Jordan Rose Duology (Book 2): Homecoming

by Favreau, Jeff

  Pulling up in front of the house, Jamie put their car into park and stepped out onto the lawn. Like everywhere else, two years of neglect had transformed it back into something closer to a wild meadow, but being early in the season, the grass was only about knee height. Despite this, Rose could see the telltale gleam of white bone in her front yard. If Jamie noticed, she did react or say anything to Rose.

  Jamie was silent as she walked by the CDC’s SUV parked behind her truck. The man Rose had shot was still seatbelted into the driver’s seat, mostly skeletal with a few scraps of mummified flesh clinging to the exposed bone. Jamie paused by the SUV, as if making note of it mentally before moving on. Rose followed like a beaten dog slinking along behind its owner, guilt and embarrassment becoming an oppressive weight bearing down on her.

  Rose could see her front door was closed but the side door to her house was open. Despite the open door, Rose continued past it, now drawn by the tree out in the back yard, guilt over the dead men in her yard temporarily forgotten. Jamie, however, went inside. Rose half expected there still to be a spot of fresh dirt at the base of the tree where Kate had been buried, but that too had been reclaimed by nature. The spot of Kate’s grave was almost indistinguishable from the rest of the unkempt grass around it. That was the hardest part for Rose, she hadn’t realized, until that moment, how much she still missed Kate. Visiting this site now, after all she’d done and all she’d survived the last two years, dropped her to her knees in the grass; all the memories were back, fresh and raw. All the wounds she thought were healed or buried deep now white hot and gaping, oozing with all the pain, fear and doubt she’d felt before.

  Rose was unsure how long she knelt there, muffled sobbing soaking her hands as she covered her face. It could have been minutes or it could have been days, but finally Rose felt the warm embrace of Jamie as she wrapped her arms around Rose’s shaking body from behind. The urge to push Jamie away flashed yet again. She wanted Kate to be holding her again, comforting her pain and sorrow, but the longer Rose stayed in Jamie’s arms, the faster that feeling drifted away. Jamie would never replace Kate, but Rose didn’t want Jamie to replace her. Kate was Kate and no one could ever fill that void in her heart. Jamie was something else entirely, uncompromising and just what Rose needed in that moment whether she knew it or not. Kate was a treasured relic from her old life, Jamie was the passion of her new one.

  Rose leaned into Jamie and her tears began to fade. Finally and with great effort, Rose stood and faced Jamie. Rose gave her a long kiss on the mouth before sliding her head next to Jamie’s, embracing her in silence. As agonizing as her wounds had felt, Jamie made them fade to a dull throb, not gone forever but reduced to manageable levels.

  Lifting her head from Jamie’s moist shoulder, Rose realized it was pitch black out. “Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Jamie softly.

  “Yes, thank you,” said Rose sniffling and releasing Jamie. It was so dark, Rose could barely see Jamie right in front of her.

  “I checked the house. You can be the judge, but looks as though it was looted, the kitchen is stripped bare. There are a few rooms that are in pretty good condition if you want to sleep in one of them.”

  The living room and the upstairs guest room where the two rooms least effected by the two years of exposure the house had suffered. Any room with an open window had been exposed to wind, rain and snow resulting in pervasive mold. They stripped the bed in the spare bedroom bare, Jamie gathered blankets and pillows from the car and they set to work making a bed for the night. The idea of using two year old sheets was not appealing to either of them.

  The day had been a long and exhausting one but despite this, Rose laid in bed next to Jamie in her former home and stared at the ceiling. Rose was not proud of the things she’d done to survive, but she’d done them and she needed to own them. They’d allowed her to live this long, something most people wouldn’t be able to claim. If she and Jamie were going to spend whatever was left of their lives together, she needed to fill in the gaps for Jamie. Jamie needed to know what Rose had done and hopefully that would not scare her away.

  Rose wasn’t sure how long she’d been laying there, staring into the darkness, she may’ve even fallen into a dreamless sleep. But in one moment, the room went from pitch black to illuminated by a piercing red light and an incessant beeping like an alarm clock. Both Rose and Jamie immediately sat up in bed, “What the fuck is that? You’re alarm?” yelped Jamie.

