Twenty-Five

At the harbour we stop. The town is fronted by a concrete sea wall, lined with jetties. White boats bob in the water at their moorings, sails rising into the foggy air like vertical wings. The smell of the sea is strong and the air is blazing with cold. Our breath is mist.

"Which one?" says Lisa. But I know at once that we cannot leave the harbour in the dark. I hardly have any idea how to steer a boat in the daytime, and without being able to see where we're going we might run into a buoy or a bit of wreckage. It's bad enough driving in the dark, but if we damage the boat neither one of us would stand a chance in the freezing water.

"We'll have to wait till morning," I say. Lisa nods.

"I know."

We cannot wait for daylight out in the open, so we go into one of the many seafront cafés and wander cautiously through to the backrooms. Boxes and plastic tables are scattered all over the place. Windows are broken and the roof is sagging under a rotten weight of water. What matters, though, is that there are no Creatures. We should be safe enough.

Lisa sits down on a crate and folds her arms over her stomach. Taking off my coat I pull it around her shoulders. "We'll be safe here," I say. "We'll go in the morning. A few hours, that's all."

"What if there's nobody there?" she says. It sounds like she's been waiting to say this for ages. Like she's scared, a little, of what the answer might be, but wants to hear it all the same.

I think about it. "What if there is somebody there?"

She laughs a little, nods, draws my arm over her shoulder. I sit down next to each other and we lean into each other. "I'm so glad I found you," she says.

"Me too." Then I wait until I'm absolutely certain she's fallen asleep before I continue in a whisper, "You saved my life."