Read Online The Remaining: Fractured by D.J. Molles - Free Book Online Page B

dark place. His best bet would be to keep it clean and bandaged.
    But he needed to find some antibiotics.
    He checked a few orange prescription bottles in the medicine cabinet, but they were old and the labels worn so that he could barely read what the prescription was for. He found a tube of antibiotic ointment and delicately spread a thin salve across the split in his scalp. He then closed the medicine cabinet again, avoiding looking at himself in the mirror, and left the bathroom.
    In the main bedroom he overturned the mattress, hoping for a gun. No such luck. He ransacked the closet and the chest of drawers. Nothing of use, but he did take a white cotton t-shirt from one of the drawers. He split it into a wide strip and used it to bandage his head.
    As he did this, moving room to room, the dog followed him. It padded along quietly, sometimes with its head down low, sometimes staring up curiously at whatever Lee was doing. Lee took a moment to stop and look at the dog. Odd that he hadn’t really thought twice about the dog following him, but when he put his mind to it, he knew the dog belonged with him.
    After a long moment’s thought, he pointed with his knife. “Deuce.”
    The dog’s tail stirred, the barest hint of a wag.
    “Yeah. That’s what I named you.” Lee nodded to himself. “You can smell ‘em, can’t you? You can smell ‘em from a long way off?” He knelt down and reached one hand out. The dog shied away from his touch at first, but then let him scratch behind the ears. “And you haven’t growled, so we must be good, right?”
    Deuce yawned, smacked his chops.
    “Right.” Lee smiled, but his face felt unsuited for the expression. He let it fall and stood up. It felt good to talk to someone, even if the dog couldn’t talk back. So he kept it going. “Well, there doesn’t seem like a whole lot of good shit in this house. I think we should move on.”
    They left out of the back door and crossed to the neighbor’s house. Lee peered through windows while Deuce trotted around and marked all the shrubs he could find. Lee found the back door locked and barricaded, so he moved cautiously around to the front. It was a two-story house, with a door in the center and two second-story windows to either side of the front door so it looked like two eyes. Closed into these windows were white bed sheets that clung stiffly to the side of the house and didn’t stir in the breeze.
    Lee tried the door without success, then put a shoulder into it. It rattled loudly and he took a step back, looking around and down both sides of the street, like a burglar worried about the neighborhood watch. Deuce crept into the front lawn and stood there, tongue lolling.
    A rustle of leaves from a natural area between houses drew his attention.
    A pair of squirrels erupted from a bush and shot up a tree, one after the other.
    Lee took a breath to calm his jangled nerves and then turned back to the door. With a sudden grunt he put a foot into the door, just to the side of the knob. The door burst open with a crack of wood, rebounded off its hinges, and almost came to a closed position again before Lee put his hand in the way and stopped it by stepping through into the residence.
    He moved through the house carefully, much in the same way as before. He felt clearer than when he’d first woken up, his mind more focused. In the living room he found a large fish tank, still full. The sides of the glass were speckled with algae, the top of the water a thick layer of pond scum. Two large and exotic-looking fish floated amid the green layer, their bulbous eyes gray and sightless.
    A soft click of claws on the foyer tiles caused him to spin.
    Deuce stood partially through the doorway, sniffing the house hesitantly. His ears forward, tail level. His body language was neutral.
    Lee moved on.
    The kitchen was cramped. A table took up much of the floor space, and was parked in front of the back door to barricade it. He left it where it was.