  Not immediately putting it together, it hit Rose like a slap in the face. “Shit, it’s the satellite phone. The SOS beacon is on!” Aaron and Adeline were calling for help.

  Chapter 4

  “They’re still not answering,” said Rose to Jamie as she lay next to her on the bed. It’d been about an hour since the SOS had first gone off. The wailing of the beacon had been shut off, but their phone was still flashing, getting a constant signal from Aaron and Adeline’s phone.

  “Let’s wait a few minutes then try calling them again,” answered Jamie, her voice muffled by the pillow. “Maybe they hit it by mistake? Maybe they’re asleep so they’re not answering?”

  Rose wasn’t so sure. “Jamie, they were keeping it right next to their bed. How could they not hear it?”

  “That was in the cottage,” replied Jamie sitting up. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Who knows where they keep it now that they’re living in the house.”

  “This isn’t right Jamie. We need to go back there,” said Rose getting out of bed. “If it’s just a false alarm, all we’ve lost is a day.”

  If something happened to them, Rose had no one to blame but herself. She abandoned them and now just a day later, they activate the SOS? Panic was flashing through her system with every illumination of the beacon. She’d been selfish to leave them, she saw that now.

  Sighing, Jamie moved to get out of bed as well. “Fine, but you’re driving,” she said pulling on a sweatshirt. “If this was a mistake, you owe me like some ice cream or something.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  It didn’t start to get light until they were well into Quebec. It was about a six hour drive from Green Forks to the Park. Rose felt as though she was starting to lose it and give in to sleep, but when the sun came up, she was reinvigorated. They’d left Rose’s house around 4am and it was just past 6:30am now. Rose took advantage of this newfound energy and pushed the car as fast as she felt she safely could. The last thing they needed was to crash somewhere out here. They were taking all main roads to make the trip as fast as possible. This would take them through some small cities along the coast of the Saint Lawrence River, but Rose wasn’t stopping for anything. They needed to get back to Aaron and Adeline as fast as they could. Rose hoped against hope the SOS beacon was a mistake, but in the pit of her stomach, she had a feeling it was not. Before Jamie had fallen asleep in the passenger seat, they’d tried calling every hour. The repeated unanswered calls only bolstered the feeling.

  With the sun burning bright, Jamie was unable to fight off unconsciousness in the seat beside Rose. Finally Jamie gave up tossing and turning and instead stared out the window at the passing wilderness. They were both quiet. As much as Jamie tried to play off she that she wasn’t worried, Rose knew she was. Jamie was very rarely this sullen.

  About mid-morning, they entered the park. They had to slow down significantly since these roads were covered by leaves, branches and other debris from the surrounding wilderness. Despite this, they made it to the camp without issue. Pulling into the cul-de-sac, all appeared the same as it always had. There did not appear to be any signs of destruction Rose had seen so much of with infected and small plumes of smoke continued to drift out of the chimneys of Rose’s old cottage and the big house.

  Jamie put the car in park and Rose hopped out, jogging toward the big house. The house looked much different than it had the first time Rose approached the front door. All the leaves had been cleared away and the patio set was freshly washed and set up in an organized fashion on the fro
nt deck. A wreath of pine boughs and colorful spring wildflowers was a new addition to the front door, likely made by Adeline. Rose found the front door unlocked and opened it, half-expecting to find Adeline cooking breakfast in the kitchen, half-expecting the body of Jacob’s father lying like a mummy on the entryway floor. Rose found neither. She found the interior of the house much as it had been the last day she’d been inside cleaning. The house was quiet, Rose could not hear anyone moving around inside, nothing that would indicate any danger...or anything else.

  “Jamie, you check all the rooms downstairs and I’ll check upstairs,” said Rose, glancing back at her. Jamie nodded, now openly worried and slightly pale, the satellite phone clutched in her hand.

