He ducked into the woods a couple of complexes away from Karina and Milo’s, so he wouldn’t scare their neighbors again. The fence was topped with barbed wire, not razor wire, and it was easy enough to wrap his jacket around it and throw himself over. It took more effort than it should have; he’d fallen out of shape in recent weeks. He landed on his feet, but there was a thin tear in his jeans down the length of his shin, and an even thinner tear in his leg, starting where the barb must have gone in above his ankle, and trailing away to just below his knee. It didn’t hurt, at least.
He walked along the fence line, trailing one hand along it, enjoying the sensation. Wrapped in Quiet, he could focus on his fingers and the fence, the metal lattice and the spaces between it, a luxury to be able to experience that without also noticing the footing, the needles, the broken glass, the damp air, the far-off clanging, his position in space. Or noticing, but at a distance, muted, unimportant.
A train passed, moving slower than he would expect this far between stations, and then another in the opposite direction, gathering speed. He was glad again for the Quiet buffering the rattle and the violent displacement of air. He knew it was there, knew how overwhelming it would be without his fortifications. This was a necessary mission. A few minutes later he came to a place where the double track narrowed to single, which explained the slow trains.
When he reached what he thought was the right area, he refocused. He was looking for twelve pills in a gravel sea. Teal, but teal would look gray in this light, and he didn’t want to turn on his phone’s flashlight in case somebody in the apartments saw it. He looked for smooth and rounded, for shine. He was grateful to be too Quiet for embarrassment. This was necessary.
He found his mint tin before any of the pills, and considered that a victory. How far had he thrown the pills? He remembered them arcing through the air, scattering like stars.
After however many minutes, he found a single pill in a grassy patch beside the tracks. He wiped it off, peered at it. Was it his? He didn’t imagine anyone else was wandering around tossing pills. It looked white, but the grass was damp and the color might have bled away. It tasted right, like a slight hint of sugar, like round. It held the right shape on his tongue. He realized after he’d taken it that he’d never taken two in succession before, let alone three, and never taken one while still feeling one, let alone two.
He was having trouble holding thoughts in his head. It was glorious, the Quiet settling heavier and heavier, a welcome weighted blanket. He settled onto his knees in the gravel, picking through handfuls, sifting through then letting them go, watching the stones fall back to earth. He found another pill and put it in the container in his pocket. Found another pill and put it on his tongue. Found another pill and didn’t remember what he was supposed to do with it, so he put it in his pocket beside his phone. Why was he doing this in the dark? He turned on his phone’s flashlight and found three more pills between the tracks.
There was a noise, far away. A noise from outside his blanket, quiet then loud and loud and louder, and a light, bright and bright and brighter. He remembered he was on a train track, and he should get off it, though surely he would hear a train before it came close. He stepped off the track, to be safe, and in perfect time, too, because a train whipped past inches from him, displacing air, displacing David. It was a great sensation, and in the Quiet it was an all-encompassing everything.
The train passed, and he stepped back onto the track and laughed at how good it had felt, and how much better the Quiet was in its wake. In the back of his mind, he fought to hold on to the thought that the last time a train had passed in one direction, another had passed in the opposite direction a moment later. He was on the track, and that was okay, because this train had just passed, except there was only one track, it was single track here, and as he had that thought, something shifted on the track, pinning his left foot.
He had been pinned once before, in a different place, in a different way, a figurative pinning, they had used the words “pinned down” on the radio, we’re pinned down, we’re safe in here for now. He had spotted the first rooftop sniper, and maybe he would have had time to say something except at the same time as he spotted the barrel, he spotted a tiny blue light, a Pilot light, and even with all his raging attentions he paused, because he had never seen a Pilot on the other end of a gun.
In that same moment, McKay fell, a bullet through his neck, which meant David hadn’t been fast enough, he had been distracted, he had failed McKay, and all he could do was put that aside, keep it together, work with the others so they all stayed alive, and David saw the open shop door, and he was shouting, they were all shouting, but he was able to make himself heard, and they spent
