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And then there was another part of me that was actually afraid of being found-afraid of seeing Rody, Thornton and Swayne walking across that beach, ready to finish the job.
There was no point in getting emotional about it: we were fucked.
The sun had reached its full height, heating the sand to a torturous temperature. I felt the skin on my nose and forehead slowly burn, and tasted nothing but sand on my tongue. Several death scenarios ran through my head: dehydration; blood clots; exposure during the night; or perhaps a drowning death after all, at the peak of a mid-summer storm.
"Jim," Alvy finally said, as he surveyed his half of the beach. "I don't believe it… HERE! OVER HERE!"
Mikey Burdy broke from his sleep, his eyes widening immediately. Although I couldn't see what had grabbed their attention, I saw hope in their eyes.
"Alvy," I said. "Someone's there?"
"Yes, yes… walking up the beach… HEY! HEY!"
Mikey Burdy and I both joined in with Alvy, screaming our lungs out with joy.
"It's okay," Alvy said. "He's coming, He's seen us."
At last, a long shadow drifted over the sand, covering my head in its cooling shade.
"My God, buddy, you have no idea how glad we are to see you," Alvy said, close to tears.
To my surprise, our rescuer stepped right over my head-a hairless set of legs in worn-out ru
"Can you dig us out, little man?" I asked the boy. "Someone's played a nasty joke and left us out here."
"Dig me out first," Mikey suddenly jumped in. "My friends have sun stroke. I can help you dig faster."
"Don't listen to him kid-he's delirious," I snapped back. "Why don't you get one of us out? He needs medical attention."
"Christ you guys, be quiet," Alvy intervened, before trying a different tack. "My name's Alvy Fullerton. This is Jim Leach and Mike Burdy. What's your name?"
The boy didn't answer. Instead, he hovered over Alvy, staring down at him intently.
"Maybe he's French or something," I said.
"Kid, please, listen to me," Alvy said, ready to break down after an uncomfortable minute of silence. "We're close to dying here… dig us out."
The boy knelt in front of Alvy and picked up a handful of sand. Opening his fingers wide, he let the grains blow away in the ocean wind. Mikey Burdy had reached his limit.
"Are you fucking retarded?" he yelled, gnashing his teeth. "Stop fucking around and get me out of here. Now!"
The boy stood again, this time towering over Mikey's head. If the kid was scared or angry, I certainly couldn't tell. He was tough to read.
"I know you understand me, so I'll say this once," Mikey said, narrowing his eyes. "Use your hands, grab a stick or something. I don't care. Just know that if you don't start digging, I'm going to find you when I get out. I'll kill your family, and then I'll kill you. Very slowly."
Alvy and I were both dumbstruck by Mikey's stupidity. The boy casually walked away from us, disappearing in the tall grass behind the beach.
"Mikey, you fucking idiot!" Alvy shrieked, with an anger I'd never seen before. "If you've scared that kid off… HEY! COME BACK! WE'VE GOT MONEY… HEEEEEEEEEYYYYY!!!"
While Mikey boiled in his own blood, Alvy and I desperately sca
"I don't blame him for taking off," he cried. "He's probably never seen such a bunch of rat-fucking-scumbags in his whole life."
"Alvy, relax," I said. Further down the beach, I could see the boy, emerging from the brush. "He's coming back. It looks like he's carrying something."
"It'd better be a shovel or a shovel-shaped stick," Mikey exploded. "Or I'll snap that kid's neck right on this fucking beach."
"No, no… it looks like… golf clubs."
Mikey was still breathing, but in shallow gasps that were becoming less frequent. His head was an island, surrounded by a shallow pool of his own blood. Every once in a while, he would let another one of his teeth dribble down his misshapen jaw.
"Is he still here?" Alvy blurted, twisting his head several times in either direction. He seemed to be in deep shock, even though the boy hadn't laid a finger on either of us.
I hated Mikey Burdy. I'd seen him kill close to a dozen people, and had spent the last few months worrying that I would be next. But Alvy and I had both begged for Mikey's life, while a twelve-year-old kid beat his head to a living pulp. Through the entire ordeal, not a glimmer of emotion crossed the boy's face. When the deed was finished, he tossed the rusty clubs into the ocean and slid back into the cover of the tall grass.
"I think he's gone away for a while," I whispered, as the sun disappeared from view. Mikey Burdy wasn't breathing anymore.
Whereas the sun was unbearably hot during the day, night on the beach was a hundred times worse. A deep chill entered every cell of my body, even before the wind grew stronger. I was so drained that I could have closed my eyes and never woken up. But Alvy and I both kept our eyes open, waiting for Mikey's young killer to return.
Hours passed without incident. It appeared more and more likely that the beach would take us after all.
"I have to shut my eyes, Jim," Alvy said, speaking for the first time in hours. "I just can't stay awake anymore."
"Go on then-I'll let you know if I see him," I said. Over the water, a full moon lit up a cloudless sky. A perfect evening for a midnight sail.
I stared at Alvy as he fell immediately into a deep sleep. I can't say I ever felt guilty very much in my life. But there it was, adding to every miserable second.
" You're smart boys," my dad told Alvy and me once. "But you're rotten to the core. You can have all the brains in the world-but if you don't got a heart, you may as well be stupid."
My dad was only half right. Alvy was a good person. His only mistake was following me around for most of his life. I'd finally gone and pulled him into the toilet with me. All we had left to do was to wait for someone to flush.
"I'm sorry, Alvy," I said, as loud as I could manage. If Alvy heard me, he didn't answer back.
In what may have been several hours later, I woke to the thud of footsteps in the sand. All I could do was to react in the same way I would to a noise under my bed: I kept my eyes closed and tried to pass off the sound as imagination. Then I felt a wet towel engulf my face.
"Nooo!" I yelped, snapping my head backward. I opened my eyes and found myself staring into the face of a wide-eyed, ru
"Don't go away… please," I rasped, as she took several steps back. "I need help."
My dehydrated voice cut out completely after that. I tried to speak, but no sound would come. To my relief, the girl came back to me. After all, I was only a foot tall and hardly much of a threat.
I watched the girl as she fumbled inside a small plastic cooler; she was probably only seven or so. A dark bob of hair topped her dirt-smeared face, while her legs were covered in scabs-the typical battle scars of summer.