Read Foreverland Is Dead for Free Online Page A

didn’t. You didn’t go upstairs, you didn’t open a single damn door. You didn’t look, Shiny.”
    “Don’t call me that.” Miranda wraps her arms around herself, rocking.
    Roc goes inside the kitchen. A can of green beans ricochets off the sink and rolls out the door. Mad and Jen get out of the way. More cans crash. Cyn reaches out but Miranda jerks away. She bows her head, quivering. Her sobs are silent thumps inside her throat.
    “You’re going back in there.” Roc comes out, points a can at Miranda, the label hanging. “You’re going back in that big ass house and opening those doors, and you’re going to find out what the hell is in there—”
    “NO!”
    Miranda runs.
    Roc swipes at her. Cyn flinches, wants to stop Roc from chasing her , but she doesn’t have to. Instead, Roc rears back and throws the can. The label shears off, flapping to the ground. The can misses, wide left. It rolls into the tall grass.
    “You need to go get that,” Cyn says.
    “Yeah, I’ll get it when that little bitch goes back in the house.”
    “She’s scared.”
    “Who isn’t?”
    Roc watches Miranda sprint deep into the meadow, swallowed by swards of wildflowers and grasses. Disappearing on the other side of the slope. For a second, Roc tenses. She might give chase. Cyn would have to stop her if she did. She couldn’t let her go after Miranda. She’s just a little girl. And their only hope.
    But then Roc kicks an errant can toward the garden and curses. She stomps around back, out of sight.
    Mad and Jen start cleaning up.
    Cyn considers going out there. If she goes too far, if she doesn’t come back, she’s a goner.
    She’ll never survive the night.

8

    In the formless gray void
    Lost forms appear.
    Two distant lumps
    Coming closer.

    The wind harvesters lift her out of dead sleep. That’s what sleep feels like: death. Cyn lies beneath her warm blankets, listening to the chop-chop of the wind harvesters and the soft breathing of her bunkmates.
    The last thing she remembers is eating. If she concentrates, she recalls walking through the grass, her hand on the door…
    And then gray.
    Something’s out there. Something’s coming.
    Someone.
    It’s just a dream, but it’s not the random images of dreams. She feels like she’s somewhere else when she sleeps. Somewhere, but nowhere. It makes no sense.
    She reaches under the bed without letting the cold air inside the covers; rolling over, she scores another line on the wall.
    Day three.
    She tries not to look at the endless bundles that are stacked like sticks below her puny new lines, too many to count.
    Cyn slides the box out from under the bed , blindly pulling out a second heavy sweatshirt and jeans. She pauses for a moment, bracing for the morning chill.
    The boots feel like reinforced cardboard. It’ll take several steps to loosen them up. The soles bang against the wood planks. She walks to the back door and see the lump beneath the covers of the last bed on the right, blonde hair splayed on the pillow.
    She made it.
    Cyn smiles. Miranda must’ve snuck in when they were asleep. Good.
    She runs to the dinner house. The wind smacks her, grit biting her cheek. The egg collection will have to wait. The dinner house creaks. Cyn considers firing up the wood stove, but doesn’t want to waste wood. She has no idea how much wood it’s going to take to survive the winter.
    Cyn rubs her hands for warmth. The scent of fresh vegetables instantaneously reaches deep inside her. She’s tempted to sneak a bell pepper, maybe one that’s half rotten, one they wouldn’t likely use. No one would know.
    She distracts her senses while she waits for Mad and starts taking inventory of food. Black beans, garbanzos, corn, and tomatoes on the top shelf. More of the same on the second shelf. Canned fruit is on the third shelf, with a gap on the far right.
    No cherries.
    Cherr ies.
    She shifts the cans around to fill the hole. She’ll bring it up at breakfast, see if anyone has