Where Oceans Hide Their Dead by John Yunker

Author:John Yunker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: novel, environmental, thriller, Australia, activism, vegan
Publisher: Ashland Creek Press
Published: 2019-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

24.

In the dream she is dressed in white, only not a wedding dress but a suit befitting a space-age flight attendant. It fits her perfectly, and she can feel eyes upon her and she’s holding blue flowers she doesn’t recognize. Ahead, far away, stands a man. She blinks to focus, but either he is blurry or his back is to her—she can’t be sure. Chad? She is walking and picking up the pace but her ankles are beginning to give out on the six-inch heels, also white, and she feels her upper body beginning to wobble until she is falling, until she opens her eyes.

A hand is on her shoulder. She looks up to see a pen light directed onto a face, the outline of a baseball cap. As she shakes off the dream, she sees Brad’s eyes catch the light, and he whispers, “You still want to go on that adventure?”

She wonders what time it is and what he is doing here and whether he can smell her breath. Mouth closed, she nods.

She meets him outside in the darkness by the picnic table.

“What took you so long?” he says.

“It’s not easy to pack in the dark.”

“Let’s go.” He turns and starts walking.

“Wait.” She stops. “It’s five in the morning.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Who’s going to pick us up at this hour?”

“Nobody. We need to get out of city limits first. Focus on cars traveling to Wellington, not just across town. Can we get started?”

“I don’t even know your last name.”

“It’s Cameron.”

“Brad Cameron,” she whispers to herself. She waits for him to ask her last name, but he has turned his back to her, and she remembers the Lifetime television shows her mom used to watch on rotation, the stupid women and their cheating, deceiving, violent men. Her mom shouting at the women who climbed into strangers’ cars or let them into their homes late at night or followed them down dark and empty roads. She can hear her mom shouting at her right now, and her mouth says something as her mind reels with television dramas, and Brad stares at her, eyes wide. “What did you just say?”

“Did I say something?”

“You just compared me to Ted Bundy.”

“Did I?”

“You’re worried that I’m a serial killer?”

“Of course not. From what I’ve read, Ted Bundy had excellent social skills.”

“For the record, you asked me to hitchhike.”

“Not at five in the morning.”

“Then go back to bed, and I’ll be on my way.”

She stops and watches him walk off. This is absurd, starting this early. But maybe he knows something she doesn’t. And maybe she is getting a small kick out of the madness of it all. The darkness. No other backpackers eyeing you competitively, asking you where you’ve been and where you’re going. And don’t all great adventures begin at ungodly early hours?

She begins to follow him, thinking of what she’ll tell Chad when she gets home. He was hardly supportive when she told him she wanted an adventure, and back then her adventure didn’t include hitchhiking in the dark with strange men.

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