The Resurrected Compendium Read online

  Two uniformed policemen pushed past them, heading into the club. A police car, lights flashing but siren silent, pulled into the parking lot. Two more cops got out. By unspoken agreement, the four of them edged away from the police and moved along a curving sidewalk imprinted with what looked like skulls-and-crossbones. Out here, the air was cooler and Doug paused to tug his sweatshirt from around his waist. He didn’t put it on though, instead eyeing her bare shoulders. He held it out.

  Kathleen shook her head. “I’m ok.”

  “You sure?”

  Her ears were still ringing from the music, and it was strange to hear his voice at a normal level, but his smile hadn’t changed. She shook her head again, even though the truth was, the night air had raised gooseflesh on her arms and her teeth were trying to chatter. His sweatshirt would be soft and warm, and it would probably smell like him.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m good.”

  Slightly behind them, Molly and Doug’s friend, whose named turned out to be Steve, were talking and laughing, a little loud and raucous, but not as out of control as most of the people in the parking lot. Another cop car pulled into the lot, followed this time by an ambulance. It wasn’t an uncommon site in Ocean City — Saturday nights were rife with alcohol poisoning and bar fights. But it did seem a little ominous that the lights were on, while the sirens were not.

  “Doesn’t that mean something?” Kathleen asked, pointing, and looked at Doug. “I mean, when just the lights are on? That someone’s dead?”

  He gave her a funny look and she realized she sounded like a dork, but what else was new? He’d already seen her Running Man. She laughed. Shrugged.

  Doug laughed too, but he sounded a little strange. He looked back at the club. “I hope not.”

  She hoped not too, but as they watched the EMTs and more police enter the club, all she really wanted to do was get out of there. Two a.m. wasn’t her hour any longer, even though she wasn’t tired. Not one bit.

  “Maybe it’s true, what they were saying on the TV,” Molly said.

  Kathleen had seen the stories, watched her tweetstream fill up with jokes about the evangelical preacher who’d been claiming he’d come back from the dead. She hadn’t paid much attention — there was too much of that stuff, too much access to the stupidity of men who thought texting pictures of their junk was a good idea or women who were pregnant by another woman’s husband bemoaning how the world thought they were whores. If you’d poked her hard enough with something sharp, she’d have admitted she consumed this sort of trashy news because the other kind about children dying, natural disasters, the national debt, made her too anxious. There was nothing she could do about any of it except get through her life as best she could, and sure, that made her an ostrich with her head in the sand. She could own it.

  “What was on the TV?” Steve’s toe caught the edge of a concrete curb and he stumbled, but caught himself. Grinned at Molly, his hands up. “I’m good!”

  He wasn’t that good, he was pretty drunk. What hadn’t mattered much on the dance floor was less charming now that the night was working its way toward morning and the four of them were wandering somewhat aimlessly toward the beach. Kathleen didn’t think Molly’d told him where they were staying…but she couldn’t be sure.

  “The guy says he was dead for three days, and then he came back.” Molly grabbed at Steve’s arm to steady him, and the pair hopped another curb, this time more successfully.

  “Bullshit.” Doug snorted and took Katy’s elbow to help her around a spray of broken glass glittering under the streetlamp. He didn’t let go, either, and she discovered she didn’t mind. “It’s made up.”

  Kathleen shivered, not just from the cold. Doug pulled her a little closer to his side as they walked, and she was glad for the warmth. “He had witnesses.”

  “Yeah, from his followers.” Molly and Steve had gone on ahead, crossing the street, but Doug held her back for a second as the light changed and the traffic moved.

  Her foot had already been off the curb, stepping onto the white lines painted on the asphalt, but at his tug Kathleen stepped back. She watched her friend pointing toward the apartment building where they were staying. The wind lifted, bringing the sound of their voices but scattering the words so Kathleen could only hear a few of them. It sounded like Molly was inviting Steve to sit on the balcony, but then the traffic, snarled and thick with all the cars leaving the parking lot, cut them off from each other.

  At truck blew past her, lifting the edge of her skirt, and though she wasn’t truly in any danger of being hit, Doug pulled her a little more firmly away from the street. Right up against him. It was different than it had been in the club,when music was an excuse to get up tight and close. Now she really had no reason other than she wanted to, and that was going to lead to trouble. She couldn’t quite manage to care enough to push away from him.

  “Hey,” he said, looking down at her.

  Kathleen smiled. “Hey.”

  The traffic cleared. They broke apart and crossed the street, but anticipation had crackled there between them and it wasn’t going away. On the other side of the highway, Molly and Steve had already gone up a block. Their laughter carried on another gust of that same wind, and Kathleen closed her eyes for a minute as she did every single time she approached the ocean. She breathed it in.

  “I love the ocean,” she said aloud, and the next words came out tasting like salt. Gritty like sand. “I love the smell of it, I love the feeling of the sand, I love walking in the water. I fucking love everything about it.”

  “Your friend and my friend are going somewhere.”

  She looked at him, then past the apartment building to where the sand spilled into the parking lot. There was a dune there, a wooden fence leaning slantways. Sea grass shuddered in the wind. Beyond that was the beach, and past that, the ocean.

  “She’s taking him up to our place, I guess.” Kathleen looked up. They were in Unit 1699, close to the top floor. She thought about going after them, but paused when she heard the scrape of an aluminum chair on concrete and the low burble of laughter. She caught a glimpse of one of the towels they’d hung over the railing earlier. Dark shapes. They were on the balcony. She looked at Doug. “Let’s walk down by the water.”

  Nothing was truly dark in Ocean City — except for the ocean itself. Light from the parking lot bathed the edges of the sand, and if she turned to look back toward the towering buildings there’d be lights there too. But she didn’t look back, she looked forward, out across the dark sand and out across the black water. No moon or stars to reflect, nothing but the steady and constant shushing of the sea as it crashed and crept up on the sand.

  Kathleen paused to take her shoes off, her hand on his shoulder to steady herself. The sand was cold on her toes, and it would be colder down by the water. Suddenly she couldn’t wait for it. She tossed her shoes, not even noting where they landed.

  She ran.

  She couldn’t judge the water’s edge and so just headed for the sound. She caught a glimpse of white as a wave crashed. She might’ve only imagined the spray, but she didn’t think so. She breathed in again and flung out her arms, laughing with the pleasure of running into the water.

  She didn’t get that far. The first icy splash hit her toes, and she gasped. She turned, still laughing, and saw Doug. Her laughter left her like it had been slapped out of her, because for a moment she was convinced it wasn’t him. That it was someone else. Something else.

  In the next moment a hint of light caught on his glasses, and she let out a breath though her heart was still pounding and the pulse was throbbing in her wrists and at the base of her throat. When he took her hand, that seemed natural enough. When he pulled her close again, that seemed all right too. Her life at home was frustrating, boring, tedious; she got through her days just waiting for the time when she could crawl into bed and close her eyes and dream of things she wanted and didn’t have. Her life at home was gratifying, satisfying, full of joy