Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

something jiggled the body hard enough or if it were touched somehow, the skin would just fall off the skull; and I was in no hurry to see that happen, so I stayed far enough away not to create any percussions with my feet that might hasten that process. This definitely was not Bodo. The hair was wrong, even if the face was unrecognizable.
    I walked backwards until I was even with Winky, whispering, “No scavengers or people have been near this guy - or have touched him, anyway. That’s weird right?”
    Winky nodded and took my arm, pulling me to our left, moving to go around the body and into a room at the side of the foyer.
    There were more canner bodies there, these less twisted and bent but no less dead and disgusting. The smell was worse because of the number of dead, but still, none of them had been ravaged by animals. Winky pointed at the back of one of them, showing me the bullet hole that had spread blood for a while until his life had drained from him. He was wearing high-top basketball shoes. I stared at him almost mesmerized, wondering if it had been Bodo who’d fired the shot.
    Winky and I made our way through three more rooms before ending the circle that brought us back to the front entrance. We’d located three more bodies, but no Bodo.
    I looked up the stairs and then over at Winky.
    She nodded.
    We walked together towards the bottom of the staircase and looked up. The first eight stairs were heavily damaged, so we had to grab the railing that was still intact to pull ourselves over the larger holes. Burn marks ran up the wall to our left, and the remnants of spray-painted graffiti showed through parts of it. Plaster was flaking off nearly to the ceiling.
    Once we were halfway up, the holes and scorched wood of the steps were less of a problem and we were able to move faster. We paused at the top of the stairs, not sure whether to go left or right. Winky nudged me and motioned to the right, where a long hallway with several doors off of it stood waiting. I took the first tentative steps in that direction with Winky right on my heels.
    We tiptoed down the carpeted pathway that was worn with mud and other disgusting stains I didn’t want to think about too much. The brownish-colored drag marks could only have meant a bleeding person or part of a person had been this way before us. The smell of death was here too, but not as strong as below.
    As we reached each door, we pushed it open. Most of them revealed bedrooms in various states of disarray, thankfully none of them containing bodies, but all of them smelling at the very least like unwashed bodies and a complete lack of any attempt at hygiene. My lip curled at the odors that rose up to assault my nostrils, despite my constant attempts to only breathe in through my mouth.
    One last set of double doors remained at the end of the hall, the only ones that were fully closed. I imagined a monster beyond, breathing heavily, panting with the anticipation of surprising us and then murdering us, making us his dinner. I held Winky’s hand in mine for a couple seconds, squeezing it to build up the courage to do what had to be done.
    I took a deep breath and let it out before gripping the door handle and pushing it down slowly. The door hardware disengaged from its catch with a faint click. The door swung open with a long almost sad-sounding squeak. A rush of humid hair hit us in the faces, sending chills down my spine. It’s as if something were alive in there.
    The room was shockingly pristine. The walls were white and unmarked by graffiti or bloodstains. Framed prints hung on the walls, and thick decorative ropes held back long silk curtains from the window’s edge. Even the carpeted floors looked newly done, not a stain in sight. There was no smell of death here. The perfection of it all bothered me more than anything else I’d seen so far in the house, including the dead and rotting bodies below.
    Winky put her hands on my shoulders from behind, making my heart stop beating for a full three seconds before it spasmed hard and then started again, racing to get to its new accelerated pace. She leaned in and whispered in my ear as quietly as humanly possible.
    “There’s something wrong. It’s too clean.”
    I nodded. She was exactly right, but I had no idea what it meant.
    I was just thinking of making my next move into the room, my foot a split-second from lifting up and taking the fateful step, when a voice came from within, making my blood