Chapter 68

The fire burned brightly in the hearth as the party gathered their thoughts and warmed their bodies in silence. The faint crackling of the flames teased at the silence as they sat, recovering from the ordeal, and Weiss stared blankly into the fire as if it were her only source of comfort. Knees tucked into her chest, she'd resorted to wrapping herself up into a defensive ball, gasping in shock as Blake draped a blanket over the heiress's shoulders. The faunus girl smiled gently at her, going to sit next to Yang on the couch. They all jumped in surprise once more as the door opened again, and Jaye and Qrow walked back into the room. Qrow sighed heavily, and Jaye grimaced as he caught Yang's eye, and she knew the answer before he said it.

'It's the same in every house.' Qrow said, and in spite of this Yang still couldn't hold her shock.

'What?'

'Bodies. Every bed in every home.' Jaye muttered, rubbing his arms and shaking his head grimly. 'It's like the whole estate just went to sleep and never woke up.'

Yang reached out her hand to him, and he settled himself onto the couch next to her, squeezing her hand tight.

'Then we're not staying here…right?' The heiress finally found her voice, but Qrow shook his head.

'We don't have a choice.' He explained. 'Storm outside's only getting worse. We'd freeze to death before we make it anywhere.'

The group sat in silence for a moment, and Maria once more broke the tension with an uncaring quip.

'Well, might as well get comfortable.' She said, getting up from her spot on the couch and hobbling her way over to the bookshelf nearby. She seemed awfully unperturbed by the situation they were in, and Jaye resolved himself to going back upstairs to examine the bodies once more.

'Yeah fat chance.' Yang crossed her arms. Ruby sucked in a deep breath.

'Okay then. Let's do something.' She declared. 'If this place wasn't abandoned it might still have supplies we could use.'

'Hey yeah, maybe even a car.' Oscar chipped in, and she thanked him silently for the added support. Qrow got up from his place by the fire.

'I'll do another sweep of the grounds.' He informed, making for the door again. He paused in the doorframe. 'No one else goes anywhere alone.'

Blake got up from the couch, hands clasped together on her lap. 'Yang and I can search the other buildings for vehicles.'

'Fine. Whatever gets me out of this house.' The blonde got to her feet in a huff, and in spite of her attitude the boy could tell she'd resorted to overlaying her fear with anger. She pulled her hand out of his gently, and he got to his feet as well.

'Somehow I doubt that "no one else goes anywhere alone" rule applies to me, so I'm going to check on those bodies and see if there's any clue to what happened here.' Jaye got up from the couch as well, eyeing the stairs with a look of disdain. 'Even if I don't want to.'

He retrieved his jacket (and therefore his equipment) from the heiress by the fire, wrapping the blanket securely around her shoulders. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and she tried in vain to return it as she shivered in the warmth. He placed his hand on her head, patting her gently, before making his way up the stairs with a not so subtle groan. Ruby smiled at the girl still smothered in blanket.

'Food always makes me feel better. Just saying.'

Jaye made a sound of disgust as he lifted the hand of the man off the bed. It rose up without issue, and he surmised that the body must have passed out of rigor mortis some time ago, therefore the blood must have gathered near the bed where gravity would have pulled it down. There was no way he'd been dead less than two hours ago, if the staunch lack of blood and firmness in the body was any indicator of that, and he figured the intense cold was the only thing that had slowed the bodies' decomposition. The bed was untouched, blankets perfectly still, no signs of even having tossed or turned in the night, and the death struck him as stranger and stranger by the second. Turning what used to be a man over onto his side, he pulled a knife out of his jacket and slit a small line down his back. The blood that pooled underneath the skin there further proved his suspicions, and the indentations in his back that matched the curves of the bed erased any doubts he'd had.

'How's the investigation going?' Oscar's voice sounded from the doorway, and Jaye let the dead body fall back onto its back. The farmhand made a face of disgust at the gaunt face that once more came into sight, and Jaye crossed his arms as he stared at the body.

'It's just as we suspected. They literally went to sleep and never woke up.' He said, cleaning his knife off on the bed and slotting it back into his jacket. 'I should get the others together for this.'

That Evening

'They've been dead for most likely a few days now. I'm guessing the cold slowed down the decomposition process, which explains the lack of smell. The covers were undisturbed in every single bed including this one, meaning they never even moved as they died. No external wounds so no one killed them and then stuck them in the bed, and the blood looks and smells exactly like dried blood should.'

Jaye explained his findings to the group as they sat in the living room around the fire. The girls had scrounged up more blankets and pillows for them to use, and they were getting ready to go to bed.

'What does that mean?' The farmhand asked, and Jaye made a face like he just remembered something.

'Right, sorry, I'm used to the people I'm talking to being familiar with poison. Toxins will always show up in the blood in some form or another; the most common ones having distinct smells and will cause blood to curdle in different ways. But the blood is exactly how it would be in a person that died normally, so it definitely wasn't some kind of poison.'

'Then what caused their deaths?' Blake asked, leaning forwards onto her hands. 'It seems like what you've found is that we know nothing more than what we did in the first place.'

'You're not wrong, but I have found out a few important bits.' Jaye said. 'I might not know what killed them, but I also know that it wasn't in the food or the air. That means we're safe to consume anything in here that isn't expired or rotten, and we probably won't die overnight like they did.'

'What makes you think that? It might not have been a toxin, but they died in their sleep. That means something.' Qrow asked, swigging from a bottle and handing it to Jaye's outstretched hand. The assassin sniffed it skeptically, taking a precautionary sip and making a face.

