The Lost (13 page)

“You look gruesome,” Peter comments. “Like you’ve committed murder most foul.” I shake the cloth with wet red paint at him. He jumps out of the way, and Claire laughs.

Skipping in front of the cloth, she shouts, “Paint me! Paint me!” I spatter her with paint. It falls in dots on her arms and princess dress. She swirls, and the paint sprinkles over her. She giggles. “I’ll do you!” She jumps on a stray sock and dips it in the paint. She shakes it at me, and I jump backward but not fast enough to avoid the dollops of paint on my dress.

“If you two are done...” Peter says behind me.

I turn to say—

And he dumps paint on my shoulder. It drips over my chest and back. He is completely unscathed. I look at Claire; Claire looks at me. We both grip our makeshift paintbrushes and chase after him. We race around the junk pile. Circle the house. Run out the gate toward the other houses.

He disappears between two houses, and we collapse against the wall of a brick building, laughing. I don’t know why it’s funny, but it is. I gulp in air.

Suddenly, I hear voices.

There’s no place to hide. We’re exposed on the side of a building. And then I think,
Up.
Dropping the paint cloth, I turn and hoist myself onto a windowsill. I grab the gutter and scramble my feet up to the top of the window. I climb onto the roof and turn around to help Claire. She’s already up on the roof beside me. We scramble up to the peak as two men round the corner beneath us. One carries a knife, and the other has a rust-pocked saw. Both are in tattered dirty clothes, and their skin is covered in ugly, smeared tattoos that look as if they did them themselves. I hold my breath.

They don’t look up.

I exhale.

“Look at you! Your teacher is proud.” It’s Peter. He’s perched on the chimney. He holds up a tape recorder and waves it in the air. “Ready to record some feral dogs?”

I swallow. My heart is still beating fast, and the palms of my hands sting. I scraped them as I climbed too fast over the shingles. The good feeling, the illusion of control that I’d had when I’d painted has vanished completely. I wish I weren’t here. I hate this place with the strange dust prison wall and the dangers that lurk everywhere.

I don’t know what he sees in my expression but his smile fades. “The Missing Man isn’t back yet, and the townspeople continue to blame you,” he tells me. “You’re still stuck with us.” He slides off the roof. “Come on, Little Red.” He glances back at me, spattered with paint. “Or ‘Very Red.’”

* * *

It’s easy to find man-eating dogs if you want them.

On the way into the alleys, we collect stray bits of food: beef jerky laced with dust, half-eaten hotdogs with spots of mold, green meatballs, etc. We carry it in open containers as we walk into the alleys, and then we dump it on the ground and climb up onto the slope of trash and cardboard boxes that chokes the alley.

After that, it’s a matter of waiting.

We hear the snarls in the distance, and Peter switches on the tape recorder.

In a pack, they pad into our alley, three of them, each more muscular than the last. Finding the treasured meat, they leap onto it. They snap and snarl and growl and howl at each other, a cacophony that echoes in the alley.

Peter begins to record.

One of the dogs catches our scent. He fixes his yellow eyes on us and howls. The other dogs notice. All of them begin to scratch and paw at the trash that leads to us. But Peter has picked a place with too steep a slope. They can’t do anything but pace below us, which they do.

I look at Peter and want to ask what the plan is now, but he’s crouched at the edge of the trash, still recording, and I don’t want to mess up his recording and have to repeat this. So I wait. My legs begin to cramp but I don’t dare move. Claire curls beside me and naps.

And wait. And wait.

He settles against the trash, tape recorder resting in his lap, still whirring away. I see his chin droop onto his chest. Both he and Claire sleep.

The dogs keep their vigil below.

At last, the tape recorder clicks—it’s run out of tape. But the dogs aren’t gone. I try to make myself comfortable. I close my eyes and can’t imagine how I’ll sleep through this.

Somehow, I do.

I wake in near darkness to the sound of a woman shouting. Claire and Peter are shadows beside me. Howling, the dogs scatter as gunshots ring out through the alleyway. In close quarters, the shots sound like bolts of thunder inside a room. They echo and rattle deep into my bones.

“You’re both dead,” Peter whispers.

I shut my eyes and don’t move.

He calls down, “I found them like this. Dogs must have gotten them.” I hear him half run half hop down the side of the trash. The pile shakes but doesn’t fall. I try to breathe shallowly. “They must have climbed to safety and then bled out.”

There are several people down there. I hear their voices, murmuring to each other, too low for me to pick out individual words. I concentrate on not moving. My leg is cramped. My shoulder itches. My back is twisted. But I keep myself as still as possible. If it were daytime, the red paint would never be mistaken for blood. In the darkening shadows, I think it must look like dark liquid. I can’t open my eyes to check.

