I loved the Shenandoah Valley, every inch of its gorgeous spread. When I was little, my parents used to pull me out of school early for a long weekend of hiking or camping. I never brought books or video games for the drive—I didn’t need them. I would just stare out the window and drink it all in.
You know in movies, the ones set in older times, when the shot freezes on the hero or heroine gazing out over the forest, or river, and the sun catches the leaves at just the right slant, and the music begins to swell? That’s exactly how I felt as we entered the Shenandoah Valley.
It didn’t hit me until that moment, until the first glimpse of the gauzy blue mist surrounding the mountains, that we really were in western Virginia. That if we stayed on the highway, we’d be two hours away from my parents in Salem. Two hours.
I didn’t know how to feel about that.
“Ugh,” Liam groaned, pointing toward the temporary road sign up ahead: 81 CLOSED BETWEEN HARRISONBURG AND STAUNTON. USE LOCAL ROADS.
By nine o’clock in the morning, we were finally deep enough into Harrisonburg to find its pulse of life. Here and there we saw restaurants opening their doors to the morning light. We passed a few older adults pedaling away on their bikes, balancing precariously on two wheels with their briefcases or bags, their heads bent toward the sidewalk. They didn’t even look up as we passed.
No JMU students, though. None that I could spot.
Chubs sighed at the sight of them, leaning his forehead against the window.
“You okay, buddy?” Liam asked. “Need to stop and smell the scholasticism?”
“What’s the point?” Chubs shook his head. “It’s closed like all of the others.”
I whirled around in my seat. “Why?”
“Lack of students, mostly. If you’re old enough to go to college, you’re old enough to be drafted. Even if that wasn’t the case, I doubt people can really afford it anymore.”
“Jesus, that’s depressing,” I said.
“The offer still stands,” Liam told his friend. “You know I’m happy to break into a classroom for you if you need to sit in one of those cramped seats and stare at a whiteboard for a while. I know how much you like the smell of dry erase markers.”
“I appreciate that,” Chubs said, folding his hands in his lap, “but it’s not necessary.”
We passed what I thought must have been a black wrought iron fence, but it was almost impossible to see, trapped as it was beneath what looked to be raggedy, patchwork blanket. It wasn’t until we got closer that I realized what we were actually looking at: hundreds, maybe thousands of sheets of paper that had been tied and taped onto the fence or stuck between the thin bars.
Liam slowed the car, tilting his sunglasses down to squint at them.
“What do they say?” Chubs asked. “I can’t…”
Zu only put her head back down and shut her eyes.
They were “Missing” posters with the faces of little kids and teenagers, photographs, signs whose wording had been smeared away by rain—the biggest of these being a banner that said nothing more than MATTHEW 19:14. It hung crookedly, almost like someone had tried to rip it down, only to have someone else come along and halfheartedly string it back up. The wall of faded paper took a beating as the wind blew through the fences, ripping some of the more decrepit sheets free and making others flutter like hummingbird wings. And where there was room, we saw stuffed animals and flowers and blankets and ribbons.
No, not missing, I thought. Those kids had been taken, or really were gone forever. Their parents and families were searching for them, posting their pictures, because they wanted them back. Needed them.
“God.” Liam’s voice sounded strained. “Where did they say we could pick the eighty-one back up again?”
The ash trees lining the lonely one-lane back road were just coming into their lovely young skin, but in the afternoon light their shadows couldn’t have been longer.
FOURTEEN
I SLIPPED OFF INTO SLEEP somewhere between Staunton and Lexington, and woke up just in time to get a perfect view of the towering white warehouse that was Roanoke, Virginia’s former Walmart.
Sure, the blue sign was still clinging desperately to the side of the building, but that was about the only recognizable thing about the Supercenter. A number of stray carts wandered across the parking lot aimlessly, carried this and that way depending on each moody gust of wind. With the exception of a few abandoned cars and green Dumpsters, the enormous blacktop parking lot was empty. Against the tangerine blush of the afternoon sun, it looked like the apocalypse had already touched down in Virginia.
And we were only a stone’s throw away from Salem. A ten-minute drive. My stomach clenched at the thought.
Once again, Liam insisted on going in alone to check it out. I felt Zu’s rubber glove on my arm and didn’t need to look at her face to know what kind of expression I would find there. She didn’t want him charging into what looked like an honest-to-God hellhole alone anymore than I did.
This is why you stayed, I reminded myself. To take care of them. And, in that moment, the person that needed me most was the one walking away.
I jumped out of Betty, my hand gripping the door handle.
“Honk the horn three times for trouble,” I said, and slid the door shut. Liam must have heard, because he waited for me, leaning against one of the rusted shopping cart stalls.
“Any way I could convince you to go back to Betty?”
“Nope,” I said. “Come on.”
He fell in step beside me, fists dug deep in his pockets. I couldn’t see his eyes, but the way he was slouching toward the demolished doors was telling enough.
“You asked me before how I knew about this place.…” he said, when we were nearly to the entrance.
“No—no, it’s okay. I know, none of my business.”
“Green,” Liam said. “It’s okay. I just don’t know where to begin. You know Chubs and I were both in hiding? Well, it wasn’t exactly pleasant for either of us. He at least got to stay at his grandparents’ cabin in Pennsylvania.”
“Ah, but you had the pleasure of holing up in this fine American establishment.”
“Among other places.” Liam said. “I…don’t like to talk about that time in front of Zu. I don’t want her to think that that’s what her life is going to be.”
“But you can’t lie to her,” I said. “I know you don’t want to scare her, but you can’t pretend that her life isn’t going to be hard. It’s not fair.”
“Not fair?” He sucked in a sharp breath, closing his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice had returned to his usual soft tones. “Never mind, forget it.”
“Hey,” I said, taking his arm. “I get it, okay? I’m on your side. But you can’t act like it’s going to be easy. Don’t do that to her—don’t set her up to be crushed. I was in camp with thousands of kids who grew up thinking Mommy and Daddy were always going to be there for them, and they—we—are all coming out of this seriously damaged.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Liam said, all traces of anger gone. “You are not damaged.”
That, I could have protested until I was blue in the face.
Whoever had unhooked Walmart’s glass sliding doors from their tracks hadn’t done a good job of finding a safe place to store them. Shards of glass coated the cement floor, blown out dozens of feet from the black metal frames. We stepped over and through their mangled shapes, entering that small, strange space where the greeter would have been.
Next to me, Liam’s foot slipped against the sallow dust collected on the floor. I shot an arm out to brace him as he grunted in surprise. Even as I helped him right himself, his eyes remained fixed on the ground, where a dozen footprints fanned out in the dust.
Every shape and size, from the jagged pattern of the sole of a man’s hiking boot to the decorative swirly curls left behind by a young child’s tennis shoe, all stamped out there like cookies cut from a fresh spread of dough.
“They could be old,” I whispered.