dalefiction

Jacob looked at his brother for a long time.

“What are you looking at, pit stain?”

Jacob physically recoiled. “Hey, was that necessary?”

“No, I guess not,” Zack said. “More of a bonus.”

“You’re a boner,” Jacob said.

“Oh, nice one. Soooo mature.”

Jacob was silent again, but he continued to look at Zack.

Zack said, “Say it. The suspense is killing me.”

“So …” Jacob said. “So… you really died?”

“You tell me.”

“No, I mean you died, I know that. What I mean is … What I …”

“It was like falling asleep. Except that it felt… I don’t know. It felt really good. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“Really good, like how?”

“You’re such a snot ball,” Zack said. What part of ‘I don’t know how to describe it’ did you not understand?”

“I want to see if you can desribe it, though.”

“You could just try it yourself if you’re so interested.”

Jacob was quiet.

Zack said, “Is that why you’re bugging me? You want to know what it’s like so you can try it?”

“No, I’m just curious. That’s all.”

“It was like flying. Like in a dream where you can fly.”

“I dream that sometimes.”

“Well, what does it feel like in your dreams?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s mostly surprising. I’m surprised that I can fly. I always think, it’s just like in my dreams.”

“It was like that. It was nice. And surprising. Before that I was trying to get up above the water, but then I couldn’t and I breathed the water. It really burned, it hurt a lot. But then it didn’t hurt any more.”

“What do you mean it didn’t hurt?”

“I don’t know, it just didn’t hurt any more. Then it was like… Do you ever have that other dream where you can breathe water?”

“Yeah, that one is surprising, too.”

“It felt like that.”

“You mean you were really breathing the water?”

“No, that still burned. But the rest of me felt like that, like when you can breathe the water. It’s like it’s flowing through you, you know?”

Jacob shook his head.

“And it’s kind of floaty, like when you dream you can fly. I don’t know how to desribe it any better than that.”

Jacob frowned. He looked at his brother for a long time.

“Now what?” Zack said.

“What happened after …” Jacob said. “After … you know. Afterward.”

“Then I was in the water again, and I couldn’t keep my head up.”

“No, between that, when you were– Between when it felt really good and when you were in the water again.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“You mean like you were numb?”

“I mean … It’s more like when you fall asleep. And then you wake up, and it’s like you just fell asleep. And unless you have a dream nothing happens in between.”

“It’s like sleeping?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“You didn’t… I don’t know… see a long tunnel or a white light or anything?”

“No. I just saw the bubbles in the water. Then it was like I woke up, but I was in the water again, trying to swim.”

“Mom was really sad.”

Zack said “Were you sad?”

“Why would I be sad, you stupid butt loogie?” Jacob said, and his face turned red, and he burst into a fit of sobs.

After a moment, when Jacob began to calm down, Zack said, “Butt loogie. That’s a good one.”

“If the foo sh… the foo sh…” Jacob said between sobs. “If the foo shits.”

Jacob wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, then wiped his hand on his shirt. “So… butt loogie,” he said. “Are you going to do it again?”

“Do what again?”

“You know, at the bottom of the pond. When you stop… trying to swim?”

Zack looked at his fingers.

Jacob said, “I think that would kill… I think that would hurt Mom. A lot. She kept blaming herself for it.”

“Well, what about me?” Zack said. “You don’t know what it’s like! You don’t know what it’s like to get stuck and not be able to breathe and you can’t even swim and nobody’s coming and you know you shouldn’t breathe but you have to and you can’t help it. You can’t help it! And then it burns and you can’t get out and there’s no air in it and you can’t get out. You don’t know what it’s like!”

“Well you don’t know what it’s like either! Mom cried and cried for two days.”

“You want to trade places, toad pie?”

Jacob laughed in spite of himself. “No,” he said. “No, I guess not.”

“I guess snot,” said Zack.

“So what are you going to do if it happens again?”

“Will you bring the boat?”

“Yeah,” Jacob said. “Yeah, I’ll bring the boat.”

“If you bring the boat I’ll try not to drown. Deal?”

“Yeah,” Jacob said. “You got a deal, stink foot.”

Ken Lessinger pointed at the computer screen.

Nola Ulrich said, “That doesn’t make sense.”

“I know. The again, the changes that happened yesterday didn’t make sense either.”

“I don’t think that’s the right word.”

