Dexter and his men returned home on the morning of the following day, as the winds had blown the persistent rainclouds towards the north west during the night. Their fortunes had been quite mixed. The village they hoped to raid and then return from had actually been picked pretty clean; food items, duvets, toilet paper, cleaning products and soaps, all had been taken from the homes.It had been eerie to see the dusty properties abandoned to the elements and none of them felt like speaking as they crept through each house, devoid of both life and undead. That"s not to say they found nothing; a salt and pepper set with some of each condiment within remained in one house, pocket tissues had fallen beneath a person"s abandoned bed. Curtains and rugs hadn"t actually been taken, nor had a box of nearly full contraception that Dexter swooped a hold of. After all, Jonah wouldn"t want to get Brooke pregnant again after they became intimate again... was what Dexter told himself.
During the search, it had begun to rain, so they hung about in the house they currently had been searching through. Tyler had gathered up many books including children"s ones and even found some crayons and colouring books for Lucy. She didn"t have many toys, just the few they"d brought from her village, but she didn"t play with them much, so Tyler hoped she"d enjoy these and he could teach her to read at some point as well. Seeing as they couldn"t yet leave, he sat down and begun reading one of the books he"d collected, while Dexter took opinions on what they should do next.
"Want to try somewhere else?" Patrick asked him. "Another village or maybe town?"
"From the looks of things," Tyler pointed out, without raising his head. "The local areas are probably all much the same. The raid that emptied out this village was organised."
"Army base?" Harry suggested.
"No evidence," Tyler replied, "but more likely than a civilian job. Ordinary people just aren"t so thorough."
"That and the place doesn"t look like it"s been torn apart by burglars," Dexter sighed, agreeing with Tyler"s conjecture. He pulled out an old map from a road atlas found in their library and found their location. Using his finger to trace the local roads, it landed on another village, followed by another, both on winding roads that would eventually lead back into town... close their original base, in fact. If the army were as thorough as they theorised, he doubted the zombies nor their gathered supplies back then escaped the army"s sweep. "Let"s try these villages," Dexter suggested, "and then head home regardless."
Their theory solidified as they came to find slim pickings in those villages, running between houses whenever the rain lightened or stopped enough, spending a night in one house when the rain became quite heavy. Despondent, they intended on heading straight home, however Chang Min discovered an abundance of spiritual energy coming a place within the rambling fields along the side of the road and insisted they head to it. As it happened, a dirt road appeared ahead of them, so they didn"t have to brave exiting the truck to trudge who knows how far towards whatever the young Cultivator sought.
The dirt road, which was mostly lost to weeds and gra.s.s, carried on for a mile. Chang Min did what he could to make the journey smoother, but all their teeth rattled in their heads by the time they arrived at the abandoned farmhouse. It was fair sized, with scattered outbuildings and had a rustic feel to it, despite being built of brick and tile. Wire fencing surrounded an empty coop to one side, which had no signs of movement or breakage from within; they could only conclude that it had always been empty.
"How useful would a handful of hens be right now," Patrick lamented with a pout.
"They are those flightless, ugly birds that lay eggs for consumption?" Chang Min inquired. "The army base had rescued many of those from a nearby property." He added after they confirmed his words with a brief nod.
"Hah," Patrick sighed. "I miss eating eggs. Fried, poached, scrambled, omelettes..."
"Shut the f.u.c.k up!" Tyler told him, bitterly.
Breaking into the house was not difficult, the lock was old and in obvious need of replacement. The front door opened onto a hallway with red flagstones upon the floor, coated in a fair layer of undisturbed dust. They listened out for any growling or shuffling sounds, but nothing came to ear. Still, they kept alert as they stepped inside, the air stale with an undertone of unpleasantness that they often had the misfortune to smell since the end; usually a mix of rotten food, odours from non-emptied bins, dry drains and corpses.
The first reception room had furnishings that didn"t match the old-world feeling of the property, too modern as if they had been especially selected from a city lifestyle magazine. It especially clashed with the open fireplace and its ash coated bricks. The dining room was much the same, the table being of brushed metal and gla.s.s, set upon an old flagstone tiled floor. Both rooms had clearly not been cleaned in a very long time. The team split in half, one group heading for the kitchen to try their luck within its abundant wooden cupboards, while the others headed upstairs.
Dexter lead the way for the latter group, including Chang Min as they carefully inspected the rooms leading off the upstairs hallway. None contained anything untoward. There was a bathroom suite with old porcelain fixtures, two toothbrushes in a stainless steel cup and a library with a mix of romance novels, historical reference books and books on raising chickens, for making herbal medicines and tonics. There were two empty bedrooms with a single bed in each and not much else.
And then they discovered the master bedroom. Upon the double bed were two bodies, their appearances lost to time, however one appeared to be a man and the other a woman. The smaller body was the more decomposed and beside it on the bed side cabinet were empty foil sh.e.l.ls that once contained medicine and an empty gla.s.s.
As for the larger corpse...
"From what I can see," Chang Min mentioned as he examined the remains, "this man died of the illness." Although much had rotted, there were still certain signs upon the body; the blackened parts of the teeth, the grey nails upon what was left of the fingers for example.
"But he didn"t rise as a zombie?" Dexter questioned with a frown.
"I could theorise..." Chang Min felt that though it was impossible to be certain without touching the body and risking disturbing any remnant yin poison within it, from the fact that the two individuals were likely to have died close together and the fact that one had decomposed at a much greater rate, it was still likely. "If I am right, then this man has yang roots or body, strong enough that the yin poison within him did not cause him to rise in grievance, despite losing his life to it."
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Dexter picked up the framed photograph of a young man and woman beaming happily at the camera as they captured the moment, tall, steel and gla.s.s buildings within their background. The expressions upon their face, the closeness of their bodies, clearly they had once been deeply in love.
Perhaps, from the clues they"d found, this couple had moved to the countryside from the city, perhaps seeking a different pace of life. However, the apocalypse had occurred, the man had fallen sick and died. Perhaps the woman could not contain her grief and decided to follow him, taking her own life or just dying of a broken heart. The farmhouse that had been their dream home had become their mausoleum.
They had no time to feel the guilt as tomb raiders, however, simply continued to take what was deemed useful, leave what was not. They gathered up tins and sealed packages, knowing that not all of the food may still be edible. Cleaning products and essentials, books and clothes were also placed at the door and they quietly spent the night in the living room, waiting for the rain to finally pa.s.s overhead, before leaving the property the next day. But as they silently left, Chang Min sealed the couple"s bedroom chamber that they might continue to sleep undisturbed.