Social Themes
At the turnoff to Fastback Beach, Spider stomps the brakes and the car fishtails. He straightens it but we've passed the turnoff, so he cuts a U-turn in the middle of the highway, laying rubber that smokes around us. Then we're on the gravel trail leading down to the beach.
Below us, white in the moonlight, stretch miles of sand. This is a perfect place for drag racing. Spider steps on it and the car jumps ahead. I put my hand down for balance and brace as we hit a dune and become airborne.
After a long time the quiet peace of sleep-time returns. The cat creeps out to the iron pole. The smell of blood and the burning stink linger in the air. Two-legs are dangerous and unpredictable. They aren't that different from the bare-tails in the tunnels. They hurt each other for no reason she knows. That is why she walks alone.
"Get off!" I push at him hard, with both hands. The next thing I know, he's pinned my hands over my head. I'm stunned how fast this guy can move. "It seems that we've fallen," he says, like he's talking about the color of his necktie.
Every hand I shake, I look into the person's face and wonder what they know. It didn't say in the announcement in the paper. Maybe they think my dad had a heart attack while he was driving. I don't want anyone to know. Because it's not like we really know for sure. I don't want people talking about him and thinking he did something when nobody knows for sure that he did.
The chute opened and Nellie hit the threshold to the maze at a full run, body gliding like a snake, eyes alert for movement, any shadow that looked too dense or too oddly shaped. Once inside the small entrance lobby she paused, pivoting side to side in the gloom, one hand hovering at the stun gun in her belt, but the maze's opening section remaining quiet, nothing to be seen or heard except the sledgehammer thud of her heart.
He introduced himself as Bill Bonney, but said that everyone just calls him Kid because he's only eighteen. That makes him two years older than me, but he's smooth-cheeked and lightly built and could pass for younger. I think back to the other Kid I've met—the man I killed last year. But Bill is different. I've immediately taken a liking to him.
