by Nancy Isaak
My knees collapsed under me.
I felt myself falling to the ground and everything…
…went BLACK!!
* * * *
When I finally woke up—we were still in the kids’ bedroom.
My head was pounding and stars circled at the edge of my vision.
I was lying on the little boy’s bed and Jay was holding a wet cloth to my forehead. It was getting dark outside and there was a lit candle on a nearby desk, so I must have been there for a while.
“What happened?” I asked, confused. “It feels like something hit the back of my head.”
“Something did,” said Jay. She motioned toward the bed on the other side of the room. “Meet Lily and Pugly.”
I turned my head to see the strawberry-blond girl from the photos. She was sitting on the “Little Mermaid” bed, the pudgy little pug held protectively in her arms.
Lily looked absolutely traumatized—her eyes wide, her face dirty, her hair matted and sticking up all over the place.
“Ohmigod!” I whispered, astonished.
Beside me, Jay was positively beaming. “I know, right!”
LILY OF THE VALLEY
It took a long time to get the full story out of our new ‘little sister’.
That sweet child did not speak a word to us for days. I wasn’t kidding when I had written that the girl looked traumatized.
* * * *
Lily Whitmore had lived with her 7-year old twin brother, Ethan, and her mother, Sally, in their two-storey townhouse since the day she was born. For a while, her father—who was a long-haul truck driver—had lived with them. He left, however, when the kids were 2-years old (to subsequently marry a young waitress he had met at a truck stop). Lily and Ethan had seen him only a handful of times since.
To make ends meet, Lily’s mother worked as a hairdresser in Sherman Oaks during the day. At night, when the children were in bed, she did medical transcription.
Both children were in 2nd Grade at Sumac Elementary (Jacob’s alma mater!). They were good students, who loved going to school.
On the weekends, the kids and their mom spent a lot of their spare time at the townhouse complex’s pool or hiking in the local mountains. Overall, it appeared to be a good, simple life for the single mother and her children.
* * * *
As with so many twins—Lily and Ethan were exceedingly close.
Ethan was the more outgoing of the two; Lily a bit shy. They had a secret language that they used with each other—something they had spoken from the moment they began to talk.
If they were separated, even for a moment, the other became anxious, despondent. And again—like other twins—they seemed to sense each other’s emotions and feelings. Being together made them feel whole.
As the saying from that old film went—they completed each other.
* * * *
On the day of the event, Lily and Ethan had woken up early and settled down in front of the television for a marathon session of “Star Wars: Clone Wars” cartoons. Apparently, they were into their third half-hour, when their mother finally came downstairs and forced them onto the kitchen stools to eat some cereal.
According to Lily—with Pugly asleep in her lap—she was eating a bowl of ‘Lucky Charms’. Ethan was seated beside her, crunching away at his own bowl of cereal. Their mother, meanwhile, was moving around in the kitchen, brewing a cup of coffee.
Like any other morning—Lily lifted her cereal bowl to her lips to slurp back the last drops of milk. As she lowered her bowl, however, Lily said it felt like something was suddenly ripped away from her.
And before that cereal bowl touched the counter, Lily knew instinctively that her brother was gone.
A moment later, she realized that her mother had been taken, too.
* * * *
At first, Lily had the half-hearted hope that her mother and brother were playing a trick on her. So, she searched through the townhouse, going through all the regular hidey-holes, calling again and again for them to come out. When no one appeared and Lily gradually realized that she was truly alone, she went upstairs to her bedroom and laid down on her bed with Pugly.
There, she began to cry.
* * * *
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that Lily finally ventured outside of the townhouse. Afraid to also lose the only friend she had, Lily carried Pugly in her arms as she walked the paths around her home, calling out for ‘help’.
No one, of course, answered.
Lily, finally understanding that she was indeed alone, returned home—tired and scared.
Not really knowing what else to do, the little girl hid out in her bedroom with Pugly. She went downstairs for food and water. Other than that, she mostly stayed hidden in her room. Only at night—when it was dark—would she creep down the stairs with Pugly, so that they could go out onto the patio to do their ‘business’.
* * * *
By the time we showed up, Lily had become so traumatized that—instead of letting us know she was there—the little girl had hidden in her closet. When Jay and I finally entered her bedroom and found Pugly—in Lily’s fractured mind—we were the monsters of her nightmares come true. And when I made my stupid joke, it had simply confirmed to her that we were about to steal her dog and eat him for dinner.
In heroic form, the little girl had picked up the first thing she could use to protect Pugly—a Roomba. She sprang out of the closet, leapt up onto her bed—and clocked me on the back of my head with the little vacuum.
JOURNAL ENTRY #9
We are not alone!
There’s a little girl with us now.
Her name is Lily—and Jay and I think she’s about seven.
And she has a dog named ‘Pugly’.
Pugly the pug!
