Foreverland Is Dead

her or something weird.
    Mr. Williams did something.
    Monster.
    She saw what he did to Jen—she watched it on the security camera. Sid was right there with him, stood there like a lobotomized goon and watched, doing nothing.
    Miranda did something.
    She hauled food out of the pantry, as much as she could get before they returned. And then she locked the door. All it took was an override command on the computer. She’d been watching Mr. Williams operate the system, learning where to go and what to do. She acted stupid, like she didn’t understand.
    But he found out when he got back.
    He and Sid banged on the door for hours. Mr. Williams begged and pleaded, promised he wouldn’t hurt her. He just needs to use the computers, that’s all. “Please, Miranda. This is hurting all of us.”
    Liar. Monster.
    And when the promises didn’t work, he proved it. He threw every name ever invented at her. Whore. Bitch. Murderer. A few others. None of them made sense.
    He quit after a few days. But he left Sid to hammer the door with the back side of an ax. The clank of metal on metal drove deep inside her skull. It went on for weeks. If there were a button to end her life, she would’ve pressed it.
    Finally, that stopped, too.
    Miranda takes another sip, replaces the lid. She takes a package of Ramen noodles out of box and tears open a corner, saves the packet of seasoning for later. It will spice up the water, provide a dose of salt. The noodles are brittle, chalky.
    She sits in the office chair, taps the keyboard, and leans back. The monitors come to life. The old man is in the kitchen, preparing tea, looking out the window at a bleak and angry world. Sid is vegetating on the couch. He probably wouldn’t eat if Mr. Williams didn’t put food in front of him.
    The big monitor shows the view from the brick house across the garden, only hints of crops long since shriveled and buried beneath snowdrifts. Only one lump remains in the garden. It shouldn’t be there.
    She doesn’t look at that.
    Winter wind continues to scour the land, piling snow against the buildings and sides of trees. The charred remains of the bunkhouse are visible, skeletal and empty. Only two wind harvesters spin near the barn, the other a bladeless post pointing at the sky, rendered useless during a bitter storm.
    Smoke puffs out the dinner house chimney. The girls are walking past the windows. They usually huddle around the stove, a stack of wood pilfered from the bunkhouse wreckage. The kitchen is nearly barren. They only move to keep the fire stoked. Or to do business in the corner.
    They don’t even have a bucket.
    There are no footsteps in the snow. Winter wiped them out of existence. The sun went missing behind the steel clouds weeks ago. The forecast is easy.
    Misery.
    With one wind harvester down, power is limited. But that’s not why it’s so cold. Thankfully Mr. Williams can’t shut the back room down from out there. He would if he could. And then Miranda would surely die.
    Miranda learned the computer system. She could remotely lock and unlock all the doors, including the kitchen doors in the dinner house. That explained the electronic keycard locks.
    In a fit of dreadful boredom, Miranda popped open the very back room once, her pulse bouncing in her throat, but when the smell oozed out she kicked it closed with a definitive snap.
    There are things worse than a bucket full of crap.
    She even turned off the fence. It’s a huge power hog. Roc isn’t going anywhere near the brick house. Not anymore. And even if she did, she’s not getting into the back room.
    No one is.
    Miranda nibbles on the block of noodles, stopping when it’s half gone, wrapping up the remains for later. She chases it with a swallow of water and sits back to watch the cameras, the scenes rarely changing. Patricia looks like a dried apple, her lips puckered with radial lines. Why won’t she die?
    She puts her head back, closes her eyes.
    Sleeping is hard. She tried to do push-ups and sit-ups to wear herself out, but got too weak. There’s just not enough food to burn calories. But she’s tired, figures she can get a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep. She crawls under the counter next to the computers where it’s warmest, where there’s a bed of coats to curl up.
    She drifts off. No dreams. Never a dream. Just sweet, sweet slumber. The only joy to be found in this dreadful world.
    Bang .
    She lifts her head, not sure if she heard that. Sometimes she hears