Before I Disappear

by Danielle Stinson

  I’ll be here. Soon. The dark is coming, and I don’t want to be alone.

  The seed of fear inside of me blossoms into all-out dread.

  “Think you can climb to that first ledge if I give you a hand up?” Rowena asks.

  The rock wall leers at me. It’s about fifty feet tall, with a small lip carved out of the side fifteen feet up. High enough to offer a view over the trees and into town. A fall from that lower ledge wouldn’t kill me, but it would do some damage.

  My vision blurs. Once when we were living in Georgia and the trailer felt too cramped, I took Charlie to the playground by the park. He went right for the slide. I kept my hands on him the whole way up, but still, he slipped. It was all I could do to wrap my body around his as we went down. We hit the ground on my right arm. It hurt like hell, but it wasn’t the pain I couldn’t shake. It was the helpless feeling of falling.

  I’ve avoided slides ever since.

  I’m about to tell Rowena no when Charlie’s voice echoes through my head for the second time.

  I’ll try, Rosie. I promise. I’ll try.

  I swallow the saliva in my mouth and meet Rowena’s gaze. “I’ll try.”

  “Get up there and take a quick look. Focus on them DARC buildings in the center of town. Whatever disaster caused this, that’s where you’ll find it.” Rowena is surprisingly strong as she braces me. “That’s it, girl.”

  Carefully, I remove my apron, the one holding Charlie’s egg, and lay it on the ground. Bits of rock bite into my palms as I pull myself up. One step. Then another. My heart bangs against my ribs. Sweat snakes into my eyes. I’m about six feet off the ground when my left hand slips. There’s a flash of pain, and then I’m ten years old again, falling through the air with Charlie enveloped in my arms.

  The impact at the bottom drives the air right out of my lungs. Rowena curses under her breath as she helps me sit back up. I raise my hands in front of me. My knuckles are scraped raw, and one of my nails is cracked to the bed. It should hurt, but as strange as it sounds, I don’t feel anything. Not even fear.

  She whistles through her teeth. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I lie through a mouthful of copper pennies. My finger is bleeding, but aside from that, nothing seems damaged.

  “You’re no such thing, girl.”

  I turn back toward the rise. So high. So, so high.

  “What are you doing?” she demands.

  “Can you give me another leg up?” The danger. The cops. Even the sound fades as I measure the distance to the top. Everything inside of me is screaming that I have to get there. I have to see what’s happening on the other side of those trees.

  Rowena crosses her arms. It takes all my resolve to keep my voice steady. “My family is in Fort Glory, Rowena.” I raise my chin. “If something is happening in the town, I’m going to find out what it is. With or without your help.”

  “Try not to get yourself killed,” Rowena grunts as she bends down to give me another boost.

  I start to climb again. Adrenaline floods my veins. The ground is less than three feet below, but it might as well be thirty. The muscles in my legs are shaking. Sweat beads on my brow. Soon, I’m back to where I was when I fell. The next step feels impossible. I close my eyes and picture Charlie’s face, streaked with blood and tears and focused on the egg in his hand. I reach up again.

  My whole body is thrumming when I finally reach the narrow ledge tucked into the side of the rise. I get my arms over the top before my muscles give out. For a moment, I hang there with my lower body dangling. Unable to move, I catch my breath and stare across the stone at the blue marble sky. Only then do I see the specks littering the clouds, tiny dots of gray that seem to be growing larger by the second. I think they’re birds until I realize.

  Birds don’t move like that.

  First there are three. Then three become ten. Then twenty, until the sky is full of metal.

  I grip the ledge as dozens of helicopters fall from the sky like clumps of silver fruit. The air is alive with the whirl of blades, a mechanical thunder that sets the rock trembling beneath me. I press myself flat against the side of the wall, a fleck of pink on gray. The swarm passes overhead, so close I can feel the air rush over me in its wake.

  “Rose! Are you all right? Rose, what do you see?”