* * * *
We were a little worried that Lily wouldn’t come with us back to the townhouse but—as soon as I made the suggestion—she rose silently off of her bed. She didn’t say a single word—just carried Pugly downstairs.
Jay and I exchanged a glance.
“You think she’s going to be okay?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” whispered Jay. “She hasn’t said anything. I keep asking her questions, but she doesn’t speak. She just stares at me with those big, blue eyes.”
“She’s frightened.”
“Well, that makes two of us,” said Jay.
“Count me in as well,” I added. “Three—scared out of my wits.”
“You know what really frightens me, though?” said Jay.
“What?”
“I don’t think Lily has left her townhouse since this thing happened.”
“So?”
“So, then who was that in the condiments aisle at Ralphs?”
* * * *
By the time we reached the bottom of the stairs, Lily was already standing at the front door. She was looking straight ahead—waiting—still holding Pugly in her arms.
(In case you’re wondering, the reason we know the dog’s name is because it’s embroidered on his collar.)
I went up to the young girl and knelt down, bringing myself eye-to-eye with her. Lily didn’t look at me, though—she looked through me. “Is there anything you want to take with you, Lily?”
There was no response.
Jay came up beside us. “I got her this.” She was holding a photo in her hand—Lily, Ethan, and their mother. “We can always come back tomorrow when it’s light. Get anything else she might want.”
“That’s a great idea,” I said. “Look, Lily…Jay is bringing a picture of your family.”
Still, no response.
“Okay, then.” I peered through the broken window of the front door.
It was dark outside.
The moon was full, however, which meant that we could at least see as far as the path out front and the trees opposite.
(I used to like the night. Now, it’s become a world of menacing shadows and unnatural shapes…very scary.)
<
br /> I turned back to Jay. “You sure you don’t want to just stay here? We can go home in the morning when it’s daytime.”
Jay shook her head. “I’ll feel safer in the room. Won’t you?”
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed. “It’s just getting there that I’m not feeling too safe about.”
* * * *
If we had moved fast—or taken the bikes (which we left back at Lily’s)—we probably could have made it back to the Sitipalas’ in about five minutes. As it was, it took us almost a half hour.
Remember how I mentioned that Jay and I have this incredibly inconvenient ‘conscience-thing’ going on between us? Well, this time our consciences wouldn’t allow us to leave another ‘possible’ traumatized child behind for even one more night. So, every single townhouse we had missed in our previous visits had to be searched.
We didn’t go inside, though. That was too much for even our consciences to accomplish in the dark. Instead, we took our cop-socks and banged loudly on the doors and windows.
Then we listened—for a bark, a meow, a ‘please help’.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough that Jay and I (and our consciences) would be able to sleep later that night.
When it was daytime, we planned to go back and actually enter all the townhouses—just to make sure they were really empty.
As it was, we got no responses that night.
* * * *
When we finally reached the Sitipala townhouse, Jay and I stood just outside the front door, looking at the neighborhood that surrounded us. Lily, meanwhile, was beside us, cradling her sleeping dog in her arms.
“There are soo many homes around here!” Jay sighed. “Now I feel like we have to search through all of them.”
To the right of the townhouse—on the opposite side of the culvert—we could just barely see another large, gated townhouse community, hidden between the trees. Across the street from us were more townhouses; these ones were actually part of our own neighborhood. Meanwhile, on the other side of Chumash Park, was a whole section of single-family homes. And over on the hills by Kanan Road—dozens and dozens and dozens of houses.
I shook my head. “We’ll do what we can here in our own complex. But that’s all we can reasonably do. We simply can’t search every house we come across. We just can’t.”
Suddenly, I noticed that Lily’s head was turned upwards. I followed her gaze, looking up into the sky.
“Wow!” I gasped.
Jay looked up, also, her mouth dropping open in wonder. “Can you believe the amount of stars we can see now? It’s like so amazing!”
Above us, the sky was literally blanketed with blinking fairy lights. As far as we could see, stars shone and pulsed and twinkled.
“See, Lily,” Jay pointed. “Those stars there—that’s Orion. You’re supposed to think of a hunter when you look at them. And those three stars in the middle, that’s supposed to be his belt.”
Lily said nothing—but she did seem to be listening. Her eyes followed Jay’s finger as my friend pointed out the different constellations.
“And all the way over here…this is Cassiopeia. She’s easy to find because she kind of looks like a big ‘W’ in the sky. And look over there, Lily. You see that one really bright star there—the one that’s not blinking?”
Jay looked down at Lily. The young girl looked back—ever quiet.
“Well,” Jay continued, “the reason it’s not blinking is that it’s not a star. It’s a planet—Venus. In fact, that’s how you can tell it’s a planet. It doesn’t blink. If it blinks, that’s because it’s far away from Earth and it’s creating its own light source. If it doesn’t blink, that’s because it’s closer to Earth and it’s reflecting light—and that’s what planets do.”
