Last Girls

by Demetra Brodsky

  “Fine,” Blue says. “But only for a little while because the trees are too dense for me to call Achilles down.”

  Something must catch Birdie’s eye down the embankment on our right because she drops her pack and scurries down the hill without her usual announcement. Slipping and sliding, grasping at thin tree trunks and branches.

  “You’re gonna break your neck!”

  “What is it?” Blue hollers.

  Birdie clambers sideways to get her footing and holds up a skivvy roll. It’s how we pack our clothes to keep them compact, layering and rolling multiple items into tight bundles the size of homegrown eggplants.

  She wastes no time untangling the bundle, and even from up on the hill we can see her chest heaving. “It’s Daniel’s.”

  “Stay here,” I tell Blue, dropping my pack against a tree. I dig around its pockets for a long length of utility rope then tie a bowline knot around the thickest nearby tree trunk. I rappel down the embankment beside Birdie. There’s more than just a skivvy roll. Birdie also found a slingshot and water bottle marked with the initials DD scattered among the forest rubble.

  “Is this blood?” she screeches, thrusting the skivvy roll at me.

  There are rust-colored smears on his clothes. Plants with clusters of bloodred berries are growing all over the surrounding terrain. It could be blood or could be from the plants. I don’t want to completely dismiss her fear.

  “Should we go all the way down?” she asks when I don’t say anything.

  She’s really asking if I think Daniel slipped and fell and is hurt, or worse. She can’t say it, and neither can I.

  “I don’t see anything else. Not his pack or a hat or a shoe or anything he would have been wearing. Maybe he was camped out and he had to leave fast because of a predatory animal. If he got hurt, his INCH would be here. Even if he got scraped up he could make it to the second location, don’t you think?”

  Birdie gives me a hesitant nod.

  “We’re almost there,” I reassure her.

  We use the rope to climb and Birdie does her best to cram Daniel’s stuff into her pack. I don’t care how much we’ve trained. Hiking thirty miles in twenty-four hours is hard as hell. It gives you plenty of time to think about the zombie apocalypse everyone believes is coming from watching TV, and how you’ve witnessed some real-life crazy shit, but also how hard it would be to decapitate zombies with a machete if you needed to stay alive. The only undead present at the moment are me, Birdie, and Blue.

  Thirty minutes later, we’re at the entrance to what Ansel called Misty Woods. We have another mile or so to go before we set up camp, and the farther in we go, the mistier it becomes, true to the place’s name. I don’t know if the land is truly ill-fated or cursed, but we do come upon a tree whose bark has grown around a rusty old bicycle, lifting it ten feet in the air with a tire poking out of each side of the trunk. I push away thoughts of what happened to its owner.

  We walk a few more miles and it gets harder to deny something weird is going on out here. Two trees have yellow cordage wound between them like a game of Cat’s Cradle. Eyes are painted on several trunks in white. Whatever Daniel told Birdie about this part of the forest could just as easily be a series of pranks by locals over the years to keep the urban legend alive. Rémy would love it so much more than our abandoned treehouse.

  I take out our phone and see a text from Ansel that says, Incoming.

  It was sent hours ago, making me think he replied back at the bunker and it got delayed by patchy cell reception. Now, I’ve got zero bars and can’t message him back. That lack of connectivity makes Misty Woods more foreboding than anything man-made and strung between the trees.

  TOBYISMS FOR ACTION

  8

  RIDING A THIN LINE

  STAVROS LENT ME the Nikko’s catering van once I explained my situation and promised I wouldn’t let anyone else drive. Since Bash couldn’t get out of his shifts at The Chicken Coop it’s just me and Banquo. His golden-brown head is sticking out of the half-open window, tongue dangling like he’s living his best life. That might have more to do with the cooler of food Stavros gave me. I forgot Banquo’s kibble, so I’ve been feeding him chicken and lettuce from a couple of undressed Greek salads.

