The Two That Remained

by Mauldin, J Fitzpatrick

  Chapter 37

  There came a gust of wind, a crack, and a tree limb, thick as a body builder’s arm, crashed onto the Sharpe’s back porch, landing inches from Ryan’s upturned face. The bang of impact, accompanied by the caress of scratchy green oak leaves against his cheek, forced him bolt-upright, branch catching him in the throat as he threw it away.

  He immediately regretted opening his eyes. The air was cool and spit was running down the side of his face. The day was young, the sky clear and blue, far too bright for his alcohol-poisoned senses. He rubbed his neck and dusted off his loose collared shirt and jeans, took a look at where the brittle limb had snapped from, and went inside.

  “Fuck,” he growled. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” His clothes were sticky with dew. The world throbbed. He’d passed out on the back porch. What an upstanding dad thing to do.

  The door to the kitchen squeaked. He started making coffee with autonomous grace. He called back through the house. “Emme? Wake up, Emme.” The Coleman stove whooshed to life, a fresh pot of water starting to warm. “Emme?” he called again, this time leaning out towards the hall. He washed his hands with soap, wiped them clean with a dish towel, tossing it back on the granite countertop in a rolled up wad.

  “Time to get up, Emme. Want some eat eat?”

  He set a clean French Press out on the counter, poured three tablespoons of ground coffee into it, and waited on the water to boil.

  “Come on, baby. Let’s get up,” he called again. “Oh, for Heaven’s sake.”

  Halfway down the front hall, he froze. The front door was cracked. Golden morning light spilled back through the breach in a diagonal line.

  He exploded into the fancy bedroom on the right.

  “Emme. Hey, Emily, where are you?” The bed was empty, sheets thrown back to reveal a toddler-sized impression in the cream colored fabric. “Don’t play games with me, baby. Emily Grace Sharpe, where are you?” His heart was now jackhammering in his chest. Each time the cardiac muscles thumped, it sent a ribbon of rusty pain into the front of his brain. “This isn’t funny. No hide and seek. Come out now, you’re scaring Daddy.”

  Ryan closed the front door and rushed upstairs. The baby gate was open. Emily’s room was empty. The bathroom was empty. The office was empty. He checked downstairs again. The master bedroom was empty. The other two bathrooms? Empty. Garage? Empty. Back at the front door he realized the blue Mickey Mouse sandals she’d fallen in love with this week were gone. He shouted her name repeatedly, the walls of their empty home returning his disquiet.

  “Oh, shit.” His sweaty hands shook. His stomach was freefalling into a bottomless black pit, trapped in a lightless elevator made of blurring confusion. He couldn’t remember where he was or how he’d gotten there, despite knowing the location of every nail which held this place together.

  A father’s worst nightmare. Emily was missing.

  With a stumbling haste, he collected his boots and threw on his backpack. In less than a minute he was bolting out the front door armed with a machete in one hand, the demon pistol tucked in his belt.

  Why had she left the house? Hadn’t he locked the door? Did someone break in and take her? Questions whirled in the tempest of his mind as he spun, senses reached out.

  “Emme!” he shouted from the front stoop, working his way around the house. Was it because he’d fallen asleep on the back porch and she had come looking for him but couldn’t find him? “Emme! Come to Daddy’s voice! Come on, baby!” His words were choked by the thick forest of white ash and pin oak trees his street had become. He knew in his heart this was why he still slept in the same bed as her. He couldn’t let her out of his sight or she might just evaporate. And the one time he had, she’d vanished.

  What if she wasn’t even real? What if she’d been dead along with everyone else? He could easily prove his own existence, but hers? This did nothing to ease his mounting madness.

  “Left or right. Where do I go first?” As he mulled that decision over he ran to the Marinoffs’ house, searching the perimeter of the property, then checked Karen’s front and side yards, desperate to find any sign of her. Anything at all. He wished he knew a damn thing about tracking, but his only knowledge came from reading fantasy novels. They hadn’t covered it in his Boy Scout troop.

