H2O (11 page)

For every
stage of my life, I had a memory associated with that celebration. When I was
five, I built the biggest sandcastle in the world with my dad. When I was
seven, I ended up lost and terrified in the craggy rocks of Juniper Cove and
found my way back by following the voices of teens hiding from their parents.

When I was
ten, I argued with Mrs. Levingworth because I wanted to stay at the party after
the younger kids had already gone home. I won the argument and thought I was a
grown up.

When I was fifteen,
I drank alcohol for the first time and vomited. I lied to Mrs. Levingworth and
told her that I’d eaten too much barbecue. And when I was seventeen, I saw
Ellen making out with Brad Stall and realized that I should’ve made my own move
that year, that Ellen was ready for a boyfriend, and now her boyfriend wouldn’t
be me.

But all those
memories were overshadowed by one memory.

During the annual celebration,
Corolaqua workers all had jobs to do, from barbecuing and serving food to
organizing and supervising games.

I was a
lifeguard and there was nothing unusual about that. The younger workers were
usually the lifeguards because they were in the best shape. And when night fell
and there wasn’t any swimming, only one lifeguard watched the ocean, in case teens
dared each other to swim in the dark.

That night, I
was the one lifeguard and I stationed myself far from the barn fire so I could
see past the light of the flames. It was hard to see anything at all because
the moon was a tiny sliver. I watched the sea and I listened to the waves
striking the beach. I heard parents and grandparents laughing around the barn
fire and, in the other direction, I could barely discern groups of teens in the
darkness.

Then, between
the crashes of waves, I heard a cry. A sharp cry. I looked up and down the
beach, trying to pinpoint where it had come from and I heard it again. It
wasn’t a burst of laughter. It was a scream. And it wasn’t coming from the
people gathered around the barn fire. I looked out into the ocean, past the
roaring waves and into the blackness, and heard another scream. I scanned the
water and thought I saw movement. It was black on black, but a black separate
from the ocean. Then I heard someone shout, “Help!”

I rushed
forward and kept my eyes on the spot where I’d seen that movement. I sprinted
into the surf, dove into the sea, and swam under the breaking waves. When I
popped back up, I checked that spot again, but didn’t see anything. Then I
heard the cry again. It was definitely coming from out there, in the darkness.
I was sure some teen had swum out and panicked.

I swam as hard
as I could, barreling through the crashing waves until I made it to the calmer
waters on the other side. I looked toward the spot again and I saw the teen. He
went under.

I picked up my
pace and checked again. The teen popped up through the water, but was quickly
pulled back down. Was I watching a shark attack? Years ago, there’d been
reports of shark attacks down south, but never in Clearview. I swam toward the
teen, but when I looked up again, I didn’t see him. I wanted him to pop up so I
could confirm I was still headed in the right direction and, just as I put my
head back down for the final sprint, he did. Then he was pulled under again.

I was on
course, but something was weird. This time I’d noticed that the teen had his
head covered. At least, that’s what it looked like. But it was hard to tell in
the dark. That should’ve stopped me and I wish it had.

I closed in on
the spot, but I didn’t see the teen. I dove down under the water and looked
around. It was too dark to see anything.

I resurfaced
and glanced around me. Nothing.

Then, a few
yards in front of me, the teen popped up, and went under. His head
was
covered in something. He must’ve been the butt of some cruel joke. I lunged
forward and the teen suddenly shot out of the water right in front of me and I
grabbed him. He grabbed me back and tried to pull me under. He was panicking.
He pulled hard and he was strong, and big, and I realized that he wasn’t a
teen.

I went down
with him, then struggled to get back to the surface, trying to pull him up with
me.

We both made
it to the surface and I yelled for him to calm down. He was safe now. But he
was already pulling me under again and, just as I began to wonder if he was doing
it on purpose, someone
else
grabbed my legs. I tried to kick free, but I
felt something clamp down on one of my ankles. Then the man with the covered
head let me go and swam away, but I realized I was in trouble so I lunged at
him, grabbed his leg, and held tight. At the same time, I tried to shake my
ankle free from whatever was clamped around it.

