The Lost

I look back once more and see a red balloon float away over the town.

* * *

I drive past the Welcome to Lost sign. “Good bye, Lost,” I say to the sight in the rearview mirror. I switch on the radio. This time, there isn’t static, which is a relief. It’s a song that I don’t recognize, though, so I change the station. Same song. I change it again. Same song again. I go through the stations, scanning at first and then tuning to each station, even those that should be static. But all of them are playing the same song. I turn off the radio. It must be broken.

I drive in silence.

It shouldn’t be far to the highway entrance ramp.

Wind blows dust across the road. It dissipates across the desert. There are no clouds in the sky, and the sun washes over the red earth. It isn’t hot yet, and with luck, it will be another nice day for a drive. Maybe that’s what I should tell people, “It was a nice day for a drive.” Certainly sounds better than “I’m a coward with an overactive imagination.”

By now, I should have seen the entrance ramp. Looking in the rearview mirror, I can’t see the town anymore, not even the water tower.

I don’t remember driving more than a few minutes off the highway last night. But maybe it was longer and I’m overeager to escape. Tapping my fingers on the steering wheel, I keep driving.

Dust billows. It blots out the view of the road in front of me. Another dust storm, or dust bank. Like last night, it doesn’t seem to have much wind behind it. It sits on the road. Soon, I’m inside it, and the desert is a blur around me.

I slow and turn on my lights. I don’t want to miss the highway entrance in the dust. I peer at the side of the road and watch for a break in the fence that could indicate an entrance ramp. But there isn’t one. The posts keep appearing, one after another like reliable ghosts.

Strange that there should be another dust storm. Or maybe it isn’t so strange. Maybe the contours of the land make this area prone to them. Don’t be paranoid, I tell myself.

Eventually, the dust clears, the storm recedes to the rearview mirror, and I relax. Not even the worst dust storm can last forever, even if it feels as though it’s swallowed the world. Now that I’m out, I am certain that I will see the highway soon.

Ahead, I spot a sign:

Welcome to Lost

My car rolls to a stop next to the sign.

I stare at the chipped wood with the gold letters.

There must have been a fork in the road. I must have somehow taken a turn within the dust storm. I hadn’t been able to see both sides of the road. It had been impossible to tell direction. The road could have split and then somehow circled back here... I don’t remember a fork or a merge or any turns, but there’s no other explanation.

Shaken, I check carefully in both directions—there are still no other vehicles on the road—and do an overly cautious three-point turn, like my mom if she has to drive in downtown L.A. I head away from town. Again.

A few miles down the road, I hit the dust storm. It swallows me and the desert and the road. This time, I inch forward and keep as close to the side of the road as I can without driving on the dirt, so that I don’t miss the highway entrance a second time. It has to be here somewhere.

I am in the dust storm for nearly half an hour.

A minute after I emerge, I see the Welcome to Lost sign.

I slam on the brakes and hit the steering wheel with the heel of my hand. I swear I didn’t feel the road turn. It didn’t fork. This makes no sense!

I pull a U-turn and try again.

Again, there’s the dust. And again, when I emerge, the sign.

“Goddammit!” I shout. I get out of the car, and I kick the Welcome to Lost sign. It doesn’t even sway. I take a cathartic breath so deep that it would please a yoga instructor, and I climb back into my car.

I slam the door.

I check my cell phone.

Still no damn signal.

I look down at the gas gauge. It’s brushing against the red.

What the hell kind of middle of nowhere town doesn’t have a gas station? Isn’t that the whole point of the entire goddamn town, to service people who drive out here in a futile bid to avoid the inevitable?

I have enough gas for one more try.

There has to be an entrance ramp somewhere. It’s the dust storm that’s fouling up my sense of direction. If I could see more than three feet ahead of me, I’d be fine. I’ll wait for the dust to die down, and then... And then if I fail, I’ll use the motel phone to call AAA to bring me gas from the next town. I am reasonably sure that I renewed my AAA membership when Mom reminded, aka nagged, me to.

I sit in the car, engine off, while I think about Mom and wait for the dust to die.

I know I should have used the motel phone to call her before I checked out. I’m certain Mom has tried to call me already, probably multiple times. She wouldn’t be panicking yet, at least not visibly, because we’d had a conversation about boundaries and how I need space, especially now that she’s moved in with me. But she will be checking her phone regularly by now.

