Hitchers

by Will McIntosh

  “Didn’t you get my message?”

  “I saw you called, but I didn’t listen to the message. I can barely hear you.”

  “I’m right near the water. I’m at the pier where Kayleigh died.” I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I’m going to stay here with her.”

  There was a long pause. Then I thought I heard sniffing.

  “In the phone message I invited you to join me if you ran out of time.”

  Summer laughed spasmodically through her tears. “That’s very thoughtful of you.” I heard the blubbering of a nose being blown. “God damn it Finn, don’t quit yet. We still have time.”

  “You do,” I said. “I’m out of time. I want to choose where I end up, you know?”

  Another long pause. “I’m scared. I don’t want to be alone.”

  “You’re not. Lean on Mick. He’ll stick by—”

  The snakes ran under my skin; pain and cold receded. At the last instant it occurred to me that Grandpa could simply call 911 with the damned phone I was clutching. I strained to open my trembling hand.

  The phone plopped into the water.

  “You stupid son of a bitch,” Grandpa shouted a moment later. He threw one shoulder forward, then the other. “You must have slipped an extra key into your pocket when I wasn’t...” He fumbled through the pockets he could reach, although I had no idea how he thought I could sneak something into a pocket without him noticing. “Ah, God, you stupid asshole.”

  I rotated toward the doorway in the back of my head one last time, and Grandpa’s ranting grew dim, then was snuffed out by the sound of the wind as my new home rolled into view. I hadn’t had to strain at all this time, as if Deadland was welcoming me with open arms.

  I squeezed out of my body like I was greased, dropped into the surf, and stuck there. I’d half-expected the water to wash me toward shore; I’d forgotten how still this world was. The water was a still-life, the whitecaps sculptures made of cottage cheese.

  I’d never felt so alone.

  I’d have Grandpa for company soon, though. We’d have plenty of time to work through our differences. I was almost looking forward to it.

  I rotated to face the horizon, which was beautiful in a stark, grey metal way. The sky flickered like an old-time film of a sky.

  Not so bad, Annie had said. Maybe it got better.

  There was no sign of Kayleigh. Here and there in the shallows half-submerged dead were visible; a few lay on the beach like sleeping sunbathers. The wind carried snippets of their mutterings to me.

  Deal. It’s a deal.

  She sold sandwiches outside the gate.

  I held phantom hands in front of my face, looked closely, saw flecks of myself whisking off.

  How long should I hold out hope that Summer might join me? A month, maybe? I would have to keep track of the days so I would know when to abandon hope. Were there days here?

  Don’t drop the baton. Baton.

  Sisyphus.

  The mindless words of the dead seemed to be all around me. I would start talking like that soon. It was part of the emptying out. All of the words came out of you. Everything came out of you.

  The correct answer was cartel.

  Try to be nice.

  Finn would know.

  I jolted from my stupor. I listened more intently, praying I hadn’t misheard, straining to hear one voice amidst dozens.

  Get the red one? The red one. Red.

  She wanted the red bike, didn’t want to get a girl color. It had to be her. My sister was here.

  “Kayleigh?” No answer.

  Anxiously I studied each of the dead in turn. None was Kayleigh, unless she was one of the unrecognizable lumps.

  Can you draw me?

  I was locked in on her voice now; the rest had receded into the background.

  Too high.

  Too high. Yes, it was. I looked up at the underside of the pier, at the worn beams high overhead. She shouldn’t have tried it. I shouldn’t have either.

  “Kayleigh? It’s Finn. It’s your brother.” She was close, I could feel it. I looked all around, leaned forward to peer up beyond the railing. Nothing.

  Maybe she was under the water? It didn’t seem possible I would hear her so clearly if she was underwater, but who knew what the rules were in this place? I ducked my head under.

  There was no resistance, no sense of getting wet. I looked around.

  I was nearly standing on what was left of Kayleigh.

  She was on her belly, her wrists cradling her chin like a sunbather. So much of her was worn away that she was almost two-dimensional, a wafer-thin slice of Kayleigh. Her eyes, nose, and ears were gone, but her mouth was there, so close to the sandy floor she was almost kissing it.

