An hour later, I took another hot shower. When I crawled back into bed, fully swathed in my layers of clothing, I was even colder.
Two hours later, I was on the edge of hysteria.
I couldn’t feel my feet anymore. I’d grown deaf to the non-stop rattling of my teeth in my head. My hands, tucked between my frozen knees, creaked with agony. Stinging needles of pain streaked through my nose and my ears. My cheeks felt like they’d been burned.
I knew I should tell my mom. I knew I should go to the hospital. This wasn’t cold anymore—this was lethal. I knew if I did nothing I would die, and I knew that without the barest hint of hesitation.
But why didn’t I go downstairs and tell her? Why didn’t I scream for Dad?
I knew the answer, but I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t even want to think it.
My phone buzzed on my nightstand. It took more effort than I would have guessed to palm the tiny phone with my mittened hands. I started laughing at the absurdity of it, but the ragged edge in my laughter made me clamp my mouth shut almost immediately. Get a grip, Luce. You’re losing it.
I turned the phone toward me—a text message from a number I didn’t recognize.
I frowned. I opened the message.
You’re Not Wrong, Luce.
I Hear the Beach is Nice This Time of Year.
And here we are. You have now reached cruising altitude and may unbuckle your seat belts and move around the cabin. Please remember that there is no in-flight movie, and there’s a good chance the pilot took the only parachute with him on his way out the hatch.
I dropped the phone on the bed.
When I breathed out, a white plume of frost twisted out of my mouth and floated away on unseen breezes.
“Fine,” I said, and lay back on the pillow.
The second I shut my eyes to try to sleep, I heard the waves.
No pop. No snap. No dramatic fade-up. Just nothing, and then waves. Like someone had changed channels.
I opened my eyes.
I noticed two things immediately. One, I wasn’t cold anymore. I wasn’t warm, either, but the icy ache began to slide out of my muscles the moment I opened my eyes. The second thing I noticed was that I wasn’t alone anymore.
Chapter Seven
One-Sided Conversations
I tried to scream, but he didn’t let me.
His hand, burning with feverish heat, clamped over my mouth and cut off the tiny squeak I’d managed to conjure. He pushed me down into the sand, shoved his face into mine, and used his other hand to make the universal shush gesture with his index finger.
I hadn’t had much time to get a good look at him. When I’d opened my eyes, he’d been a shadow crouched against the grey horizon, a black hulk of lanky limbs. He’d sprung at me with blinding speed, and the strength in those long skinny arms was incredible. I wasn’t weak, but he pinned me with one hand without effort.
Still, as I looked up at him and his shush finger, pressed tightly against his lips, I could see the planes of his face, even in the dim of the grey sky. They weren’t twisted in some trollish look of rage or slicked into the lines of a hungry predator. In fact, he looked determined more than anything, or cautious even. It was hard to tell his age in the dark, but the gray of his shaggy hair told me he wasn’t young. His eyes shot away from my face, looking over me, toward where I knew the hill to be.
I stopped struggling. It could have been a ruse, but he didn’t look like he was attacking me. I think he just wanted me to shut the hell up. So I did. I waited, watching his eyes scan the horizon. Finally, he leaned back, looked me up and down, and pulled his hand away from my mouth.
I opened my mouth, slowly, and pointed one finger toward my face. He nodded, but held his hand out and made a gesture. He pinched an inch of air between his index finger and his thumb. I nodded at that.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”
He laughed—I guess I caught him off-guard. His body shook with laughter, and his face contorted into a big friendly grin, but he made no noise. When his mirth had stilled, he made the see-saw doing okay motion.
“What—?” I said, and looked behind me, where he had been looking. Just a hill. Now, anyway.
When I looked back, he’d moved a few feet away from me, and I got a better look at him. His face reminded me of my Grandpa, long and narrow and creased with wrinkles, but he had round boyish eyes. His hair, shaggy for an old guy, hung around his ears. It didn’t look unhealthy—in fact, except for a slight thinness, he wasn’t balding at all. He looked a well-kept sixty-or-seventy years old, but he moved like a little boy.
An old-style brown tweed suit clung to him, and it looked well-tailored if a little worn. Instead of a tie, a bright red scarf wrapped his neck and hung lazily across one shoulder. He didn’t stand up, but remained in what almost looked like a football-hike crouch. Three of his fingers even touched the sand just in front of him.
“What was there?” I asked.
The old man made a pondering face. He leaned back on his haunches, freed up his hands, and opened and closed them in a slow rhythmic pulsing. It didn’t look that different from a hula dancer’s gestures. I shook my head.
“Can you talk?”
The old man shook with another silent chuckle and waved his hand in the that’s ridiculous gesture, like he was swatting invisible flies. I frowned, but then shrugged.
“Am I dead?”
It just popped in my head—the question that broke every unwritten rule I’d built since the attack. Suddenly I didn’t care about stupid rules. I hadn’t talked to anyone about it, and I could feel a torrent of word-vomit climbing up my throat.
I watched the old man’s features. He was extremely expressive, and went from thoughtful to concerned to inspired to defeated in less than ten seconds. In the end, he just raised his hand and made that see-saw gesture again.