I’m coming, Mom, I think.

It is silent here, in a way that L.A. never is. So silent that it feels like a pressure inside my ears as I strain to hear the hum of another car, the honk of a horn, the bark of a dog, even the cry of a bird. I only hear the wind. I reach for the radio again and then stop. I don’t want to know if it’s continuing to play the same unfamiliar song.

I turn the car on, ignore the low-gas beep, and drive down the road—directly into the dust storm. This time, I’m in the storm for much longer. It begins to feel as if the dust will never end. I can feel it in my lungs as it leaches into the car. My skin is gritty. I had to have missed the highway entrance, but I continue to drive because this road must lead to another town! Construction workers spent time constructing this. It can’t be a road to nowhere.

After an hour, the car sputters. I look at the gas gauge, and the needle is at the bottom of the red zone. I press down on the gas pedal. But the car runs slower and slower.

Soon, it stops. Dust swirls all around me. I lay my forehead on the steering wheel. This is how I will die, lost in a storm in the desert, choked by dust, dehydrated, and starved...

A knock on the window.

Shrieking, I jump. My head smacks hard against the headrest. “Ow!” I rub the back of my head as I look out the window. I see only dust, though I swear I’d heard a knock. The wind must have blown something against it.

It works as a wake-up call, though.

Option one: I can sit here, wait for a kindly soul to drive by, flag them down, and beg for help. Problem is that I haven’t seen a car go by in...well, ever. I’m not even on the main highway, just a road to nowheresville.

Option two: I can walk through the storm back to town. Problem is that I drove for an hour to reach this delightful spot of nothing, and that’s a damn long walk through air thick enough to chew. At best, it will be uncomfortable with the dust flying in my eyes and nose and mouth. At worst...it’s freaky how shrouded and hidden the world is. I can’t see more than a few feet in any direction. The idea of walking into that nothingness makes me feel like I will dissipate into the dust.

I wonder what a horror-movie heroine would do, stay in the car or get out. Girl Scout training says stay put and someone will find me. But that only works if anyone has a clue where I am. As far as anyone knows, I could be home on a sick day or off on a spontaneous beach vacation or away on an impromptu business trip. I doubt anyone would guess I’m here.

Yesterday was not a terrible day. I woke up, brushed my teeth, showered, and dressed. I had a slice of cinnamon bread for breakfast as I dashed out of the apartment. I locked the door, shoved the bills in the mailbox, and sidestepped the pile of dog poo left by the neighbor’s evil yap-yap dog that I had twice threatened (under my breath) to drown when it decided to take up operatic howling at 4:00 a.m. Then I got into my car. It started with its usual not-quite-dead-yet lurch, and I drove toward work. I hit two red lights and at the second, when I should have turned left, I didn’t.

I simply didn’t.

That was all.

I skipped three nonessential meetings, the usual lunch with my coworkers Angie and Kristyn, and dinner with Mom after her doctor’s appointment, which may or may not have included positive or negative test results. There was nothing that would give anyone any hint that I would have driven east for hours, and no reason for anyone to guess that I would ever do this, even on a bad day. I don’t even have a reason to tell myself. Just...a hunch that the day was going to turn bad.

I was a particle of dust that a breath pushed eastward, and so here I am inside dust. If I step outside the solid car, I’m afraid I’ll dissolve into the air and float forever, shifting across the desert... Stop with the bullshit, Lauren, I tell myself.

I fling the car door open. The town is back the way I came, unless I’ve mysteriously circled toward it again. I don’t know which is the quickest way, but I can’t stay here and stew in my own melodramatic miasma. Swinging my purse over my shoulder, I step out of the car. The dust pricks my eyes. Coughing, I hold my sleeve over my mouth. I turn to shut the car door behind me. And I scream.

A man dressed in black crouches on the roof of my car.

Screaming, I retreat so fast that I stumble off the road and onto the dirt. I keep backing up until I smack into a fence post. The barbed wire snags my clothes.

It’s the man from the dust storm yesterday. He wears the same black trench coat, open in front to display a bare chest with black feather tattoos. His hair and eyes are black as well, and he has a claw-shaped earring curled against one ear. He is so beautiful that he looks like artwork posed on top of my car, and for an instant, I am convinced that he is a sculpture.

