Not Dark Yet (23 page)

He put the backpack and the bag in the corner of the cabin that had the least amount of water on the floor, went back outside and walked to the grove of birches that separated Eloise and Mark’s land from his. In the scattered light from the headlamp the trunks were speckled black on silver, the bark rough and grainy. The trees were slim and only a little taller than himself, kept low and humble by the altitude and wind, not like in the lowland where deciduous trees grew to three times that size. The birches even bent in the same direction as the most prevalent motion of air. The ground was covered by the leaf-fall from the birches, heart-shaped yellow, orange, and brown foliage that had survived the mild winter. He lay down, the beam from the lamp bobbing with his motions, and breathed in the fragrance of decomposition and soil, letting the earth’s moisture seep into his clothes, while earthworms, beetles, and slugs crawled over his face and hands.

38

INCLUDING KAYE THEY WERE SIX, STANDING ON the beach inside the night. The early spring wind was sour and chilling, but had already lost its winter teeth. He regretted not having said goodbye to Michael properly after Christmas, one last moment of tenderness between them to pretend he wasn’t the kind of person who would do what he was about to.

Kaye had texted him on the phone he’d given him in the basement of the empty house, telling him to take the train back to the city in the north where they had met, walk to a particular beach, and crush the phone on the way. It was just a few weeks since he met Kaye in the unfinished neighborhood, but it felt like years. During the time waiting in the cabin for the message he knew would come, and on the journey to that beach, he had been torn between what he thought was necessary and what he knew was right, the future and the past. As when he had first arrived at the cabin, he yearned to call Michael and flee back to the city.

He glanced at the others, thought he recognized Narayan and the blond woman from the second lecture, but wasn’t certain. He took in what he could see of their faces, the eyes and forehead
and hair, trying to imagine what they looked like beneath the thin fabric of their masks. In the low illumination he couldn’t even see the shade of their eyes, whether they were light or dark, much less the color. If their features had been fully visible, he could have guessed what they looked like as children or would when they grew old, perhaps even when they were dead.

“It’s time,” Kaye said and waded into the inflatable vessel that was bobbing in the surf. The others followed. Despite the coveralls, masks, and gloves Kaye had given them, he felt naked, exposed. The engine roared to life, spewed exhaust fumes, jolted the small craft to motion. One of the four strangers startled visibly, the others remained calm and passive.

The craft kicked up sprays of seawater as it sped across the surface. The vessel had been following the beach for less than ten minutes and they were no farther than a kilometer from land, but the gleaming shore, with its weekend vacationers, surf and turf dinners, and off-season specials, seemed a million light years away.

Yet, even now the impulse to resist was strong, like pulling his hand away from a hot plate, or closing his eyes before a punch. Scenario after scenario that suggested a way, no matter how unrealistic or risky, out of the current situation, surged through his mind. The solutions offered were so tempting that his body swayed with the desired motion. For a while he defused the impulses before they could turn into action, but suddenly, he could no longer stop the urge that rose in his spine, could no longer stand the choking feeling in his throat, despite how things were and how he felt about them. In the past he had had similar doubts and not acted on them because the cost seemed too high, but now he no longer had a choice.

“I can’t do this!” he shouted over the din of the engine and the noise of the wind. “I’m sorry.”

The others turned toward him as if they were taking him in
from a far distance, but the vessel didn’t slow down. He wasn’t even certain they had heard him over the motor noise and the emptiness of the water. Quickly, he leaned over the rubber side of the craft, as he had been taught to in case of emergency evacuation, but never had to do before now, curled up into a ball to protect his head and chest, and launched himself into the roaring blackness.

He hit the water hard, bounced once along it like a skipping stone, and for a frightening moment he thought he would keep going, but then his motion slowed enough for the ocean’s surface to soften and take him in.

He let himself sink into the dark, still curled up, struggling not to gasp from the cold water that rushed into his nose and ears and clothes. He wondered if the rubber vessel would turn to search for him, but he thought not. Their window of opportunity was limited, and he had shown himself a traitor before they had even started. Still curled up, he blinked against the cold water, tugged at his boots with slow, deliberate motions to make the oxygen he had last longer. He expected resistance, but the boots came off even though his fingers were growing stiff from the chill. The water must have softened the lining. The rifle was gone, it no longer hugged his body. He imagined it falling through the water, sailing back and forth like a black feather, before being swallowed up by the deep. He kicked to get to the surface while he pulled the top of the coveralls off.

He had just enough air to stop for a few seconds to listen for the sound of nearby engines before he broke the surface. There was none, only a low, distant hum that vanished quickly in the wind and the waves. He scanned the darkness for the telltale motion of the lightless vessel, but saw nothing. Staying low in the water, he discarded the coveralls, then began to swim toward land.

At first the water was warmer than he had mentally prepared for when he left the craft. He had expected muscle cramps from the chill, but that didn’t happen. It was cold, but not as cold as it would have been that early in the spring a few years back. The wind had picked up and lashed the surface white, but it hadn’t been blowing for long, so the waves were still manageable. The water was still cool enough to chill him and the piercing wind made his ears ache.

He hoped they assumed he had drowned, but he nevertheless glanced back several times. After about forty-five minutes of swimming at medium speed to pace himself, the cold began to bother him. It had been a long time since he had swam in the sea in early spring, and when he did he had worn a wetsuit. The salt burned his eyes, blurred his vision and forced itself into his nose and mouth. His right hand, whose bones still bore plates and screws after his visit to the abandoned asylum last spring, turned stiff and aching. The shore was still far away.

