round-backed, as if he were an old man unable to stand up to the force
of the rain, or as if his spine had been warped by all the moisture.
“Frank, dammit, where are we?”
Frank stopped, unbent his back slightly, lifted his head, and blinked
stupidly.
“What?”
Raising his voice even further, Bobby shouted above the tumult: “Where
are we!”
Pointing to Bobby’s left, Frank indicated an enigmatic, rain shrouded
structure that stood like the ancient shrine of a long dead religion,
perhaps a hundred feet farther down the black beach.
“Lifeguard station!” He pointed the other direction, up the beach,
indicating a large wooden building considerably farther from them but
less mysterious because its size made it easier to see.
“Restaurant. One of the most popular on the island.”
“What island?”
“The big island.”
“What big island?”
“Hawaii. We’re standing on Punaluu Beach.”
“This was where Clint was supposed to take me,” Bobby said. He laughed,
but it was a strange, wild laugh that spooked him, so he stopped.
Frank said, “The house I bought and abandoned is over there.” He
indicated the direction from which they had come.
“Overlooking a golf course. I loved the place. I was happy there for
eight months. Then he found me. Bobby, we have to get out of here.”
Frank took a few steps toward Bobby, out of the mushy mire and onto that
section of the beach where the sand was compacted.
“That’s far enough,” Bobby ordered when Frank was six or eight feet from
him.
“Don’t come any closer.”
“Bobby, we have to go now, right away. I can’t teleport correctly when
I want. That’ll happen when it happens, but at least we have to get
away from this part of the island. He knows I lived here. He’s
familiar with this area. And he may be following us.”
The fiery anger in Bobby was not quenched by the rain; grew hotter than
ever.
“You lying bastard.”
“It’s true, really,” Frank said, obviously surprised by Bobby’s
vehemence.
They were close enough to converse wit out shouting now, but Frank still
spoke louder than usual to be heard over the crackle-hiss-patter-rumble
of the deluge
“Candy came here after me, and he was worse than I’d ever seen him, more
horrible, more evil. He came into my house with a baby, an infant he’d
picked up somewhere, only a month old, he’d probably killed its parents.
He bit into that poor baby’s throat, Bobby, then laughed and offered me
its blood, taunted me with it. He drinks blood, you know, she taught
him to drink blood, and he relishes it now, thrives on it. And when I
wouldn’t join him at the baby’s throat, he threw it waside the way you’d
discard an empty beer can, and he came for me but I… traveled.
“I didn’t mean you were lying about him.”
A wave broke closer to shore than the others, washing around Bobby’s
feet and leaving short-lived, lacelike traceries of foam on the black
sand.
“I mean you lied to us about your amnesia. You remember everything. You
know exactly who you are.”
“No, no.” Frank shook his head and made negating gestures with his
hands.
“I didn’t know. It was a blank. And maybe it’ll be a blank again when
I stop traveling and stay put someplace.”
“Lying shit!” Bobby said.
He stooped, scooped up handsful of wet black sand and threw it at Frank
in a blind fury, two more sopping handsful, then two more. He began to
realize that he was behaving like a child throwing a tantrum.
Frank flinched from the wet sand but waited patiently for Bobby to stop.
“This isn’t like you,” he said, when at last Bobby relented.
“To hell with you.”
“Your rage is all out of proportion to anything you imagine I’ve done to
you.” Bobby knew that was true. As he wiped his wet sand covered hands
on his shirt and tried to catch his breath, he began to understand that
he was not angry at Frank but at what Frank represented to him. Chaos.
Teleportation was a fun house ride in which the monsters and dangers
were not illusory, in which the constant threat of death was to be taken