Hitchers

CHAPTER 40

I barely recognized Tybee Beach. The seedy bars had been replaced by upscale surf shops, rooming houses by giant condos on stilts. Heart pounding, I sought familiar landmarks. The street names were no help; I didn’t remember which street Grandpa’s house had been on, and none of them were familiar.

A cold ocean wind cut through my leather jacket as I trotted up and down the boardwalk clutching a Home Depot bag, past bicycle rental kiosks and custard stands, all shuttered for the winter. Piers jutted over the grey water every tenth of a mile or so, abandoned save for the occasional weekend fisherman. They all looked the same.

I tried to reel myself back to the days when this boardwalk was a second home to Kayleigh and me. We’d fly kites here—triangular black bats with long yellow tails. Once we’d built a fort underneath the wood planks and giggled as people walked by, unaware of us. We lived on French fries and fried dough served on paper plates, salt-water taffy that stuck to the paper wrappers.

Was she still under that pier? Where was that pier? I could see it so clearly in my mind’s eye, but I had no idea where along the beach it was. I scanned the boardwalk.

Beyond an ice cream shop, a patch of open space caught my eye. It was a miniature golf course with a pirate theme. The neon sign—Blackboard Golf—was new, but the course wasn’t. Grandpa’s rooming house had been on the street directly behind Blackbeard Golf, the pier fifty yards to the left down the boardwalk.

“I bet you recognized it long before I did,” I whispered. I slowed, my steps thudding hollowly on the wood planks. The cold ocean wind reminded me of the wind in Deadland, the wind that worked on you like sandpaper.

We had the pier all to ourselves. Green wooden benches lined the low railing on both sides, with ornate lampposts running along the center. The benches were familiar but I was sure the lampposts were a recent addition. The pier stretched out fifty yards or so, the planks thinning to lines.

When I reached the end of the pier I looked into the white water crashing against posts covered in green slime. Anyone passing would have seen a lone man, but there were three of us here. At least. Who could say how many souls had drowned off this pier?

Who could say how many more would follow?

I backtracked off the pier, found stairs leading down to the beach. Hunched against the cold wind, I following the knobby beams, canted this way and that, supporting the pier.

I stopped at the edge of the surf, watched a little white bird race in and out with the waves, plucking unseen things from under the wet sand.

There was no point in putting it off; every minute increased the chance that Grandpa would take over and wreck my plans. I pushed into the foamy white water. It was freezing.

“You want to play, old man? Let’s play.”

It was my body. I could do what I wanted with it.

A wave rolled in. I turned sideways and set my feet; it crashed into my thigh with numbing force. I surged on, my teeth chattering, exhaling in breathless puffs until I reached the end of the pier. The water was waist-deep.

I pulled out the chain and padlock, allowed the waves to sweep away the plastic bag.

The tug of the surf was so powerful I could barely keep my footing as I pressed my back to a post, fumbled with the chains, wrapping them around and around, lashing myself to the post, my hands throbbing, my toes numb.

“How do you like me now, you old bastard?” I shouted, my throat raw. It wouldn’t be murder. No one would blame me. I pulled the chain tight, pushed the padlock through two links and snapped it closed. Clutching the key I tested my work; I squatted, jumped, pulled, squeezed. The chains held right—there was no way he could break free.

I tossed the key into the water, watched it disappear with a tiny plunk.

It wasn’t a perfect plan. Someone might come along the beach and call the police. If I was still in control I would wave them off, tell them it was one of those charity things—that I had to stay chained to the post until my friends donated a thousand dollars for cerebral palsy research. I would tell them who I was. Hey, I’m sort of famous, I’m allowed to do crazy things.

For the first time, though, I was hoping Grandpa would take over sooner rather than later. The plan was for me to be long gone by the time the tide came in and this freezing water filled my lungs. Once Grandpa took over he’d call for help. Hopefully no one would hear him, or they wouldn’t be able to cut him loose in time. Then the three of us would blow away together, with me chuckling until my mouth was gone. If not, if he made it out, then bully for him, he would win another fifty years of life.

“Eighty-six years you had. You couldn’t let it go at that. You had to take my years, too.”

My phone rang. I fished it out of my jacket.