  “It’s Finn.” I had no trouble speaking.

  Kayleigh gave no sign she heard me. After a moment she sighed, said, What are you writing?

  Mom used to call her a question machine.

  The nubs of her feet were clinging to legs worn to points, the tips of her white Reeboks visible. The feet would drop off soon.

  No fatigue or stiffness grew in my joints as I stayed bent over, my head underwater, and listened to Kayleigh, soaking up each utterance, trying to set it in a place and time and context. A lot was from her last days, and each of those was painfully familiar. I’d gone back over those last days so often after she died, combing my memory for important things we might have shared, regretting even the slightest of slights I had made.

  Too high Grandpa. Don’t want to.

  Too high, Grandpa? When would she have said that? Climbing a high slide at a playground or something.

  I craned my neck to look up through the cloudy water at the pier, pictured Kayleigh up there, legs dangling over the railing, over the black water. It was hard to picture her out there, all alone in the growing dark, leaping into that booming surf. There would be no witnesses, no one to attest to her fearless leap. If she was going to jump, why not wait until I was there? I imagined coming back from having fried clams with my parents, Kayleigh pushing open the screen door as soon as we pulled up, shouting that she’d done it, she’d done the jump. My twelve-year-old self’s first reaction would be, No way; no way you jumped in the dark. Acts of daring demanded a witness.

  It’s too high, Kayleigh repeated.

  I looked up at the pier again.

  Too high, Grandpa?

  I imagined Grandpa holding the screen door open for Kayleigh, following right behind her, his jaw set but a satisfied smirk just under the surface. The lass did it, I saw her. I’m her witness.

  You’re not so great—your sister did it too. You’re still afraid of the dark, afraid of the spooky road. Nothing but a God damned sissy.

  Leave me alone or I’ll tell them a thing or two, Grandma had said. And hadn’t Grandpa mostly left her alone after that? He knew where she was, but he steered clear.

  If my heart had still been in my chest, if I’d still had a chest, it would have been hammering my ribs. All the guilt I’d felt, thinking she’d gone out there and died alone because of me. Had he been there? Had he egged her on? He was always looking for opportunities to teach us to be tough, to suck it up and take our lumps.

  Grandpa, Lorena, all the rest of the dead who couldn’t stay dead had some gnawing reason to hang on, to hold themselves together in the teeth of this hungry wind. Suddenly I did as well. I wanted to know the truth.

  Inching my way right up against the post, I felt the vacuum pull of my body. I reached for it with outstretched arms, imploring my body to take me in one last time. The pull was weak, more like a bathtub drain than a vacuum. I repositioned myself, inched side to side, forward and back.

  “Come on. Come on.” I splayed my fingers, managed to rise half an inch before dropping back. “Shit.” I sensed that the pull was going to weaken as time went by—my best chance was now. I reached again, stretching my phantom arms until they seemed to dislocate from their sockets. I rose and dropped, bump, bump, bump.

&nbs
p; I tried for half an hour, but it was no use. The suction wasn’t powerful enough. I lowered my arms and listened to the muttering of the dead, trying to think of another way to get back in my body.

  Krishnapuma had written that this was not a physical realm but a supernatural one. The dead didn’t protect themselves from the wind by hiding behind a wall, they held themselves together because they didn’t want to come apart. Maybe I had to want it more.

  Why did I want to live?

  I wanted to know if Grandpa had been there. If he had, I wanted others to know. I wanted my mother to know.

  Partly I wanted this out of spite. If Grandpa had been there when Kayleigh died I wanted him to look my mother in the eye and admit it. If he was going to steal my body I wanted him to stand in front of my mother in it and mumble an apology, nineteen years too late.

  My fingers tingled as the pull strengthened.

  If I wasn’t completely to blame for Kayleigh’s death, I wanted to be released from some of the guilt that gnawed at me. If I was due a little peace in death, I wanted it.

  My arms stretched like salt water taffy; the rest of me lifted, swung like a bell.

