Oh man. I just woke up from the weirdest dream.

I was back home, and it was night-time. This really big winter snowstorm was dumping loads of snow everywhere, covering the back deck and the pine trees in deep mounds of the stuff. The wind was so strong that it snapped the tops off some of the trees and hurled them down into the yard. I remember standing at the front windows of the house and thinking, well, the power is going to go out any minute now, but that’s okay because I will wake up and everything will be normal.

Then the Joker and Harley from Batman showed up. Their car got stuck in the snow and I invited them to stay with me until the storm ended. For some reason. They were actually pretty good house guests. The Joker just acted malevolently affable and did some magic tricks, and Harley somehow managed to fill the stove with dishwater, but other than that they were fine.

So weird. Interpret it as you will.

Ugh, I’m awake now though. What time is it? Before dawn, I think. I can hear the waves lapping against the sofa, real quietly. Lots of stars are out. The sky is so huge and dark and full of stars. I’ve never seen anything like it before.

Really hungry, though. Thirsty too. My mouth is dry. Gonna try going back to sleep. Got nothing else to do. Night, all.

—-

Back.

Breakfast was another half of a granola bar and a few sips of juice. I think it was peach. We’ve only got one bottle of water left, Schroeder’s big one. I predict this rationing thing will last for another day or so before one of us murders the others. Or we’ll all die from thirst.

It’s not long past dawn and already it’s hot out. Simon and I are huddled in the sofa fort. All squashed together. Schroeder is out in the sun with his shirt draped over his head. I don’t think that is a very good place for him to be. I can smell his brain baking from here.

Too hot to fight or argue. We’re all flopped around like dead people. Gonna write for a while. Writing is easier than trying to think about what we should be doing next.

Okay, let’s see. Oh, I remember where I left off. I had just been hit by a car.

For a long time after that there was nothing but darkness. And then, two blurry slits of light.

I cracked open my eyes. Things swam gummily behind the light, and I blinked. All kinds of aches and pains that had been lying dormant took advantage of my slow return to consciousness to make themselves known. Ugh.

My skull pounded. Everything hurt. But there was something soft underneath my back, at least. And no all-season tires in my face. So that was good.

I rubbed my eyes until my vision cleared. One of the blurry shapes came into focus. A big hooked beak. It was a pink flamingo. And it was leaning right in my face.

Holy crap!

I yelled and thrashed backwards. The flamingo jumped back and sproinged off across the room. I looked around myself in a panic. I was lying on a brown leather couch in some sort of office. Everything was beige. There were drawn blinds on the windows and lots of posters with black and white photos of faces and marijuana leaves stuck on the walls. Desks were scattered all over the place, with old desktop computers and fans and file folders weighed down with coffee cups on them. A microwave and a water cooler stood in one corner. And- wait a minute, marijuana?

Who put posters of marijuana on their walls? Aside from like, stoners.

The air didn’t smell like smoke, though. More like lavender air freshener and burnt coffee. Plastic pink flamingos bounded around the room like gazelles. A bunch of lawn gnomes in pointy red hats gadded around the water cooler. A plywood cutout of a woman bending over stood next to them. When I looked at a nearby coat rack she was standing beside the coat rack. I did an abrupt double-take back to the water cooler and she was right back beside the water cooler again. Like, instantly. Her floral-printed underpants stared directly into my soul.

Oh my god. A flock of something whooshed past my head and I ducked. When I looked up again I saw a flock of wooden ducks wheeling around the ceiling, their wings windmilling madly. Oh my god!

One of the gnomes reclined on a nearby desk, smoking a plaster pipe. It was squinting right at me. I opened my mouth to scream-

“Oh, don’t do that,” sighed a voice. “I don’t think either one of us can handle loud noises right now.”

I looked around wildly. A man stood in the doorway of a side office. He carried two steaming mugs with him and wore a pained expression.

“What’s going on?” I yelled.

The ducks flying around the ceiling went nuts when they saw him. They swooped down and batted around his head. He swatted them away and walked over to the couch. I shrank back when he set one of the mugs down on the coffee table.

“Relax, it’s just coffee,” he said. “It’s either that or that fruit-flavoured crystal delight crap. I don’t think nature ever intended water to taste like a raspberry blast.”

