When a dog barks, she pulls me behind a tree before either of can pinpoint where the sound is coming from. Two streets down, a door opens and closes, we both freeze. Later on, I grab her sleeve and pause her when I’m certain I hear the squeaks of bike wheels. My heart continues to hammer in my throat even when no bike ever shows up. The shadows around us lengthen.

“Do you think children still ride their bikes here?” I sign at Grace.

She frowns. “I’m sorry, Logan, I don’t know what half those signs mean.”

I shrug. “Never mind.”

One house has a wind chime hanging from its porches, and its eerie melody crawls up my spine.

Eventually, we find one of the houses on our list. It’s dark and empty, and the white slash across the door is faded away. The door swings back and forth on its hinges.

“Fuck,” Grace whispers. “Someone may have cleaned it out.”

I edge closer and glance in through the window.

“How does it look?” Grace whispers.

I catch a flash of color on the living room floor. A pink-and-purple dollhouse, with doll-size furniture spread out in front of it. It even has a tiny cup on a tiny table, like someone was playing with it only hours ago. I turn back and swallow hard.

“Logan?”

I sigh. “It looks empty.”

She steps up next to me regardless, and she breathes out hard when she spots the play set. “Oh.”

Yeah.

“I hope they left for somewhere safe.”

“I hope they’re alive.” I try not to think about it too hard, because it’s the only way I can keep going. Leah and I used to play with a dollhouse Granddad had in his attic. He once let slip that it was our mother’s.

“I hate this,” Grace mutters under her breath. She pushes her hair back and sets her jaw. “I’ll go in to search for food. You go update the map, but don’t stray too far.”

She doesn’t wait for a response, but instead she dashes into the house. And I’m grateful she’s gone. It’s easier to lie with signs, but I’m still a terrible liar.

I don’t want to update the map. I want to keep going, now more than ever. I want to know, I need to know that the rest of the world is better than this.

I understand Grace’s hesitation. We can’t bring the plague back to Hope. But we can’t forget the rest of the world or be forgotten either.

So I pull up the map and my pencil and walk the street like I’m taking notes, but when the house disappears behind the trees, I put them back and keep walking.

We’re nowhere near the school, but our map has grown after nearly a dozen runs. I’ve been studying the quickest route while we walked here. I walk from streetlamp to streetlamp. I know where I’m going.

The main street is as empty as the town itself, with everyone keeping to their houses. Locked down, or following a curfew that we’re unaware of, or simply afraid. The store is boarded up now, and the post office a few doors down is too. It means I have to keep walking.