Free Scorch Atlas by Blake Butler Page B

flood of digits soldered to nothing, wormed into the flesh of the baby’s head; how the head’s molecules had formed clusters in reaction, spreading out, a blooming fist.
    As they got further from the shore ground, the sand began to level out. The refuse became more sparse or deeper buried. The ground made one long blur in all directions, its one bland color stretched. The sun stayed put, enchanting. Randall stared into it, forcing his eyes against the blink. He let the light wash his vision hazy. In seconds he couldn’t see where he was going; he let his stumbling lead them further, the heat washing in boggled machination behind his face. He chewed just slightly on his ached tongue, imagined steak. He could hear the girl veering around him, lit by the cracked transistor’s bleep. She was to his left, then right; behind then way on; then somehow overhead. He felt overheated. He felt multi-pronged and run through. He continued on regardless, warbling. He blew a saliva bubble and it popped softly on his lips.
    When he could see, he saw a house—ranch-style, dull orange, three-bed two-and-a-half-bath, there in the stomach of the land.
    Randall looked, and looked again. It was not apparent from the condition of the house that it had been underwater. The flat sheen of the old paint shone in the new light. He and the girl stood there before it, blinking. The large-paned windows glared and gleamed.
    The speaker between them went ABEEEEEEZE .
    There was a welcome mat and a tall chimney that stretched so far into the sky Randall couldn’t tell at all where it ended and where something else began. Several plastic children’s toys were left scattered in the sand yard. There was a swing set and a bench. There was a two-door garage inside which two twin black vehicles sat silent.
    Randall touched the vinyl siding and found it warm and flat, undisappearing. He crossed the sand yard up the short stoop to the front door. There was a texture to the stair steps, razed in a pattern that crossed his eyes. He climbed the steps and rang the bell. The toning chimed inside the house, one long whole note that resounded, then was over. Nothing moved. No eye appeared inside the spyglass. No footsteps. Randall knocked three times with all his knuckles. He tried the knob and found it locked. The doorframe would not give.

    Around the house through a side window, Randall looked into a living room. There was a white leather sofa and a recliner arranged around a large TV. The TV was on and through the screen glass showed a cartoon dog and cartoon cat. The dog hit the cat with a piece of driftwood and the cat laughed.
    There was no one in the room.
    Randall tried the window but it would not stutter. The pane swayed and shimmied with his fist. Overhead the sun still stung and stared.
    Randall stepped back from the house. The roof had the same pattern as the stairwell, a mess of lines of scattered depth. He walked back to where the girl stood. He stood looking on inside the light. Static rattled from the transistor, nuzzled tight against her torso. He gave her a look and she shut it off. She turned around toward the house.
    Randall watched as she walked toward it in the same slow path as his, up the strange steps to touch the door with both her hands, though this time the knob turned; the door opened on to the inside.
    The girl looked back at Randall and closed her eyes.
    The air between them wavered.
    Inside, the house was cool and clean and smelled of cedar. The hardwood floors reflected their faces in the grain. They called out up the stairwell and into the adjoining rooms, peering around corners to no response, no motion. The home’s air hung around them, parting.
    In the short hall Randall’s shoulders brushed both sides.
    Upstairs they found a child’s room, painted pink and draped with lace—a canopy bed piled with pillows and stuffed toys, a loom. The bed was dressed in patchwork in the same way as the girl’s clothes. There were no