Free Foreverland Is Dead by Tony Bertauski

of a bag. They lug it like it’s a dead body, having to stop halfway to adjust their grip.
    The garden is a sopping mes s. The roots have drowned. The landscape is an eternal shelf of misery. If Cyn is waiting for the weather to break before she escapes, she’ll be here too long. Maybe this is always the way it is. Maybe clear skies are rare.
    The wind hurls the front door open. Kat grabs it while Jen drags the sack inside. There’s a zipper down the length of the brown plastic bag. Cyn has never seen a body bag, but the sack could pass for one. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want to put that thought in the girls’ heads. No one wants to believe there are body bags in the brick house.
    “Oh my God. My boots are filled with ice water.” Jen sits down, pries her rubber boot off. Her socks splatter the floor with water. “I swear to God, there’s a gallon in here.”
    “I done told you, tuck the boots inside the pants.” Kat peels her jacket off.
    “No, you didn’t.”
    “Did so.”
    Mad comes out of the kitchen and they slide the bag in front of the hot stove. Cyn looks away while the zipper is drawn to the bottom.
    Just in case it is a body bag.
    Mad plants her hands on her hips. “I thought she was sending food?”
    “You got something against warm clothes?” Kat says.
    “ What good are they if we starve?”
    “Maybe we can eat the gloves .” Jen holds up fur-lined leather gloves. “Looks like rabbit skin on the inside.”
    For the third time in a week, they unload Gucci and Ralph Lauren. Jen pulls out a full-length fur.
    “Oh my God. It’s so soft.”
    “Take that off,” Kat says. “You look like an idiot.”
    The bag is nearly empty. Cyn starts sorting the gear into piles.
    “Looks like this one’s for you, Cyn.” Kat lifts up a North Face coat.
    “Why me?”
    “Got your name on it.” Kat flicks a white piece of paper folded and pinned to the front. “Says to meet Miranda up at the brick house, she wants to talk.”
    “Secret meeting, huh?” Jen says. “Better hope Roc doesn’t find out.”
    Cyn takes the coat, looks inside as if there might be more. She slides her arms inside, zipping up the front. It fits wonderfully.
    “Nothing secret,” she says. “You can come if you want.”
    “Pass.”
    “I’ll watch from the window,” Mad adds.
    Cyn puts on the rain gear while the girls continue sorting, discovering another load of insulated socks. She’s watertight when she leaves. All except for boots. Still, nothing fits.

    Miranda unfurls a red and white umbrella. The black rubbers are up to her knees. She stops a few feet from the matted grass, where the invisible fence still works.
    Cyn has the hood pulled over her eyes, standing in a shallow puddle. “Why haven’t you sent food?”
    “It’s coming, I promise.” She sniffs, glances behind Cyn. “I’m just sorting through the inventory, that’s all. There’s a lot.”
    Cyn doesn’t blink. “We’re hungry, Miranda.”
    “We all are.”
    “Are we?” She tips her head.
    Another glance behind Cyn. “I ’m scared that everyone is in danger.”
    Miranda reaches inside her coat, pulls out the leather book. She looks around, steps over to the fence, and hands it to Cyn.
    “What’s this?” Raindrops spatter the cover.
    “A diary.”
    Cyn quickly stashes it inside her coat before the pages swell.
    “Most of it is just regular, everyday stuff — riding horses and hiking. If you ask me, it’s like this place is some sort of dude ranch for old, rich women, like one last thing for them to do. I think they move here; I think they’re sick. They end up dying out here.”
    “What about us?”
    “They sponsor us, but that’s all it really says. Like we’re a bunch of poor kids they bring out here to save, maybe bring us closer to nature. I don’t know.”
    “You’re not poor, Miranda. You never were.”
    “You don’t know that. Maybe they’re training us to be better, maybe that’s why I’m in here. Maybe I