Foreverland Is Dead

by Tony Bertauski

  Paralyzing her.

  Dragging her into the eternal gray where her soul dissolves. Where she becomes thinner. Transparent. Yet she still feels the gut-dropping fall, the endless collapse of her identity.

  The falling.

  Always falling—forever and ever—in the Nowhere.

  “Cyn?”

  Cyn jerks away from the hand on her arm. Chest pumping air that’s thick and stale. Linda takes both of Cyn’s hands, cradles them gently.

  Miranda is motionless. Lips sealed.

  “We all had the same dream.” Cyn’s mouth is dry. “Every night.”

  Linda patiently squeezes, staying present. Giving her space to work through what’s coming to light.

  Cyn tries to swallow, says, “We would walk up to a cliff and look down. But there wasn’t a bottom. There was just…it was just fog.”

  She hesitates, thoughts freezing.

  “What’s in the fog?”

  Tendons spring from her wrists. Fingers clenching. Memories push through a thick veil. She remembers what’s out there, remembers stepping through the fence at the edge of the trees, falling into the gray dream where memories pounced on her like demons.

  Her stepfather is out there. Dope. Violence.

  Desperation. Loneliness.

  “Fear,” Cyn says.

  Linda squeezes, reassuring her. Cyn doesn’t really see her; just feels her. But there’s something else out there, too. They are out there. The girls that were shoved from their bodies. The boys from Foreverland, too.

  And Sandy.

  Everyone that was pushed from their body was thrown into the Nowhere like fistfuls of ash where they would eternally dissolve. Forever fall.

  She remembers that. She remembers the falling.

  Arms out. Tipping into the abyss.

  Merging with the gray. Embracing the fear.

  And falling out of the dream.

  Cyn clenches Linda like a ledge. Feet dangling. Linda allows her to squeeze as if her life depends on it. Cyn looks away from the bed, breaks the trance. Indentions remain on Linda’s arm.

  They remain next to the bed, holding hands. Cyn’s breathing returns to normal. The fear recedes. Nothing escapes Sandy’s lips; her eyes remain motionless. This is not the dream.

  Jackie arrives to connect an IV. They help her turn the body, rub her sore spots with lotion. Even though she doesn’t know Sandy, Cyn cares for her body. She deserves that much.

  They leave the brick house and stand on the porch. The weather is warming. Cyn doesn’t tell Linda what she remembers.

  I know how I escaped.

  55

  The sun is up.

  Linda quietly walks through the tent, pulls the curtain aside. She watches Cyn’s chest gently rise and fall then grabs a few things off her desk. The door closes.

  Cyn opens her eyes.

  That’s the second time Linda has checked on her. And the second time Cyn was pretending to sleep. Linda knows she isn’t sleeping well at night, tells her to sleep in as late as she wants. The morning will get along just fine without her.

  At night, the bed feels like a cell.

  Cyn wishes for the nights of falling into dead sleep, even misses the gray dreams, standing on the ledge. Better than the dreams she’s having now, waking in the night like a pillow has been pushed over her face.

  Linda woke her up sometime in the night, said she was making noise. Cyn doesn’t remember the dream, only remembers drowning in a sea of emotions. Her pillow was damp.

  She had waited there, listening to Linda fall asleep before sneaking through the tent and gently closing the door. The wind harvesters were still.

  The moon full.

  A couple guys were on the front porch of the dinner house, a cigarette cherry streaking from lap to mouth. Their chatter easily carried across the garden. She went back inside where sleep came in bite-sized pieces.

  Now she dozes in and out to the lullabies of trucks and generators, wondering how far she can go in an ATV with a full tank of gas. There’s a bag of clothes under her bed that Linda doesn’t know about. Cyn has an urge to escape, to get away from people before they discover her secret. She keeps her memories tightly sealed, away from Linda’s prying questions. There are more secrets inside her, and she’d be fine if they stayed hidden from her. She’s had enough of the truth; she just wants some peace. If they’re thinking of sending her home, then she’ll have to steal a fully loaded ATV.

  Home.