He grins at me.

And my nerve breaks completely. I run. My feet slap the pavement. I hear my breath loud in my ears. I feel my heart thud in my chest. Dust swirls around me, stinging my eyes and drying my mouth. It feels as if the dust is tightening around me, even coiling.

I see a shape ahead of me. It hulks, monsterlike, a shadow in the dust.

I skid to a stop as the shape of a car emerges. My car, impossibly. The man is no longer on its roof. The door is still open. I slow to a walk, my heart fast, and approach the car slowly, nearly tiptoeing. I peer through the windows. He could be inside, hiding in the backseat, waiting for me to jump inside to apparent safety—

“You’re lost,” a voice says behind me.

I scream again and spin around to face the voice.

The man stands in the center of the road. He doesn’t move toward me. He isn’t grinning anymore. “Lost your keys. Lost your shoes. Lost your memories. Lost your mind. You look so very scared. Lost your nerve? Such a pity.”

“Ran out of gas.” I point to the car. My lungs feel tight, and I can taste the dust that fills the air. It swirls around him, stirring his coat. I put my sleeve back over my mouth.

He darts past me, climbs over the hood of my car, and stands on the roof. “Poor little Gretel, lost your way and the birds ate the bread crumbs.” He crouches as he considers me. “Or are you Little Red Riding Hood? You have the clothes for it.” I hug my arms over my chest, across my red shirt. “Of course, that would make me your wolf.”

He disappears over the back of the trunk, and the dust swallows him. I peer into the dust cloud. He’s out there, somewhere. I turn in a circle—

And he is directly behind me.

He grins.

“Your grandma is not here, Little Red,” he says. “And there are wolves all around.” His eyes are sparkling, as if he is a cat and I am his mouse. I swing my purse directly into his face and then run toward the car. This time, I dive into the front seat, slam the door shut, and lock it.

I am shaking, and my lungs feel so tight that I think they’ll squeeze shut. I gasp for air like a fish as I turn the key and floor the gas. Please, please, just a breath more gas. Please!

The car lurches forward. I look in the rearview mirror.

The man is pushing my car. My mind runs in tight circles, shrieking. I cling to the steering wheel. Without power, the steering wheel is stiff.

There aren’t many options for where he could push me. I control the wheel, stiff as it is. The car isn’t moving fast. It occurs to me that he’s helping me. Five minutes pass, ten, fifteen... He continues to push me down the road, which is where I want to go.

After twenty minutes, I unlock my door, open it, and lean halfway out, still keeping one hand on the steering wheel. Dust floods into the car. “What are you doing?” I call back to him.

“I am Sisyphus, Little Red,” he says merrily, “and you are my boulder.”

“This isn’t a hill,” I point out. With the door open, I hear the crunch of the road under the tires. It is strangely silent, rolling through the dust without the sound of the engine. “Um, thanks for helping me. Why are you helping me? I do appreciate it. But how did you find me? Why are you out here in this?” Half my words are muffled by trying not to inhale too much dust, and I doubt he’ll understand me.

“You’re a damsel in distress, and I am your knight.” His voice is light, as if he’s mocking me. Also, he doesn’t sound out of breath, as he should be from pushing a heavy car down a dust-choked road.

“I’m not a damsel in distress. I’m just a damsel without gas.” I lean farther out so I can see his face, half-faded in the blur of dust. The car veers toward the edge of the road.

“Just steer straight, damsel.”

I close the door and keep the steering wheel pointed straight. Time passes. At last, the world lightens.

The dust dissipates, and the car emerges into the sunlight. The man continues to push. Eventually, the car rolls up to the Welcome to Lost sign. The man stops, and the car halts. He straightens and rolls his neck to stretch his muscles.

I am not sure if I should stay safely in the car or step out and talk to him. I tell myself that if he intended to kill me, he wouldn’t have pushed my car for hours. I step out of the car.

He waits for me by the trunk. His grin is back, and his skin glistens slightly from a sheen of sweat. He is untouched by the dust. The black of his coat is still night-black. He looks as though he has taken an intense stroll through pure sunlight. I feel coated in grit.

