Brian Freeman - Marathon

“You’re probably right,” Stride replied.

“You think no one else feels anger? That we’re the only ones with extremists in our midst? We’re not. Now, because of the bombing, the rage of Basch’s bigots will get turned against us even more. Mark my words. It always does.”

“And I’ll do everything in my power to stop that. You know me.”

“One man can’t stop a tidal wave,” Haq said.

“Then the best thing right now is to find out who did this,” Stride told him. “Maybe this happened because of Dawn Basch, and maybe it had nothing to do with her. I don’t know. Until we get the truth, we’ll be fighting rumors and speculation, and that’s dangerous for all of us.”

Haq sat down. Silence lingered between them. Crickets chirped in the weeds. “I hate this,” Haq said finally.

“I understand, but I need your help.”

“I could ruin an innocent man’s life.”

“If he’s innocent, I won’t let that happen,” Stride told him.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Then I’ll do my best.”

Stride wondered if that was enough. Haq hesitated, and he looked around to make sure they were alone. He lowered his voice.

“All right, fine. You’re right, everyone is angry about Basch, but one young man — well, he’s been saying things that frightened some of us. We were all conscious of the fact that marathon day was coming. It’s hard not to think about Boston.”

“You should have talked to me,” Stride said. “Warned me.”

“I’m sorry. We decided to deal with it ourselves. We wanted to counsel him, not have him arrested.”

“That was foolish.”

“Perhaps, but we’ve seen what happens when the police get involved. Naïve, reckless talk becomes the basis for federal charges, and just like that, you put someone away for years.”

“Who’s the young man?” Stride asked. “And where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is. He disappeared a few days ago. That’s what worried us. We’ve been trying to find him.”

“And his name?”

“His name is Malik,” Haq replied.

The parasail floated high above the turquoise waters off Key West, making the people on the beach seem no larger than the bugs that Wade Ralston hunted in the subbasements of Duluth. He heard nothing but wind, but even at this height, the Florida air was warm. A single, slim tether connected him to the boat, which was churning ripples and white water in its wake. Being up here made Wade feel on top of the world, like the king of an infinite domain. Like a god.

However, good things always came to an end.

He felt the winch dragging him downward to the boat. Back to reality. The Gulf got bigger and closer, full of reefs and sand and shadows. His three friends waited for him.

Travis, meaty and tall, with long brown hair and tattoos covering both arms.

Travis’s sister, Shelly, looking pudgy in her one-piece bathing suit as she sucked a fruity drink through a straw.

And Wade’s wife, Joni, hoisted on Travis’s shoulders, swaying as she tried to keep her camera steady.

Joni was ridiculously hot in her string bikini. Joni, with the breast implants he considered one of the best investments he’d made in his whole life. Joni, blond, twenty-eight years old, who made every male head snap around as she walked by. Short, skinny Wade Ralston — Wade the bug zapper with the comb-over — had the hottest wife in the Keys. He’d dreamed of saying that every day since he was a teenager in high school.

The three of them waved with their arms over their heads. Grinned. Laughed. Pointed. He drifted closer to the boat, and he could hear their voices shouting at him.

“Wade! Wade! Wade!”

“Cross the line! Cross the line!”

Huh? That didn’t make sense.

And then — snap .

The tether broke like a guitar string. He was free. The parachute ballooned behind him, dragging him back to the sky. He shouted for help, but it was as if no one in the boat cared that he wasn’t coming down, that he was unmoored, that he had no way to land. They laughed, watching him as he disappeared, turning and twisting lazily on the ripples of air. The island grew small; the water became a sea, far below him. He sailed up and up toward the clouds.

“Wade?”

Up and up, spinning and rising, growing dizzy...

“Wade?”

He awoke with a violent start. He blinked, and the Key West sky vanished from his brain. He was warm, because the hospital room was warm. The tether was a tube that tied him to a plastic bag hung on a metal pole, from which IV fluids dripped into his vein. It was dark in Duluth outside the St. Luke’s window, and the lights in the room were low. He could see his bruised, swollen feet.

Someone said again, “Wade?”

Travis Baker stood at the end of his hospital bed, but Wade wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.

“Travis?” he murmured. “What the hell, man?”

“Hey.”

Travis was really there. It wasn’t another dream. His friend’s voice was subdued, which wasn’t like Travis at all. Travis was loud. He was loud when he was sober and when he was drunk. He was loud when he got into fights and when he squeezed into utility tunnels to check the bait in a rat trap. But not now. Now Wade could hardly hear him.

“Jesus, you’re alive,” Wade said. “We’re both alive.”

“Yeah.”

Most people would be happy to be alive, but Travis didn’t look happy. His face was wet with tears, and Travis Baker never cried. Extermination wasn’t for the sentimental. Poisoning creatures for a living didn’t get you a TV movie on the Hallmark Channel.

“They say they dug shrapnel out of my stomach. I was in surgery?”

“Yeah,” Travis replied again, no louder than a whisper.

“Where’s Joni? Is she with you?”

“Joni? No, man. I–I just got here.”

“She must be in the cafeteria or something. I’ve been asleep pretty much all day. Whenever I wake up, the nurse tells me to rest. TV’s unplugged. Somebody put on ocean noises to help me relax. I dreamed about our vacation in Key West. Man, that’s the place to be. If you’ve got the money.”

Travis gave him a cracked smile. “You bet.”

Wade lifted up the collar of his hospital gown and winced as the incisions in his skin tugged with the shifting of his muscles. He could see bandages taped to his abdomen, and red stains seeped through the gauze.

“I’m a mess,” he said. He studied his hands and his bare wrists. “Hey, where’s my Fitbit? And my phone? Shit, I hope I didn’t lose them. What’s the point of running a marathon if you can’t see all the steps, right? Can you check the closet or something?”

Travis pointed to a plastic bag on the window ledge. “It’s all in there. Phone, clothes, Fitbit, shoes.”

“Good.” He added, “Did I make it across the finish line? I can’t even remember.”

“I don’t think so, man. Sorry.”

“Sucks. Nobody cares if you run twenty-six-point- one miles, huh?”

“No.”

Wade was confused. He was missing something. He didn’t know what it was.

“I figured you’d be dead,” he told Travis. “How come you’re not dead?”

“It was a tree,” Travis told him.

“Huh?”

“I was in front of a tree when the thing blew up behind me. Blast hit the tree trunk and missed me. I barely got a scratch.”

“Wow. Lucky.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“How’s Shelly?” Wade asked. “She okay?”

Travis didn’t answer. He wandered over to the window and leaned his elbows on the ledge and chewed on the cuticle of one thumb. He was young. A year younger than Joni, seven years younger than Wade. He had big arms, big legs, and a baseball cap planted backward on his head. He had a Fu Manchu mustache and a silver stud through his lower lip. He wore a Bug Zappers T-shirt and paint-smudged sweatpants.