The Remnants

The truck’s tires crunched through the slush and snow as I pulled out of the driveway. Under an onyx sky, I drove down the main coastal drag. My knuckles were white as ghosts on the steering wheel. As my dad’s truck snaked its way through the darkness, I leaned in, squinting.

No fucking street lights in this town.

Gnawing my cheek, I hoped I wouldn’t nose-dive right into the heaps of snow that crowded the road. I didn’t have time for that. I had an important meeting to get to.

I can’t be late. The Remnants will be waiting for me.

My left knee pulsed like a tattoo needle. I thought about turning back, then and there, but I knew this particular engagement wasn’t one I could avoid. You can run from the Remnants all you want, but you can’t hide. They will track you from afar like an animal, slowly and inconspicuously. Meeting them was inevitable.

The sour taste of indigestion burned in my mouth.

I kept driving.

Even through the midnight void, the primary colours of all the wooden homes flashed past my periphery. Blue. Red. Yellow. Once sunburst and infused with cheer, these places were now chipped and weathered from decay. My tired bones ached. This place I once called home was nothing but hollow waves crashing in now.

My foot pressed down on the gas pedal. I fidgeted in my seat. My seatbelt wasn’t buckled, but then again, it hadn’t worked in years. “Waste of time wearing that thing,” my dad used to say through a furrowed brow.

I felt a sudden pressure in my temples.

The smell of dirt and gasoline swirling with salt air filled my nostrils. Choking down a grapefruit-sized lump in my throat, I kicked aside a couple of empty Coca-Cola bottles.

Couldn’t even throw his trash out. No self-respect.

Death itself can reach inside your ribcage, rip your heart out, and feed it to the wolves. Yet somehow, the person whose sudden departure left your chest barren can still drive you nuts from beyond the grave.

I held my breath.

Click. Click. Click.

The truck’s blinker echoed in my head. I turned right, nausea coiling in my stomach as I made my way down the sloping hill. The old payphone on the corner stood out like a solemn relic as I drove past. My fingers danced uncomfortably.

Even if the thing worked, who would I call? I don’t know a single person’s number offhand.

Massive warehouses with rusted metal siding came into view. The stench of fish laced with diesel was a gut punch. As a looming tower of lobster traps crept by, the roar of the tide rolled through my bloodstream.

Louder.

Louder.

Louder.

LOUDER.

I startled myself as I slammed the brakes.

My hand shaking, I put the truck in park. The ominous, low rumble of the engine purred in the quiet dread of the night. My mouth was like sandpaper. Briny mist sparkled through the floodlights above, illuminating the slick, wet wood of the wharf.

Standing in a singular line in the truck’s headlights, the Remnants were there, waiting for me.

Just like they said they would.

Crawling with goosebumps, my body ran cold.

Their hands clasped, all six of the Remnants were dressed in ivory, floor-length peacoats, with pants and gloves to match. Their faces were obscured by black, beekeeper-type veils that draped from their wide brimmed hats. No one made a move for quite some time.

The leather of my seat squeaked as I carefully inched forward. Peering at the Remnants through the windshield, my head tilted.

Do I know you?

In a town of only a thousand, it was possible. But on the other hand….

My jaw clenched as my shoulders rose up to my ears.

Are they even human?

Just then, the tallest Remnant, standing left of centre, extended his hand.

I knew it was time.

The keys jingled as I turned off the truck, leaving the Remnants in a partial shadow where my headlights once shone. Feeling as though I was floating outside my body, I opened the door and stepped out.

I approached.

My boots crunched, inch by inch, onto the salt grains scattered over semi-melted ice. The wind hissed, abusive and cold, snapping against my cheeks like frozen rubber bands. As I got closer and closer to the Remnants—those unnerving statues—I could feel my throat closing in. I was inhaling through a pinhole as they stood in their single file, like some kind of threshold between heaven and hell.

A few feet ahead, I stopped. They didn’t budge. The graveyard of fishing vessels behind them bobbed in the abyss. The tall Remnant extended his hand out, just a little bit further.

My words shook.

“Wha…. What do you want? I’m here. What do you want?”

The tall one cocked his head, as if the answer was obvious.

“The keys.”

I let out a small gasp when his voice came out tinny and distorted, like a transmission.

I clutched the keys, a little bit tighter.

“Why?”

The tall one lowered his hand, gliding towards me. Biting down on my tongue, I shuffled back, but he had his white-gloved hand over mine before I could even remotely make any kind of run for it.

