The Dead-Tossed Waves (10 page)

And I know I can’t go back. Not right now. I can’t forget Catcher the way my mother forgot the people she loved. I shove the tiller putting the lighthouse behind me and holding
my breath as I drift past the Barrier. It seems so peaceful—so easy to forget the wall is the cause of so much misery.

I swallow, wipe the salty mist from my face and push back my hair. To my left, past the rows of whitecaps falling against the beach, loom the humps of the amusement park, the moon glinting off its rusted rails. Tightening the sheet, I steer toward land but the current’s stronger than I anticipated, pushing me farther up the coast. The sagging sail can’t battle the tide and my heartbeat pulses in my fingers as I urge the little boat to shore. Finally, well past the rise of the coaster and deep into the old ruins beyond the amusement park, the keel scrapes sand.

For a while I just bob, pushed ashore and then pulled back and pushed ashore again. The water in the hull covers my ankles, making the boat sluggish. But I can’t bring myself to leave it. I’m too scared. I feel as though I could float here forever, just on the edge of where the tide meets the sand, this in-between place.

The beach is unprotected. There could be Mudo anywhere, everywhere. Downed in a quasi-hibernation until they sense a living person.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I jump from the boat and drag it as far away from the surf as I can. I crouch beside it, staring ahead at the thick stripe of dunes as I twist my fingers around the handle of my sickle. On the other side of the dunes are old seawalls from before the town shrank back to its present location. Past those walls hunker rows and rows of crumbling buildings that stretch all the way to the road that separates what’s left of the ruined city and the Forest.

Each sweep of the lighthouse beam illuminates the humps of the coaster rising from the remains of the city down the
beach to my left, and I realize just how far off course my boat drifted. I’m much farther past the amusement park than I want to be, but I don’t have any choice but to keep pushing forward. Even though my mind screams at me to shove the boat back into the water and run home, I know I can’t. Not just because Blane will turn me in and because I promised Cira, but also because I owe it to Catcher. He shouldn’t have to face this alone.

Forcing myself to leave the boat behind, I will myself across the beach. I need to get to the other side of the seawall quickly. Out here I’m open and exposed—it’s much more likely that if there are Mudo anywhere they’d have washed ashore and not made it off this beach. The sand is still warm, retaining the heat of the day, and thick with tangles of seaweed and driftwood. When I reach the dunes my feet sink and I stumble, dropping my weapon. I’m on my knees when I hear the moan.

To my left the sand begins to shift, a miniature landslide. A hand reaches free, claws at the air. A shock of terror so pure and deep runs through me that I feel as if I’ve been sliced by steel. I fall back, sliding down the dune. Every part of my body seizes, my mind flashing images of last night: Mudo, blood, bites, infection. I’m slow to react, too sluggish to comprehend what’s going on. I scramble, my hands empty, and then I see my weapon lying out of reach.

Clambering against the soft ground, I drag myself toward my sickle as a fat Mudo man struggles to unbury himself. He’s ungainly, even more uncoordinated than I am, but still too close.

I’m choking on screams, gasping for air. Finally my fingers brush the handle of my weapon. I try to find the calm I’ll need
to defend myself but all I can think about is last night. Doubts seep in around me, my mind telling me that I’ll fail again.

I’ve forgotten how to stand, how to protect myself. All I see is the blood trailing down Catcher’s arm.

Suddenly I know I’m not going to be able to defend myself. I realize I’m about to be bitten. Infected. Just like Catcher.

I begin to swing wildly, not waiting for the Mudo to be within range. My eyes beg to close, but I force them to stay open. Somehow the blade slices into the dead man’s neck, but I didn’t swing hard enough and it sticks before it can sever his spinal cord.

My hands are sweaty, the wooden handle slipping through my fingers as I try to tug it free. I start to scream, yelling for help even though I know there’s no one else out here. I’m utterly alone.

The sand shifts and I lose my footing again but refuse to let go of my only weapon. I fall down the hill, pulling the Mudo man with me, my sickle still embedded in his neck.

Our legs tangle briefly and I scream again. I’ve never touched a Mudo before, never felt their flesh. It’s like the skin of an apple left outside for weeks to shrivel and sweat. It’s lifeless, pulled too tight and still somehow sagging. Bile rises to my throat and I gag—I can’t believe how stupid I was to come out here. How lonely it will be to die alone.

We land with a thump at the base of the dune and I roll onto my back, pushing myself away from his grasping hands. I can hear other moans now, see other forms moving under the tall mounds of sand where they must have washed ashore downed and been covered.

The only thing I can think to do is to turn, run back to my boat, but the fat Mudo is pulling himself to his feet, my sickle
still wedged in his neck. I’m not sure I can drag my boat to the water fast enough. Not sure I’ll be able to escape.

I freeze. The world that seemed so still is now moving in the moonlight. Around me Mudo drag themselves from the dunes, all of them between me and the seawall. I’m trapped against the waves without a weapon.

My mind whirls, thoughts tearing through my head too fast to understand. I need to run. I need to escape. I need to defend myself. I’ll never be able to fight them all.

I realize again that I’ll die here. Be bitten. Infected. Return. No one will know what happened to me. This understanding flashes fast through my mind, flaying open every dark corner of my fears. My legs grow numb, my mind seizes and nothing works.

“Stop!” I shout at myself, driving the senseless foreboding away.

Against every instinct in my body I force myself toward my boat but I know I won’t make it. There are too many of them now. I turn to the fence but they block that exit too. There’s just a narrow gap in the cluster of dead around me and I dive for it and start running. To my right is the ocean, to my left are the dunes and behind me trails a wake of Mudo.

