His nostrils weren’t bubbling. I wondered if he was dead.
I shifted position and prodded him with a toe.
He blinked. The gagged smile broadened. He murmured a series of vowels that should have been indistinguishable as words, but which his sunny tone communicated perfectly.
“Unnnh Aww Innh.”
And good morning to you, too.
I couldn’t make myself believe that he’d been too injured to chance attacking me as I slept. Or that he’d been too afraid. More likely he’d experienced a spell as lost and as despairing as mine, and had wanted nothing more than to spend the remaining hours of darkness close to another living being. Even if that person happened to be me. Maybe especially if that person happened to be me.
I wasn’t ready, either physically or emotionally, to take advantage just yet. I just nodded hello, squirmed and crawled my way to a safe distance, and then got to my feet. Dizziness, thirst, and whatever damage the concussion had inflicted made me wobble, but I managed to stay upright.
I took a deep breath and almost gagged on it. Even with half the pool still in shadow the air was still so warm it felt more like soup.
We could stay in the narrowing shadows on the eastern side of the pool for most of the morning, moving west when they were replaced by the lengthening shadows of the late afternoon. It wouldn’t protect us from the heat, but it might save us from being burned to a crisp by the sun.
That was funny. Us. Like we were a team or something.
And either way, there’d be no shadows at noon.
We were going to cook.
The two lifeguard chairs were still unoccupied.
They’d left. Daddy and the Bitch had patched together their differences and were now sipping champagne in their jacuzzi in some swank resort in Reno. Daddy must be saying, too bad about the kids. Yes, what a shame. They were both so respectful. Do you know, May, I once asked her to go fifteen days without food, as a survival exercise, and she just did it, without even arguing? That’s right. She sat in her room, growing paler and paler, her cheeks growing gaunt and her skin going pale, and in all that time, May, all that time, she never one said, Daddy, I can’t do this anymore, I need something, just a little soup, just a little bread, just something to stop my stomach from cramping? It was enough to make me wonder, May, just what the hell else I could ask her to do. Would she have put out her eyes? Cut off her own hand? Press the right side of her face against a hot frying pan and not move even as she felt her skin scar and sizzle from the heat? We should be proud of ourselves, May. The way we raised them, and all.
Daddy wouldn’t talk that way. The Bitch would, but Daddy wouldn’t.
Daddy was better than that.
Daddy loved me.
The world grayed. I shook the spots away and stumbled forward, walking the perimeter. I noted the drying blood stains on the floor and on the walls, I found a crack emitting a battalion of ants and, at the moment I entered the Deep End, a dead rattlesnake, its head and midsection crushed almost flat. It puzzled me for a while until I figured out the story. The concrete of the patio above, with its talent for sucking up heat during the day and radiating it slowly at night, rendered it a natural beacon for snakes. They must have loved the place, and with the empty pool considerably warmer, it must have been just as natural for them to crawl in, from time to time, their idiot reptilian brains too shortsighted to realize that once they made the drop they would not be up to the task of finding a way out. Ethan and the Bitch must have had their hands full, clearing the place of pissed-off rattlers without getting bitten themselves. And of course, they hadn’t bothered to warn us of the danger: not when a fortuitously-stranded snake could spell defeat for a girl who hadn’t been told.
This one must have taken Ethan by surprise.
Had it bitten him?
I couldn’t be that lucky.
I looked over my shoulder and confirmed that he was still curled by the Shallow End steps. The sweat and the grease had plastered the sand to his body, giving him a white, powdery appearance. But he didn’t seem sick. He’d rolled over and was watching me with a calm, unbothered curiosity.
My eyes burned.
I went deeper, not knowing what I was looking for. The deep end was just a filthy oval, covered with dust and bird shit and brilliant in the morning glare. When I reached its lowest point I caught a whiff of something foul, and followed the odor to the drain hole, where I found pretty much what I should have expected to find. Removing the grate had been doing Ethan a favor. It had given him a place to do his daily business without having to worry about stepping in it. Looking closer, wrinkling my nose as I was hit by the awful rising stink, I further noted that he’d suffered diarrhea. This was disgusting, but good news for me, as the single greatest factor in living through this was probably surviving dehydration, and he’d have no chance to replenish what he’d lost.
As if on cue, my own stomach gurgled.
Christ.
The heat and the conditions were doing the same thing to me that they were doing to him.
I considered making use of the drain, decided not, and went back to the Shallow End.
The sun was higher in the sky now. The shadows cast by the pool’s eastern curve now covered less than a third of the pool bottom. I made the mistake of glancing at the sun and recoiled, my vision a purple blob. That sun wasn’t golden. It was white. It was pure, malevolent heat, pounding down on us like a thousand hammers. How high was the temperature going to rise today, before the shadows came back? A hundred ten? More?
Ethan had settled in under the shadows, his bound arms against the convex wall, his knees curled up against his chest. He looked at me, then at the empty space beside him, and then at me again. He repeated himself, and when I failed to get it, repeated himself a third time.
I got it.
It was stupid to fight now. Not with shelter a more immediate need.
Might as well wait out the day, survive if we could, and make another go at each other tonight. We’d both be weaker then, but that only meant that we’d both be that much closer to finishing this.
If there was a finish. If Daddy and the Bitch came back.
I selected a spot two body-lengths from Ethan, put my back to the wall, and lowered myself into a bent-kneed squat. It was as relaxed a position as I was willing to attempt, around him, one that would allow me to jump away in a heartbeat if he went for me.
I didn’t think he would.
If we couldn’t outlive the day, what was the point?
The hours crawled. The sun rose in the cloudless sky. The air grew hot, then sweltering, then brutal, then hellish. Our refuge of shadow narrowed, the razor-thin line between mere unbearable heat and deadly sunlight drawing closer to our curled legs. The sweat pouring down my face collected against my lips, investing the rubber bit with a foul, salty taste. My tongue swelled. I tried not to look at the opposite wall, already so bright from reflected glare that my eyes compensated by conjuring gray spots at the edges.
The shadow wasn’t protecting us enough.
Sunburns don’t only happen to those who expose themselves to direct sunlight. Sometimes it’s possible to hide in the shade, all day long, and still suffer painful burns. It all depends on the reflectivity of the surrounding surfaces.
Ethan and I were in a big white bowl, facing one of its big white walls. Spared the worst of the sunlight, we were still absorbing enough reflected radiation to cook us more slowly. Ethan, who was darker than me and had the base tan one would expect from a boy who had spent years training under this sun, would tolerate it better than I would, with my much fairer skin. But we were both burning. By the time the zone of shadow came within a finger’s-length of his knees, his face had turned lobster-red, and sprouted the first of what would soon be many sun-blisters on his forehead.