The Lost Ones

by Sheena Kamal

  After I’ve been walking for about fifteen minutes, a woman pulls over in her tiny Volvo with an ocean kayak on her roof rack and shouts, “Get in!” through the passenger window. I’m not stupid, I know that her being a woman doesn’t make it any more safe to be near her, but she’s clearly from around these parts and I need some guidance. I climb inside the car, which is strewn with takeout containers. The woman is somewhere shy of forty, so my age, but she is in far better shape, dresses nicer than you’d expect from the disreputable state of her car, and seems, on the whole, to be a blond, shaggy-haired west coast girl with a sunny smile.

  “Hiya,” she says. “Going into town?”

  “Yup. I’m looking for a very rich man.”

  She laughs, which almost sends the car into the trees. Are there no straight roads in this place? “You don’t seem the type,” she says, after wrangling the car back onto the road.

  “Is it my clothes?”

  “Something like that. But good luck anyway, sweetie. If the big game is what you’re after you should try back in the summer. Right now all we have is us townsfolk, the local First Nations community, and the resident hippies. There are a couple of mansions up this way, though.”

  “Really? I’d like to see them.”

  “Just follow the coastline. Just like they do everywhere, the rich folk live up in them big houses with floor-to-ceiling windows, facing out onto the water. Just take your pick and you’ll find some loaded guys, if they’re here for the winter. Some of them actually do come down to watch the storms.”

  “Storm watching.” I feel a secret thrill at the idea. Storm watching seems right up my alley. I wonder what Whisper would think of it, but banish the thought. When you give someone away, you can’t do it in half measures. That’s not fair.

  “Oh, they love that kind of thing. They might be too old for you, though,” she says, glancing over at me. With my hood up, it’s almost impossible to tell my age. “I mean, those rich guys.”

  “I don’t mind.” This comes out much too glib, like I do this all the time, hitchhike in loose-fitting secondhand clothing to exotic locales searching for rich men to seduce. We both know that despite my indeterminable age I’m far too old for that game. We spend the next five minutes without speaking and then she drops me off in the co-op grocery store parking lot, just past the main commercial center of the town. The town is composed of a few streets with coffee shops and tourist traps, on a hill overlooking the harbor.

  “You’ll be all right?” she says absently, her mind already somewhere far away from me.

  “Sure. Just point me to the mansions.”

  She laughs, not realizing that this is a legitimate request on my part. “Good luck with your search. Hope you find what you’re looking for . . . and hey, if you’ve got two rich dudes and you want to pass one along my way, just let me know.”

  At the store I pick up a dark green tarp, a few extra pairs of socks, heavy galoshes, and several of the free community newsletters on my way out. Outside, I hunch into myself and stare across the street at the dock. It is pretty, painted in red and yellow, but seems too busy a place for wealthy people who want a luxury west coast view.

  I try to think like a rich asshole who kidnaps young girls for their blood. It’s not as hard as you might imagine.

  What would I want from a place like this? If it was a city, I’d want to be right in the center of the mix, where all the people are, so I could show them how much better I am and how much more I have. But we’re not in a city; we’re in a town situated by ancestral lands. A town where tourists come and go. And nobody wants to mix with tourists unless it’s to take their money. So privacy is what I’d be after, privacy and a view that is mine and no one else’s.

  If I was rich and wanted to buy property in this place, that would be my number one criterion.

  4

  Nothing could be more indifferent to the caprices of human endeavor than the tides. Don’t get me wrong—we can do a lot. We can move mountains if we really want to, or just blow them up, frack them, dislodge their innards, and ship their lifeblood down to the coast to open up new markets like the good little capitalists we have become, but no matter what we do, we don’t have anything on the moon.

  What do you mean you need to get somewhere at a certain time, traveling by boat? I don’t think so. You would like to take a walk along the coast without waves crashing against the rocks and whipping you off your feet? Maybe not. Sometimes, just sometimes, the indifference works in your favor.

  I have spent the past several hours in a heavy rain jacket and galoshes, hiking the coastline, looking up at the glassed-in enclaves of the wealthy that crop up every now and then. I imagine what it must be like to come from a place like Hong Kong to here, where the silence itself is so complete that the sound of the waves at high tide seems like an intrusion. What it would be like to move from a place where seven million people are stuffed every which way into just over four hundred square miles to here, where you can walk for hours and not meet a single soul. To be Ray Zhang.

  The rain has been falling throughout the day, but I’ve been lucky that the tide has been out for most of my walk. It’s just starting to come in when I arrive at the southern tip of the peninsula. On a narrow stretch of beach strewn with driftwood and the bulbous remnants of bullwhip kelp, I look up to see a house that is all glass facing outward to the ocean. Dusk is about to fall and there is a single light on in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Through a gap in the billowing white curtain, I see two naked people locked in an embrace. I stare, as I usually do when confronted by people having sex, but this time it is not out of a perverse interest.

  I have finally found the house I’ve been searching for.

  The room is dimly lit, but the sun is setting so quickly that the single lamp in the far corner might as well be a spotlight. I would know Dao’s shaved head anywhere. Jia has let her heavy dark hair down and it cascades over one shoulder. He towers over her and for a brief, breathless moment it looks as though she is in pain, but then she smiles. Both of their faces are visible to me, but they are lit and I am not so they don’t see me crouched near the edges of the rocks.

