Max rubs his growling stomach and tries to count how many hours it has been since his last meal. He soon gives up trying to think about it, finding it difficult to concentrate on anything.
I wonder where Mia is?
“Is that your stomach making that racket?” asks Evelyn.
“You can hear that?” he asks, astonished. “I’m afraid so.”
“You poor fellow. Well, Noah promised to bring food when he returns.”
“The sooner the better,” Max says, his smile warming up the room.
“Agreed. Will you help me with something?”
“Of course.”
“Splendid. Come with me.”
Evelyn leads Max out of the room, through the kitchen, out the backdoor and onto the porch. The ash storm had stopped a couple of hours ago, but the occasional breeze kicks up waves of dust that whip through the grey pastures to expose pockets of green grass as well as to form wide drifts of accumulated ash, over two meters deep in some areas.
“Why are we outside?” he asks.
“I need to speak to you away from the others. You should know, before you become alarmed, that Mia is with Noah. She apparently had to go with him into town.”
Max laughs humorlessly. “Of course she did. What else is new?” He looks away from her, obviously annoyed.
“Max, I realize this is terribly hard for you to accept. I too have struggled to wrap my mind around what your sister can do. As much as I protested her leaving with Noah, I have to admit there is something to it, something that may be beyond our realm of understanding. And just because I don’t understand what’s happening, I can’t blindly ignore the facts.”
Max rolls his eyes. “No offense Evelyn but I
do
understand what’s happening. At first I wasn’t sure what to think, and I actually felt pity for her. So much so that I was convinced she tried to kill herself the other day because she felt guilty about what happened. But then it hit me. She knows exactly what’s been happening this whole time. We’re all just pawns in her little game.”
“Oh Max,” Evelyn sighs. “That’s not what’s going on...”
“Isn’t it?” He interrupts. “I’ve known my sister my whole life. And believe me, I have no idea who she is now. This is not the Mia I have ever known. She has friends now.
Friends!
” He laughs at the thought. “Did you know that she has never had a friend before? Well, except for me I guess. She was practically a shut-in before we crashed here. Something’s rotten, this... this impersonator has been playing all of us for fools.”
Evelyn wraps her arms tightly around herself, as a chill goes through her. She frowns as she contemplates his words. “I hope you’re wrong about that, Max.”
Luna and Alice interrupt the discussion as they emerge onto the porch, dressed in their soot-stained outer clothes.
“Where on earth are you two going?” asks Evelyn.
“We are going to check out the barn and see if there’s anything of use in there. We’re too hungry to sleep and too bored to just sit there,” Luna says.
“I’ll come with you,” Max volunteers, following Luna and Alice down the steps.
“Don’t venture too far from the house. It will be dark soon,” Evelyn warns.
*************
Noah and his companions have reached the perimeter of the ghost town. And even at this close proximity, nothing new has revealed itself. Shetland is an old industrial town, built in the early 1900s. From this vantage, about a hundred meters from the outskirts, he can make out some of the chaos that has unfolded. Cars are strewn in every direction, some with doors hanging open, apparently abandoned. They are the source of some of the smaller fires, along with a few rows of houses.
“What the hell happened here?” Noah mutters under his breath, trying to piece it all together. The mantle of ash obscuring the details doesn’t help. He lowers his binoculars and looks wide left and then right and then sweeps behind him.
Where is she?
“What are you waiting for?” Maaka demands. “The station’s this way.”
Noah stalls a little longer and raises his binoculars. “Just erring on the side of caution.”
*************
“Where are you taking us? We were supposed to meet up with Noah before we got into town,” pleads Mia.
“Plans have changed,” the other Mia informs her.
“What do you mean? Does he know that?”
“Look, he’ll figure it out. Now pay attention and do exactly as I do. Do not stray or improvise. You got me?” Her tone is deadly serious.
“What?”
“Do you understand?” She drawls in the condescending tone she often uses to annoy her brother. Being on the receiving end of it now only fills her with guilt.
“Whatever!” she snaps.
“Shhh.” The other Mia puts her index finger to her lips. “Be quiet.”
She crouches low before springing off like a cat in the night. They move quickly through the outskirts of town, her leader remarkably deft. Mia follows just behind, mimicking one maneuver after the other. They snake through a maze of cars — some smoking, others covered in ash — and periodically hide behind a few of them until they reach the intended target. In the middle of the road, a trailer-truck is parked diagonally across an intersection, blocking both lanes. A pile of cars are pinned behind the big rig, suggesting a thwarted attempt to flee the town by car. The truck acts as a roadblock. Mia runs to the cab of the truck and opens the door, already ajar, to allow her shadow self to enter it before her. When she clambers up to the driver seat, Mia is greeted by her double, already resting comfortably in the passenger seat. She smiles coyly back at her startled reflection.
“Holy shit! I hate when you do that!” says Mia.
The other Mia shakes her head. “I know, and it never gets old.”
“Why are we in here?” she asks, looking around the cabin.
Her double smiles wickedly before kicking the glove compartment, causing the door to drop open and reveal its contents. “That’s why,” she answers.
Mia leans over to look into the glove box and doesn’t like what she sees. In it rests a nickel-plated pistol with a black grip and trigger. “What am I supposed to do with that?” she asks, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“You’re gonna have to kill yourself,” she deadpans.
“What?”
“I’m teasing you. God, you’re so uptight!”
“Uptight?” She rolls her eyes and takes a deep breath, squeezing the steering wheel as hard as she can. “Just tell me what the fuck you want me to do.”
