THAT NIGHT A TERRIBLE DREAM. ONE IN WHICH THE LIGHTS OF the world were melting down upon him. The sun was a black dot and gave off a heat so intense that the very air felt a repudiation to breathing. He was cast about over the wet sand of low tide and the tidelands were infinite. It was snowing lightly despite the awful heat and the flakes were drifting down to the sand as if gravity did not hinder them. On closer examination, it was not snow but ash and he held out his hand to catch one and the falling ash appeared like sheds of dead skin. And within this the demented warble of a nameless songbird kept ratcheting out. It seemed to be heralding dawn but dawn could not happen here. Out in front of him there were figures lying in repose and spaced evenly at ten feet or so in a perfectly straight line. He walked away from the shoreline. In the tide pools there were neon crabs and balls of eels thin as pencils and barnacled flounders all huddled at the pool’s drying edges with mouths agape and sucking air on the surface. He walked on. Closer he came he saw the burned body of Molly Summers. Beyond her was the hanged man and further on he saw the bodies of the dead woman in the chair and the man who’d been shot and all of these bodies were lying naked over the sand.
The air was still and the only sound was of the bird somewhere in the distance. He knelt beside the body of Molly Summers. Her skin was no longer burned; she looked almost peaceful, like she was sleeping. The warble of the bird grew louder and with it the dull roar of water. He stood and looked toward the black sea. A gnashing line of white spilled toward him. He took a step toward it in disbelief. It seemed miles away and then all at once it was upon him. He turned to run. The water rose up. His feet pounded over the wet sand. He turned once and saw the wave lift up the body of the girl. The bodies of the two men and the woman. The dead limbs flailing like kelp. The birdsong was gone. There was only the water. The black sun’s heat raging in his lungs. Then like a giant hand it scooped him up and he rolled in the water. His eyes were closed and it boomed all around him. Then it all went silent and he opened his eyes and looked down at his feet to a deep ocean where no light could reach. He saw the corpses suspended in the water, their limbs and hair lifting and falling in slow undulation. And then as if on a timer their eyes snapped opened and they started swimming toward him and the fright made him take in a bellyful of water. And then he woke up.