The old man, though, he’s sizing things up. He doesn’t react to Cyn being a bitch. He’s looking around, learning who’s in charge. He’s not biting the hand that’s feeding him.
But he looks familiar.
He says his name is Mr. Williams, but that’s no help. The boy’s name is Sid, but she’s never seen him before. She’s positive. They go back to the bunkhouse. Mr. Williams has Sid push a bed in front of the stove and climbs into it. Sid goes to the corner where Miranda slept and lays on top the covers, staring at the rafters.
She focuses on the old man. Where have I seen him?
She flips back to the dinner house, listens to the girls argue. Cyn is adamant about survival. They don’t know these people, they could be dangerous, there’s only so much food. Jen just wants to help.
Miranda prepares a cup of green tea, stirring in a dollop of honey. She paces the hallway while steeping the bag. She listens to a piece composed by Richard Strauss, closing her eyes and letting her thoughts fall into the music’s flow.
Vacation clothes.
She puts down the teacup.
There’s hardly space on the coffee table. She stacks empty plates and pushes trash onto the floor, but it’s not there. She goes to the bedroom next to the kitchen.
The photographs are scattered on the bedspread. She pushes them around, sorting through images of oceans and beaches and boats. She picks up the photo of a couple standing on a balcony, the sharp line of the ocean behind them.
More hair, fewer wrinkles.
She takes it to the back room, holds it up to the monitor.
31
Cyn falls on the footstool. The walk from bunkhouse to the kitchen has become a long one. She stopped chopping wood and now spends more time next to a stove, but still, her feet hurt.
Especially in the morning.
She unwraps the dirty bandages. The wounds are red and weepy. She’s resorted to folding clean patches to cover her heels, wrapping them with strips of cloth ripped from tshirts.
We need clean clothes.
The brick house is still shuttered and quiet. Not a crack of light penetrates the shielded windows. No sound, no movement.
Is she even alive?
“I don’t like the way that looks.” Mad leans into the kitchen.
“I don’t like a lot of things.”
She’s used half the ointment and nearly all the bandages. There won’t be much left if someone else gets hurt. Cyn opens the cabinet beneath the sink, picks up one of the brown bottles, and shakes it. Pills rattle inside.
“Don’t know what’s in there,” Cyn says. “It could be poison.”
“That gets infected, it won’t matter.”
“How many should I take?”
Mad shakes her head. “Hell, I don’t know.”
Cyn pops the top, dumps several capsules into her palm. They’re blue and white. Why didn’t they have labels?
“No.” She snaps the lid back on, puts the bottle away. “I’m holding off.”
Mad nods. She’s not sure she should take the pills, either. Downing a bunch of unknown pills isn’t great advice. At least not yet. She goes back out to the dinner room, returns with tree branches.
“Use these,” she says.
Crude branches are tied with twine, handles about halfway down. Wide braces are fastened on top to fit beneath her underarms and a wide bottom is formed to keep the branches from sinking into the soft earth.
“Jen put them together,” Mad says. “These, too.”
She tosses a pair of boots on the floor. The backs are cut out.
“They’re not waterproof, but at least you won’t go barefoot.”
Cyn holds them up. She laughs.
“Told her you’d be pissed.”
“They’re brilliant.”
“Okay. I was wrong.”
Cyn stands, balances with the sticks under her arms. They’re not the most comfortable support, but with a t-shirt or two wrapped around the tops, they might be all right. Mad’s right: an infection is the end. There’s no CVS, no Doc in the Box to wipe out a blood disease.
Game over.
Mad kicks the cabinet door with her toe. Cyn pokes one of the crutches in the opening, bouncing it back open.
“More of those bags are missing.”
“Forgot about those,” Mad says. “How many?”
“You serious? This thing was half full.”
Mad leans over. “I’m not taking them. Honest.”
They’re definitely missing, no doubt about it, no need to get an exact count.
Point is, who’s taking them?
“Here.” Cyn yanks the drawer open next to the stove, pulls out a pen. She breaks it in half and hands the ink-filled tube to Mad. “Cut that with scissors, smear it on the handle. Blue fingers are guilty.”
Mad stares at the tube. A good pen wasted.
She digs a pair of scissors out, begins to lay the trap.
Cyn sits down on the footstool, spreading a layer of salve on her heels while Mad smears the inside of the handle.
“Good morning, girls.”
Cyn nearly jumps off the stool. Mr. Williams pokes his head inside the kitchen. She didn’t hear the front door open. He smiles with all of his crooked teeth. His cheeks are fleshy, not pale. His eyes clear, not glassy. And he has ditched the frilly Christian Dior coat.
“Feeling better?” Mad stands, ink on her fingers.
“Your soup is a miracle worker, Ms. Mad.” A gold cap twinkles. He tugs on the collar of his coat. “I’m a Ralph Lauren man. Makes all the difference. How are the ankles?”
“Beautiful.”
“How did you hurt them, if I may ask?”
“Too much walking.” She makes the final wraps and tapes the cloth in place. “How did you get so chipper?”
“Sleep works wonders.”
Again, the gold cap.