I glared at him as he dragged a chair over and sat on it gingerly, as if all of his joints were stiff. He was a big guy, sunburned and rugged looking, with scars all over his face and arms. He had the craziest hair, all black and fluffy, and lots of freckles across his nose. He wore a dark blue police shirt and khaki shorts and leather sandals that made him look like some sort of beach bum cop. Oh my god. The woman’s butt was hiding behind the legs of his chair now.

“Having a bad night, are we?” he said.

“What are all these things?!” I hollered at him.

“Ow! Not so loud! Just lawn art, pet. They’re harmless.”

“That woman’s butt keeps appearing all over the room!”

“Oh, that’s just Matilda. I suspect she’s a teleporter. Don’t worry, she’s a dear. You might want to watch out for her husband, though. I call him Psycho.”

“Where am I?!”

“The Barbary Street police station. You’re safe here.”

“Then who the hell are you?”

He laughed. “I’m Sikes. Et tu, ma petite pomme sauvage?”

“Morgan. Did you just call me a savage?”

He grinned. Boy, were his eyes bloodshot. Bright green and bloodshot.

“I should, pet,” he said. “Did I seriously see you take on three cars unarmed? With one of those cars being Aqualung, of all things? That takes guts.”

An unpleasant memory zoomed into my mind. I sat bolt upright so fast that the ducks scattered.

“Oh my god!” I said. “I got hit by a car!”

“Calm down, pet.”

“I will not calm down! Calming down is for people who weren’t hit by cars!”

“To be fair, I got the drop on Aqualung before he ran into you,” said Sikes. “You just got a bit of a love tap when you fell back and whacked your poor head on the asphalt.”

“Oh, shut up! Love tap my ass! Nobody blacks out from a love tap! Oh holy crap! Nobody was driving that car! Oh my god! I got hit by a car that was driving itself and that yard gnome just pulled out a handgun!”

Sikes whirled around in his chair. One of the gnomes over by the water cooler had indeed just yanked a pistol from a leather shoulder holster hanging on the coat rack and was waving it around in the air.

“You put that back now, Todd!” roared Sikes, and the gnome dropped the gun and scurried under a desk.

Sikes huffed and turned back. I think. I didn’t see him do it because I had scrambled over the back of the couch and was hiding between it and the wall.

I heard him sigh. “Oh, Morgan. Don’t do that.”

“Piss on you!” I yelled. I hugged my knees. “I ain’t coming out until you tell me what the hell is going on!”

“Simon didn’t explain a thing, did he?”

“Simon didn’t explain shit!”

“Oh dear. Well, he’s off to get help now, pet. Just relax.”

“Help? Aren’t you help?”

“Aww. Of course I am. I’m trying, at least. Will you come out of there and listen to me now?”

I just hugged my knees even tighter. “Start talking!”

I heard the chair creak as Sikes leaned back. “Oh boy,” he said. “Where to begin. Well, I suppose you’ve already noticed that things have changed a little since the last time you were in town.”

A plaster frog with a hole in its back for some sort of potted plant hopped out from under the couch. It spotted me, threw out a silent thumbs-up, and hopped back under the couch.

“Maybe,” I said.

“I thought as much. The truth of the matter is that you’re no longer in the Coching you remember. This is another version of it – a nastier one. As I understand it, Simon brought you here when things went rather pear-shaped back home.”

I held my breath. “Baloney.”

“If only! You’re in another world, pet, a shadow of the real thing.”

“Horse mah-noo-ure.”

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Sikes laughed. “Is it? Do you have any other way to explain how you were run down by cars that drive themselves? Or how lawn art can gallivant around my hidey hole and walk off with my staplers like they own the place, Jeff? Or how the fire back at that farmhouse mysteriously extinguished itself after you survived a two-story fall without suffering so much as a scratch?”

I opened my mouth. I shut it. I opened it again.

“You don’t, do you.”

“How do you know about the fire?” I said.

“Simon told me all about it. News travels fast in Hinterland. Did you actually tackle his mother into a wall? Lord almighty! I wish I could have been there to see that.”

“Hinterland? What’s Hinterland?”

“All of this!” I could only assume he gestured around the room. “This world, in which this shadow of Coching exists.”

“That’s crazy!”