“Jay,” I grinned, impressed, “sometimes the things you know...”
“…are the same things you’d know, if you actually listened in class.” She shook her finger at me. “Seriously, how many times have we had this conversation?”
I opened my mouth to say something snide but…
BARK! Yip, yip, yip, yip…
We immediately froze.
The sounds had come from directly across the street—from the rock hill that was part of Chumash Park. It was too dark to see into the shadows, but both Jay and I knew what those feral barks meant.
There were coyotes in the rocks!
Apparently, Pugly knew it, too, because he woke right up and started squirming and whining in Lily’s arms.
“Don’t let him go!” I warned the younger girl. “Jay, get your front door open!”
Jay immediately pulled out her key and inserted it in the lock.
Yip, yip, yip…
The barks were definitely getting closer. Dark shadows in the rocks across the street began to take shape—four-legged creatures on the move.
“Hurry, Jay!”
“Dang it!”
(Why is it that—when you’re in a hurry—you always turn the key in the wrong direction?)
“Jay, you’ve got to move quicker!”
“Give me a sec,” Jay said. “Oh, dang it again!”
I sensed movement to my right. Turning, I saw a dark shape separate itself from the others and lope across the road toward us.
“They’re coming, Jay! They want the dog…hurry!”
Beside me, Lily began to cry—breathy sobs of terror. I pushed her behind me—so that she was beside Jay—and turned back to face the advancing coyotes. Raising up my cop-sock, I turned it horizontal to the ground, like I’d seen police officers do on television when they were being confronted by violent dogs.
I wish I could lie to you and say that I wasn’t scared.
The truth was that I was terrified.
Even though coyotes aren’t supposed to be dangerous to humans—let’s face it—it’s the end of the world and the rules have changed. Also, part of me—and I’m embarrassed to admit this—wondered if the advancing shadows might actually turn out to be werewolves.
Grrrr….rrrr…
Now there was movement to the left—a dark shadow that sprinted forward, threading itself between the trees that edged along the culvert on our right.
“They’re trying to surround us!” I whispered, urgently. “You’ve got to move, Jay!”
Grrrr….rrrr…
This time, the growling came from directly in front of me. Three shadows were emerging from the dark—slinking out between the rocks, padding across the street towards us.
“Jay…seriously, we need you to hurry!!”
The lock finally clicked and Jay flung the door open. Immediately, I turned and pushed Jay and Lily inside. I followed, slamming and locking the door behind me.
Arroooouuu!
There was a flurry of paws outside, slapping the ground—turning this way and that. Then, just as quickly, the steps bounded off, disappearing into the night.
“I think they’re gone,” I whispered.
“Do you really think they were after Pugly?” asked Jay.
Lily had stopped crying now. She was peering at me through moist eyes, very interested in my answer.
“Makes sense, right,” I shrugged.
What I wasn’t going to say in front of the little girl, however, was what I really thought; since Jay and I were too big to take down, those wild dogs could have been going after Pugly.
But they also could have been going after Lily.
* * * *
It might have been safe in the attic room that night—but it was also cramped!
From being all alone in the world—suddenly—Jay and I were now responsible for a 7-year old girl and a Pugly.
Just those two more bodies in that tiny room brought the temperature up to ‘sweaty’. Also (and no disrespect to pugs and their owners), those little dogs can fart!
Still—sweat, heat, and butt-perfume aside—Jay and I were ecstatic about both of our new family members!
We brought up some more pillows from Jay’s bedroom for Lily.
The little girl was sleeping on them—scrunched into a fetal position, jammed up against the back wall. Pugly, meanwhile, was smooshed up, under Lily’s chin.
“She needs a bath,” said Jay, wrinkling her nose. “They both need a bath.”
“She looks like that little girl in that movie, “Aliens”,” I said, quietly, trying not to disturb Lily. “The one who was living on her own after the monsters killed everyone on her planet.”
“Newt,” Jay nodded. “I loved that character. She was tough.”
“I think Lily’s pretty tough herself.”
“She must have been so scared,” Jay whispered.
“That was smart of her, though,” I said. “Keeping hidden until she knew it was safe. Coming down only at night to go to the bathroom.”
“You know,” said Jay, “as scared as we’ve been through it all, at least we’re teenagers. Plus, we had each other. Can you imagine what it must have been like—being just a little kid eating breakfast—and then suddenly your whole family has disappeared?”
“Except for Pugly.”
“I’ve been thinking about that.”
“Thinking about what?”
“Well—except for the horses, Pugly’s the only real pet that we’ve come across.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “Even when we were knocking on doors and windows tonight, we didn’t hear a single one.”
“Well, what I was thinking—what if Pugly is here because Lily is here? What if the only inside pets that survived the event are the ones who lived with the people who survived—like Lily?”