***********
**
Noah hunkers against a broken divide, whether it’s a half wall or something else, it’s impossible to tell under the heap of volcanic ash. He’s just meters from the police station and hasn’t moved in twenty minutes; the others are hidden in the alley, their backs pressed against the wall. He surveys the back of the three-story rectangular building, surrounded by a tall steel fence topped with spiraling razor wire.
“What the fuck, are we waiting for? It’s right there!” complains Maaka — loudly. He shakes his black head, sending a small avalanche of ash cascading down his wiry beard.
“Quiet!” Noah orders. “Do not move or I swear to Christ, Maaka, I will break your fucking leg! I have to make certain we’re not walking into a world of shit.”
Noah senses something is out there, but he can’t even begin to know what. The town and its buildings truly appear abandoned. Nothing has stirred, not even a cat passing by a window. But he can’t escape the feeling that they are being watched — and have been from the moment they entered the burning town.
Maaka scowls, glaring at the source of his undiluted disdain.
The good shepherd protecting his flock all the while forgetting the bleeding obvious.
He looks to the black sky, strobed by lightning and roiling with anger. He ponders the death of his ancestral home.
“The world of shit is already here, Captain Cautious,” he mutters bitterly.
*************
“Are you fucking crazy?” Mia pulls off her sunglasses to look herself in the eye.
“I dunno, are you?” her shadow replies, reveling in the banter.
“Let me get this straight… you want me to hand that gun over to Maaka!
Maaka
? He’s a fucking psychopath!” She uses her dirty black index finger to drive the point home.
She reclines in the passenger seat and drapes her long legs across the dash. Her clothing is crisp, clean, and immaculate. The white fur hood that frames her pristine face glows in their drab surroundings, as the two sit across from each other, a stark contrast of black and white.
“Exactly.”
Mia looks at her superior with equal parts envy and contempt. “I fucking hate you.”
*************
Max pulls open the creaky barn door, unleashing a slab of collected ash that rains down on him like a burst bag of flour. “Fuck!”
Luna and Alice brush him off in a series of pats and swipes, laughing at him in the process, which causes Max to laugh too. Armed only with flashlights, Max and Luna cautiously peer inside to find an empty shell with a few random tools still hanging on the walls. A rusted machete hangs by a leather strap, and a pickaxe old as the barn itself rests next to it. On a cobweb-infested windowsill, a long black screwdriver sits next to a single dusty light bulb. Max claws his way through the webbing for the bulb, shaking it next to his ear to hear the jangling of broken filament inside. He leaves the bulb where he found it and shines his light on the floor. The base is composed of dirt and sand and matted straw, and the building smells of a musty combination of shit and dry rot. As Max angles his light toward the ceiling, he notices a second floor with no discernible way to up to it. He walks to the opposite end of the barn and pushes open the other set of doors, letting in what little daylight remains. Just beyond is the old weathered silo. It’s a rickety tower covered in equal parts whitewash and orange rust, standing a hundred paces from the barn. The sounds of muffled banter arouse his curiosity, and he turns around to see what Luna and Alice have discovered. Max sees them in the corner hovering over an old wooden crate. They drag it to the middle of the floor and eagerly start picking
through
it.
He turns his attention back to the silo and the long metal ladder running up the side of it. Each step is frosted in several inches of ash. As he makes his way toward the tower, his mind wanders momentarily to his sister and the others and he prays that they are safe among the ruins of Shetland. He takes hold of the ladder and tugs on it hard; it is bolted securely to the base of the silo and it doesn’t budge. Max looks up to the top of the cylinder and wonders if he will be able to see the town better from there. He decides to find out.
His efforts are somewhat rewarded with a panoramic view of the town and the surrounding grey countryside, a colorless, barren wasteland of emptiness. The fires continue to burn in the town but with the fading light and the cover of ash, there’s nothing to see that he hasn’t witnessed already. Just as he is about to climb down, he turns his head to look across the still, grey horizon, when a sudden movement in the corner of his eye causes him to take a closer look. He strains to see what seems to be a young woman running as fast as she can through a dead field, kicking up a furious storm of smoke and dust. She appears gaunt and naked, with long mousey brown hair that bounces erratically behind her. Just as suddenly as she appeared, he loses her among a patch of thickets. Max is thrown into high alert; the woman is clearly in immediate danger, running from something even if that something is not visible. Realizing he needs to act quickly, Max decides to go after her. He climbs down heedlessly, jumping off the ladder while still ten feet off the ground. After plummeting to a heap of ash, he takes a few staggering steps before regaining his footing and charging off in the direction of the fleeing woman.
In his haste, he forgets to tell Luna and Alice. Not once does he even consider Evelyn’s warning.
*************
Noah leads his crew carefully through the empty streets of Shetland. He detects no other souls, as they serpentine among burned-out cars and through side streets until they finally reach the front of the station. What he couldn’t have seen — but what he naturally assumed — is now plainly visible: The front doors are locked and barricaded. While contemplating his next move, a voice from behind utters, “I know a way inside.”
Noah’s anger immediately gives way to relief: the voice of the person he swore to protect. He smiles as he turns to face her, crouched behind a car like a jaguar in the snow.
“What are you doing
here
, Mia?”
She shrugs nonchalantly, her eyes sparkling in the twilight. “It’s okay, follow me.”
Noah looks at Hiroshi for a moment before he nods for him to follow Mia and as he does, Maaka erupts again.
“Am I missing something? What the bleeding fuck is she doing here? And why are we following her?”