We’re here.” The words startled her. She didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep. When she sat up and looked around, it occurred to her that maybe she’d pulled a Rip van Winkle. The whole world had changed. The beach road had given way to just a beach with a house in the middle of it. Dunes surrounded them on three sides, with the front door facing the fourth. “Where are we?” she asked. Her mouth was so dry that her tongue felt swollen. “The end of the line,” Brad said. Scotty correctly interpreted her confused look. “This is where we live,” he said. Nicki wondered if they were playing a joke on her. The place wasn’t even a house, at least not in the classic sense of the word. Roofing shingles doubled for siding on all the vertical surfaces, separated from the roof itself only by a difference in color. The wall tiles were gray, the roof brown. The driveway brought them in on an angle, and on the side of the house closest to them, the most prominent feature was a red-stained heating oil tank listing on rusted legs.
