Peter and Claire will be fine without me. They’ll forget me soon and live their own lives, and I’ll live mine, and this will all fade into a dreamlike memory. Missing them will only hurt for a little while. Not as badly as missing Mom.
Ahead is the void. It rises in front of me, a wall of dust.
I slow, and then I turn to ride alongside it—the town to my left, the void to my right. After a while, I see a shape ahead of me, like a boulder, a few yards away from the motionless dust storm. It’s an abandoned car, a convertible. Reaching it, I slow, then dismount.
I check the ignition—no keys.
I check the glove compartment—nothing but registration, insurance, and a wad of napkins from a fast-food restaurant. Also a tire gauge. For an instant, I consider keeping the gauge, but I don’t have a tire pump so it’s pointless. I shove it back in the glove compartment, and I pop the trunk.
Beach chairs, useless.
Beach towels... I stuff one in my backpack.
Suntan lotion, nearly full. Brilliant find!
Sandwich, great. Bag of pretzels, okay. Soda can...I’ll save it for Claire,I think.She’ll love the treat.And then I remember that I’m leaving. If I’m lucky. If this works.
I feel a pang and try to stifle it quickly.
I close the trunk when I finish, and it occurs to me that I scavenged this car without hesitation. Elsewhere, my actions would be considered theft. I hope I can shed this charming new habit quickly once I’m home. Otherwise, Mom might be embarrassed at how often the police have to haul me in for petty larceny.
I try to imagine how I’ll explain this place to Mom and what her reaction will be. She might laugh. Or think I’ve lost my mind. Lost my mind in Lost. Hah. Maybe she’ll think it’s a joke. Or a lie. I hate the idea that she’ll think I’m lying to her.
As I smear the suntan lotion on my face and arms, I notice that the dust bank covers half the hood of the car. Odd. I’d thought the car was parked several feet away from the void. Backing away from the void, I climb on my bike.
Peter said to treat it like quicksand, or a black hole. Only a Finder or a Missing Man can enter the void without danger. If he hadn’t found me after my car ran out of gas... Without a Finder, an ordinary person like me will disintegrate inside the void. Fade away and never return. But if I can find the end of the dust storm, I can bypass it and escape. If I can even find a thin spot, I can punch through the storm to the other side. Pedaling, I ride parallel to the void, watching the dust for any weakness.
Soon after the car, the void undulates like a wave beside me, and I slow down. In one area, the dust swirls and bubbles. It looks like a whirlpool in the middle of a red lake. I watch as the void forms a funnel and shoots out several golf balls and a hat. They impact in the sand a few yards in front of me. I stare at the balls and hat. I stare at the void. It’s calm again. The moment would have been comical if it weren’t so freakishly bizarre.
I see the phenomenon happen several more times as I ride on, keeping several yards between me and the dust storm. Some of the objects sail far over my head, as if propelled by a rocket. Some crash in front of me. As the sun inches across the sky, I dodge objects in my path: a box of coats, a few cameras, an ice skate, a dead fish that’s as long as my arm.
Up ahead, the dust thickens again. It swirls, and then the whirlpool widens. In the center it’s black. The swirl expands, wider than any I’ve seen so far. I stop cycling. I wonder if I should retreat. It’s spinning faster and faster. It sucks back—and then the void expels a house. It flies over my head, and I instinctively duck. It crashes to the ground.
It’s a Cape house, and it looks abandoned. I know I should search it, scavenge for whatever has been left inside. But I can’t make myself move. I stare at it and think,I’m not simply in a town with crazy people. I’m in a crazy town that has made people crazy.
Shaken, I keep riding. Nowhere does the void seem weak or thin. It maintains the same opaque thickness as I circle the town. If anything, it’s thicker than I thought it was. And scarier. A hell of a lot scarier. I keep my eye on it, aware now that if it wanted or even if it didn’t, it could drop a house on me and then ding-dong, Lauren is dead.
It doesn’t end. It surrounds the entire town and the outskirts. Like a wall. Like a fence. Like a noose.
It takes me the entire day to circumnavigate the town of Lost. By the time I reach the abandoned convertible again, the sun is sinking, and my legs hurt worse than they ever have before. Half of the car is swallowed by the dust, covering the hood and windshield, as well as the dashboard. I dismount and walk the stretch from the edge of the void back to the little yellow house, walking the mountain bike beside me.
I wish I were brave enough to pedal into the dust. I wish I thought that Peter was lying about the danger, that I hadn’t been merely lucky before, that I could ride out of here, even though I’d failed to drive out. But I don’t think he was lying. I can’t pretend this is an ordinary dust storm, not anymore. And I can’t pretend there’s a way out.
Claire and Peter are waiting for me on the porch.
I lean the bike against the house, and then think better of it and take it into the living room. I put the kickstand down so it stands behind the couch.
“Did you—” Claire begins.
I turn to see Peter has put his hand over her mouth. His eyes are full of sympathy.
“At what point will this place drive me mad?” I am surprised by how calm my voice sounds. I would have thought I’d be more dramatic at the moment that I admit that I am truly trapped by some...impossible phenomenon, that this isn’t a temporary problem, that I don’t have a plan and don’t even have a plan to have a plan. There’s no crack in the void, no break in the dust, no way out. I should be wailing. Gnashing teeth. Tearing out hair. But I just feel empty inside.
They don’t answer, and I don’t expect them to. Maybe they would have told me the dust surrounds the whole town if I’d asked, if I’d wanted to hear. I’d deluded myself. Hope blinded me.
I walk past them both and up the stairs into the empty attic room.
I hear footsteps on the stairs, both heavy and light. I don’t turn around. Something soft is pressed into my hands. I look down. It’s Mr. Rabbit. Claire sits next to me and hugs her knees to her chest. Peter sits on the opposite side.
