I put my hand over my nose and mouth. “What is it?”
His shadow was still as a statue and the way he was holding himself scared me.
“Is it Rosie?” I asked, looking around the dark room which I could tell was a kitchen but not much else.
Tex moved, he took off the goggles and then settled them on my face. My hand fell away from my mouth and everything went green. I could see much better, but unfortunately this included the body of a man, his butt on the floor, back to the cupboards, legs splayed out in front. He had dark stains on his face, the origin of which came from what appeared to be a hole in his forehead.
“Oh. My. God,” I breathed and then everything went bright, so bright it blinded me and I cried out in surprise.
A hand came over my mouth and the goggles were torn from my head.
“Keep quiet, for f**k’s sake.”
It was Lee. He’d turned on the kitchen light and when he was certain I wouldn’t yell again, he took his hand from my mouth.
I turned and looked at him and he was staring down at the body, his face tight.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Yeah? What’re we? Havin’ a party?” Tex asked.
Lee turned cold eyes to Tex and Tex said no more.
Then Lee turned to me.
“I followed you.”
“No one followed me, I kept checking.”
He gave me a look.
Fucking Lee.
“You with her?” Tex ventured.
“Yeah,” Lee answered.
I wanted to scream I was not with Lee and he was not with me, but the situation kept my mouth shut. Instead, I turned back to the body and there he was, in the not-eerie-green-night-vision but lit up and easy to see not only him, but all the blood and gunk that had come out of the back of his head to splatter all over the kitchen wall.
Not Rosie.
It was disgusting. I’d never seen anything so foul. It was a nasty, awful, horrible, smelly, sad death.
I gulped, almost sure I was going to hurl. Lee heard it, grabbed my arm and pulled me through the house and out the backdoor.
“Lean over. Deep breaths,” he ordered.
We were standing in the backyard and he pressed his hand to the back of my neck to force me over. I put my hands on my knees and gulped deep breaths of fresh air, leaving the Death Air behind. With some effort, I fought back the nausea and stood up straight.
Tex had followed us out.
“Was that Tim?” I asked Tex.
“Yep.”
“Ohmigod.”
“Please tell me you didn’t touch anything in there,” Lee said to me.