The marsh. He won’t do it, but he likes the fantasy of it—the picture it creates in his head. He steps off the shoulder of the road, into muck that swallows his shoes. He looks back toward the skyline, the places where it’s gone dark, the hulking rectangles of concrete where the beautiful buildings were. If he lit the marsh, a straight line of lighter fluid drawing the fire across it, it would look as if the whole city was burning, about to be swallowed whole.

Of course, the marsh is actually quite peaceful. He used to come here to trap crabs with his grandfather when he was a boy. He thinks he could still find his way back to the creek where they used to find the blue claws, where they might find a nest of young birds, their feathers a wild fluff on their heads. He steps deeper into the grass, flies circling his head—he remembers that well, too, his grandfather taking aim and slapping them away.

Above him, the neon sign of the Sunset Motel casts a feeble yellow glow on the grass. He sees a hint of glitter that, for a moment, he takes to be water, a slice of the creek sparkling under the light. He steps closer, pushes through the grass, and what he sees makes him feel the way he did when Gold Tooth punched the air out of his lungs.

For the first few seconds his brain rejects what he sees, though the understanding seizes his limbs, his guts. His brain can only understand the scene before him in a series of shapes. The curve of a calf. The angle of an elbow. A parabola of hair. The arch of eyebrows. The thick lines of clotted blood that must be cuts. Then he processes colors. The white-blue of the skin, the rings of purple around their necks. The bruises. The glint of gold: an ankle bracelet dangling a dozen little charms. The smell hits him next, the smell he thought was a part of the marsh but must be them. He hits himself in the face, slaps himself hard a second time. He closes his eyes and waits to wake up from a dream. Flies land on his eyelids, his arms, the back of his neck. He steps closer, reels back. One of their faces looks collapsed. And their eyes are open. They see him, judge him. They know everything he’s done.

He sprints back through the marsh, out toward the road, to retch into the gutter. His stomach convulses painfully, as though it is wringing itself out. He can only think about catching his breath, about wiping the tears from his cheeks, the vomit from his lips. Once he is sure he can breathe, he starts to run back into town on wobbling legs.