She places her palms on the warm metal table and lifts herself to sit level with me. Her fingers lightly touch my shoulder. “Mira, we’re both out of that basement.”
I let her words sink in. They’re so surreal, my head spins. But as their meaning makes its way down past my heart, landing deep in my gut, all I feel is the weight of guilt.
Our freedom for Father’s imprisonment.
“My ankle is better,” I lie, reaching for my rucksack. Ava’s hand slips from my shoulder, and I slide off the table, the dust flying wildly around me. “We should get to the safe house before nightfall.”
We walk side by side, two apparitions in a ghost town.
Beneath our umbrellas we pull our hoods low, but the sun always finds its way in, and Ava’s nose and cheekbones are already turning pink.
I squint down at the wristwatch I found in Father’s box. 7:04 p.m.
I need to forget the sting of my right foot. I need to forget the ache of no sleep. We need to move faster.
“If we lose the light, it will take us twice as long to find the house in the dark,” Ava says, reading my mind.
She stops, and like a magnet I draw back, keeping close. She unfolds the map hidden in the waist of her pants, and even though I know she memorized the address before we left the factory, her lips read over the street name and number for the sixth time. “3505 Esmond Avenue.”
I squat beside a fallen street sign buried in the ground. Ava grabs the other end of the aluminum sheet, and together we yank it from its grave. We brush aside the grass and dirt until we make out the letters E and D. Encouraged, I wipe the middle letters clean with the sleeve of my shirt.
“Emerald Street,” I read aloud. I throw the sign back into the dirt, and we both stand, hiding our worry from one another.
Ava pulls out the map again and studies the key, expecting to discover some missing clue that will pinpoint exactly where Arlo Chapman is waiting for us. It’s frustrating not being able to zoom in for a closer view of the city or to locate our exact position via satellite, especially having to rely on a paper map as our only navigation tool. But it can’t be traced, and it’s Father’s guide, leading us to somewhere he thinks is safe. And it’s the only thing we have.
We continue our search down the cracked pavement of the main road and turn left when we spot a neighborhood sign, intact and untouched a few yards ahead. Written in the granite rock: “Welcome to Westhaven Estates.”
“The safe house has to be in there,” Ava says, confident.
The steady winds push against us as we press forward, the fabric of our pants and hoods billowing out behind us like parachutes, making our pace slow and arduous. I bow my head against the force, and shoving my bangs off my face, I take in the scene around me with cautious eyes.
We pass street after street leading to nowhere, road after road lined with empty lots. Acres of infrastructure ready for a populace that will never come. The death of the American suburbs.
“It’s hard to imagine people ever wanted to live out here,” I say, unsure if Ava hears me or if the wind carries away my words. “It’s so far from any major city.”
Ava nods, but her concentration stays fixed on her search for another street sign.
As we move farther into the abandoned neighborhood, neat rows of concrete foundations eventually build up to the decaying framework of half-finished structures, and soon we’re surrounded by entire blocks of run-down homes left to rot.
I don’t know what I expected the safe house to be. But it wasn’t this.
Six blocks in, a nagging feeling tells me to get out my knife. By the time we reach the end of the street, the feeling raises to an alarm and screams, Don’t go farther!
One look from Ava and I know she hears it too. She pulls out her knife and flicks open the blade, pressing closer to me. We resume our advance, because there is only forward, Ava surveying the right while I sweep the left.
Bone fragments that look to be the size of small rodents lie scattered along the curb. We make it five more steps before Ava’s clammy hand grips my wrist. I hear a deep, savage growl, and the sting of cold sweat shoots down my legs, freezing me to the pavement.
The danger of encountering feral animals never once crossed my mind.
Slowly, calmly, I turn my head and see a lone dog, ears plastered back, teeth yellow and sharp, crouched in the yard of a lopsided one-story house. I can count the ribs on his emaciated body, his brown fur patchy and matted.
Ava emits a gentle cooing sound, but there’s little chance this undomesticated animal will back down. When food started to become more and more scarce, the majority of pets were either euthanized or turned out of their homes, forced to fend for themselves. Man’s best friend reverted to the ways of their ancestors, and this wolf-like dog in front of me now looks at us as nothing more than food.
Do not make eye contact. Do not run.
I’m certain his pack is somewhere nearby, and we just walked straight into their den.
“Back away slowly,” Ava whispers.
Three—or is it four?—more growls bounce off the walls from inside the decrepit house, confirming my fears.
Do not run.
Smooth and steady, Ava leads us backward even as the pack emerges from their den, tails wagging in cruel excitement, mouths snarling and foaming for a meal. I lock my gaze on the largest, her long snout disfigured with scars, as the pack spreads out to form a half circle.
They’re backing us into a corner.
My mind battles with my body. Every muscle tells me to run, but reason tells me we clearly can’t outrun them.
Don’t. Run.
The canopy of Ava’s umbrella begins to shake from her trembling right hand. She tries to hide the tremor from me like she did on the rail, but her efforts just make the handle shake even more.
My feet react before my mind can stop me, and I break into a sprint, pulling Ava beside me.
“Mira, no!” Ava screams, but it’s too late. I made the first move, and now we must commit to a footrace.
As one, we charge across a gravel yard and shoot down a well-traced path between the houses, the male with the matted fur only a few paces behind. Every stride is a fight to keep ahead. I don’t know how long I can keep this pace with my cursed ankle screaming at me. Run or die! the rest of my body shrieks back, but my stamina is waning, the hot breath of the pack right on our heels. We’re losing ground.
The dogs start barking. Ava starts shouting, “Drain spout! Look for a drain spout!”
We make it past another street and come to an alleyway.
“Left!” Ava yells.
The blinding glare of the setting sun draws my attention two houses down. A rainwater tank.
I drown out the violent hammering in my chest and the vicious cries of the pack, concentrating solely on that steel tank growing bigger with every step. The five yards it takes to get to safety feels unobtainable, but somehow we get there—Ava pushing me up the drain to the top of the barrel, me pulling her up with my last strength just as the dogs slam into the tank, jumping, clawing at Ava’s dangling foot.
“Give them your umbrella!” I shout.
Ava releases her grip on the handle and throws our shield directly into the pack. Three of them take the bait and crush the umbrella with their bodies in their furious scramble to rip apart the canopy first.
I find a final surge of power and haul Ava over the side of the tank with a vulgar grunt. She lands on my stomach.
“The roof,” she pants, breathing hard in my ear.
She shrugs her rucksack to the side and lifts herself to crouch on her heels. We lock arms and use each other’s weight to stand, keeping our eyes on the dog with the mangled snout stalking the perimeter below. We climb onto the top level of the house beside the rainwater tank, look out from its edge, and confirm the mutts have no way of making the leap to reach us.
I drop my pack and my knife, and with my last ounce of energy, I collapse onto the flat metal roof, curl my body into a ball, and close my eyes.
AVA