Red Rover | gxg | Wattys 2023 Winner | ✔

(28) Blame the Aliens

"Counts."

"I am not even going to pursue this," says Calico J. "Also, my ex went down on Red Thursday. So did the guy making eyes at me across the front row in the first week of class. Try again."

"We've ruled out everything else." Ditzy looks disgusted. "We've all been drinking the water. I know people in my parents' social circle who only drank bottled water, and they still went down. Only one of us swims, but that also means one of us swims, and even the two people who can currently control this stuff don't align on that. Meg was a competitive swimmer, and Patrick almost drowned, for God's sake. If that's not—"

"Wait," I say.

She falls silent. That silence spreads to consume the space between us, and I see Calico J's eyes widen as he realizes, too.

"I've almost drowned before, too," I say slowly. "And J, didn't you say your riptide incident landed you in the hospital?"

He nods wordlessly. Both our eyes turn to Ditzy. My heart dips. She's crossed her arms—hugging herself—and looked away. Her expression is pinched, like she's in pain, about to cry, or both. That look shifts back and forth with another: the emotionless neutrality she's maintained for the entire time I've known her, and that still comes out when she speaks about her family.

"Ditz?" says Calico J, a lot more gently than I'm good at.

"My mother," she says shortly. "I was being stubborn with swimming lessons, and she didn't like that I wasn't listening to her. She snapped and threw me in the pool." After a long, stunned silence, she finishes, "I was five."

The silence this time is heavy as a gravity blanket and stifling as too many people in a too-small tent. I think we've found our answer. All four of us have almost drowned before. We've come face to face with the water that carries this entity, whatever it is, and we've survived.

"It's like a vaccine, maybe," I say. That's a pretty poor representation of the ideas moving through my head at light speed now, but it's what comes out of my mouth, and I can't take it back now. "Like we've already beaten it off once, so it can't take us again. Even if it knows our names."

"Meg," says Calico J, "have I ever told you you're a genius?"

I gape at him. It's probably a pretty good rendition of a human carp, but my mind-blank on how I'm supposed to respond to the compliment is cut short as a hand-wave catches my attention. It's Patrick. He points down the hill's other side with a look of panic on his face, and Calico J and Ditzy both notice. Something crackles in the forest.

It's footsteps. My hand flies for my hockey stick, but it's not at my side. I snatch my knife instead. The steps are too slow to be a living, conscious human, unless said human thinks they're being a lot more stealthy than they actually are. Which means it's almost certainly a Sleeper.

Ditzy beside me has her flail at the ready. She says something in an undertone that I miss entirely; the steps in the forest have confiscated my attention, and it takes an effort to drag it back.

"Sorry?" I say.

"Do you think it's coming for us?"

"I don't think so." The steps are moving parallel to the ridge, not up it—the same direction as the Redding-anomaly. I think it is the Redding-anomaly.

"Is it not chasing someone, then?"

That also takes a moment to register. The implications land shortly after. There's only one set of footsteps. This Sleeper isn't chasing anyone. I've never seen what the Sleepers do if they catch the people who woke them, but I've also never seen a Sleeper wandering around like this. Given that fact alone, they probably rejoin the Redding network that sustains them.