Lost and Found (14 page)

He did this?

The pulpy blood dripping off his face was all the proof he needed.

Yes, he did this to them.

"Connor! Connor, wake up!" I attempted to pin his flailing arms to his chest while
yelling his name over his screams. His whole body thrashed beneath my hands so violently
that I was afraid to let go. But after his elbow hit me squarely in the chest, I was
flung ungraciously backwards into the dirt, landing on my ass.

He flew upright, punching at the empty air between us and even though his eyes were
open, his expression was still tormented by sleep, by whatever happened to him in
his dream. I raised a hand slowly after catching my breath and carefully touched his
arm. He recoiled from my fingertips and blinked at me. A semblance of recognition
slowly spread across his sweaty face and he flinched at my smile.

"It's okay," I said quietly as Kris softly wept behind me, "I'm here. It was just
a dream, you're okay."

"Riley?" In one fluid movement, he was out of his tangled sleeping bag and in my arms,
his face buried in the curve of my neck, his tears hot against my skin.

Kris's slender arms wrapped around me from behind. The three of us sat in the cold
dirt, crying softly and holding onto each other until the only sign of our tears were
the dried up salt trails that streaked down our faces. We slept huddled in a pile
under the moon-less night, arms and legs entangled - afraid to let go of one another
for fear that sleep would snatch us away to somewhere awful, where nightmares really
did come true.

***

I woke with a cramp in my side. Kris's arms were coiled tightly around my left bicep
and Connor's hand was draped over my waist - his hand clutching a fistful of my shirt.
For a moment, I stayed perfectly still, half on and half off the sleeping bag below
me, wondering what the three of us must look like from above. Two grown adults and
a teenager afraid of their own dreams. Afraid to sleep alone under the stars. But
the cramp in my side spread until the sharp pain became unbearable and a spasm tore
through the muscles in my lower back. With a groan, I rolled; jostling both the other's
awake with a start. As they rubbed the sleep from their faces, I stretched my legs
out until my back relaxed.

"I'm getting too old to sleep on the ground."

Kris laughed but Connor groaned out a string of curse words in agreement. The sun
had been up at least an hour, which meant we would be eating breakfast on the go.
No time for coffee.

Twenty minutes later, we had the horses saddled and rubbed down with their daily morning
scratch. Foxy playfully nipped at the ends of my ponytail until I gave her a small
handful of loquats. She ate them happily - seeds and all.

"Ready to go, Foxy?" The mare snorted and tossed her head up and down in answer.

As Connor swung his legs up and mounted Sunny, I took a final glance at the campground.
At the beginning of autumn, the place should have been packed with campers. Children
running along the dirt roads on lizard hunts. Couples walking hand in hand up and
down the trails. The campground host lecturing a group of men about their late night
festivities and scolding them in the morning to pick up their beer cans. But no...nothing.
The campground was empty and probably always would be. I wondered if the same time
next year, the campground would be overrun by weeds. It would blend in with the surrounding
landscape - the only sign that humans had ever marked the place would be the crumbled
concrete picnic tables and sun-bleached bathrooms.

"You coming, sweets?" Connor said softly as he backed Sunny up.

"Yeah."

It was time to move on. By the end of the day, we would be only hours away from Los
Angeles. Tonight would be our last night of traveling and then the next day would
begin the search. Perhaps I knew it then on that sunny morning - that finding Mariah
wasn't going to happen. And I was okay with it. The outcome was no longer the objective
- finding
anyone
alive was. I put all my energy into rescuing Mariah that I forgot there were probably
dozens like her out there, lost and just needing someone to look for them. Someone
to care, someone to find them. For whatever reason, that someone had become me.

"Look how close we are," Kris said quietly as she held the map out while we led the
horses back down the trail toward the highway.

"Almost there."

We didn't speak for hours. The three of us simply sat upon the horses as they took
us out of San Clemente and up the Pacific Coast Highway to Dana Point. We took a break
for water then climbed back on, continuing north until we stopped for a late lunch
in Laguna Beach.

"Wow, what do you think happened here?" Connor asked.

As we neared the heart of town, more and more storefronts showed signs of damage or
were blown out completely into the streets. It was like a warzone. Not one corner
stood unscathed.

"I have no idea, but I'm glad we weren't around for it."

Every mile or so there was a pile of burned objects that sat in the middle of the
side streets that ran into the PCH. It took me three miles to realize it wasn't just
debris that had been burned.

"Jesus. There are bodies in there,"
I whispered.

We tried not to look, but all through the community of Laguna Beach, there were piles
and piles of them, thrown together in the street like garbage. In some places, the
heaps of 'trash' reached over ten feet high and twice as wide, as if every single
body had been dragged out of the houses on that block and set to burn. Though it felt
eerie, it was unusually quiet - unusually still. That feeling of being watched, of
having sets of unseen eyes on my back had all but vanished. For the first time in
a week, it felt like the dead were really gone.

We ate lunch on a grassy outlook near a gas station. Most of the structures in the
area had long been burned to the ground, including what was left of the gas pumps.
As the horses grazed along the landscape like living lawnmowers, we sat on the cool
earth eating granola and ripe oranges we had picked along the way. The salty air of
the ocean blew past us and into the hills, taking the wet scent of seaweed with it.
As we listened to the crash of the waves along the shore, I closed my eyes and tilted
my face upward to soak up the afternoon sun until my cheeks burned with warmth.

The horses had nibbled the grass down to the earth in places, moving from one spot
to another to gobble up the white dandelion seed heads that starred the green landscaping.
Sunny's muzzle was covered with remnants of the weed as if she had rubbed her face
along the plants before eating them.

