A scratching thing is right outside their window, much larger than whatever lives in the motel walls. It’s tapping on glass, chewing wood. Something with claws and teeth big enough to break the skin. Lance wants to investigate, but it’s behind the blinds. He’s afraid to wake Dakota.
He shifts his position and she bolts up, bundling the sheets around her. She looks toward the window and the scratching noise.
“Mr. Jangles?” she says.
“Stop,” Lance says. “Don’t even joke.”
The noise stops. They look at each other. It’s quiet.
Dakota sighs and collapses on the mattress. She stretches out, arches her back, and gives a happy-morning shriek.
“Wow,” he says. “Is that how you wake up?”
“Mmmm. Only when I’ve just had the best night of my life.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says. “That was pretty much my first time, too.”
He shivers.
“Are you cold?”
“No,” he says. “You make me shiver.”
“Yeah? You make me hum.”
He smiles, kisses her lips. He wants to tell her she’s perfect without making it sound like some stupid movie or some stupid song, but writers have taken all the good lines and ruined them, so he doesn’t say anything. He wonders about pretty much my first time and stares at the sleep lines on her cheek. Touches one. Smoother than it looks. She smiles. Has a boy ever done that before? Touched a sleep line on Dakota’s face?
The thing at the window is back. Loud scratching.
“Wildman!” She clutches his arm. “Save me!”
Lance smiles, but his stomach is fluttering. He pounds his legs into his underwear and lands his right foot squarely in the crotch, tearing fabric. He wrestles them on, then his jeans.
Shtk, Shtk, Shtk on the glass.
Someone’s phone buzzes. Lance freezes at the window.
“Damn it, phone!” Dakota says.
Lance pulls the lift cord and blinds snap up. A squirrel, ghastly up close. Dark mouth parted over crooked teeth. Eyes like black glass. It tucks its head and cheeps—a sharp little alarm. Lance steps back and the rodent is a ripple of fur on the banister, winding down to pavement, bolting across the parking lot. Past a police car.
“Squirrel?” Dakota says.
“Chickaree,” he says.
A police car. Lights off. No one inside. The first rip in the fabric of a normal day. And everything suddenly feels a little off. No vacuums running. No chatter outside the front office. A fresh-snow stillness in June.
They still have last night’s magic locked inside. This room is a submarine, ocean leaning on all sides. If he opens the door, those dark waters will rush in and sweep them away.
Dakota is standing.
The room has already sprung a leak, through her phone. Dakota makes a choking sound.
Lance opens the door.
The warm breath of summer. Police cars at The Float. People shuffling in the parking lot. Small groups. Gray faces and white Styrofoam cups. So many white cups. A crowd with its own gravity, pulling them.
The door is wide open and Lance cannot breathe.
“Stone,” Dakota says.
She makes a sound he’s never heard before. The wail of something breaking, deep inside her. Lance stands and watches her scream and there is nothing he can do.
They are in the parking lot now. Red-rimmed eyes. Crumpled faces. They, too, are holding white cups. They have cried and shaken and transformed themselves until they belong here with these people. Lance does not remember who gave him the coffee.
Dakota cries out again, making him jump. A yelping sound, like a kicked dog. She’s talking to an older man he doesn’t know. She makes the sound again and Lance gags, coffee coming up the back of his throat. Almost loses it. The crowd makes its low, steady churr:
whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy
The strike happened just there. By the fire pit.
Right at 2:26 a.m. Same time every night.
Didn’t even see him.
Diverted to Seattle. That’s what they do.
Drunk—
Discharged—
Police—
Stone—
Stone—
Stone—
The strike happened just there. By the fire pit.
Right at 2:26 A.M. Same time every night.
Facts, repeated like mantras. Repeated like prayers.
Lance lifts his head, looking for Dakota. He finds Mason, whose face has a damp, surprised look. He keeps glancing backward, as if someone invisible is tapping his shoulder and running away. Then Mason is talking to Dakota. He drapes an arm around her, like a bear.
He pulls her into his wide chest. She leans into him.
Lance’s Styrofoam cup bends, turning from a perfect O to a long zero, coffee spilling over the rim, hot on his fingers. The cup is about to split. His feet twist away from Dakota and Mason and carry him to the field. Crunching weeds.
One foot in front of the other until he’s back at the Trainsong.
There is no one outside. Cheri’s office is dark for the first time. His phone comes alive in his pocket and he pulls it out, squeezing, trying to choke it quiet. Make it stop. He doesn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
“Lance? This is Robert.”
“Robert?”
A loud sigh, distorting to white noise.
“Uh, ye-ah. Your car. The Buick. The one you love more than life itself. Ring any bells?”
“Oh, Robert. Sorry.”
“Well, she’s done.”
“Done?”
“Fixed. Runs like a beauty.”
Lance can’t move. A warm breeze shakes the leaves. He scrunches his toes, feeling the rub of cotton.
“Lance?” Robert says. “Lance?”
“Yeah.”
“Just get yourself to the bus stop. Bea can pick you up. Okay?” They hang up and The Lance Hendricks Machine is moving again, carrying him to the road. His phone buzzes and it’s Dakota. She’s calling and he’s walking. That’s all he’s doing, just walking, and there’s nothing wrong with that. She calls again and again, and he’s just walking to the bus stop. He cannot answer calls. He is nothing but feet on pavement.
The sun is a small yellow bulb, thinning the grayness.
This could still be a beautiful day.
He’s on the shoulder when the pavement trembles. A rumbling in the soles of his shoes, just like the rails. A force is twisting toward him, through the woods. Hissing air brakes. An engine. Closer. Its first long metal edge rounds a corner. A semitruck with a big silver trailer.
What would struck be like?
A bone-breaking buckle. A quick twist in the air. Snapping wrists, cracking molars. Compression, then blood finds its way out. Over in a few seconds. The driver of the truck is eating potato chips. Lance can see the yellow foil of the bag, but the driver does not see him.
Lance tastes exhaust, like the day Miriam saved his life.
Jump.
A one-word command. One simple impulse, brain to feet.
Jump.
The truck’s grill is a steel wall. He bends his knees and does not know what The Lance Hendricks Machine will do.
Jump.
The truck passes with a punch and drag of air. Skittering leaves.
Lance leaps into the empty road.
Exhales.
His phone buzzes again, and he is feet on pavement. He is just walking to the bus stop.