“We just have to get there,” Seth said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“That’s right.” Gudmund touched Seth’s shoulder again. “Hang in there, please. We’ll make it. I promise you.”
They both jumped at the sound of a door slamming. “Gudmund!” Gudmund’s father shouted from the porch, loud enough to wake the neighbors. “You’d better answer me, boy!”
Gudmund rolled down his window. “I’m here!” he shouted back. “I needed some fresh air.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?” His father squinted into the darkness where Seth and Gudmund were parked. “You get back in here. Now!”
Gudmund turned back to Seth. “We’ll e-mail. We’ll talk on the phone. We won’t lose contact, I promise.”
He lunged forward and kissed Seth hard, one last time, the smell of him filling Seth’s nose, the bulk of his body rocking Seth back in the seat, the squeeze of his hands around Seth’s torso –
And then he was gone, sliding out the door, hurrying back into the glow of the porchlight, arguing with his father on the way.
Seth watched him go.
And as Gudmund disappeared behind another slamming door, Seth felt his own doors closing.
The doors of the present, shutting all around him, locking him inside.
Forever.
28
It takes Seth a moment to realize he’s on the floor. He doesn’t remember lying down, but he’s cramped and stiff, like he’s been there for hours.
He sits up. He feels lighter.
Like he’s almost empty.
The weight from the dream feels like it’s in the room somewhere, and he’s distantly aware of it, but of himself, he feels –
Nothing. He feels nothing.
He gets to his feet. The sleep has returned some of his strength. He flexes his hands, rolls his neck, stretches.
Then he sees that small beams of sun are pouring through the cracks in the blinds.
The rain has stopped. The sun is back out.
And he promised himself a run, didn’t he?
Keeping his mind clear, he changes into a pair of shorts and one of the new T-shirts. His sneakers aren’t proper running shoes, but they’ll do. He debates whether to take one of the bottles of water but decides to leave it behind.
He skips breakfast. He’s barely eaten in the last day and a half, but there’s a purpose in his chest that feels like it’s feeding him.
It’s the same purpose he felt when he went down to the beach.
He lets the thought slide through his head and out the other side.
There is nothing this morning.
Nothing at all.
Nothing but running.
He goes to the front door. He doesn’t shut it behind him.
He runs.
It was cold, possibly below freezing when he left his house that afternoon, having meticulously cleaned his room without really knowing why, without somehow even really being aware of doing it, just getting everything in its right place, neat and tidy and final, so nothing was left undone.
His mother had taken Owen to therapy and his father was working in the kitchen. Seth walked down the stairs to the living room. His eyes caught that horrible painting by his uncle, the horse, in terror, in agony, but stilled, forever, watching him go, watching as he closed the front door behind him.
It was a good half hour walk to the beach, the sky threatening snow but not delivering. The sea that day wasn’t as monstrous as it often was in winter. The waves were shallower, but still reaching, still grabbing. The beach as rocky as ever.
He stood there for a moment, then he started to take off his shoes.
Seth runs toward the train station, leaving footprints in the drying mud, his legs creaking and groaning from lack of this kind of use. He turns up the stairs between the blocks of flats, heading to the station.
His first sweat is on, the drops stinging his eyes as they drip from his forehead. The sun is blazing down. His breathing is heavy.
He runs.
And as he runs, he remembers.
He runs faster, as if he might escape it.
There was sand there, between the rocks, and he stood on a little patch of it to remove first one shoe and then the other. He set them carefully together, then he sat on a rock to take off his socks, folding them and tucking them deep inside his shoes.
He felt . . . not quite calm, calm wasn’t the right word, but there were moments, moments when he wasn’t focused on the precise folding of his socks when he felt almost faint with relief.
Relief because at last, at last, at last.
At last, there didn’t have to be anymore, didn’t have to be anymore burden, anymore weight to carry.
He took a moment to try and shake off the tightening in his chest.
He breathed.
Seth leaps over the ticket barrier at the train station and pounds up the steps to the platform. He doesn’t look at the train as he heads for the bridge over the tracks. He hears nothing from the boar, no doubt sleeping away a hot day in the confines of its den.
Up the steps, across the bridge, and down the other side.
He took off his jacket, because that seemed right, too. He was only wearing a T-shirt underneath, and the wind stung his bare arms. He shivered more as he folded up his coat and placed it on his shoes.
He felt present there, but also separate at the same time, as if he was watching himself from a height, looking down on a shoeless, coatless boy, staring at the sea.
Like he was waiting.
But for what?
Whatever it was, it never come.
And then, “I’m ready,” he whispered to himself.
He found, to his surprise, with a sudden upsurge of grief that nearly knocked him flat, that he was telling the truth.
He was ready.
He began walking toward the sea.
He leaps over the gate at the other side of the train station and out the far exit. He pounds down the incline toward the first main road, wincing at the strain on his feet, but his muscles seem to be awakening, returning to the memory of themselves, returning to the memory of running –
He takes the first running steps into the destroyed neighborhood.
Everything around him is dead.
The cold of the water was shocking, brutally so, even in those first steps, and he couldn’t keep himself from gasping. A wave of gooseflesh marched up his arms, the thin black hairs standing almost vertical. It felt for a moment as if he had already started to drown ankle-deep in five inches of water.
He knew then that if the water didn’t get him, the cold would.
He forced himself to take another step.
And another.
It’s so quiet, all he can hear are his footfalls and his breathing. In this first street, everything’s been flattened, so there’s only blackened ground reaching out on either side. He kicks up clumps of ash into the air, some of it drying now in the sun and making a trailing cloud.