“Why are you here, Little Red?” he asks. “Not the universe here, but here here. Or perhaps the universe here, since that would explain it.”

“Just trying to get home,” I say.

“Poor damsel. You’re doing it wrong.” He sounds amused.

“Yeah, noticed that. Listen, I need a few gallons of gas and then I have to find the entrance to the highway. Somehow, I kept missing it in the dust storm.” I try to force a laugh, as if I am a silly damsel in distress who is geographically challenged and not the victim of inexplicable weirdness. “Do you know where the highway is?”

“I know where the Milky Way is,” he says. “You’ll love the stars here. You can see forever, if you try. Well, not right now, since it’s daylight. But try tonight. You may see your way in the Milky Way.” He sweeps his arm overhead as if he could touch the sky.

“Just need Route 10. And gas.”

The man sighs, and the sparkle that was in his eyes fades. “Just once, it would be nice to be surprised by someone. This place has beauty, too, if any of you would bother to see it.” He forces a smile. “But I suppose you seem like a nice enough woman. Get yourself situated, learn the rules, and stay out of the void.”

“Um, okay. Thanks so much for your help. Really.”

He leaps onto a fence post. Balancing on the top, he places his hands together as if he’s meditating or praying. And then he springs forward and leaps from post to post, away from town. His trench coat flaps behind him like bird wings. He runs, feet hitting the tops of posts, as if he were flying, until he’s swallowed up by the dust storm.

He doesn’t appear again, though I wait and watch. At last, I fetch my purse, lock the car, and walk into town. I look back over my shoulder every few steps. Oddly, the storm neither spreads nor dissipates. It simply sits, as if it is waiting, too.

Chapter Four

Abandoned houses are scattered across the desert on the outskirts of Lost. I hadn’t seen them properly in the dark when I drove into town last night, but I notice them now. There’s no pattern to them that I can see. No driveways that lead to them. No mailboxes on the road. They look as if tornados dumped them here after they failed to reach Oz. Some are Tudors, some are Capes, some Colonials, Victorians, even a triple-decker town house, which has to be hell on the third floor in August. Only a few are the usual adobe-style ranch houses that should be here. Mesquites and brambles clog their yards, and windows are boarded up or broken. Some have piles of junk in their yard—trashed cars, old appliances, bicycle parts, empty bottles.

I see figures scurry over the piles. They’re kids, scavenging like feral cats in a dump. One girl in a torn and stained velvet dress holds up a find: an apple.

A boy in sagging jeans swipes it out of her hands.

Shrugging, she dives back into the pile.

There are no parents around, but this many kids can’t be homeless. If this were L.A., maybe. But not in a small desert town. The parents must not know that their kids are playing near so much rusted junk, rotted wood, and broken glass. Ahead, the vacancy sign flashes in its syncopated rhythm. All the suitcases are gone from the motel parking lot, and there’s no sign of the crowd. The pavement has been swept clean of all the debris, bottles, cans, and clothes. I walk into the motel lobby.

Tiffany is perched on the counter. She’s tying a rope into a noose. She has a pile of nooses already next to her. She holds one up as I enter. “Souvenir?” she offers.

“No, thank you.” Perhaps I should have tried the diner instead of the motel. “Listen, my car ran out of gas outside town...”

“Uh-huh.” Tiffany tosses the new noose into the pile and selects another rope.

“I would have had enough, but I had trouble finding the entrance ramp to the highway...”

She rolls her eyes and begins to knot another noose. “Uh-huh.”

“All I need is a few gallons of gas. Enough to reach the next town. And directions to the highway. I know you said there’s no gas station here, but I’m hoping there’s someone who can sell me—”

“Gas isn’t easy to come by here.” Tiffany completes the next noose. “If you want something that’s hard to come by, you have to talk to the Missing Man. He finds what you need, if you can’t find it yourself.”

“The Missing Man,” I repeat. The name sounds like a joke. “You know, I used to be just like you. Not the leg warmers. But the multicolored hair and the attitude. Convinced I was bound for something great.”

Tiffany smiles flatly. “I’m not bound for anywhere. And neither are you.” She hops down from the counter and goes behind it to fetch more rope. “And you weren’t like me once. I was like you once. Go talk to the Missing Man.”

“And where do I find him?”

