering, wasn't there. It struck him as odd, but what did he really know about the decomposition of a human body? Perhaps it reached a point where the smell began to dissipate. It didn't mean anything. It was certainly nothing to get his hopes up over.

Jacob took a final breath of the perfumed gardenair then stepped into the muggy darkness.