Finding

There are no sounds. No birds chirping, no bees buzzing, no breeze blowing. That’s how I know that their mutagens are nearby, tracking. I jostle the knob to the steel door on the little house. It doesn’t budge. A low growl escapes my lips in frustration and I thump my forehead against the door. This is the third one I’ve tried, but something is telling me that I’m supposed to be here. I pull my hand into my sleeve and shiver, due more to the eerie silence than the late October evening. I used to love quiet nights when it was still Before when She would tuck me in the back seat of the beat-up SUV that smelled of oil and grass shavings, the one with the makeshift sunroof where we could look up at the stars. I’d thought I heard her singing last night like she used to before putting me to bed. It scared me awake before I realized it was only me serenading myself in the space between alertness and slumber. Her face is blurry now, but I remember her voice, lilting and bell-like, trailing off with the sweet hush of the night air. My throat tightens and I taste salt on the back of my tongue as I choke back the memory. I miss her. Too many deadly things are silent now and you can never be certain what kind of mutagen might meet you in the twilight. I swipe at the window to the left, brushing away caked-on grime. I can just make out some broken-down furniture and a few pillows scattered across a dirty floor. Other squatters. It must’ve been weeks, though. Even squinting from here, I can see that dust has settled over those pillows and any footprints are long gone. But the door is locked, so there must be another way in. I tighten the belted backpack around my waist and try lifting the shatterproof windows, tripping along the bramble skirting the foundation.

The front window is locked, as expected. The left side is the same. The back is useless. I catch myself more than once as I stumble over the overgrown roots snaking up the timber siding like they're part of the structure. A particularly nasty one wrenches my foot from under me, and I pitch forward throwing my arms out. My wrists make contact with the earth beneath me, I hear a dull pop, and pain shoots up through the joints on my right side. I suck in sharply biting back a yelp. What good would it do to be attacked now? From my throbbing wrist, I’m sure there’s no way I can fight anyone, or anything off. I lift my ears, listening for any change in the atmosphere, but it’s like even the wind is holding its breath. Panting, I turn back towards the house, and that’s when I see it: a panel, just bigger than my bookbag concealed by an overgrown rose bush. At once, I single-armed military crawl to this respite, shoving the panel to the side. The stale odor of the place hits me immediately, but I hold my breath and pull myself in, closing the opening behind me. In the dim night, I can barely see aside from what appears to be decades worth of dust and wall-to-wall boxes. the stench of the place makes my head hurt and I burry into my arms. And maybe the pain is making me stupid but, with the outdoors behind me, I allow my heavy lids to droop and fall asleep among the packaging.

~

There’s a scene in an old disc film where one of the characters plays what they used to call a movie reel hundreds of years ago. The pictures start slow, then they move faster and faster, and the faster they move, the clearer the images become. A man kneels in front of a woman, he blushes and holds out flowers. She is bashful. In an instant, our main character has insight into what it is to be human. When I close my eyes at night there are no rolls of film, only the dreams that fill my head. Most of them are dreams of you. There are never many colors, only muted hues, but your voice rings in my ears. It’s a beautiful sound. We are in a yard that smells of roses and honeysuckle, and I am chasing you. I remember your laughter. You throw your head back wildly exposing a thin filigree chain that hangs from your neck, and peals of the giddy sound warble up through the trees. I call back to you, joyful. You run faster, but I can easily keep up. You zip through the shrubs and bound over flower beds calling my name. I don’t know what it means, but I know that it’s mine. I feel the warmth of it wrap me up from the inside out. Do you want me to catch you? I feel like you do. But why are you running faster? You egg me on, but something feels off. Your hair is big and wild; curly, wavy, coily just like mine. I call back to you but the voice that comes out isn’t my own. And my legs aren't mine. My feet aren’t mine, and I am tripping over them. The pitch of your voice rises like that of a siren. It lures me on, but I can no longer control my limbs. With every step, you grow further beyond my reach. Why won’t you look at me? And I cannot see you, either. Then, abruptly, you stop and in mid-air, so do I. You call me.

“I’m right here!” I yell in the foreign voice. You turn around slowly, but you have no face. There are only blurred edges, like my faded memories. I can still hear your voice though until I don’t. Instead, it is replaced by silence, and we are in a maze of corridors. I am looking for you, calling out a name but I cannot remember whose it is. Around every corner, there is only gray. I can only hear my steps echoing down the halls.