A man’s voice is louder than the others. “But they’re
gone,
not just dead?”

In a singsong voice, Peter says, “Because they could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for them. The Carriage held but just these two and Immortality.”

“The Missing Man must be back!” a woman cries. “He sent their souls on!”

I hear cheering. Cheering for my death, for the death of a little girl. Peter promises to bury our bodies, but the crowd doesn’t listen to him. They’re racing out of the alley, whooping with joy.

I want to cry.

I don’t.

I want to throw my arms around Peter and thank him. For a little while at least, I’ll be safe, maybe for long enough to find my way home.

But I don’t move.

I lie there until I am certain that the people have left the alley and aren’t returning. Then I sit up. Claire sits up beside me. Wordlessly, we climb down the trash heap. She slips her small hand into mine. Hand in hand, we go home.

Chapter Eleven

Five days after I was pronounced dead, Claire bursts into my bedroom. “He found him!” She bounds onto my bed, and I bolt upright. For an instant, I think,
The Missing Man!
She’s beaming from cheek to cheek. In her arms is a bedraggled polka-dot bear. “Prince Fluffernutter! Peter found him!”

I flop back onto my pillow.

Peter appears in the doorway. He has a gash in his trench coat. I open my mouth to ask if he’s okay, but he holds up his hand. “I didn’t kill anyone. The thief was already dead.”

Claire cuddles the bear to her cheek, unfazed by the news that the bear came fresh from a corpse. I think of the dead man on the couch and am less sanguine.

“The thief said to say he’s sorry. Your bear reminded him of one he used to have. I told him he’d have to make do with the memory.”

Claire nods as if this makes sense.

“Upside is that he won’t come back here, so we’re safe from him,” Peter says. “Downside is that he knows the Missing Man hasn’t returned. Our thief had the glow, but he hasn’t been sent on. Others have realized this, too.” He points to the gash in his coat. “A few aren’t happy that I lied about your unfortunate demise.”

For five days, I’d almost felt safe.

I’d scavenged.

I’d looked for weaknesses in the void, at least as best I could on foot.

Peter had even left a few times to rescue lost people from the void and, apparently, to continue his search for Claire’s lost bear, and I hadn’t felt in danger, though I had been careful to stay away from town and out of sight of any townspeople. But now...my fake death wouldn’t protect me anymore. “Wait. You talked with a dead man? And what ‘glow’?”

“The dead get lost, too, you know,” Claire says matter-of-factly. “And when people are ready to leave, when they’ve found what they lost, they kind of...glow. A little. It looks pretty.” She sniffs the bear and then holds him out to me. “Can you wash him? Please?”

“Uh, sure,” I say. “Like I’m-a-bride glow, or a more radioactive thing?” I think of the woman in the diner who had the odd light that clung to her. Merry, I think her name was. “When you say ‘a few aren’t happy,’ do you mean they’re actively hunting for me? Do they know where I am?”

Peter beckons me. “Found you a present, too, Goldilocks. Come on.” He trots out of the bedroom and down the hall. Swearing under my breath, I yank on jeans—a treasure that I found a few days ago, shortly after I scraped the last of the red paint off my skin—and follow him outside.

On the porch there’s a mountain bike. We’ve seen bikes before, lots of them, most with bent frames or missing wheels or rusted so they can’t move. But this one looks pristine.

He stands behind it. Proud. Nervous. Even, I think, a little fearful.

Reverently, I touch the handlebars. This...this is... A bike doesn’t need gas. A bike doesn’t need roads. A bike can take me...away. Far away. With this...I can look for a way out. Really look.

Behind me, Claire skids to a halt in the doorway. “Ooh, can I try it?”

“Lauren first.” Peter’s eyes are only on me. “She has something she needs to do.” He hands me a backpack. It’s heavy enough to have several canteens of water. I’m guessing there’s some food in there, too. “Remember, ‘Not all who wander are lost,’” he cautions. “But a hell of a lot of them are. Keep your distance from town.”

I look into his eyes and think I see hurt in there. It suddenly occurs to me that he wants me to refuse the gift, refuse what it means. He wants me to stay. But I can’t. This is my chance. Maybe it’s only a slim chance, but I feel sure in a way that I can’t explain that I can do this, find the crack in the wall, find a way out. I at least have to try.

Peter hands me a wig. It’s blond curls, like Dolly Parton. “So no one will recognize you, at least not from a distance.”

“Thanks.” I pull it on, tuck in my own hair, and then I carry the bike off the porch.

Claire trails after me, her eyes wide. “Lauren?”

