Page 22 of Marked for Execution

The drive over the uneven terrain was quiet. We came across a house in the middle of nowhere and pulled around the side about a mile away. There was a barn and shed to the side of it.

“Tools,” I whispered under my breath, and Eliseo nodded.

“We might find something here. Let’s check it out,” he told everyone.

We all got out with our weapons in hand and ready. Eliseo walked around the shed while the other men went toward the barn.

“What do you think happened here?” I asked him. My mind was whirling with different scenarios, none of them good.

“Who knows? But it looks dilapidated, like it’s been sitting alone for a while.”

We bypassed the shed that had a door hanging on its hinge. There was nothing inside. Walking up the porch of the main house, we both creeped around and looked through the windows.

“I don’t see any movement,” I mumbled under my breath, mostly to myself.

“Me either. Stay behind me.”

I quickly made my way behind him as he kicked in the front door. The dust fell, and we both covered our faces with our arms, coughing. Eliseo moved through the living room, his gun up. There were two levels to the house and the bottom was covered in the same dust that was on the door. Whatever was in here, never left.

Walking up the creaking stairs, we found four closed doors. The pistol in my hand felt heavy with what we may find behind them.

Eliseo kicked the first door in, and the smell of mold and something else wafted out. Looking around his back, my heart kicked up a beat at the sight of two decayed bodies in an embrace on the bed, one smaller than the other.

Fuck.

The sheets were darkened with old bloodstains, and the shredded curtains moved with the breeze that came through the window.

Flashes of a woman holding me when I fell over father’s tools played in the back of my mind.She was my mother, wasn’t she?

“Oh, poor baby. It’s okay. What are you doing out here?”

“I wanted to see what Papa was doing. I wanted to help.”

“My dear, the best place for a child to help is to stay out of the way. Come on, you can help me cut up the vegetables we just harvested. How does that sound?”

“I’m not good with a knife, the handle’s too big, Mama.”

Her smile softened her wrinkled face. She patted my shoulder and moved me away from the green house. “Baby, every woman should know how to wield a knife. You’ll learn. It’s a skill you need to have to make it in this life.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“Sili? Where did you go?” Eliseo was standing before me with his hands on my shoulder, his face crouched right beside mine, staring into my eyes.

“I-I’m sorry. It was a memory. Sorry.”Why couldn’t I remember that she was my mother at first?The memory was so clear, like it was yesterday.

Eliseo’s concern was written all over his face, but he didn’t address it. “Come on; let’s clear out the rest of the rooms and get out of this house.”

“Okay.”

He kicked the next door in, and there was old blood spatter all over the walls, sprinkling the ceiling. A skeleton lay in a slump on the bed, a gun still in its hand.

Is this what our future looked like?So bleak that it became easier to just off oneself? How long before we become like this family here? Withering away with hopelessness.

Eliseo walked in and grabbed the skeleton’s gun. I followed suit, rummaging through the side table and dressers in case I found some ammo, and I did. Some of the clothes looked pristine, having been preserved away from the dust. I grabbed some shirts and shoved them into the small bag I brought along with me.

“Check the other room, too, in case you find some other useful stuff for yourself,” Eliseo said as he walked toward the next room and kicked it in.

Reentering the first room, I tentatively looked through the dressers to find some feminine undergarments.How did he know?Looking at the embracing bodies again, the smaller one looked to have been a teenager. My heart ached, not only for the old residents here, but for the fact that my memories were still fragmented.How could a person forget their parents?