“What’s not the right word?”

“Yesterday.”

“So… The changes that happened in the… last cycle… didn’t make sense either. One: the fermion signature changed when, as far as we can tell, everything else about the universe was exactly the same. Two: The fermion signature — the changed fermion signature — is impossible. It’s not allowed by the standard model.”

“So,” Nola said as she bopped Ken on the head, “you can accept time loops, but you can’t accept forbidden fermions?”

“Hrmphh.”

“So we have to figure that this is all connected, right?”

“Right.”

“What did you find out about yesterday’s — excuse me — last cycle’s fermion signature?”

“Nothing. They don’t fit anywhere into the Standard Model. Nobody is even suggesting that such a signature is possible. I found nothing.”

“The case of the barking dog.”

“What?”

“Sherlock Holmes. The case of the barking dog. The dog didn’t bark when the murderer was doing the deed. Holmes noticed that that was important. Why wouldn’t the dog bark?”

“Because it knew the murderer.”

“Exactly. So what I’m saying is,” Nola said, “It’s significant that you didn’t find anything. That’s what you found: That there was nothing to find.”

“So… in this barking dog scenario, what’s the murderer? And how does this dog, this ‘nothing to find’, know the murderer?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to take the metaphor that far. I was just saying that the important fact here is that there is no theory. That’s not a lack of evidence, that’s evidence. It means that nobody predicted this. This is outside of not just the Standard Model, but anyone else’s model. So what does that tell us?”

“That it’s weird,” Ken said, scratching his head. “Nola, what are you getting at?”

“I don’t know. I’m not even sure that I’m getting at anything. Just noticing. But let’s follow this chain of thought and see where it goes, okay?”

“Okay. So where does it go?”

“All we know so far is that this doesn’t fit the known laws of physics.”

“So there are unknown laws.”

“Or,” Nola said, “unknown physics.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning that we’re dealing with some phenomenon where other rules of physics come into play.”

“Like the big bang.”

“Right. As you know, Ken, our laws take us back only so far toward the big bang. The first few microseconds after the big bang are a mystery to us. And why?”

“Because the conditions were so different then that the laws of physics as we know them — the laws as they apply in our everyday world — don’t apply.”

“So, maybe we’re dealing with something like that here. Conditions where normal physics doesn’t apply.”

“You think we created another universe?”

“Or,” said Nola, “a black hole.”

“You think we created a black hole?”

“I don’t know.”

“So where’s the black hole?”

“Well, there’s something else we know. There are two ends to this time loop.”

“You mean it’s going to stop looping?”

“Well, I don’t know whether it’s going to stop. I’m talking about something else. At 2:39 am on Sunday, time reverts to 9:28 pm on Friday. One end of the loop is the moment that we revert to, late Friday. That’s the moment when we saw the Higgs. But what happened at the other end of the loop, the moment that we reverted from?”

“Is that when you think the black hole happened? But we didn’t see anything at that –”

“Of course we didn’t see anything, because time looped before we could see the evidence. The evidence of the black hole is beyond the end of the time loop, and we can’t get there.”

“So how are we going to find out whether there even is a black hole?”

“I don’t know. All we know is that something is causing a loop in time. And that something — maybe the same someting, maybe a different something — is causing fermions to show up that look like muon decay products, but without the mouns. And the specific batch of fermions is outside the Standard Model.”

“Is it possible,” Ken said, “that the muons are being created?”

“The where are they?”

“They’re at the other end of the time loop.”

“That’s nuts,” Nola said. “It’s just nuts enough to be interesting. So something creates the muons, and before they can decay into fermions, time folds back on itself. Is there a way to detect the muons?”

“We probably are detecting them. At least the sensors are. And the data might even reach the computers before the loop. But there’s not enough time to analyze the data and put a notice onto the computer screen. And even if there were, there wouldn’t be enough time for our brains to register it before the time loop.”

“Are you sure there’s no time?”

“No, of course not. But it takes half a second or so for our brains to register what’s coming in through our senses. If the loop happens between them time when the photons hit our eyes and the time when our brains register the information, we’ll never notice it.”

“But our minds survive the time loops. What if the signal hits our eyes microseconds before the time loop hits. Wouldn’t it register in our minds? Wouldn’t we register it half a second later in subjective time, at the beginning of the next cycle?”