  We’ve been driving north on I-5 for sixteen hours with only a couple of gas and bathroom breaks, but made it to Washington State physically unscathed. Emotionally, I’m a wreck. I learned you can haul ass in an empty van, but sixteen hours is still a shitload of time to think and invent scenarios. Like, how might things turn out, or what you might want to say to someone you haven’t seen for eleven years, knowing you left them alone.

  I never allowed myself to think my sisters were dead, because my bone-deep belief was so much stronger than my fear. And now I know why, even if I still need proof.

  I don’t know exactly where I’m going, but I’m not lost, either. I called Elkwood High this morning and tried to talk to the student liaison for the art competition my sister mentioned on the news. Rémy Lamar. They wouldn’t bring him to the phone, but they did give him my message because he got in touch within a few hours.

  One of the weirdest conversations of my life.

  Imagine telling someone, “Hey, my name is Toby Ellis. I wanted to ask you about Honey Juniper, the girl who won the art competition. Yeah, I think she’s one of my sisters who went missing eleven years ago. Her name is actually Katherina.”

  Then having that guy say, “Like the chick from The Taming of the Shrew?” And you have no idea how the fuck he’d know that, or why he’s laughing because, yeah, that’s exactly who she’s named after, only you don’t have time to ask for clarity because time has never been on your side.

  It didn’t take long for either of us to explain ourselves. Which included me telling Rémy to visit my social media pages for everything I’ve posted about the missing persons case. And him saying he’s worried Honey and her chemistry teacher—who’s probably FBI—might be mixed up in something dangerous.

  My sisters are living with a bunch of doomsday preppers was the big takeaway and explains so much about our mom’s drawings my head might explode. Rémy had tons of theories, but none substantiated by facts, so I left out anything having to do with Jonesy. The conversation ended with me telling him I was driving to up to Washington from San Diego, and him saying Honey and her sisters haven’t come back to school since the news story aired, but he knows where they live.

  Honey and her sisters.

  Long story short, I’m about to meet a guy I don’t know, but who has a vested interest in my sister, and we’re going to pay her a visit together, because that might be less weird than me showing up alone.

  Bash has strict instructions to give my projected whereabouts to Mom and Jonesy if I’m not back before them, or he gets an SOS text saying I ran into trouble with the van or something. After what Rémy told me, I’m more worried about or something.

  I pull up in front of a coffee shop in Elkwood. The only coffee shop, sitting among other small businesses boasting handmade, locally sourced products. I was able to get some dog food for Banquo in the general store, which he’s refusing to eat now that he’s been spoiled with grilled chicken.

  The guy walking up to the Nikko’s catering van with a look of recognition is not how I pictured Rémy Lamar. After driving along winding country roads, I thought he’d be more backwoods or pro-gun-looking. Like the guy who sold me the dog food wearing a red T-shirt with white letters that read THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. Okay. Technically, that’s accurate. We had a huge discussion about the intent of that amendment and how it got skewed when I took government in high school. Still, when I saw the shotgun mounted on the wall behind him, I thought it best to keep my liberal opinion to myself.

  Rémy is dressed like something straight out of an REI cataloge. Beats by Dre slung around his neck, backpack, stainless steel water bottle attached to his belt by a carabiner, puffy vest, and thick flannel. He’
s carrying two large take-out coffees and a lot of confidence.

  I roll down the driver’s side window. “Are you Rémy?” The doubt in my voice is more obvious than I intended.

  “Not what you were expecting?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Because I’m black or because I’m so good-looking for these parts?” He smiles, and I notice he has a dimple high on his right cheek.

  “A little of both,” I answer honestly. “This area doesn’t seem real diverse.”

  “Come on now, Washington State boasts a whopping three-point-six percent black demographic. The town I live in, point-twenty-eight percent. That’s basically my family and two strangers.”

  I squint, trying to gauge his seriousness.

  “I’m messing with you, man. My family’s not that big.”