  It’s only after I’ve been watching for a good minute that I notice that along the covered walkway leading to the house from the beach, there is an old man in a wheelchair facing out toward the ocean. He is wrapped in a blanket. Looking at me. Then his look skips past me to the direction that I just came from and at first I think it’s his way of telling me to get lost. But no, he is staring from me to that place intensely. His eyes go back and forth, back and forth, like the movement of a typewriter. I’m missing something here. Jia and Dao disappear from view. Somewhere behind the curtain they have taken each other to bed. I wonder where Jia’s husband is. Because how else to explain Dao’s presence? Where the hell is he while his wife is fucking the help?

  The figure in the wheelchair is still staring at me. There’s something unnerving about his watchfulness. I sense that there is little out here that he doesn’t see. The tide reaches my feet and I can no longer crouch here waiting for something more to happen. I either take the path that leads from the private beach and into the mansion’s grounds, or I go back the way I came.

  After a brief hesitation, I retreat over the rocks and hike for several minutes before I get to the closest property to the Zhangs’. It is not nearly as big, but the view is still spectacular and there is a narrow dock jutting out into the water. This house is done in refurbished driftwood and is somewhat larger than a cottage. Outside is a shed with a window. Through the dirty glass pane I see two sea kayaks stored in a space large enough for three. I imagine a teenage girl slipping through this window.

  There’s only one way to know for certain and, after my first attempt to wedge myself through, it turns out that the small window is not so small after all, but it can be managed. The sun sets completely and rain batters the shed. I am so tired that, now that I have a roof over my head, it’s impossible to move a
ny farther today. I recline across one of the sea kayaks and discover that there is a compartment inside that is filled with bottled water and an emergency food supply of dehydrated snacks. I pull a blanket from my pack and mull over this discovery.

  And wonder if the old man in the wheelchair wanted me to find this shed.

  Just before I fall asleep, I chase the water with a shot of vodka. Just a little bit. Just enough to keep me going. Out of morbid curiosity, I turn on my phone. There are messages from Seb and Leo and one from Brazuca. He doesn’t say anything in the message, but I can feel the weight of his silence. I think about the brief moments that I’d felt like he was a friend, back at the luxury resort in the mountains, and I feel the shame build up inside.

  As tired as I am, I don’t sleep for very long. The ocean is too near for me to relax. There is no sticky railing protecting me from it here. No barrier to keep the cold surf away and no way to tell if the dark current from Japan is doing its job. I dream about a tree the size of a building with many glass windows set into its trunk, windows roughly the size and shape of the one that looks into the kayak shed. A breeze rustles the branches of the tree, setting the open windows banging against the bark. The door to the tree hangs open and as I stand in front of it, I try to peer in without having to enter. From what I can tell, there is nothing inside. A great wind blows, setting the windows swinging again, this time so hard that they all shatter and the glass rains down on me. I wake then and feel the cuts of many shards of glass all over my body before I remember where I am and what has brought me here.

  Just before dawn, when the sea is so quiet that hardly a wave can be seen, I push one of the tiny, lightweight sea kayaks out of the shed and launch it from the docks. As I paddle away, using a technique that I once witnessed on a nightly news program, I hope that Bonnie was as terrified and addled as I think she must have been. An idea has taken hold of me, and it has been a difficult one to banish. I have spent most of the night thinking of what she would do in this situation. Would she stay near the house, would she try to find some reprieve on land? I know that I wouldn’t. Even my discomfort with the ocean would urge me to take the route that would be the last option they’d think of. If I would choose the sea, then there is a chance that she might have also. Maybe there’s some of me in her after all. If they, with all of their money and muscle-bound security operatives, could not find her on land, then there is a good chance she’s not there to be found. Because she is my daughter.

  Between you, me, and the two huge boulders I pass through on my way to the dock, I am also avoiding something that I have been dreading since I got off the goddamn ferry. Going back to the sea has become inevitable. This region is home to many tiny refuges, small islands that provide shelter to the wildlife on this coast. I hold on to the hope that Bonnie has found one.

  5

  The mist rolls over the sea, obscuring everything in sight. It moved in so quickly that I haven’t had time to turn back. I can barely see beyond the front of the kayak, never mind the little islands that dot the coast. In winter, which we are at the tail end of, the storms rise and these islands are completely battered by giant swells, eroded by heavy slashing rain.

  I paddle in the direction of the island that I spotted before the fog creeping over the water snuck up on me. The nearest one to the docks I left behind. As I get closer, I see the entrance to a tiny cove. And I can’t help but wonder at this feeling inside, telling me that Bonnie might have seen this, too. That she might have pulled her stolen canoe up to this rocky shore and then pushed it out to sea again. That she might have felt some measure of safety here in the wilderness. I imagine that no wolves or bears live on this isolated patch of land, since it’s much too small to support their food sources, but there is always the risk that they will swim across to take a sniff.

  I search the island for signs of a struggle, indications of violence. I find none of these things, but I do see a big tree and my dream comes back to me.

