Dead By Dusk

5. Too Many Bodies Ronan

5

Too Many Bodies: Ronan

*30 Minutes Earlier*

“ Ronan, you have to get up,” the woman sitting on top of me says. I’m still laying in my bed, my hair is longer than it should be right now and is falling onto my forehead in black messy waves. I’m not wearing anything other than boxers and the blanket that is haphazardly covering me from the waist down.

I let my hands wander under my white button-down that the woman had put on before straddling me and decide that there are other things I’d rather be doing than leaving this bed, and the first thing is removing this shirt from the goddess on top of me. It seems, however, that she doesn’t agree with my idea when she lets out a loud, throaty laugh and throws her head back in amusement before grabbing hold of my wrists and pinning them above my head. She leans forward, bringing her nose to mine. Her long hair cascades around us in dark brown waves, still slightly mussed from sleep, and her mossy green eyes bore into mine while a smile still graces her full lips.

“Ronan, you have to get up now. You can’t stay in bed forever. Boss man will kill you,” she says, amusement lacing her words as if she’s not even surprised. I just keep searching her face, looking for the answer to a question I’m not even sure of. I’m focusing on each and every one of her facial features as if I’ve never seen them before and never again will. I always look at her like this though, never able to understand how one woman could be so beautiful.

I lift my head and bring my lips to the tip of her nose, and she lets out a small chuckle.

“Ronan…” Then I bring my lips to her cheek.

“We have…” Her other cheek.

“You can’t just.” Then her jawline.

She just sighs, one that’s filled with contentment, and I can’t help but let my lips lift into a grin. I go for her lips, but she pulls back at the last second with another small smile on her face. She starts pulling me up with her, and I let myself rise too. Now that we’re sitting face to face, I rest my hands on her upper thighs, gliding them up and down the smooth expanse of her soft skin. She rests her hands on my shoulders before letting them explore up my neck and my cheeks, then up to my hair. The next thing I know, she’s pulling my face closer to hers and I raise my hands up to the dip of her waist and hold on tight, bringing our bodies as close as possible when our lips finally meet.

There’s nothing urgent about the kiss. In fact, it almost feels lazy, as if we have all the time in the world. I wish it could last forever. This closeness and intimacy as she lightly drags her tongue across my lower lip, and I grant her access only for her to gently bite down on it as she pulls away, still with a smile on her face. Only this time, it’s not one that’s content, it’s one that almost seems worried. She brings one of her hands back down to my cheek, cupping my face as her thumb rubs back and forth against my cheekbone, and I lean into her touch.

“Ronan, you have to get up,” she says again. Her eyebrows draw together as if pleading for me to understand. Then she’s off my lap, on her feet and walking away from me toward the bedroom door. I throw off the blankets still covering me, quickly trying to follow her but she’s through the door first and shutting it behind her.

I reach for the door knob, open it and —

“Silene,” I say in a gasp as my whole body shoots up in awareness.

It takes me a moment to realize that it hadn’t been anything more than a dream, and that instead of a soft bed inside my home, I’m laying in a bathtub. I’m alone, cold, covered in bruises, and I have absolutely no idea where I am at the moment. No idea how I got here. No idea who I am other than my name.

With a frustrated sigh, I bring the palms of my hands up to my face and harshly rub at my eyes to try and wake myself up, attempting to force some kind of memory to resurface, but it doesn’t work. I didn’t really expect it to, but there was hope for a moment. As I bring my hands back down to my lap, my gaze catches on the black ink engraved into the skin of my thumb. It’s simple, just the letter S. My thoughts drift back to the woman from my dream and the name that passed through my lips as I woke.

Who are you, Silene? It’s the only thought dancing through my mind as I grab the edge of the tub and use it as support while I try to get to my feet. However, I don’t even make it halfway to standing before I’m overcome with nausea and dizziness. Just a moment longer, I guess. I can sit here for another moment and mark each of my surroundings.

The bathroom I’m in is small but not unkempt in any sort of way. It’s actually kind of nice, if not too clean. The free standing bathtub is a sleek oval shape, and its bright white color is a direct contrast to the slick, black marble countertop a few feet away. The outer rim of the mirror and the toilet are also porcelain white. The walls are painted a light olive green tone, the only true color in the small room.

I take a few breaths after scanning my surroundings, and attempt standing again, swallowing down the nausea that tries to resurface. I step out of the tub on light feet, being as quiet as I can, not knowing if I truly am alone. I make my way to the countertop, setting my hands on top of the dark marble and look in the mirror.

