The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst Read Free Book Online Page B

“Have pie. Feel better.”
    “I don’t need to feel better,” I say. “I need to go home.” By now, Mom must have graduated from slightly worried to very worried. This is the woman who called the police when I walked home from school instead of taking the bus in sixth grade. She’d imagined every possible scenario and decided I must have been taken and sold on eBay. I didn’t get my overactive imagination from nowhere. “Can I use your phone?” I ask Victoria. “I have no coverage on mine.”
    “Sorry,” Victoria says. “There are no phones here.”
    The man in the kitchen pipes up. “Technically, there are thousands. But none work, at least not as phones. Games work until the batteries die. Unless you find a compatible charger.”
    “Okay, no cell tower,” I say. “Fine. Stupid but fine. You must have landlines.” I know I sound hostile, but I can’t help it. It feels as though they’re conspiring to strand me here, though I know I’m the one who missed the highway entrance and ran out of gas.
    “Oh, honey, it won’t work.” Merry’s voice drips with pity. “Don’t get in a lather. You won’t help yourself that way.”
    Victoria points to the hostess station. “She needs to try it for herself.”
    All the customers watch as I stride to the hostess station. There’s a rotary phone, circa 1970, on the wall. I pick it up and hear a dial tone. Relief floods through me—it works! God, these people have a warped sense of humor. For a minute there, I actually thought... Never mind. Keeping my back to the not-at-all-humorous crazies in the diner, I dial.
    Beep-beep-beep. “This number is out of service...” The computer voice crackles as it delivers the error message. Oops, I misdialed. I try again, slowly dragging my finger around the circle to be certain each number registers.
    Same error message.
    I won’t panic.
    I try my office. And then my coworker Angie’s cell phone. And Kristyn’s. One after another, I try all my friends’ numbers, including those I haven’t called in years, which is most of them. I even try the pizza delivery number and my doctor’s office. At last, I dial 9-1-1. It fails.
    “Your phone is broken,” I say. My voice is flat. Inside, I feel as if I am splintering. I’m trapped, trapped, trapped. No one knows I’m here. No one will save me. I’ll never leave. Mom needs me. I can’t reach her. The words chase each other in circles inside my head.
    Victoria passes by me again, this time with plates balanced up and down her arms. “The Missing Man will explain it all. You don’t need to worry. He’ll help you. In the meantime, as entertaining as this is, I have to ask you to sit down. I have other customers that need attention.”
    Obeying, I shuffle to the stool next to Merry and sit. “I don’t understand.” My eyes feel hot, like I’m about to cry. I bite the inside of my cheek.
    “No one does when they first come here,” Merry says, her voice full of sympathy, too much sympathy, as if I’ve received a life-threatening diagnosis, “even though there’s a clear-as-day welcome sign on the way in to town. Whoever founded this place was overly literal, in my opinion.”
    Victoria sets down two slices of pie, cherry and blueberry. Merry picks up a fork and dives with gusto into the cherry. I stare at the congealed blueberries. I try to tell myself I’m overreacting. Someone must have gas they can loan me. Someone must have a phone. There must be a way to contact the world outside this weird little bubble of a town. It can’t be cut off from the world. Maybe I could hitch a ride from someone... “My mother is sick.” I hate saying the words. But I can’t bring myself to say the worse word. Cancer. “Very sick. I have to go home. Please, I need help.”
    Merry points to the window. “You see that man with the sack?”
    I twist in my seat to look out. The man in the business suit is in the gutter in front of the diner. He’s still scooping pennies out