  I gaze over the ledge, across the treetops toward Fort Glory, and then I forget all about pink pamphlets and the police and the fifteen-foot drop below me, because I can’t understand what I’m seeing. Because it is impossible.

  I open my mouth, but there are no words. There are only people. My mother at work in a diner that should be right beyond that bend, her hair pulled back and her scent like a meadow. Charlie. His smile that makes the world a wonderful place. His hand in mine and the egg in my apron pocket.

  “It’s not there.”

  “What?” Rowena demands. “The DARC?”

  “The town,” I say, as if by voicing the thing in front of me, I could somehow understand it. “The town is gone.”

  FIVE

  Nothing.

  That’s what I see when I look over Fort Glory. No buildings. No cars. Even the steeple of the town church has been uprooted from the horizon.

  I blink, but the scene in front of me doesn’t change. The forest stays a solid blanket of green stretching all the way to the sea. Ridges and valleys that should be dotted with houses and crisscrossed by streets sit untouched by anything but the pale evening haze.

  Fort Glory is gone. Every house. Every sign. Every marker has vanished, leaving behind only forest where the town once stood.

  Time slows to a crawl as I stare at the empty valley. The swarm of circling helicopters. I don’t know how long I hang there before Rowena’s voice cuts through the wind tunnel inside my head.

  I look down. Mistake.

  The ground swims fifteen feet below me.

  Down. I have to get down.

  My muscles go rigid. My fingers grip the rock hard enough to break skin. The world is spinning around me like a carnival ride, and the only way to make it stop is to get my feet back onto solid ground.

  I’m halfway there when my left toe slips out of its crevice. My knee scrapes the wall, and then I’m falling again. I open my mouth to scream, but the scream never comes.

  The picture cuts to black.

  My vision returns along with a pain that nails me to the ground. I’m lying on my back. Rowena hovers over me, her mouth moving with distant echoes. She’s saying something over and over. It takes me a moment to recognize the sound of my own name.

  Even with her help, it’s a while before I can sit up.

  Rowena’s gaze rakes my body before snagging on something down low. “Sweet merciful mother.”

  I follow her gaze down to my legs and immediately wish I hadn’t. The skin of my left knee. It’s fluttering like a torn book page.

  The forest tilts. I dig my fingers into my thighs like that could stop the world from spinning.

  I close my eyes, but the images are still there. An overgrowth of trees where there was a town. A little boy in a green hoodie and orange backpack. A woman whose voice used to sing me to sleep.

  Gone.

  When I try to speak, my throat closes around their names.

  Rowena pushes my head between my knees as I swallow mouthfuls of air that don’t reach my lungs. I can’t stop picturing Charlie the way he looked waving goodbye outside our trailer. I should’ve cleaned his cut before I left. I should’ve gone inside to make sure he was okay.

  I should’ve … I should’ve … I should’ve …

  A soft sigh echoes through the forest as it starts to rain. Drops splatter my cheeks and roll down my shins to my bloodstained sock. Within moments, my clothes are plastered to my skin, but it’s like I’m hovering above my body, unable to feel the cold, or the cuts, or the bruises already forming. The numbness is a shield. If I could just lie down and close my eyes, I could pretend that none of this is happening.

&nb
sp; Then Rowena is there, anchoring me to reality with a metal flask in my face. Fumes rise from the bottle.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Drink first. Questions later.”

  The liquor hits my throat with a raw burn. I cough, but some of the stuff goes down. Warmth spreads through my insides.

  “Good girl.” Rowena claps me on the back. She hands me my apron, and numbly, I put it on as a flimsy barrier against the cold. And then she’s right there in my face, her boozy breath searing my cheek. “What is it, girl? What did you see?”

  “It was … There was … nothing.” My head is buzzing with the alcohol and a thousand thoughts competing for attention.

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “I mean the town’s been wiped out.”

  “Like by a bomb?”

  “No. Like it never existed.” A gaping hole opens up inside of me. It’s getting dark, and Charlie doesn’t like to fall asleep alone, and I still need to cut his hair for school tomorrow.

