Page 128 of Afflicted

My hands are shaking when Silas opens my door.

“See?” He grins up at me. “You never forget how to drive.”

“That was so weird.”

“But so cool, right?” He raises an eyebrow.

I nod, my shaking hands still gripping the steering wheel. “Yeah. And normal.”

Silas’s grin melts into a warm smile. “Come on then.” He puts a hand over mine on the steering wheel. “Let’s get inside before this rain gets any heavier.”

I nod, putting the truck into park before I push down the emergency brake and kill the engine. Silas scoops me down out of the seat, and I wobble on his arm as my feet touch the ground.

“Alright?” He asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Why has driving a car set me off like this?

I let Silas guide me across the yard back to the sweet little farmhouse, and he pushes through the faded red door into the foyer.

It’s gorgeous. Dusty, for sure. But it’s all perfect, like the owners just walked out a few weeks ago to go on vacation. White stairs lined with blue carpet lead up to the second story, and a hallway leads past them down to what looks like a kitchen.

To our right is a lounge room with overstuffed sofas and a big rug with an indiscernible pattern on it. Faded checkered curtains hang on the windows, through which lightning flashes wildly. Rain begins to beat down on the roof.

“How does this place still look so nice?” I ask, taking a few tentative steps into the lounge room.

“It’s like this upstairs too,” Silas says, running a hand over his damp hair. “I have to wonder if someone was here until recently.”

“How would they not have been discovered?” I walk closer to the fireplace, to the mantlepiece lined with candles.

“It’s pretty isolated out here,” Silas says, putting the bags he carried in from the truck down on the sofa. “But either way, no one’s been here for a while, and we can wait out the storm.” He gestures for me to follow him, and we head through a narrow hallway into the kitchen.

“Oh wow,” I murmur. It’s an old kitchen, still equipped with a wood stove. A table with bench seats is built into a bay window, a glass lantern hanging over it. Wooden counters with green-fronted doors are built around the edge, with a large copper sink under another window to our left. “This place is adorable.”

“Dream home, angel?” Silas asks me with a smile. “And look what else I found.” He goes to a tall cupboard door and throws it open. It’s a pantry, completely stocked with tins of food and bags of grains. I almost shriek in surprise, rushing at the cupboard and pulling two of the tins from one of the shelves.

“Spaghetti-os?” I can’t help but laugh, and Silas’s eyes are sparkling as I look up at him, mouth agape. “You have to be kidding.”

“Guess I won’t need to go and find that roadkill after all, ey?”

I look back down at the cans in my hands. “No, these have to all be out of date.”

Silas shakes his head. “Nope, I can smell that everything in here is absolutely fine. Believe me, rotten food is pungent. If it was off, I’d know.”

An incredulous laugh bubbles from my lips. “I can’t believe this. All this food.” I shove my head back into the cupboard and squeal as my hands fall on a red and white tin. “There’s beanee weenees!”

“There’swhat?”Silas asks from the stove, where he’s attempting to start a fire.

I snatch up the can and display it to him proudly. “Beanee weenees! It’s beans and franks! My grandma used to make them for us when we went camping.”

Silas snorts and shakes his head. “And you Americans say British food is disgusting.”

I hug the can of beans to my chest like an old friend as Silas gets a fire going in the stove, before lighting the lantern over the table. The storm is getting stronger, wind whistling through the eaves of the old house, but it’s all strangely comforting.

I find some old saucepans under one of the benches, and Silas rinses them out with some water before tearing open the tin of beans like he’s simply taking off a bottle cap. He dumps them in the saucepan, stirring them as they bubble, and the smell of my childhood fills the kitchen.

My mouth is watering violently by the time they’re heated through, and Silas laughs heartily when I start eating straight from the pan.

“Hungry, angel?”

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