“I don’t know. I think that depends on the quirks of how our minds work. Is your optic nerve involved directly in your consciousness? Or is it just an input, and only our brains have anything to do with consciousness?”

“So,” Nola said, “We aren’t sure whether we have any way to detect the muons — if there are any — at the… downstream end of the time loop.”

“No. I guess we could set up the detectors to do the best they can to translate the signal to the computers, and the computers to translate it to the screen, as quickly as possible. It’s worth a try.”

“But wait a minute,” said Nola. “There’s something else that survives the loop. The muons do, or the fermions do, or … what … the process that turns muons into fermions.”

“So you think the fermions exist at the downstream end of the loop, and somehow survive into the upstream end?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Then that’s two things that survive. Consciousness, and the fermions. And not just any fermions, but those specific fermions. Why those and not others?”

“Like I said, I have no idea. I’m just thinking out loud here, not making any real claims.”

“So what’s the missing link? What’s pumping the muons out of one end of the loop and spitting out fermions at the other end?”

“Why,” said Ken, “It’s the MuFe pump, of course.”

“What the hell is a muffie pump?”

Ken laughed. “It’s nothing. I just made it up. Something that sucks up muons and spits out fermions is a muon-fermion pump. A MuFe pump.”

“Sounds like something you’d buy at a porn shop,” Nola said.

Ken looked away. “I’m trying to picture that…” he said.

“You’re such a man.”

“You brought it up!” Ken said. “Hey, now I know what I can get you for Christmas.”

“If there ever is another Christmas,” Nola said.

Rynn Haney floated in space again.

Houston had warned her that it might happen again. Of course, they had no explanation for what was happening, but NASA engineers were experts in risk management, and when their people were in space they left no possibility unconsidered. They weighed the possibility — guessed, in other words, Rynn thought — that the time loop would happen again. Very low probability, given that CERN had shut the Large Hadron Collider down, but not zero probability. They weighed the possibility that if it were to happen again it would happen at the same time. This was harder to gauge, given that nobody knew what had happened at the later end of the loop to cause time to revert to the earlier end, so they could not predict when, if the triggering event happened at all, it would happen again.

Rynn had been on edge for the duration of the last cycle, unable to sleep or even rest. She was trained in a zillion kinds of specific emergencies, and trained in coping emotionally and intellectually with the unpredictable emergencies — what former Sec Def Rumsfeld had called the unknown unknowns.

Always be ready for anything. That was the easy way to say it. But that was beyond Rynn. It was beyond any human, she thought. Nobody could stand to be on edge all the time, waiting for anything to happen. So you made assumptions and you acted as if they were true. And when the assumption went spinning out the window — or out of the space shuttle, as it were — you called on your training. Observe, orient, decide, act. That was the mantra, that was Colonel Boyd’s OODA loop. Observe what is happening around you, orient yourself, make a decision, and act. Easy to say, not so easy to do. Each step was filled with traps. In an emergency, there is too much information to observe, so you focus (if you can) on the most salient features. This wasn’t always easy, or even possible, because you may not know what features of the situation are salient. Orienting depended on being able to pick out the salient features of the situation; but picking out the salient features depended on being oriented. A catch twenty two. Deciding was obviously problematic, especially on your first cycle through the OODA loop. How can you make a good decision with horribly inadequate information and an unstable orientation? But that was why you had to decide quickly, so that you could act. Acting would produce new information that you could observe on your second pass through the OODA loop.

Observe, orient, decide, act.

It was very helpful if you could orient yourself before jumping into the emergency, if you had time to orient yourself.

Bob Lyman, mission ground director in Houston, had prepared her with a countdown. They didn’t know, of course, whether the time anomaly would happen again. Nobody knew. But to be on the safe side, they had made the assumption — knowing that it was an assumption — that if the loop were going to happen, it would happen at the same time.

“Atlantis, anomaly confirmed,” the voice said in her ear.

“Bonus EVA confirmed,” Rynn said, “How many E tickets do I have left?”

Bob said, “Prepare for reboarding.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Bob,” Rynn said.

“We need you safe, Rynn. Prepare to reboard.”

“What about this gash? I have to spackle it.”

“We can decide that once you’re inside. Prepare to reboard. Please, Rynn. We can decide once you’re inside.”

“I’ve opened the NOAX already. It’s use it or lose it time. We don’t get a second chance to repair this gash.”

