Foreverland Is Dead

by Tony Bertauski

Something drifts over the garden. Snowflakes are falling. Cyn feels them inside her, cold and drifting.

  What the hell is this place?

  “We’ve got names, too,” Kat says. “How can we go forward if we don’t look back?”

  “What if the memories drag you down?” Cyn says to the window. “Trap you in your past?”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Really?”

  “Better than this. You said so yourself, just before you hiked off. You said it’s better to take a chance, to explore, than sit around waiting to die. You said that, Cyn. You regretting it?”

  Cyn presses her forehead to the cold window, snow spitting on the ground and resting on the brown grass. She involuntarily claws the windowsill. She can’t fight this, not the way she beat Roc.

  Can’t hide from it, either.

  Her throat knots up. The sadness just won’t go down this time.

  “You want to remember?” she asks.

  They agree.

  “I was raped,” she says. “My stepfather did it until I was ten. What if that happened to you? You want to remember that?”

  She closes her eyes, swallowing.

  “That’s not your fault,” Jen says.

  “That ain’t you now,” Kat says. “I know you, Cyn. You ain’t memories.”

  “But they’re in me now. I did bad things—you saw what I did out there.”

  She points to the garden.

  “I remember what I’ve done. I’m no better than Roc.”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  “And neither are any of you.” Warmth dissipates. “You’re just as bad, and that’s why you’re here. That’s why we’re all here. This is Hell, and we’re paying for what we’ve done.”

  “You don’t know that,” Jen says. “You don’t know that.”

  “Those memories might not even be real,” Kat says. “Maybe they’re not even yours.”

  “You think I can just remember to fight and do that to Roc? No, that was me out there, and you know it.”

  “None of this makes any sense. This whole place is playing tricks on us; maybe those things you think you remember are fake. They’re just thoughts.”

  “No. They’re real.”

  “Yeah, and you know what? I don’t care,” Mad says. “You came back and saved us from Roc, so if you’re some evil demon, then I’m on your side. We need you.”

  Cyn shakes her head. Her heart is beating in her throat now.

  “I want to remember,” Kat says. “It ain’t your decision to make, either. If you think those memories are real, then I want to know. I want to understand. Even if bad things happened to me, they’re still part of me.”

  “Me, too,” Mad says.

  “Me, too,” Jen adds.

  Cyn nods at nothing in particular. She licks her lips, which are suddenly dry. Her hands are no longer shaking. She stares out the window again. Snow is already dusting the ground and the brick house’s roof.

  “When I can wear boots again, we’ll go out there. You can get your memories. Just remember what I said: you don’t want them.”

  Another long pause. The chairs slide out, plates scratch across the table. Mad begins cleaning up in the kitchen. Kat goes out the front door.

  And the snow continues.

  27

  Steam rises from the bowl.

  Miranda blows across the broth, mouth watering. She made herself wait until late in the afternoon to have lunch. She’s been eating five meals every day, and it’s time for some self-control.

  Down to three meals. Plus two snacks.

  She wraps a blanket over her shoulders and continues to blow on the soup. The monitors are blank. Several cups and wrappers are scattered on the countertop. She sits in the chair, careful not to spill the soup. She taps the spacebar, lighting up the monitors.

  She navigates the main screen while the soup cools. The first pop-up box asks: Deactivate Security?

  The cursor moves over ‘YES’ and stops on ‘NO’.

  Click.

  It’s easier that way.

  Since the brick house was shuttered, the girls stopped asking for food. They don’t know if she would open the door or not. And now that she’s learned to work the cameras, being inside the brick house is almost as good as being out there.

  Without actually being out there.

  The bunkhouse shows up on the big monitor. It’s empty except for the bed in the back corner. No one hangs around the bunkhouse anymore, not with Roc tied up. Miranda missed what happened, just woke up and Roc was cursing from her bed and Cyn was out back chopping wood.

  Miranda scrolls the mouse-wheel and the view zooms in on Roc. Asleep again. Mouth open. The swelling has gone down, but that front tooth is definitely brown, killed at the root.