“Maybe, but travelling here was likely the only thing that saved your life. I think you owe Simon a big thank-you by the way, although I’m not entirely convinced he did you a favour by bringing you here.”

In the back of my mind a fuzzy memory tingled. I had fallen from the roof in darkness, but there had been a sensation, a moment, where it had felt as if the night had stretched beneath me like an invisible awning – and then it had given way.

I rocked back and forth on my heels.

“This is stupid,” I said. “I don’t believe in other worlds.”

“You might want to start, pet.”

I put my face in my hands and said in a muffled voice, “Where is Simon?”

“Getting help. Take heart, kiddo! You’re not the only one trapped here in Hinterland. Other children live here as well, victims of the thin divide between your world and this one. Not sure why it’s mostly kids who fall through it. Your greater willingness to believe in the impossible might somehow grease the passage.”

Believe in the impossible. Like the realisation you were just pushed off a roof and survived it unharmed. You have to trust me! I would never do anything that could get you hurt! My name is Simon and I’m a big fat reality-warping liar! Blah blah blah!

Something unpleasant niggled at me. I dropped my hands.

“What do you mean, trapped?” I said.

“Eeeaaaah.” I could practically hear Sikes wince. “About that. Sorry, pet. It takes a pretty big shock to get you to suspend your disbelief long enough to fall through the divide. After you’ve been here a while you see so many impossible things that your sense of disbelief sort of becomes, well… kind of numb. You literally cannot rouse enough shock to snap yourself back into your own world. That’s the current theory, anyway.”

“So what you’re saying is that I’m stuck here.”

“In a nutshell, yes.”

“That’s bull!”

“I’m sorry, pet, but it’s true.”

“I can’t leave.”

“No. It’s- well. It’s impossible.”

I lunged up to my feet and pointed at him and yelled, “No way! I’m not buying that! No way!”

Sikes regarded me gravely. “Hinterland is littered with the bones of people who lived and died here believing the exact same thing. Sometimes they were very short lives.”

“Simon! Simon brought me here!”

“But he can’t take you back. Not even his mother has figured out how to do that, otherwise she would have banished the lot of us from here a long time ago.”

“Oh, just great! Simon’s mother is here too?”

He made a face. “Yeah. Lucky us. You’re on her turf now, girl. This Coching is definitely her own.”

I clawed at the air.

“That crazy bitch!” I said. “What is she anyway?”

“Pretty much exactly that. But also very powerful. I guess the easiest way to describe her is as a witch of sorts, and leave it at that.”

I scoffed. “Are you serious? Brooms and pointy hats? Cauldrons? Black masses?”

“Well, no. Not even close. But for the time being it’s the best I’ve got.”

There was a soft rap on the door. I glared at it, frustrated by the interruption. Sikes got up and shambled over to the door and shooed back the gnomes with his foot.

“Who’s there?” he said.

“Don’t shoot!” said a boy’s muffled voice. “It’s only us. Simon brought me.”

Simon!

“How many time have I told you kids to use the back door when you come visiting?” said Sikes testily as he unlocked the door.

“A lot. But there are like, fifty cop cars hanging around the rear lot right now and I didn’t want to take my chances. Hey, new girl.”

A black-haired boy sidled into the police station and eyed me curiously. Simon hovered behind him, looking morose.

“This is Morgan,” said Sikes as he locked the door behind them. “Morgan, this is Doris. He’s with Widerstand.”

Strange new words were spinning all around me. I latched onto the one that made the least sense.

“Doris?” I said.

“That’s right,” said the boy.

“Doris?”

He glowered at me. He looked around my age but was shorter and slimmer, with curly black hair and dark shadows under his eyes. His T-shirt was black with a faded Hard Rock Cafe logo on the front, and he wore a dirty knapsack on his back. I did not miss the pry bar lashed to it by various straps and buckles.

“It’s not my real name,” he said.

“That’s what I figured, Doris.”

“It’s just a nickname!”

“Bet there’s a good story behind that one, Doris.”

Doris rolled his eyes. “Where did you dig this one up, Sikes?”

Sikes held up his hands and turned away. “Hey now, I’m just the mediator in this case. Talk to Simon if you really want to know.”

Simon awkwardly cleared his throat.

“I’m the one who brought her here,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Yeah, you better be sorry!” I said. “Thanks a hell of a lot!”

