When I open my eyes I see it how it is now: everything broken, bent, brown. Half the storefronts are just crumbled piles of bricks. The other half still stand, but have boarded-up windows, graffiti splashed on the walls. One little shop’s got a coat of dried blood splattered on the wall. Nothing new, shiny or nice to see here. I tuck my eyes and head forward.

I stumble up to the next building—a general store judging by the hand-painted sign reading Stor in sloppy red letters. The steps lie in a crumbled mess of broken concrete, so a plank serves as the ramp up to the hole in the brick they’re using as a door. The clerk behind the counter looks up as I enter. He’s narrow and wiry in his stained apron and cotton shirt. I cringe as he scans me. I find the first aisle and pretend to be fascinated by a dented metal teapot.

When I’m safely hidden behind the shelves, I scan the store. Four-foot high metal shelves runs in three rows. They’re covered in a vast array of goods. Piles of scrawny carrots, potatoes and a single orange sit on a produce table. The factory-made goods are pricey and the clerks always keep them close by. The one or two factories that still operate are attacked with such frequency that nothing really gets made. Those dented cans and rectangular boxes with pictures of happy children were likely stolen from abandoned grocery stores. I stare at the smiling children on the boxes and my stomach grumbles. I wonder what those cheesy noodles would taste like.

I walk down an aisle of used household goods: cracked porcelain plates, tattered bed sheets, a stereo with a tin foil antenna. An elderly man with skin like leather lifts a pair of patched overalls to his skeleton frame. A man with a cowboy hat pulled low peruses the loose hardware aisle, sifting through bins of assorted nuts and bolts. No Arn.

I suck in a hot breath and approach the counter. The clerk’s glasses, taped together at the center, slump down his nose. He pushes them up with a dirty finger and looks up from his ledger.

“Can I help you?” His eyes show no desire to help me.

I pull up my male voice. “I’m looking for a man. Name’s Arn Meemick. He’s five-ten, 140 pounds. Brown hair and brown eyes—”

He cuts me off with a wave of his palm. “Listen, son, every dirt farmer and cattle rancher from here to Tahoe fit that look-a-like. You here to buy somethin’?”

I knit my brows. “I’m sure you’d know ’im if I just describe ’im better. He was wearing jeans, a wide-brimmed hat—”

He slams both palms on plank counter. “This ain’t the lost ’n found. If you ain’t gonna buy something, git.” He thumbs toward the open doorway and goes back to digging his nubby pencil into his ledger.

I stand, my mouth open. I’ve heard the Sheriff and his boys were rough and ruthless, but it’d never crossed my mind that common folk would be this heartless. When I tromp out, I pause once more at the door to shoot him a dirty look.