Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,58
I right?”
Paulie rolls onto his back and peers toward the dock. “You’re right,” he whispers.
“Five more minutes and we swim for real,” Logs says.
“Got it.”
After only two, Logs taps him again, feeling urgent. The stress on his body is taking its toll. “Let’s do it now. Stay together, we gotta listen for each other all the time. Keep the fire straight ahead of you. You’re faster on the front end of these swims, but don’t get too far ahead. We need two brains.”
Paulie nods and they start their run. Grateful for their hundreds of hours in the water together, Paulie visualizes Logs’s pace and falls into it. Every twenty strokes they breathe to the front, holding the growing firelight dead center. Bodies numb now, false warmth allows a quicker pace as muscles loosen and they pick up speed.
CRASH! Paulie involuntarily yells “Shit!” as his head strikes the corner of an anchored ski float. Logs whirls in time to see the powerful searchlight sweeping toward them. He shoves Paulie’s head down as he goes under himself, watching the surface from below as the light sweeps above them. He guides Paulie to the far side of the float.
“Fuck!” Paulie whispers. “Did they see us?”
“I don’t know. Are you all right? Don’t move.” The light sweeps harmlessly back and forth while they hide behind the float.
“Wait,” Logs says.
“Logs, man, we gotta keep movin’. We’ll fuckin’ freeze to death out here.”
“Wait,” Logs says again.
The searchlight points back toward land and they start again, zoning in on the fire.
Paulie rolls over in time to see two cars pull out. He watches them speed down the dirt road leading around the lake. He catches Logs, taps his leg. “They’re going around,” he says.
“Damn! They heard us.”
“Man, I’m sorry.”
“It happened. Could just as easily have been me.” They tread, Logs’s mind spinning and his energy draining. “If they go to the fire, we’ll see them,” he says finally. “The trees are about as far from the shore over there as they are on our side. If they show up there, we’ll swim in to the north. How many cars, do you think?”
“Only saw two.”
“Better odds. Let’s move.”
Logs stays even with Paulie for a few hundred yards, then, without warning, it all comes crashing down, the cold and the earlier workout, his energy swirls out. With one last burst, he catches Paulie’s foot.
“What?”
“I’m not gonna make it.”
“Logs, there’s no choice.”
“I can’t, Paulie. I’m done. It’s shutting down.”
“Oh, God.”
“Don’t do that. Listen . . .” His voice quivers. “I can make it back to the ski float. Keep swimming. Remember, if you see car lights at the fire, stay north. Firth and his friends won’t know what they’re talking about. Wait them out, then get someone to call 911 and get somebody out to me. If I can get out of the water I’ll be okay.”
“Man, the air is forty degrees. You’ll fucking freeze to death, if you can even find it.”
“This is our only choice. If you don’t get across this lake and get the word out about Rankin, a whole bunch of people are screwed. Now do it.”
“I’ll get somebody to you. You get on that float and hang on.”
“I promise,” Logs says, desperately hoping he can keep it. “Listen, remember how I always say we’re a trial-and-error species?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, not tonight.”
Paulie watches Logs disappear into the night, then, powered by fear he strokes toward the far shore. He forgets Logs and Mary and poor goddamn Kylie and Hannah. His parents don’t exist. Just get your ass to that fire.
Twenty strokes and look; twenty strokes and look; twenty strokes and look. The fire is directly in front of him each time. Thirty strokes and look, thirty-five.
Distance over water is hard to judge. Distance over water in the dark, nearly impossible. Paulie believes he’s about a football field away from shore; maybe another twenty yards to the fire. But the fire dims.
A puff of white smoke.
Fuck. They’re putting it out! They’re leaving.
He strokes faster, stops. He treads, listens to the voices of kids as they head toward their cars.
He starts to yell, just as he sees two sets of headlights emerging from the trees, lighting up the dirt parking lot. He cuts immediately right—north—almost sprinting, amazed at what strength comes from terror. They won’t hear him as long as their engines are running and they’re talking. He can make it.
Paulie barely feels the grass against his skin as he crawls onto the shore like a gator. He lies still,