Quarantine #2: The Saints Read Online Free PDF

been shot all to hell, something Will couldn’t handle thinking about. The body’s description fit David’s height and build along with the white hair and the ruined eye. Even after hearing all that, Will wanted to stay a skeptic. And he would have if the house the body was in hadn’t matched Will and David’s house, right down to the overstuffed, blue chair in the corner of the living room. There was no explaining it away. David was really dead. Will had known there was a possibility his brother had died when the tunnel collapsed, and he thought he had come to terms with it in the last couple weeks, but it was only the possibility that hehad come to terms with. To know for sure was an entirely new level of pain, and Will wasn’t sure he could take it.
    He gripped a torch made from a broken metal curtain rod. The flaming part was a full roll of toilet paper that had been soaked in cooking grease. Fire was the only reliable light source since the power had gone out over a month ago. Without a torch you were stumbling through a vacuum, with nothing to remind you that you physically existed other than the hard floor pressing into your feet.
    Will walked at a brisk clip, down the hallway, toward the Stairs. The Loners kept pace with Will. He must have seemed like he was taking charge, but he wasn’t really, he just felt like he might start crying if he slowed down. He didn’t want to fall apart in front of them. He could feel that the gang was only holding on by a string, and he didn’t want to be the one to snip it. The torch flame fluttered, it was nearly out. They’d need to start a fire soon.
    Will and the Loners arrived at the first floor door to the Stairs. He pushed, and the door swung open. When Will and Lucy had returned to tell the gang that the door to the outside was open, they’d run for the foyer right away. No one had locked the door to their home base on the way out, because they hadn’t expected to ever return.
    Will hesitated. By the torch’s light, only the armory and the first flight up were revealed. Everything above was black.
    “Well … we’re home,” Will said.
    No one replied. It was cold silence behind him. He couldn’t blame them. The Stairs didn’t feel anything like home now. It only felt like a place where David used to be alive.
    Will stepped inside. One by one, the Loners shuffled in behind him. They moved aimlessly around the bottom landing, like sleepwalkers. Will glanced at Ritchie and saw that tears brimmed on the edge of his eyelids, sparkling in the firelight. Ritchie loved David, everybody knew it. He was closer to David than Will had been for a while there. Ritchie stared up the staircase, into the blackness that light couldn’t penetrate. It was like he was peering into his own grave.
    “We should get a fire going,” Will said.
    Ritchie saw Will looking at him. He flinched, and shook his head, quick and violent, like a chicken.
    “This table’s broken,” Ritchie said, moving to a tipped table in the armory. “I’ll bash it up.”
    Will nodded. He didn’t want to talk feelings with Ritchie, or anyone for that matter. If he popped the cap on his anguish, he was afraid he’d never get it back on.
    Ritchie made a loud racket, stomping the table. He wasn’t giving anyone an angle on his face as he beat the living hell out of that wood. Will looked around at the others. Leonard was hugging himself and refused to open his eyes. Belinda had her arms wrapped around Lucy and whispered comfortingwords to her. Mort rubbed his temples like he had a bad headache. Colin was staring at Will with pity, but he looked away as soon as Will caught his eyes.
    “Okay,” Will said with a clap, “let’s help Ritchie out, huh? Let’s get that wood up to the lounge.”
    The group drifted up the stairs, trailing Will and his torch. He stepped onto the landing where the Loners shared meals together. It was also where David would do his speeches and gang announcements.
Always wait