Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus

the idea of love. Hopefully, she wasn’t so cynical at this point, that the idea of me being in love wasn’t going to make her want to murder me in cold blood.
    “You go,” I said. “I’m going to try and talk to her. She’s here somewhere. Maybe I can convince her to talk to me or something.”
    Winky shook her head slowly. “You must be totally crazy over Bodo to go through all this for him. If it were me, no offense, I’d give it up. Nobody’s worth dying for.”
    “Bodo is,” I said, before walking back into the closet.
    ***
    I stood near the cabinet with the watches inside and talked out into the air around us. “Hello! Lost girl! We’re not here to hurt you or eat you or any of that crazy stuff. We just want to ask you about a friend of ours. He was here the night we came and took those kids out of here. He got left behind.”
    I waited for a response and got none, so I continued.
    “His body’s not downstairs, so I think he might have survived. The last time we saw him he was fighting on the front lawn or in the front of your house.”
    Still no answer.
    “Did you see him? Do you know where he is? I really need to know!”
    I was getting frustrated with her lack of response. I just knew she could hear me, and the longer I sat there listening to the silence, the more convinced I became that she knew something. Wouldn’t she just tell us she knew nothing and to go away if she didn’t?
    “I know you can hear me. And I’m sorry those canners … the cannibal kids, took your house from you and ruined it. I’m sorry there are monsters out here who are doing terrible things. But we’re not with them. We’re just like you. We’re just trying to survive, but we’re not doing it by killing other kids.”
    Winky said softly. “Well, technically we did kill those canners.”
    I nudged her to tell her to shut up.
    “Okay, so we did kill some canner kids,” I continued. “But that was only to rescue the kids they were hurting. That’s okay, right? To kill kids who are killing and eating others?”
    I wasn’t sure if I were asking her or myself at that point. This one-woman monologue felt like a confession in a way. I decided to just roll with it. If nothing else, it would help me get some things off my chest.
    “Sometimes we have to make hard choices. Choices we shouldn’t have to make, because we’re just kids, and it’s not fair that we got left here without our parents.” My eye ran across all the shoes and handbags in the room around me. “Even if our parents were jerks, at least they kept the monsters away.”
    The cabinet in the room popped.
    I jumped back, crashing into Winky. We stumbled away from the center of the room, towards the entrance, both of us staring at the marble top of the cabinet that was slowly rising up and tilting backwards.
    “My parents weren’t jerks,” came the voice of the Lost Girl. Her head appeared out of the floor, coming up on a staircase that was located beneath the dressing room.
    ***
    She was wearing a white dress. It almost looked like a simple wedding dress or a communion outfit. Her heels were made of satin. She had pearls around her neck and in her ears. A baby-blue headband lay across her stringy, greasy mouse-brown hair.
    Her face was white and drawn, dark circles ringing her eyes. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was a ghost from our world’s much different past. She was ready to go to a coming-out party or a debutantes’ ball - not to meet with kids from an apocalyptic world who were running from cannibals.
    “Holy shit,” said Winky, “it really is a ghost.” She squeezed my arm hard, burying her nails in my skin.
    I tried to shake her off. “Cut that shit out, Winky. She’s not a ghost.”
    The girl just stood there, watching us and saying nothing.
    I finally succeeded in getting Winky to let me go, and stood up straighter, facing the girl fully.
    “Hello. My name is Bryn, and this is Winky,” I said, gesturing over my shoulder. “We’re not here to hurt you or take any of your stuff or damage your house. We just want to know what happened to our friend.”
    “Is he your boyfriend?” she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly. It was creepy as hell, how calm she was, standing there in her formal wear, her insteps and ankles touching and her feet facing exactly forward. Her hands were hanging limply at her sides.
    “Yes, he is. And I really miss him and need to find him.”
    “Maybe he’s