  Rowena stares unblinking at Devil’s Tooth. The expression on her face deepens every wrinkle. “That’s it, then. They’ve finally done it.”

  Her words take me back in time. To the reporter asking questions in the diner. To Rowena’s strange warnings, and the fear in Blaine’s voice when he told me something was wrong with the town. Everything about this morning looks different now. Important in a way I don’t yet fully understand.

  “What? Done what? Rowena, please.” I reach out and clasp the fabric of her jeans.

  “I don’t know.” Her hands tremble as she sits down across from me. “God help us all, I don’t know.”

  I take in Rowena’s rat’s nest of platinum curls. Her tie-dye T-shirt and purple scrunchie. “This isn’t possible,” I say. The fall must’ve shaken me up worse than I thought. Or maybe that horrible sound wave back in Maple short-circuited my brain. Either way, I imagined what I saw up there. It’s the only explanation. The town isn’t gone. It can’t be. “Towns don’t just disappear.”

  But the road did. It was there and then it wasn’t, and I wasn’t the only one who saw it.

  “Everything’s impossible till it happens.” Rowena takes a swig and studies me over the flask. “Go on. Doubt my sanity. But what about your own two eyes? You gonna doubt them, too?”

  I dig the heels of my palms into my temples. I shouldn’t be here. I need to head back before I get into trouble with the cops. I need to find another way into town before Charlie and Mom wonder where I am.

  “I have to go.”

  Rowena grabs my arm. “I’m not an idiot. I know what people say. They call me batshit, and they tear down my pamphlets, and they cross the street when they see me coming. But I speak the truth, and it ain’t my fault if you don’t like it.” Her grip on me tightens. “Those men at the DARC have been chippin’ away at something. Unleashing darkness into Fort Glory little by little. I can’t explain it, but I can feel it. Ringing in my bones. I’ve been screaming warnings from the rooftops, but I might as well’ve been pissin’ into the wind, for all the good it’s done. Now the dark is here, and it’s too damn late.”

  I’ll be here. Soon. The dark is coming, and I don’t want to be alone.

  No. I refuse to accept that the town is gone. That would be like giving up on my family, and I can’t do that. Not ever. I have to believe they’re okay. I have to believe I would’ve felt it if something had happened to Charlie. The way I felt it when he broke his arm in first grade. Like his pain was my pain. The same way I knew something was wrong when I found his backpack sitting on the curb this afternoon.

  Because Charlie and I are connected, and if he ever left, he’d take the best part of me with him.

  Sobs rise in my throat. I choke them back and thrust them behind the wall inside of me along with all the other feelings that want to overwhelm me. There will be a time to fall apart, but right now, what I need are answers.

  “The sound wave,” I begin. “Did you hear it?” When Rowena nods, I pull my legs in close to my chest. “It did something to my head, Rowena. Knocked a few wires loose or caused me to hallucinate … or something.”

  “It was the same out on the road. Most folks were confused. Dazed-like. Others turned ugly. Good people who wouldn’t normally lift a hand to harm their neighbor. There was something wrong with ’em. Right here.” She waves a sun-spotted hand over her eyes. “It was almost like—” She freezes. “Like the devil music in the air had worked its way under their skin.”

  Can you hear the music, Rosie?

  It’s what Charlie asked me. Three weeks ago. When all of the problems started in Fort Glory. When he told me we had to come here.

  When the DARC went back online.

  A dozen images flash through my mind. The man on the ridge and those boys at the school. The woman at the store window and a pack of dogs turned rabid. The doubt on Blaine’s face when he told me the problems in town had nothing to do with the DARC.

  “The DARC,” I say. “What were they doing with it?”

  Rowena scowls. “Couldn’t get anybody to give me a straight answer.” Pale green eyes take my measure. “We’ve got to be careful. If this thing is messin’ with people’s minds we can’t trust no one. It means we’ve got to question everything we see and feel because our own heads might be playing tricks—”

  Footsteps sound in the woods behind us. The young policeman from the road stumbles out of the trees. There’s another officer with him—older and significantly larger around the middle. His beady eyes dart anxiously about as he follows his young partner into the clearing.