  If Kayleigh was not a reckless idiot who’d snuck off in the dark on her own and leapt off a pier, if an adult she trusted had been there, maybe even encouraged her, I sure as hell wanted people to know that.

  I flew up suddenly, pulled through an invisible hole.

  “—don’t have a choice in this?” Grandpa was shouting as I snapped back behind my eyes. “I didn’t come here of my own free will. I didn’t squeeze my way inside you with a switchblade and a can of WD-40. There are bigger forces at work. Can’t you see that?”

  “Help!” he called, his voice ragged. His whole body was trembling uncontrollably with the cold.

  The water was up to his chest. A wave rushed in; Grandpa turned his face as foamy water slapped his cheek, leaving him gasping.

  I would have given anything to have my mouth long enough to ask him: Were you there? Did you goad her into it?

  Grandpa threw his weight against the chains, shouted for help again. My shirt was nothing but rags; bloody scrapes crisscrossed my chest and belly. “You have no idea, what I had to go through. Working fourteen-hour days when I was twelve. Crossing over in the bottom of a boat sharing a potato sack for a blanket with the rats. You’ve no idea what it’s like to be down so low the dogs won’t have nothing to do with you.”

  What could I do if I got back into my body that Grandpa wasn’t already doing? Could I slide the chains up the post, try to rise above the water? I doubted it—the chains were wound tight.

  Someone called my name. I thought it was Kayleigh, beckoning me back. But it had come from the beach.

  Grandpa twisted to look toward the beach.

  Summer was wading toward us, her arms raised out of the water.

  “Help me,” Grandpa called. “For God’s sake, help me.”

  Summer paused, lifted a phone to her ear. She was calling 911. When she finished she rushed out the last twenty yards.

  “You stupid ass. What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Grandpa shouted over the crashing waves. “It was that idiot Finn.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” Summer said. She examined the chains pressed to the post, then grasped the lock and tugged at it. “Where’s the key?” A wave broke over her shoulders; she clung to the chains to keep from being knocked backward.

  Grandpa motioned toward the water with his chin. “He tossed it. »

  “Oh, that’s just great.” She swiped wet hair out of her eyes.

  The howl of a siren rose in the distance. Summer looked toward the sound. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

  The siren grew louder.

  “Thank goodness your friend there isn’t as stupid as you,” Grandpa said. He laughed. “You’re not so bright. Next time don’t tell your girlfriend where you’re going to bury the body before you’ve even bought the shovel.”

  Soon Summer was back, leading three fire fighters in big rubber boots. One of them had an ax. Shouting to each other, they waded out.

  “You okay?” one of them asked. She was a big woman with acne-scarred cheeks.

  Grandpa said he was. The firewoman signaled her buddy with the ax, then took a step back. I heard the ax hit the post, then the chains loosened all at once, sagging around my waist. The fire fighters lifted Grandpa, carried him to the beach where two EMS workers were waiting with a stretcher and blankets.

  “I’m fine. Just put me down.” Grandpa struggled to rise as the fire fighters set him on the stretcher.

  “Look at his hands,” one of the EMS guys said, holding the blankets up like a shield and backing away.

  “Oh, shit,” the lead firewoman said, jerking her hands away as if Grandpa was scalding hot. She looked at Summer. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Why the hell are you asking her?” Grandpa asked, sitting upright. “Give me a blanket, will you? I’m freezing to death.”

  The firewoman kept her eyes on Summer.

  “This is Thomas Darby,” Summer said, gesturing toward Grandpa. “He’s pushing his grandson, Finn Darby, out of his body.”

  “The cartoonist?” one of the EMS workers interrupted.

  “Yes, the cartoonist. Evidently Finn decided if he couldn’t keep his body, his grandfather wasn’t going to have it either.”

  Everyone just stared.

  “Somebody give me a blanket,” Grandpa said.

  “For God’s sake, give him a blanket. He’s not going to bite.” Summer yanked the blankets out of the EMS worker’s hands, draped one over Grandpa’s shoulders, dropped the other across his lap.