  If only I could’ve seen that.

  At some point, Mad will drop some food within reaching distance. Roc already looks gaunt.

  Miranda slurps a spoonful and cycles through the cameras. The dinner house is empty. Kat is in the barn, shoveling crap out of the stall. I don’t miss that. The unmistakable thumping of an axe is near the barn.

  Cyn is swinging it. That’s all she does. Her feet are wrapped in thick wads of cloth that often hang off the ends of her toes like loose socks. Miranda wasn’t sure why she’s doing that, especially with an inch of snow everywhere.

  The garden is dead, so Jen helps drag wood out of the woods and stacks it after Cyn has split it into stove-size chunks. They’ll have enough to burn for three winters.

  Miranda eats a few bites of soup, clicks over to the last camera view.

  The old woman.

  Not as shocking as the first time, but still creepy. Sometimes there’s a blanket over her, sometimes she appears to have adjusted her weight, but she’s always lying down, eyes closed. She must be awake sometimes, but Miranda never sees it.

  For a while she thought the old woman might be in the very back room, behind the locked door. But she decided against that. The old woman wasn’t dead. Her nostrils flare, her chest moves up and down. Very much alive, very much asleep.

  She’s in the woods, in a small cabin. No doubt. She wants to tell the girls, but then they’d ask for food. Miranda likes things the way they are. Besides, the old woman is out there.

  Miranda is safe.

  She slides the bowl onto the desktop, goes to the kitchen. She counts out ten crackers and heats up a cup of tea, returns to the back room. The monitors are now cycling through the views of the countryside. She doesn’t need the binoculars anymore; the cameras have excellent zooming capacity as well as night vision. She could see gnats humping on a log if she wanted.

  She crushes up half the crackers, stirs them into the broth, and eats them before they’re too soft. She’s scooping out the noodles—

  Something moves.

  She taps the keyboard, backing up to the last view.

  There.

  There’s an unnatural color in the meadow. In a landscape of browns and greens, something bright red and yellow is approaching.

  She scrolls the wheel.

  Zooms in.

  Can’t be.

  She’s hallucinating, has to be. Maybe the tea has peyote or the crackers are laced with LSD or—

  “Cyn!” Jen’s voice calls from behind the barn.

  She sees it, too.

  28

  The thin layer of snow is more sloppy than frozen. Cyn’s feet slosh in mud. She can’t feel much. She’ll go inside, warm up. Just one more swing.

  She’s said that ten times. One more swing.

  With the log balanced and pointing at the sky, she swings—

  “Cyn!” Jen shouts.

  The axe ricochets, buries the blade in the ground.

  “Look!”

  Cyn wipes her eyes, the sweat smudging the landscape. Something’s in the barren meadow, like wildflowers. She lets go of the axe, continues walking and wiping.

  Kat comes out the barn, drops the brush in the snow.

&n
bsp; Jen is running.

  Cyn blinks her vision into focus. She’s not sure what she’s seeing. It can’t be. It just can’t…

  She starts running, too.

  Her legs are like cold stumps. She feels the skin splitting on her heels but powers through the pain, into the meadow, toward the brightly clothed people staggering across the field.

  One of them collapses. The other stumbles forward aimlessly, falls to his knees.

  Jen drops down next to the man on the ground, putting her arm around him. Cyn puts her hands on her knees, ignoring the pain cutting through her feet, biting deep into her bones.

  She touches the old man on the ground.

  They’re real.

  Jen turns him over, puts his head in her lap. His receding gray hair exposes most of his scalp. His cheeks are pale, lips blue. Teeth chattering uncontrollably.

  “Get him into the bunkhouse,” Cyn says. “Wrap him in blankets.”

  He’s dressed for the beach: a bright red shirt with yellow flowers, white shorts smudged with dirt. His arms and legs are covered in scratches, the worst on the top of his head, blood trickling down to his chin. They sit him up. The old man doesn’t see anything. He’s staring off into nothing, just trying to breathe.

