The room was big and spacious. Cupboards topped with smooth counters lined the walls but the centre of the room was empty. A round table was pushed into one corner with four chairs placed around it haphazardly, one of them laying on its side on the floor. I moved further inside slowly. I had the strangest sense that someone had just left the room despite the clear evidence to the contrary.
The wall that ran along the front of the house held a huge window which looked back out towards the street. There was a stainless steel sink beneath the window and I walked towards it. It was filled with plates and cups coated in a layer of brown sludge. I wrinkled my nose at the unappealing sight.
Thick dust coated everything, deadening every sound I made and making the place eerily quiet. My movements created a muffled crunching. It felt like I had a pillow pressed over my ears.
I moved around the room, opening cupboard doors, pulling out boxes and tins and placing them on the counter.
"So you think it's okay that they busted into people's houses even if they didn't want to leave?" Taylor asked, following me.
"I dunno T, but if the place was being poisoned they wouldn't really get a choice would they?"
He stopped to survey the room as I tugged at a ring-pull on the top of a can. The label had deteriorated to the point that I couldn't read it but the can itself had stayed sealed.
"What is it?" Taylor asked, peering over my shoulder at the contents of the can as I poured it onto the counter. A handful of glistening yellow sweetcorn tumbled out in a river of juice. It looked good enough to eat.
"Dare you to try some." I shook the can at him.
"I would, but unfortunately I'm not allowed to take my helmet off," he said, rapping his fingers against his visor.
"That's handy," I said, turning away from the mess I'd made.
"Wait a minute, where's the bed?" Taylor asked abruptly, turning on the spot to take in the whole room.
"I don't think there is one," I said.
"Did they sleep on the floor then?" He was moving the chairs aside as if they were somehow concealing it.
"I don't think so."
He stood up straight and moved to the counter by the window.
"What is this stuff?" He picked up a box that I had taken from a cupboard and shook it, listening to the satisfying rattle.
"More food, I think. Look, there's a picture of a kid eating on the front." He turned the box over to look at the faded picture.
"But this is enough food for weeks," he said pointing around at the stash.
"It must have been normal. Look at this - 'food waste.'" I'd found a cupboard with big empty plastic bins inside.
"They wasted food?" The look of incredulity on his face made me laugh.
"It was a different time. I guess it wasn't in such short supply back then." We studied the stash a while longer, pouring some things onto the counter and trying to guess what they might have tasted like. "Let's check out the rest of this place," Taylor said eventually, moving back out into the hallway.
The next room was full of big, squashy chairs all pointed towards a screen in one corner. Taylor jumped on one of them and the dust billowed up in a cloud that filled the room while I laughed.
There was a shelving unit to one side of the room but most of its contents had been knocked to the floor. The walls were full of framed pictures of what appeared to be a family: a mother, father, a boy and an older girl. The children had been captured at various ages coming to an end with what looked like teenage years.
I picked up a photograph of them posing in front of the building that we were standing in. The girl was strikingly attractive, long brunette hair, a stubborn set to her jaw with full lips and eyes that were deep and dark, surrounded by long lashes.
The boy was younger but not by much. He was fair haired and had tougher, stronger features but all similar enough to the girl's to mark them clearly as siblings. He was taller and much broader too but with some lasting boyishness about him.
They looked happy. Like they had actually been caught laughing rather than just fake smiling for the camera.
The house was only recognisable by its shape. It looked warm and inviting with lights twinkling from the upper windows rather than abandoned and in disrepair. The brown dust-filled space in front had been a green carpet of small plants peppered with little white flowers. The huge tree stood sentinel with a crown of green leaves and a rich, deep brown trunk which had faded to a much dimmer colour with the passage of time.
"She looks like you," Taylor said, peering at the picture over my shoulder.
"Don't be absurd, she's gorgeous," I laughed.