Maybe it was the mushrooms that had brought that girl’s face into Donny’s head as he came out of the fireplace into the underwater living room full of what his fuzzed-out eyes were sure were glow-in-the-dark catfish, waiting for the gator teeth to pull him back. He kept swimming, trying to remember her name, trying to remember what he had said, trying to find a way out of that house and into the open water.

It was the fish that showed him, as they tried to get away from him the same way he was trying to evade the gators.

Nature was helpful that way, if you paid attention.

So he followed them, as far as he could, until he knew he could no longer pretend to have gills.

And when he came up, he never knew he could be so happy to see concrete.

47

Donny followed the old elevated freeway up out of the water. He looked back for his predators, but saw only the moonlight on dark water.

His felt a weird tingle on his skin, like every hair on his body was dancing to try to keep whatever toxins were in that nasty water from finding their way through. He tried to ignore it. He tried to tell himself he hadn’t swallowed too much.

He scanned up ahead, seeing where the freeway came to an abrupt end in a mess of twisted rods and concrete crumble.

He looked off to the left, and saw solid ground. Another roadway coming up out of the water, this one up onto the soil and turf, which was mostly covering the old pavement.

And down the middle of that muddy trackway, he saw an animal in motion. A raccoon. It was carrying something. And then it disappeared, down into a hole.

No sign of the gators. Donny hung himself from the edge of the ruined overpass and dropped down onto the other road. His ankle lit up when he landed, and he lost his footing, curled in pain. Then he got up and walked over to where the animal had been.

There were more than one set of tracks in the mud. Mostly raccoon, recognizable from the opposable thumbs and the long little claws.

Donny had seen a lot of raccoon tracks in his life, especially as one who liked to fish in urban creeks. But he had never seen tracks that big.

And the smell. The smell of smoke. Like barbeque.

Donny looked around. The path was an old right-of-way that ran through this stretch of higher ground, parallel to the road. A natural gas pipeline sign was still there, with the number to call before digging. Apparently no one had told the raccoons, judging from the track that converged around an old valve box someone had left open.