  Rose imagined she likely looked about the same way. Grabbing the bottom of the bannister, she pulled herself up onto the steps and climbed them slowly, ears straining for any sounds, any hint that someone might be upstairs. Rose had done many building checks when she’d been a police officer. Searching people’s homes when their friends or family members called in a check on a person’s welfare ranked as some of her least favorite calls for service. There was always the possibility that if friends and family hadn’t heard from someone for an extended period of time, the possibly of them being dead somewhere in that house or apartment was high. Rose could handle death, she’d seen more than her share in the last few years, but there was something very different about stumbling upon someone’s dead body in their own home, especially if they’d been there for some time. Rose hoped this welfare check would turn out much differently.

  Rounding the top of the stairs, Rose couldn’t help but think of Jacob’s brother and sisters she’d found the first time she searched upstairs with Aaron. That’d been doubly-disturbing for Rose as they’d not only been young children, but they’d been killed in their sleep by their father. Pushing those thoughts aside, Rose skipped the rooms the children had been in in favor of checking Aaron and Adeline’s room first.

  Aaron and Adeline’s bedroom door was the only door on the second floor that was closed. Rose grabbed the door handle, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.

  All of Rose’s training as a police officer and all the horrors she’d seen making her way north could not prepare her for what she saw on the other side of that door. Adeline and Aaron had both been in bed, in fact Adeline still was. She was laying on her back facing the ceiling, eyes closed as if she was still sleeping, but Rose knew better. She’d seen enough dead bodies to know the distinct color and waxiness of the skin. Both her hands were crossed over the bump in her belly, possibly a dying reflex, as if trying to protect the unborn child in a last act of selfless motherhood. Aaron seemed to have fought death before succumbing. He appeared to have crawled or fallen out of the bed and managed to grab the satellite phone, pressing the SOS button. It was still clutched in his cold, pale hand outstretched toward the door as if he was trying everything he could to signal Rose to help them.

  She’d been too late. Rose felt cold as if she was amongst the dead. Staring at their bodies, so empty, so lifeless, Rose felt like her mind was slowly spinning out of control. Her ears were pounding and darkness was encroaching from the corners of her vision. Rose needed something to hold onto, something to keep her grounded, conscious. She needed focus. Focus on the scene not the overwhelming death. Something had killed Aaron and Adeline. She grasped onto this notion like a buoy in a sea of madness. She needed to hold on to her sanity, she needed purpose or she would break.

  Forcing herself to look at their bodies with cold rationality, Rose couldn’t see any sign of violence. Adeline looked as though she’d died in her sleep, but Aaron appeared to have been less-effected, at least initially, before finally succumbing. The scene was so similar to the children she’d found in the bedrooms right down the hall. The first and only thing that came to mind was poison. Could Aaron poison himself and Adeline? That made no sense, he was the one that activated the SOS beacon.

  A sharp gasp followed by a low moan behind Rose signaled the arrival of Jamie. Rose turned to look and she could already see tears in Jamie’s eyes. Rose reached out to Jamie and grabbed her shoulder, but the sadness in Jamie’s eyes turned quickly to anger that blossomed to her face. Rose could see Jamie’s fists begin to clench as she withdrew her hand.

  “Jamie…” started Rose.

  Jamie’s eyes were fixed on the satellite phone still in Aaron’s hand. “Jacob,” she growled, her voice was thick and heavy with anger and pain. Jamie spun on her heel and raced down the stairs. Rose immediately followed, all the pieces falling into place. It hadn’t been Jacob’s father that killed his family, it’d been Jacob. He’d been the only one left at the camp when Rose and Jamie left. Had he just been waiting for them to leave before killing Aaron and Adeline? Or had Rose and Jamie left before he had a chance to kill them too? Rose wanted answers and she intended to get them before Jamie got to Jacob.

  Rose was just approaching their old cottage as Jamie was kicking in the door. “Where the fuck are you Jacob!” screamed Jamie pulling a Bowie knife from a sheath on her belt. As Rose entered the cottage, Jamie had made it to Jacob’s door on the second floor and began banging on it. “Open this door!”