  Sarcasm is something I understand fluently—thanks to Bash—and can definitely appreciate for the rest of this road trip, because I’m pretty tired and more than a little tense. Rémy comes around to the passenger side of the van and puts the coffees on the roof. The minute he opens the door, Banquo is all over him, sniffing him out to decide if he’s friend or foe before licking his chin.

  Friend it is.

  “Aww, hey buddy. He must smell my dog on me.”

  “What kind?”

  “Pitbull. You know, keeping with the stereotype.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “I’m still messing with you,” he says. Completely amused with himself. “We have a husky-beagle mix. She might be some other kind of hound. We don’t know. She’s tricolored with blue eyes and likes to bark at the microwave.”

  That makes me laugh, and I think this riding with a complete stranger thing might be okay. Rémy hands me a take-out cup before getting into the passenger seat. “I didn’t know how you take your coffee, so I got it the same as mine. Cream and two sugars.”

  “That’s perfect. I appreciate it.”

  “I have your sister’s painting in my mom’s minivan. I didn’t know if you had room to bring it to her.”

  I look over my shoulder. “Tons of room.”

  “Okay. Cool. I’ll go grab it.”

  He’s back in minutes, carrying a large painting wrapped in brown paper. I unlock the doors and he slides it between the wall of the van and some stacked, hard-rubber catering containers. Banquo nudges his hand to be petted as soon as Rémy gets in the passenger seat.

  “Do my sisters like dogs?” I figure after the warm-up, I can lean into my purpose for being here.

  “That’s a good question. We didn’t get that far. They have a lot of animals. Chickens, goats. Honey’s youngest sister has a peregrine falcon. But she never talked about the farm animals like they were pets. I think it’s the whole prepper thing. They raise animals for food.” He pulls a DSLR camera from his backpack and fast-forwards through a bunch of pictures.

  I’m still tripping over Cassandra having a pet falcon when he hands the camera to me.

  “Go forward.”

  The next picture is of Katherina, Honey, sitting on a stool in front of an easel. The light is streaming across her back from the windows and her expression matches the contented look our mother gets while working. All worries fading to the background as she moves brush against canvas. I click forward and stop on a photo of a girl with chin-length hair and thick bangs. She’s staring across a crowded cafeteria with a look that rides the line between aloof and ready for battle.

  “Who’s this?” I turn the camera to Rémy for confirmation, even though I’m pretty sure I know.

  “That’s Birdie. She’s the middle sister.”

  “Imogen,” I tell him. “She was always a little ass-kicker.”

  Each click forward makes the lump in my throat expand.

  “And this? Is this Cassandra?” I show Rémy the profile shot of a girl with cobalt-blue hair, pressing a colored pencil to her cheek.

  “Blue,” he says.

  “Her hair, yes. But what’s her name?”

  “Blue,” he repeats emphatically.

  I swallow the lump. Honey, Birdie, and Blue. “They have no idea who they are,” I tell Rémy.

  “I beg to differ. Your sisters know exactly who they are. You can trust me on that. You ready to start this rescue mission?”

  “As soon as you tell me where to go.”

  “Right. Slight change of plans. While you were driving here, Honey texted me the photo of a map of where they’re going. Plus some random pics of lab stuff. I tried to text her back but it went straight to voicemail, which makes me think they ran into some trouble.”

  “With the chemistry teacher who might be an FBI agent?”

  “Or other people in her prepper group.”

  “So we’re not going to their house?”

  “Correct.” Rémy pulls a paper map out of his bag. “We’re going to the Gemini Caves. She said that’s where they’re bugging out. I bought the same map Honey sent me and marked up the fastest route.”

  “What’s bugging out?”

  “It’s like camping for preppers, but also hiding. From someone or something. She didn’t give me any details. She just wrote, Bugging out then JIC. I had to look that up. It’s a prepper acronym that means Just In Case. I didn’t take that to mean anything good.”

  “Okay. Where to?”

  “Take a left out of the parking lot until you see the signs for 503 North. We take that for about an hour then hike in for about another hour or two tops, depending on terrain, so maybe three or four miles.”

  I drive out of the parking lot and hang a left, trying to make sense of things like bugging out and prepper acronyms.