  He inspected the ground for some sort of trail. All he saw was an uneven plane of natural debris and underbrush. No matter where he fixed his attention it all looked the same. His emotions were so out of control he needed a way to calm himself. He had to be objective and clear-minded.

  The wisdom of Dory from “Finding Nemo” set heavy on his lips: Just keep looking. Just keep looking.

  He shouted again, his voice cracking, “Emme! Where are you?” A flock of blackbirds took flight, spraying water droplets onto his shoulders. He followed his instincts and took off to the right, alternately telling himself to just keep searching, and screaming her name.

  Something rustled in the new forest canopy. Bizarre, throaty sounds emitted from its creator. He gripped the machete’s handle tighter.

  “Emme!” he screamed and tried to summon up something to sing. Maybe he could call her like that. Maybe if he sang “Let It Go” loud enough she would come running and tell him to shut up.

  One house after the next, he systematically checked their yards just as he had his neighbors. He dug under overgrown bushes, pulled back fallen tree limbs, looked for imprints in the soft ground and, as cliché as it might have been, sought out torn bits of fabric from her night night. Emily was so light he feared she might not leave much of any sign in her wake. He was panicked and desperate without the ability to call the police, to call anyone for help. He screamed ever louder, his throat vibrating with moldy agony, his head locked in a vice.

  If he found only her twisted body he didn’t think he could survive.

  “Emily! Where are you? Where the hell are you! This isn’t funny!” Anger, unfocused and wild, gathered around him in a roiling pall. He almost hoped a person was to blame, then he would have the opportunity to beat the ever-loving shit out of them to get his daughter back. It was easier that way.

  He swallowed. Peered up at the sun. Back to the empty street. Leaves blowing lazily in the cool breeze.

  A hopeless, dizzy feeling took the place of his furious nimbus. He stumbled onward, glaring ahead. Something caught his eye. He took off in a sprint, tripping over fallen limbs and wet tracts of rotten leaves. He slid up beside the object like Stan Musial rocketing in to home plate, painting jeans down one side with black and brown compost.

  “Bullwhip Barbie,” he mused, holding the doll up in the dappled light that pierced the canopy. He was on the trail.

  He flipped the doll over to reveal hair covered in dried blood.

  A dozen houses blurred past, Ryan checking each of their yards like an addict looking for crack. He was going to find her no matter where she was. Six lots were checked. He looked in the back of a truck full of dirt. He looked under a series of compact cars, behind a motor cycle. Nothing. The skeletons in view cheered him on. One of them, a slender, bone-white fellow in tattered slacks and a Brooks Brothers shirt, pointed farther down the street. Ryan waved in thanks and took off in that direction, singing lines from “Just Beyond the River Bend” under his breath.

  A trail appeared in the wet carpet of leaves up ahead. He could see where possibly small feet had slid across them, tripped and fallen, left hand prints, then kept running. It had to be her. He followed the trail out onto the next street, taking a right and heading south. The wind picked up and so did the rustling in the trees. A scraping sound like metal drug across concrete echoed behind him.

  He looked back to see the mannequin standing a street away. He shook his head and followed along the trail, backpack springing against his spine.

  “Emme! Where are you?” he screeched, voice wretched. “Emme!”

  Three blocks blurred past. The trail became more evident now that he knew what he was looking for. He had to be getting clo
se, she couldn’t have wandered off that far.

  But something could have dragged her further.

  At the next cross street, he skidded to a halt. There were no more leaves to record the evidence of her passing. He spun several times, dizzy and nauseous, hoping for any sign of where she might have gone next.

  “Emily! Where are you, baby? Emily!” His voice echoed off the brick buildings, sound no longer hampered by thick tree cover. “Emily,” he whispered and fell onto his backside, the gear in his pack clunking against him. He put his face in his hands and tried to think, but it was like pounding his brain into a brick wall. He was so stupid...

  Grief-terror warred against his need to run, his need to search every hole in the city. But where to start? He was but one man looking for one child. His child. The only thing he had left in the world. All that he had left of his family. All that he had left in reality. She was now his everything, the catalyst of positive self-improvement that had put his feet firmly on a path of human revelation, interconnection, and dire fulfillment. And he loved her. And she was alone, all by herself in a land that would not care one whit for her well-being. A land that would eat her alive and leave her just like it had all other human life. Her cries echoed in his bones.

