***

She was wearing a white dress. It almost looked like a simple wedding dress or a communion outfit. Her heels were made of satin. She had pearls around her neck and in her pierced ears. A baby-blue headband lay across her stringy, greasy mouse-brown hair.

Her face was white and drawn, dark circles ringing her eyes. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought she was a ghost from our world’s much different past. She was ready to go to a coming-out party or a debutantes’ ball - not meet with kids from an apocalyptic world who were running from cannibals.

“Holy shit,” said Winky, “it really is a ghost.” She squeezed my arm hard, burying her nails in my skin.

I tried to shake her off. “Cut that shit out, Winky. She’s not a ghost.”

The girl just stood there, watching us and saying nothing.

I finally succeeded in getting Winky to let me go, and stood up straighter, facing the girl fully.

“Hello. My name is Bryn, and this is Winky,” I said, gesturing over my shoulder. “We’re not here to hurt you or take any of your stuff or damage your house. We just want to know what happened to our friend.”

“Is he your boyfriend?” she asked, tilting her head to the side slightly. It was creepy as hell, how calm she was, standing there in her formal wear, her insteps and ankles touching and her feet facing exactly forward. Her hands were hanging limply at her sides.

“Yes, he is. And I really miss him and need to find him.”

“Maybe he’s dead,” she said flatly. “Most of the people are dead.”

“I know. But he’s not.”

“How do you know? Some of the living are dead too. Did you know that?” She sounded like a small, innocent child.

Oh shit. She really is bonkers. “Yes,” I said, “I do know that. Their souls are dead. Like the kids we killed here. They were dead souls.”

She smiled without any trace of humor, making me feel a little sick with the nervousness it created in me. “Yes. They were, weren’t they? Especially The One.”

“The One?” asked Winky in a high-pitched near-whisper.

The girl turned her head slightly to acknowledge Winky standing just to the left of and behind me.

“Yes. The One. The one they called Loco. He came in here, once.”

I swallowed hard, knowing something bad was coming. She was going to tell us something I didn’t want to know. The sweat started pouring out of my body.

“He did?” asked Winky, her voice sounding strangled. “What happened?”

The sound of an infant’s cry broke the following silence.

My mouth dropped open and my throat closed up. I nearly peed myself with fear and disgust. Oh God, please don’t … please don’t let that be what I think it is …

The girl spoke, cutting off my prayers, her face now taking on an emotion finally: desperation. And I knew I would hear her words in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

“Will you kill it for me?” she whispered. “Please?!”

***

She took a step forward, her hands out.

Winky and I moved backwards, nearly tripping over each other in our need to get away from her.

“Please, don’t leave!” she sobbed. “I’ve tried to kill it … I’ve tried! But I can’t!” Her last words came out as a screech. Her voice was crazy-demented with anguish or despair, but she had no tears; and that missing link to her misery was so disconcerting, I didn’t know whether to run or smash her in the face to protect Winky and myself from the evil I felt coming at me in waves.

“That’s a baby down there,” said Winky, sounding a little unhinged herself. “She’s got a fucking baby down there, Bryn.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, searching the Lost Girl’s face, looking for her to telegraph her next move. Her body language was all wrong. She looked like innocence personified, dressed all in white with her little-girl headband on her stupid head, but her lack of tears and grossly freaked out expression made her seem dangerous and downright evil. My only sense of relief came from the fact that I saw no weapons on her and no signs of any ability to take me in hand-to-hand combat; but I remained on the alert nonetheless.

“It’s his,” she said, talking low, as if someone might hear us. She was nearly screeching her whisper though, giving it an eerie quality that set my nerves on edge. “He came. He came in here and I was sleeping. He … he … did that thing to me. And now this is here.” She gestured to the space below her parents’ cabinet. “You have to take it away. Kill it. Make it go.” She put her arms around herself and hugged hard, moaning a little before continuing. “It’s ugly. It cries all the time. It’s not human.”

A lightbulb went on in my head. She’d been damaged. Way too damaged for me to appreciate or even understand. And she had this baby down there to take care of. A baby. I couldn’t fathom the torture it had to be for her in her current state. Revulsion and pity warred inside me.

“That canner guy raped her and she had his baby?” whispered Winky, disgust in her voice. “Oh, that is so messed up. I can’t even … holy shit, Bryn. What’re we gonna do?” Winky came up to stand beside me, gaping open-mouthed at the poor girl in front of us.

“How old is it … is the baby?” I asked.

She shrugged, looking off to the side, almost distractedly. “I don’t know. The days go into weeks and weeks go into months and months go into years and years go into decades and people leave and people die and the world ends and we get left alone and terrible, terrible things happen and nothing will ever, ever be alright again …”

I took a couple steps forward and picked her arm up by the wrist, gently shaking it a couple times to wake her out of her nightmare. “Hey! Stop that,” I said.

She turned her head to look at me. The blank stare there was freaking me out even more than her soliloquy had.

“Stop what?”

