After some time we began to approach what was clearly a ribbon of black smoke rising just beyond the next hill. We fanned out cautiously, clicking the safeties off on our weapons.
We waded through a slow-moving stream emptying into the sea, and then rounded a low rise and discovered the cause of the smoke. A semitrailer, gutted by fire, was smoldering alongside the road. The air smelled like burnt rubber. Sacks of rice were scattered about, bleeding their contents onto the earth. Zeller and I each picked up a half-empty bag and put it into our rucksacks. They were heavy.
We looked around cautiously as we moved through the wreckage. We looked for signs of what had happened, but there was nothing to go on. So we moved out again, heading in the direction that we hoped to be forward.
As we walked along the beach, Santiago brooded. “We’ll have been gone for a week soon, and they have no way to find us. If we find a good place in the next few days we’ll stop and stay there. They’ll be looking for us up and down the highways. The rice will tide us over for a few weeks, maybe longer. We have to stay close to the road. Eventually they’ll come back through here.”
NINE
EARLY THAT AFTERNOON WE CAME ACROSS ONE OF THE strangest things I had ever seen: a hundred yards or so up from the shoreline was an abandoned caboose on a small stretch of railroad tracks that disappeared into the sand in both directions.
There was a wooden bunk-bed frame and a table inside the caboose, and a single lightbulb in a socket overhead.
“I’ll take that bunk,” Santiago said, pointing at the bed frame.
Zeller and I smiled. “It’s all yours,” I said.
We threw our bags into a corner, and quickly decided to stay there and wait out the rain. We’d use this shelter as a base camp of sorts, exploring during the days. We had enough rice to last a month, and we’d have the fish for at least the first week. Then we’d figure out something else.
We tore the bunk-bed frame from the wall and hacked it to pieces. Santiago told us to leave the table for another day. Zeller and I used our e-tools to break a small hole in the ceiling to let the smoke out.
The wood was thoroughly rotten, so it was hard to get a fire going. When we finally did, the smoke exited from the hole in the ceiling as well as two shattered windows. It must have made quite a sight from outside.
That first night we heard the sound of gunfire in the distance. I stepped out into the deluge and looked up and down the beach. There was nothing but the wind, coming in cool off the ocean.
We took turns pulling guard duty the first few days, though it was really just a matter of listening to the rain. I’d occasionally look out one of the windows, observing the slight changes in the light and longing for a sleep so deep that it would carry me home.
For meals we scrubbed the rice and soaked it in rain water. We boiled it in our canteen cups. When a thin film of dirt rose to the top of the boiling water, we’d skim it away. After we ate the rice we drank the water in which we’d boiled it, leaving the dregs and dirt on the bottom.
During the days we took turns exploring, walking for miles in every direction. But we never found anything other than stray dogs. As we returned to our camp we’d pick up gnarled branches and bits of deformed trees to use as firewood.
The rain was the only constant. And when it changed in texture or intensity, it moved all at once like a body in motion, like a flock of birds.
After we’d passed a few days in the caboose, I awoke one night to find Santiago sitting in the doorway, staring out at the ocean. A heavy rain pounded the roof. We never had enough wood to keep the fire going through the night, so I could barely see Santiago’s features against the sky. I lay there on the floor, wrapped in my poncho liner, and watched as his lips moved and his face contorted with emotion. Then he stopped moving and lifted his head to listen to something. I shuffled around and cleared my throat so he would know that I was awake. When he turned toward me I asked him what was going on out there.
He turned back to the ocean. “Listen,” he said, “children.”
I couldn’t hear anything but the rain.
I wanted to tell him it was all right. I wanted to tell him how easy it was to hear things out there. Angels, devils, whole armies passing by, a helicopter’s rotor blades smacking at the waves and desert just out of reach, or everyone you ever loved moving past in a procession.
“I swear to god,” he said, “I heard children playing outside.”
I crawled away from my corner to look out the window across from me, hoping my eyes might see what my ears couldn’t hear. I pushed aside the T-shirt covering the window. The wind was cool and damp on my face and sharp drops of rain pecked at my cheeks. I saw nothing.
I let the T-shirt fall back into place and crawled back to my resting place. Then I put my cheek down on the rough floor and closed my eyes.
“They’re not there,” Santiago said. “I looked too, but I couldn’t see them. I’m losing my mind.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “You’re fine.”
“You don’t hear them though, do you?”
“Just don’t answer them,” I said. “Don’t think about it.”
I rustled under my poncho liner, rubbing my hands to warm up. For a moment I could see Santiago’s silhouette in the doorway. Then he turned his back to me, filling most of the frame. I could