  “Just keep searching,” he mumbled and stood upright. He found a pair of tree limbs, formed an X in the middle of the street between two wrecked sedans, and chose a new direction to search. The sun was now over the tree line, bathing the city of St. Louis in the brilliant shades of brunch. The cool nip to the air was turning balmy. He tried not to think of what terrible things could have happened to her after she left, but thoughts of her falling in a sinkhole, down a sewer drain, or tripping on a fallen tree limb only to be impaled on rusty metal, were all that came to mind.

  He wiped the sweat from his brows and pushed on. After a few blocks he discovered the words to “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid leaking from his mouth and quit. Those words would do him no good. He started screaming for Emily so he wouldn’t have the chance to sing. There was more rustling in the trees. He turned a few minutes later and saw the mannequin, its expressionless face fixed on his progress.

  “Why are you following me?” he shouted at the plastic man. “Unless you’re here to help me find my daughter, then you can fucking go to Hell!”

  The plastic man only stared.

  Ryan worked his way back to the X and chose a new direction. The mannequin was gone by the time he’d come back around.

  Ryan’s clothes were heavy with sweat. The sun was starting to settle overhead, making him feel even more rushed. How long did he have to find her? How long did she have to survive? After seeing a collection of shattered beer bottles beside the curb, images of broken glass jutting from her arms wouldn’t leave his head. He picked up the pace. Best estimate, he’d covered thirty blocks so far. Only hundreds of blocks to go.

  Fifteen more properties searched, no sign of his poor, sweet Emily. He came upon a dead mutt, half-eaten by flies and other animals, and knew this to be his own handiwork.

  “Emme! Where are you? Emme!”

  He rushed back to the X and chose his final direction, hopes sinking deep beneath an ocean of dread. Each additional step, his body became heavier. Weakness was taking hold of every muscle from his toes to his neck. The headache was growing worse by Olympic medal-winning leaps. He stumbled, fell down and got back up, palms burning from road rash. His sweat had dried and none had taken its place.

  “Emily?” he whimpered, voice turning soft. “Emily.” He could only speak it now. He took five steps and slumped against a black car, body sliding to the ground, stomach convulsing. Ryan stuck a finger down his throat and forced himself to puke. He dry-heaved several times before blissfully expelling the contents of his sour stomach. He hurt, but when he tried to let some of that pain go by crying, he found his eyes were dry. Not even tears were his to have.

  “I was stupid,” he croaked. “She deserves better than me. If I hadn’t… She wouldn’t have gotten away. Why did she leave? Why? Why!” He banged his head against the passenger door of the car. “Lillian, you would have never fucked up like this. Why the fuck did you leave me in charge? I’m the fucking idiot of our pair! And now Emily, oh my God, dear sweet Emily... I just want you in my arms. I just want to know you’re okay. Why did you go away? Why? What did I do?”

  As Ryan relentlessly berated himself, a foul scent caught hold of the wind, hitching a ride to his forlorn location. For a brief moment Ryan paused his personal barrage and breathed it in. The smell of poignant farm life made his lip tremble. He pivoted his head and saw a fresh pile of manure, the sun’s heat baking it into a hard cake. One stinging palm on the pavement, he pushed himself back to his feet and took a breath.

  Fifty paces beyond the first pile he found another. As he stood over it, he could see that fifty paces further was yet another. He followed the trail of animal shit down a street of tightly packed row houses until he came upon a blue sandal at the corner by the crosswalk.

  He rushed over to the sandal, took it up, and found wet blood on its side.

  “Emily!” he shouted. And though she didn’t reply, he heard the distinct sound of a braying animal close by. He carefully approached the noise, edging his way down the main sidewalk and into the backyard of a burned out home. “Emme?”

  A shock of silken blue stood out against the grass, one side covered in streaks of crimson.

  “Emme?”