“Where are you?” It was Summer.

“The beach.” I left out the part about being waist-deep in the water, chained to a post.

“What beach? What are you doing at the beach?”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“I saw you called, but I didn’t listen to the message. I can barely hear you.”

“I’m right near the water. I’m at the pier where Kayleigh died.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I’m going to stay here with her.”

There was a long pause. Then I thought I heard sniffing.

“In the phone message I invited you to join me if you ran out of time.”

Summer laughed spasmodically through her tears. “That’s very thoughtful of you.” I heard the blubbering of a nose being blown. “God damn it Finn, don’t quit yet. We still have time.”

“You do,” I said. “I’m out of time. I want to choose where I end up, you know?”

Another long pause. “I’m scared. I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not. Lean on Mick. He’ll stick by—”

The snakes ran under my skin; pain and cold receded. At the last instant it occurred to me that Grandpa could simply call 911 with the damned phone I was clutching. I strained to open my trembling hand.

The phone plopped into the water.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” Grandpa shouted a moment later. He threw one shoulder forward, then the other. “You must have slipped an extra key into your pocket when I wasn’t…” He fumbled through the pockets he could reach, although I had no idea how he thought I could sneak something into a pocket without him noticing. “Ah, God, you stupid asshole.”

I rotated toward the doorway in the back of my head one last time, and Grandpa’s ranting grew dim, then was snuffed out by the sound of the wind as my new home rolled into view. I hadn’t had to strain at all this time, as if Deadland was welcoming me with open arms.

I squeezed out of my body like I was greased, dropped into the surf, and stuck there. I’d half-expected the water to wash me toward shore; I’d forgotten how still this world was. The water was a still-life, the whitecaps sculptures made of cottage cheese.

I’d never felt so alone.

I’d have Grandpa for company soon, though. We’d have plenty of time to work through our differences. I was almost looking forward to it.

I rotated to face the horizon, which was beautiful in a stark, grey metal way. The sky flickered like an old-time film of a sky.

Not so bad, Annie had said. Maybe it got better.

There was no sign of Kayleigh. Here and there in the shallows half-submerged dead were visible; a few lay on the beach like sleeping sunbathers. The wind carried snippets of their mutterings to me.

Deal. It’s a deal.

She sold sandwiches outside the gate.

I held phantom hands in front of my face, looked closely, saw flecks of myself whisking off.

How long should I hold out hope that Summer might join me? A month, maybe? I would have to keep track of the days so I would know when to abandon hope. Were there days here?

Don’t drop the baton. Baton.

Sisyphus.

The mindless words of the dead seemed to be all around me. I would start talking like that soon. It was part of the emptying out. All of the words came out of you. Everything came out of you.

The correct answer was cartel.

Try to be nice.

Finn would know.

I jolted from my stupor. I listened more intently, praying I hadn’t misheard, straining to hear one voice amidst dozens.

Get the red one? The red one. Red.

She wanted the red bike, didn’t want to get a girl color. It had to be her. My sister was here.

“Kayleigh?” No answer.

Anxiously I studied each of the dead in turn. None was Kayleigh, unless she was one of the unrecognizable lumps.

Can you draw me?

I was locked in on her voice now; the rest had receded into the background.

Too high.

Too high. Yes, it was. I looked up at the underside of the pier, at the worn beams high overhead. She shouldn’t have tried it. I shouldn’t have either.

“Kayleigh? It’s Finn. It’s your brother.” She was close, I could feel it. I looked all around, leaned forward to peer up beyond the railing. Nothing.

Maybe she was under the water? It didn’t seem possible I would hear her so clearly if she was underwater, but who knew what the rules were in this place? I ducked my head under.

There was no resistance, no sense of getting wet. I looked around.

I was nearly standing on what was left of Kayleigh.

She was on her belly, her wrists cradling her chin like a sunbather. So much of her was worn away that she was almost two-dimensional, a wafer-thin slice of Kayleigh. Her eyes, nose, and ears were gone, but her mouth was there, so close to the sandy floor she was almost kissing it.

“It’s Finn.” I had no trouble speaking.

Kayleigh gave no sign she heard me. After a moment she sighed, said, What are you writing?

