Lucretia and the Kroons

13

Loochie finally got the courage to sit up and look around. Even though she’d seen Pit trailing after Alice and Sunny, she hadn’t entirely believed it was true. After all, this place was a kind of nightmare and in nightmares the worst can always happen. She half-expected to find Pit standing on the other side of the murky pond when she sat up, an evil smile below his dented skull.

But he wasn’t there. The place was quiet enough that she could hear herself breathing and she listened to that. If she was breathing then she must still be alive. If she was alive she could move.

She stood. The concrete dug into her soles. Her socks were pretty much shredded. But she had a pair of rain boots. Loochie grabbed them and slid the first boot on. It felt so wonderful to have them between her feet and the concrete. Loochie stretched her foot and listened to the rubber stretch. The boots were purple with white polka dots and, right then, Loochie had never seen anything prettier in her whole life. She slid the other boot on but felt something against her heel. She took the boot off, turned it upside down, and out fell Sunny’s lighter.

Loochie weighed it in her open palm. Its body was made of red opaque plastic. She held it to her ear, shook it, and heard the faint swish of the remaining lighter fluid. The last cigarette was in one pocket so Loochie put the lighter in the other. She popped on the other rain boot.

Go home, she told herself. Get home.

But she didn’t move. She did not go home. It was as if her body wouldn’t follow orders.

After a time it seemed as though she was going to collapse. Loochie’s body began to melt. Her knees buckled. It seemed as though the faint was coming on again, but do you know what made her do otherwise? What made her turn instead and start to run? The ice-cream cake. It was sitting out on a plate in the middle of the kitchen. She imagined that by now all of it, except the wafer cookies, had turned into a soupy mix. That it had spilled over the plate and across the table and even run down to the kitchen floor. One hell of a mess. Her mother would be so angry! And, strangely, she wanted to hear her mother’s voice so much right then that even a month of yelling at Loochie was preferable to the silence, the isolation, surrounding her now. So she turned and made the long walk.

Following the concrete pathway until she reached the Playground for Lost Children, she saw no rats but still kept a good distance from the gates. She reached the first meadow and here she found the upside-down Unisphere. It looked like an enormous Christmas ornament that had fallen off its tree. Seeing it reminded her of Sunny, the two of them crouched on top and looking out across the park. How long ago had that been? Minutes? Why did it already feel, in her bones, like it had been weeks? Loochie walked the meadow, but she moved slowly. She wasn’t tired exactly, but sore. Deep down. Heartsore. It took great effort to lift her legs and her shoulders felt heavy. By the time she reached the double row of trees she could hardly stand. She had to sit beneath one of the great trees, on its gnarled roots. She could see the next meadow. She knew the kitchen, the open window, the fire escape weren’t far ahead, but she couldn’t get herself to stand. The overcast sky thundered and soon rain fell across the meadow. It fell on the tops of the trees and trickled down from limb to limb until the drops reached the dirt. The rain fell on Loochie. She had leaned forward because she was so tired, elbows on her knees. Her head and back were soon wet. Her T-shirt stuck to her skin. A quick run across the next meadow and she’d be away from all this. Just get up, she told herself. Just get up. But she couldn’t.

The rainstorm grew stronger. Quickly the meadow was drenched. Above Loochie the tree limbs sagged with the weight of the water. Loochie looked up and the rain doused her face. Had Sunny made it all the way to Gate C by now? Had she reached Shea? Maybe Loochie should have gone with her. Had she really been thinking of her mother’s worry when she decided not to go with Sunny, or was she just saving herself?

The storm became a torrent. Loochie couldn’t even see beyond the tree line anymore. The rain became like a great, gray wall. It came down with such force that the ground seemed to shake. Loochie had abandoned Sunny. Why didn’t Loochie fight harder to bring her back? The trees were no protection against the rain anymore. It came down so hard that it scoured Loochie’s skin. What kind of best friend was she?

Then Loochie heard an incredibly loud groan. Not a living thing. Loochie squinted back to the meadow she’d come from. The groan came again. Her curiosity was what finally made her stand. She walked to the edge of the tree line and what she saw she couldn’t quite understand.

The Unisphere was disappearing.

She could only see about half of it out in the field now.

Once more she heard the groaning, the steel beams being battered and, while she watched, the Unisphere disappeared even more. That’s when she finally understood.

“It’s sinking,” Loochie whispered.

The whole meadow had turned to mud under the tremendous rainstorm. The steel globe rose and fell now, bobbing as if it were a plastic ball in a pool. There was one more groan of metal and, just like that, the entire Unisphere, twelve stories tall, was gone. Sucked down into a sea of mud and lost.

Loochie tried to turn around but found that she couldn’t move. But this time it wasn’t because she was too tired or too scared. Her rain boots had sunk into the dirt. They were in the mud, all the way to her shins. The rain continued to fall. A deluge. Loochie strained and pulled one boot out of the soft earth. She stepped backward and barely got the second boot out.

She’d taken a step back but now the ground beneath her feet was already softening, too. Her boot soles sank into the dirt. If she stayed in place she’d be up to her shins in minutes. She had to run, out beyond the trees, into the next meadow. Get away.

She ran out into the open. Without the shelter of the trees the rain hit her as hard as a punch. She ran three steps and was knocked down, face-first to the ground. When she put her arms out to push herself up her hands sank down to her wrists.

Loochie scrambled to her feet. The rain fell and she could barely see a few inches ahead of her. Her face was slick. Her hair already soaked and heavy. Three more steps and she sank again, her legs lost below the knee. The mud surged around her. The meadow had become a swamp. Two more steps and she’d hardly moved forward, but she was sunk down to her waist.

Her breathing sped up. She paddled forward. But in a second the mud was up to her chest. How much farther did she have to go? She couldn’t tell, she couldn’t see.

When the mud was at Loochie’s chin she simply couldn’t keep going. She was stuck and the rain continued. Loochie had abandoned Sunny to save herself and now look what happened.

“I should’ve stayed with you, Sunny,” Loochie said, as if she was issuing an apology.

With her mouth open the mud flowed in. She spat it out and tried to move, but which way was forward anymore? The rain obscured the world. It overwhelmed her like grief. The worst thing in life was to be left all alone. That’s what Loochie felt. And yet that was how she found herself. Loochie desperately gulped in one deep breath.

Then she sank into the mud, all gone, nothing left, and she had no one there to save her.