Cruel World(26)

He tipped forward, the empty house behind him, all the ocean before him, and the waiting rocks below.

You’re ready for the world now, don’t be afraid.

Teresa’s words slid through his mind and then out again. I am ready, he thought. The wind came off the ocean, nudging him backward even though he leaned into it. The rocks below spun clockwise, the whole world on a dial.

The fear, it’s a thief. It steals from us if we let it.

He blinked, his vision hazing as he forced himself forward into the wind. He brought his eyes up. The last thing he’d see would be the ocean. The feeling of the breeze on his face became the same as when he and his father had taken the skiff out the last time. His father’s smile in the sun. Teresa laughing as they danced in the living room. Their graves beneath the tree. Quinn stepped forward and froze.

A gull coasted a hundred feet above the water, its wings unmoving as it glided. It turned its head, two black, beaded eyes finding him for a moment before swooping lower through a draft.

Quinn fell backward onto the sprouting grass, his legs not there anymore. They were numb and useless beneath him. A great wave of dizziness washed over him and he turned, vomiting on the ground. He heaved and heaved until he was sure he would suffocate, strangled by the compressions within him. When he finally was able to draw a breath, he fell to his back, the sky so blue and vast there was no telling if it was spinning or not. The ground beneath him fell away and he was there in the azure, floating upward, a freedom coursing within him beyond anything he had ever known.

~

He awoke before dusk, the sky above taking on the purple bruise of evening. Dead grass poked through his t-shirt and a leaf crackled beneath his shoulder as he shifted. Someone had taken a hammer to the back of his skull, and when he felt it with gentle fingers, he was surprised to feel it in one piece. Sitting up, he glanced at the pile of sick beside him and his gorge rose again. His arms shook as if he’d been climbing cliffs all afternoon.

He made it to his feet and moved to the house, entering through the solarium door. Without stopping he went to the bathroom, finding the small bottle of Tylenol in the medicine cabinet. He downed three of the caplets with a cold glass of water and waited over the sink to see if the pills would make a reappearance. They stayed down and he shuffled to the living room, slumping into the couch with a sigh.

He sat there with his eyes closed, fighting the twisting snake of nausea until it finally quieted. When he glanced around the living room again, the day had darkened further. Heavy heads of thunderclouds loomed over the trees in the west, and as he stood, a low grumble issued from their direction. He moved to the kitchen, flipping the light switch on and paused for a moment before huffing a laugh exactly like Rick had done when trying the linen closet’s light upstairs. Quinn went to the faucet and tried to draw another glass of water but the flow quit partway through and he groaned. The water pump wasn’t working either. Only the residual pressure had allowed him a drink in the bathroom. He leaned against the sink and looked out the window into the deepening evening. The clouds were closer and very dark.

He found a flashlight in the hall closet. The intruders had rifled through the space, so he had to pick up fallen coats and an ironing board that had tipped over before grasping the thin-barreled halogen off the top shelf. As he was leaving the closet, he saw his father’s favorite pair of hiking boots were gone. He slammed the door shut so hard it didn’t lock and rebounded open behind him as he stalked down the hallway and outside.

It wasn’t dark enough to use the flashlight yet, so he slipped it in his pocket as he walked down the drive. Cool wind slid through the trees, caressing their naked branches and sending dead leaves cartwheeling toward the sea. Quinn shivered and hunched his shoulders against the chill that ran through him.

He passed Graham’s empty house, catching sight of only the top-right dormer window, its black eye finding him before sliding out of sight behind the trees. The wind gusted and died as he walked, the sky muttering again, promising rain. Something moved through the woods to his right and he stopped, his hand finding the flashlight in his pocket as he pictured the XDM resting on the table in the solarium. There was another rustle in the underbrush and then quiet. Quinn flicked the powerful light on, passing it over the place where the noises had come from. It hadn’t sounded big, but maybe it was and simply light on its feet.

A rabbit exploded out of the trees and streaked across the drive.

Quinn lurched backward, his stomach already behind him, headed in the direction of the house. The brownish-gray form leapt from the left shoulder of the road and was gone among the trees on the opposite side. Its passage rattled for several seconds and then the wind rose once more, covering the sound of its flight.