Mom used to call her a question machine.

The nubs of her feet were clinging to legs worn to points, the tips of her white Reeboks visible. The feet would drop off soon.

No fatigue or stiffness grew in my joints as I stayed bent over, my head underwater, and listened to Kayleigh, soaking up each utterance, trying to set it in a place and time and context. A lot was from her last days, and each of those was painfully familiar. I’d gone back over those last days so often after she died, combing my memory for important things we might have shared, regretting even the slightest of slights I had made.

Too high Grandpa. Don’t want to.

Too high, Grandpa? When would she have said that? Climbing a high slide at a playground or something.

I craned my neck to look up through the cloudy water at the pier, pictured Kayleigh up there, legs dangling over the railing, over the black water. It was hard to picture her out there, all alone in the growing dark, leaping into that booming surf. There would be no witnesses, no one to attest to her fearless leap. If she was going to jump, why not wait until I was there? I imagined coming back from having fried clams with my parents, Kayleigh pushing open the screen door as soon as we pulled up, shouting that she’d done it, she’d done the jump. My twelve-year-old self’s first reaction would be, No way; no way you jumped in the dark. Acts of daring demanded a witness.

It’s too high, Kayleigh repeated.

I looked up at the pier again.

Too high, Grandpa?

I imagined Grandpa holding the screen door open for Kayleigh, following right behind her, his jaw set but a satisfied smirk just under the surface. The lass did it, I saw her. I’m her witness.

You’re not so great—your sister did it too. You’re still afraid of the dark, afraid of the spooky road. Nothing but a God damned sissy.

Leave me alone or I’ll tell them a thing or two, Grandma had said. And hadn’t Grandpa mostly left her alone after that? He knew where she was, but he steered clear.

If my heart had still been in my chest, if I’d still had a chest, it would have been hammering my ribs. All the guilt I’d felt, thinking she’d gone out there and died alone because of me. Had he been there? Had he egged her on? He was always looking for opportunities to teach us to be tough, to suck it up and take our lumps.

Grandpa, Lorena, all the rest of the dead who couldn’t stay dead had some gnawing reason to hang on, to hold themselves together in the teeth of this hungry wind. Suddenly I did as well. I wanted to know the truth.

Inching my way right up against the post, I felt the vacuum pull of my body. I reached for it with outstretched arms, imploring my body to take me in one last time. The pull was weak, more like a bathtub drain than a vacuum. I repositioned myself, inched side to side, forward and back.

“Come on. Come on.” I splayed my fingers, managed to rise half an inch before dropping back. “Shit.” I sensed that the pull was going to weaken as time went by—my best chance was now. I reached again, stretching my phantom arms until they seemed to dislocate from their sockets. I rose and dropped, bump, bump, bump.

I tried for half an hour, but it was no use. The suction wasn’t powerful enough. I lowered my arms and listened to the muttering of the dead, trying to think of another way to get back in my body.

Krishnapuma had written that this was not a physical realm but a supernatural one. The dead didn’t protect themselves from the wind by hiding behind a wall, they held themselves together because they didn’t want to come apart. Maybe I had to want it more.

Why did I want to live?

I wanted to know if Grandpa had been there. If he had, I wanted others to know. I wanted my mother to know.

Partly I wanted this out of spite. If Grandpa had been there when Kayleigh died I wanted him to look my mother in the eye and admit it. If he was going to steal my body I wanted him to stand in front of my mother in it and mumble an apology, nineteen years too late.

My fingers tingled as the pull strengthened.

If I wasn’t completely to blame for Kayleigh’s death, I wanted to be released from some of the guilt that gnawed at me. If I was due a little peace in death, I wanted it.

My arms stretched like salt water taffy; the rest of me lifted, swung like a bell.

If Kayleigh was not a reckless idiot who’d snuck off in the dark on her own and leapt off a pier, if an adult she trusted had been there, maybe even encouraged her, I sure as hell wanted people to know that.

I flew up suddenly, pulled through an invisible hole.

“—don’t have a choice in this?” Grandpa was shouting as I snapped back behind my eyes. “I didn’t come here of my own free will. I didn’t squeeze my way inside you with a switchblade and a can of WD-40. There are bigger forces at work. Can’t you see that?”

