“You’re lucky,” Graham said. He was winded. Was tying off her calf with a strip of her own bloody pant-leg, had torn it without her realizing. “Missed the bone. Damn lucky.”
She just stared at him. She could taste blood in her mouth. She hoped it was hers and not Marco’s. Hers from falling face first into the sand, from biting her tongue. Don’t let it be his.
“I don’t have air enough for both of us,” Graham said. “Not for long. And my suit’s not on a full charge. But we need to get you out of here. They’re after me.”
“They’re after Palmer,” Vic said, thinking out loud. Her voice had returned, but it was distant, like it was being carried to her on the wind from some faraway place.
“Yes,” Graham said. “Do you think you can walk? I haven’t taken us far. You should get out of here if your leg is okay.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to bury those two.” He said it like a man announces his intention to take a piss. “And I can live in these dunes longer than they can search for me. If you want to stay here, I can try to snag a tank from the market. I know where there’s an extra suit—”
“The marina,” Vic said. “My suit’s there.”
Graham nodded. “I can get you partway. They’ll never catch you if you can stay moving. You should lay low for a few days. Get way out of town for a while.”
Vic thought of her two brothers out camping. She wondered where Palmer was. Life had been simple and good an hour ago. Click. Boom. It can’t happen like that. It can’t.
“Hey Vic, are you with me? You’re not going into shock are you? You’ve lost some blood—”
“Marco,” she said. She focused on Graham’s face for the first time. He was the nearest thing she had left to a father. “I loved him. He’s dead. Marco’s dead.”
“Well, let’s worry about you, then. You’ve got a sarfer in the marina?”
She nodded.
“I’ll get you there. You just need to figure out where you’re going once I do.”
“Brock,” she said. She remembered Marco’s words. Remembered his voice. His face. “The northern wastes. West of the grove, south of a spring. That’s where I’m going.”
And Vic became aware of the sun on her cheek, the grit in her mouth, the wind in her hair. She came alive as one returns from sleep. Alive but different. An empty husk capable of thought, of hearing, of processing. Of wanting men dead.
34 ? That Final Embrace
Palmer
Palmer kept the wind on his left cheek and pressed south. He’d never felt so weak, so tired, so ready to lie down and succumb. Three nights of staggering in the dark, a lengthening furrow of sand trailing behind his shuffling feet. Three nights of marching and three mornings of sleeping in dwindling dune-shade. Three days of high noon spent roasting, trying to cover himself in sand to protect his skin. Three afternoons of watching the shade slowly form again, giving him someplace to starve in peace.
His black dive suit was too hot to wear in the day, so he kept it draped over his head to cast a little shade. At night, the same thin suit couldn’t keep him from shivering. Whenever he stripped it off, he wept at the sight of his emaciated frame, his ribs jutting out like rolling dunes, his pelvis that of a dead man’s, his legs too frail to carry him one step further. It’d been a week or more since he’d had a meal, but he would thirst to death before he starved. Wouldn’t be long. Wouldn’t be long.
And yet—knowing this—he took another step. Didn’t know why. Just did. His left foot dragged and left a furrow behind. The sun was coming up, the stars fading one by one until it was only Mars up there, ready to war with him another day. Have to peel his suit off soon. Last time. Palmer wouldn’t make it through this day, could no longer feel the hunger. The gnawing had become distant. He would die on the hot sand. This day—he was sure of it. Another two or three nights to Springston at that limping rate. The crows would get him. He could see them circling. They knew.
“Caw,” he whispered, the word choked back by his swollen tongue. “Caw.”
The sun topped the hill to his left and its naked rays struck his cheek like an open palm. A lucid memory of his father. Palmer remembered the only time his father had ever struck him. It was a joke. Just a joke. Second day with a dive suit on, wanted to show what Vic had taught him, was gonna do a full submerge, thought he was getting the hang of loosening the sand, making it flow. He opened a soft patch beneath his father’s boot and closed the sand around it, thought he’d be proud for the trick, thought he’d laugh.