Sarah Durst - The Lost

I tread water and look around. It’s night. I’m in the ocean. I don’t see any swimmers following me or any boats that aren’t drifting aimlessly. I paddle for shore. I’m exhausted, and every muscle hurts, but I swim until I crawl onto shore and collapse into the sand.

I lie in the sand for a very long time. The ocean kisses my feet. The desert wind chills my skin. I shiver in my wet clothes. I want Peter to come roaring in on his steam train to save me. But I sent him to save Claire, and he doesn’t know I need him.

A howl breaks through the steady sound of the waves. And then another howl—east and south, at least three, maybe more. I haul myself upright as another howl shatters the air. It’s much closer than any of the others.

Option one: I could retreat into the waves. But I don’t think I can swim anymore. My arms feel like jelly, wobbly slabs of flesh, and I’m chilled. Every inch of my skin is prickled with goose bumps, and it cringes away from my wet clothes.

Option two... Is there an option two?

I see a house nearby. It’s a run-down ranch with a half-collapsed garage. It looks familiar, and I think—I’m not certain but I think—it has one of Peter’s boards on its roof.

Getting to my feet, I ignore the way my legs are quivering. I don’t see any of the dogs, but the shadows could hide a thousand dogs intent on rending my flesh from my bones. I debate whether it’s better to walk and not seem like prey or run and get to the house faster.

I walk a few steps.

The howls don’t seem closer.

I continue toward the house as the dogs continue to howl. I wonder if they’re wolves, not dogs. I wonder which is worse. And then I realize one is behind me, between me and the ocean.

I don’t think.

I run.

I hear them bark to each other. I hear their paws scramble over the wet sand and the desert dirt. I throw myself onto a trellis with dead vines around it, and I climb. The rotten trellis breaks under my weight. I scramble my feet and grab the gutter. It’s clogged with muck and leaves, but it holds. The wolves hurl themselves at the house as I swing onto the roof. Panting, I lie flat on the shingles.

Safe.

But then I think: not safe. Someone might hear the barks. Someone might investigate to see what, or whom, they’ve treed. I scuttle across the roof and find the board that Peter left.

Even absent, Peter saves me.

I lift the board and lay it across to the next house. Sitting, I scoot along it. The wolves follow me below. I pull the board over with me and use it to cross to the next house. And then I use the rope ladder strung between the second house and an abandoned convenience store. And then another board. And a jump. A board. A zip line. Eventually, the dogs spot other things to sniff and hunt and chase, and I am alone.

Stretching out beside a chimney, I rest on the top of a house with black shingles. I stare up at the stars, the strange constellations and the fat moon.

I don’t know when everything went so wrong so fast.

Claire.

The Missing Man.

I need to talk to Peter, I think.

I pry myself up. After he fails to find Claire in the void, Peter will look for me at the yellow house, and when he sees that the mob is there and I’m not, he’ll look for me at our other favorite place. Staying in the sky, I head for the art barn.

Silently, quickly, I move from roof to roof. I listen for howls—I don’t hear any. I watch for people—I don’t see any. When the houses are too spaced out to stay above, I drop to the ground. I hide in the shadows and creep toward the barn. Across a short patch of open ground, it sits, untouched by the void or my ocean. I skulk toward it, watching the shadows around me. Shooting looks right and left, I slide open the door, and slip inside.

“Peter?”

No answer from the darkness.

A thin sliver of light seeps in through the gap in the door. As my eyes adjust, I don’t see any movement. I don’t hear any breathing. I think I’m alone. I close the door.

I pull a sheet off what I know is the Rembrandt, and then I strip off my wet clothes down to my underwear and curl up in the sheet. Exhaustion is settling into my bones. I can’t string thoughts together to even form coherent questions anymore. I hope I’ll be safe here. I don’t know if I’m safe anywhere.

But I do sleep.

And then I wake.

I’m alone in the barn, and sunlight is seeping through the gaps in the boards. I toss off the sheet and put my still-damp clothes back on. My mouth feels gummy, and I miss my toothpaste. I think of Claire and I miss her.

I wonder where Peter is. He should have returned from the void by now. He should have checked the house and seen the intruders. He should have, unless something happened to him. Feral dogs, the townspeople, the void, the Missing Man...

I don’t want to think anymore. Leaving the sheets on the ground, I inch open the door to the barn and climb into the nearest house through a kitchen window. I use the bathroom, though the toilet doesn’t flush. There isn’t any toothpaste, but I find a stray mint tucked into a crevasse between couch cushions. I eat it. I then investigate the junk pile in the backyard for breakfast. I find a bicycle tire, half a cookie, a juice box, and an uncooked steak. Sadly, I leave the steak—I can’t do anything with it right now. I also find a collection of tiny teddy bears with keychain hooks on the tops of their heads. Claire would have liked them. I take them and the food with me back to the barn.

In the barn, I arrange the tiny bears in a circle. Alone in the center of the vast barn, they look sad and lonely. I dart outside again to fetch the bicycle tire that I saw, as well as a post from a picket fence. I also find a fedora hat, a brilliant blue tail feather, a spool of ribbon, and a welcome mat. I carry them all back to the barn.

I arrange the tiny bears on the spokes of the bike wheel, and I tie them on with the ribbon. I stick the feather into the hat, but it’s not enough. It still feels sad and lonely and small. I scurry outside again, each time returning with more oddball treasures. I add to my sculpture almost frenetically. More height. More color. More movement. I don’t think about what I’m doing. I just...do. Finding some tools, I affix the bike wheel with the bears to the picket fence post so that it can rotate. I position the feather in the hat so that the bears kick the feather as they spin by. I decide I like it. Moreover, Claire would like it.

I stop.

What the hell am I doing?

I lower my face into my hands.

“You’re glowing.” Peter, behind me.

I raise my head and look at my arms. Soft white light dances between my arm hairs like static electricity. My breath catches in my throat, and I nearly laugh. Irony or bad timing? I choke back the laugh, afraid it will morph into a sob. “I lost...art?”

“You lost yourself,” Peter corrects me. “You lost your dreams, your future, your way when your mother fell sick. Your art is symbolic of all that.”

“Oh.” I stare at my sculpture and want to feel happy, whole, complete. But I can’t. “Claire’s gone.”

All the blood drains out of his face. “Claire?”

“She’s okay. I think. I think I...sent her home.” I explain what happened, how I’d accidentally mimicked what the Missing Man had done with Colin, how she’d faded and then disappeared. She’d tried to cling to me. I remember her fingers grasping at me and slipping through my sleeve, and the look on her face as if I’d shredded her world into pieces. I look at my hands. “You need to find the Missing Man again. Please. I can go home now. I can make sure she’s okay. I have to.”

He approaches my sculpture, and he spins the bike wheel. The bears revolve. I begin to feel silly making a sculpture of bears and bike parts when there are masterpieces around me.