  The blue form stood up and screamed, “Dada! Dada!” The words so frantic her voice crackled like popcorn. “Dada! Dada!”

  They ran for each other and crumpled into an embrace. Ryan felt the tears trying to escape his sun-parched tissue. The two of them convulsed in each other’s arms. “I love you, Emme.”

  Her voice was muffled by his shoulder. “Wuv you too, Dada.”

  “Are you okay? Are you hurt? I missed you so bad. Don’t do that again. You scared Daddy to death.”

  He tried to check her wound, but she wouldn’t let go long enough for him to see. He held tight but leaned her head to the side. So far as he could tell from this odd position, among the poufy tangle of sleep time hair, she’d nicked herself good, and he knew from a biking accident at age ten that those sorts of cuts bled something terrible. Her night night was ruined by all the blood. She had to be thirsty and hungry.

  But she would live. That was all that mattered. She was okay and safe in her father’s arms.

  “Why did you leave the house?” he asked, his earlier anger having evaporated.

  She mumbled for a while, words making no sense until finally something came out clearly. “Dote,” she replied between sniffles. “I pound dote.”

  “What, baby? I don’t understand. What’s a dote?”

  He stood up and spun around, his arms still wrapped around her.

  “Dare dote.” She pointed to a small grey and white farm animal chewing grass by the charred house’s fence. “Dare. There! That dote.”

  Ryan’s face hurt, a sudden grin having grown so wide his jaw might come unhinged. The creature, head and all, was no higher than his hips. It had short, coarse hair, and was without horns like its male counterpart might have had. It stamped the ground with cloven hooves and let out a friendly bahhh, long pieces of grass hanging from the side of its mouth as it was thoroughly chewed up. Best of all, from between its furry hind legs swung a set of fat udders that appeared close to bursting. He might not have known much about farm animals, but he knew a goat was about the best one they could have.

  “You know what, Emme?” He met her eyes and wiped the tears from her face. “I think it’s about time you and I got a pet.”

  “A dote?” Her eyes sparkled.

  “Yeah. A pet dote.”

  Chapter 38

  “Hey, babe. How was your day?”

  Ryan tossed his keys on the coffee table before plopping down beside his wife on the couch. The cushions swallowed half of his body.

  “Shh, be a littl
e quieter. Emily is just now asleep.” Lillian rocked the bundle in her arms. “You’re like a bull in a china shop,” she whispered, eyes smiling.

  “Sorry.” He rubbed his face and checked the time. Four o’clock.

  “It’s okay, sugar plum.” She bumped him with her shoulder and grinned. They kissed for a long moment and sighed. “Yours are still not as good as Emily’s, sorry to say.”

  “That’s fine. I’ve got no chance to beat that level of cuteness.”

  “No, you don’t. But you’re so adorable in your own way. Maybe not Hello Kitty adorable, but adorable nonetheless.”

  “Thank God.” Ryan checked his watch again.

  “What’s the big hurry? You just got home.”

  “I’m supposed to meet up with Lawrence in a little while. He needs help holding up their fence gate so he can fix it.”

  “What happened to it?” Her eyes darted briefly to her phone sitting beside Ryan’s keys on the coffee table. A push notification came through, making it chirp, but she didn’t seem to care.

  He leaned back in the couch folds, flipped on the TV and turned down the volume. A promo for the Channel 5 nightly news was running.

  “Some gosh darn, drunk college kids drove right into his fence a week back.” He waved the remote. “Super.”

  On the TV, a cheerful, round man with dark skin and a red dot between his eyebrows, was being interviewed by one of the reporters from in front of the gates of The St. Louis Zoo. Ryan half paid attention as they asked “Zoo Man,” lover of all animals, especially African originated, about how he believed these creatures could live wild in Missouri with only a little help during winter.

  “Drove into a fence?” Lillian was incredulous. “On that lot? You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope. Apparently, they were heading back from partying at the lake and veered off the road. Missed his oldest by only a few feet. Middle of the day and drunk as hell. The back of their truck was so full of bottles they said the impact was almost musical.”