“We need you safe Rynn. Prepare to reboard. That’s an order.”

Time for step three, Rynn thought. Decide.

“Sir, with all due respect, if I don’t fix the skin now, in the next 20 minutes, I’m putting all seven of us at risk.”

Several seconds passed in silence.

Rynn wanted to make sure Houston was crystal clear about her intentions. “I’m going to patch the skin, Bob.”

Jude Elliott thought, Man, death is weird. He had heard that at the moment of death your life passes before your eyes. But he didn’t know it meant that you have to live the moment of death itself over and over.

He looked down from the fire escape. Did he have to jump? What if he didn’t jump? Would he still be dead? He didn’t know the rules. Death was weird. He hadn’t expected this, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep doing it, even if he had to.

Maybe this was some kind of cosmic second chance. A test, to see whether you really, really, really wanted to be dead. If you jumped enough times, you got to stay dead.

Jude swung his leg over the railing.

“Hey!” a voice called from below.

Jude looked down and didn’t see the caller.

“Over here,” the voice said. Toward the end of the alley was a man coming out of an open door in the building across the alley. In his hand was a black garbage back with a red tie.

Power tie, Elliott thought, and laughed.

“For Christ’s sake, stop jumping,” the man said. “For my sake, even. Jesus you make a godawful mess. I threw up both times. So stop it, okay?”

Jude said, “It’s a test.”

“What?”

Louder, Jude said, “It’s a test. To see if I really want to go through with it.”

“I don’t think it’s a test, man. The news said it was some kind of worldwide time thing, some kind of hiccup in time. I don’t think this is about you.”

“Just in case,” Jude said, and stepped forward into empty air.

Erika Howard woke up screaming, again, and in labor, again.

Tom, the nurse, said, “Uh oh…”

Erika said, “I thought you weren’t supposed to say ‘uh oh’ in an operating room.”

“It looks as if we’re going to have to do this all over again,” said Doctor Obvious.

“Any chance we can take the fast lane this time, doc?”

“The fast lane?”

“Grab your butcher knife and go in after him,” Erika said. “I mean, I love the kid and all, but I don’t think I want to go through labor three times for him.”

“I have a hunch,” said Doctor Morris, “that this won’t be the last time.”

“Oh, don’t you tell me that, you son of a bitch.” Erika propped herself up on her elbows and shook her head decisively from side to side. “Don’t you fucking tell me that.”

Olin noticed the sound first. He had been sitting quietly in his living room. At least, outside of his head had been quiet. Inside his head was a jumble of words. Not quite coherent thoughts, but lots of words, as he tried to cope with the paralyzing fear he had felt for the past 29 hours. He had thought several times to grab his clubs out of his closet — in the time loop, his clubs had reappeared in his closet, magically transported from the 18th hole at Hillcrest — and drive out to the golf course. But whenever he imagined himself winding back for a tee shot, an image that usually calmed him profoundly, he began to shake uncontrollably.

For the past 29 hours he had alternated between that unfairly fear inducing image and an image of a life in which he could never play golf again, for fear of finding himself suddenly hurtling down the 10 at 70 miles per hour.

He had moments of respite, moments of relative relief from the images in his head.

And it was in one of those moments of respite, one of those moments of relative calm, that Olin Montgomery found himself again in his Mercedes, hurtling southward on the 10 at 70 miles per hour.

The white pickup truck in front of him, swerved and went up on two wheels. A bucket of rakes tumbled ofer the side, bounced on the asphalt, and flipped in mid-air. As the bucket flew past Olin’s SUV, the rakes were all miraculously still in it.

The pickup then smacked back down onto all four wheels. It continued to swerve, but did not, as it had last time, go into an uncontrolled spin.

One of the white pickup truck’s taillights lit up. Olin jammed his foot on the brake pedal. He wanted to look in the rear view mirror to see whether anyone was bearing down on him, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off of the chaos in front of him.

Everywhere in front of the white truck and beside it taillights were lighting up. There were, Olin noticed with a kind of shock, no collisions. Or, at least, none that he could see.

Traffic in front of him slowed, rapidly but orderly. Olin peeked in his mirror. Traffic behind was slowing, too.

He was going to get out of this one unscathed.

And, he realized to his horror, there was probably going to be a next time, and a next.

But he had managed this time, as had other people. He was learning, and they were learning.