'Wow, you're really drinking that? You're hardcore dude.' He said, handing the bottle back to the surly man. 'And no, I think it was something they didn't notice that happened over a period of time. There were things about the house that seemed… off. You see that there?' He indicated a coffee grinder in the corner. 'That coffee grinder was left in the open, likely because it's being used every day. There are also several dedicated coffee mugs in the kitchen and a few bags of coffee strainers in the drawers. Whoever lived in this house was really into coffee.'

'So? Coffee's in every house.' Ruby pointed out, but Jaye held up a hand.

'True, which is why it made me suspicious.' He held up a few fingers. 'Three things tipped me off. Those mugs have dust on them, meaning they haven't been used in a while. The bottle of coffee grounds in the corner has a layer of dust gathered on the lid, so that hasn't been touched recently either. And finally, the coffee grinder has dust on the blades; no way to gather dust on those bits unless it's been sitting still there for a long while.'

'Which is a little weird for a household that seems to love coffee.' Oscar finished, and Jaye nodded.

'Yep. On top of that, I found traces of cobwebs in the corners of almost every house, which seems a little odd for such nice places that must have been cleaned often.' He placed his hand down on his lap. 'That leads me to believe that their usual daily habits started dying off after a while, rather than them just getting offed overnight. Since the bodies are relatively fresh, even accounting for decomposition slowdown from the cold, they must have died fairly recently; I would say in the last one to two weeks. Not enough for a house that was sealed in every way possible from the outside air to gather this much settled dust. There's even quite a number of coffee filters and ground coffee beans in the trash cans in the kitchen; and considering how nice the house is I doubt the owners would let their trash build to such a degree before throwing it out.'

'Meaning that all of those things must have occurred over time.' Weiss caught on, folding her arms over her chest. 'The owners' habits changed slowly over time; less cleaning, less done in the day to day, and finally they went to bed and…never got out.'

'Exactly.' Jaye said. 'It's winter period too, so they must have gotten foods to last through the cold months. Since they're farmers, that means drying their goods and storing them in preservatives to last the winter or to sell. But I noticed a whole bunch of foods never taken down from drying racks on a few of the houses. Bit odd to not have finished that before winter started.'

'So something got to them over the course of a long while. But what?' Yang asked, placing her metal fingers to her chin. 'What we found so far, that's good and all, but it doesn't really help us figure out what happened here.'

'Hate to be the voice of douchebaggary around here, but we honestly don't have to.' Jaye said. The room went quiet as they looked at him, and he shrugged. 'What happened here was tragic, and no one even knows about it. But in the end, it won't matter as long as we get out of here before whatever happened to them happens to us too. It looks like an isolated incident, otherwise Mistral or Argus would already know about it, so I doubt it'll affect us outside of this town.'

'I guess the only thing we can do is to let the authorities know when we get to Argus. It might not do much; they'll probably just quarantine the whole area, but it'll be better than leaving whatever happened here to spread without anyone knowing.' Blake said, hugging her legs to her chest in front of the fire. 'Whatever the case is, we should be fine as long as we get out by tomorrow morning.'

'Which means we want to get out as fast as we can. I don't have a good feeling about this place, especially with me around.' Qrow finished, getting up from his spot on the couch. 'Get some sleep, I'll wake you guys up just before sunrise.'

'Then you should get some rest too. I'll take watch when you need me to.' Jaye said, and Qrow nodded to the boy. The rest started bundling themselves up around the fire, creeping under blankets that Oscar handed out, and Jaye accepted one with a word of thanks. Ruby gave him a small look, and he followed her out into the hall. 'Need something?'

'Sort of.' The red-clad girl said, glancing over at the surly man by the window who was still chugging from the numerous bottles at his feet. Jaye raised an eyebrow at him, folding his arms over his chest.

'Ah, I see.' He said, smiling at the worried girl. 'Well, he's a big boy you know. I'm sure he's got his own way of handling things, so don't worry too much about him.'

'I know, but he's never been this bad before. It's really looking like it's weighing down on him.' Ruby said, and Jaye placed a hand on her shoulder. 'I mean, you're sort of an adult right? What do you think I should do?'

'Well I won't tell you not to worry, because you do have a reason to. But he was already a pretty heavy drinker for non-lifechanging reasons, so this is probably an adequate increase for finding out you'd been lied to by someone you trusted more than anyone in the world.' Jaye said, shaking his head at the man hurking down bottles like they were water. 'Just hope that he manages to snap out of it, but it's not like he got significantly worse in comparison, so don't worry yourself out of your mind.'

'Right right…' Ruby's eyes trailed back to her uncle in spite of this, and Jaye cursed himself for being unable to give her more peace of mind. He placed a hand over the girl's shoulders.

'Never mind, I'm sleepy so let's go hit the sack yeah?' He said, pulling the girl into the hall with the rest of the girls. Yang glanced at the two as they walked in, raising an eyebrow at the boy as he gave her a look that said "you should ask her yourself but not right now", and he settled her next to her sister. Yang led her under the large blanket they were sharing, thanking the boy silently as he smiled back at her. He climbed onto the couch, dropping his head down onto one of the mini pillows there and closing his eyes. The house was silent, nothing but the crackling of the fire in the corner resounding in his ears, and he felt his eyelids grow heavier as he listened to it. He felt sleepier than normal, wondering quietly to himself why that was the case, before surrendering himself to the sweet serenity of slumber.

Chapter 68 done