  Relief flashes across the younger man’s face when he spots us at the base of Devil’s Tooth. “You there! Come this way!”

  Rowena’s mouth hardens as she watches the officers approach.

  “The girl’s injured. She ain’t going nowhere till I’ve bandaged her up.” Rowena retrieves a handkerchief from her pocket. She douses the rag with alcohol and wraps it firmly around my knee. The pain is instant and searing. It helps to clear my head.

  The young officer kneels beside me. In an unexpected act of kindness, he places his heavy police jacket over my shaking shoulders. “What happened, miss?”

  I train my eyes on the name stitched across the breast pocket: DEPUTY MILLER. “I fell.”

  Silence. When I look up, both Deputy Miller and his partner are fixated on Devil’s Tooth.

  “Did you see it from up there? The town?”

  Deputy Miller’s question is so loaded, I half expect it to blow up in my face. I pull the jacket tighter around myself while I decide how best to answer. If I tell them the truth, they’ll think I’m crazy, or they’ll assume I’m lying. People never believe nobodies like me. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way from watching my mother. But if I make something up, there’s a good chance Rowena will call me out on it. Either way, they’ll bring me in. Ask for identification.

  That’s one door I can’t open.

  Deputy Miller’s partner breaks his silence. “Tell us what you saw, or you’ll be charged with obstruction.” His voice matches his body. Big. Deep. At odds with his fear. It sits over the moment like an exclamation point, and it makes me sure of one thing.

  These men know something. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be here.

  “The town is gone.” The officers exchange a glance that contains several emotions. Surprise isn’t one of them. “You know,” I realize. “You know about the town.”

  Deputy Miller runs a hand through his blond hair. “There are hundreds of reports coming in. We don’t have a full picture yet. Probably won’t until the National Guard shows up.”

  The pain in my knee fades to a distant memory as I pull myself up. Rowena’s skinny arm wraps around me for support. The deputy’s words make no sense to me. Towns don’t disappear without a trace. It’s not possible, and yet I saw it. But if the town disappeared, where did it go?

  If Fort Glory is gone, where is my family?

  “What about the people?”
I reach for Deputy Miller without thinking. His shirt is starchy in my fist. “Whatever happened to the town, those people need help. We have to do something.”

  Gently, Deputy Miller releases my hands from their death grip on his collar. “The choppers have been running flybys since the first reports came in. They would’ve detected if there were any signs of l—” He backtracks clumsily. “I’m sorry. There’s nobody left to help.”

  Nobody left.

  Nobody. Left.

  His words knock the breath out of me. I reach out for something to steady myself, and Rowena is there. Her fingers lock around mine. An anchor. A reminder. That we can’t trust these officers.

  We can’t even trust our eyes.

  I return her grip full force and straighten to face the deputy. “You can’t know that. Don’t you see? The DARC set something free. It’s been playing with people’s minds for weeks. It could be messing with the sensors too. We won’t know if there’s anybody left unless we go and check. Tell them, Rowena!”

  “The girl’s a whack job,” the big officer says. “Just like the old lady.”

  “And you’re as ugly as a fence post and twice as dumb, Kyle Jensen.” The contempt in Rowena’s voice suggests this isn’t their first run-in.

  “Watch your tongue, old woman. Or you might lose it.” A familiar darkness glitters in Jensen’s eyes. It sends me back a step.

  “Jensen!” Deputy Miller’s shock echoes through the forest. “What the hell has gotten into you?”

  Rowena opens her mouth, but I clutch her arm tightly. I jerk my chin toward Jensen and watch understanding dawn across her face.

  Something has gotten into Officer Jensen. Just like it did those people back in Maple.

  Right before they almost torched the place.

  Deputy Miller steps toward me. My senses shut down one by one until there is only Need. The need to find my mother and brother. The need to make this right. It is driving everything now, including my feet as they take several steps backward.