Foreverland Is Dead

blanket over her, sometimes she appears to have adjusted her weight, but she’s always lying down, eyes closed. She must be awake sometimes, but Miranda never sees it.
    For a while she thought the old woman might be in the very back room, behind the locked door. But she decided against that. The old woman wasn’t dead. Her nostrils flare, her chest moves up and down. Very much alive, very much asleep.
    She’s in the woods, in a small cabin. No doubt. She wants to tell the girls, but then they’d ask for food. Miranda likes things the way they are. Besides, the old woman is out there.
    Miranda is safe.
    She slides the bowl onto the desktop, goes to the kitchen. She counts out ten crackers and heats up a cup of tea, returns to the back room. The monitors are now cycling through the views of the countryside. She doesn’t need the binoculars anymore; the cameras have excellent zooming capacity as well as night vision. She could see gnats humping on a log if she wanted.
    She crushes up half the crackers, stirs them into the broth, and eats them before they’re too soft. She’s scooping out the noodles—
    Something moves.
    She taps the keyboard, backing up to the last view.
    There .
    There’s an unnatural color in the meadow. In a landscape of browns and greens, something bright red and yellow is approaching.
    She scrolls the wheel.
    Zooms in.
    Can’t be.
    She’s hallucinating, has to be. Maybe the tea has peyote or the crackers are laced with LSD or—
    “Cyn!” Jen’s voice calls from behind the barn.
    She sees it, too.

28

    The thin layer of snow is more sloppy than frozen. Cyn’s feet slosh in mud. She can’t feel much. She’ll go inside, warm up. Just one more swing.
    She’s said that ten times. One more swing.
    With the log balanced and pointing at the sky, she swings—
    “Cyn!” Jen shouts.
    The axe ricochets, buries the blade in the ground.
    “Look!”
    Cyn wipes her eyes, the sweat smudging the landscape. Something’s in the barren meadow, like wildflowers. She lets go of the axe, continues walking and wiping.
    Kat comes out the barn, drops the brush in the snow.
    Jen is running.
    Cyn blinks her vision into focus. She’s not sure what she’s seeing. It can’t be. It just can’t…
    She starts running, too.
    Her legs are like cold stumps. She feels the skin splitting on her heels but powers through the pain, into the meadow, toward the brightly clothed people staggering across the field.
    One of them collapses. The other stumbles forward aimlessly, falls to his knees.
    Jen drops down next to the man on the ground, putting her arm around him. Cyn puts her hands on her knees, ignoring the pain cutting through her feet, biting deep into her bones.
    She touches the old man on the ground.
    They’re real.
    Jen turns him over, puts his head in her lap. His receding gray hair exposes most of his scalp. His cheeks are pale, lips blue. Teeth chattering uncontrollably.
    “Get him into the bunkhouse,” Cyn says. “Wrap him in blankets.”
    He’s dressed for the beach: a bright red shirt with yellow flowers, white shorts smudged with dirt. His arms and legs are covered in scratches, the worst on the top of his head, blood trickling down to his chin. They sit him up. The old man doesn’t see anything. He’s staring off into nothing, just trying to breathe.
    “We’re picking you up,” Jen says. “Can you help?”
    He doesn’t respond. Kat and Jen wrestle him to his feet; heave his arms over their shoulders. He flops along with them, his breath heaving in and out.
    Cyn leans over the teenage boy. He’s taller than her, about her age, and isn’t dressed any better than the old man: just a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
    “Can you walk?” she asks.
    He’s staring at the ground, mouth hanging open. Daydreaming. Or so far into pain, he’s receded to the safety in his mind.
    “Come on.” Cyn hooks her arms under his armpits. He doesn’t help and she can’t lift him.
    “Hey!” She slaps him. “Wake up!”
    It shocks him back to the present moment. His shaggy hair falls over his eyes, but he looks at her, sees her. His cheeks are rosy.
    “You hear?” she asks. “You need to stand and walk, you understand?”
    He nods once.
    Cyn lifts again and up he comes. His legs are scratched like the old man’s; big toe split open, the nail missing. How did they survive?
    She puts his arm over her shoulder, more for guidance than support, not sure if she’s helping him walk or he’s helping