He was so tired. Even thinking had become a chore, so he sat with his eyes closed, trying to will himself to sleep. An image of himself walking across a bridge as it collapsed popped into his head. He imagined the terror he would feel as his body went weightless, falling, looking for anything to grab onto. Then he hit the water below, his body broken by slamming into the surface of the water. A piece of the bridge landed across his ribs, and he was dragged to the bottom of the river, gasping for air. On the bottom of the river, he died, pinned down by a chunk of asphalt too heavy to lift, choking on river water. But it wasn't a permanent death. His eyes opened once more, though he didn't breathe. He reached out for the shapes in the dark, the fish swimming by, always out of his clumsy, dead reach.
Masterson floated through the realm of half-sleep, his nightmares passing by him, until he jerked awake, the threat of sleep fleeing from him like smoke in the wind. He opened his eyes, though it stung to do so. He saw the shadows outside, and the cycle repeated itself. When the morning came, his limbs felt like they weighed three times their normal weight, and he shuffled through the interior of the pub, eating and gathering his things with only one thought on his mind. Is this the day? Is this the day that I die?
He watched Allen scrawl a message for the kids' parents, giving them directions on how to find them. Headed west, stopping in six miles, off the highway. D.J. and Hope. It was a hopeless message, meant for people that were never coming. Somehow, out of all the terrible things that he had witnessed, this was the worst one. Lying to the children made him feel sick to his stomach. He couldn't even look at them, so he packed his gear and settled his pack on his back. It weighed more than one person could possibly carry, but when he stood, he was still there, and he found that he could indeed make his feet move, and so his nightmare would continue. Until it ended.
Chapter 16: The Gypsy Drifter
Rhodri Williams sat on his couch, staring at the TV. The screen was blank. His long hair hung in tatters from his scalp. His beard itched something fierce. He stared off into space. Months. It had been months since he had talked to anyone—since anyone had talked to him. At first, he had taken solace in knowing that he was helping people, that he still had a purpose in a world gone dark. He could make the light, and he could keep it going.
Every day, he descended down his hidden path to the beach. Every day, he lugged wood up the hill to keep the lighthouse fire going, clearing the beach of any and all driftwood small enough to carry.
The beach was not as safe as it had been at the beginning of the ordeal. He didn't know where they came from, but the dead frequently washed up on the shore these days. He had spent all the bullets in his revolver over the last few months as he combed the beach for wood to keep the lighthouse going. Now when he went to the beach, he took a hammer with him. It was small enough to not hamper his movement as he climbed the steep path that led to the back of the lighthouse, but it was heavy enough to crack their skulls if he wanted to. He never wanted to. Watching their soggy forms wash up on the beach always set his stomach turning. The feel of their skin as he steadied their sodden bodies and delivered the killing blow gave him nightmares. He would dream of great dark shapes blotting out the sun, hovering over him, dripping seawater that smelled of rot down onto him like freakish clouds. He would pound at them in his dreams, their flesh squishing like sponges, releasing volumes of rotten ichor upon him, drenching him until he shook from the chill of it all.
Rhodri looked at his hands. He had never seen them like this in his entire life. The tendons and veins stood out. There was no "extra" to him anymore. His skin hung tight on his body. His legs bulged with muscles from making his way up and down the hill.
By all rights, he should be doing fine. He still had some food, though in a month or so, he knew he would have to go back into town, where the dead still milled. But for now, at that very moment, if he had run out of food, he would have just sat there and waited to die. The ships had all disappeared, even the yachts, the pleasure cruisers.
He still kept the fire going, but he didn't know why. He didn't even bother to look at the ocean anymore. When he lit the fire, he stared into the flames, imagining all sorts of things, both nostalgic and sometimes darker. Sometimes, while staring into the flames, he wondered what it would be like to step into them, to let the fire curl over his body and burn him away into nothing. He didn't like to admit it to himself, but the idea had been growing in his head.
He was thinking about how much it would hurt when his radio crackled to life. He had rigged the radio to run on a couple of car batteries. To be honest, it had been so long since he had talked to anyone over it that he