  That word is supposed to feel warm and fuzzy. To Cyn, it feels like drowning. She doesn’t have many memories of home. There are giant puddles of ink on the fabric of her mind, blotting memories out of existence, keeping much of what’s inside her hidden. Maybe those ink spots were there before the old women punched her with the needle.

  Doesn’t matter. She’s not going home. She’s not going anywhere before she fixes things.

  Cyn sits up slowly. She looks around the curtain just to make sure the tent’s empty. There’s a mirror under Linda’s bed; she saw her fussing with it the other day. She finds it in a plastic bag. It fits in the palm of her hand.

  Her forehead looks normal except for the tiny black hole. It’s still sore, but at least it’s not red and swollen. She can’t move her head too quickly or it throbs. She frames the hole with two fingers, tender to the touch. The stent is a tiny knot embedded in her skull.

  A going away gift.

  Her green eyes are sunk inside the sockets. She pulls at her blonde hair, barely finger-length. She touches her reflection.

  Wash the dream just another layer of reality in the mirror that I’ve peeled away? Is this just another dream inside a dream? Is there another layer of reality below this? Will I wake up and realize that this, right here, right now, is a dream, too?

  How many layers are there?

  “It’ll go away.”

  Cyn drops the mirror. Linda is holding the curtain back.

  “Feeling rested?”

  Cyn doesn’t answer, wants to hide the mirror under her foot. Feels stupid for getting caught gazing at her reflection. It’s not why she was looking in the mirror.

  “I’ll let you get dressed.”

  Cyn’s sitting there in panties and a tank top, no bra.

  “You hungry?” Linda calls from the other side while rummaging through stuff. “I saved you breakfast in the mess tent. If you’re not feeling up to it, there’s a can of Ensure in the cooler. Make sure you drink that. The doctor wants to see you this morning. If you’re not eating, they’re going to put an IV in your—crap!”

  She drops something. A number of things get stacked. A drawer shuts. Linda mutters to herself.

  “I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes, but I want us to go for a little hike across the meadow today, get a little fresh air. What do you say?”

  The curtain pulls back.

  Cyn hasn’t moved. Still half-naked. “Hike sounds good.”

  “You all right?” Linda sits on her bed across from her. “You want to talk?”

  “No. Just waking up.”

  She puts up her best smile. The smile sucks, but it’s good by her standards. Linda hesitates, but she buys it. She knows things aren’t easy. Cyn’s tough. Right now she’s just hanging in there.

  Linda has no idea what Cyn’s thinking.

  “Breakfast, then?” Linda asks.

  “I’ll get it.”

  Linda pauses, looks inside her. She can’t see the thoughts, but she’s satisfied enough to stand. She reaches for the curtain.

  “How much time do you think has passed in there?” Cyn asks. “It’s been a week since I got out—how long do you think it’s been inside the dream? A month?”

  “We don’t know. Why?”

  “Just wondering.” She stares into space.

  Again, Linda tries to look inside her. She waits to hear more. She’s not leaving until Cyn spills a thought or two.

  “They could be dead,” Cyn says.

  “We don’t know that.”
<
br />   “I left them.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Cyn shakes her head. She’s thinking. There are thoughts she wants to spit out. But if she does, Linda will know what she’s thinking. She can’t have that. She bites down, swallows the words.

  “Hey.” Linda sits on the bed. “You sure you’re all right?”

  Cyn focuses on her. Fakes another smile. “Just a dream I had last night, that’s all.”

  “The gray?”

  “No. It’s nothing. I’ll get dressed, grab some breakfast.”

  Linda doesn’t want to leave. If she didn’t have a meeting, she wouldn’t let her out of her sight. She’ll probably call someone as soon as she leaves, have Thomas or someone keep an eye on the tent. Watch where Cyn goes.

  That’s why Cyn dresses quickly.

  The nurse is sitting in the back of the bunkhouse, poking at the tablet in his lap. He looks up, smiles.

  “You’re a little late to help, darling.” He goes back to his tablet, says, “Stick around, the girls need to be turned in half an hour.”

