“Got it.”
Kat and Mad are at the stove. “Got what?” Kat asks.
Cyn circles the tiny X in the center of her notes, holds it up.
“I know where the gate is.”
46
Miranda’s elbow wakes her at three o’clock in the morning.
She had slipped on an icy rock during her exploration. Every muscle in her body aches, the blisters on her feet throb. And the pain relievers are wearing off.
There’s a light on somewhere in the back of the house.
Mr. Williams is adamant about conserving energy. Lights get turned off, the heat turned down. Even the music. She lies on the couch, beneath three heavy comforters, listening to the office chair creak.
He’s up.
Miranda doesn’t want to move; it took forever to get warm. Mr. Williams wouldn’t let her take a hot shower—too much power to heat the water. Everything needed to be conserved for the back office.
But she has to pee.
She wraps one of the blankets around her, waddles down the hallway like a human burrito. Sid is snoring in Barbara’s bed. She put the necklace and earrings back; she doesn’t plan on wearing them again. She saw the jealousy in Cyn’s eyes. Doesn’t want to see that again.
She’s forced to drop the wrapping to sit on the toilet, holding it on her lap while she does her business. She doesn’t flush, and she stops when she sees the mirror. The nightlight casts yellow light on her face, illuminating the long red line across her cheek. A branch had nearly poked her in the eye earlier.
Miranda heads back for the couch, but Mr. Williams is exiting the forbidden door, the eternally locked one at the very back. He doesn’t notice her looking out from the bathroom.
The office chair creaks.
Miranda looks inside. The monitors are lit up. The inside of the bunkhouse is on the main one. The girls are unconscious.
“Still up?”
Mr. Williams slowly spins the chair around, hands laced behind his head. “Too excited to sleep.”
“Something happen?”
“Tomorrow will be a good day, I believe.”
“Did someone find it?”
A sly smile. “Don’t worry. Go to sleep, get some rest.”
He leans back, sinking into the chair’s depths. He hasn’t slept in a bed for days. The chair has molded to his bottom.
One of the monitors is focused on Cyn. No more midnight runs. She can hardly get out of bed. She lies there, rotting.
Dying.
Aren’t we all?
Miranda yawns, turns to leave. The back door is cracked open. The odor is a bit more noticeable. Now that she’s been outside, she notices it more.
Fear pushes her back a step, but she holds her ground.
Mr. Williams notices. He throws his weight forward to lean out of the chair. He gently pushes the door. It clicks.
“Nothing you want to see,” he says. The smile is gone. “Get some sleep.”
He’s right. She doesn’t want to see what’s back there. She just wishes he didn’t go back there, that the door would stay closed forever. Instinct tells her that she never wants to know what’s back there.
Miranda lies awake on the couch, listening to the chair creak and pop for quite some time.
47
Spreading her arms,
She tips like statue.
Over the edge she falls,
And lets the chasm take her.
A sharp point pierces the soft tissue beneath her chin.
Cyn opens her eyes. It’s too dark to see the face in front of her, but she can feel someone’s breath. Taste the stink.
“I promised to kill you,” Roc hisses. “To stick this wire through the top of your brain, but I want out of here. I want the old man to kiss my ass.”
Cyn pushes her head into the pillow, but the point just follows her. The sheets are too tight. The weapon will be in her sinuses before she gets free.
“What are you talking about?” she says without moving her lips.
“You know where the gate is.”
“You believe that crap?”
“What else is there? If the old man gets to it, he’ll screw us—you can count on that.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
“Then we die in Hell.”
Cyn struggles to move her head. The tip of her weapon is breaking the skin. “Back that off.”
Roc leans closer, pushes it deeper. It’s about to go through when she puts it against Cyn’s throat. She relaxes her head. The spot under her chin burns.
“It’s too far to walk,” Cyn says.
“We’ve got horses.”
“Then we’ll need Kat.”
Roc plants her free hand on Cyn’s face, presses her lips to her ear. “Mess with me and you die with a rusty twig in your eye. You don’t stand a chance against me, not anymore. You smell like dead ass.”
She’s right. Cyn doesn’t have the strength to fight.
Roc springs back. Despite Cyn’s decrepit condition, she’s still wary. It’s hard to forget a thorough ass whipping. She backs into the dark, barely an outline. It’s still night, but morning must be close or they wouldn’t be awake.
“Surprise,” Roc whispers.
Kat wakes, startled. A hand clamps over her mouth.
There’s unintelligible whispering, all Roc.
“Cyn?” Kat calls.
A loud slap. “I’m not playing,” Roc says.
“It’s all right,” Cyn says. “Just do what she says.”
“Get dressed before the sun’s up,” Roc adds.
She’s thinking about the fob. Maybe they get all the way out there and get knocked out. Maybe not. One thing’s for sure: they’ll get knocked out if the old man comes to the bunkhouse.
“Wake up the others.” Cyn reaches under the bed.
“No.” Roc stands in the middle of the room. “Just the three of us.”
Cyn drops a sweater on the floor. “I’m not going, then.”
“You can come back for them.”
“I’m not moving.”