  “We’re picking you up,” Jen says. “Can you help?”

  He doesn’t respond. Kat and Jen wrestle him to his feet; heave his arms over their shoulders. He flops along with them, his breath heaving in and out.

  Cyn leans over the teenage boy. He’s taller than her, about her age, and isn’t dressed any better than the old man: just a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.

  “Can you walk?” she asks.

  He’s staring at the ground, mouth hanging open. Daydreaming. Or so far into pain, he’s receded to the safety in his mind.

  “Come on.” Cyn hooks her arms under his armpits. He doesn’t help and she can’t lift him.

  “Hey!” She slaps him. “Wake up!”

  It shocks him back to the present moment. His shaggy hair falls over his eyes, but he looks at her, sees her. His cheeks are rosy.

  “You hear?” she asks. “You need to stand and walk, you understand?”

  He nods once.

  Cyn lifts again and up he comes. His legs are scratched like the old man’s; big toe split open, the nail missing. How did they survive?

  She puts his arm over her shoulder, more for guidance than support, not sure if she’s helping him walk or he’s helping her. Kat and Jen are picking up the old man, who’s stumbled face first into the ground.

  Eventually, they get inside.

  “Take these.” Mad holds two white pills in her palm. “There aren’t many left.”

  Cyn works up enough spit to swallow them dry. Her heels are screaming all the way to the top of her head. She rests on the edge of her bed, keeping the weight off her feet.

  Two beds have been pushed in front of the stove, which is stocked with flaming logs. The old man and boy hunker beneath the blankets, still dressed in dirty, wet beachwear. No one wanted to undress them.

  Kat and Jen watch them shiver.

  More mouths to feed.

  Cyn calculates the number of weeks these two just took out of their stock. If they stay, they might not make it through winter. Then again, maybe these two know something.

  Something that will get them out of here.

  “Put them in the same bed for the night,” Cyn says.

  “They barely fit,” Jen says.

  “It’s our wood, our food, and our beds. None of us are sleeping on the floor.”

  “But that’s mean—they’re hurt. I’ll sleep on the floor. Let them be comfortable.”

  “No, you’re not sleeping on the floor. They’ll be fine.”

  “They’ll share body heat,” Kat adds. “That’s what men did in the Civil War—slept together. Hell, the old man needs it.”

  The old man rolls back and forth, moaning. Jen pulls the covers back over his shoulder. The scratch over his head is caked with dried blood. He needs to be cleaned up, but at least he’s not bleeding.

  “I wish something would make sense,” Cyn mutters.

  “Why start now?” Kat says. “I’m just getting used to it.”

  “We need to find them clothes for tomorrow. If they survive the night.”

  “You want to move them into the same bed now?” Kat asks.

  “After dinner.”

  Kat tosses another log onto the fire. The old man starts rambling again. Jen kneels next him, puts her hand on his forehead, her face etched with concern.

  “Don’t…” he mutters. “Don’t leave us out here.”

  “We won’t.” Jen strokes his head. “You’re safe now. It’s all right.”

  A moan rattles his throat. More angry than pained. “I paid good money, damn you.”

  Jen looks up, confused.

  “Delirious,” Kat says. “His brain probably froze.”

  “I’m staying,” Jen says. “Can someone bring dinner to me? Maybe they’ll want to eat, too. Are you hungry?”

  The old man remains quiet.

  The boy’s eyes are still unfocused, like he sleeps without closing them.

  “They’re from the dream,” Roc says from her bed.

  The girls look at Cyn. She doesn’t say anything. She remembers the dream they’ve all been having, the one where someone’s coming out of the fog. She also remembers falling into the fence, hearing the voices beyond the cliff, like speeding apparitions on a carnival ride.

  She has the same thought: that there are people out there.

  But that’s a dream.

  And two men just walked into their lives dressed for the beach.

  29

  The old man and boy eat chicken noodle soup for breakfast, spilling broth down their Christian Dior sweaters and furry Forzieri coats. The old man is still shaking.

