WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) by Joseph Turkot Read Free Book Online Page B

straight for us. Both of them kick up storms of sand, converging to overtake us at the same time, to maul us to death right in front of the beautiful waves and the tower.
                Maze doesn’t have to say a word—we turn together at that instant and run. And all I can do is watch the crashing waves—they seem to get no closer as I pummel the sand as hard as I can. One wave crashes and then starts to draw back into the ocean, leaving its curving footprint of foam. Then, even before the next roller starts to break, I hear the panting and the soft pockets of sand bursting behind me. I dig in hard and see Maze begin to take me on the right. And then, the only thing that drives through my brain, almost like a quiet whisper, is her challenge. To beat her. To prove to her that I’m faster. That I’m better at something than she is. As if this life and death struggle is all so I can prove to her why she should want me—raise the chances that she’ll fall for me by one tiny bit. So I burn my thigh out, and then the other, adrenaline lighting up every fiber of muscle, pulsing me toward salvation at the froth. My eyes rise just a bit to catch the rising tower, its soft glow high up, when I hear the growl. The sound that the wolves have started leaping instead of running because of how quickly their cries catch up to me. And then, I know I’ll get there. It’s as if I’m clairvoyant. It’s a calming feeling and it runs through me—the firm belief that I’ll make it—as I count the final steps it will take to break the water line. Seven more. My body pumps, each time I strike the ground forcing all the momentum to trigger my butt and thigh to react so that I spring forward in long bounds like a rabbit. And then, I’m in. The water wraps around me like a cold blanket but I keep pulling hard, finding ground for more high steps, rising over each wave until I’ve made it out as far as I can go and I fall in. And after I stumble, a big wave pressing me down into the grit of the sea floor, I dig my elbows into the turf and vault back up. My eyes are blurry and I rub them and look back up to the beach. I see one of the wolves a few feet from the surf but Maze is nowhere in sight. And neither is the other wolf. I quickly turn to my right, panicking, waiting for the scream, the snarl, any kind of clue about what happened to her. But then I see the other wolf, long ago curved away from the first wisps of sea foam and air, jogging back toward the dunes. But still no Maze…
                Like a volcano, water climbing high in a wide arc that pours heavy droplets onto my head, she bursts from the ocean next to me. Her long hair falls over her dripping body, and she rubs her eyes and looks at me. Before I can even breathe a sigh of relief that she hasn’t been eaten alive, she smiles and splashes water into my face.
                “I told you you weren’t faster than me,” she says, face lit with a stupid grin, as if the fact that we just nearly died, and that the wolves are still watching us from the beach, hasn’t had any bit of effect on her. But I can’t help it—part of me wants to join her mania. I look at the wolves, to make sure they won’t come into the water, and then, I look back at her. I disappear under the water and squat as low as I can, and then, I burst back up, thrusting my arms to volley a wall of sea at her head.
                “I beat you by a mile,” I say.
                “Beat who by a mile?”
                “A mile.”
                “You were close. I’ll give you that.”
                I realize the truth, that I have no idea if I beat her or not. And suddenly, I don’t care anymore. It’s ecstasy just to know we’re alive.
                “What do we do now?” I ask her, my body finally adjusting to the temperature, no longer shivering from the chill that first swept through me when I hit the