The Shore (Leisure Fiction)

glittering into a gray diamond pattern. The silt around the edges had dried into a reflection of that pattern.

She gunned the engine as the cat sniffed suspiciously around the interior of the jeep. 'Another miracle.' The jeep started immediately. 'You don't get carsick, do you?' As she pulled out, the cat startled her by leaping onto the back of the driver's seat, claws digging in loudly. 'Would you settle down, please? Before I drown us both in a ditch?'

Mud hissed at the tires. Everything was water and debris. She steered around the side of the duplex, then had trouble finding a road to stay on. Sounds of activity drifted everywhere. She heard a helicopter and the buzz of a power saw. Around a corner, men in bright yellow hard hats stood in the intersection, and the road crew stared at the police department insignia as she swerved around the barricade. That's it--just nod and smile at everyone like you know where you're going. Down the road, a tractor tugged at something large and muddy, and men with electric company jackets yelled as the jeep splashed past. She glimpsed a state trooper. Just my luck. After all this, I'll probably get shot as a looter. All the poles tilted in the drowned streets, and houses angled on flooded lawns.

But even the deepest pools lay lifeless and still, all violence drained. I don't know this place anymore.

In the center of town, streets had mostly been cleared. They won't stop a police vehicle so fast. She steered around obstacles, trying to avoid a truckload of troopers, tires sloughing through soft muck. This could be the last time I get to use one. She turned a corner. Might as well make the most of it.

At the end of the road, the ocean glowered somnolently, two blocks closer than it should have been. She wondered if the salvage crews knew they had become morticians. Some flicker of life might remain in the town, but fan this drowned ember back into a flame? Never. People would trickle back to rescue what they could, a determined few might even come back to live. But in the long run...

The cat bumped its head against her shoulder insistently, and she shifted gears, coasting down a side street. 'Yeah, I love you too, Gruesome. Now, settle down.' At last, she pulled over.

Not a bad house. Water stains rose only a foot or so up the yellow walls, she noticed, slamming the door behind her. 'Settle down in there,' she called to the cat as she squelched up the garden path. Near the porch, inchoate purple and white forms butted through sodden soil, lured out by the flood. Too soon. The frost would wither them, she knew, but now the stalks looked pliant and brave.

'I know you're in there.' She pounded on the door. 'Don't ask me how I know. I just do. Come on, open up.' She pounded again. 'I'm not going anywhere until I see you.' She glanced back at the jeep. Through the window, the cat stared at her, and she saw the mouth open in that silent cry. 'No use pretending you're not home.' Finally, she heard the metallic sliding of locks.

He peered at her from behind the chain. A mass of curls hung in a tangle over the bandaged forehead, and blue crescents mottled the flesh below his eyes.

'About time. Aren't you going to invite me in for coffee? Or don't you have water yet? Better still--get cleaned up as best you can, and we'll drive out the highway to the diner. Come on. Cops always know the best places to have breakfast.'

'Oh.' Tully's face barely focused. 'It's you.' The effects of medication still showed in his sluggish expression, and his clothes looked like he'd been sleeping in them. 'Sorry. I don't want to go out...now.' His laugh sounded like he was choking on ice cubes. 'Or ever. Please, go away.'

'C'mon. We'll sit and talk, listen to each other make plans. Maybe you'll help me figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Maybe I'll help you.' She grinned then, and it made her face feel strange. 'C'mon. You can't just hide in there, you know.'

He shrugged stiffly. 'Why not?'

'Look. No, not at me, idiot. Look out there. The sun is shining. It's all over, and we're what's left. That's all. We survived. Right? So let's go. Time to move on. C'mon now.' She tried to smile encouragingly. 'Don't be afraid.'