I look at Claire with her wide puppylike eyes, and words stick in my throat. Kneeling, I hug her. She throws her arms around my neck. I want to reassure her, tell her I’ll be back, that I only want to explore, that it’s unlikely I’ll find a break in the dust, especially on my first trip out.

But it
could
work, and if I do find a break...

My throat and chest feel tight. I don’t want to miss Claire. Or Peter. I wasn’t supposed to care about either of them.

Peter leaps off the porch and lands next to us. Gently, he pries Claire out of my arms. Claire curls up against him. He strokes her hair and murmurs, “If they come back they’re yours. If they don’t they never were.”

“If you love someone, set them free.”
That’s the start of that quote. I don’t meet Peter’s eyes. I can barely meet Claire’s. She’s imprinted on me like a duckling. Except for sleep and showers, she hasn’t left my side. She’s like the little sister I never had. How can I just leave her? And Peter... “Most likely, I’ll be back in a couple hours.”

“Most likely,” he repeats.

I don’t know what else to say. I shouldn’t care so much. Mom is waiting for me and Peter and Claire...they are nearly strangers. Except that they don’t feel like strangers at all.

Feeling stiff, as if my muscles are unwilling, I climb onto the bike and start to pedal. The paper clips and buttons and bottlecaps crunch under the tires. I ride out of the yard and turn to head into the desert, toward the dust that imprisons Lost. I don’t look back.

As I pedal, I force myself not to think about the look on Claire’s face or in Peter’s eyes and instead think about the last time I rode a bike. A couple years ago, Mom had gotten it into her head that a family reunion would be spiffy, and so she’d set up a weekend getaway by a lake in Oregon. I was forced on several hikes and bike rides with my cousins, all of whom were so very enthusiastic about my potential to climb the corporate ladder now that I had a job as a marketing and PR assistant at a consulting firm—my first wise career move, they said. Never mind that I was the assistant to the assistant. Or that I hated it. And them. I nearly quit my job after that weekend. But Mom caught a stomach flu, and since her immune system was crap... And, well, I hated the hikes, but the bike rides were the best part of the weekend. No one tried to talk to me on the bike rides. Everyone was too focused on not hitting a root in the woods and flying over the handlebars to either criticize or compliment my life choices. I could admire the greens and browns of Oregon in peace.

Composed of opposite colors, the desert is equally beautiful. The sky is lemon-yellow, and the sun caresses the dirt and rocks, causing the mica in the rocks to glitter like diamond shards and the red clay to look like flecks of rubies. Lost objects litter the desert floor like old bones: socks, keys, phones, wallets, glasses, pens, books, magazines, dentures, umbrellas, hair clips, spoons, scissors. And I feel optimistic for the first time in days. As I ride, I let myself think about home, about Mom, about life without hiding or scavenging. Without Peter and Claire.

Peter and Claire will be fine without me. They’ll forget me soon and live their own lives, and I’ll live mine, and this will all fade into a dreamlike memory. Missing them will only hurt for a little while. Not as badly as missing Mom.

Ahead is the void. It rises in front of me, a wall of dust.

I slow, and then I turn to ride alongside it—the town to my left, the void to my right. After a while, I see a shape ahead of me, like a boulder, a few yards away from the motionless dust storm. It’s an abandoned car, a convertible. Reaching it, I slow, then dismount.

I check the ignition—no keys.

I check the glove compartment—nothing but registration, insurance, and a wad of napkins from a fast-food restaurant. Also a tire gauge. For an instant, I consider keeping the gauge, but I don’t have a tire pump so it’s pointless. I shove it back in the glove compartment, and I pop the trunk.

Beach chairs, useless.

Beach towels... I stuff one in my backpack.

Suntan lotion, nearly full. Brilliant find!

Sandwich, great. Bag of pretzels, okay. Soda can...
I’ll save it for Claire,
I think.
She’ll love the treat.
And then I remember that I’m leaving. If I’m lucky. If this works.

I feel a pang and try to stifle it quickly.

I close the trunk when I finish, and it occurs to me that I scavenged this car without hesitation. Elsewhere, my actions would be considered theft. I hope I can shed this charming new habit quickly once I’m home. Otherwise, Mom might be embarrassed at how often the police have to haul me in for petty larceny.

I try to imagine how I’ll explain this place to Mom and what her reaction will be. She might laugh. Or think I’ve lost my mind. Lost my mind in Lost. Hah. Maybe she’ll think it’s a joke. Or a lie. I hate the idea that she’ll think I’m lying to her.

As I smear the suntan lotion on my face and arms, I notice that the dust bank covers half the hood of the car. Odd. I’d thought the car was parked several feet away from the void. Backing away from the void, I climb on my bike.