Air rips from my lungs. I only have to outpace the Mudo—that’s what we’ve always been taught. Mudo can’t run. I slow to a jog and suck in a breath. I can do this, I tell myself. I can survive. I repeat this over and over again with each footfall on the water-packed sand.

Until I remember the girl from last night—the Breaker. Which makes me remember Mellie and the sound her neck made as Catcher shattered it. Which makes me remember the timbre of her desperate moaning just before she died.

Mudo
is supposed to mean “mute, speechless,” a word
passed down from the traders and pirates who used to fill the harbor. But the creatures trailing me, the people-who-once-were, are anything but mute. They’re nothing
but
noise—moans of hunger.

Sweat drips into my eyes, blurring everything around me except my memories of last night. I glance over my shoulder at the Mudo falling farther behind, and calculate the distance between us, then scan the darkness of beach ahead.

I only have to run far enough that I can cut through the dunes and make it over the seawall. My legs burn with the need to escape, with the desire to pound the sand and just keep running forever—to follow the coast until I find the Dark City. Lose myself in the crush of people there who won’t know who I am, where I’m from, what I’ve done.

But I know I could never run that far. And even if I could I’d never have the courage to leave Vista for good. If there’s anything I’ve learned after last night it’s that all I want is to wrap myself even tighter inside the cocoon of my town, inside the safety.

I just have to survive tonight, find Catcher, placate Cira, and then I can put back together the pieces of my life.

For the first time since everything began falling apart I have hope that I can fix things. If I can survive maybe I can find a new kind of normal, a new kind of safe. And just as I’m beginning to think that maybe things can be okay I see a figure crest the dunes not too far up the beach from me. It’s a young man with a shaved head, wearing a white tunic. He struggles down the sand and hits the beach at a sprint.

He runs straight toward me, his mouth open and teeth gleaming in the moonlight. And my heart freezes, my feet stumbling to a stop. It’s another Breaker, just like last night.

I
turn, but a wall of Mudo shuffles down the beach toward me. They’re closing in on me too fast and I’m terrified to try the dunes, afraid that I’ll lose my footing again, that the Breaker will get to me before I can escape.

I race toward the waves, hoping I can get deep enough that he flounders and falls beneath the surface before he can reach me—that no dead are hidden in the outgoing tide.

I’m knee-deep when the Breaker slams into me.

My heart stops. I wait for the bite, for the sting of his teeth sinking into my skin. I wonder what death will feel like as it burns its way into my body. Will I know the moment the infection takes hold?

I fall, my face slapping against a wave, my knee scraping the sand. I scream into the water. The salt scratches at my eyes as I lunge for the surface. He grabs my arm and pulls and I try to fight. I kick and claw and thrash against him. I scream again, choking as a wave crashes on my face. I swing wildly, my fists connecting with flesh.

The Breaker lets go and I flop back into the surf, my head slipping under for a moment. I come up sputtering, blinking furiously against the wet hair streaming over my face as I try to steady myself for his next attack.

But it doesn’t come. He just stands there, panting in the shallow water. That’s when I realize he isn’t a Breaker.

My knees almost give way, my entire body going limp. I gasp for air, its salty taste relief to my lungs, as I push the hair from my face.

He stares at me, his eyes light in the darkness, and even though his teeth aren’t bared it seems as if he’d devour me. He lunges toward me again and I stumble backward, falling under, my knuckles grinding against sand once more.

He pulls me up and I choke. He pauses, his hands on my shoulders, his eyes wide above sharp cheekbones as he takes in my face. It’s as if he’s waiting for me to say something, do something, but I’m mute as the moans around us begin to crest and crash.

He holds up a hand, water dripping from his fingers and skimming down his wrist. He reaches as if to trace the left side of my face but I jerk my head back, out of range of his touch. And as if I’ve broken some sort of trance he blinks rapidly and swallows, moving away from me.

“This way,” he finally says. And then he grabs my hand and pulls me out of the ocean before I even have a chance to think about how strange the moment was.

The Mudo are closer now, their hunger a cacophony of inhuman pitches and tones.

We run up the beach away from them, the stranger and I. I fight for air but can’t stop to catch my breath. He veers to the left and I see a narrow path through the dunes. I hesitate to follow him, afraid of getting trapped in the mounds of sand,
but then the white of his wet tunic flashes in the moonlight and disappears. Suddenly I’m alone on the beach, nothing but Mudo stumbling after me.

A spike of terror shoots through me and I follow him into the dunes. Between the mounds of sand the night is silent except for my coughing and his breathing. I can’t hear the moans, can’t hear the ocean. The moon is hidden here, throwing us into shadows. I bend over and vomit.

And then he’s pulling me again. Ahead of us is a locked chain-link gate stretched between the old seawall, and he barely pauses before scuttling over it. My fingers are shaking almost uncontrollably and the rusty metal bites into my skin. My arms and legs wobble as I try to heave myself up and the boy reaches down, pulling me to the top just as the first Mudo stumbles from the path behind us.

For an instant as the stranger and I hover at the top of the gate, I remember Catcher and me only last night, sitting on top of the Barrier facing each other. The memory is so sharp, so clear that it makes me ache with longing. For Catcher. For the night. For the ability to take it all back. For the chance to do it all differently.

But then the stranger drops to the ground and I let go of the fence, falling next to him. My legs buckle when I land and I collapse onto my hands and knees. The boy stands beside me and I cringe as the Mudo lunge against the fence, the metal rippling under their weight.

“Will it hold?” I ask, tilting my head and looking up at him. He nods, staring at them as they force their fingers through the links. I can hear their bones cracking. Their moans almost wails of anguish.

For a while we stay like that. The stranger staring at those
who used to be and me on the ground, coughing, struggling to control my breathing and still not being able to shake the feel of the Mudo man’s skin against my own.