“No way I’m fitting through that,” says Hailey.
“You will with me pushing,” her boyfriend promises.
I take my cue and hurdle the low corral. Clambering up the sand hill on all fours, the slits become more pronounced the higher I ascend. I reach the summit and lie on my stomach. Squeezing my body under a moldy joist holding up floorboards spiked with carpenter nails, I roll over a raised rim and drop into a shallow trench abutting the foundation. Kneeling in the trench, I take the sleeve of my denim jacket and clean a spot on the window, through which I see clumps of beach grass waving back at me in mock freedom. I feel for a release latch, but the metal frame is rusted over. Picking at the foundation, I find the cement to be soft and crumbling, as footfalls and what sounds like the claws