“Ms. Cyn, I’d like to request your assistance in a tour of your camp. I’d like to know exactly how Sid and I might contribute. The last thing we want to do is become leeches. You’ve been so kind. That is, if you’re up to it.”
Cyn looks at Mad. She shrugs.
Clearly, he knows who’s running the camp.
“Where’s Sid?”
“Resting.” His expression is slack. “Can we talk?”
He doesn’t wait, going out the front door and standing on the porch. Cyn gingerly slides her foot into the altered boot. It hurts going in, but the opening along the back keeps the pressure off. She pushes up on the crutches.
“Keep an eye on us,” Cyn says. “Just in case.”
Mad watches from the front door. Cyn hobbles out with the old man to the meadow.
The sky is a thin slate of gray, bleaching the sun like tissue paper. The wind harvesters barely turn.
Cyn rests on the crutches, pointing out the houses, the barn, the garden, and everything they’ve done since waking up. She leaves out the hike, something he doesn’t need to know.
“The girl you have tied in the bunkhouse,” Mr. Williams says. “She was assaulted?”
“She’s trouble.”
“I see.”
“You don’t belong here.” Cyn looks at his summer loafers. “Where’d you come from?”
“Hmm.” He locks his hands behind his back, lips mincing on thoughts. “Did you realize those wind turbines and solar panels generate enough power to run ten or twenty houses?”
“Not ours.” Cyn points a crutch at the bunkhouse. “No heat, no lights. Just the kitchen.”
“And the brick house?” he asks.
“I don’t know what’s in there.”
“You don’t know?” He lifts his eyebrows. Inquisitive, but not really.
“There’s an invisible line around it, something we can’t go past.”
“What happens if you do?”
“A thing in our neck.” She bends her head, exposes the lump. “It knocks us out.”
“You mean like this?”
He has one,
too.
“Yeah. Like that. Why do you have one?”
All he says is, “Hmm. Is there anyone inside the brick house?”
“Miranda’s in there.”
“I see.”
“Do you know something?” Cyn turns to face him. He’s far too calm for someone that was nearly an icicle a few days earlier.
“I suppose,” he says, turning with his hands still behind his back, surveying the grounds like a land developer, an eye for value. “But is that all? Is that everything around here, or is there more?”
She wants to poke him with the crutch, double him over so he gets to the point. A few days ago they could’ve left him for dead, now he’s looking left and right with his bottom lip plumped out like he owns the place.
“There’s a dead body,” she blurts.
The eyebrows rise. “Sounds interesting.”
“You see it, you answer my questions. All of them.”
“I’ll answer all your questions, Ms. Cyn. Undoubtedly. But I am very intrigued by a dead body. If you’re up for it, perhaps we could see it now?”
“In the woods.”
“Very well.”
Mr. Williams isn’t shocked. And it’s beyond gross. The stink has waned, but the sight of the deflated clothes and discolored flesh is almost too much for Cyn.
She stops halfway down the path, lets him go the rest alone. He shuffles along like he’s out for a Sunday stroll, a speed bump up ahead.
At first, he bends over with his hands on his waist, studies the lower torso. He crosses over and does the same with the upper. Then he takes a knee and pokes the skull with a stick.
She almost vomits.
“The only older woman, you say?” he asks.
Cyn moans.
“Do you know her?”
She shakes her head. “You?”
He drops the stick and stands. “The wolves have eaten well.”
Cyn turns around, leaning heavily on the crutches. A knot the size of a softball has formed in her stomach.
“Have you gone beyond?” he asks.
She takes a moment before looking. He’s pointing over his shoulder. She shakes her head.
“Down the path?” he asks. “You’ve been here all this time and haven’t ventured beyond the body?”
“We’re a little freaked out.”
He waves his arm. “She was going somewhere; let’s take a look. Come on, she hasn’t moved in weeks. You’ll be all right.”
Cyn pivots. She holds her breath, slides her crutches along the wet snow until she reaches the body. She tries not to look but notices the flesh is mostly bone. The fingers, like leathery sticks, are clenched around a clear plastic bag.
Like the bags in the cabinet.
She follows Mr. Williams.
His hands are in his pockets; she swears he’s humming. The path bends left and then right, weaving deeper into the forest. She’s not sure how far he wants to go, but her arms are aching. This path could go on forever. She’s about to turn around, to call ahead, when he stops.
And she sees it.
A dark alcove in the trees. And a small cabin covered in leafless vines and silver lichen. It’s not much bigger than a closet, ten feet by ten feet at the most. Mr. Williams waits for her. She leans on the crutches.
“You didn’t know this was back here?”
She shakes her head.
“Well, someone does.”
He points at the tracks in the snow leading from the front door. Someone has been in and out—many times.
A cold chill rises in Cyn’s stomach.
Someone has been watching them. Have they been coming out at night? Are they hiding?
Mr. Williams walks up to the door. Cyn follows—
“Oh!” She stops.
Puts her hand to her neck. The tingling wraps around her face, darkness threatens her vision.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
Cyn backs up, slowly. First one step, then two. She rests on the crutches until the feeling goes away.
“There’s a fence around it.”
He’s immune, like Miranda.
