Foreverland Is Dead
“My stepfather did it until I was ten. What if that happened to you? You want to remember that?”
She closes her eyes, swallowing.
“That’s not your fault,” Jen says.
“That ain’t you now,” Kat says. “I know you, Cyn. You ain’t memories.”
“But they’re in me now. I did bad things—you saw what I did out there.”
She points to the garden.
“I remember what I’ve done. I’m no better than Roc.”
“Yeah, you are.”
“And neither are any of you.” Warmth dissipates. “You’re just as bad, and that’s why you’re here. That’s why we’re all here. This is Hell, and we’re paying for what we’ve done.”
“You don’t know that,” Jen says. “You don’t know that.”
“Those memories might not even be real,” Kat says. “Maybe they’re not even yours.”
“You think I can just remember to fight and do that to Roc? No, that was me out there, and you know it.”
“None of this makes any sense. This whole place is playing tricks on us; maybe those things you think you remember are fake. They’re just thoughts.”
“No. They’re real.”
“Yeah, and you know what? I don’t care,” Mad says. “You came back and saved us from Roc, so if you’re some evil demon, then I’m on your side. We need you.”
Cyn shakes her head. Her heart is beating in her throat now.
“I want to remember,” Kat says. “It ain’t your decision to make, either. If you think those memories are real, then I want to know. I want to understand. Even if bad things happened to me, they’re still part of me.”
“Me, too,” Mad says.
“Me, too,” Jen adds.
Cyn nods at nothing in particular. She licks her lips, which are suddenly dry. Her hands are no longer shaking. She stares out the window again. Snow is already dusting the ground and the brick house’s roof.
“When I can wear boots again, we’ll go out there. You can get your memories. Just remember what I said: you don’t want them.”
Another long pause. The chairs slide out, plates scratch across the table. Mad begins cleaning up in the kitchen. Kat goes out the front door.
And the snow continues.
27
Steam rises from the bowl.
Miranda blows across the broth, mouth watering. She made herself wait until late in the afternoon to have lunch. She’s been eating five meals every day, and it’s time for some self-control.
Down to three meals. Plus two snacks.
She wraps a blanket over her shoulders and continues to blow on the soup. The monitors are blank. Several cups and wrappers are scattered on the countertop. She sits in the chair, careful not to spill the soup. She taps the spacebar, lighting up the monitors.
She navigates the main screen while the soup cools. The first pop-up box asks: Deactivate Security?
The cursor moves over ‘YES’ and stops on ‘NO’.
Click.
It’s easier that way.
Since the brick house was shuttered, the girls stopped asking for food. They don’t know if she would open the door or not. And now that she’s learned to work the cameras, being inside the brick house is almost as good as being out there.
Without actually being out there.
The bunkhouse shows up on the big monitor. It’s empty except for the bed in the back corner. No one hangs around the bunkhouse anymore, not with Roc tied up. Miranda missed what happened, just woke up and Roc was cursing from her bed and Cyn was out back chopping wood.
Miranda scrolls the mouse-wheel and the view zooms in on Roc. Asleep again. Mouth open. The swelling has gone down, but that front tooth is definitely brown, killed at the root.
If only I could’ve seen that.
At some point, Mad will drop some food within reaching distance. Roc already looks gaunt.
Miranda slurps a spoonful and cycles through the cameras. The dinner house is empty. Kat is in the barn, shoveling crap out of the stall. I don’t miss that. The unmistakable thumping of an axe is near the barn.
Cyn is swinging it. That’s all she does. Her feet are wrapped in thick wads of cloth that often hang off the ends of her toes like loose socks. Miranda wasn’t sure why she’s doing that, especially with an inch of snow everywhere.
The garden is dead, so Jen helps drag wood out of the woods and stacks it after Cyn has split it into stove-size chunks. They’ll have enough to burn for three winters.
Miranda eats a few bites of soup, clicks over to the last camera view.
The old woman .
Not as shocking as the first time, but still creepy. Sometimes there’s a
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