I wouldn’t let
go of the man, so he pulled me along as he swam away, until I came to an abrupt
and jarring stop, held back by whatever was connected to my ankle. The man
kicked hard to free himself from my grip, but I viciously twisted his leg to
stop him from shaking me off. For a second, he stopped struggling. I’d hurt
him.

Then the clamp
around my ankle started reeling me down, under the water, and the man easily
kicked free of my grip. He was home free and I was buried in the ocean. The
reeling stopped after a few seconds and I tried to swim to the surface, but I
couldn’t reach it.

The trap had
been perfectly set. I was anchored in place, under the dark sea, with no way to
call for help. I could hold my breath for two, three minutes tops, so I had to
do something fast. I reached down and checked my ankle. Around it, I felt a
metal ring, a cuff of some kind. I felt further down and found the cuff was attached
to a thick chain. I wasn’t going to be able to break the cuff or the chain.

I thought
about those apocryphal stories where a bear gnaws off his limb to escape a
trap, but even if I could figure out a way to sever my ankle, I didn’t have the
time to do it. The only hope was to get to the other end of the chain and find
what was anchoring it down.

I swam down,
using the chain as my guide. I wanted to breath, to suck in some fresh air, but
I knew I couldn’t. My ears started to feel the water pressure and I began to
doubt my strategy.

But it was too
late to change it.

As I
approached the ocean floor, about thirty feet from the surface, I felt faint. I
was desperate for air and the pressure in my ears was brutal. I forced myself
down to the very end of the chain and, there, I found an anchor. I couldn’t see
it, but I felt it. My hands moved across it, and I fought my delirium and
concentrated on the facts. A mushroom anchor. Between thirty and sixty pounds.
I reached around the anchor with both hands and tried to lift it. It moved, but
barely.

I was going to
die.

I dug my hands
under the anchor, pulled myself close to it, then jerked it up. It moved and I
started kicking, holding the anchor close. I breathed out. I couldn’t help it.
I was going to pass out. I kicked harder, clutching the anchor, hoping to get
to the surface, and I breathed in water. I desperately needed air. The anchor
wanted to sink back down and take me with it, but I wouldn’t let it. If I could
carry the anchor to the surface, I’d live.

I kicked
harder, moving up, closer to the surface, refusing to let the anchor bury me at
sea.

I popped
through the surface and sucked in air. I kicked and held onto the anchor, and
tried to catch my breath. I wanted to yell for help, but I couldn’t. Breathing
took too much effort.

After about
another minute or so, I started kicking toward the shore. When the water was
shallow enough, I dropped the anchor and yelled for help.

Frank heard my shouts, swam out,
and helped me back to shore. Later that night, Uslov Sidorov, the welder in
Clearview, cut the cuff off my ankle.

I spent the
rest of the weekend keeping my anger in check. I tried not to think about
suspects because that made me too angry, but, as usual, I couldn’t completely
stop myself. I didn’t have any clues to go on. Anyone in town could’ve acquired
the anchor. Before the Virus, there were plenty of boats lining these coastal
waters and that meant there were plenty of abandoned anchors. As for the cuff,
it could’ve been salvaged from any of the thousands of abandoned police
stations all over the Territory.

I did talk to
Clearview’s policemen, but it was clear that they weren’t going to do a thing.
Trevor Hunter and Elijah Toric, two of our three policemen, questioned me and
treated the entire thing like it was a prank. Corolaqua workers were just
having a little fun, like an old-fashioned hazing. I told them that the plant
workers had never hazed anyone before and they said, “There’s always a first
time.” Hunter and Toric’s job was to keep the peace and this didn’t threaten
the peace. It was just a prank, not attempted murder. They thought I couldn’t
take a joke and that I was a coward for making this into a big deal. So I
didn’t push it with them.