“What? No, not kinda. That’s not an answer.”
He made the see-saw gesture again and shrugged. I sighed, reached up, and unloosened the hood that was still clinging tightly to my face like I was some kind of Thanksgiving pilgrim woman. I shook my hair out, rubbed my cheeks, and tried again.
“Are we in danger here?”
See-saw. I growled in frustration, but he just shrugged again.
“Is there somewhere safer?”
He nodded his head yes. Then shook it no. He sighed and shook his head with his hands out in front of him. It looked like an apology. I felt bad harassing him about it. I ran through my brain, trying to find some common ground or question I thought he might be able to answer.
Got one.
“Did you send the text message?”
That one was met with the most perplexed look I’d ever seen. It made me grin. I apologized and went on. If this guy had ever even touched a cell-phone, I’d eat my giant purple jacket.
“Are you dead?”
I got the gesture I thought I would. He looked hesitant to even make the gesture, but I waved it away.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “I’m sorry. Is there a way out of here?”
He made the of course face.
“Not…back home. I mean, like. Is this beach and that highway all there is?”
A scoff. I nodded. Okay, little people, big world, I get it.
“Oh, I got it. Can you write?”
The old man offered only a pitied grin—it was the look you gave a toddler trying his very best to reach that infernal cookie jar. Oh, look, he’s up on his tip toes. I flashed a glare.
“What? Can you write or not?”
He nodded, but that grin didn’t go away.
“Write in the sand, like, with your finger. What’s your name?”
His smile widened.
“Ugh.”
I crouched in front of him, trying to suppress a flash of anger. I held one finger up, and like I was demonstrating to a particularly stupid child, began drawing huge letters in the sand.
“My. Name. Is. L-U-C-Y…wait.”
My finger cut long furrows in the sand, but none of the letters made any sense. They were twisted snakes of meaningless marks, strung together like a potful of spaghetti dumped on the ground. I looked up at him in shock.
His grin widened. He sighed, waved his hand at the twisting ideograms, and threw his hands up to the sky. What can you do, his gesture said.
“You can’t write here?”
He shook his head.
“Or read?”
Nope, his face said.
“Like a dream?”
Yup.
“Is this a dream?”
Nope.
“Dammit.”
I propped myself back on my arms and let out a deep, chestful sigh. The old man copied my pose and did the same. I laughed—he didn’t seem to be mocking me, just playful. Or bored. That made another question pop into my head.
“Can you go back—back home? To the real world, I guess?”
He nodded, but his eyes never left the sky. They searched the grey blanket of clouds, and his face smoothed out.
“Do you?”
Yes.
He didn’t look happy when he indicated that. He also made a point not to look at me while he nodded. I stood up, finally, and took another look around the surroundings. I’d been here every night, but most of them I’d spent either in one exact spot or not terribly far from that exact spot. I’d visited the road only once—the first time, when the glowing thing had chased me.
“Oh,” I said, turning toward him. “Was it the man? The man made of light? Is he here?”
The old man sat up. He nodded furiously, and his wide eyes showed nothing but fear. Old fear, caution-fear, but fear nonetheless.
“Has he left yet? Has he…sonic boomed out of here?”
The old man frowned at the phrasing, obviously trying to parse the term. After a moment, he shook his head. No then. The thing was still here.
“Close?”
He didn’t look certain, but after a moment he said no. Well, indicated no. I brushed my sandy hands on my jacket until they were clean, and I held my hand out. The old man took it, and I helped him to his feet. He looked a little curious, but otherwise game.
“Mind walking with me? I haven’t been…coming here very often.”
Obviously, his face said.
I gave him a flat stare, and he chuckled again.
“Know any good restaurants around here?”
Another chuckle.
I began hiking up the sandy hill, and he slogged just to my left. He didn’t look to be having any trouble—in fact, he looked to be working a lot less than me. When I crested the hill, I noticed something strange—the countryside had changed. Or rather, the landmarks had drifted or multiplied. The highway curved at a slightly different angle than I remembered, swinging much further east.
The dull glow of a distant city still burned off down the highway to the northeast, but now another dull glow sprang up down the highway to the south.
The road wasn’t clear this time. It was littered with rusted out cars, motorcycles, even a big-rig a little down the road. The highway wasn’t crowded with them—it wasn’t an L.A. traffic crunch—but there was more than a few. Some of the more tightly packed areas had cars every dozen feet—other areas didn’t have any within a hundred feet of each other. None of them were moving, running, or housing people.
“What’s this?”
The old man made the wheel gesture and then the honk-honk gesture.
I glared at him. “I know what a car is.”
He offered his impish ear-to-ear grin. I was inspired, and I hoped he wouldn’t mind.
“Since I don’t know your name, would you mind terribly if I made one up for you?”
His eyes narrowed, at first, but he rubbed his chin and seemed to think it out. He shrugged and made the left-hand right-hand scale gesture, like he was weighing two sacks of gold.
“So it depends on the name?”
He nodded.
“What about Puck?”
The widest grin yet nearly ripped his face in two. He nodded furiously and made a little clap-clap with his hands. He surprised me with his enthusiasm, but hell, maybe he was a Shakespeare man. By the look of him, I could see English teacher or college professor.
