The world beyond the gateway could have been any suburb from middle America, excusing the fact that virtually all the houses in sight showed evidence of fire damage and some vandalism. The houses themselves lined a single paved street, each of them a two-story Dutch Colonial affair with a two-car garage and were segregated by small hedges or adolescent evergreens, every one of them painted a uniform bluish-gray. A few garages were open, but no cars appeared absent.
Not far beyond the gateway was a large white tent, men and women in white or orange overalls moving in and out of it, their faces obscured by either surgical masks or full-head hoods. A few remote heli-drones buzzed about, a couple ferrying sample cases to waiting technicians near the tent while the rest flew slow orbits around the houses, multiple camera lenses protruding from their undersides and capturing every visible detail.
Beyond this, Gray paused at the sight of many small orange markers on each of the lawns in view, each sitting in the middle of a chalk outline.
"Hell of a place to build all this," Morris declared superfluously. "We're 30 miles from the nearest town." Gray ignored this, eyes still on the chalk on the manicured lawns.
"So, it's not airborne, whatever the hell 'it' was," Gray nodded. "You're thinking the cause is what? Environmental?"
"In all likelihood," Wilson agreed. "We've taken samples of the lawn, exposed soils, water, and the rest."
"Food?"
"There are six good sized greenhouses on the perimeter which apparently are supplying the majority of consumables here. A good selection of staples there: soy beans, broccoli, carrots, rice, melons, even quinoa and flour. We're analyzing samples of all of them, but it's taking awhile."
"Bloody vegans," Benji muttered, for whom any diet that didn't include meat and potatoes were an abomination against nature. Gray and the rest ignored this as it was an old complaint.
"Water supply?"
"The developers apparently were clever and dammed up a shallow river that used to flow nearby, creating a reliable aquifer. We've got basic sonar soundings and the development's water and septic system doesn't flow back into it. Our samples have all come up clean."
Gray nodded again, chewing his lip for a beat. "Any local industry?"
"There's a recycling and mulching plant about five miles down. We could only do a preliminary sweep through it, though."
"Morris," Gray gave a quick wave back to the car, prompting the engineer to hustle back to the vehicle and head in the indicated direction, tires squealing.
Gray breathed a sigh and asked, "Is there a central office or admin center or anything?"
"There's something billing itself a 'Community's Centre', quote unquote, towards the middle of this place. About 30 yards that direction," Wilson waved carelessly beyond the giant tent.
"Benji…" Gray began, only to notice the smaller man was already moving like a greyhound that's sighted the raggedy rabbit, easily and neatly dodging the white coveralls unknowingly in his path and was soon gone from sight. His two reliable colleagues seen to, Gray stuck his hands into his pockets, a familiar chill settling over him as he looked once more at the busy sight before them.
"So," Gray began, beginning his own work. "How did we get here?" The 'here' in question was not one of geography, and both men knew this.
Wilson stated "Approximately thirty hours ago, a major storm system moved through the area…"
"I saw on the news. Did it actually make it this far north?"
"No," Wilson shook his head. "Some modest rain, but no heavy winds or the like, at least that we're aware of. The damage to the houses here is entirely incidental." Gray raised an eyebrow. "Dinners left burning on the stove, irons left on, and the like. Only one unit actually suffered series damage from a gas explosion, but no bodies discovered inside it."
Gray nodded, seeing the houses and their environs slightly differently now. "Who found the site?"
"A State Trooper who was out checking for washed-out roads and bridges. He got himself lost on a back road somewhere, saw the smoke over the trees, and investigated."
"Did he break perimeter?"
"No. He took one look through the gates and ran back to his car, then pulled back to the nearest intersection and called it in. His Chief called the Governor, the Governor called Washington, Washington deployed us…"
"And you called in the three of us," Gray concluded, waving an arm towards the main thoroughfare. "Presuming this all happened during the storm's passage, that makes the window between event and your arrival, what? Twelve hours?"
"Twelve to fourteen, we estimate," Wilson nodded. "We immediately noted several anomalies about the site and called you while conducting our investigation and doing the 3-D mapping."
"You wouldn't have called us if it were straightforward," Gray noted. "What are the anomalies?"
Wilson took a breath and began "This development shows 75 lots cleared, with 33 units completed, but only 31 appear to be occupied. Presuming the standard nuclear family model, we should have a minimum of 100 residents in equal population subdivisions. Yet we've found only 37 decedents."
This brought Gray short for a moment, then he nodded. "Over 60 missing bodies from what appears to be a mass casualty incident certainly qualifies as anomalous."
"That's another thing. Of the 37 we've found…" Wilson paused, not for effect but as he was clearly struggling with something. "I'm not sure how to say this, but...most of the bodies weren't...intact. And virtually all the ones we've managed to, er, reconstructed are pre-adult. In fact, better than eight-tenths of them are adolescent or younger."