Kris laughed as she used the sleeve of her shirt to wipe the horse clean. In my mind,
I took a picture of the two of them: the brown-haired girl with freckles and scars
as she leaned against the gentle-eyed, honey-colored mare with tufts of dandelion
seeds up her nose. It was a beautiful image of the two with the Pacific Ocean as a
background. Sunny ran her mouth against Kris's neck as a thank you before the two
parted and we all climbed back up into our saddles.

The outskirts of L.A. were just a few miles away. I glanced at Connor, wondering if
his thoughts were on the next day, like mine were. He smiled only the way Connor could
- dazzling and perfect. I clicked my tongue to get Foxy on the move and we started
back up the coast, leaving the ruined remains of Laguna Beach behind us.

***

By nightfall, we were in Newport Beach. The fading light cast an amethyst glow across
the streets and just as we had seen in Laguna, many of the buildings had been burned
or damaged from nearby military tanks. The wind picked up and whistled through the
palm trees, rocking the narrow trunks softly from side to side. We continued down
the weed-riddled sidewalks until we came upon West Newport Park.

"Seems like a good place to camp. Plenty of room for the horses to graze, plus we
can secure them over there for the night." I pointed to the fenced in tennis courts.

We tied the horses to a tree next to the small playground and took turns breaking
into the houses across the street on Seashore Drive until we had enough food items
for a feast. Connor also found a portable BBQ, so after an hour of settling in and
warming a bag of coals, we had a dinner of boxed macaroni and cheese, canned peas
and carrots and chocolate pudding. Kris opened up the remnants of the cheese sauce
packet and licked it clean while Connor and I watched. It was the closest thing to
a full meal we'd enjoyed since leaving the lodge.

The horses drank from a large plastic tub that Kris and I found in a nearby garage.
After dumping the Christmas decorations from it, we had carried it back to camp and
filled it with several gallons of water. Almost every home had at least two full gallons
of water. Like the people that lived there had prepared for the worst. Only a handful
of the lavish homes actually had people inside - dead in their beds. Most packed what
they could fit into their Mercedes and Land Rovers and fled the City. I wondered as
I picked through the items they left behind, how far did they manage to get before
the traffic stopped them? Which cars had we passed on the nearby coastal highway came
from that very street? It didn't matter anymore. The dead were gone and we became
scavengers of what was left of their previous lives.
Like rats.

"No, I can't eat any more," I said as I waved Connor's plate away.

He set the rest of the pasta down and picked up the bottle of wine, swigging from
it until he needed to come up for air. With a satisfied grunt, he set the half-empty
bottle of red down on the grass between us and looked up at me with a goofy smile.

"That was great," he mumbled.

"Dinner or the wine?"

He smirked at me, his eyes glossy. "Probably both," he laughed.

Kris jumped up and grabbed the paper sack off the ground. "I almost forgot!"

We watched her rush over to the tennis courts with her bag of treats for the horses.
The sack was filled with guavas and ripe, red pears - a treat we found in the fenced
off yard of one of the beach houses. It was the only one nearby with citrus trees.
The salty moisture must have kept the trees alive and blooming; both had scraggy branches
that grew up and over the wall that bordered the neighboring property.

"Riley," Connor pulled me up against his side while we watched Kris feed the horses,
"I miss you."

"Miss me? I haven't left your sight in a week!" I laughed.

"I miss the feel of you," he whispered against my ear, his lips brushing along the
curve of my skin.

"Oh," I sighed. Yes, I missed him too. I missed the feel of his strong hands between
my thighs and the taste of his mouth. Judged on the wanting look he gave me, the desire
was inside him, too.

"Soon," he whispered after kissing me softly.

"Yes…soon."

***

The flames licked at the glass teasingly, dipping down below the windowsill before
launching back up, high above my line of vision. There was nowhere to go, nowhere
to run. The fire burned all around me, filling the open room with smoke. It roiled
and curled beneath the wide door like it was alive.

"Help!" My raspy scream bounced off the columns of the empty warehouse.

Only the sound of popping wood and twisting metal answered as the fire ate its way
through the curved galvanized metal sheeting above, dropping chunks of burned roofing
at my feet. I jumped in fear as shadows twisted and writhed in the corners, a chorus
of screams and shouts louder than the fire itself ringing out into the smoke and ash-filled
air.

And then silence.

I was kneeling on all fours, struggling to breathe in what little oxygen was left
in the room when the fire died down to embers and the shadows disintegrated. Daylight
streamed in beneath the door in a thin strip and I crawled toward it, caring not what
was on the other side as long as there was air - clean, fresh air.

Soot coated the inside of my nostrils and the rank odor of it burned down my throat,
drying me out from the inside. My throat screamed for moisture, refusing to work as
I attempted to swallow what little spit was left in my mouth. When I reached the door,
I shoved my face against the slit at the bottom and greedily sucked in air, feeling
the hotness of it fill my lungs. Too weak to stand and push the door open, my head
fell down on the cold concrete with a soft thud.

This was it. This was how I was going to die. Stranded inside a burning building with
no air. Abandoned even by the ghosts of the past. Completely and totally alone.

A girl's soft voice whispered inside my ear and I felt ash slide down my cheeks as
my lashes fluttered open. I knew her voice, but when I parted my dried lips to speak,
no sounds came out of my parched mouth.

Shannon's voice tickled the inside of my ear. "Mommy…they are free now. The fire,
Mommy don't you see…it set them free."

***

I sprung up from my sleeping bag with such force that I ripped the zipper open clean
down to my knees. Kris stirred beside me, turning in my direction with a sleepy face.
I scrambled onto my knees and practically sat on Connor, shaking his shoulders until
his own eyes flew open and he sat upright to face me.