Foreverland Is Dead

continues staring. She doesn’t want to do what Cyn says, but she does it anyway. The cans slam together. Mad and Jen stand back.
    “Something’s dead in there.” Miranda doesn’t look up.
    “Did you see it?”
    “I could smell it.”
    “Where was it coming from?”
    She shakes her head. “The doors were all closed.”
    “Was i t coming from upstairs? Downstairs?”
    “Downstairs. I think.”
    There’s a dead body in the woods; no surprise there’s one in the brick house, too. Cyn feels sad for the old women. She knows she shouldn’t, because they were apparently living in luxury and the girls in filth, but she doesn’t like to hear that people are dead.
    “What else did you see?” Cyn asks. “Besides the kitchen.”
    The cup is shaking in Miranda’s hands. “It just looked like a nice house. The front room has a television and coffee tables with magazines. It was all very clean. The davenports aren’t faded—”
    “T he hell is a davenport?” Roc asks.
    “It’s a couch,” Cyn answers. “What about a phone or a laptop or tablet? Did you see anything electronic besides the TV?”
    She shakes her head.
    “Did you open any doors?”
    The water lightly splashes inside the cup. Cyn takes it before she gets wet.
    Metal cans tumble across the kitchen floor.
    “You didn’t even look.” Roc comes out again. “You just went to straight to the kitchen and didn’t even—”
    “I looked!” Miranda screeches. “There’s no phone, all right! There’s no one to call, it’s just a house with no one in there but a dead body, all right?”
    “Yeah, a house you woke up in. A house only you can go in. You didn’t look around, Shiny. You walked your little white ass in there and clicked your heels, hoping you’d be back in Kansas when you opened your eyes. And when that didn’t happen, you grabbed some food. Well, good for you, you’re a hero. We should all kiss your ass that we’ll starve to death in three months instead of two.”
    “I looked.”
    “No, you didn’t. You didn’t go upstairs, you didn’t open a single damn door. You didn’t look, Shiny.”
    “Don’t call me that.” Miranda wraps her arms around herself, rocking.
    Roc goes inside the kitchen. A can of green beans ricochets off the sink and rolls out the door. Mad and Jen get out of the way. More cans crash. Cyn reaches out but Miranda jerks away. She bows her head, quivering. Her sobs are silent thumps inside her throat.
    “You’re going back in there.” Roc comes out, points a can at Miranda, the label hanging. “You’re going back in that big ass house and opening those doors, and you’re going to find out what the hell is in there—”
    “NO!”
    Miranda runs.
    Roc swipes at her. Cyn flinches, wants to stop Roc from chasing her , but she doesn’t have to. Instead, Roc rears back and throws the can. The label shears off, flapping to the ground. The can misses, wide left. It rolls into the tall grass.
    “You need to go get that,” Cyn says.
    “Yeah, I’ll get it when that little bitch goes back in the house.”
    “She’s scared.”
    “Who isn’t?”
    Roc watches Miranda sprint deep into the meadow, swallowed by swards of wildflowers and grasses. Disappearing on the other side of the slope. For a second, Roc tenses. She might give chase. Cyn would have to stop her if she did. She couldn’t let her go after Miranda. She’s just a little girl. And their only hope.
    But then Roc kicks an errant can toward the garden and curses. She stomps around back, out of sight.
    Mad and Jen start cleaning up.
    Cyn considers going out there. If she goes too far, if she doesn’t come back, she’s a goner.
    She’ll never survive the night.

8

    In the formless gray void
    Lost forms appear.
    Two distant lumps
    Coming closer.

    The wind harvesters lift her out of dead sleep. That’s what sleep feels like: death. Cyn lies beneath her warm blankets, listening to the chop-chop of the wind harvesters and the soft breathing of her bunkmates.
    The last thing she remembers is eating. If she concentrates, she recalls walking through the grass, her hand on the door…
    And then gray.
    Something’s out there. Something’s coming.
    Someone.
    It’s just a dream, but it’s not the random images of dreams. She feels like she’s somewhere else when she sleeps. Somewhere, but nowhere. It makes no sense.
    She reaches under the bed without letting the cold air inside the covers; rolling over, she scores another line on the