The Lost. Sarah Beth Durst

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СКАЧАТЬ to anyone,” she says. “Walk out of town without stopping or even hesitating. Don’t look back.”

      “I’ll die out there! I don’t have water or food. I’ll dehydrate and die, and it will be your fault for not helping me when you could. You’ll be responsible for my death.”

      “If you’re meant to be saved, then you’ll be saved. If you aren’t...don’t take me down with you. Please.” She begs on the last word, and for the first time, she sounds like a kid. Before I can think how to respond, she bolts into the supply closet and shuts the door. I am alone in the lobby with only a door between me and the townspeople.

      Someone throws a rock. It crashes into the window, and the glass shatters. Screaming, I dive behind the lobby counter. I crouch and wait to hear more glass shatter and the mob shout. But it’s silent. There are no more rocks.

      Time passes, and I feel my legs cramp from crouching for too long. Slowly, I straighten and peek over the top. The crowd waits. “What do you want?” I shout at them.

      “He isn’t back,” a woman says.

      “Look, this is obviously all a mistake! I didn’t do or say anything wrong.” I hold up my hands in surrender to show I’m harmless. The townspeople murmur to each other. I wish that woman Merry were here. She’d seemed at least friendly.

      “He’s never refused us before,” the same woman says. She has once-dyed-red hair that is only red for the last five inches; the rest is gray. She wears a polka-dot dress, five-inch heels, and smeared makeup. She looks as if she stayed at a cocktail party too long.

      “Who is he?” I ask. “Why does he matter so much to you?”

      “He’s the Missing Man.” It’s the woman in the pink tracksuit from the diner. “He helps us find what we lost, if we can’t find it ourselves, and then he sends us home. Without him, we can never leave.”

      Her words don’t make sense. “But I haven’t lost anything.” Yes, I’ve lost socks and earrings. I’ve left a book on the bus and an umbrella in a restaurant. I’ve lost track of friends. But I’ve lost no more than anyone else in the world. Less than many.

      “Everyone says that at first,” the pink woman says. “You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t lost.” Everyone else mutters in agreement.

      “I wouldn’t have gotten lost if it hadn’t been for that damn dust storm,” I say, though I think of how I hadn’t seen a sign or another vehicle for miles before that. I feel cold. This is all so unbelievable, yet no one cracks a smile. It isn’t a joke, at least not to them. “You can’t tell me that everyone who is directionally challenged ends up here.”

      “Not that kind of lost,” the woman in the polka-dot dress says, “or at least those kind don’t stay for long. All they need is a map or a sign or a clue. The Missing Man sends them back right away.”

      One of the kids, a boy with a baseball cap low over his eyes, says, “But he didn’t send you back. He left you. He left us.” The crowd inches closer until they press against the broken glass. I back up and hit the wall. Turning, I try the door to the supply closet. Locked. I knock on the door. “Tiffany? Please, let me in.” I can hear the panic infuse my voice, and I can’t stop it. I feel like a rabbit, cornered by a pack of wolves. I turn back to the mob. “It’s only been a day,” I say to them. “Give him longer. Me longer. Please, leave me alone!”

      A small figure pushes her way through the crowd.

      It’s the freaky girl. She still holds the teddy bear in one hand. Her princess dress is torn and stained. Her hair sticks out at odd angles and is clipped with at least twelve different clips, which only makes it jut out more. She steps through the broken window. Shards of glass crunch under her red sequin Mary Jane shoes.

      The girl holds out her hand. It’s empty.

      I stare at her hand. She wants me to take it. She waits, little hand out. At last, I reach out my hand and clasp hers. I hear an intake of breath from the mob, amplified by the number of people.

      Without a word, she pulls me across the lobby and through the broken window. Confused, the crowd parts. The girl marches through without looking right or left. I imitate her and don’t make eye contact. When we pass the mob, I don’t look back. We pass the bookstore and then the post office and then the barber shop. I am trying hard not to panic. I am not succeeding. “I need to get out of sight,” I say.

      She keeps pulling me down the street.

      I wonder if she intends to march me out of town, in which case what I told Tiffany will come true. I am already hungry and thirsty. I can’t live out in the desert. “Is there anyone friendly here? Someone who can help me?”

      The girl doesn’t answer.

      “I’m Lauren,” I say, trying for a friendly tone. “What’s your name?”

      Still no answer.

      Glancing back, I see the mob has spilled back onto the street. They are watching me. So far, they aren’t following, but that could change. “If you know a place to hide...”

      The girl switches direction, pulling me into the alley between the barber shop and a decrepit triple-decker house. She still doesn’t speak.

      I don’t know why I’m trusting her. “Are you helping me, or dragging me someplace private to cut me to pieces and feed me to your teddy bear? Just curious.”

      The girl looks at me with her wide eyes. “My name is Claire. And my teddy bear is not hungry today.”

      “That’s...good?”

      Claire skips over rotted cardboard boxes and sashays around sodden trash. I hesitate, weighing my options: follow the little knife girl or break out on my own. I think I can outrun her, but so far she’s done nothing but help. She beckons me. I’ll trust her, I decide. The decision makes my head feel light and dizzy. Or maybe that’s the stench. The alley stinks as if a dozen cats have died underneath the piles of junk. Following Claire, I hold my sleeve over my mouth and breathe through it. It doesn’t help. The stench makes my eyes water. Worse, the ground squishes underneath my feet. I feel as though the smell is clinging to me. After a while, I stop looking down. I don’t want to know what I’m stepping in.

      The alley stretches for far longer than should be possible, given the size of the town. A town this size shouldn’t have an alley at all. As we turn a corner, Claire puts her fingers to her lips. We creep past an open door. I hear voices, loud male voices, but I can’t distinguish the words. They may not be English.

      I follow the little girl in silence as the alley twists and winds. Oddly, there are no intersecting streets. Only narrow, trash-choked alleys. We’re hemmed in by apartment buildings, each ten and fifteen stories tall. Some are brick and have balconies strung with laundry and cluttered with old bikes and dead plants. Others are sheer concrete, defaced with spray-painted bubble letters and symbols. I don’t know how I failed to see them from the center of town. It’s as if Main Street hid a portion of a city behind a small-town facade, which shouldn’t be possible, given the height differential of the buildings.

      Two lefts and a right later, Claire leads me to a set of basement steps. I halt at the top, which forces her to stop, too. “Exactly where are we going? Because that looks ominous to me.” I try to sound light, as if this is a kid’s game, but I hear my voice СКАЧАТЬ