Face to veil, he gripped the keys.

“The truck is ours now.”

A deafening frequency rang in my ear.

“Ah!”

With my hand protecting my head, I momentarily went into soft focus. I swore I could make out the Remnant’s facial features through the screen that concealed him.

He ripped the keys away from me.

I wrapped my arms around my pained torso once he pressed down on the fob. The truck doors locking loudly were like the slamming of a jail cell.

As the Remnant went back to his place, my face flooded with lava. Saline pooling in my eyelids, I snarled.

“How the fuck do you expect me to get out of here then?”

In unison, all six of them motioned to the open water, the moon painting the jet black canvas with an iridescent sliver. I laughed out my nerves.

“You want me to swim home? Ya, that’s rich.”

They all nodded.

One.

Two.

Three.

I couldn’t hold the heaviness on my shoulders any more. It fell from my body, brick by brick. Knees wobbling, tears dripped off my chin with a whisper.

“I’m not ready to go in there yet.”

They remained motionless. With the thunder of a wave rolling in the distance, the tall one spoke. His voice cracked like a weak radio signal.

“We know.”

The floodlights above flickered. My panicked breath rasped through the stillness. Just as I teetered on the line between fight or flight, the Remnants pounced on me.

My screams split the night sky open.

Kicking and thrashing, I fought like a rabid beast, but their grip was like a crocodile’s jaw snapping shut. They hauled me to the wharf’s edge. As they tipped me over, face down towards the ocean’s surface, a rippling blanket of spilled ink stared back at me. That is, until…

Oh my God…

My insides felt scooped clean. My jaw dropped open from gravity and from its own exhausted weight. From the water below, a ghostly reflection smiled at me from the mirrored sea. Only, it wasn’t my own.

Dad…

“You swim north, to the next wharf.”

The Remnant’s static voice brought me back to reality. My dad’s reflection was gone.

I snorted up the icy snot that dripped from my face.

“That’s over six miles away.”

Their fingers pressed into me harder as the tall one came in close to my ear through his haunted walkie-talkie.

“We will meet you there.”

Each and every sound was sucked into a vacuum as I was suspended through time and space. But it didn’t last long. With an aggressive heave, the Remnants pulled me back and tossed me right into the murderous cold of the Atlantic. I clawed the open air for dear life as I free-fell, but it wasn’t long until…

Darkness.

A million air bubbles left me as I rolled and tumbled in the murky deep. Unsure which way was up or down—reminiscent of how I’d been feeling ever since my dad’s departure—I unzipped my bulky winter coat and slid it off my shoulders. The extra weight removed, I propelled myself up.

Holy fuck. I hope I’m going up.

My lungs burst open as I pierced through the water’s edge. Sucking in oxygen, I treaded the freezing water as I darted left to right trying to orient myself. Rocking like a buoy, I craned my neck.

The wharf I had just been expelled from was like a tiny porcelain ornament in the distance. The Remnants stood there in their single file like figurines. Kicking my legs below the surface, I rubbed my face with my hands. Revealing my eyes, the wharf was now even further away. I coughed out water, disgustingly saturated with salt.

I need to get further away from them.

Like fiery embers, a strangely calm undercurrent warmed my chest. Planting my feet firmly in the nothingness, I turned north and started swimming towards the next wharf.

I pushed the water behind me, stroke by stroke, for what could have been several hours or maybe just a few minutes. Time bends like that when you’re being tossed around by the current, fighting hypothermia, and wondering:

What the hell is swimming under me?

The ocean is mesmerizing and terrifying like that. She will leave you in absolute awe, but might also fucking kill you in the process.

Such is life.

I stopped. The caverns of my heart felt like they were being pushed open with a vice. Turning on my back, I spread out like a starfish and floated, struggling to catch my breath.

As my teeth chattered, I swore I could taste the flesh of my lifeless lips turning blue.

Am I dying?

Phlegm cracked in my windpipe as I inhaled.

The sky was saturated in milky white stars. They blinked, one by one, as if to illuminate a sort of celestial connect-the-dots (some people might call those “constellations”). I’d never see such a cosmic dance in the city. Or rather, I’d never see such a sight unless I was looking up all the way from down here at rock bottom.

Wow.

As my body laid there weightless, I started to drift. My eyelids grew heavy.

Heavy.

Heavier.

A beacon of yellow light droned over me. Sucking in a sharp breath, I submerged myself in the sea and turned towards…

The lighthouse.

