33. Building Blocks

One might call me lucky for getting out, but I don’t think luck should ever be applied to my name or my life.

Yes, I happened to keep running and make a wrong turn. Blame the grinning old fossil or the weirdo baby sounds. The tunnel I sprinted through got bigger and opened up into the mouth of a cave. And yes, I ended up in the woods in the middle of nowhere.

Nowhere being Solitary, nowhere synonymous with Solitary and everything around here.

And yes, sure, I eventually found a side road that I’m walking on right now.

But lucky people can stop shaking.

Lucky people don’t encounter zombies in underground tunnels.

Only stupid people do, and I’m stupid.

The dirt road winds around, but I know it has to eventually connect with some other road.

Either that or morning will come and I’ll eventually see where I’m going.

There’s a part of this that should be fun. Investigating new places and secret passageways and hidden secrets and blah blah blah.

But that’s fun in a video game when you’ve got your buddies next to you and your stomach is full of candy and soda and it’s three in the morning and you know that tomorrow you’ll be hanging at the beach or going to a party or living life.

I’ve been walking for several minutes when I stop and start breathing in and out and desperately try to keep my heart from racing and my body from shaking.

Every time I blink, I see his eyes. Or his lack of eyes.

For a while I’m a mess in the middle of this road. But I fight it and I win.

I fight it and I tell it to go away.

I fight it and I finally grind my teeth in anger as I start walking again.

So I know.

It’s more than I knew yesterday or the day before.

I hear Jared’s words again. You have to lie low. For a while.

I’m really tired of all of this because I don’t understand any of it. I walk faster. I want to bolt up the opening in the bathroom and then

Then what?

I don’t know.

I keep walking but I don’t know.

The world turns bright and changes. Have I been dreaming?

I’m walking in a long, round passageway with glass above me showing the clear blue sky. For a second I try to stop, but the ground is moving. I glance at my feet and see the moving walkway below me.

My clothes are different. I feel different. Everything is vibrant and clear and quiet.

The walkway ends, and I get off.

I’m standing at the edge of wide, empty hallway.

Not a hallway. A terminal.

There are tall windows lining the terminal, showing off the clear blue sky. It’s beautiful, almost like a painting. It’s bright, too, so bright that I almost miss seeing the woman walking down the carpet several gates away from me.

She turns back, and I know without a doubt that it’s Jocelyn.

“Hold on,” I call out as I see her.

Her hair is still long and dark and full, the kind a guy dreams of running his hands through while staring into her eyes. She looks taller, but I notice it’s because she’s wearing heels. She’s dressed up in a long black dress, the kind an adult might wear to go out for a fancy dinner. She doesn’t look like the Jocelyn I remember. She looks grown up.

Something about this, about me, about us, feels different and strange.

I start running, but the faster I run the farther away she seems to be.

Then I blink, and the brightness and the blue turn to black.

I open my eyes and start to slow down and find that I’m still on some deserted dirt road in the hills of Solitary.

I didn’t die and wake up in some weird airport. I didn’t see some woman looking like Jocelyn heading out for a party.

I didn’t see any of that. It was just—

It was just like those tunnels and her eyes were as real as the hollowed-out eyes of the man in them.

I keep walking, heading I don’t know where.

I don’t even believe the noise of the truck or the piercing beams of the headlights when they come from behind me.

It’s only when the truck stops and a voice calls out that I realize that I’m not dreaming.

“What’s your name?” the driver asks after he asks if I need a ride.

There are a lot more things in this life that I need besides just a ride.

Do you have a spare case of hope in the back? Maybe just a six-pack will do?

“Chris Buckley.”

The guy seems ordinary enough. Maybe my mom’s age, maybe younger. He’s got a friendly face that seems familiar for some reason. I decide to take his offer. The sports radio station he initially had turned up loud is now down. The cabin smells like Mexican food.

“Where do you live, Chris?”

“Solitary.”

“This is quite a ways from the downtown.”

“Yeah.”

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah.”

I can’t help thinking about what I just saw in those underground tunnels and about the fact that Mom might be coming home. I see her standing at her sink after taking a shower, and a grisly, aged hand reaching out to grab her legs from the cabinet below.

He’s got a laid-back Southern drawl that relaxes me. “Do you know where you are?”

“Not exactly.”

The man keeps looking at me as if he’s trying to figure out if I’m high or drunk or just stupid.

“I take this way whenever I’m heading to Greenville. It’s a shortcut if you don’t mind the weaving roads. Not a lot of people know about it.”

“So where are we?”

“Technically we’re still in North Carolina, though South Carolina is really close,” the man says. “We’re closer to the older town of Solitary that was burned down years ago. They moved the regular town closer to the tracks, and that’s where it stands now. Not a lot of people know about the original town because it happened years ago. I’m a bit of a historian in my spare time.”

“Do you live in Solitary?”

“No. We live nearby in Lowden. My name’s Jack. So I assume you go to Harrington?”

“Started before Halloween last year. I moved with my mom from the Chicago area.”

“That’s quite the move.”

“Yeah.”

For a second it looks like he’s about to tell me something, then he remains quiet.

“So you going to tell me where your house is?” Jack eventually asks.

“I would if I knew where we were.”

“If I get to the center of town, can you tell me?”

“I can walk from there.”

The guy laughs. “Come on. Looks like you’ve walked enough already. You’re still sweaty.”

I absently wipe my forehead.

“So, you like Harrington?”

“Sure.”

Jack laughs. “That was convincing.”

“It’s more like Harrington doesn’t like me.”

“High school is shorter than you realize. I tell my kids that.”

I nod, but there’s no way I buy it.

“I’m forty-two, and as I get older I see life as these chunks. Blocks of time. Sometimes you just have to get through the block in order to keep moving. That’s what I tell myself when I take odd jobs like the one I just did in Greenville. Strange hours, but it’s money, and nowadays that means a lot.”

I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything.

“Harrington is one of those blocks,” Jack says. “You make it as strong as you possibly can, and then when you’re finally ready, you climb on top of it and step to the next box, whatever that is.”

“So you travel a lot for your work?”

“Yep. Would move if we could, but we can’t. Selling a house is hard these days. And moving to a place means you’ve got something to move to.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Building blocks. That’s what it is. Keep that in mind.”