Dark hair, pale skin, dark blue eyes, slight freckles dusting my nose and cheeks, split lip, hair waving over my forehead like I’ve gone too long without a haircut, bruises covering my arms, black tactical pants, black under armor shirt. Definitely breathable clothing, but not practical for a day-to-day life unless it was part of a uniform, but I don’t even know that for sure right now. All I have to go off of is my appearance in terms of any true facts. And the only fact that I see right now is that I got my ass absolutely handed to me.

I stretch my arms over my head to release some of the tension in my shoulders, along with my neck to also try and ease the dull ache from sleeping in what could be the worst position and circumstance possible. Then I hear it.

Movement from outside the door.

Movement that has me backing away and looking for anything to use as a weapon. There’s nothing out in the open that I can pick up, but there are cabinets under the sink, and all I can do is hope that wherever I’ve landed myself has any—

There’s nothing. Nothing useful, though whoever stocked this place made sure there was enough toilet paper in here to last through a zombie apocalypse, and I’m not sure if I’m scared of the fact that I’m currently standing in a bathroom owned by someone who could be part of an elementary school math problem, or if it’s smart planning. Either way, I don’t think I like it.

With no weapon in sight, I decide the best thing that I can do is give myself space. If the door is going to open, I don’t want to be too close. If someone wants me, they’ll have to get closer to try and get me. So I stand and wait, about three feet from the door, for someone to enter the small space I occupy when I hear someone take hold of the doorknob. Just as it begins to turn, it stops.

It stops when a scream rings out through the house, one that’s loud and high pitched. Not full of pain, but fear. It’s a blood curdling scream that chills me down to my bones, and it’s only when my own hand touches the cold metal of the doorknob that I realize I’ve crossed the distance from the middle of the bathroom to the door and fully intend to help the woman whose voice has rung through the house. The one whose voice sounds so far away yet so close at the same time and has echoed through the calm stillness of the area surrounding her.

I’m out the door in seconds but stop when the scream suddenly halts. I look up at the soft thud of footsteps sounding from above me. The steps, while soft, do not falter for a single second. They’re quick, measured, confident even, and I let my eyes trail over the distance they cross above me. Watch the path they take and wonder who they belong to. Wonder why the screaming stopped just as quickly as it had begun.

And then I hear muffled voices from somewhere else around the corner. I hear a man ask what happened and if everything was fine. Then I hear…a woman. A woman who sounds so familiar that I stop focusing so much on the conversation and instead listen to her hypnotic voice, hanging on to every syllable and the cadence of every word. I listen as her seriousness fades away and is replaced with humor at the mention of food, and I’m unsure how it could correlate but I don’t let myself think about it. Instead, I find myself following the sound of the conversation, back and forth, still not paying much attention to what’s being said, wholly focused on finding her .

Whoever she may be, her voice seems to have a hold on me, and I can’t help but think about how similar it is to the one I heard in my dream. But then she stops talking, and I hear the soft thuds of her footsteps above me again.

I have half a mind to find the steps that will lead me to her and follow, but I instead crash into another person walking, and it forces me out of whatever trance I was locked in. I stare at the man in front of me, analyzing every part of him. Sizing him up, still unsure what this situation is exactly. His appearance is…normal. His clothing is very different from what I’m wearing, just black sweats and a blue sweatshirt, and I can’t help but be slightly envious of the asshole who stands in the way of me and the stairs I can now see leading up to the second floor.

“Whoa there, I didn’t realize you were awake yet. I was going to go check on you but then there was a scream, and I figured it was best I handled that first. How are you feeling?” he asks. I can’t help but narrow my eyes at him a bit. His question seems genuine, but his voice almost sounds flat with feigned interest. I decide to tuck that away for now, needing answers more than I need to start an unnecessary argument and answer the question at hand with caution.

“I’m feeling about as good as I look, though I don’t remember much, so if you wanted to lay everything out for me that’d be great,” I say, flicking my gaze between him and the stairs I notice are peeking out around the corner. His eyes track the movements of my own.

“Short and sweet version? There were six of us, now there’s five. None of us remember anything but our own names which isn’t very useful, but it’s something. We split up and have been searching for a way out and answers. So far, we have only found one exit, but that resulted in one person’s death already. If we can use that as a last resort, that would be great. I’m Nate. You are?” he asks with a raised brow. I just stare at him instead. My blue eyes meet his dark brown ones, and I try to read him again but get nothing that helps me get a feel for who he is.