He used to think that when people drowned they behaved like sinking characters in films or on TV, splashing and yelling and waving their arms. But during his training he learned that people who were about to drown were quiet and exhibited little motion. He had assumed that was due to embarrassment and an erroneous belief that they would manage to get out of the trouble on their own, but according to the instructor, this was caused by the nature of drowning itself. Drowning victims were running out of air even if they managed to keep their mouth above the surface. In medical terms, drowning was slowly suffocating from lack of oxygen; it wasn’t just getting water in the lungs.

Were the wind and the current taking him away from land? He gulped and snorted, trying to get rid of the water in his mouth and nose, but his breathing, which had started controlled
and regular, had become more and more imbalanced. Every time he thought he was on the up stroke and had his chin above water, a wave arrived and splashed him in the face, forcing him to swallow mouthfuls of sickening seawater. He gagged and coughed and spat, but soon a coppery flavor told him his nose was bleeding from the salt and the force of the waves, while all the muscles in his body hurt from straining against the sea.

He started to wonder whether drowning was the end that had been chosen for him, that he would be devoured by the deep as easily as the rifle, by an element he had always felt comfortable, even intimate, with. But as he swallowed the last mouthful of seawater he thought he could take, completely out of breath, and knew he had reached the limit of his endurance, he saw that the lights on the beach were substantially closer. He continued to reach for them, with one more stroke, and another, and another. His hands and feet were stiff from cold, blood running down his face, while he was dog-paddling more than swimming. He put all his focus on keeping air in his lungs for buoyancy. Then the ocean roared and roiled and he felt it swell behind him, like the maw of a Kraken about to rise up from the deep. The motion surged his body forward, and there was no resisting or refusing being engulfed. Realizing his complete and utter helplessness, he gave in to the sea the same way he did with the inner brightness and let it carry him where it wanted to.

The long wave didn’t crash or slam him back into the water, but crested gently without foam, then threw him up on land like a distasteful meal. It even pushed him a little into the cold sand, so that when the surf finally receded back into the ocean, he was left lying in a depression shaped like his own body, too exhausted to even cough.

39

THE OCEAN NIPPED AT HIS TOES AND SPLASHED his feet and ankles, each new wave renewing the intensity of his shivering. An icy wave rolled as far as his crotch, causing him to gasp and open his eyes. He pushed his hands and knees beneath him and stumbled up. The beach tilted back and forth and his ears were ringing with pain. His arms and legs were stiff and ached from freezing. He was so cold it felt like he’d never stop shaking.

The beach and the slope up to the road were still a wall of darkness ahead, but behind him the sky had started to pale. At the horizon the dawn had broken through the clouds and silhouetted them against the blue of the pre-dawn sky. The knowledge that he must not be seen took over and pushed him onward.

Above the beach the hill had been sectioned into small communal gardens, separated by low hedges of boxwood and spirea. Each garden held a modest building, sheds or greenhouses he thought at first, but as he drew closer they turned out to be small wooden cabins painted in warm primary colors. The walls of the miniscule structures were covered in trellises and vines of climbing plants. Most plots had rows of vegetable or flower
beds, but he also spotted a faux marble fountain and a sleeping brass fawn. The patchwork of gardens was protected by a chain-link fence, but a shed leaned against it in the corner by the gate. He followed the fence to the shed, climbed the chain-link, and landed on the roof. From there he jumped into the damp grass.

He assumed the communal garden was used mainly in the summer, but some owners might have started working on their crops early, so he had to be quick. Further in among the hedges and less visible from the road, he tried the doors and windows of each cabin, shed, and greenhouse. But the cabin doors were locked and no window was ajar in the early spring weather; some of them were still shuttered. Most of the sheds and greenhouses were locked as well, some with recent padlocks and chains, and those that were open offered only tools, seeds, and fertilizer.

After having tried several doors and helping himself to some soft winter apples from a cardboard box in a greenhouse, he finally found an unlocked shed. The space inside was long and narrow, with shelves made from simple planks, stacked with old cans of nails, screws, paint, and wood varnish, as well as plastic containers with herbicides and rat poison. A broom, hoe, and rake leaned against the shelves. On the floor was a paint-spattered high-pressure water cleaner and a plastic bucket. Behind the door hung a blue janitor’s coat, a pair of wide cotton shorts, and a sweatshirt full of white paint stains. Beneath them stood two orange plastic clogs and two navy rubber boots. He took all the clothes and the rubber boots outside with him and pulled them on with shivering hands. The clothes were too large to fit well, but not too wide to move in. The coat smelled of weed killer and sun lotion, a summer world a universe away.

In the town center the streets were empty and damp from rain. The store windows were so dark they seemed incapable of reflecting the morning light. Even the train station was unlit and closed. He squatted in a corner of the platform, trying to get
away from the wind that was always high this close to the sea. On the other side of the rails aspen and rowan trees stood yellow, as if it were still autumn. He trembled with cold, and now that he was beginning to get his breath and thoughts back, he was both thirsty and hungry.

He worried that the first train would be a commuter train and that the station might get crowded, but when the train finally arrived the space was nearly empty. Only a few other people were waiting, hunched inside their clothes, looking more asleep than awake. He let them board first, they entered different cars, then he snuck in behind them. He went straight to the bathroom, closed the door quietly without turning the lock, and pulled the toilet lid down to sit on and keep his feet away from the floor. Despite a deep, pulsing thirst, he didn’t dare turn the faucet on even after the train started moving, as he feared the pipes might rattle, signaling that the bathroom was in use. Neither did he dare crank up the tiny radiator beneath the window, in case it too would make noises as hot water flowed in.