“All right, Puck,” I said, and he tried to suppress a goofy grin. “What are these cars from? Can we use them?”
He gave a who knows shrug, paused, and made the scales gesture again.
“So it depends. Never tried?”
His quick hands mimed a wrench turning a bolt, and then he threw the invisible wrench over his shoulder in mock-frustration. Definitely English teacher. Not that I could blame him—I knew how to put gas in my car, how to change a tire, and how to plug in my phone-charger. The buck stuttered to a stop there.
“All right, Mr. P,” I said. “Which way to go?”
I didn’t even know what I was doing, to be honest. I only knew that as far as I was concerned, if I headed back home right now, I’d be lying in bed, freezing to death. The only plan I could think of was to wait for sunrise, go back home, and hope the morning would sort out the problem.
Puck looked around. After a moment, he pointed south and then made the shame-shame finger wag. He didn’t want to go that way, and the look on his face told me that the light-thing, or something equally horrific, had gone that way.
“What’s this way? A city? Are there others?”
He nodded.
“Like us?”
Yes.
“Are there others not like us?”
Yes, his face said with more than a little fear.
A weird jag popped in my head. I had to ask.
“Are we in heaven?”
The face he made left no room for argument.
“We’re not in…”
No, he indicated firmly. Definitely not.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just had to know.”
I headed down the sloping gravel hill to the highway and hopped the guard rail. Puck came bouncing down next to me, and the two of us set off down the southbound lane, going north. Somehow I didn’t think we were going to get a ticket. Though I really didn’t want to meet the highway patrol in Limbo, or wherever the heck we were.
We walked for what had to be a few hours. I talked a little, wondering if he found my chatter offensive. If I lost my ability to talk, I wouldn’t exactly be patient with someone who wouldn’t stop vomiting their advantage all over me. It would be like losing the ability to eat dessert one day, and then finding nothing but cheesecakes every time you opened your glove box or reached into your cabinet for a towel.
The ground bucked underneath our feet. It trembled again and then tore sideways, forcing both of us to stumble to catch our balance.
Puck caught me around the wrist and dragged me toward a huge truck. He danced up the step, popped open the door, and pumped his arm toward the cab. I flew up with his help and fell into the cab. He shoved me the rest of the way in and slid into the driver’s seat. The old man ducked down as far as he could, pretzeling his long slender legs beneath the steering wheel and slumping down as far as he could manage. Though tall for a girl, I wasn’t anywhere approaching Puck’s height. I dropped into the leg-space on the passenger side and tucked my knees up against my chest. It was tight, but I could fit entirely in the little cubbyhole.
The truck rocked, but the tires and the old creaky suspension cushioned some of the impact. A keening noise, like the distant shrieking of tortured metal or a broken fire alarm rent the air. I slapped my hands to my ears and ground my teeth together to keep the noise out.
“Is it him?”
Puck twisted his head toward me and nodded. Now that the thing was close, he didn’t seem as afraid. I liked him even more in that moment—his eyes were calculating, cautious, perhaps, but clear. He didn’t shake, he didn’t even breathe fast.
“How far?”
His steady look told me close. He made the shush sign again, the one that had introduce
d me to him. But I couldn’t help myself. I cranked my voice down as low as I could and breathed my words out.
“Can he hurt us?”
Absolutely.
“Kill us?”
Yes.
My eyes widened—I could feel them stretching my cheeks. Some part of me had known that, but to see Puck’s merry face confirm it only lent more horror. I sucked in a breath and sank even deeper into the space under the dashboard.
The ground stopped shaking. A flash of light swept the cab—dim, at first, but pulsing bright. My heart caught the tempo and followed along. Puck shook his head and made the throat-cutting gesture. I raised my eyebrows.
“What?”
The pulsing light strobed the cabin, throwing a white glow against the seats. It painted the shadows-line of the dashboard on the vinyl bench. I’d seen pictures of atomic blasts that had burned the silhouettes of people permanently onto walls, caught in their horrible final moments. The white light reminded me of that.
Puck snapped his fingers. I shot back to him. He made the break motion, like he was snapping a twig in his hands. I shook my head again. The light intensified, and the shadow line of the dashboard began to sink. Like a rising sun, the shadows were growing shorter.
Oh no. The Light-Thing was climbing the hood. I was positive. The front of the truck rattled. Puck sucked in a breath. I couldn’t breathe. My chest was locked up…I couldn’t think. I couldn’t move. I felt my muscles paralyzing in fear.
Puck slapped the seat with a hand to get my attention. His fingers were inches from the receding shadow line. The hood of the truck creaked again. Closer. Something thumped. The last of the dashboard shadow ended just above Puck’s shaggy gray hair.
“Puck. Puck. Please. What do we do?”
Something thunked into glass, just above my head. I ducked, further down. A muscle in my back twisted.
“Puck!”
A noise like nails on a chalkboard but fifty times louder tore through the cab. I screamed, feeling it stab into my ears. My vision swam, and the tiny cab began to spin. Black dots. Everything tunneled. I could see Puck’s face, twisted not in fear, but in worry.
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