The Last One(57)

“Are we—” A look of horror crosses his face.

“It’s all right. You can talk. Just not so much, okay?”

He nods rapidly. “Are we stopping here?” he asks. “For the night?”

“Yes.”

It seems the silence has done him good. He pauses for several seconds and then says, “Thanks, Mae.”

“Go change.”

The pantry is stocked with organic vegetarian canned soups and mac and cheese with animal-shaped noodles. I heat up a can of Tuscan bean and rice soup for myself, and then make the mac and cheese for Brennan, substituting a can of condensed milk for the dairy called for by the box. He polishes off the entire pot’s worth and then collapses on a couch with a sigh. Moments later, he’s snoring. The sound isn’t as annoying as it used to be. In fact, it makes the house feel a little less big.

I toss a quilt over him, then wrap myself in another. The couches are too soft; I sit on the rug, facing the fire and holding a cup of herbal tea. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep here. Although, I checked all the rooms, so it should be okay. I hope it will be okay.

And if it’s not, if something happens tonight, it’ll be something new. Maybe they’ll pump locusts down the chimney or toss some timber rattlesnakes through the broken window. Send in remote-controlled bats with exaggerated fangs. Or maybe my marauders will make their debut.

I know it’s useless to try to predict their depravity, but I can’t help trying. It makes sitting here, waiting, in this massive, ghostly house a little easier. I’m confident that whatever they do, they won’t do it until later. They’ll wait until I’m asleep—or nearly asleep—to strike. That’s how they do it; they blur the line between reality and nightmare. They give me bad dreams, and then they make them come true.

The worst was the cabin. The too-blue cabin I can’t forget, no matter how hard I try.

I found the cabin two days after Wallaby left me. I was following the last Clue given me. Look for the sign past the next creek, it said. I’d found a dry creek bed just hours from my camp, but there was no sign, so I kept walking, searching. I was beginning to fear I was off course, lost, and then there it was: a little brook babbling, You found me, you found me. Just downstream a culvert, a road, a driveway. And my sign, obvious, if unexpected: a swath of baby-blue balloons tied to a mailbox, dancing, drifting. I followed their driveway to a small single-story cabin, blue, with a stubby chimney. There were more balloons tied by the front door and a gray welcome mat. I remember bright fish swimming the mat’s perimeter, framing the words HOME SWEET HOME and smiling frozen cartoon smiles—though I didn’t yet recognize this as my next Clue.

The front door wasn’t locked. The cabin was blue and unlocked—they couldn’t be more obvious than that. I stepped into a room awash in sky blue. Balloons littered the floor, a tower of blue-wrapped packages stood on the dining table; there was a blue couch, a blue chair. Throw pillows. Everything that was colored was blue. Everything. No, an exception—I remember a rug, the contrast of my gray-black handprint on the soft yellow after I opened the flue and built my fire. But everything other than that was blue, I remember.

I kept to the living area, kitchen, and bathroom at first, leaving two doors that I assumed led to bedrooms closed. The electricity didn’t work, but there was running water—and a blue baby bottle in the sink. I assumed the tap water was safe to drink and filled my bottles without boiling it first, a mistake. There were granola bars and an open bag of cheese curls in the cupboard. I ate my fill, which was also maybe a mistake, but I think it was the water that made me sick. I found some Twinings Lady Grey Tea too and made myself a cup, thinking that was a nice touch.

After finishing my tea, or maybe while I was still drinking it, I started to open the packages on the table. I expected food and a new battery for my mic pack, a Clue telling me where to go next. But the first item I unwrapped was a stack of picture books. One had a giraffe on its cover, another a family of otters. They all had animals on the covers, though on one it was just a teddy bear crushed to a little boy’s chest. When I peeled back the paper on the second package—small, soft—I found a row of tiny white and blue socks, six pairs marked NEWBORN.

I remember tossing the socks onto the table and walking to the couch, suppressing—barely—an urge to stomp on one or all of their omnipresent balloons. Even now, I feel the sting of their message. I know I told them my reasons for coming. I told them when I applied and I told them again each round of the selection process. I told them in my first confessional. Again and again, I told them. I shouldn’t have been so surprised that they listened.

After that I lay on the couch and failed to sleep for a long time. I was finally dozing when I heard it: a mewling cry. The sound pulled me toward full consciousness and my waking mind struggled to determine the direction of its source. Down the hall, behind a bedroom door.

The only light came from the stars and moon, and was filtered through windows. I remember creeping down the hall, feeling my way, stepping softly in my socks—this was the last time I took off my boots to sleep. The sound was weak and animal-like. A kitten, I thought, and meant for me. They knew I would take care of it. I’m more of a dog person, but I’d never abandon an orphaned kitten. I’d never abandon any orphaned mammal, except maybe a rat.

When I opened the bedroom door, the mewling stopped, and I stopped with it. A wall of arched windows framed a queen-size bed. Compared to the hallway, the dusky light there was luminous; the bedding reflected the dreamy blue-gray of night. There was a teddy bear on the dresser, one of those nanny-cams. I remember identifying the camera made me feel a little better, a little braver.