Up ahead, they could see the lights from Buell; they were getting close. Poe turned suddenly and began to make his way through the brush toward the river.

“I need to wash myself,” he told Isaac.

“Wait till you get home.”

“He touched me right on the skin.”

“Wait till you’re home,” Isaac repeated. His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere else. “That water won’t clean it anyway.”

The rain was turning into sleet and Poe was wearing only his T-shirt. Soon he’ll be hypothermic, Isaac thought. Neither of you are thinking straight, but he’s in worse shape—give him your coat.

He took off his coat and handed it over to Poe. After hesitating, Poe tried to put it on, though it was too small. He handed it back.

Isaac heard himself say: “We should run so you can get warm.”

They jogged for a while but it was too slippery. Poe went down twice in the mud, he was in bad shape, and they decided to walk again. Isaac could not stop thinking about the man lying there, it had looked like blood coming down his face but it could have been the light, or anything. All I did was knock him out, he told himself, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t true.

“We need to get to a phone so we can call 911 for that guy. There’s one at the Sheetz station.”

Poe didn’t say anything.

“It’s a payphone,” said Isaac. “They won’t know it was us.”

“That’s not a good idea,” said Poe.

“We can’t just leave him.”

“Isaac, there was blood coming out of his eyes and the way he was moving around it was just reflexes. If you hit a deer in the spine it does the same thing.”

“We’re talking about a person, though.”

“We call an ambulance, the cops will be right behind them.”

Isaac could feel his throat get tight. He thought again about how the Swede had gone over. He’d made no effort to stop his fall, and then the way his arms and legs kept moving afterward. A person knocked out didn’t move at all.