THE PROCTOR SHUTS the door and takes his seat. He glances at the wall clock and waits until the minute hand wobbles forward.
“You may begin.”
Fifty-two exam booklets flip over. Some people riffle through it. Others start writing immediately. I do neither.
Forty minutes later, I have yet to touch pencil to paper. I stare at the booklet in desperation. There are diagrams, numbers, lines and charts—strings of words with terminal punctuation at the end—some are periods, some question marks, and none of it makes sense. I wonder briefly if it is even English. I try it in Polish, but that doesn’t work either. It might as well be hieroglyphics.
A woman coughs and I jump. A bead of sweat falls from my forehead onto my booklet. I wipe it off with my sleeve, then pick the booklet up.
Maybe if I bring it closer. Or hold it farther away—I can see now that it is in English; or rather, that the individual words are English, but I cannot read from one to another with any sense of continuity.
A second drop of sweat falls.
I scan the room. Catherine is writing quickly, her light brown hair falling over her face. She is left-handed, and because she writes in pencil her left arm is silver from wrist to elbow. Beside her, Edward yanks himself upright, glances at the clock in panic, and slumps back over his booklet. I turn away, toward a window.
Snatches of sky peek through leaves, a mosaic in blue and green that shifts gently with the wind. I stare into it, allowing my focus to soften, looking beyond the leaves and branches. A squirrel bounds fatly across my sight line, its full tail cocked.
I shove my chair back with a violent screech and stand up. My brow is beaded, my fingers shaking. Fifty-two faces turn to look.
I should know these people, and up until a week ago I did. I knew where their families lived. I knew what their fathers did. I knew whether they had siblings and whether they liked them. Hell, I even remember the ones who had to drop out after the Crash: Henry Winchester, whose father stepped off the ledge of the Board of Trade Building in Chicago. Alistair Barnes, whose father shot himself in the head. Reginald Monty, who tried unsuccessfully to live in a car when his family could no longer pay for his room and board. Bucky Hayes, whose unemployed father simply wandered off. But these ones, the ones who remain? Nothing.
I stare at these faces without features—these blank ovals with hair—looking from one to the next with increasing desperation. I’m aware of a heavy, wet noise, and realize it’s me. I’m gasping for breath.
“Jacob?”
The face nearest me has a mouth and it’s moving. The voice is timid, unsure. “Are you okay?”
I blink, unable to focus. A second later I cross the room and toss the exam booklet on the proctor’s desk.
“Finished already?” he says, reaching for it. I hear paper rustling as I head for the door. “Wait!” he calls after me. “You haven’t even started! You can’t leave. If you leave I can’t let you—”
The door cuts off his final words. As I march across the quad, I look up at Dean Wilkins’ office. He’s standing at the window, watching.
I WALK UNTIL the edge of town and then veer off to follow the train tracks. I walk until after dark and the moon is high, and then for several hours after. I walk until my legs hurt and my feet blister. And then I stop because I am tired and hungry and have no idea where I am. It’s as though I’ve been sleepwalking and suddenly woken to find myself here.
The only sign of civilization is the track, which rests on a raised bed of gravel. There is forest on one side and a small clearing on the other. From somewhere nearby I hear water trickling, and I pick my way toward it, guided by the moonlight.
The stream is a couple of feet wide at most. It runs along the tree line at the far side of the clearing and then cuts off into the woods. I peel off my shoes and socks and sit at its edge.
When I first submerge my feet in the frigid water, they hurt so badly I yank them out again. I persist, dunking them for longer and longer periods, until the cold finally numbs my blisters. I rest my soles against the rocky bottom and let the water wriggle between my toes. Eventually the cold causes its own ache, and I lie back on the bank, resting my head on a flat stone while my feet dry.
A coyote howls in the distance, a sound both lonely and familiar, and I sigh, allowing my eyes to close. When it is answered by a yipping only a few dozen yards to my left, I sit forward abruptly.
The faraway coyote howls again and this time is answered by a train whistle. I pull on my socks and shoes and rise, staring at the edge of the clearing.
The train is closer now, rattling and thumping toward me: CHUNK-a-chunk-a-chunk-a-chunk-a, CHUNK-a-chunk-a-chunk-a-chunk-a, CHUNK-a-chunk-a-chunk-a-chunk-a. . .
I wipe my hands on my thighs and walk toward the track, stopping a few yards short. The acrid stink of oil fills my nose. The whistle shrieks again—
TWE-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E—
A massive engine explodes around the bend and barrels past, so huge and so close I’m hit by a wall of wind. It churns out rolling clouds of billowing smoke, a fat black rope that coils over the cars behind it. The sight, the sound, the stink are too much. I watch, stunned, as half a dozen flat cars whoosh by, loaded with what look like wagons, although I can’t quite make them out because the moon has gone behind a cloud.
I snap out of my stupor. There are people on that train. It matters not a whit where it’s going because wherever it is, it’s away from coyotes and toward civilization, food, possible employment—maybe even a ticket back to Ithaca, although I haven’t a cent to my name and no reason to think they’d take me back. And what if they will? There is no home to return to, no practice to join.
More flat cars pass, loaded with what look like telephone poles. I look behind them, straining to see what follows. The moon slips out for a second, shining its bluish light on what might be freight cars.
I start running, moving the same direction as the train. My feet slip in the sloping gravel—it’s like running in sand, and I overcompensate by pitching forward. I stumble, flailing and trying to regain my balance before any part of me comes between the huge steel wheels and the track.
I recover and pick up speed, scanning each car for something to grab on to. Three flash by, locked up tight. They’re followed by stock cars. Their doors are open but filled by the exposed tail ends of horses. This is so odd I take note, even though I’m running beside a moving train in the middle of nowhere.
I slow to a jog and finally stop. Winded and very nearly hopeless, I turn my head. There’s an open door three cars behind me.
I lunge forward again, counting as they pass.
One, two, three—
I reach for the iron grab bar and fling myself upward. My left foot and elbow hit first, and then my chin, which smashes onto the metal edging. I cling tightly with all three. The noise is deafening, and my jawbone bangs rhythmically on the iron edging. I smell either blood or rust and wonder briefly if I’ve destroyed my teeth before realizing the point is in serious danger of becoming moot—I’m balanced perilously on the edge of the doorway with my right leg pointed at the undercarriage. With my right hand I cling to the grab bar. With my left I claw the floorboards so desperately the wood peels off, under my nails. I’m losing purchase—I have almost no tread on my shoes and my left foot slides in short jerks toward the door. My right leg now dangles so far under the train I’m sure I’m going to lose it. I brace for it even, squeezing my eyes shut and clenching my teeth.