Marcus Sakey - The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes

The Blade Itself At the Citys Edge Good People The Amateurs

DUTTON
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Printed in the United States of America Set in Sabon
Designed by Leonard Telesca

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There is no future without an identity to claim it, or to be obligated to it. There are no caging norms. In its very precariousness the state is pure and free.

e was naked and cold, stiff with it, his veins ice and frost. Muscles carved hard, skin rippled with goose bumps, tendons drawn tight, body scraped and shivering. Something rolled over his legs, velvet soft and shocking. He gasped and pulled seawater into his lungs, the salt scouring his throat. Gagging, he pushed forward, scrabbling at dark stones. The ocean tugged, but he fought the last ragged feet crawling like a child.

As the wave receded it drew pebbles rattling across one another like bones, like dice, like static. A seagull shrieked its loneliness.
His lungs burned, and he leaned on his elbows and retched, liquid pouring in ropes from his open mouth, salt water and stomach acid. A lot, and then less, and finally he could spit the last drops, suck in quick shallow lungfuls of air that smelled of rotting fish.
In. Cough it out. There. There.
His hands werent his. Paler than milk and trembling with a panicky violence. He couldnt make them stop. Hed never been so cold.
What was he doing here?
Like waking from sleepwalking, he couldnt remember. It didnt matter. The cold was filling him, killing him, and if he wanted to live he had to move.
He rolled onto his side. An apocalyptic beach, water frothing beneath a shivering sky, wind a steady howl over the shoals, whipping the saw grass to strain its roots. Not another person as far as he could see.
Had to move. His muscles screamed. He staggered upright and tried a tentative step. His thoughts were signals banged down frozen wires; after an eon his legs responded. His feet were bloody.
One step. Another. The wind a lash against his dripping skin. The beach sloped hard upward. Each step brought muscles a little more under his control. The motion warming them, oh god, warming them to razors and nails and blood gone acid. He concentrated on breathing, each inhale a marker. Make it to the next one. Five more. Dont quit until twenty. Goddamn you, breathe.
The boulders the ocean had broken to pebbles gave way to those it hadnt yet, broad stones with moss marking the leeward side, spaced with pools of dark water where spiny things waited. He stumbled from one rock to the next until he reached the top.
As lonely and blasted a stretch of earth as any hed seen. Black rocks and foaming sea and sky marked only by the passage of birds. No. Wait.
He blinked, tried to focus. Two thin dirt tracks led to a splotch of color, a boxy shape. A car. Legs cramping. Breath shallow. He couldnt force his lungs to take. To draw enough. Air. The shivering easing. Bad sign. His feet tangled and he fell. Inches from his eyes, pale grass spotted and marked by the appetite of insects. The ground wasnt so bad. Almost soft. Easy now. Easy to go.
No.
Crawl. Elbows scraping. Knees. Forearms going blue. Blueberries, blue water, blue eyes.
He reached the trunk, pulled himself up, the metal burning cold. Slouched his way to the door and bent stiff fingers around the handle.
Please.
The door opened. He maneuvered around it and fell into the smell of leather. His legs wouldnt move. It took both arms to pull them in, one at a time. Gripping the burnished handle, he yanked the door shut. The winds laughter died.
Instead of a key there was a push-button start. He slapped at it, missed, slapped again. The engine roared to life.
The man turned the heat all the way up and collapsed against the seat.

A soft time. Warm air making his body ache and tingle and finally ease. For a while the man stared at the ceiling, head lolled back. Content to watch the drifting spots in his eyes. Tiny floating things that he could only see when he didnt try to look at them. He didnt think about where he was, or why, or who the car belonged to and when they might return, or whether they would be happy to find a naked man dripping on the leather seats.

Just cowered like an animal in his den, the doors locked and heat blasting.
After a long timehow long he had no ideahe felt himself coming back. Surfacing like he was waking from a nap. Words and questions swirling leaves from an October tree, tossed and spinning and never touching the ground.
Gasoline. That was one. Gasoline. What did...
Oh. He straightened, rubbed at his eyes. His muscles weak and languid. The fuel gauge read almost empty. He shut off the engine.
So. Where was he?
The car was gorgeous. A BMW according to the logo in the steering wheel, with gauges like an airplane cockpit. The seats were leather, the trim brushed aluminum, and the dash had a computer display. But the thing was a mess. Socks and a pair of Nikes rested on the floorboards on his side; the passenger seat was buried in maps and take-out bags and soda cups and empty blister packs of ephedrine and gas station receipts and a worn U.S. road atlas and a fifth of Jack Daniels with an inch left in it.
Hel lo .
He opened the whiskey, swallowed half the remainder in a gulp. It burned in the best possible way.
Now that it wasnt killing him, the world outside had a kind of desolate beauty. Lonely, though. Other than the narrow two-track the car was parked on, there was no sign of people in either direction. And while he hadnt been fully conscious the whole time, he hadnt seen anyone since hed climbed into the car.