Roc bounds across the room, slams Cyn’s head into the pillow, squeezing her face with one hand. The point presses against her temple. Spittle flies with each angry breath, like a dragon contemplating the next move.
“We can ride double,” Kat says. “Cyn’s going to need help staying on the horse, anyway.”
Roc presses down, her breath hot and humid. Cyn sees the whites of her eyes.
She leaps off. “Hurry then, go.”
Kat scurries to the other beds. The girls moan. Roc yanks them up. They protest, but not for long.
Cyn slowly puts on clothes. Sluggish. Sore. Her body full of sand. The others scuffle to get dressed, whispering back and forth. Roc’s anger wanes, there are fewer threats and more action.
Maybe Roc is saving us.
Cyn puts on three pair of socks and looks down at the last thing.
Boots.
Even with the backs cut out, they’re tight.
“Here.” Mad drops four pills into her hand. “Take all of these.”
Cyn rolls them in her palm. She just wants the pain to go away. Dream or not, she wants it to end.
She swallows them dry.
And shoves her feet into boots of hot, broken glass.
Somehow, she chokes down the scream.
48
Miranda wakes every twenty minutes, spinning on the couch, searching for the comfort zone. Finding none. She wishes for a little music to mask the sounds of the house, the creaks of the office chair.
It’s the door.
She can’t stop thinking about it. She’s positive she doesn’t want to see what’s back there, but now that it’s been opened, her curiosity nibbles.
It’s almost six o’clock.
The sun will be up very soon. She doesn’t want to hike, not today. Not ever. If only she could run a fever, she could stay on the couch all day, listening to her favorite composers. Just her and the comfort
er and Mozart and Brahms. That would be a good day.
Mr. Williams won’t be happy. Can he work that thing to zap me?
There’s nowhere she can hide, not inside the house. He goes everywhere, knows how to work everything.
She goes down the hall, dragging the blanket, giving the thermostat a little bump. The air handler kicks on. Lifeless dry air blows from the vent. Miranda leans into the back room, the monitors lit up.
Light snores rise and fall from the office chair. Mr. Williams is slumped out of view. The monitors flicker with green light, one of them focused on an empty pillow. The others pan around the bunkhouse. All the covers thrown back, beds empty.
All of them.
She steps into the room.
Mr. Williams snorts, jerking in the chair. He spins around, eyeballing the blanket-clad blonde standing in the doorway. It takes him a moment to process, and then remembers where he is and why.
She’s looking at something.
Mr. Williams attacks the keyboard, cycling the monitors around the buildings. They’re not in the dinner house. The floodlights illuminate the area with white light. Not in the garden, not outside the brick house. Not in the woods or at the small cabin— The barn door is open.
Horses gallop into the open, free at last. Their legs stretching out, clopping the ground, snow powder tossed in their wake. Kat’s on the first one, gripping the mane with both hands, hunched over, bouncing with the horse’s stride.
The other horses bear two riders each.
“Sid!” The office chair flies across the room.
Mr. Williams limps toward Miranda, almost losing his balance. He fumbles his way into the hallway.
“Sid!”
Their footsteps hammer the hardwood. The door slams.
Miranda watches the monitors. Watches the girls ride out of the floodlights and into the early morning, hugging each other.
Sid sprints past the garden in his socks. Mr. Williams isn’t far behind, aiming the fob at the distant riders. They remain on the backs of the animals, not breaking stride.
Fading into the snow-laden meadow.
They left me. Her head knocks against the doorframe. I deserve it.
49
The horses run on instinct.
Cyn squeezes Mad from behind, pressing her head against her back. “Hold on to the mane like it’s your life,” Kat had told them.
Cyn told them which direction to run, and to run as fast as they could. They have to get out of sight, as far away as possible. She’ll figure out the rest once they can’t see the cabins. The horse’s backbone slams into her each time the hooves hit, sending painful waves through her.
She holds on.
Closes her eyes.
They’re in the trees within minutes. The horses work their way between the trunks, ducking beneath the limbs. The slow pace eases the pain, but Cyn doesn’t look up until they’re out of the trees.
It’s still dark. And she doesn’t know where they are.
The horses walk the easiest routes, going around rock outcroppings and steep hills. But they don’t stop. Cyn wonders if Mr. Williams will send Sid after them, if he’ll run until he drops from exhaustion.
The sun breaks the horizon. Cyn gets her bearings, has them turn more to the left, hoping this will put them back on track. They can go in circles all day to find it, if they have to.
They’re not going back.
They reach a shallow valley. The horses dig in and scale the steep slope. Cyn hangs on, almost sliding off the back of her horse. They gather on the ridge, the ground gently sloping down the other side. The horses paw at the snow, tossing their heads.
Snorting.
The girls slump over. Tired and hungry. Spirits bending.
Cyn recognizes nothing. It’s just an endless stretch of trees and hills and rocks, all covered in snow. Immoveable mountains in the distance.
Something flashes further up the ridge.
She wipes the tears from her eyes. It’s a beam, a mirror, or something reflective.
“There!”
The boulder and dead tree are too far to see with any clarity. Cyn taps the horse with her toes, the pain receding in the numbing cold.