  “I wouldn’t have a clue how to read that map,” I tell Rémy. Making small talk keeps the lump from forming in my throat again. “The only reason I know which direction is west is because I can usually spot the coast.”

  “My grandfather was a park ranger. We did a lot of camping, hiking, fishing.”

  I hear the shutter of his camera and realize he just took a pic of my profile. That’s the least of my concerns, so I let it go.

  “We have the ocean and beaches in San Diego. People camp there, but for woods like this we’d have to drive pretty far north.”

  “That’s gonna be culture shock for your sisters.”

  All this time, I never thought how they might take the news. He goes into a story about seeing my sister get shot with an arrow by someone named Annalise and all I can think is who the hell took them and how did they end up in Elkwood, Washington? We’ve been right under their noses this whole time. Why couldn’t Jonesy find them?

  I have more questions than answers by the time he tells me to pull off on the side of a long, winding road without much of a shoulder. By now, Rémy knows the whole story about their real mom and what happened the night they vanished into thin air.

  He’s gone through the stack of photos I took from the shoebox at home and compared them to the age-progression photos, and had his mind blown, just like me. Believing my sisters’ lives revolve around preparing for the end of the world as we know it, the zombie apocalypse or whatever, like those guys that came into Nikko’s, is a serious kick in the teeth.

  I pop the gear shift into Park. “What do we do now?”

  “We hike. I think you should leave your dog in the van. Once we find them, we can come back for him.”

  “Okay. I’ll let him out to go to the bathroom. He can usually hold it for about seven hours if I’m at work.”

  We get out and I open the back for Banquo. He leaps into the grass to do his business right away.

  “You’re wearing Vans.” Rémy looks me over. “And a hoodie.”

  “It’s the official uniform of San Diegans. I didn’t know we’d be hiking.”

  He unwinds the plaid scarf around his neck. “Take this. It’ll help keep you warm and stop mosquitos. Your sisters will undoubtedly have extra clothes and supplies. Prepared is kind of their thing.”

  Banquo walks up to me, tail wagging. I
load him back into the van, check that he has food and water accessible, and pat his head. “You stay, boy.”

  It’s chilly enough to see our breath when we exit the van. I wrap Rémy’s dark green plaid scarf around my neck and tuck the ends inside my sweatshirt. I’m grateful for his company and knowledge, because these woods are deep and dense. I’d be lost inside of an hour without him.

  Rémy tips his head toward the tops of trees when we hear the screech of a falcon. A raptor is soaring in circles. A few miles away if I had to guess.

  “That’s a good sign.” Rémy scans the map then the sky. “He could be Blue’s. He’s definitely in the right spot. You ready?”

  I follow him into the woods, between tall trees. “I’ve been waiting years for this.”

  SFWF

  SHELTER, FIRE, WATER, FOOD

  WE FOLLOW THE new set of coordinates to the bug-out location on Ansel’s map. We don’t have to home in on the exact spot, because Daniel’s belongings are scattered all over the campsite.

  Birdie’s face lights up like a Roman candle. “He’s still here. You were right, Honey. All of this is Daniel’s.”

  She’s so happy, she’s failing to assess the situation. SFWF. Daniel’s gear doesn’t look like it’s been touched in days. His tarp is hung for shelter, and there’s a fire ring made of large stones, but I’d say he made one or two fires tops unless he was shoveling out ash every morning. I pick through his belongings while Birdie calls his name through the trees. There’s no clues to the food he’s been eating. No small fish or bird bones, no seeds, just a pile of dried greens. Something he may have foraged. I don’t spot his bow, knife, or rifle, either. Nothing Daniel would use to hunt. I guess it’s conceivable that he used traps and snares, but I remember seeing his bow attached to his INCH bag.

  “Daniel!” Birdie calls again. Her voice boomerangs back from the trees. “I bet he went down to the river for water. We could drop our stuff and go find him, but maybe we should wait. We don’t want to sneak up on him and freak him out.”