I regard him speculatively, trying to gauge his body language reveals any deception, but he’s approached me the same way one would approach a wounded animal: with caution, yet certainty. Every word that falls from his lips does so in a stately manner, so I drop the suspicion from my face and keep it locked in the back of my mind, as I will do with any information I’m given from this point forward. I make decisions based on facts, and right now I’m limited on those.

“Ronan.”

I don’t elaborate anymore than that, and I think he gets the vibe that I’m not going to say anything else when he draws both eyebrows together and purses his lips as if he has something else to say, but I decide to step away from the lanky man and take in the area instead. It’s all painted in the same color as the bathroom I woke in. Olive green, unchipped. Almost as if it were a fresh coat of paint. There’s not much furniture other than a small sectional against the wall, a side table and a lamp that lay completely shattered on the floor. Every doorway down the hall I’d just come from is open indicating that every room has already been checked. Looking past him, I see a quick flash of movement from the right that draws my attention to the kitchen.

Brushing past him, I’m heading through the living room toward the source of the sound and see a man who, based on appearance alone, could be a professional fighter in his normal day to day life. He’s cut, muscular, just slightly shorter than me. His skin, almost as dark as the soil that covers the Earth, is covered in white-inked snake skeletons and iris’. Wearing a charcoal gray t-shirt and pants similar to my own with black tennis shoes, I can’t help but notice that even in casual wear, there’s only one impression he gives: Dangerous. My footsteps are quiet enough that I know he shouldn’t be able to hear my approach, but as I take my first step into the kitchen, the floor beneath me lets out a slight groan under my weight, and he quickly pivots toward the sound. Upon looking at me, he raises one eyebrow like I’m expected to say or do something, and when I don’t, he just turns back around and continues rummaging through the drawers and shelves.

“I take it you already got the rundown?” his deep baritone voice draws out, still with his back facing me, not bothering to waste time with niceties, and I can’t help but respect the acknowledgement that we’re not here because someone was feeling nice. Why would we act otherwise?

“Yeah. No one knows anything, we’re in desperate need for answers, and someone’s dead.”

“Basically.” And that was that. We both fall into a quiet rhythm of overturning every object in every cabinet. Every pot, pan, oven mitt and cooking utensil is taken out to ensure there’s nothing hidden, but there isn’t. There’s no mail, no message, no weapons and no—

It’s then that I see it. The rug that has shifted under the feet of my curt partner just enough to see an abnormality in the otherwise perfect hardwood floor beneath us. I don’t say anything though. I keep quiet and wait for him to move before I head over and discreetly move the rug an inch to the side, ensuring that my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. My thoughts are confirmed when I see a couple letters disturbing the smooth finish of the floor. I gently set the rug back into place and glance over my shoulder to make sure no one is looking at me, and when those concerns are confirmed, I turn back forward and gently lift the rug to see the full message. It looks familiar. It isn’t until I press my fingers to the ruined wood that I get a feeling of familiarity too. I don’t know what it is, but it feels important. It makes me feel like I’ve been here, and I don’t think that’s the realization I want to be having at this moment.

I’ve been here, but when? Why?

I want to ask myself who this message was for, but the letter inked into the skin of my hand tells me that I already know the answer if I’m right about having been here before. But if I wrote that then…

I press down on the side of the board and watch it open up, then feel around the bottom. At first I don’t see or feel anything, but as I’m bringing my hand up, my fingertips graze the bottom of the floorboard next to the one currently open, and it doesn’t feel the same. It feels like paper, and when I run my hand along the bottom of that board, my suspicion is confirmed. First, with the rough feel of paper and then with the muted, smooth feel of what must be tape holding it in place. I check behind me again, not hearing the sound footfalls, but wanting to ensure that no one else is here for this. I don’t know why, but I don’t want anyone finding this until after I know what it is. When I notice that the unnamed man from earlier is no longer here at all, and that both men are out of eyesight, I quickly peel the paper away, trying my best to keep it intact, and then lightly let the floorboard fall back into place.

Then, I stand and pocket the paper before returning to the other two men talking at the base of the stairs, looking up to the second floor every now and again.

“Any news?” I ask as I approach them and they both go silent. Nate shakes his head then looks back up the stairs, and I follow their eyesight. There’s nothing I can really see up there, and I wonder if it wasn’t what they saw that got their attention, but the fact that they haven’t seen anything. That none of us have heard any sound come from up there in a while. I try to take a step up when Nate grabs my arm. I look into his eyes and they hold a warning. He brings his pointer finger to his mouth as a sign for me to be silent. He then holds out his palm, indicating I should wait. So I do. I wait, and I listen.