“I’m sorry! It was the only thing I could think of doing to save you from the fire!”

“Pushing me off a roof and dumping me into your mom’s stupid shadow town? Good call, genius!”

Doris looked bemused. “Pushed off a roof?”

“That’s right! And now Beach Cop here tells me I can’t get home again!”

“Whoa, Simon!” Doris whooped. “You can bring people here?”

“Apparently so,” said Simon gloomily.

“Oh man! That is unreal.”

“Look, I said I was sorry!” Simon extended his hands towards me imploringly. “But being here is better than being dead, isn’t it?”

“I might have survived the fall! I might have just… broken my legs really badly!”

Sikes loudly cleared his throat and held up his hands in the shape of a ‘T’ Even the ducks stopped flapping around the room and perched on the ceiling fans.

“Morgan,” he said. “Enough. Simon did what he could to save your life. Regardless of the consequences, his intentions were good.”

The room went silent. I glared at the floor while Simon stared at his feet. Doris wiped his eyes.

“Well, either way, we’d better get home,” he chuckled. Boy, did he look happy. “I can’t wait to see the look on Schroeder’s face when I break the news to him. Oh man! Simon can pull people into Hinterland! That idiot is gonna go ballistic.”

Simon winced. “Do you really have to tell him?”

“Are you kidding? I’d text him right now if he weren’t so paranoid about cell phones. This is gonna be awesome. Thanks for hanging into the new girl for us, Sikes.”

“No charge,” said Sikes. “You guys go on ahead. Morgan? Can I talk with you for a moment?”

After warily scanning the street Doris and Simon slipped back out the front door. Sikes shut it and leaned back against it and looked at me kind of oddly.

“What?” I said.

He scratched his scruffy chin. Sort of sized me up.

“Look, pet,” he said. “This is me being serious now. I’m going to tell you straight up that the next few days are going to be hard. They always are. This place is hard. It’s not going to go easy on you just because you’re new here.”

“Yeah, well,” I grumbled. “I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, maybe you can. You seem like a tough kid. But I’ll tell you what. How about we make a deal so I can help to improve your odds a little?”

“What kind of a deal?”

Sikes grinned and narrowed one of those bloodshot green eyes at me. He held up a finger.

“Are you hungover?” I said. Just hit me out of nowhere, why he looked so rumpled and unshaven.

“I- what? Y- no! Hey! Shush! None of your business! May I please speak here?”

I guffawed. “Go ahead.”

He huffed. “Look, girl. One of these days I’m going to need a favour done. I can’t say what it is yet, partly because I’m still fuzzy on the details myself. But in the meantime, how about I lend you my assistance? You call my name and I’ll be there in an instant. In a heartbeat. I’m not joking. You need help, just give me a holler. I will be there so fast it will make your head spin.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really!”

“You’ll just magically appear out of the blue, just like that.”

“Just like that.”

It was my turn to size him up. Kind of indulgently, because I wasn’t taking the offer all that seriously.

“You’re not going to ask me to do anything illegal, are you?” I said. “I draw the line at petty vandalism. Well, okay, I draw the line on the other side of petty vandalism, but you get my drift.”

“Are you kidding?” Sikes laughed. “This is Hinterland! There is no law here! But no. I promise you. Nothing illegal.”

“Hmm.” I eyed him up and down. He did not look like much. Beach bum cop at best. But I nodded and stuck out my hand. “Okay. Deal.”

We shook on it and he gave me back my backpack and scooted me out the front door. Before it shut behind me I saw the floral-printed butt staring out from behind his legs. Now a man’s butt in patchy overalls had joined it. Jesus!

To my surprise it was still dark out. I don’t know why that came as such a shock. I couldn’t have been out cold on that couch for very long. It just felt like I had been sleeping.

Doris and Simon waited for me on the sidewalk. Doris lurked behind a lamp post. He watched the street cagily, like a rat sniffing for cats.

“Are you okay?” said Simon.

“Yeah,” I said. “Where to now?”

“To a safe hideout,” said Doris. He waved for us to follow him. “It’s not far from here. You didn’t hear that,” he added with a glance back at Simon.

Simon sighed. “I could cover my ears if you like.”

“Nah, don’t bother. If Schroeder asks just tell him I knocked you out and left you on the curb or something.”

“Can do.”