Mamie Levine found herself in the living room again. Now, what the dickens?

Pickles started to meow, and choked it off in a startled “meep.”

“I’ve lost my marbles, Pickles, dear. Have you seen my marbles?”

Pickles sat on his haunches, looking up at Mamie. His tongue lolled out of his mouth. And he was panting again.

“Oh, dear, you’re all upset again.” Mamie bent down and picked up the cat, who went limp in her arms. “You’re shaking. What’s gotten into you?”

Mamie rolled Pickles onto his back, but he wriggled himself upright again. He usually loved having his belly rubbed. But he was still shaking. Shaking and panting.

“You’re really upset, aren’t you Pickles?” Mamie said.

Pickles just panted.

“Maybe you’d like some milk. That always helps.”

Mamie carried Pickles into the kitchen, stroking him and humming softly. As she stepped onto the kitchen floor, her foot slipped and her legs splayed, tossing cat one way and Mamie the other.

“What the ding dang?” Maybe squeaked.

The floor was wet. The whole floor was wet, including a few puddles in the low spots of the uneven linoleum.

And in the corner, the mop stood in a blue bucket.

Mamie stared at the mop, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Finally, she said, “Well, Pickles, I guess if I’m going to go crazy, I might as well be have a clean house.”

Pickles looked at Mamie and quiverred.

Ken Lessinger squinted at his computer monitor.

Not again.

The phone rang. Ken picked it up.

Before Ken could even say hello, Nola said, “Okay, Ken, explain it. The collider was off this time. So we couldn’t have cause it. Right?”

“Oh, I think there’s more to it than you know,”

“You’ve got to stop saying stuff like that,” Nola said. “What now?”

“The fermions are different again.”

“Different from what, from the first time?”

“From the first time; from the second time. This is a whole new signature.”

“I’ll be right over,” Nola said.

Ken spun the energy spectra on the screen. He fiddled with the colors and stacking order. No matter how he looked at it, the data said the same thing. The same weird thing. The same impossible thing.

Jacob Anderson was crying still. Not again, but still. He had cried for what seemed like a year. He had watched his brother die, and he had stood by paralized, unable to bring himself to help. And what could he do? He didn’t know how to swim any more than Zack did.

So Jacob crying, and in such despair over the loss of his brother that it took him a moment to realize that he was standing in the cold water of the pond.

“Double,” Zack said.

Jacob screamed.

On the beach, his mother screamed.

Double. The boat!

Jacob tried to run, but the water pushed back against him.

He heard his brother gasping and splashing.

“Zack, hold on! I’m getting the boat,” he said. “Just like you said, I’m getting the boat!”

He pushed slowly through the water toward the reeds where the boat lolled.

Come on! Jacob commanded himself. On the double.

Jacob saw movement on the beach. He turned to see his mother, her face ashen, racing into the water toward Zack.

“Yes, Jacob!” she shouted. “The boat. That’s a brave boy!”

Jacob began to cry, to panic. “I’m going for it, Mom. I’m going to try.” And he turned and slogged through the water into the weeds.

He reached the rickety, rotting boat and pulled. It didn’t move. He tugged again, harder, and the boat broke free from the reeds. Jacob lost his balance and fell backward into the water. He tried to stand, and bumped his head on the boat, which had drifted over him. He yelped, and it came out as a blubbing bubble of air. He felt a rush of water into his lungs and stomach. The water was cold in his stomach, chilling him. But the water in his lungs burned.

Jacob reached up to feel where the boat was. The bottom was slimy, but he held onto it while he moved out from underneath. He stood up and coughed, shooting out a gout of water. He coughed again and again, doubling over in pain.

“No!” he shouted, and vomited water and hot dog chunks. I’m not going to want mac and cheese after this.

He turned around. He couldn’t see Zack or his mother. He couldn’t see splashes that might tell him where they were. He hoped he could remember where they went down before.

He grabbed the rim of the boat and jumped, trying to pull himself up onto the edge. The boat tipped. Jacob lost his grip and fell backward into the water again. He reached up to feel the boat, not wanting to bump his head again.

Damn, he wouldn’t have time to get in the boat. He would have to tug it along behind him as he slogged through the water.

He began to run, or to try to run. He lost his footing, but held onto the edge of the boat. And it started to move.

Yes, he thought. I can swim. With the boat, I can swim.