  Cyn stands quite still, looking at the walls, the rafters and beds, taking a mental snapshot of what it looks like, how it smells and feels. Memorizing this layer of reality.

  She walks around, stopping at each bed. The bodies still uninhabited. Kat, Jen, Roc, and Mad. All of them still somewhere else. Miranda’s bed still empty.

  Sandy, she reminds herself.

  Cyn’s bed is still empty. The sheets tucked under the mattress, the wire coiled on the small table. She slows her breathing, swallows, and walks to the bed.

  Walk. Don’t run.

  She sits on the edge, sinking into the gel-infused mattress. It molds to her bottom. There’s an indention in the pillow, waiting to cradle her head. She reaches slowly, picks up the glass vial.

  The surgical steel needle, suspended in the clear gel, gleams.

  “Honey, don’t touch that,” he says. “That needs to stay sterile.”

  Her fingers shake. She pinches the wire at the base of the needle. Her pulse flutters in her fingertips.

  “Sweetheart.” The nurse stands. “You need to put that down.”

  It slides from the rubber stopper. The tip is blunt. She brackets the stent with two fingers—

  “Don’t.” Linda’s at the door, hand raised. “Please.”

  Cyn opens her eyes. The needle lowers.

  No one moves.

  “I can get them,” she whispers.

  “I can’t let you.”

  “You know what they’re going through? If they’re alive, they’re cold and hungry. And I can get them out.”

  “There’s time, Cynthia. We’ll figure out how to communicate. They’ll learn how to escape, just like you.”

  “You’ve been real good to me.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  Cyn grimly nods. Their eyes engage. Linda only makes it half a step, hand reaching—

  An icicle slides between Cyn’s eyes.

  Her head goes numb.

  DECEMBER

  Meet me at the edge.

  Where we all fall down.

  56

  Cyn stumbles out of the trees, the white ground rushing towards her. She doesn’t get her hands out, landing face first in the white pluff. Doesn’t bother clawing out of the drift, hunkering inside, protected from the wind.

  Can’t feel her legs.

  Her hands.

  Face.

  The shivers are electric. She’ll die out here, in the meadow, winter’s hand wrapped around her throat. No.

  She emerges from the snow dune, inhaling an icy breath dusted with crystals, chilling her from the inside. But there’s something over there, across the meadow, over the barren white stretch. She wipes her eyes but the world still sways like a storm-tossed ship.

  She starts, again.

  Crawling. Eventually stumbling. Foot in front of foot.

  Fall.

  Up again.

  The crossing is lost in time, but she emerges from a snowdrift. The cabins are there.

  Her jaw chatters, her teeth chattering like frozen cubes. She wipes her eyes, tries to focus. There are only two wind harvesters, she thinks.

  The bunkhouse…it’s…gone. The blackened walls are sagging, spattered with icy white patches. The rafters poke through scorched holes. A white blade sticks out of the ground like a giant plastic knife.

  The dinner house is on fire, too. Smoke blossoms from the roof. She’s too late. It’s all burning to the ground; the girls have nowhere to go.

  I’m too late. This is my fault.

  Her feet hit the ground like dead pegs. Four steps, maybe five, and she crashes into another puff of snow. Up again.

  Little by little she crosses, she finds the other side. Discovers the dinner house isn’t on fire; the chimney is belching a long white cloud. The bunkhouse, though, is still gutted, black and dead.

  Cyn crawls onto the porch, fighting to breathe. She reaches up, hand shaking against the slick doorknob. Unable to feel the cold steel, unable to grasp and turn it. She collapses against the door, her head hitting the thick wood. She doesn’t have the strength to raise her arm, afraid her hand will shatter if she knocks.

  Thump, thump, thump. She bangs her head.

  What if they’re dead? What if everyone is gone? She may not make it out. She could be trapped here for eternity. And she was out, but she came back.

  “I know you can hear me.” Her lips hardly move. “Let us out, Patricia. Don’t do this to us, please.”

  Thump, thump, thump.

  “Please.”