~

I open my eyes to the gray before dawn, trying to pull the pieces of Her face together in my mind before waking steals them away. It’s hard because, even now in the After, my dreams consist of mostly imagined smells, sounds, and dull colors. The air is a mixture of the staleness of age and the odor of dogwood lingering from my subconscious. My face is warm and the pain of trying to take a swipe at the crust in my eyes reminds me that I’ve fallen. I squeeze them tightly for a moment willing back the dream only for it to dissipate into the ether. Blinking, I look around. Only now is it clear that I am not quite where I thought I was? Instead of a room or a basement, I am sitting in a narrow passageway that seems separate from the house itself. The hall is made even more narrow by the boxes lining the walls. There are no windows here. The little outside light that I do see comes from the halo around the panel that I slid through the night before. The majority of the dim glow lighting the place belongs, instead, to the orbs that hang above me. Stacked floor to ceiling in some areas, the boxes make neat little rows forming a maze that reminds me of something just out of my mind’s reach. Stickers fuzzy with filth are covered in thick black scribbles. I assume they’re labels, but I can’t read. I pull myself up lopsidedly with my good arm and take shaky steps through the aisles, running an absentminded finger over them. I pause with my hand hovering over one that draws me in with its familiar scent. Slowly, I open the lid. Inside is a collection of hand-sewn dolls. I reach into the box and pull one out.

The doll has no face, but I can tell it is supposed to be Her. Yarn-like spirals stick up around her head. Caramel-colored cloth mimics the complexion of her skin. I feel something in me jolt as I grip the doll tighter. That's not for you. Guiltily I drop the doll to the ground as if she is scolding me right now. I move to place the lid back on the box but stop as yet another trinket catches my eye. This time, it's a small yellow duck. Hours later, I am surrounded by boxes, both half full and completely free of their contents. I’ve been digging, pulling out object after object, each item firing synapses in my brain, awakening events that have long since been put to sleep inside of me. This blanket smells like my bed. The dress covered in violets still bears the discolored stain on the hem. I can’t stop myself. Ignoring my wrist, I drop to my knees and roll around in the contents of the boxes, until I hear a dull thud. What was that? Heavy footfalls reverberate through the floors above me.

“This is the place.”

“Are you sure?”

There’s rustling and the sounds of objects being pushed aside. Something large hits the floor, then shatters. I press my swollen wrist to my mouth holding back the screams that threaten to alert the intruders above to my presence. The place did seem empty before, but had I known that it was? My shirt is suddenly sticky and clings to the beads of cold sweat dampening my skin. Now that I’ve salvaged a bit of rest I realize I am exposed. Truthfully, I don’t even really know what this underground place is, or if it is safe to climb back out the way that I came. Out of instinct, I push myself further back into the hideaway till my back hits a wall. Another panel slides free and I knock loose particles of dust that fall on top of my head. I hope that sound down here doesn’t carry as well as it does above me. I do not want to die here.

I back up, shrinking, trying to make myself as small as possible, shutting my eyes tight. Now more than ever, I do my best to picture her face, but it is still a smudge in my memory. I slip on the documents strewn across the floor. Another box, one that I did not overturn, spills out onto the concrete. I’ve landed on my bad wrist again, stopping myself from falling onto my back and splitting my head. Around me, in this little room, the walls are covered with images, diagrams, and symbols I do not recognize. Above a desk in the back corner, there is a picture of a young woman receiving an award. Something soft lies at my feet. I gaze at the heap and my jaw drops in silent horror. It is the body of the same young woman, face frozen in her final expression. In her hand, a syringe drips with a blue liquid that smells cloyingly sweet, and a familiar phantom pain thrums its way up my injured arm. An old filigree chain hangs from her neck and hanging from it, a heart-shaped locket. With trembling fingers, I reach out and pop open the mechanism. A holo reel flickers on, off again, and finally to life. A snapshot of a little girl with kinky locks plays as she laughs joyously, running from her curly furred doodle dog. My eyes widen with recognition. It’s me. I stare back up at the woman’s decaying face, tears pooling in my eyes, and I let out a long low howl. Her eyes no longer light up with mirth. There is a deep thud on the opposite side of the wall. I grip the locket in my teeth and shield her body with mine preparing to meet whoever is on the other side.

***