On Monday, I went back to work.
Most of the plant workers knew what had happened and most of them had the same
attitude that Hunter and Toric had had. It’d been an elaborate prank. But I was
hyper-aware of everyone’s body language, on the plant floor, in the hallways,
and in the lunchroom. I was looking for suspects. And the end of my shift
couldn’t come fast enough because by the end of the day everyone was starting
to look like a suspect.

I headed out
to the parking lot, telling myself that I had to put this behind me. As I
climbed into my car, I saw Ledic’s car pull in. He was working the next shift.
I keyed the ignition and in my rearview mirror, I saw him getting out his car.
He was always a sight to see. When Rick had defended me at the Mory Aqueduct,
he’d left Ledic with a broken nose and it had healed crookedly. On some faces
that could’ve looked tough and handsome, but on Ledic, it looked sloppy and
ugly.

Ledic headed
toward the plant. He was limping.

Because I
had twisted his leg in the ocean
.

I headed home,
my anger raging. Ledic had tried to kill me, and this time, it couldn’t be
chalked up to kids going too far. And I was sure that Walt Becket had been his
partner, the one who’d shackled me. They were best friends who distilled their
own liquor and got drunk every night. They had both married wives who stayed
out of their way as they brawled over money, women, and any perceived slights.
Ledic had been hired two years before me and while I’d been hired because the
Town Council was thinking of what would be best for Corolaqua, he was hired
because the Town Council was thinking of what would be best for Clearview.
Making sure Ledic worked a hard job six days a week kept him out of wreaking
even more havoc.

I walked into
my house, thinking about my options. As if there were something I could do. I
wasn’t going to mete out vigilante justice, and going back to Hunter and Toric
was a dead end. They’d been tolerant of Ledic for years. He’d beaten the crap
out of a couple people and destroyed his fair share of property. But they’d
never called in the Fibs and they weren’t going to now. And the fact that it
was Ledic who’d tried to kill me only reinforced that this was just a drunk
bastard who’d lost control.
It was just like something that drunk bastard
would do.
No way was this attempted murder.

Sarah came into the bedroom and
told us that her dad had gone to bed. Then she snuck into the diner’s storage
building and stuffed Lily’s backpack with food in case we ended up heading
farther east than Black Rock. She asked for one thing in return. If we did come
back this way, she wanted us to take her to the Territory. We said ‘yes.’

We were out of Sarah’s trailer
and under a triple tank truck before the cool night air had turned to dew. The
driver was sleeping in the cab and the parking lot was silent. We’d picked a
truck whose rigging was packed with supplies so, on the road, those supplies
would keep us hidden from the eyes of other truckers.

An hour later,
we heard the trucker step out of the cab and a few minutes after that, he came
back and pulled out of the parking lot. Lily and I braced ourselves for the
short trip to Black Rock.

Two hours later, the truck slowed
down and turned onto the Black Rock lakebed. There was no road here, just an
endless mud surface. And as the truck picked up speed, it began to kick up
massive amounts of dried mud. We had to shut our eyes to protect them. Every
time I opened my eyes, I caught glimpses of dozens of other dust clouds. The
trucks crossing the flats with us.

It wasn’t long
before every breath we took was packed with grainy particles of dirt. The
lakebed was roughly four hundred square miles, so if our truck was headed all
the way across it, we’d choke on these particles. I pulled my shirt up over my
mouth to act as a filter and Lily did the same. But the particles were so fine
and so relentless that they still made it through, and we both began to cough
and wheeze.

Fifteen
minutes later, all of it spent wheezing, our truck stopped. I figured we were
somewhere near the middle of the lakebed, and I saw other trucks pulling in.
But ‘pulling in’ was the wrong term. They weren’t pulling into anything. The
trucks were stopping in the middle of the most barren surface on Earth.

I looked over
the wide expanse. The mud flats were covered with cracks, and the rising sun,
low on the horizon, raked the cracks, turning the lakebed into a coppery mosaic
of geometric shapes. Beautiful.

I shifted my
focus back to the trucks. Some of the truckers had climbed out of their cabs,
and the trucker closest to us was under his truck, prepping a discharge valve,
as if he were getting ready to unload the water.