I shook my head and blinked my eyes a couple times in frustration, trying to get her to make a connection with me that wasn’t totally in another world somewhere. “Tell me how old your baby is.”

“What baby?” she asked, smiling sweetly.

I squeezed her arm, hoping it would help her focus. “The baby you have down in there,” I said, gesturing with a nod towards the stairs under the cabinet behind her.

“It’s not a baby,” she said, frowning. Then she got angry, her words taking on a vicious tone. “It’s a demon that needs to be killed.” She shook me off and grabbed my arm, a fierce look on her face, spittle flying as she growled out her next words. “You’re looking for a boy. A tall one with a German accent. I know where he is. You kill that demon down there, and I will tell you where you can find him.”

I grabbed her hand that had wrapped itself uncomfortably around my wrist and pried it off, stepping back away from her. I was so angry, I was liable to punch her in the throat and gouge out her eyes. I needed to put some distance between us so I could think properly.

Winky spoke first. “We aren’t killing your damn baby. It’s innocent. It didn’t do anything to you or us. Now tell us where Bodo is, you crazy bitch!”

I felt her moving to go after the girl, so I stuck my arm out to block her progress. “No. Not like this. We can’t beat it out of her - she’s a mom.”

Winky stopped pressing on my arm. “Oh, shit. Yeah. I didn’t think of it that way.”

I held my hands up in supplication. “Listen, um, sweetie …” I was taking a page out of LaShay’s book now. “ … We just want to help you out as best we can and find our friend. That’s all. No one needs to be killed or murdered.” I took a step towards her, ignoring the cries that came up from the stairs again. “You’re a mom. You can’t have your baby murdered. It’s not right.”

“But it’s not a baby,” she whispered, tears now finally coming down her cheeks.

I was so relieved to see those tears; they gave me hope that she wasn’t totally broken into a million irretrievable pieces.

“It is a baby. It’s your precious baby. Just like you were your mom’s baby about … fifteen years ago.”

“I’m seventeen.”

“Okay, then, seventeen years ago.”

“But my mother wasn’t forced to have me. By a demon. My father wasn’t a demon.”

“No, she wasn’t … and no he wasn’t a demon, I’m sure. But the rape you suffered doesn’t mean the baby isn’t a human being … a tiny baby that needs your love.” I stepped closer and took her hands in mine. “Is it a girl or a boy?”

“It’s a boy,” she whispered, “just like the monster.” She smiled, nearly glowing with happiness. “That’s why you have to kill it!” She said it with such hope in her voice, it made me think she had been pretending to be a little sane in the hopes that she’d be able to convince me to carry out the murder of her child.

I jerked her hands down once to try and break through to her conscience. “I told you. I’m not going to kill your baby. Please tell me where Bodo is. I’m begging you.”

She tilted her head to the side, her face a mask of innocence. “Isn’t that fun?”

I furrowed my brow, confused. “Fun? What’s fun?”

She straightened her head back up and fixed me with an evil grin. “That we both want something so bad, we’re willing to beg for it.” She jerked her hands away from mine and took a step back. “Kill the demon below and you will find your boyfriend.” She spat the word out and then jerked her head back, reaching her hands up slowly to readjust her headband. “I’ll meet you downstairs. I have to go feed it.” She paused halfway down the stairs, her voice coming up from below. “Oh, and by the way … did I mention you’d better hurry? Yeah. Your boyfriend needs you. Before things get ugly.”

That did it. I took off after her, ready to wring her neck, baby or no baby.

Winky grabbed me by the back of my shirt, halting my murderous rampage. “No!” she said in a low tone. “That’s exactly what she wants. Don’t go into a trap.”

I stopped fighting her and thought about it for a second. She’s right. Be smart. Think about your opponent. Read her signs. Measured strikes. Measured reactions. My dad’s voice was coaching me again. It warmed me with confidence and the sense that he was somehow, some way, communicating his love for me. This is going to work out. I am going to find Bodo, and I am most definitely not going to be murdering an innocent baby over it.

Winky and I moved side-by-side to the edge of the stairs. An actual lightbulb lit up the stairwell, its yellow gleam casting a freaky glow over the concrete walls. A portrait hung across from the light, the glare on the glass not enough to obscure the image of the perfect American family. One father, one mother, one teenage girl, and one slightly younger, teenage boy.

***

Winky leaned towards me and whispered. “She had a brother!”

I nodded. “She probably ate him,” I said over my shoulder as I descended the stairs. I didn’t care if this girl could hear me anymore; maybe I could make her mad enough to snap out of her fantasy world. At least then I might be able to count on her acting like a somewhat normal person whose moves I could predict and defend against.

“And she’s got electricity down here. How is that possible?”

“I have no idea. Maybe her brother’s alive and she makes him ride a stationary bike to generate the it.”

Winky pulled my shoulder back so she could see my face, giving me a what-the-hell look. I motioned with my hand, acting as if I were patting something down in the air, trying to signal that she needed to just chill out and go with my flow.