  They don’t talk; just eat. The boy mechanically lifts the spoon to his mouth like he’s running on autopilot, his body programmed to eat, methodically moving the spoon in timed increments.

  The old man, however, looks around after each bite, studies what he sees. He doesn’t look at the girls, as if he’s already figured them out. He’s just trying to figure out where the hell he is.

  He lifts the bowl to slurp out the last of noodles, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “My name,” he says, “is Mr. Williams.”

  “If you want to stay, you’ll have to pull your weight,” Cyn says.

  “Cyn!” Jen glares at her. “Mr. Williams, we’re just happy you’re feeling better. My name is Jen.”

  “Yes. This here is Sid.” He pats the boy on the shoulder. Sid keeps eating, one spoonful at a time. “Do the rest of you want to tell me your names?”

  Mad and Kat respond. Cyn only stares.

  “How about you?” he asks.

  Cyn nods. Finally relents. “Cyn.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyebrows rise. They’re bushy, unwieldy and wild. He looks around the room, out the window.

  “Sufficiently unpleasant here.”

  “You were expecting a beach?” Cyn says.

  “Hoping, I suppose.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Sid appears stuck, his spoon dipped in the soup. Mr. Williams nudges him. He begins eating again.

  “There something wrong with him?” Cyn asks.

  “It’s been a long trip. He’s still…adjusting.” He looks out the window. “Tell me a little bit about this place.”

  Mad comes out of the kitchen, slides a bowl in front of Mr. Williams. Steam rising from the soup. “That’s enough food,” Cyn says.

  Mr. Williams avoids looking at her. He takes a moment, looks up when his expression has softened. Smiles again.

  “If you’re annoyed,” Cyn says, “you’re welcome to give back the clothing and be on your way.”

  “Not at all, my dear.” His smile is wide enough to expose a gold molar.

  Cyn’s back stiffe
ns. She bites her words.

  “My apologies,” he says. “Please, tell me about where we are and what you’ve been doing here.”

  The girls look at each other. Cyn doesn’t know why she’s so tense. She’s afraid she’ll snap at him. Perhaps it’s watching them eat their food, the way he’s looking around, judging the room.

  “We don’t remember,” Jen finally says. “We just woke up here. We don’t know…anything.”

  Cyn stares at Jen, getting her attention. No more.

  “I see,” he says.

  “What does that mean?” Cyn says.

  “Thank you for your generosity.” He takes Sid’s bowl, pouring the remains into his bowl. “I see you are all are very hungry, and we don’t want to be an imposition. Or eat food we haven’t earned.”

  He stands up, holding the chair for support. Sid stands so that Mr. Williams can hold on to his shoulder.

  “Let an old man rest, if you don’t mind. So that I may gather my thoughts. Come along, Sidney.”

  Sid leads the way, still wearing flip-flops. Socks cover his bloodied and bruised feet. The old man stops him at the door.

  “Would you mind if we rested in separate beds?” Mr. Williams asks. “There’s not much room in one bed.”

  “During the day.” Cyn folds her arms. “Not at night.”

  Mr. Williams’s teeth are straight. His smile, hollow.

  30

  Miranda watches the girls bring the men into the bunkhouse. They sleep in separate beds next to the stove until night, then the girls shove the younger one in the same bed with the old man. They barely fit, but they seem too exhausted to care.

  She zooms the camera, but their faces are buried in the blankets. They hardly move.

  Miranda wakes the next morning in the back room, curled up on the office chair and wrapped in a blanket. The bunkhouse is empty except for Roc, who is waiting for someone to bring her breakfast.

  Miranda doesn’t bother with breakfast or tea. She flips through the cameras, finds everyone except Roc in the dinner house. The men are dressed like women. They were dressed like cruise ship tourists before that. How did they even survive?

  The boy is strange. He’s skinny and tall, would be cute if he wasn’t so zombie-ish. She zooms in on his face. He’s yet to really look at anything. Hasn’t smiled or frowned or anything. Not even sure if he knows he’s hungry and cold.