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Her feet dragged against a tide as she slogged through brackish water. Too dark to see, too still to be natural, but too cold to call out. Not quite cold enough to numb her aching bones. Fractured scenarios crossed her mind – the storm, the eye, the rubble of the Bay – but they felt removed. Had she gotten lost in another time limbo?
Her feet tangled in something below the dark surface, but the pause gave her a moment to focus on the ringing in her ears. Distant voices spoke between the white noise, and the second voice made her heart and eyelids flutter – Chloe.
She peeled her eyes open only to blink in the sudden sunlight. Her mind stumbled over the transition from dream to reality, finding her legs were tangled in blankets and the chilling cold came from damp cloth clinging to her body. And cold metal against her neck, which set her on edge until she heard the familiar voice again.
If Chloe was here but there was no storm – how far back was she? If she’d managed to forget her aching muscles for a minute, they all gave her sharp reminders as she rolled on her side and pushed herself upright. The cold metal under her fingers belonged to the bed of Chloe’s pickup truck, and they were parked in the middle of an open, rural parking lot.
“Morning, sunshine.” Chloe sat a few feet away, perched on the edge of the pickup’s side, and the stranger standing next to the truck must’ve been the source of the conversation. If not for the company, Max might’ve crawled across the truck to wrap her in a hug – or to be hugged. She rubbed stiff fingers over the bridge of her nose.
When she looked up, the stranger was speaking in her direction, and Max managed to tune in for, “… your friend here that there’s warm food inside, on the house, or you girls will freeze out here. We didn’t know there were any survivors of that tornado.”
At that, the memories of the storm and her choice overwhelmed her, and her hand froze halfway to covering her open mouth. Conscious of the intensity of Chloe’s gaze, Max shut her mouth and dropped her hand onto her sore shoulder. “Uh… thanks.”
With far greater confidence, Chloe turned to tell the woman, “We’ll be in in a minute, gotta grab chargers and put away the blankets.” She agreed and took the cue to leave the two alone, and Max watched her walk back to one of three squat buildings attached to the parking lot. A weathered sign in the shape of a hamburger adorned the top of the building, and she felt a pang of longing for Joyce’s diner. For any of her home.
As she swung her legs into the truck and moved to sit closer to Max, Chloe spoke with a false and hesitant cheer. “Hey, Max. You sure slept in, yet you still look like hell.” Her wide grin failed to disguise her puffy, red-rimmed eyes.
She started to shrug, but muscles along her back clenched in protest. “Ugh. Did we have to sleep on this?”
“I distinctly remember you saying you’d sleep on anything horizontal.” Max was rubbing her shoulder and pouting at the truckbed, and Chloe reached out to squeeze her other shoulder. “You were pretty out of it. I, uh, I wasn’t sure if you were sleeping or you’d passed out.”
Picking up the strain in Chloe’s voice, Max returned a thin smile. “Sorry, I hadn’t slept in ages.” She had no notion of how sleep even worked when jumping timelines so rapidly, and her mind still felt foggy.
Chloe began bundling the blankets in her arms, and when Max cast her gaze around the floor, Chloe offered, “Your bag’s on the passenger seat.” Her response was a slow nod, so Chloe added, “You need a serious dose of coffee, like right now. Come on.”
She hopped out of the truck and stowed the blankets as Max climbed carefully out and onto the pitted asphalt. An air of worry hung over Chloe as she hung Max’s trademark bag over her shoulder and left the arm there, guiding her towards the building. Max ran her fingers over the strap of her bag, the weight comforting, and wondered if her journal had been burned in this reality, too.
They were the only customers in what looked to be a greasy spoon diner, and the smells of bacon and eggs hung in the air. As promised, the woman served them steaming coffee as soon as they sat down, and she introduced herself as Mable. When she walked to the back kitchen, she muted a small television sitting on the counter, and the change in ambient noise caught Max’s attention.
It was the news. It was Arcadia Bay. Or what was left of it.
Chloe followed her gaze, but only managed to watch for a few seconds before turning around and making a show of opening the menu. A shiver ran through Max’s torso, but she knew why they were still in their same storm-soaked clothes. They’d done a drive-by yesterday. Enough to know.
Though she’d seen the question hovering at the edge of Chloe’s tongue yesterday, she hadn’t asked yet about the deaths, and Max was grateful. The memories were still raw, and she’d only managed to explain the diner blew up. But they’d seen that much themselves.
“Maaaax.” She refocused, realized she’d been staring at the TV. Chloe tapped a picture on the menu and repeated, “Do you wanna split an omelet and some hash browns? We can’t eat here and not get hash browns.”
After rubbing her nose for a moment, she said, “Sure, but you can’t pour ketchup all over it.”
“Over which?”
“Either of them!”
Chloe huffed playfully. “Your loss.” They both smiled if only because it was something familiar. Then a chime above the door startled Max, and she turned to watch another person take a seat across the room. Just life as usual hundreds of miles from Arcadia, in the expanse of travel limbo between Arcadia Bay and Seattle.
Sighing, she opened her bag. “Do you see an outlet?” As Chloe ducked her head under the table to check, Max flipped her cell phone open. “This is beyond dead.”
She rummaged for her charging cord as Chloe announced, “There’s one at the next table,” and she grabbed the offered cord to plug in, draping herself over the back of her seat in the process. The cord failed to quite reach across the table, so Max slipped into the seat next to Chloe as she hooked the charger in.
As Chloe settled back in her seat, Max tried the power button again. An encouraging hand pressed on her shoulder, but Chloe turned to look out the window as Max’s home screen announced a slew of missed text messages. The names turned her stomach over: Warren, Joyce, Victoria, David… the list went on. There was a double digit next to her mom’s name, and Max clicked through to a callback without reading anything.
The line barely rang before she heard a breathless, “Max?” “Mom –” “Maxine Caulfield!” Her jaw clenched at a torrent of equal admonition and relief – they’d been worried sick, had she seen the news, not even a text back, they said no survivors, her father was here too, home from work, where was she?
Eyes watering, she managed, “We’re fine – Chloe and I are fine.” Not because they were, but because they would be.