  Clutching the blanket around his shoulders, Grandpa stood. “Well, I’m going home.”

  The emergency workers looked at each other, uncertain. Clearly they didn’t relish rushing a hitcher to the hospital.

  “What’s to stop him from going right back out there?” the firewoman asked Summer.

  Summer looked at the sand. “I don’t think he’s in there any more.”

  “You don’t think who is in there?” one of the men asked warily.

  “Finn Darby.”

  From the look on his face, the guy who’d asked the question was still confused.

  “You’ll make sure this one gets home okay?” the firewoman asked.

  Summer nodded. She took Grandpa by the elbow.

  CHAPTER 41

  The ride home in the Maserati was awkward. Summer and Grandpa didn’t have much to talk about. Not that I could concentrate on what they were doing. It took all of my energy just to stay in my body, like trying to hold a long series of numbers in my head while clinging to a windowsill.

  Mick had been half an hour behind Summer, who lived further south and hadn’t wanted to wait for Mick. He’d turned around when Summer called with the news, and now he was ahead of us.

  We were nearly home when Lorena took over. Her hands made for a jerky ride, but she managed.

  “This is so messed up,” she said. “I died and left you here alone. Now I’m coming back and you’re—”

  Barely hanging on. It was becoming excruciating. If I could hang on long enough, surely I would eventually get flipped back into the driver’s seat.

  “Are you even there?” Lorena asked. “I’m so afraid you’ve already left me.”

  “Oh, he’s still there,” Grandpa said.

  Lorena glanced over at him. “How would you know that?”

  Grandpa opened the glove compartment and retrieved a pack of cigarettes he’d stashed there. He engaged the car lighter, took his time unwrapping the cellophane and peeling back the silver foil. Lorena kept glancing over at him, waiting for an answer.

  “When all this is sorted out, you’re the one who’s going to be around for me to sue,” Grandpa finally said.

  “How do you know——”

  “Because you can feel it,” Grandpa interrupted. “I felt him go when we were in the w
ater, and I felt him come back. I know just what it feels like because he did it once before, only then I didn’t realize what it was.” He lit the cigarette with palsied hands, then muttered, “If I’d known what it was I wouldn’t have gone back for a piss, and I’d be done with him.” He exhaled a plume of smoke through his nose, pointed through the windshield at the turn up ahead. “Drop me at my house.”

  “The hell I will. I’m going to Mick’s. If you don’t want to be there you can walk home.”

  Grandpa glared at her. “We’re in the same situation, you and me. From what I can see the little miss you’re crowding out doesn’t like it any better than Finn, and I don’t have any more choice than you.”

  “I didn’t burn down her apartment. I didn’t try to bankrupt her.”

  “She didn’t steal—” Grandpa paused, because the shift back to me had started. I cried out with relief as I came back into my body.

  “Get me to Aunt Julia’s house,” I said to Lorena. “Fast. Like my life depends on it.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Mom answered the door. She held it partway closed, looking ragged and depressed, as I stood in the rain.

  “I have to see Grandma,” I said.

  “Who has to see her?”

  I held my hands in front of her face. “It’s Finn. If it was Grandpa my hands would be shaking.”

  “Oh God, Finn, I’m sorry.” She let the door swing open and called to Grandma.

  For once Grandma didn’t even pretend to be happy to see me. She sat on the edge of Aunt Julia’s sofa while Mom took the love seat. That left an uncomfortable antique wooden chair for me.

  I looked at Grandma; she looked at her hands. “I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth.”

  Grandma didn’t respond; no nervous laughter, no offer of a cup of tea. Her wrinkled fingers worked furiously, as if she were darning invisible socks.

  “I talked to Kayleigh,” I said.

  Grandma’s fingers froze. She lifted her eyes and looked at me as Mom started to cry.

  “God, leave Kayleigh out of this,” Mom said.

  “She said she wasn’t alone on the pier that night,” I said, speaking over Mom.

  Grandma put her palm over her mouth, shook her head. “I don’t know what—”