He sat on a rock, humming a tuneless song, while Max fiddled with the boat’s motor. Night was already coming down; the cold seeped under their collars and iced the skin cladding their spines.
“I’m hungry like you wouldn’t believe, Max.”
“You should try sucking on a pebble. My mom says that’s how the Indians used to control their hunger. When they were on a vision quest or whatever.”
Newton plucked a pebble off the shore and popped it into his mouth.
“Salty,” he said. “And stony.”
They laughed a little. Max turned back to the motor. He screwed the spark plugs into their holes and snapped the covers shut.
“I swallowed the pebble,” Newton said. “Oooops.”
“Suck on another one,” Max said, struggling to maintain a casual tone of voice.
The jerry can of gasoline was where he’d dropped it yesterday. He unscrewed the motor’s gas cap and let the gasoline glug-glug down, making sure he didn’t spill any. He could hear grinding sounds over his shoulder. He was very worried they were being made by Newton chewing on a pebble.
“You should gather whatever you need,” he said, not daring to look. “We should leave soon.”
“You don’t even know that the motor will start,” Newton said tiredly. “It probably won’t.”
“Why would you say that, Newt? Why wouldn’t it start—why wouldn’t you hope it’ll start?”
Max turned and saw Newton regarding him with tragic eyes.
“All I mean is,” Newton said, dropping his chin and staring down, “even if it does start, you should go alone.”
“What a stupid— Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m sick, Max. And if I’m sick, maybe they won’t let you go back home. Because they’ll think you’re sick, too.”
“They meaning who?”
Newton shrugged. “Come on, don’t be dumb. Whoever’s out there. The police. The army. The guys in the helicopter. Whoever is making sure nobody comes to rescue us.”
“Well, maybe I’m sick already too. Who cares? They can cure us.”
Newton shook his head knowingly. “If you were sick, you’d feel it.”
Max came over and set a hand on Newton’s shoulder. The heat radiated through his clothes. That awful sweetness wasn’t so bad coming off Newton. It smelled a little like Toll House cookies.
“I’m scared, Max,” Newton said softly.
“So am I, Newt.”
Max was afraid that if he left without Newt, they—whoever they were—wouldn’t allow him to come back. Which meant Newton would die here. Curled up inside the cabin, perhaps, or in the cellar, like an animal that sought the darkness to die. He would die in pain, but more important and much worse, he would die alone. Newt didn’t deserve that. Newt was a good person. He should live a long time. Marry and have kids. Teach them all the nerdy things he knew. Be happy. That was the only fair outcome.
But if Max left without Newt, he was positive he’d never see him again.
This fear of abandoning Newt was more profound, if less visceral, than that which he’d experienced back in the cavern: if Newton died, it meant all the terror and frustration and rage they’d both experienced had been for nothing.
If they couldn’t leave together, what had they done any of it for?
Max said: “You sit at the front of the boat, okay? I’ll sit at the back. We won’t touch. They won’t have any reason not to take me.”
Newton smiled gratefully. “That sounds like a very good plan, Max.”
48
IT WAS dark by the time Max eased the boat off the beach into the slack tide.
It took a few hard cranks to get the motor going. Smoke belched from the engine housing. For one heart-stopping instant, it seemed the bearings would fry and the motor might seize… but after a few rough revolutions, it settled into an even cadence.
Max goosed the throttle and piloted toward the distant lights of North Point. He’d driven boats before: his uncle was an oysterman and he’d often let Max take the helm of his boat while he dragged in the lines. It’s a lot easier than driving a car, he’d told Max. The ocean’s just one big lane, plenty of room for everyone.
Newton sat at the bow. He was wearing his Scouts sash adorned with the badges he’d earned. He wasn’t sure why he’d put it on—maybe he wanted to show whoever was waiting for them that he was a responsible person. An individual of value.
“Hey, Max?” Newt called out over the motor.
“Yeah?”
“I had this dream today. While you were gone. It was pretty weird.”
“Okay, so spill it.”
Wind whipped off the water. Newton nearly had to shout to be heard—the effort drained him.
“So, well, I was with my mom. We were on this trip. I didn’t know the city. We were in this hotel lobby. Very swanky, which is weird because we don’t have enough money to stay at swanky hotels. But we come through those rotating doors—those doors always kind of scare me, actually; I think they’re going to suck me between the glass and squash me—through those doors and there’s a couple arguing outside. A man and a woman.”
The swells grew larger as the shore receded. The boat skipped over the waves, salt spray licking up over the gunwales. Max squinted over the night water. Shapes loomed against the horizon.
“The man started hitting the woman. Right there on the street. Her head was snapping back. Blood was painted on her cheeks. Then this van stops on the sidewalk. These guys get out and start yelling at the other guy, saying he can’t do that. The guy says he wasn’t really hurting her, only teaching her something. So he wraps his hands around her neck as if to demonstrate, he wraps his hands round her neck and starts choking her right in front of these guys…”
The shapes were beginning to coalesce. A loose group clustered where the water met the night sky, blocking out the lights of home.
“One of the guys from the van puts the guy in a headlock. They drag him away from the woman and over to the van, like they’re going to throw him into it. Suddenly people are pouring out of doorways and out of office buildings. Carpenters and lawyers and deliverymen. The woman who was being choked starts screaming at the guys from the van, telling them to leave the guy who was choking her alone. Then one of the guys from the van punches the choker guy in the face. He goes down in a tangle, unconscious before he even hits the ground. He was wearing loose pants, I remember, and they fell down so I saw his underwear, which were blue and droopy with holes like mice had chewed them.”
Boats. Squat ones that had chased down Calvin Walmack’s cigarette boat. They were painted with some kind of special black paint that prevented the moonlight and starlight from reflecting off them. They floated silently, motionlessly.
“Things sped up. Everyone was getting punched or punching. Fights were spilling all over the street. I remember a tricycle getting crushed under the wheels of a speeding car. Then the choker guy who got punched out gets up and looks around all embarrassed and says, ‘Oh hell no!’ and he wades into this big huge fight—which was everywhere by then—hitching up his pants. And there were fires burning at the tops of the skyscrapers and sirens everywhere and I could tell, in that weird way dreams have of telling you things, that the violence was everywhere. Like a virus, Max. Everywhere.”
The boat drew nearer to the floating vessels. Max cut the motor and drifted with the current. Figures were massed along the decks.