That one was met with the most perplexed look I’d ever seen. It made me grin. I apologized and went on. If this guy had ever even touched a cell-phone, I’d eat my giant purple jacket.
“Are you dead?”
I got the gesture I thought I would. He looked hesitant to even make the gesture, but I waved it away.
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “I’m sorry. Is there a way out of here?”
He made the of course face.
“Not…back home. I mean, like. Is this beach and that highway all there is?”
A scoff. I nodded. Okay, little people, big world, I get it.
“Oh, I got it. Can you write?”
The old man offered only a pitied grin—it was the look you gave a toddler trying his very best to reach that infernal cookie jar. Oh, look, he’s up on his tip toes. I flashed a glare.
“What? Can you write or not?”
He nodded, but that grin didn’t go away.
“Write in the sand, like, with your finger. What’s your name?”
His smile widened.
“Ugh.”
I crouched in front of him, trying to suppress a flash of anger. I held one finger up, and like I was demonstrating to a particularly stupid child, began drawing huge letters in the sand.
“My. Name. Is. L-U-C-Y…wait.”
My finger cut long furrows in the sand, but none of the letters made any sense. They were twisted snakes of meaningless marks, strung together like a potful of spaghetti dumped on the ground. I looked up at him in shock.
His grin widened. He sighed, waved his hand at the twisting ideograms, and threw his hands up to the sky. What can you do, his gesture said.
“You can’t write here?”
He shook his head.
“Or read?”
Nope, his face said.
“Like a dream?”
Yup.
“Is this a dream?”
Nope.
“Dammit.”
I propped myself back on my arms and let out a deep, chestful sigh. The old man copied my pose and did the same. I laughed—he didn’t seem to be mocking me, just playful. Or bored. That made another question pop into my head.
“Can you go back—back home? To the real world, I guess?”
He nodded, but his eyes never left the sky. They searched the grey blanket of clouds, and his face smoothed out.
“Do you?”
Yes.
He didn’t look happy when he indicated that. He also made a point not to look at me while he nodded. I stood up, finally, and took another look around the surroundings. I’d been here every night, but most of them I’d spent either in one exact spot or not terribly far from that exact spot. I’d visited the road only once—the first time, when the glowing thing had chased me.
“Oh,” I said, turning toward him. “Was it the man? The man made of light? Is he here?”
The old man sat up. He nodded furiously, and his wide eyes showed nothing but fear. Old fear, caution-fear, but fear nonetheless.
“Has he left yet? Has he…sonic boomed out of here?”
The old man frowned at the phrasing, obviously trying to parse the term. After a moment, he shook his head. No then. The thing was still here.
“Close?”
He didn’t look certain, but after a moment he said no. Well, indicated no. I brushed my sandy hands on my jacket until they were clean, and I held my hand out. The old man took it, and I helped him to his feet. He looked a little curious, but otherwise game.
“Mind walking with me? I haven’t been…coming here very often.”
Obviously, his face said.
I gave him a flat stare, and he chuckled again.
“Know any good restaurants around here?”
Another chuckle.
I began hiking up the sandy hill, and he slogged just to my left. He didn’t look to be having any trouble—in fact, he looked to be working a lot less than me. When I crested the hill, I noticed something strange—the countryside had changed. Or rather, the landmarks had drifted or multiplied. The highway curved at a slightly different angle than I remembered, swinging much further east.
The dull glow of a distant city still burned off down the highway to the northeast, but now another dull glow sprang up down the highway to the south.
The road wasn’t clear this time. It was littered with rusted out cars, motorcycles, even a big-rig a little down the road. The highway wasn’t crowded with them—it wasn’t an L.A. traffic crunch—but there was more than a few. Some of the more tightly packed areas had cars every dozen feet—other areas didn’t have any within a hundred feet of each other. None of them were moving, running, or housing people.
“What’s this?”
The old man made the wheel gesture and then the honk-honk gesture.
I glared at him. “I know what a car is.”
He offered his impish ear-to-ear grin. I was inspired, and I hoped he wouldn’t mind.
“Since I don’t know your name, would you mind terribly if I made one up for you?”
His eyes narrowed, at first, but he rubbed his chin and seemed to think it out. He shrugged and made the left-hand right-hand scale gesture, like he was weighing two sacks of gold.
“So it depends on the name?”
He nodded.
“What about Puck?”
The widest grin yet nearly ripped his face in two. He nodded furiously and made a little clap-clap with his hands. He surprised me with his enthusiasm, but hell, maybe he was a Shakespeare man. By the look of him, I could see English teacher or college professor.
“All right, Puck,” I said, and he tried to suppress a goofy grin. “What are these cars from? Can we use them?”
He gave a who knows shrug, paused, and made the scales gesture again.
“So it depends. Never tried?”
His quick hands mimed a wrench turning a bolt, and then he threw the invisible wrench over his shoulder in mock-frustration. Definitely English teacher. Not that I could blame him—I knew how to put gas in my car, how to change a tire, and how to plug in my phone-charger. The buck stuttered to a stop there.
“All right, Mr. P,” I said. “Which way to go?”
I didn’t even know what I was doing, to be honest. I only knew that as far as I was concerned, if I headed back home right now, I’d be lying in bed, freezing to death. The only plan I could think of was to wait for sunrise, go back home, and hope the morning would sort out the problem.
Puck looked around. After a moment, he pointed south and then made the shame-shame finger wag. He didn’t want to go that way, and the look on his face told me that the light-thing, or something equally horrific, had gone that way.
“What’s this way? A city? Are there others?”
He nodded.
“Like us?”
Yes.
“Are there others not like us?”
Yes, his face said with more than a little fear.
A weird jag popped in my head. I had to ask.
“Are we in heaven?”
The face he made left no room for argument.
“We’re not in…”
No, he indicated firmly. Definitely not.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just had to know.”
I headed down the sloping gravel hill to the highway and hopped the guard rail. Puck came bouncing down next to me, and the two of us set off down the southbound lane, going north. Somehow I didn’t think we were going to get a ticket. Though I really didn’t want to meet the highway patrol in Limbo, or wherever the heck we were.
We walked for what had to be a few hours. I talked a little, wondering if he found my chatter offensive. If I lost my ability to talk, I wouldn’t exactly be patient with someone who wouldn’t stop vomiting their advantage all over me. It would be like losing the ability to eat dessert one day, and then finding nothing but cheesecakes every time you opened your glove box or reached into your cabinet for a towel.