Gray simply stood there a moment longer, mentally counting up the small plastic tents that dotted the terrain. The sheer number and their wide distribution painted an increasingly disturbing picture in his mind's eye. "37 bodies," he murmured. "How many intact enough to do a proper examination?"
"Um, only five so far," Wilson stated, sounding inexplicably embarrassed. "Three from that house there, one from the HOA building, and the last from the fertilizer plant. All five were damaged themselves, but significantly less so than everyone else." He nodded to single house that showed no signed of fire or rain damage. In fact, the only oddity to it was the stump of what looked like a recently felled tree to one side and a broken window on the second story.
"Initial findings?"
Wilson scratched the back of his neck, a familiar mannerism indicating discomfort with facts in evidence. "There's some odd things in the preliminary tox screenings, but nothing I can swear to yet. Nothing I feel I could or should suggest as a cause for all this."
"Any other anomalies?" asked Gray.
"One more, and its actually the scariest." It took a raised eye-row to prompt Wilson to divulge it. "None of the descendants or pieces show any sign of predation." Gray went completely still – in both body and mind – at this news. "No blow flies, no nibbles missing, nothing," Wilson added a bit superfluously, unsure how to read the other man's reaction.
Gray nodded, then sighed. "So, we have nearly three dozen children dead and butchered by parties presently unknown, with 60-plus adults missing, and no sign of nature's clean-up crew. You're right, that's pretty damned scary. Occom's Razor paints a very unsettling image here."
"There's one last thing, but it's not a site anomaly. That polar vortex in Canada everyone's been watching and crowing about?"
"The one that's buried Manitoba?"
"The same. It's started to shift in this general direction." Gray remained still, waiting for the denouncement. "We'll know in the next hour or so if we're in its path. However, I've ordered the bodies and remains be packed for transport, and for the heavier equipment to be broken down and stowed for evac."
"Sensible," was Gray's only response after a couple beats, mind clearly elsewhere.
"Shall I…" Wilson started, only to be cut off.
"We're here to investigate this, not become part of the body count. If you feel it's no longer safe to remain, pull up stakes." There was no heat in his words, and only the smallest whisp of censure, which merely deepened the sting. "An hour, you say?"
"That's the latest. I've got Christie monitoring."
"Mapping progress?"
"Kilmer has had the drones flying since we arrived. We're rather remote, so we've had to use a direct satellite uplink to download the data. I believe he's finishing up with the house where found the three intact ones."
Gray nodded. "Speaking of?"
"Autopsies on all three have wrapped up by now. I'll have a rapid summary put together."
Gray nodded again, then set off towards the indicated house without further comment. Wilson took no offense at this, sufficiently familiar with the manner of the man to understand and returned to supervise his own subordinate's work.
For his part, Gray paused only long enough to don sterile booties and gloves before stepping inside. The contrast of the chaos outside versus the perfect order inside was momentarily jarring. "Perfect", of course, was a relative term, and the sight of a precisely laid-out family room on the left and dining room to the right left of the entryway was such a contrast it took a moment for his mind to catch up. There was one other person there, a slender man wearing white coveralls and tapping on a tablet, a pair of small heli-drones hovering a few paces off like obedient pets.
"Kilmer," Gray greeted.
"Sir," the technician replied. He called everyone "Sir" or "Ma'am", even those he technically outranked.
Gray mentally deconstructed the room before him, his unease elevating with each detail cataloged, the place looking like a bloody showroom for 1950s 'retro' style housing that had become so popular of late. "We sure people lived here," he asked, intending the question to be rhetorical.
Eyes still on his tablet, Kilmer answered "Believe so, sir, based on the bedrooms."
Gray's eyes rested on the chalk pattern that covered the four bottom steps of the stairway that cut between the living and dining areas, the carpet there darkened almost black with dried blood. He immediately knew it was the outline of one of the recovered bodies, although he couldn't quite work out how a body was supposed to fit within such a misshapen lump of curves and angles. Kilmer offered "We believe that to have been the father." He made a final tap of the screen and offered it to Gray.
The image was of a slightly heavyset man with receding hairline lying on the steps. His head was twisted nearly 100-degrees the wrong way, his back clearly twisted in ways the human spinal column wasn't meant to accomplish, and the blade of a steak knife poking through his neck (the pommel clearly visible in his hand under his chin). It was even money which of those was the fatal injury. His bloody, misshapen nose seemed superfluous as injury; damned if he could see how the poor man had managed that atop everything else.
Gray held the tablet up to the outline, then lowered it, allowing the two images to merge in his mind. "Brutal," he murmured. "What's your working theory?"
"At first glance, I'd say he threw himself down the steps after he'd murdered his wife and daughter."
Gray heard the unspoken caveat clearly. "Except…?"
