Remy found her footing on the shingled roof, and she carefully eased herself out of the tree. Her hands were sticky with sap, and she wiped them ineffectually on her jeans before turning to look down at her companions. They looked so small from her perch. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and took a moment to look out from the roof at the surrounding area. There weren’t many trees, which was excellent; that would make it easier for whoever was on watch to spot anything sneaking up on them. The front yard was mostly clear of, well, anything other than tall grass. Remy couldn’t see a car in sight, in the driveway of this house or any of the other nearby houses. Maybe all the families in the area fled early on.
Or perhaps they’d been caught up in that massive traffic jam the group spent over four hours navigating.
Remy tried to shake off the sick feeling the thought gave her, and she turned to the nearest window. It was small, much smaller than the dormer window they’d used to escape the safe house in Maplesville. Remy examined the screen that covered it and then unsheathed her bolo knife and sliced the screen out of its frame. It’d be a tight fit, but considering she was the skinniest member of the group, Remy was sure she could wiggle through easily enough.
“Everything okay up there?” Ethan called from the ground below. Remy moved to the edge and gave Ethan two thumbs up before she tried the window.
It was, much like the rest of the house, locked tight.
Remy swore under her breath and jerked at the frame again, trying to get the window to rise. Finally, she let out an exasperated sigh and flipped her knife around. Grasping the hilt in a fist and standing aside from the window, Remy slammed the point of the blade into the window. The plate glass shattered, and Remy used the blade to knock the remains of the window out before reaching in and finding the lock. She disengaged it, shoved the window open, and slipped inside, mindful of both the remaining glass shards that littered the windowsill and floor and the wound already in her side.
The interior of the house was almost pitch black beyond the doorway across from her. Remy fumbled in her bag and found her flashlight. The beam shook slightly as she switched it on and shone it ahead of her. The room was incredibly dim; the only natural light came from the setting sun through the window behind her. There was a bed, a dresser, and a rocking chair in the corner. It was surprisingly Spartan, and Remy suspected it must have been a guest room at some point in its life. Judging by the sloped roof above her head, Remy would have to find her way down farther into the house.
Fear slowly uncurled in Remy’s gut. It crawled out from its hiding place and flooded her with the old familiar feeling with which she’d lived for weeks after her family’s deaths. She hated doing things like this alone, exploring unknown territories without backup. The darkness was always worse when there wasn’t anyone with her.
Remy drew in a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm her rattled nerves. “Get over it, Remy,” she coached out loud as she stared at the dark doorway. “Everybody else is counting on you. You’ve got to get it together.”
Remy took another fortifying breath and forced herself to move toward the dark rectangle of door. The weight of the dark hall settled down on her. She shuddered at the feeling of loneliness and isolation that fell with it. The way the darkness crawled down her throat and choked her was oppressive. It felt like eyes were upon her.
Unnerved by the feeling, Remy turned and pressed back firmly against the wall, grinding her shoulders into its surface as she shone her flashlight down the hall in both directions. There was nothing there, but the ominous feeling of being watched remained. She shuddered and eased away from the wall, making her way to the stairs. As she walked down the hall, she paused at the doorway of each room she passed and shone her light into it. Just like the first room, the bedrooms and bathrooms she found were all empty.
Remy located the stairs easily enough, and she slowly made her way down them. The last thing she needed was to hurry down a flight of stairs and twist her ankle or something else equally drastic and painful. It would be her kind of luck for that to happen. There was no sign of any movement on the stairs, and Remy quickly reached the bottom. The first floor, if possible, was even darker than the second, thanks to the boards covering the windows. Absolutely no light came from anywhere except her flashlight. The nearly pure darkness that surrounded her made Remy incredibly nervous, and she forced herself to continue moving forward with only a moment’s hesitation.
As Remy circled the banister at the end of the stairs and headed underneath the landing toward the front door, something brushed her shoulder. She froze, her ears straining for any sound. Her heart raced, pounding against her ribcage, as whatever it was that had brushed against her shoulder bumped into her again. An involuntary whimper escaped Remy’s throat, and she hesitantly turned her head to see what was behind her.
Before Remy could fully turn, something heavy fell onto her and knocked her firmly to the floor. Remy gasped, throwing her hands out instinctively to catch herself. She dropped both her flashlight and her bolo knife, both of which slid out of her reach across the slick floorboards. She hit the floor face down, the breath knocked out of her, and the heavy person—it was a person, Remy’s brain shrieked at her—pressed down onto her.
Remy clawed frantically at the floorboards and gasped harshly in an effort to get her breath into her lungs. She tried with everything in her to get away from the thing on her. The knowledge that she was being attacked, that she was about to be killed or infected, nearly drove her wild as she tried to haul herself from underneath the body on top of her.
Unable to throw the weight from her, Remy did the only thing she could.
She screamed.