Passenger

It seemed like my voice actually startled the kid who nothing else seemed to bother.

“What things?”

“Those fucking black worm things.”

“What? Did you fall out of the sky or something?”

I didn’t answer.

“Suckers, Odd. Suckers. They carry the bug, too.”

“Oh. The bug.”

Qui

I sat there in the canoe while the redheaded kid pushed us across this borderless black lake using what looked like a bridge cue for playing pool. And I felt myself clenching my knees together.

“Ha-ha! That one on you almost hit pay dirt, didn’t it, Odd? Ha-ha-ha!”

And he held up two fingers, showing a gap of about an inch and a half, to signify how close that thing was to my “rig.”

Qui

“Stop calling me that.”

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me your name, what else am I going to do? I think I’ll just call you Billy.”

“Don’t.”

“Why?”

“It’s not my name.”

“Well, it suits you. Kind of. Like Billy the Kid. Except I don’t think you’re a murderer, even if Fent’s after you to settle it up for that one Ranger.”

“Nobody’s after me.”

Qui

“I don’t know where we’re going.”

Qui

He was fucking with me.

I wanted to punch him again. I looked him in the eye. Thirteen, maybe, I thought. Qui

I put out my hand to him.

“Jack,” I said. “My name’s Jack Whitmore. I’m sixteen. And I’m not lying.”

Then Qui

And Qui

*   *   *

Canoes are fucking heavy.

The water disappeared—just vanished—in less than an hour, leaving a pasty white salt, ash, and me and Qui

But it wasn’t Glenbrook.

It’s fu

There would be mountains, the rolling foothills in between here and the ocean. But in Marbury, everything in the distance vanished in a colorless steaming fog like we were constantly at the end of the world.

Qui

But this was not home.

Java and Jazz, the coffee place where Co

I grunted. “How would you have gotten this thing back without me?”

“I wouldn’t have come alone in the first place. I told you I was following you, Billy.”

“You’re full of shit.”

“You cuss a lot.”

“So do you.”

Qui

I tried to, but couldn’t think of a single quality about Qui

“What happens to those things when the water goes away?” I said.

“The suckers? You really did fall out of the sky, didn’t you, Odd?” Qui

And we walked right across the 101 freeway lugging that canoe. My arm and shoulder ached like death, but Qui

We passed by what was left of a school building.

I didn’t want to look. Qui

There were bodies hanging from each of the floors—arms, legs, torsos that looked like the pieces of plastic dolls lashed to the outside of the ship. The feeding harvesters, the rat-sized bugs, cleaners of death, that were everywhere in Marbury, sounded like static electricity.

This was Marbury. One of the corpses hung by its ankle. It had been a man, and it dangled from the outside of the uppermost deck on the spaceship, tied to the pipes by his own inside-out Levis that trapped his foot there. His body had been opened from crotch to chin, and the open maw of his rib cage shuddered with black insects the size of my feet.

This was Marbury.

“Aren’t you scared the Hunters are around?” I said.

“They only come out in town when it’s raining, or at night. Usually. They’ve been getting more aggressive, though. Cocky.” Qui

“Maybe I did.”

“What?”

“Fall out of the sky.”

“Shit, Odd. I told you that. Ha-ha! Well, something did, anyhow. Exactly seven days ago, too. Maybe probably was you.”

“Shit.”

“You’ll see.”

West of the school, we walked between piles of rubble: bricks, doors, the jumbled and splintered beams and joists of what used to be houses and strip malls. I was sweating and tired. I didn’t think I’d be able to keep up with the kid much longer.

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“You have permission to ask me something, Odd.”

“What’s the name of this town?”

Qui

“I don’t know.”

Qui

“You ever hear of a place called New Mexico?”

“Shit. What’s that?”

“New Mexico?”

“Never.”

“Billy the Kid came from New Mexico.”

“You’re making that up, Odd.”

Qui

“Fuck this place, Qui

Fuck you, Jack.

Maybe I should just take the kid’s red speargun and end it right here. Maybe, afterwards, Jack will wake up and he’ll be in that piss-foul garage, sweating like a junkie, back in a different Glenbrook.