After only a minute, I decided that I’m done waiting for whatever they think is going to happen when I hear it. The sound of a brief scream before there’s a soft thud against the outside of the house. It’s at this point that Nate loses all sense of patience and darts upstairs. While I’m close to follow him, I notice that only the two of us are bothered. Looking back, I see the other man still standing at the bottom of the stairs with a pensive look on his face before he backs away from the stairs and walks out of eyesight. I continue my trek up in time to see Nate storm out of the bathroom, and for the first time, he seems like he isn’t composed. There’s anger in his eyes, but it’s not the only thing I see there when he hits the palm of his hand against the doorframe. Other than that, though, he doesn’t do anything else to betray how he might be feeling.

“They left us,” he mutters. I can’t help but cock my head to the side in confusion. He must sense the question dancing in the back of my mind when he finally looks back at me and just lets out a long, drawn out sigh. “The two women that were here, they left us. I saw them right before they made it into the forest, and there’s definitely more than one dead body out there now. There’s not supposed to be that many.”

I am about to question what he means by that when he stands up straighter and walks towards the only door still closed up here and tries to open it. It doesn’t budge. It’s obviously a door. It has all the makings of one, and the slight discoloration on different parts of the knob indicate that it had been used quite frequently at one point or another, but it doesn’t move.

There’s no give.

“She said it wouldn’t work, I just figured it might be stuck. That she didn’t push hard enough maybe, but now I see what she was saying. It doesn’t seem like it’ll open.” I just look at him with furrowed brows.

“You keep saying ‘she’ but you don’t mention a name. For either of them,” I point out, and he just looks at me for a brief second before shaking his head and stalking back off to the stairs. “Why won’t you just say their names? If we’re going to be looking for them, shouldn’t we know them?” I ask, knowing that I’m right but ready for him to brush off the question.

To my surprise, he doesn’t. He just looks me dead in the eyes and says, “It doesn’t matter right now. They left. We’ll find them or we won’t.” Then proceeds down the stairs. For what? I’m not sure, but I don’t care to find out.

Rather than follow him, I decide to investigate each of the rooms on my own, though there’s not much to see in any of them. They’re mostly empty with the exception of curtains and a mattress sitting in the middle of the floor in one of the rooms. But there’s nothing else to be found anywhere.

Until I make it to the end of the hall.

Once I enter the bathroom, I see it. The open window, the body with multiple spikes shooting through it and his ashen face staring at me. His eyes are still open. Wide. A look of surprise and pure agony forever etched onto his face.

It isn’t until several minutes later that I realize I’m still staring at the lifeless man in front of me with curiosity, when the other two men return. Nate looks indifferent as he steps toward the window and places his hand on my shoulder. The contact sends a wave of apprehension rolling through my body, and I pull away from the icy feeling. He doesn’t seem to have the same reaction nor notice mine. Instead, he steps into the spot where I was standing and leans out of the window, gaze swinging from left to right before he brings his body back into the house and studies both of us.

“Alright, I’m going down first. I don’t know what happened here but it doesn’t look good out there, so I expect that something can and will happen. That means, when we get down there, we move. We don’t stop and look around. We head for the forest. It’s our best bet of survival if there’s something or someone after us. Understood?”

I don’t know when he was appointed leader, and even though I don’t want to listen to him, it’s not a bad plan, and I don’t want to be in charge of anyone. Not when I’m thinking about tan legs, staring into a sea of green, and listening to the way my name rolls off her tongue like venom laced honey. It sounds so poisonously sweet.

So instead, I watch as the man next to me gives a curt nod. I mirror the motion, also shrugging—indifferent despite the oddness of our situation. Nate gives us another once-over before taking a seat on the windowsill, giving us one last look before swinging both legs over and onto the roof. His steps are taken with meticulous calculation. They’re careful, measured even. Not once does he stumble as he moves around the body, sits on the ledge and carefully adjusts his grip, before he begins his descent. Then he disappears. The two of us copy the same movements, though, it isn’t until we all hit the ground that I take a good look around and question once again what Nate meant when he said there were multiple bodies.

Too many bodies.

That’s what he said, though standing here, I only see one. A woman with wild hair, wide, frantic eyes, and a dagger through her back.