The others follow.
“You feel that?”
Cyn holds up her hand. The others trot to a stop. The boulder and tree still fifty yards away.
“It’s a fence,” Kat shouts.
“Not a fence, it’s different.”
Cyn rubs her stomach where the quivering has begun. She felt that last time, thought the same thing, but a fence starts in the neck. This begins somewhere in the core, at the center of her being.
The horses walk closer. The backpack is still there, tattered and sunbleached. The strip of aluminum rattles in the breeze.
Kat pulls up next to Cyn and dismounts. The others do, too. Roc stomps to the front, clutching a rusty bedspring. The end is bent outward.
Mad slides off while Kat and Jen reach up for Cyn. She leans over, falls into their outstretched arms. When her feet touch the ground, fiery sparks lance her dead legs, spraying pins and needles throughout her body.
She collapses.
Kat and Jen carry her closer. The vibrations in her stomach increase, beating back the pain, filling her with warmth and goodness. They lie on the ground.
Together, they stare at the dead tree, its branches worn smooth by harsh weather. Beautiful and ancient.
“What now?” Roc says.
“I don’t know,” Cyn says.
“Start by putting that away.” Kat points at the bedspring.
“Not until this is over.”
The horses are restless, wandering over to the nearest trees, nibbling at shoots poking through the snow, lichens on the trunks. The girls stare at each other. Jen hasn’t said a word.
“Touch it,” Mad says.
“She already did that,” Kat says. “The backpack is against the rock.”
“Don’t tell me we wasted our time.” Roc waves the weapon. “And don’t tell me we need the old man for some secret word.”
“Not the tree.” Cyn takes a few breaths, her chest shrinking. “I didn’t touch the tree.”
There’s a moment where she doesn’t hear anything, the pain too large to process. She breathes so small. When she opens her eyes, they’re looking at her.
“Someone,” she says. “Touch it.”
“You go.” Roc points the bedspring at Kat.
“You wanted to ride out here, you go.”
Roc starts at her—
“I’ll go.” Mad jumps between them. “I’ll touch it.”
Roc wipes the sweat from her forehead, exposing the skin between the glove and sleeve. Her wrist is ringed with raw flesh where the restraints cut into her.
“Go, then,” she says.
The horses look up from the trees, grinding lichen in their mouths. Mad strips the gloves from her hands, tucks them in her pockets.
The snow is piled on the boulder.
On the branches.
And the wind hardly moves as she reaches out. Her hand pauses a moment and then grips the trunk.
She goes stiff.
Like electricity coursing through her. The branch is like a live wire.
Her eyes go wide. Her arm stiffens.
She’s not convulsing, just staring into nothingness.
“Do something!” Jen shouts.
Kat runs up—
“Stop!” Cyn shouts. “Give it a second.”
Kat’s only a step away, hands out. Mad is a statue. Catatonic. Transported to another world.
“Maybe she’s gone,” Kats says. “Maybe the dream body stays here.”
“I’m sick of this.” Roc pulls off her glove. “I want out before that grisly bastard shows up.”
Roc lumbers forward—
Mad collapses.
She draws a deep breath like she’s been held under water, starving for air. Kat and Jen pull her away. Mad’s eyes are crazy. She’s gulping like a
fish.
“It’s all right,” Jen says, stroking her head. “It’s okay.”
They wait, give her time. Soon she calms. Sanity returns. She looks around, wondering where everyone came from, like she’s been all alone.
“The dream.” She clutches Kat’s coat, pulling her close. “As soon as I touched it, I was in the dream, standing on the ledge…there were things out there, in the fog.”
She inhales, squeaking. Eyes wide.
Mad points at Cyn, like she knows. “The memories are out there.”
Jen scurries away, like she’s infected. She turns over, crawls past Cyn. She gets to her feet, stumbles down the slope, spooking the horses. The horses gallop away from her mad scramble into the trees, collapsing on the ground in a heap of sobs.
“I’ll get her.” Kat is on her feet, sprinting down the hill.
Cries echo through the valley.
Mad crawls away from the stone. Roc clutches her weapon, staring down the slope. She swings her hand at Cyn, shaking. “This ain’t, this is just some…”
“This is what?” Cyn says. “It took her back to the dream, what do you think it is?”
“You go.” She gestures at the monument. “Grab it, see what happens.”
Cyn dips her head. She finally found a level of relief, the cold embracing her legs with numbing comfort. She doesn’t want to move, doesn’t believe this will be anything. She welcomes death.
Just lie down and go to sleep, let winter have me.
“Get up.” Roc gets a handful of her coat, dragging her through the snow. “Get over there and grab it.”
Cyn winces at the sudden feeling. She knocks Roc’s hand away, gets to her hands and knees. She’s drooling. Snow is packed inside her gloves.
She begins crawling.
Hand in front of hand.
Knee after knee.
Until she bumps into the boulder. She stares up at the dead branches, the undulating trunk ripples like muscle. Smooth like polished wood.
Kat is holding Jen.
Mad watches blankly.
Roc’s knuckles are white around the weapon.
You can have me. All of me.
Foreverland Is Dead Page 16
