1: Ghost

He was unconscious, face down on the road. Morning air still dewy sweet, fresh and untainted. A cold wind blew indifferently down the long straight highway, bending tall grass and stirring leaves at the roadside. Its shrill touch ran over his naked figure, stirring whatever remained inside. A tide of goosebumps surged up and down his spine in miniature eruptions of awareness - the breeze had found life inside him.

His eyes burst wide open - black water surged and swelled. The sky seemed to pitch and yaw on a random axis.
'Oh please, no, I don't want to fall in - there's something in there!'
He gripped the side of the motorboat as it rocked on water that rippled like a flexing muscle. The pale blue craft tipped and bobbed, a cork in a vast pond, its engine silent as something circled below; a massive presence beneath the surface.
'Don't let it get me!'
Solid ocean, endless blue sky. A cool, salty wind whipped off the surface of the north Atlantic, as a lone gannet circled high above. And then, the seas parted and the vast creature scythed out from the depths; dorsal wing slicing water and air as the ancient grey bulk of a fin whale rose and sank back under the waves. He thought he saw a black eye staring, a fragmented glimpse as their two worlds collided. Backwash caught the small vessel for a few seconds and then the sea above Stellwagen Bank was tranquil once more. It was if nothing had happened at all.
'That was incredible.'
'I thought they were extinct.' She cleared strands of red hair blown across her face. 'They used to travel thousands of kilometres to this place, year after year.'
He peered into her. 'What was it that made them swim so far?'
She shrugged as she spoke, but the wind carried her answer far away and out of hearing.

Vision. Hearing. Sensation. The man awoke fully and felt the hard reality of asphalt beneath him. He dragged himself half upright, resting on his elbows and trying to shake the thing from his mind. Kneeling now, he picked out pieces of stone from his chest, black flecks that had lodged into his flesh as he lay asleep. He looked around the flat landscape, level in every direction. There was no water anywhere in sight. Sleep and awakening jarred abruptly.
What the fuck?
He searched his memory, desperately trying to recall ever being on water and then, how he might have come to be at this place.
Whale-watching off the Cape. That was summer, 2031. I think.
Recall brought a sigh of relief. He shivered from the cold as dawn spread from the east, brightening the sky in layers and phases. The ethereal silence was fractured by the harsh bickering of crows in a pair of scarlet maple trees stranded in the middle distance. There were no buildings to be seen, nothing to distinguish the sprawling fields of golden wheat on either side of the two-lane blacktop. He got up from his knees and studied the median line on the road, its broken signal disappearing into the distance like Morse code, sending a message that only those in the sky might read. At the edge of his vision, a blur on the road drew his attention. A shape was moving about two hundred metres away, and it was getting closer.
Tracking.
The wind carried a new sound, giving identity to the moving form. Hooves hit the road surface. Straining his eyes, he could just make out a pony and trap, both black as tar, steadily gaining ground. He began to run, barefoot, but knew that he was losing the race. He had covered less than twenty metres before he surrendered and turned to face his pursuer. The creature stopped dead in its tracks and studied him nervously, its equine breath clouding quickly in the cool morning air.
"I think you've rattled him." The figure on the carriage called out, nodding towards the horse. "What brings you out here at this hour, brother?"
The man on the road examined the horseman's features - dark, piercing eyes stared out from under the brim of a straw hat, the edges of his ruddy, weathered face disguised by a long white beard, like he belonged in another era.
The horseman persevered. "You look like you need a ride." He gestured to the empty seat beside him on the buggy.
"I live in a house on… I'm not sure which direction it is."
"I know where you live. You've been in the old yellow house up on Primrose Lane for a few weeks now." His voice was aged but still firm. "I've seen you there, with your… you and your woman. It's not too far."
The man padded towards the buggy. He shivered still, less from the cold air, more from the memory of the water, its icy chill closing in around him.
"You're Amish?" He asked.
The horseman's voice broke into his contemplation. "I'm Samuel."
The man did not respond.
"I said, I'm Samuel - you have a name, friend?"
The man edged past the black horse as it watched him with frightened black eyes. "I'm Alex - Alex Sorber."
"Well, brother Alex, the good Lord sure is watching over you this morning." Samuel handed him a thick, soft blanket. "Let's get you home."