  Thump.

  “We don’t deserve…”

  Cyn closes her eyes. So tired.

  So, so tired.

  She doesn’t feel the door move. Or the floor on the back of her head. But she hears the voices, feels the hardwood sliding beneath her.

  And the warmth of a fire.

  The ache begins in her legs.

  Feeling is coming back. She still can’t feel her fingers. Her tongue is a lump of meat.

  She’s leaning against the wall next to the stove.

  Kat and Mad are knocking snowy crust from her legs and arms, rubbing her fingers, her cheeks. Their words are just sounds, no different than a dog barking or a brook babbling.

  “Don’t.” Mad’s voice. “Keep snow packed on that.”

  She’s talking about the backs of her feet. Kat agrees.

  “Mmmrggg.” Cyn works her useless lips, her tongue not helping. She’s met with a crushing embrace. Kat and Mad squeeze her at the same time.

  “You came back,” Mad says.

  Cyn wipes her eyes, runs her tongue over her gums. The girls come into focus. They’re gaunt. Eyes set deeply. Open sores on Kat’s cheeks. Mad’s gums are receding. Roc is lying under the table behind them, wrapped in blankets, her bruised face peeking out. Blood caked on her bent nose.

  They start asking questions. It becomes noise again. Cyn raises her hand.

  “We’ve got to go. Now.”

  “It didn’t work,” Kat says. “When we grabbed the tree, it didn’t work for us.”

  Pain is sneaking up Cyn’s legs, spilling nausea into her stomach. She pulls her feet up so her heels aren’t touching the floor. The snow on the back of her legs is pink. The shivering eases, lifting the veil on the cold fear hiding beneath.

  “You saw the cliff,” Cyn says, pushing the words out. “When you touched the tree, you went to dream.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Don’t run from it. You have to fall.”

  Kat and Mad don’t answer. They know what’s out there, what it feels like. They feel it every time they go to sleep.

  “I know you’re scared, there’s fear in the unknown. Fear in the gray. Allow that. Fall into it.”

  Cyn shudders, biting back the urge to heave.

  “Allow yourself to fall…and you’ll wake up.”

  They’re nodding. They don’t mean it, but they’re nodding.


  “Trust me.”

  Roc throws the cover back, sits up. Her face is purplish, left eye swollen shut. But she’s nodding. She knows.

  We all fall.

  Cyn looks around. “Where’s Jen?”

  The front door slams open. Winter howls inside.

  Mad stifles a sob.

  57

  Miranda is no longer horrified.

  Disgusted, sure.

  She hides her face in her hands and pushes. The smell is of no consequence. Her olfactory senses have long been corrupted, the candles used up. Still, she closes her eyes and finishes her business, to get it over with. The lid snaps into place and she slides it next to the water heater.

  She doesn’t enjoy hovering bare-assed over a five-gallon bucket to move her bowels.

  The furnace rarely turns on. The thermostat is in the hallway. Mr. Williams has control of that. He’s conserving power. He also has a space heater out there to keep his bunions from freezing off.

  Miranda has five layers of clothing. She only has to brave the elements when it’s time to pull out the bucket.

  Her food is stacked against the back door, the only room she still refuses to investigate. She cracks the lid on a bottle of water, takes a tiny sip. Not too much—just enough to keep from dehydrating. The food supply is dwindling.

  And she’s not leaving the back room.

  Ever.

  When the food is gone, she’ll starve. She’s sure of it.

  She can’t say she’s accustomed to hunger. It’s still there, twisting her stomach like a dishrag, wringing out every ounce of comfort. She thinks of it constantly, but still, it’s not as bad as it used to be. Maybe when you see atrocity worse than hunger, it creates a sort of peaceful perspective.

  Why are we still here? He said the dream would end when Patricia’s food was gone.

  That’s when she stopped believing him, when she no longer thought this was a dream. Cyn is gone. They said she found her way out, just grabbed onto a branch and disappeared. All the rest tried, they grabbed it the same way and nothing happened. But Miranda is sure that something else went down. They killed her or something weird.