Peter said to treat it like quicksand, or a black hole. Only a Finder or a Missing Man can enter the void without danger. If he hadn’t found me after my car ran out of gas... Without a Finder, an ordinary person like me will disintegrate inside the void. Fade away and never return. But if I can find the end of the dust storm, I can bypass it and escape. If I can even find a thin spot, I can punch through the storm to the other side. Pedaling, I ride parallel to the void, watching the dust for any weakness.

Soon after the car, the void undulates like a wave beside me, and I slow down. In one area, the dust swirls and bubbles. It looks like a whirlpool in the middle of a red lake. I watch as the void forms a funnel and shoots out several golf balls and a hat. They impact in the sand a few yards in front of me. I stare at the balls and hat. I stare at the void. It’s calm again. The moment would have been comical if it weren’t so freakishly bizarre.

I see the phenomenon happen several more times as I ride on, keeping several yards between me and the dust storm. Some of the objects sail far over my head, as if propelled by a rocket. Some crash in front of me. As the sun inches across the sky, I dodge objects in my path: a box of coats, a few cameras, an ice skate, a dead fish that’s as long as my arm.

Up ahead, the dust thickens again. It swirls, and then the whirlpool widens. In the center it’s black. The swirl expands, wider than any I’ve seen so far. I stop cycling. I wonder if I should retreat. It’s spinning faster and faster. It sucks back—and then the void expels a house. It flies over my head, and I instinctively duck. It crashes to the ground.

It’s a Cape house, and it looks abandoned. I know I should search it, scavenge for whatever has been left inside. But I can’t make myself move. I stare at it and think,
I’m not simply in a town with crazy people. I’m in a crazy town that has made people crazy.

Shaken, I keep riding. Nowhere does the void seem weak or thin. It maintains the same opaque thickness as I circle the town. If anything, it’s thicker than I thought it was. And scarier. A hell of a lot scarier. I keep my eye on it, aware now that if it wanted or even if it didn’t, it could drop a house on me and then ding-dong, Lauren is dead.

It doesn’t end. It surrounds the entire town and the outskirts. Like a wall. Like a fence. Like a noose.

It takes me the entire day to circumnavigate the town of Lost. By the time I reach the abandoned convertible again, the sun is sinking, and my legs hurt worse than they ever have before. Half of the car is swallowed by the dust, covering the hood and windshield, as well as the dashboard. I dismount and walk the stretch from the edge of the void back to the little yellow house, walking the mountain bike beside me.

I wish I were brave enough to pedal into the dust. I wish I thought that Peter was lying about the danger, that I hadn’t been merely lucky before, that I could ride out of here, even though I’d failed to drive out. But I don’t think he was lying. I can’t pretend this is an ordinary dust storm, not anymore. And I can’t pretend there’s a way out.

Claire and Peter are waiting for me on the porch.

I lean the bike against the house, and then think better of it and take it into the living room. I put the kickstand down so it stands behind the couch.

“Did you—” Claire begins.

I turn to see Peter has put his hand over her mouth. His eyes are full of sympathy.

“At what point will this place drive me mad?” I am surprised by how calm my voice sounds. I would have thought I’d be more dramatic at the moment that I admit that I am truly trapped by some...impossible phenomenon, that this isn’t a temporary problem, that I don’t have a plan and don’t even have a plan to have a plan. There’s no crack in the void, no break in the dust, no way out. I should be wailing. Gnashing teeth. Tearing out hair. But I just feel empty inside.

They don’t answer, and I don’t expect them to. Maybe they would have told me the dust surrounds the whole town if I’d asked, if I’d wanted to hear. I’d deluded myself. Hope blinded me.

I walk past them both and up the stairs into the empty attic room.

I hear footsteps on the stairs, both heavy and light. I don’t turn around. Something soft is pressed into my hands. I look down. It’s Mr. Rabbit. Claire sits next to me and hugs her knees to her chest. Peter sits on the opposite side.

“We’re all mad here,” Peter says.

“I noticed,” I say.

“But we aren’t what’s keeping you here.”

“Is that why you gave me the bike? So I’d see that?”

“We aren’t your jailers.”

“I knew that before. Really didn’t need the object lesson.”

“You...you don’t blame me?” He sounds tentative, oddly vulnerable.

“Should I? Anything you aren’t telling me?” I look at him, his perfect chiseled face and his beautiful black eyes, his mysterious tattoos and his ever-present black trench coat. If I’d left, I’d have missed him. He walked out of that dust storm and into my life, into my heart. Knowing this doesn’t make my failure any easier.