They appear to be wearing identical jumpers,... 468
They appear to be wearing identical jumpers, and
although Emery should not be able to distinguish
colors in this dying light, he can: one jumper is
red, with an L on the front; the other is blue,
with a T
The rip! the girl with the T on her jumper calls,
holding out her arms in supplication
The undertow! calls the girl with the L
And although neither girl appears to be in the
slightest danger of drowning, Emery doesn't
hesitateHis joy won't let him hesitate, nor his
bright certainty that this is a miracle
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opportunity: when he turns up with the twins, his
previously distant father-in-law will change his
tune in a hurryAnd the silver chimes those
voices ring in his head, they urge him forward,
tooHe rushes to rescue Adie's sisters, to gather
the lost girls in and splash with them to shore
Emery! That's Tessie, her eyes dark in her chinapale
face
Emery, hurry! That's Laura, with her rolex watch knock off dripping
white hands held out to him and her lank curls
pasted against her white cheeks
He cries I'm coming, girls! Hold on!
Splashing toward them, now up to his shins, now
his knees
He cries Fight it! as though they are doing
anything but standing there in water that is only
thigh-deep on them, although he's now up to his
own thighs and he's six feet and two inches tall
The water of the Gulf - still chilly in mid-April
- is up to his chest when he reaches them, when he
reaches out to them, and when they seize him with
hands that are stronger than any little girls'
hands should be; by the time he's close enough to
see the silvery gleam in their glazed eyes and
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smell the salty, dead-fish aroma coming from their
rotting hair, it's too lateHe struggles, his
cries of joy and his entreaties to fight the
undertow turning first to yells of protest and
then to screams of horror, but by then it is far
too chanel pearl necklace lateThe screams do not last long, in any
caseTheir small hands have become cold claws
digging deep into his flesh as they pull him
deeper, and the water fills his mouth, drowning
his screamsHe sees the ship against the last
cold ashes of the sunset, and - how did he not see
it before? how did he not know? - realizes it is a
hulk, a plague ship, a deathshipSomething is
waiting for him there, something in a shroud, and
he would scream if he could, but now the water
fills his eyes and there are other hands, ones
that feel like nothing but stripped radiations of
bone, closing around his anklesA talon pulls off
a shoe, then tweaks a toeas if it means to
play "This little piggy went to market" with him
as he drowns
As Emery Paulson drowns
19 - April of '27
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i
Someone was yelling in the darkIt sounded like
Make him stop screamingThen there was a flat
hard whacking sound and the dark lit up deep knock off balenciaga red,
first on one side, then in the backThe red
rolled toward the front of the darkness like a
cloud of blood in water
"You hit him too hard," someone saidWas that
Jack?
"Boss? Hey, boss!" Somebody was shaking me, so I
still had a bodyProbably that was goodJack who? I could get it, but I had to
think sidewaysHis name was like someone on The
Weather Channel -
More shaking"Muchacho! You there?"
My head bonked something, and I opened my eyes
Jack Cantori was kneeling to my left, his face
tight and scaredIt was Wireman in front of me,
on his feet but bending over, shaking me like a
daiquiriThe doll was lying face-down on my lap
I batted her aside with a grunt of disgust - oh
you nasty man, indeedNoveen landed in the pile
of dead wasps with a papery rustle
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Suddenly the places she'd taken me began to come
back: hell's own tourThe path to Shade Beach
that Adriana Eastlake had called (much to her
father's gucci canvas bag fury) Drunkard's BoulevardThe beach
itself, and the horrible things that had happened
there
"His eyes are open," Jack saidEdgar,
do you hear me?"
"Yes," I saidMy voice was hoarse from screaming
I wanted food, but first I wanted to pour
something down my burning throat"Thirsty - can
you help a brother out?"
Wireman handed me one of the big bottles of Evian
water
"You sure, muchacho? Water might be-"
"Pepsi That wasn't the only reason,
but it would do
Wireman put the Evian back and gave me a PepsiIt
was warm, but I chugged half of it, burped, then
drank againI looked around and saw only my
friends and a length of dirty hallwayIn fact, it was terribleMy hand - I
was definitely back to one again - was stiff and
throbbing, as if I had been using it steadily for
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at least two hours, so where were the drawings? I
was terrified that without the drawings,
everything would fade the way dreams do rolex diamond watch upon
wa