He kicked his legs and waved his free arm in the water. He and the boat started slowly to move toward the deadly dropoff.

Ahead of him, maybe forty feet ahead, his mother’s head popped out of the water, facing away from Jacob. She spun and looked toward Jacob.

“Hurry, honey!” she said. “I can’t find him.”

She dived, and Jacob swam.

As he reached the spot where he thought she had been, he stopped kicking, but the boat kept moving. He swiveled his legs in the water and kicked. The boat slowed to a stop.

Jacob held the side of the boat with both hands and lowered himself slowly, trying to reach the bottom with his feet. But the water reached his chin and he still hadn’t touched bottom. He must have been out past the dropoff.

What if they come up, he thought. I can’t help like this.

He spun so that his legs pointed under the boat, away from the shore, and kicked. The boat slowly moved with him toward the shore.

He lowered his feet again and touched the sandy bottom, just as the water came up past his chin.

He had to get into the boat. Then he could reach down and help them when they came to the surface. If they came to the surface.

“No,” he said out loud. “They will come.”

He crouched in the water and gripped the side of the boat with both hands. He knew that when he pulled, the boat would tip, but this time he was ready for that. He jumped and pulled with everything he had. The edge of the boat tipped down toward him as he rose toward it. He flopped forward on his belly onto the edge of the boat. The boat listed wildly toward him, then rocked back. The edge was nearly under the water.

Jacob wriggled toward the center of the boat. The boat wobbled precariously, but the edge remained above the water.

Jacob stretched his arm forward, grabbed the edge of the seat as far away as he could reach, and pulled. The boat rocked one way, then the other. Jacob flopped, heavy and wet, into the boat. His face scraped along the dry, splintery edge of the seat, and he could feel his skin rip.

He heard splashes beyond the boat.

“Jacob, help!” his mother said.

He jerked up onto his knees in time to see his mother drop below the surface again, just beyond the edge of the boat. Too far to reach with his hands. He was too far away to help!

He grabbed the oar, leaned out, and paddled the boat further out from the shore. After a few strokes, he thought — he hoped — he was out far enough. He dropped the paddle into the boat and leaned over the edge.

He felt a bump through the bottom of the boat.

Oh, God, he had gone too far! They were trapped under the boat. He was making things worse. He was going to kill them both!

He heard a splash from the shoreward edge of the boat. He turned to see a hand — his mother’s hand — grip the edge of the boat.

Jacob yelled, “Did you get him? Is he okay?”

His mother coughed, and he felt the boat tilt toward her. He leaned toward her to help.

“No, Jakob, lean the other way,” his mother said.

Jacob leaned away from her and the boat leveled.

His mother coughed again.

“Did you get Zack!” Jacob screamed.

His mother reached up and lay her forearm along the edge of the boat. Jacob could see her now, her head out of the water. And Zack’s head half in and half out of the water.

“Jacob, lean away from me again.”

Jacob leaned toward the other side of the boat.

He heard Zack cough. Thank God!

“Just keep leaning, honey. I’ll kick us toward the shore.”

The boat started moving.

Jacob looked into the water. The deep black of the deep water gave way to a pale, sickly green.

“Mom, I think we’re over the sand!”

The boat rocked as his mother released the edge. Jacob saw her moving away toward the shore with Zack in her arms.

“Wait,” Jacob cried. “How do I get in?!”

“You’re in a boat!”

Jacob looked down at the boat. Oh crap, how stupid could he be? He lost his balance and fell into the bowl of the boat. He started laughing. He couldn’t help himself.

His mother reached the shore with Zack. She lay Zack onto the sand and looked back toward Jacob.

“I’m okay,” Jacob said, and shifted himself onto the seat.

His mother turned toward Zack and tilted his head to the side. Zack cough up water.

Jacob picked up the paddle, but he couldn’t reach over the edge from his position in the middle of the seat. He shifted to the side and the boat tilted. He slid back to the middle, unsure what to do.

On the beach, Zack said, “What’s Jacob doing out there?”

Jacob started laughing again. Laughing and crying at the same time.

Zack said, “What’s so fucking funny?”

Their mother started to laugh, and it sounded weird, like maybe she was crying, too.

Jacob slide gently to the side of the boat. He waited for it to stop rocking, then reached the oar over the side and paddled.

