11 - Lilly
The lobby stunk. No, it reeked.
The second that Brynn stepped forward and opened the glass door, it was like Lilly walked into a wall of thick stench. The putrid aroma was enough to make Lilly clutch at her nose, widen her eyes, and double over to gag. Beside her, the young professor Mackenzie passed out. She would've smacked her head against the hard floor if it wasn't for her falling on Nathan.
"Damn, I haven't smelt that in a while." Brynn chuckled, walking into the room with ease. Brynn grabbed the sleeve of her hoodie and covered her mouth and nose. Lilly craned her neck to watch what Brynn was doing. Brynn had seen that most of the group decided to hang back a bit to make sure Mackenzie was okay, so she went to explore the corpses. Lilly was about to stand back up, but got another whiff of the sickly-sweet odor. She shuffled quickly to a garbage can on the right and threw up what was left of her meal the night before. She was grateful that they didn't have time to stop for breakfast that day.
Lilly looked back up after she was done and grabbed the neck of her sweater to cover her mouth and nose. She felt a hand on her back and saw Mark looking at her with worry in his eyes. He had done the same as Brynn, covering his nose and mouth. In fact, the whole group had copied Brynn to avoid the pungent stench. She finally decided to follow Tristan, Brynn. Nathan, and Alex into the room with the dead bodies.
Lilly's stomach felt queasy and her head was spinning. Brynn was right then; they were going to see more dead people. Brynn was also wrong though. It did not get easier. Lilly felt her mind wandering to these people's lives, their families. Were they even alive? Did their families know they were dead? Or were they hoping they would eventually come home? What were their careers? What were they leaving behind in this world? Was there even a point?
Lilly was jealous of the nonchalance that Brynn and Tristan displayed. Brynn walked over the bodies to the farthest one and pulled the pistol out of the waist band of her pants. She used it to poke at one of their arms and look at their wrists. The arms were obviously difficult to move and stiff. The skin was pale and discoloured and the bodies were bloated. Lilly had never seen anything quite like it. Her head felt heavy as she watched Tristan poke one of them with his gun and the skin came with it.
"They've been dead for a while," Remarked Tristan, "Poor bastards."
"They're still in rigor mortis but judging by that blue discolouration, I think they're in livor mortis." Lilly rasped behind the cover of her hoodie. She briefly remembered a science class where they discussed the stages of death and post-mortem. She remembered how much it had fascinated her. It was not fascinating now.
"So, what, between two to four days?" Nathan tried to clarify. Lilly turned to him, surprised he knew the time frame. She was grateful he was there though. Lilly coughed, remembering the smell from earlier.
"Yes, I'm pretty sure."
"Why are they beheaded?" Brynn asked, but Lilly thought it was rhetorical. That was until Brynn bent down next to one of the corpses and grabbed the end of one of the bags. Before yanking it off, Brynn cast a look up at Lilly. Did Lilly even want to know what was under there? She sighed against the fabric of her hoodie. She had to get used to it. Lilly panicked on the inside as Brynn yanked off the bloodied bag to reveal a stump where the head should have been. Lilly felt a wave of nausea. After studying it for a second or two, she quickly looked up at Lilly then Tristan. "They were hacked off."
Lilly quickly looked away from the corpses, feeling uncomfortable that she was looking at a body so horrendously mutilated.
"There's skin under all their fingernails." Tristan commented. Lilly didn't bother looking, she had seen enough. She concluded that these people were beheaded for a reason. The skin under the fingernails… Were they fighting their own death before it happened? Or did they go insane like Mark's mom? Lilly had a feeling that it was the latter. She remembered the scratch marks on her best friend's mother. But beheaded? God, Lilly was so confused and conflicted. So many emotions were occurring within her that she didn't know which way was up or down.
They finally concluded that they needed to get out of this building and think of how to get to the radio station. They needed to get into that radio station, but they wouldn't be able to focus with these dead bodies here. While they made their way out the back door, Lilly couldn't help but to try and analyze Brynn and Tristan's reactions. They had obviously been in the military and seen some messed up stuff. The fact that they barely had a reaction was a bit terrifying because that meant they had seen something worse or seen enough of it that they were used to it. Both ideas made Lilly nervous.
The group finally found a dentist's office that they easily broke into. Lounging around the lobby of the dentist waiting room in order was: Tristan by the door, Alex on the right, then Brynn, Nadeen, Nathan, Mark, me, Joseph, Andrew, then Mackenzie. In the middle was the bag Alex was carrying full of food. Lilly tried her hardest to hold down the canned peaches that she was eating while ignoring the image of bloated corpses in her mind.
The whole group was silent, save for Alex and Brynn talking. Everyone ate quickly and somewhat quietly. Lilly assumed everyone was shaken up still. It was a lot to process, even for Lilly. For her, things needed to be cut and clear or black and white. She hated that she had so many questions left unanswered or with no explanation.
"So what did your dad do?" Alex asked Brynn, who swallowed the dried mangos she was eating. Alex ruffled his blue hair in a way that made it obvious to Lilly he was trying to flirt. Brynn was leaning against a wall with a covered window beside it. Lilly came back to reality, focusing on the conversation even if she wasn't involved.
"He worked in a lab, basically. He was working on a government-funded project before…" Brynn trailed off, a distant look in her eyes. Lilly thought that look was familiar to her. She randomly remembered the fear she felt the day the bombs dropped.
"I'm sorry," Nadeen's quiet voice came from beside Brynn. She was seated against the wall on the floor with her knee pulled up to her chest. She reached up and touched Brynn's hand for comfort. Lilly wondered how long that group of five had known each other.
"Wait," Tristan spoke up, his mouth full of crackers. Crumbs fell down the front of his shirt. He cursed and brushed them off. "Wait, wait. He was working on disease control, wasn't he?"
Brynn furrowed her eyebrows. Lilly's gaze went back and forth between the siblings.
"I think so. Why?" Brynn turned her body to her brother.
"Do you think it's coincidental that they dropped a bomb in almost the exact same vicinity of Dad's work? After all those ambulances drove by?"
Lilly thought that was hard to believe. It was obviously a coincident, right? She almost scoffed at herself for believing such a conspiracy. But… Was it possible? Lilly's instincts were telling her to consider it.
"A disaster at disease control, it was so crazy that they had to drop a bomb on the place." Lilly spoke out loud to herself. The group looked at her. "I—I don't want to believe it."
"I don't think any of us want to."