“I saw some cans on shelves in the kitchen,” Mildred said. “Depends on what they are, but some of them might still be usable and safe.”
There were three rooms opening off the landing, and Krysty checked them all.
The first was a bathroom, with thick towels folded neatly on a chair. But when Krysty tried to pick one up, it crumbled into powdery dust between her fingers.
There was a dry smell in the house, a smell of stillness and antiquity.
The second of the doors was half-open, and Krysty pushed it all the way, revealing the sterility of what had obviously been a guest bedroom. A faded watercolor of Glenwood Springs hung on one wall, and a floral duvet covered a narrow double bed.
Krysty went to the last of the rooms, where the door was closed.
“You all right?” Mildred’s voice floated up from downstairs. “Some of the electrics still work. Must be the solar panels, but they sure built them to last.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just going into the last of the rooms up here to” Her voice stopped as though it had been sliced off with an ax.
“Krysty?” There was a note of worry in Mildred’s voice.
“I’m fine. But I was wrong. The owners of the house are still here.”
THEY LAY SIDE BY SIDE, wizened hands locked together, on a large bed beneath a picture window that looked west toward the setting sun.
The flesh had long, long gone and all that remained were the dark brown sinews that held together the loosened bones. She had been blond or gray, and he had been mainly bald. Strands of their hair had flowed together on the pillow, just as the juices of their decaying corpses had flowed together, staining the bed and the carpet beneath it.
She wore a pantsuit and sneakers. He was dressed in casual pants and a shirt beneath a patterned sweater. His feet were bare bones.
Mildred stood in the doorway. “Looks like they picked the time and place of their going.” She walked to a glass-topped table that held a ceramic doll and picked up an empty bottle of pills, peering at the label. “Yeah. They knew what they were doing, all right. Is there a note?”
“Haven’t seen one.”
They found it in the living room in an envelope propped up by a photograph of a smiling couple, blinking into the sun on a ski slope, arms around each other.
To Whom It Might Concern was printed neatly on the outside. Krysty picked it up and weighed it in her hand. “I don’t know whether we should open this.”
“Let’s see what the others think. Sun’s well down. Be good to move those poor remains out of the room and bring in some wood. They left a fire ready-laid in the hearth, and we don’t know how long the electricity’ll hold out after all this time.”
ALL OF THEM were fascinated by the house.
Jak brought in wood while J.B. got the fire going. Mildred and Krysty shared the task of bundling the desiccated corpses in the stained sheets and carrying them out back, laying them in a garage that held a large crimson wag. Krysty checked, but the engine was seized up solid as granite. They carefully remade the beds, using the fragile sheets and blankets from a closet on the landing.
Doc sat on the sofa, his knee boots resting on a piece of old towel he’d found in the kitchen, so as not to make the material muddy.
He was holding the envelope that Krysty had shown him. “What is the consensus of opinion on this?” he asked. “Should we read it or not?”
“Not,” Mildred stated firmly.
“Read it,” Jak said, crouching in front of the hearth and coaxing the fire into reluctant life.
“Yeah, sorry, Millie, but I don’t see why not. It’s a keyhole into the past. Don’t get chances like this all that often. I say read it.” J.B. avoided Mildred’s eyes.
“Why do you think, Krysty?” Doc asked.
“I don’t have strong feelings. One thing’s for sure. It can’t hurt the folks who wrote it.”
They knew now that they had been a Mr. and Mrs. James Tickell, and that he’d been an orthodontist. They had three children, all in their twenties, who had left home and lived in Boston, New York and Albuquerque.