The Tankermen Read Online Free PDF Page B

doing OK. A bit surprised about the new address, though. What’s going on?
—
S.)
    ‘Wanna swim?’
    Finn looked up, startled. ‘What, now?’
    ‘Yeah!’
    ‘You’re joking! I’ve got no swimmers.’
    ‘What’s wrong with your underdaks—got holes in ’em, have they?’
    Finn looked up at Jed and grinned back. ‘You’re nuts,’ he said, and pulled off his T-shirt.
    Jed’s body looked large and pale in the white light that spilled from the promenade. He didn’t seem at all self-conscious, though, and that made Finn feel easier aboutpicking his way down the sand after him in nothing but bright purple underpants.
    The water started off cold, but by the time they’d dived through the surf it felt mild and comfortable. Finn’s skin relaxed in gratitude at being washed all over, and when his feet lost contact with the sand he gave himself up to the suck and rock of the water, floating on his back and looking up at the stars.
    Jed dived and surfaced a few metres from him, his face looking bigger under his slicked-down hair, his beard and moustache glittering.
    ‘It’s creepy when you dive,’ he called out. ‘You can’t see anything. You don’t know
what’s
out there!’
    ‘Man-eaters, man!’ yelled Finn. ‘Stay up on top and keep
real
still!’
    ‘Right!’ Jed sank backwards and his big white toes bobbed up and broke the surface.
    Finn would have felt euphoric if he hadn’t been a bit nervous about people coming along the beach and pinching their clothes. He had to keep kicking himself up out of the water to see over the breaking waves. Also, he wasn’t quite sure, but he thought he could smell something familiar, something off, every now and then.
    ‘Can you smell something bad?’ he asked Jed.
    ‘Nope, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I did. The water can get pretty foul out here.’
    ‘Even with the new outfall so far out in the sea?’
    ‘Yeah. You get the same muck washing in; it’s just broken down a bit further. Seems clean enough tonight, though.’
    ‘Yeah, it looks okay.’ But there it was again, a putrid, gassy smell, not quite strong enough to make his stomach turn over, but bad enough to spoil the salty green sea-smell.
    He spent a few minutes paddling, trying to see if there wasa slick on the surface of the water, experimentally tasting and spitting out water. ‘Let’s go in,’ he said. The smell had unsettled him; he didn’t like to think what he might be swimming in.
    They bodysurfed in to the beach, the sand grazing Finn’s chest as the wave carrying him slowed. They stood on the wetter sand-slope, shaking off water and letting the warm air dry them. Finn had a sour taste in his mouth; he spat a few times, but it wouldn’t go.
    ‘Let’s go and find a bubbler,’ he said when they were dressed. ‘I’ve got to wash my mouth out.’
    ‘Cheapskate.’ Jed tossed the fish-and-chip box at Finn’s head. ‘Let me shout you another can of something. And let’s see if we can find a pizza somewhere.’
    ‘Geez, you eat a lot,’ Finn said wonderingly. Jed could never afford to feed himself on ten dollars a week.
    ‘Gotta keep my strength up, mate.’ Jed picked up the box again and they headed up the crumbly sand, carrying their shoes. Behind them, the ocean went on quietly seething.

3
Second Sighting
    Finn woke groaning from a very bad dream. It was one of those pursuit dreams he often had, moving fast through a disorienting series of elevator rides, train journeys, staircases and streets, with something unnameable catching him up gradually as he went.
    This time it caught him. He spun round to face it, but saw nothing but the red fizz of a weapon being fired full into his chest. He felt it thunk into him and begin to burn there like acid on his skin; it would eat through his ribs to his heart, he knew, and then devour that too.
    He sat up, one side of his face coated with beach sand. The morning sun hung just above the horizon behind a thin veil of cloud. Its light