Found [Ongoing Serial]

1. A. Goodwin - August 23, 2023

I already wrote this down for the science guys. I don't know why I am writing it again.

We did a morning shift. That's 8 to 12 and that's it. That's as long as you are allowed to be in there. I've been here since April, so I got used to it. When you are new it's weird but then it gets to be usual especially when everything else you do is usual. Like you sleep in the barracks and eat in the mess and you get to watch sports at night with your squad. You talk about how the food sucks and make fart jokes and all that.

So I'm not scared when I walk down the street with Barnes. Because I've been down that street hundreds of times and you don't even have to wear a face mask anymore and the geiger counter never makes a single blip. You know it's weird like you know if you touch a stove it'll be hot. If you work in a kitchen every day you stop thinking about how hot the stove is and start to think of who's going to win the game tonight or whatever.

It's one of the commercial streets with stores on it on both sides and they are all close together like those small towns you see in the movies. Maybe not so much like the town I grew up in because the stores in my town on the streets like this was mostly empty or had pawn shops and all of the shopping people mostly do is in the Walmarts and Targets they build outside of town.

You've been there so you know. These stores have stuff in the window. Like books and clothes and there is a snack bar and you can see inside it so you can tell there is a counter and booths.

Anyway, the reason why Barnes gets in front of me is because there is a DVD player for sale in the window of the electronics store. I stopped because I never remembered seeing a DVD player in there before. Old fashioned TVs that are made out of glass and have the curved screens have been in there. They are never on. Like everything else that is never on in that town. Except the lights at night. But the TVs, they are always there. And there are VCRs for sale. I know what those are because my grandfather had one in the attic when we had to clear it out. But no DVD. And then today the DVD player.

So I stop and I look at it. I'm looking at it through my own reflection in the window. I don't know why but at the time I felt like that was giving me a headache.

I look up to say something to Barnes about the DVD player and wondering if she's ever noticed it before and I realize she's way ahead of me at the intersection. It's like 50 or 60 feet. I don't remember hearing her walk that far away from me, but that's where she is. She's standing right in the middle of the intersection below the traffic light smiling at me. That's when I notice the street sign says Morning Street.

I don't say anything. I wish I had said something.

Barnes opens her mouth and I can tell by the way she is holding her body she is saying it loud.

But I can't hear anything. I mean anything. No wind. No birds. No nothing. It's like I'm in a cardboard box and the sides are really close to my head.

I'm outside because I can see the hills behind the town and the sky above them. It's too bright though. Everything looks like a flash has gone off but it didn't. It's not fading like it should. The flash, I mean. It didn't go off.

The sky is so pale but it is still blue. My eyes are not seeing it but my brain is screaming, "Blue! Blue! Blue!"

The trees are not bright. They are a green so dark it is almost black. It doesn't make any sense and I can't write it better than that. Moving dark green with no noise.

The air around me feels hard and still.

I might have wet my pants. I'm not sure. I think my mouth was open. I know I wasn't blinking.

Barnes smiled after her mouth stopped moving and she turned and walked around the corner.

Right then I knew if I followed her something terrible would happen to me. I was as sure of it as I am that if I dropped this pen I'm holding it'll fall on the floor.

But Barnes is my partner, so I jogged to the corner of Paris Street and looked where she went. She wasn't there. A few more stores on each side of the street and then homes but no Barnes. I jogged around, seeing if she'd gone between the buildings. We're not supposed to go in the buildings, and I never went in any. I guess I must have started making noise at some point because B Squad said when they found me I was screaming Barnes's name and my throat was all torn up the next day.

I don't know how long I was screaming for.

When they took me back to the barracks they told me they sedated me. When I woke up I felt normal. I still feel normal. I think I feel normal. Sometimes I wake up and my sheets feel hard and inflexible and there are shadows on the ceiling above me. But then I feel normal and everything is normal. That's how I feel now.

Sometimes I think I am very scared.

That's all I have to write. I can't think of anything else. Except you can't leave her out there. Someone has to find her. She's got a husband. So she can't not be somewhere.