Of course, I look at the couch.
And I scream.
There’s a dead man, white T-shirt, briefs, stomach exposed with hair curled around his belly button. He has a rifle in one hand, resting against the couch. His other hand is coated in reddish-brown. It rests over a stain of more red-brown-rust...blood. Oh, God, he’s covered in dried blood. His eyes are open and sightless.
Peter claps his hand over my mouth. “Shh.” His breath is warm and soft as a feather against my ear. I feel my body shake. He holds me tight against him, stilling me. His warmth comforts me, even if I shouldn’t feel comforted looking at a dead man. Peter lowers his hand. “Food will be in the kitchen.”
I’m not screaming anymore. I force myself to stop looking. “We should...” I try to think. I can’t think. There’s a dead man on the couch. What do you do when there’s a dead man on a couch? “Call the police.” Yes, that’s it. I feel as though I have had an epiphany, the thoughts stirring up through the murk of my mind. “Get out and call the police. We don’t know...who did this. Or why. Or if they’re still here.”
“Hence the ‘shh.’ Come on.”
He tugs my arm, and I follow him numbly through the house. I think the death must be recent, or the house would smell. Oh, God, what a horrible practical thought: the smell. But the house only smells a little like Lysol, a little like potato chips.
Claire is already in the kitchen, standing on a stool, an array of food spread out on the counter in front of her: cans of tomato sauce, black beans, peas, tuna fish. There’s a box of Uncle Ben’s rice. “Jackpot!” she crows.
I feel stuck in the doorway. “Shh!” To Peter, I say, “Does she know? Did she see?”
Claire looks up from her treasures. “It’s been more than a few hours but not more than a day. You can tell because the blood has dried but it doesn’t stink yet.”
She sounds so nonchalant that I can’t even process her words. “But there could be... Whoever killed...” The words feel caught in my throat. I go back to the first thing I said. “We need to call the police.”
“There aren’t any,” Claire says.
“But the killer...”
“Probably isn’t lost, either,” she says.
“How do you know?”
“No one can leave without the Missing Man,” Claire says as if this is a perfectly clear explanation. “If that man had been killed in Lost, he wouldn’t be only a dead body. He’d still be here. And he wouldn’t like us taking his stuff. So someone must have killed him somewhere else and then lost the body. Silly thing to lose.” She opens another cabinet. “Ooh, raisins!”
“You mean...you can’tdiehere?”
“Noo.” Claire rolls her eyes. “Of course you can die. You just can’tleave.Not without the Missing Man.” She enunciates each word, as if I’m hard of hearing. “If you die here, you can’t ever go back to the world. You can only go...wherever dead people go. Also, I’m told that it hurts a lot. Other than that, it’s kind of hard to tell the dead people from the not-dead people.”
Peter swings open the refrigerator and begins tossing out items. Salsa. Ketchup. Containers of Chinese food. “Fetch a bag, newbie.”
Mechanically, I check a few drawers. Under the sink I find a box of trashbags, the sturdy black kind. I pull out one, and Claire and Peter begin stuffing it with their finds. I feel numb.
“Can we leave now?” I ask.
“You don’t want to check the bathroom? Toothpaste? Mouthwash? Shampoo?” Peter asks. “Rare to find a recent, intact house like this. Usually they’re empty or old.”
“I don’t want to use a dead man’s toothpaste.”
Claire tilts her head quizzically. It’s an endearing expression. It would be even cuter if we weren’t talking about a dead man. “He doesn’t need it anymore.”
“Please, let’s leave. I promise I’ll...loot another house more successfully.”
Claire and Peter exchange glances. He shrugs and then hefts the garbage bag over his shoulder. “Your loss.” He walks past me back into the living room...back where the dead man is.
“Is that supposed to be a joke?” I trail after him. “My ‘loss’?” Claire scampers past me. I try not to look at the man on the couch, and I climb through the hole in the glass door and then nearly bump into Peter’s back. He spins, grabs my arm, and forces me down.
We crouch on the patio behind the barbecue. Beyond the swing set, three teenagers laugh and shove each other as they saunter by. They’re dressed in cut-up camouflage jackets and pants, covered in safety pins and buttons. One of them has a tinfoil crown on his head. Another has a shotgun casually over his shoulder. I think of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan. But older. Scarier. And not friends with my Peter.
I don’t scream. I don’t breathe.
One of them points to the house. There’s laughter. I imagine them laughing as they shot the man on the couch. The one with the shotgun swings it into position. He tilts his head to line up a shot, and he squeezes the trigger.