“You don’t,” Tiffany says. “He’ll find you.”

Adopting my best mock-teenager voice, I say, “Whatever,” and walk toward the door. The bells chime discordantly as I shove the door open.

“Wait!” Tiffany calls after me.

Stopping, I look back at her. Something has erased the mocking expression, and she looks young, innocent, and oddly scared. I have the urge to ask what’s wrong, to stay and talk to her...but I’m not here to counsel this echo of my old teenage self. I wait for her to continue.

“Do you think...this isn’t who I should be?”

I don’t know what she means. It’s an odd question to ask a stranger.

She touches her hair, pats the hair-sprayed curls. They bounce back under her palm. “Should I ditch the whole ’80s emo thing?”

“Definitely,” I say, though I think what she really needs to ditch is her personality. But I don’t say it because (a) it would be rude, and (b) I don’t think it’s possible to change a personality on a whim. Every New Year’s Eve, I make dozens of resolutions to change my personality, and at best I last a week before I plunge back into old habits. Back when I was in my artist stage, I’d create (and then fail to finish) more paintings and sketches in the first week of January than any other time of the year.

She sighs. “Pity. It was kind of fun.” A second later, she brightens and says in a faux Southern accent, “I know! I’m a fallen debutante. Lost my virginity!” She jumps off the counter. “All I need is the right clothes...pink. Lots of it.” She scurries into the supply closet.

I want to tell her it isn’t that simple to change who you are. You can’t dress the part and expect it to seep into you from the outside in. Sure, she can lose the leg warmers, but I doubt the eye roll or the dripping disdain for others will be as easy to shed.

Tiffany doesn’t return immediately, and I tell myself it’s stupid to wait for her. She’s nothing to me. I leave the lobby.

The Moonlight Diner is directly across the street, but I’d rather try other options first than face the intimidatingly beautiful waitress. Besides, I am curious to see what the center of town looks like. Leaving the motel, I head down the street. It isn’t far, only a block or two.

I pass a barber shop with an old-fashioned barber’s pole by the front door.

A cozy used bookstore (the kind you rarely see anymore).

A white clapboard post office with a bronze eagle at its apex. Its front windows are boarded up with plywood.

I think the town would be quaint and cute if it weren’t so run-down and if there weren’t so much trash piled up on the sidewalks. It feels like a ghost town where the ghosts have forgotten to leave.

Despite the overwhelming mess, one person is trying to improve the town. In front of the post office, a woman is on her hands and knees planting flowers. Her hair is tied back with a floral scarf and she’s wearing a Donna Reed 1950s housewife dress. She hums to herself as she digs with her trowel.

“Excuse me,” I say to her. “My car ran out of gas outside town. I made a few too many attempts to find the highway entrance and kept getting mixed up inside a dust storm. We don’t have too many dust storms on the L.A. freeways.” I laugh, awkwardly. She digs another hole. “I am hoping that there’s someone in town who could sell me a few gallons. Do you know who I should talk to?”

She doesn’t look up. “You should talk to the Missing Man.”

“Yeah, okay, so do you know where I can find him?”

“You don’t find him—he finds you.”

Clearly I walked right into that one. She picks up one of her flowers to plant. It’s dead. All the flowers are dead. She stuffs its withered stem into the hole she made, and she pats the soil tenderly around it as she hums. “Thanks for your help,” I say, and back away.

Nearby, a man in a filthy business suit wades through the debris in the gutter. Every few feet, he halts and picks up a penny. He ignores the dimes and nickels and quarters. He stuffs his pennies into a Santa Claus–like sack that weights down one shoulder. Seeing me looking at him, he clutches his sack and says, “Mine!”

“Absolutely. Yours. Do you know if there’s a police station around? Or anyone helpful?” I don’t expect him to answer, and he doesn’t. He scuttles faster down the gutter, scooping up pennies as if he expects me to steal them first. I scan the area for anyone without a plethora of mental issues.

Children, as ragged as those on the outskirts of town, are crouched in the alleys between the shops. Perched on top of and around Dumpsters, they watch me, their eyes bright and hard. One little girl in a princess dress sucks on her thumb. She has a dirty teddy bear tucked under her elbow and a knife in her other hand. She squeezes the handle as if it’s as comforting as a teddy bear.