The Bar at the Edge of the Sea

by Tom Abrahams

  “It was like a whimper, but worse.”

  Li studied him. He seemed earnest.

  “I thought about coming in to wake you up,” he said. “To stop the nightmare. But I didn’t know how you’d take that. Everybody is different. We all have to work through this place in our own ways, our own time. That’s what Pedro says. I stayed there until I heard you wake up.”

  Li rubbed the balls of her feet on the wood. The dust eased the slide of her calloused skin across the worn planks.

  “Why?” she said.

  “Why what?” he replied.

  “Why did Pedro send you here? I’m sure it wasn’t to ask about nightmares.”

  “No. It wasn’t.”

  “What was it, then?”

  “He has a proposition for you. Something that could benefit both of you.”

  She chuckled at the phrasing. “That’s sounds inappropriate.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  She knew he didn’t. She wanted to make him as uncomfortable as she’d felt listening to him talk about standing outside her door, listening to her cry in her sleep. If he was on a mission from Pedro, it made sense he’d follow through with the task. It unnerved her. Her eyes studied him again, dancing across the defined muscles in his arms and across his chest. Even his neck appeared muscular. Not in a strongman sort of way. More of a Tactical Marine sort of way. She caught him watching her watch him, and cleared her throat.

  “Why doesn’t Pedro ask me himself?” Li said.

  “He is. I mean, I’m not asking you,” Barach stammered. “He wanted me to come get you. The bar is busy. He couldn’t get away. He sent me.”

  “Does everyone do what Pedro tells them to do?”

  The affability in his expression evaporated. He visibly tensed and lifted his chin.

  “We have free will,” he said. “But we do what Pedro asks of us because it’s in our best interest, in the interest of balance.”

  She thought about Mission Control, the surveillance of every simultaneous operation on every divergent iteration of the planet’s past and future. It reminded her of the autocratic regime that ruled the city from which death had offered release.

  Was this place any better?

  It was every bit the wasteland, albeit flooded instead of arid. There was a man in charge. An all-seeing eye denied privacy. There was the veil of free will, the idea of balance. It reminded her of the idea in a banished book she’d once read under the covers with the aid of a flashlight.

  It was about animals who overtook a farm. Under the guise of self-governance, the pigs wrote on the barn wall that all were equal, but some were more equal than others.

  Suddenly, in the hangover of her nightmarish awakening, she found herself skeptical again. Had Zeke been benevolent in bringing her here? Or was it retribution? Was she doomed to relive the sins of her past?

  Again, more questions than answers. This was a form of hell, wasn’t it? In the scales of her mind, her decision regarding the reality of this surreality was tipping toward that end. This was not a good place. It was an eternal version of the purgatory in which she’d lived her mortal life.

  She stood and crossed the room to the dresser. On it rested a bowl filled with cloth hairbands. She plucked one from the tangled collection and worked it into her hair. She pulled it back and wrapped the length into a short ponytail.

  In the mirror atop the dresser, Barach’s reflection watched her. His boots seemed glued to the spot. Much as she was stuck here.

  Without turning around, she addressed him, her eyes meeting his in the reflection.

  “If I have free will, then I’m not going to Pedro,” she said. “If he’s too busy to proposition me, I’m too busy to acquiesce. Since you’re his messenger, you can be mine too. That’s your choice, of course. But I hope you’ll pass along my message.”

  Li spun around and shooed him with her hands, motioning for him to leave through the creaky door. With an elbow, she leaned on the dresser, trying to affect the most nonchalant pose she could muster.

  Something akin to hurt or sadness washed across Barach’s face. For a moment, she regretted having sounded so harsh. Then she reminded herself that he’d stood outside her door and listened to her whimper, and the guilt disappeared.

  Barach raked his teeth across his lower lip and nodded reluctant understanding. “Okay,” he said, low. “I’ll tell him.”

  He turned to leave, but now someone else stood in the doorway.

  “So you’re conflicted,” Pedro said. “You’re not sure what to think about our humble establishment and our efforts to keep balance. You’re struggling with guilt, with a need for redemption. You doubt Ezekiel’s motivation. There’s a lot to fish through. A lot of net to untangle.”

  Pedro took a step into the room. Barach deferentially backed away.

  Then the barkeep moved with purpose across the floor until he reached Li. He stood a comfortable distance from her, but lasered his electric blue eyes onto her, grabbing her attention.

  “This is a confusing time for you, Adaliah,” he said. “Perhaps I’ve thrown too much at you too fast. I’ve always been a firm believer, however, that I only offer what someone can handle. Never more than that. Am I giving you more than you can handle?”

  Li stared, the magnetism in his glare keeping her there. His eyes were mesmerizing. She pulled her gaze free of it and glanced at Barach. The man gave nothing away. He was every bit the statue he appeared.

  Li knew what was going on. She’d dealt with enough men like this. Pedro was playing her. He was admitting her doubts were valid in order to invalidate them. Classic manipulation. She’d learned this as a spy. It was basic stuff. Address all the mark’s fears up front. Get them out in the open. Make the mark question her beliefs. Rather than doubting the spy, she doubts herself.

  Then again, Pedro knew that Li had these skills. He seemed somewhat omniscient even when he pretended not to be.

  She decided she could play along for now. At least time, as relative as it was in this place, was on her side.

  “No, I can handle it,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I trust it.”

  A broad smile stretched across Pedro’s face. He chuckled and ran his hands along the front of his vest, resting one of them on his large belt buckle.

  “Fair enough, Adaliah Bancroft,” he said through the echoes of laughter. “Fair enough.”