He smiles and tries the door handle. It’s locked. He twists it up and down, but it refuses to open and looks plenty thick to resist persuasion. There are no windows to peek through. Mr. Williams walks around the right corner. A few minutes later, he comes around the other side, dragging his fingers along the wall, looking up and down, like he’s expecting a secret door to open.
None do.
He locks his hands behind his back and stares at the front door. “I’d like to speak with Ms. Miranda,” he says without turning.
“Tell me what you know. Why were you in beach clothes? What is this place?”
He turns. One eyebrow raised. “None of this is what you think it is.”
“Tell me. You said you’d answer all my questions.”
“I will, Ms. Cyn. I promise. But first, I need to know a few things before explaining our strange arrival. Trust me, it will benefit all of us if I understand everything before explaining.”
Cyn squeezes the crutches, clenching her teeth.
He faces the cabin, teeters on the balls of his feet. She doesn’t stop him from walking past her.
32
Miranda hasn’t slept much.
She spends most of her time watching the old man, even when he’s sleeping. At first, he and the boy slept like they were dead, lying in bed all day, only getting up to eat.
Cyn still makes them sleep in the same bed at night. Miranda thinks it’s rather cruel. The men are sick. One of the girls could make a bed in front of the stove. The way they sleep, they’d never know the difference between a mattress and a plank floor.
Miranda has been so consumed with the monitors, she stopped playing music days ago. She moves only between the kitchen, bathroom, and back room, her obsession blotting out fear.
He knows something.
It’s the way he looks around, studying his surroundings, taking it in, digesting it. Sometimes she catches him nodding, affirming some thought or feeling, and then hiding behind a smile.
Finally, he’s ready to talk. That’s what Miranda thinks. He’s been biding his time and now he’s feeling better, ready to make a move.
He gets out of bed and sorts through a pile of clothes, switching out some of the things the girls put on him when he was too weak to dress himself. He instructs the boy to remain in bed. The boy does as he’s told, curled beneath a fleece blanket, doing what he does: staring and drooling.
Ignoring Roc’s pleas for help.
The old man goes into the kitchen. He thanks Cyn for her gratitude because he knows she’s in charge. She couldn’t care less. Cyn doesn’t stand, doesn’t make eye contact, just sits there with the permanent scowl.
Miranda turns up the sound, but they don’t say much in the kitchen. Cyn and the old man go out to the meadow where Miranda can’t hear. And she can’t read lips. They’re pointing around the camp. Cyn must be giving him an update about how they woke up and what they found.
Miranda feels a cold sensation crawl up her back when Cyn points at the brick house.
She pulls her legs onto the chair. The old man nods as Cyn explains how Miranda’s hiding from them, denying them food, telling him lies about her.
They finally look away. They walk around the buildings, toward the woods. Toward the path.
Miranda reaches out, tapping keys and directing the mouse, changing the views. She loses them in the trees. She flips back and forth, finally finding the view from the little cabin in the woods.
The old man walks along the path with a slight hitch in his step. He stops, surveys the front of the cabin, looking left and right. Cyn hobbles not far behind.
The old man comes up to the front door and, without hesitating, turns the knob. It doesn’t open. He’s adamant, twisting in both directions and pulling with both hands like perhaps the hinges are rusty.
Cyn suddenly backs up.
The old man tu
rns around. She explains something. Miranda turns up the sound. She rubs the back of her neck. The old man isn’t distracted. He walks around the East corner of the building, looking up and down, as if a secret crevice might reveal itself.
Miranda punches a key. The old woman is on the monitor.
The old man and Cyn’s voices are muffled, but they’re out there, right outside the small building.
The old woman is still motionless, but in a slightly different position than the last time. The pillows have been rearranged beneath her head and a different blanket covers her. She’s sure of it. Last time it was a brown fleece blanket, but now there’s one with woven Native American patterns. But she’s still asleep, her chest gently rising and falling.
Her gray hair is pulled off her face, kinky strays poking in different directions. It’s too dark to tell how old she is. Old enough.
The voices are gone.
Miranda switches the view outside the cabin. No one is there. She cycles through the outside cameras, finally sees the old man crossing the dead garden.
“Ms. Miranda?” He raps on the shutter over the front door.
Miranda wraps the blanket more tightly around herself, sinks into the chair.
“My name is Mr. Williams. I’d like to talk with you.”
She jumps out of the chair before fear holds her down, paces back and forth, mumbling. Looks down the hallway. It feels so much longer, so much darker.
“Mr. Miranda?”
Rap, rap, rap.
Miranda takes a long breath. She tiptoes through the house, listening to his gruff and muffled voice call her name. She leans against the door, careful not to bump it or scratch it.
She feels his knuckles through the protective shield.
“I know this is all very confusing,” he says, “but we have a lot to talk about. Perhaps you could open one of the shutters?”
It’s been so long since she’s seen daylight with her own eyes, not the camera’s eye.
She slinks to the back room, dropping the blanket near the kitchen. She taps the spacebar, activates the main monitor. The cursor speeds across the screen, centers over the same question it asks every time.
Foreverland Is Dead Page 11