"I've already modeled his fall, and that scenario just doesn't work." Kilmer shook his head. "The damage is too violent, for lack of a better term, and it looks like it's all in his neck and upper torso. If he came tumbling down, we'd see at least some fractures in his legs and pelvis."
"Where's your intuition leading you?"
"I'm modeling what could happen if he dropped straight down, and the results are a helluva lot closer to what we found."
This brought Gray up short. "Straight down?"
"Like getting knocked over the bannister up there." Gray glanced upwards, noting the second floor did appear a tad more elevated than standard height. Another mystery, but not an immediate one.
"Have you been up there?" Kilmer was quick to shake his head.
"It's pretty ugly. Plate Q-9 is the mother." Gray quickly brought the designated image up on the tablet, his only reaction being a deeper frown, before handing it back to Kilmer (closing the image before he did).
He spoke as he ascended the stairs, saying "Wilson is pulling up stakes in anticipation of early evac. Stow your air force and assist as you can."
"Yes, sir." Kilmer's own voice faded as this was said, the technician clearly anxious to be away from the house. Gray put him from his mind and opened himself to the all the impressions his surroundings offered.
It was popular myth that Gray was a psychic of some stripe, a notion he neither encouraged nor denied as he himself was unclear of the nature of his 'gift'. In truth he preferred to think of it as an over-active imagination which simply drew its inspiration from the minutiae of his surroundings, constructing logical inferences of the past from these subconscious impressions. It had served him well across the years and in other investigations, even if it was occasionally heartbreaking to see humanity's essential inhumanity laid bare time and again.
Standing there, in that house that morning, Gray felt himself in the presence of something truly monstrous. Grotesque, even, yet…there was nothing to suggest such things upon first viewing. The furniture and appliances were normal and laid out in a logical fashion, the color scheme sedate, the wallpaper and carpet unexceptional, but to see it all made his skin positively crawl.
The master bedroom elicited the same reaction, and not simply because the earth-tone comforter and sheets were dark with dried blood, all circumvented by a white chalk outline that he'd have been hard-pressed to call 'human' in shape. Indeed, save for the natural differences between furniture, there was perfect uniformity in the color scheme on the first floor. That realization froze Gray in place for a beat, then had him pulling open the doors to the closets in rapid succession, the same combination of white shirts/blouses and khaki trousers/skirts on every hanger. Dresser drawers were opened and pristine white underwear and undershirts were found, and the sight of them made Gray realized what was disturbing him: the bland uniformity of the place. He might as well have been standing in a model home for prospective buyers, not one occupied by living people.
With this realization in mind, a second thought hit him: the pictures showed the father, mother and daughter "in uniform", their cheerful expressions so devoid of genuine emotion they might as well have been well-sculpted mannequins. There was nothing showing or even hinting at their lives before this place.
That thought prompted him to look closer at the ones on the wall, each of which looked unaccountably off-center to the left, making Gray suspicious of them. He knew from experience that significant care was invested in making such scenes perfectly placed and executed. To display one even slightly off, as these were, flew in the face of the façade this place was, which made them suddenly very interesting.
It took little effort to pry the back off one, and his suspicions were confirmed by the slightly irregular edge that had been covered by the frame, as if something had been hastily torn or cut away from the photo. Alas, amateur or hasty as the effort might have been, it had removed all trace of the excised. For some reason, this left him all the more chilled and unsettled.
Leaving the master bedroom, Gray crossed the landing to the next room over, finding it to be a girl's bedroom, albeit one without the mess and paraphernalia typical to youth. A visual search of the closet and simple wardrobe yielded no surprises: white blouses and khaki skirts, girls underclothes so modest one would think they were from 70 years earlier, and a complete lack of anything even hinting at rebellion or independence. Even the gym gear looked almost pristine.
Examining the shelves near the room's small desk, he found only academic readers and textbooks (recognizing several authors, wincing in dismay in doing so) and bits of Americana literature, but no YA novels or tween mags. Again, it left him both unsurprised and ever more disturbed. He sat himself at the well-ordered desk and without the smallest sense of conscience went through the drawers, strangely unsurprised at finding nothing personal. No holiday pictures, no school drawings, nick-knacks, anything to even hint at the person who had lived there beyond her name as listed on one of the assignment books sitting in drawer: Jennifer Winslow.
"Were you always this empty," he murmured to the room. "Or did they drain it out of you?"
Mindful of the time, Gray stood and exited the room, pausing for a moment at the sight of a stickball bat lying on the floor to his right. He hadn't noticed this before, and its placement had him curious. Upon closer examination, he could make out flecks of red on the side. Closing his eyes, Gray visualized the image of the body Kilmer had recorded, nodding to himself with a murmur of "You didn't fall, did you? You were…pushed over the railing. But…why?"
