He turns his gaze forward again.
Toward Masons Hill.
His feet – almost blue with cold – went numb as they stepped from rock to rock. Each new shock as he waded in deeper was like a knife slicing into him, but he pressed on. The water reached his knees, his thighs, darkening his jeans to black. There was a long shallows, but he knew it deepened suddenly a little farther out to depths that had to be swum. He also knew there was a current, one that would take an unsuspecting swimmer and smash them into the rocks that loomed down the beach.
He was so cold now that it felt as if his skin had been dipped in acid. A larger wave splashed across his T-shirt, and he couldn’t help but call out. He was shaking uncontrollably and had to force himself to keep moving forward.
Another wave came, larger than the last and he almost lost his balance. Another followed that. He wouldn’t be able to stand for much longer, his feet and toes gripping hard on the submerged rocks, the tide pulling forward and back. He readied himself to let go, to plunge in, to begin the swim out into the farther cold, out into the terrible, terrible freedom that awaited.
He was here. He had made it this far. There was so very little distance left to go, and he was the one who had brought himself here.
It was almost over. He was almost there.
He had never, not once in his life, felt this powerful.
Down another street, the concrete frames of some houses are still standing, though burnt through, inside and out. Not just houses, but storefronts and larger structures, too.
All blackened, all empty, all dead.
His throat is burning, and he thinks he should have brought water. But the thought is fleeting and he lets it go.
Masons Hill remains firmly on the horizon, and that’s all he needs.
He feels empty. Emptied of everything.
He could run forever.
He feels powerful.
Then a wave, larger than any before, engulfed him, plunging him under the freezing water. The cold was so fierce it was like an electric shock, sending his body into a painful spasm. He was afloat, twisting underwater, narrowly avoiding cracking his skull on an outcropping.
Coughing, spluttering, he broke the surface as another wave crashed down. He surged up again, his feet scrambling for purchase, but the undertow was already pulling him out fast. He spat out seawater and was thrust under by another wave.
(He fought; despite everything, he was fighting –)
The cold was so enormous it was like a living thing. In an impossibly short time, he was unable to make his muscles work properly, and though he could still see the empty shore in the seconds he had above water, it receded farther and farther into the distance, the current pushing him toward the rocks.
It was too late.
There was no going back.
(He felt himself fighting anyway –)
Seth picks up his speed, his breath starting to come in raking gasps, pushing the memories away, not letting them take root.
I’ll make it, he thinks. I’ll make it to the hill. Not far now.
Another street, and another street more, empty buildings all around, reaching up like tombstones, his breath getting louder in his lungs, his legs growing weaker.
I’ll make it. I’ll run up to the top –
Here is the boy, running.
Here was the boy, drowning.
In those last moments, it wasn’t the water that had finally done for him; it was the cold. It had bled all the energy from his body and contracted his muscles into a painful uselessness, no matter how much he fought to keep himself above the surface –
(And he did fight in the end, he did –)
He was strong, and young, nearly seventeen, but the wintry waves kept coming, each one seemingly larger than the last. They spun him round, toppled him over, forcing him deeper down and down.
He doesn’t think about his final destination as he runs, not in words. There is only intention. There is only a lightness.
The lightness of it all being over. The lightness of letting it all go.
Then, without warning, the game the sea seemed to have been playing, the cruel game of keeping him just alive enough to think he might make it, that game seemed to be over.
The current surged, slamming him into the killingly hard rocks. His right shoulder blade snapped in two so loudly he could hear the crack, even underwater, even in this rush of tide. The mindless intensity of the pain was so great he called out, his mouth instantly filling with freezing, briny seawater. He coughed against it, but only dragged more into his lungs. He curved into the pain of his shoulder, blinded by it, paralyzed by its intensity. He was unable to even try and swim now, unable to brace himself as the waves turned him over once more.
Please, was all he thought. Just the one word, echoing through his head.
Please.
Please, he thinks –
There is the sheer drop on one side of Masons Hill. He can see it in the distance.
Fifty feet down to concrete below –
Please –
The current gripped him a final time. It reared back as if to throw him, and it dashed him headfirst into the rocks. He slammed into them with the full, furious weight of an angry ocean behind him.
But it didn’t make him free.
He woke up here.
Here where there is nothing.
Nothing but a loneliness more awful than what he’d left.
One that is no longer bearable –
He is nearly there. One last turn. One more long street, and he’ll reach the base of the hill.
He turns a corner –
And in the distance, far down the road in front of him, he sees a black van.
And it’s moving.
29
He stops so suddenly he falls, burying his hands in inches of ash.
A van.
A van that’s driving away from him.
A van that’s being driven.
It’s going slowly, heading off into the distance, kicking up a low cloud of ash behind it, but there it is, solid as the world.
There’s someone else in hell.
Seth staggers upright, waving his arms over his head before he can even think if it’s a good idea or not.
“Wait!” he shouts. “WAIT!”
And almost immediately, the van stops. It’s far enough away that it shimmers in the heat rising from the drying ash, but it definitely stops.
It definitely heard him.
Seth watches, his heart racing, his lungs laboring for air.
The door to the van opens.
And a pair of hands slap themselves over Seth’s mouth from behind and drag him off his feet.
Part II
30
The hands bend Seth back so far he can hardly keep his balance. He tries to fight but finds himself so weakened – by lack of food and sleep, by the running, by the sheer weight on his chest – that all he can do is stumble backward, trying not to fall –