  Rose sprinted up the stairs to the second floor and had just reached the top when she heard the crack and splintering of the door being kicked in. There were a few moments of silence before Jamie came rushing out. “He’s not in there,” said Jamie, her anger very present but slightly less now.

  “We need to find him and figure out what exactly happened,” said Rose.

  “We know what happened. He killed Aaron and Adeline. You saw them in the big house, they looked almost identical to the way Jacob’s family had died,” said Jamie, panting.

  “I want to know all the details. I want to hear him say it,” said Rose, a steely tone to her voice.

  “What good will that do?” asked Jamie, anger flashing in her eyes.

  “I want him to know that I know what he did before I kill him,” said Rose coldly.

  Rose and Jamie had only just exited the cottage when movement drew their eyes to the ridge trail leading to the river below. Jacob was walking toward them. He was dressed as he always seemed to be: his red and black checkered flannel jacket, jeans and boots with a mop of unkempt black hair. His beard had gotten significantly thicker in the last few years, but not any longer as he kept it trimmed to a certain length. In most cases, Rose thought that beards made men more handsome, but in Jacob’s case, he just seemed to be more odd-looking the thicker it’d become.

  Jacob had a fishing pole draped over his shoulder and a net filled with a few fish. He seemed to be in a better mood than Rose could remember seeing him in all the years they’d lived together in the cottage. The best she had ever gotten out of him was a neutral half-smile and that had only been a few times. By comparison, as he was returning from fishing, he was practically giddy. But that giddiness faded almost instantly as he crested the hill and saw Jamie and Rose standing at the front of the cottage.

  “Jacob. We need to talk,” called Rose to him once she knew he saw them.

  He stopped dead in his tracks, frozen by her words. He knew. Jacob could see they knew what he’d done. Judging by his mood, he’d thought he’d gotten away with it. He thought he’d finally regained the camp. Rose could feel the anger bubbling inside of her and it took all of her self-control to not run over to him and strangle the life out of him.

  “Come inside Jacob. We need to talk about a few things,” said Rose using her most neutral police officer tone.

  Jacob didn’t move. He was like a deer caught in the headlights of a truck, frozen into inaction by their presence, Rose’s words.

  “Fuck this,” said Jamie taking a step toward Jacob.

  However, before Jamie could take another step, Jacob dropped the fishing pole and net and called out to them, “It’s better this way.” Pulling his father’s 22 caliber pistol from the small of his back, Jacob pressed the muzzle of the g
un into the side of his head and pulled the trigger. Unlike his father, Jacob’s bullet was not contained by his skull. Blood, brain matter and skull fragments burst out the opposite side of Jacob’s head as he collapsed to the ground, his body immediately still.

  Chapter 5

  The next few days and nights were filled with the image of Jacob’s dead body on the ground, bloody matted hair and an ever-growing pool of deep red blood seeping into the dirt on the path down to the river. Aaron and Adeline were there as well, their cold faces frozen in death. But as hard as Rose tried, Jacob’s death was the image that stuck with her. As much as she wanted to remember Aaron and Adeline, how they’d been happy, in love and alive, Jacob’s death would just replay itself over and over again in her mind. His death was persistent, an unscratchable itch, an invisible fly buzzing around her in her head. It symbolized her worst fear: Rose’s failure to protect them all. She’d abandoned them and now they were all dead.

  Jamie was Rose’s tether to sanity. Rose felt she would’ve lost her mind, maybe followed Jacob to a messy death had Jamie not been there to keep her grounded. Rose had found herself unable to cope, after all that she’d been through, this had finally broken her. She was useless. Unable to function, unable to move; sitting and replaying her failings over and over in her mind. Jamie had taken on the burials. There was a small outcropping near the path to the river that overlooked the water below. It had a pleasant view of downstream as the currents gently meandered over rocks and through S-curves, eventually turning out of view. There was a large rock that made for a natural bench and Jamie buried Aaron and Adeline nearby. Jamie had also fashioned three wooden crosses made from sticks and old shoe laces for Aaron, Adeline and their unborn child. Rose had spent most of her time sitting on the large rock overlooking the river only to return to the big house when it got too dark to see.