“Help!” he called, his voice ragged. His whole body was trembling uncontrollably with the cold.

The water was up to his chest. A wave rushed in; Grandpa turned his face as foamy water slapped his cheek, leaving him gasping.

I would have given anything to have my mouth long enough to ask him: Were you there? Did you goad her into it?

Grandpa threw his weight against the chains, shouted for help again. My shirt was nothing but rags; bloody scrapes crisscrossed my chest and belly. “You have no idea, what I had to go through. Working fourteen-hour days when I was twelve. Crossing over in the bottom of a boat sharing a potato sack for a blanket with the rats. You’ve no idea what it’s like to be down so low the dogs won’t have nothing to do with you.”

What could I do if I got back into my body that Grandpa wasn’t already doing? Could I slide the chains up the post, try to rise above the water? I doubted it—the chains were wound tight.

Someone called my name. I thought it was Kayleigh, beckoning me back. But it had come from the beach.

Grandpa twisted to look toward the beach.

Summer was wading toward us, her arms raised out of the water.

“Help me,” Grandpa called. “For God’s sake, help me.”

Summer paused, lifted a phone to her ear. She was calling 911. When she finished she rushed out the last twenty yards.

“You stupid ass. What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Grandpa shouted over the crashing waves. “It was that idiot Finn.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Summer said. She examined the chains pressed to the post, then grasped the lock and tugged at it. “Where’s the key?” A wave broke over her shoulders; she clung to the chains to keep from being knocked backward.

Grandpa motioned toward the water with his chin. “He tossed it. ^»

“Oh, that’s just great.” She swiped wet hair out of her eyes.

The howl of a siren rose in the distance. Summer looked toward the sound. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

The siren grew louder.

“Thank goodness your friend there isn’t as stupid as you,” Grandpa said. He laughed. “You’re not so bright. Next time don’t tell your girlfriend where you’re going to bury the body before you’ve even bought the shovel.”

Soon Summer was back, leading three fire fighters in big rubber boots. One of them had an ax. Shouting to each other, they waded out.

“You okay?” one of them asked. She was a big woman with acne-scarred cheeks.

Grandpa said he was. The firewoman signaled her buddy with the ax, then took a step back. I heard the ax hit the post, then the chains loosened all at once, sagging around my waist. The fire fighters lifted Grandpa, carried him to the beach where two EMS workers were waiting with a stretcher and blankets.

“I’m fine. Just put me down.” Grandpa struggled to rise as the fire fighters set him on the stretcher.

“Look at his hands,” one of the EMS guys said, holding the blankets up like a shield and backing away.

“Oh, shit,” the lead firewoman said, jerking her hands away as if Grandpa was scalding hot. She looked at Summer. “What the hell is going on?”

“Why the hell are you asking her?” Grandpa asked, sitting upright. “Give me a blanket, will you? I’m freezing to death.”

The firewoman kept her eyes on Summer.

“This is Thomas Darby,” Summer said, gesturing toward Grandpa. “He’s pushing his grandson, Finn Darby, out of his body.”

“The cartoonist?” one of the EMS workers interrupted.

“Yes, the cartoonist. Evidently Finn decided if he couldn’t keep his body, his grandfather wasn’t going to have it either.”

Everyone just stared.

“Somebody give me a blanket,” Grandpa said.

“For God’s sake, give him a blanket. He’s not going to bite.” Summer yanked the blankets out of the EMS worker’s hands, draped one over Grandpa’s shoulders, dropped the other across his lap.

Clutching the blanket around his shoulders, Grandpa stood. “Well, I’m going home.”

The emergency workers looked at each other, uncertain. Clearly they didn’t relish rushing a hitcher to the hospital.

“What’s to stop him from going right back out there?” the firewoman asked Summer.

Summer looked at the sand. “I don’t think he’s in there any more.”

“You don’t think who is in there?” one of the men asked warily.

“Finn Darby.”

From the look on his face, the guy who’d asked the question was still confused.

“You’ll make sure this one gets home okay?” the firewoman asked.

Summer nodded. She took Grandpa by the elbow.