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The sobs.
They’re faint, almost inaudible.
But real.
Somewhere, in one of these rooms, there’s someone crying.
I follow the noise, which seems to grow along with the awful smell, all the way down to the end of the hall.
Room 25.
The sobs are clearer now. They’re deep.
This isn’t a female.
This is a man.
I reach for the knob. My hands are shaking.
One, two, three.
I swing the door open.
The smell hits me a million times harder when I walk in. It’s so fucking strong that it takes me a second to focus on what’s in front of me. Who’s in front of me.
Two windows illumi
nate the room, but the sun will be setting soon. I shine the flashlight directly onto the scene, and my stomach flips over.
Sitting on the carpeted floor with his legs cradled up against his chest is a forty-something man holding a bourbon bottle. Brown hair, crooked nose, dried tears on his face.
Every single hair on my body stands on end.
The picture I saw so long ago returns to me. He still looks the same. Just older.
Marcus.
I don’t know how the fuck to feel when our eyes meet.
We just stare at each other in silence. He seems surprised to see me, at first, but quickly, the shock dissipates. Like his emotions just said, “Meh. Never mind.” He blinks at me. I blink at him.
I gaze downward and stop breathing.
There’s a puddle of blood on the carpet.
But that’s not the worst part.
The worst part is the lifeless body lying next to him.
I instantly recognize her. The woman I talked to when I came in looking for information. The same woman that was on the stolen video tape.
She’s dead, wounded to the stomach.
And from the smell of this place, not to mention the looks of her rotting corpse, she’s been dead for a while now.
Heaven only knows how I manage not to vomit right then. Has he been sitting here with her decomposing body this whole fucking time? The guy looks like distressed, disconnected. This woman was special to him, probably his girlfriend. I remember hearing her call him babe on the video.
“If you’re here for revenge, don’t bother. They already took everything from me,” he says blatantly. For a second, I think he knows who I am. That he remembers me from the night he broke into my house. But the vacancy in his eyes proves me wrong.