  In old growth forests you can find red cedars that are as thick as a cluster of people and high as buildings. An old tree sometimes loses its guts . . . literally. Life hollows it out so that even the smallest opening on the outside leads into a wood-paneled cavern. There are three hollowed-out trees on this island. I search all of them and in the last one I find a strip of bloody fabric, a few food wrappers, and a single trail of adult-size footprints outside, leading away from the tree and back toward the shore. Left here in haste.

  I’m too late. And now there is only one thing left to do. One place left to go.

  6

  For the most part, the deer that live in the forest around the Zhang property are benign. They are used to the prevalence of humans in this town and though a few of them startle at my continued presence in the bushes, they eventually remember that they’re herbivores and get over it. I huddle along the tree line, wrapped in my tarp, with balled-up pages from the community newsletters stuffed into my clothes for insulation, and try to ignore their stares. It’s a true rain forest here, and the temperature is milder than it is on the mainland. Even though it’s winter and even though the storms are fierce, it hardly ever dips below zero. And it smells like trees, which I’m beginning to get accustomed to.

  The rear of the house, facing out to the beach, can’t be watched during the day because of the floor-to-ceiling windows, but the property is a good deal more private from the front, where trees close in from both sides. There is a small gap where I can keep an eye on the driveway. I see no sign of Bonnie but that doesn’t mean she’s not in there.

  I’ve been watching for several hours now, but there has been precious little to see. A midnight blue SUV pulled into the drive earlier this morning, but hasn’t emerged since. Only Dao and Jia seem to come and go as they please. Dao appears to be the only security they have here, but that could be because he’s a multifunctional security operative. Security, sex, and who knows what else. There’s a cleaner who comes around midmorning and doesn’t leave until early afternoon. Just before dinnertime, Dao and Jia get into a shiny gunmetal 4x4, washed and detailed to gleaming sheen, presumably with the tears of teenage girls, and leave.

  I don’t know how long I have, but I enter the property by circling around the surrounding trees. They didn’t fence their property line, they can’t fence off the beach, after all, so it’s not difficult to get closer. The side door is locked but the back door off the porch isn’t and I take a moment here because I know what this means. Someone is inside with the old man. I don’t dwell on who the someone is because, who am I kidding, I already know.

  It all seems far too easy, but maybe I’m finally cashing in the lottery ticket that I’ve been waiting for my whole life. Maybe, just maybe, the universe has come around and decided to be in my favor this time. But just in case it isn’t, I pull out the tire iron from my pack. I’ve kept it because there’s comfort in this weapon, a reminder that my first instinct is usually the best and, besides, it’s useful. Should I happen across a stranded motorist or something.

  The mansion is quiet as I step inside. The back door closes behind me without a sound, gliding on oiled hinges. I take a moment to listen carefully anyway. Maybe the old man and his keeper are taking a nap.

  I play what-if again, and why not? Speculation has gotten me this far. If I intended to kidnap and trap a girl, where would I put her? Not somewhere that a glass wall could look into, certainly. I go deeper into the house, toward the front. Everything here, all the furnishings, all of the art, is simple and elegant; purely west coast, lovingly added as an homage to the region. I can’t shake the thought that this home isn’t for someone who’d want to mine it. There’s nothing extravagant here, nothing showy. This is the home of someone who loves this part of the world. I force myself to focus. I’m not here to examine their interior decor. I’m here to find the girl.

  Or whatever is left of her, says a nasty little voice in my head.

  There are still far too many windows in this place, so I try doors,
opening and closing them as quietly as I can until I find the one leading down a set of driftwood stairs, fashioned into smooth planks, and into the basement. Along a dark hallway I find more doors. This begins to feel like a nightmare. The rooms down here are mostly empty but for cleaning supplies and an assortment of medical equipment that I couldn’t name for the life of me.

  I can hear nothing but the drumming of my own heartbeat and my footsteps on the floor. I think about removing my shoes to remain quiet, but decide to keep them on in case I need to make a quick exit. I reach the last room at the end of the hallway. The first thing I notice is that it locks from the outside. There’s only one reason for that. Inside the room I find a small cot, a blood pressure and heart rate monitor, and an IV stand. The room is more sterile than the others and nothing here seems discarded or simply for storage. No, the contents of this room were put here for a specific purpose. There is a dark stain on the hardwood floor by the cot.

  I put my pack down to keep the door from swinging shut behind me and squat next to it. The rust color confirms my suspicions. It’s blood—and I would bet the few dollars remaining in my bank account that this blood belongs to Bonnie. I touch my hand to it and hope that she didn’t suffer to give it, but that’s stupid because of course she suffered. We wouldn’t be in this mess otherwise.

  From my position on the ground I see a slim book shoved under the bed. When I pull it out, I find that it’s the diary of a teenage girl. Until now it has been pure conjecture that she would be here and now my suspicions are confirmed. Years of ingrained snooping encourage me to open it and skim the first page.

  So, Mandy is a bitch. She borrowed my purple hoodie. She’s probably never gonna return in, but if she does, it’ll be so stretched that I’ll just have to give it away, anyway. God.