Anomaly by David Kazzie

Author:David Kazzie [Kazzie, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grub Club Publishing
Published: 2018-11-29T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

There he stood, this man to whom she’d committed her life, his hands on his hips, not doing much of anything. The storm had cracked the shell of humidity cloaking the island and now he simply seemed to be enjoying the breeze that had risen in the storm’s wake.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

Her eyes flitted back to Berry, who remained locked in his crouch, waiting for his moment. It was all about to change for Peter, one way or another. The end of this chapter was upon them, and the poor guy didn’t even know it was coming. Countless sunrises and sunsets now behind him. If things went really bad, if she wasn’t able to rewrite a history that Berry undoubtedly believed was already written, Peter’s whole life behind him.

She wondered if Peter still dreamed about a rescue. Of course, in those first days and weeks, such a dream had been big and vibrant. Someone would come. Hell, he was on the most important mission in human history. There would be contingency plans in place, a search team on the ready line, chomping at the bit to save their fallen brothers and sisters. Had he seen the failures of the rescue missions, of the choppers losing altitude, of the sonic booms of them crashing into the ground, of the clouds of smoke rising above the treetops, that achingly lush backdrop of his life falling apart?

Eventually, the dream would have started to die. What had been impossible, unimaginable, that no one was coming for him, had slowly morphed into the possible, into the real. Perhaps he had marked the days with hatches on a thick piece of wood, and one day had become a month, and a month had become a year, and he would have needed a new stick because all that time had passed and no one had come for him.

She pictured him sitting on that beach, his legs crisscrossed, looking out over that endless ocean, nothing but blue wherever he looked, waiting for a rescue that would never come. He would scoop up a handful of sand, as he had done when they had gone to the beach together, and then let it pour out slowly. That detail came rushing back to her right then, this habit of his when they were at the beach. He dug into the sand like a backhoe and came out with a palmful; then he would tip his hand and the tiny grains swirled out like an hourglass emptying itself out. He might be reading, they might be chatting while having a drink, but without fail, that hand would be at work, scooping up the sand and letting it go again. It was soothing to watch him do it, that’s probably why he had done it.

A cough broke her out of her trance, brought her back to reality. Peter was still standing there, still unaware of the situation developing around him. Claire raised her weapon; her hands were shaking so badly she could not settle the sight on Berry’s back.

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