The next wharf was in sight, just past the rocky breakwater that separated the icy churn of the open water from the tranquil harbor. Through the lunacy of my exhaustion, I swore I heard my dad’s voice breeze through one ear and out the other, saying, “Keep going.”

My nervous system buzzed with electricity. Through gritted teeth, I started swimming, and I didn’t stop until a rogue wave thrashed my shattered body against the solid wall of the breakwater.

Through moans and groans, I gripped the rocks, one by one, and pulled myself up. Ice pellets pummeled my face as I nearly slipped back into the Atlantic, but I ultimately reached the top. On my hands and knees, I scaled the large boulders until I made it to the safety of the second wharf.

Surrounded by a whole new slew of fishing vessels, I collapsed. The world around me went…

Black.

* * *

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

Whoosh.

I was woken by the air being sliced by blades. I sat up, blocking the blinding light of the helicopter with my forearm. It had a large, rectangular object tied to its base as it approached. My mouth went agape as it touched down.

My dad’s truck.

The hooks detached from underneath the vehicle and the helicopter took off. As though my entire skeleton was broken, I pushed myself up and limped over as fast as I could. But as a thin line of burnt orange sizzled on the horizon, my limbs locked into place. They were all sitting there; three in the front, three in the back. The Remnants were in my dad’s truck.

I clenched my fists. Fire scorched my abdomen. I marched over and opened the driver’s side door. Or at least, I tried.

The door was locked.

I tried again.

And again.

And again.

I spun to the other side. Locked. The Remnants didn’t make a peep. They didn’t budge.

I stepped back. Each breath expanded my entire body. Blood pounded in my head. As seagulls cawed around the cresting morning sun, I threw myself against the vehicle. Screaming bloody murder, I pounded the window with closed fists.

“Let me in! Let me in! Please! Please… It’s all I have left.”

They didn’t move. I backed away. Just as the warmth of my own grief dripped onto my collarbone, a rickety putt-putt-putt caught my attention. I turned towards the bay. The tiniest fishing boat was slowly sputtering its way towards the wharf. A tight-lipped grin painted across my face.

What a rinky-dink little thing.

When I looked back, my heart rose into my mouth. The truck, and any remnants of it… was gone.

Wrapping my arms around my shivering body, I examined the seagulls diving for scraps. I closed my eyes, lifting my face towards the energy of the winter sun.

Sigh.

It was time to go home.

* * *

I kicked a rock most of the way as I dragged my feet along the cracked pavement of the main road. One car would zoom past. A few minutes later, another.

The colourful, wooden houses stared at me from their front windows like they were eyeballs. I shuddered with a chuckle.

How creepy.

I kept kicking my rock, wondering what the townspeople would say about Ted and Barb’s daughter walking on the side of the road in February, soaking wet, without a coat on. I could hear them. “She must be drinking again! Poor girl. Lost her father.”

The old baseball diamond by the school had a big, bubbling snowman built right in the middle of it. He had a partially eaten carrot nose sticking out from his face.

Food. Food. What should I make for dinner tonight? I have leftover pasta in the fridge. Could cook up some ground beef.

I kicked my rock past Denis and Mary’s house. Their window boxes were piled up with snow. They looked so blah without all the hot magenta begonias busting out from them.

I’m such a spring/summer person.

I breathed out through horsey lips, bored on my slow meander home like a kid on a road trip whining, “Are we there yet?”

Just as my mind was sifting through its filing cabinet of the mundane, I was frozen by the sudden weight of sinking dread.

That’s when I heard the violent rev of the truck’s engine. My pupils grew wide.

“No. No. No.”

At the top of the hill, just before the downward turn towards my parents’ house, there they were, even more ghastly in the light of day: The Remnants in my dad’s truck.

Three in the front. Three in the back.

My heart was clambering down in the soles of my feet as they all lifted their one hand, simultaneously, and gave me a wave.

Shaking, I lifted my one hand, too, and waved back.

In a quiet standoff that seemed to last a lifetime—birds chirped, the waves lapped the shore—I raised my arms in surrender. A breeze fluttered through my frozen strands of hair. I held my breath.

As the tall one slammed on the gas, leaving the stench of burnt tar on the pavement, I barely felt the painful impact when…..

Darkness.

* * *

The truck’s tires crunched through the slush and snow as I pulled out of the driveway. Under an onyx sky, I drove down the main coastal drag. My knuckles were white as ghosts on the steering wheel. As my dad’s truck snaked its way through the darkness, I leaned in, squinting.

No fucking street lights in this town.