Now that I was back outside I recognised the top of the main street. There were fewer shops up here but lots of elegant houses, all of them shaded by blooming gardens and tall red maple trees. Even though it had to be at least three in the morning a few of them still had lights shining in their windows.

“Not very fair, is it?” said Doris when he caught me staring. “They get electricity and we don’t. Nobody lives in them. But all of that will change if I get my way, believe me.”

There was a weird glint in his eye. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I just said, “So, what’s up with that Sikes guy? Has he always been that, uh…”

“Strange? Armed?”

“The first one.”

“Ah. Yeah, so far as I know.”

“He’s lived here a while,” said Simon. He ghosted along at my heels. “For as long as I can remember.”

Thinking of the deal I had just made, I said, “And is he, you know, on our side?”

“Against Miller?” said Doris. “I think so. He helps us out every now and then. Sometimes we club police cars for him in exchange for favours.”

“Club police cars. Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Doris led us down a narrow side street. I cannot write his name without smiling. It was amazingly dark there, like the whole neighbourhood had suffered a blackout. Not a single streetlamp was lit, not a single window glowed. At least I didn’t see any headlights either.

It was quiet too. Like, dead quiet. No dogs barking, no cars, no chirping crickets – nothing. It was eerie. My suspicion that all of this was just some elaborate hoax began to weaken.

“Almost there,” said Doris. He pointed. “Just a few blocks past that park.”

“Good,” I said. My head ached.

“I wouldn’t get your expectations up if I were you. We don’t live in much of a house.”

“Hey, who cares. So long as it’s got a shower and a bed I’m happy.”

Doris laughed really ominously. Did not like the sound of that.

So I said, “What’s this Wider-thing you’re with?”

“Widerstand? There’s about ten or eleven of us altogether. We’ve grouped together for safety. People tend to get picked off by cars or worse if they wander around on their own.”

“Brilliant. What does ‘Widerstand’ even mean?”

“Who knows.” Doris made a face. “It’s a Schroeder word.”

“Is he in charge?”

“More or less. He’s the oldest and he’s been here the longest, so he calls the shots.”

“You don’t sound thrilled about it.”

“I’m not. I think he’s a nut.”

“Then put him in charge.”

I pointed back at Simon, who jumped.

“Me?!” he said.

“Ha!” said Doris. He hooked his thumbs into the straps of his knapsack and laughed. “Yeah, that would go down well.”

“Why not?”

“He’s Miller’s son, isn’t he? Half the kids don’t trust him. The other half want to kick in his teeth. No offense.”

Simon just sighed.

I opened my mouth to argue when there came a gravelly sort of crunch-crunch-crunch from somewhere up ahead of us. We all came to a halt and stared into the night. The next thing I knew Doris was trying to wrestle me into a hedge.

“Get off me!” I sputtered.

“Something’s coming!” he hissed. “Shut up and hide!”

“Uh, guys?” said Simon.

We stopped thrashing around just as a small boy came hurtling out of the darkness. When he spotted us frozen awkwardly by the hedge he skidded to a halt and stared at us in astonishment. He was this little black kid, couldn’t have been more than eleven years old, dressed in the raggediest pair of shorts you’ve ever seen and a floppy blue and white windbreaker. He also carried a giant piece of ABS piping with nails jammed through one end, which was more than a little off-putting.

“Doris!” he panted. “I found you!”

Doris looked just as surprised. He let go of me and stood upright.

“Joe?” he said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Noelle and Schroeder! They’ve been caught!”

—

Gonna stop here for a while.

It’s gotta be close to noon now, and this heat is just killing me. Even being in the shade under the fort isn’t helping. Schroeder is going to have one hell of a sunburn if he keeps lying out there in the sun. Not that I particularly care. He sure isn’t moving much. I wonder if he’s dead. Again. Can’t rouse the energy to poke him and find out.

Uggghhh. I miss air conditioning. I miss food and water. I even miss Doris, damn it. That little rat. I hope he and Noelle are okay. I don’t know what happened to them after we split up in Miller’s house. Hope they made it out okay.

I want to yell at Sikes, though. He ditched us back there in Miller’s cellar. I wish he was here. He would know what to do right no

OH MY GOD SIKES WHY DIDN’T I THINK OF THIS EARLIER?!