A moment later the boat scraped to a stop in the sand. Jacob stepped gingerly over the side and felt for the sand with his foot. When his foot touched solid ground he ran to where his mother and Zack sat by the edge of the water.

Jacob thought about the bump he had felt through the bottom of the boat. “I’m sorry,” Jacob said. “I thought I had trapped you with the boat.”

His mother squeezed his arm. “It’s okay, sweetie. You were wonderful. You’re a hero.”

“I almost drownded you,” he said.

“We’re okay,” she said. “We’re all okay. All of us.”

“Hey, you got the boat,” Zack said, as if he had just realized this. “That’s pretty smucking fart.”

“Zack,” their mother said, “in about two minutes I’m going to stop cutting you slack about your language.” But she was smiling.

Suddenly she frowned. “Zack, what were you doing down there. It looked as if you were waving me away.”

“I was trying to breathe the water.”

“My God, Zack, why?”

“That’s what I did last time. It was peaceful.”

Suddenly their mother burst into tears. “Zack, you died last time. You died, Zack!”

“It hurt at first, but then it was really calm.”

Their mother began sobbing.

“Zack!” Jacob said, “Shut up!”

Zack turned to Jacob, a look of horrible, puzzled pain on his face. “What?”

Their mother took Zack’s face gently in her hands. “Sweetie, we lost you.”

“I died?”

She pulled Zack’s head to her chest and kissed the top of his head.

He pulled back and looked her seriously in the eye. “I died?”

“If this happens again,” she said, “you do everything you can to stay with us, okay? I don’t know why this keeps happening, but if it happens again, do everything you can, okay?”

“Okay,” Zack said. “But it wasn’t so bad…”

“Well, it was for us,” she said. “It was awful for us. Your brother and your dad and me. We’re not ready to lose you yet. Right Jacob?”

“Yeah,” Jacob said. “It sucked.”

“So you do everything you can, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And we will always come for you. No matter how many times this happens, we will always come for you.”

Jacob looked away toward the boat. He began to cry, and then he began to sob.

He killed me twice, Zorem Bigote thought. He thought. He thought. Which meant that he was thinking. Which meant that he was alive. Again.

“Get the fuck off me!” Faith shouted.

Zorem realized that he was on top of Faith. Inside Faith. Faith who was married to Dan. Dan who had killed him twice. Twice so far.

“I said get off me!” Faith shoved upward with both hands, and Zorem fell sideways off the bed.

“What the hell,” Zorem said. “What’s happening?”

“You’re a fucking coward, that’s what’s happening,” Faith said. “Are you going to let him kill us again?”

“Heeeeere’s Johnny!” Dan said from the doorway. He was, of course, holding the gun.

Zorem dropped onto his belly and scrambled under the bed.

“You fucking coward!” Faith yelled. “You fucking coward!”

“Yes, a fucking coward,” Dan said. “And a cowardly fucker, too.”

The bed started to move. Dan was pulling the bed away.

Dan’s hands appeared beneath the bed. Then his face. He was kneeling beside the bed, holding the gun in one hand.

The bed jerked. How could that be possible?

“You fucking coward,” Faith said, and the bed jerked again.

Dear God, she was helping him. Faith was helping this madman.

Zorem screamed, “Faith, help me. Help me!”

Dan smiled. “I don’t think she likes you any more, goat boy.”

Zorem heard footsteps in the doorway. She was running away. Faith was running away! “Now who’s the coward!”

A gunshot blast filled the air.

Faith yelped, and Zorem heard her tumble down the stairs with a scream.

“Hey goat boy,” Dan said.

Zorem turned toward Dan. Toward Dan’s gun, which Dan was pointing straight at Zorem’s crotch.

“No, not the crotch!” Zorem said. He was surprised to hear his voice crack. Instinctively, though he knew it was foolish, Zorem covered his privates with his hands.

“You may be a coward, goat boy, but chivalry isn’t dead yet,” Dan said, and fired.

The pain was immediate and intense and all-encompassing. Zorem screamed, and the pain grew louder. It’s too much, Zorem thought.

“Kill me,” he said. “Kill me quickly.”

Dan stood up.

“Please!” Zorem said.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Dan said.

The bed moved, and Zorem was totally exposed. Naked and exposed.

“Kill me now,” he said. “Please!”

Dan leaned against the bureau and folded his arms.

The pain grew louder.