He closed his eyes and let his mind's eye weave the scene.
Jenny awoke to Daddy's screams of "Oh, God! No, no, NO!" He screamed louder than the thunder and lightning that lit the sky outside. It left her frozen there, ready to cower under the bed covers.
"God, please, stop hurting her, please!" Daddy shouted, and it was enough to push her out of bed, grabbing up her stickball bat and easing herself out onto the landing, creeping forward a few paces towards her parent's room.
Daddy didn't stop screaming, caused Jenny to pause when he screeched, his voice momentarily drowned out by thunder "Stop it, Jen…Stop! STOP HURTING YOUR MOTHER!"
Jenny could now hear a dull, almost wet sound accompanying his screaming. Before she could debate further whether or not approach the door, it was thrown fully open and there stood her father, the front and arms of his pale pajamas covered in something dark and thick and dripping. His eyes shone in the darkness, as did silvery blade of the steak knife in his hand, which was likewise painted with the dripping dark.
She heard him muttering now, the storm outside quieting enough to hear "Why…why…Jeh…we loved…why did you…"
"Daddy?" she whispered, too shocked at the sight to remember to call him "Father" as she had been instructed.
He didn't hear her, instead continuing his appeal of "Why…Jeh…Jeh…heh…we…we didn't want…Jen…Jen….hehhhahhha…"
Jenny couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying then, but that crazed sound alone was enough to make her back away, grip tightening on the bat.
Her father kept advancing on her, his voice clarifying even as the din outside increased. "Jeh…you didn't listen…listen to us…listen to me…listen…liss…lissss…you should have listened to us! Didn't you listen to us?"
Jenny kept backing away as her father advanced, step for step, until her back brushed the door to the unused bedroom. She reached behind her and jiggled the knob, which quickly gave way and allowed her further space to retreat.
She waited until her father had moved/stumbled to stand directly before her, his back to the landing's bannister, and his rantings now having reached fever pitch of "Listen…listen to us! We're your parents and you listen to us because we are your parents and you…you…why don't…why…did…we sent you there so…so…why…did…whydidyoudothatdamnyouwhydidyouhurtyourmotherlikethatyoumonsteryouruineverythingggggg!"
Jenny swung her bat out of sheer animal instinct, catching him between the eyes and hearing a loud crack as his nose split and sprayed blood like burst balloon. The man's eyes cleared for a moment and beheld her with undisguised shock and confusion. "Whuh…" he slurred. "Jeh…Jenny…what…?"
He swayed there for a beat, as if seeing everything for the first time. He quickly became aware of the knife in his hand, and the sticky gore covering him, his mouth working but no sound emerging.
Her father met her eyes once more, but his footing slipped on the hardwood floor, and in just seconds he was so disorientated and off-balance he all but sailed backwards over the banister. There was a combination of a thud and cracking sound that followed a second later, and all Jenny could do was stand there, the bat slipping from her nerveless fingers.
Her mind swirled with the same thoughts over and over. What…what had she just done? What was she supposed to do now? Would they send her away, like they had…had…
She heard an explosion in the distance accompanied by more lightning, but as she turned to look out the window, her view was obstructed by someone standing there. Someone she hadn't sensed when she'd backed into the room they'd emptied and locked when they'd sent…
Jenny blinked at the…person…and wondered why she wasn't wearing the proper clothes. Why her hair was uncombed and had red streaks in it. Why she looked like…like…
"Jenna?"
The person…Jenna…Jenna, with her wild hair and terrible clothes and angry eyes…Jenna from before they came here to Evergreen…she didn't smile. Didn't move. Didn't jump when thunder sounded outside.
But when she spoke, there was no mistaking that angry, arrogant growl that Jenny remembered. She sneered words, which froze Jenny in place.
"You were going to ruin everything again!"
A second later, Jenna reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders, spun around, and sent Jenny flying through the unopened window. She heard more than felt the wood and glass give way, her hearing and mind consumed by the sneered words, a mocking rendition of the last words Jenny herself had said before they loaded her sister into the van taking her to…
"I didn't ruin anything, you little shit. It was already rotten to the fucking core.
"Just like you!"
It was the last thought, the last sensation she had before her flight stopped suddenly, something sharp tearing up through her chest.
Then…darkness.
Gray opened his eyes, finding himself in the empty room, staring down through a broken window at the chalk outline on the ground outside, the fresh-cut stump of a tree in its center. "Talk about all-natural fertilizer," he muttered, gallows humor his only defense against the scene.
Turning from there, he looked over the empty room, noting its dimensions and imagining where furniture would have been, laid out in perfect mirror to the room next to it. Even if this family had only one child, why leave this room unused? Why not a storage room or the like?
The answer, he suspected, lay in the answer to an obvious question that immediately came to mind and exited his throat before fully realizing it:
"Who's Jenna?"