Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

reaching the ground and the seat grinding uncomfortably into my crotch. My partners in crime were straddling their bikes, waiting for me.
    “So, where to?” asked Rob.
    “To Cannerville. First stop, the canner mansion.”
    Neither of them said anything. They just pushed off, riding ahead of me as I struggled to get on the seat and follow behind.
    ***
    We rode down the streets of the neighborhood surrounding the canner mansion without talking. We knew from our previous trip that some of the houses contained spies for the canners, and none of us were interested in finding out whose side they were on now. The plan was to slip by without being detected.
    We arrived at the canner place and I took the lead, riding my bike up over the curb and straight to the front of the house where Winky said she had last seen Bodo.
    The front entrance was completely blackened. The sight of it made me feel sick to my stomach, imagining Bodo stuck inside there when the place blew up. All messing around aside, Fohi had done almost too good of a job causing a distraction here. There was a smell of rotting bodies hanging in the air, which made me nervous and sick on several levels. Please don’t let it be Bodo.
    I got off my bike and leaned it against a palm tree, motioning for Rob and Winky to stay there with it; but Winky ignored me and left her bike with Rob, following me a couple paces back. I looked over my shoulder and saw Rob was off his bike and standing behind a tree keeping a lookout, making me feel reasonably sure that at least we wouldn’t be snuck up on from behind.
    We picked our way over the rubble on the stairs just before the entranceway of the house. Most of the junk on the ground looked like pieces of the building, but there were smears of brown that could only have been old blood. The body parts that had put them there were gone, though, taken either by human hands or animals. Please let it be animals .
    My heartbeat picked up as we got closer and closer to the front door. Our moccasins crunched over the grit beneath our feet. The humid breeze lifted some strands of my hair and plastered them to my sweating forehead. My breath sounded loud to my ears, and I prayed it was only an illusion brought on by my panic, and that I was the only one who could hear it. Winky moved closer to me until our arms were touching.
    “What do you think?” she whispered when we were finally in the doorway. “Should we split up?”
    I shook my head, motioning with my hand for her to stay with me. I didn’t see any value in being alone, and I was worried about a sneak attack.
    We stepped over the threshold, peering into the dark interior which was lit from above by the stars and moon shining down into the hole in the roof. The back of the house still had some cover, but the front was open to the sky.
    Pieces of drywall, concrete, and wood lay strewn across the once beautiful marble floors. My eyes scanned the large foyer and the stairs at the far end of it, looking for signs of human life - or former human life. A misshapen lump of what looked like rags lay about twenty feet away, near the base of the stairs. I nodded my head at it and then looked pointedly at Winky. She nodded silently at me and we walked across the floor together to investigate.
    I could tell it was human as soon as we were about five feet away. Or it had been. It was larger than any kid I remembered seeing there, but that was probably due to the bloat that all of the dead seemed to suffer. One foot had a sneaker on it, cocked at a strange angle. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized it couldn’t be Bodo. He’d been wearing moccasins on the day we were here.
    Winky held my arm and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “Why is this still here?”
    I frowned at her in confusion.
    “Outside, all the parts were gone.”
    I nodded. She was right. Something had taken the pieces-parts that had been strewn across the front patio but left the bigger parts here. I took a few steps closer, trying to get a better look at the body. I held my hand up to my mouth and nose, trying to keep the smell of my own skin there and hold back the nausea that threatened, being this close to the hideous signs of death. Even though he’d been a canner, he’d still been human to some degree - and death was not kind to humans.
    The face was nearly black with pooled blood and dead skin, the surface of it puffy and blistering. It wasn’t from the blast. I’d seen this effect before. I knew if