  After that, the three of them stood quietly, measuring one another. That was how it felt to Li. A standoff where the first to speak or move lost. Pedro finally broke the silence when it appeared to be on the verge of intolerability.

  “So,” he said with importance, “how would you like your own mission?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The detritus of dead fronds and rotting fruit was soft under Anaxi’s feet. It was chillier here. Not cold per se, but cooler and damp. The humidity that heated the air on the black sand beach had the opposite effect in the jungle. Thin shafts of dim light stabbed through the angular and irregular openings in the canopy.

  They marched quietly, the sounds of whacking machetes and the grunts of the associated effort their only sounds. Le Grand carried his unlit torch, using it as a club to swat away the fronds and branches that blocked his path. Occasionally he’d jab at the pyramid-shaped, waist-high ant mounds dotting the landscape.

  His retributive movements mixed with the soft cacophony of insects and hidden birds. The symphony of sounds was as unnerving as it was melodious. That was, however, only because Anaxi knew something dangerous awaited them deep within the dense thickets of palms, rubber trees, and kapok trees.

  The kapoks were frightening in appearance, covered with conical thorns. In the shadows of the dimmest parts, Anaxi sometimes thought they were ready to pounce, to grab an unsuspecting pirate and hug him against the spines, exsanguinating him in front of his traveling party.

  Though Anaxi knew the threat was near, that from her father’s stories they would reach it before they b
egan their ascent up the volcanic peak, she didn’t know what it was.

  This made it worse. Like knowing a punishment was coming at the end of the day instead of getting it right away. Like knowing the day, but not how she would die. Or knowing how, but not when.

  Her father often repeated a pre-melt idiom he said his father had passed on to him, and his father before that.

  “Ignorance,” he explained, “is bliss.”

  She never understood the meaning until now. How could knowledge ever be bad? How could ignorance ever be good?

  As she trounced through the jungle, swiping at broad-leafed underbrush and swatting at invisible insects, she got it. It would be better not to know that something wicked lurked on the unseen horizon.

  Despite the chill, a sheen of sweat coated her body. Her shirt stuck to her lower back and to her collar. Her feet were raw in her boots. Her eyes stung from the salt. Tiny, sticky strings of white spittle formed at the corners of her mouth. The sweat only proved to exacerbate the chill.

  As if reading her mind, Branch stopped in a small clearing piled with dead foliage. He held up his hand and called to the group, “Take a break. We’ve been hauling good for a few kilometers. Get yourselves a drink. Something to eat. Rest.”

  He didn’t need to tell them twice. The men huddled into groups of three and four and sank to the ground. Some of them took off their boots to air their feet. They passed skin canteens of water and rum. They shared moldy bread.

  “The mold is good for them,” Branch told her. “It acts like a medicine from before the melt.”

  Anaxi doubted it. She skipped the bread and drank more than her share of water.

  Her back was against a tall palm. Its trunk was broad and smooth, almost comfortable enough for her to relax.

  She started to unlace her boots but stopped, remembering that feet swell during hikes. She feared if she removed them, she might not be able to wear them.

  Hunger clawed at her stomach. The breakfast gruel, despite the protein, didn’t provide long-lasting satiation. Her nerves dulled her desire to eat. Watching the men struggle to chew the moldy bread didn’t hurt either.

  One of the men talked through wide-mouthed chews, the bread stuck to the fronts of his teeth. “How much more, Captain?” he asked Branch.

  Branch was busy eating. He had a mouthful of bread squirreled into his cheeks.

  Le Grand answered for him. “At least another hour in the jungle. Then we start the climb.”

  The men groaned and mumbled collectively. Some rubbed their necks with their hands. Others stretched their arms by pulling them across their bodies, hands leveraging elbows.

  Branch pushed himself to his feet. His dour gaze swept across the men, all looking to him. He drew his sword; the rasp of the steel slipping against the scabbard drew a hush from the men.

  “Any one of you who has a complaint about the work ahead of us can go back to the beach,” Branch said. “Better than that. Get in the skiff. Row yourself to the Saladin. Then tie a stone around your leg and throw yourself overboard.”

  Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. The men in mid-stretch held their awkward positions.

  Branch stepped toward the man who’d asked the question. He pointed the sword at his throat. The man feigned a smile, bread in his teeth.

  “How about you’re the first?” Branch said.

  The wide-eyed crew member blinked in rapid succession and opened his mouth to speak. As he did, a soft buzzing sound surrounded the camp. It grew louder, as if approaching from the depths of the dark jungle.

  Anaxi shifted on the ground, her palms wet from the moist, sandy soil. She pivoted and searched for the source of the noise. Her heart quickened. This was it. Whatever it was, it was coming for them. She scooted on her behind away from the group, behind the tree on which she leaned.

  All of the others did the same, their heads swiveling back and forth with confusion. Branch stepped back from his target and tightened his grip on the sword. He lifted it vertically and looked up toward the canopy, then spun in an even circle, trying to define the source of the amplifying buzz.

  The strange noise droned to an almost deafening level by the time Anaxi saw what was coming for them. At first, it looked like smoke. Drifting and undulant, it poured from the trees beneath the canopy.

  As it grew closer, Anaxi saw the truth. An incalculable number of insects swarmed. The bugs were individually tiny, but together formed a massive black monolith.

  “What is it?” asked one man.

  “Bugs?” said another. “Is that bugs?”

  The swarm provided the answers. The entirety of it dropped onto a trio of men at the edge of the camp with incredible speed. They swatted at the insects. Then they screamed. The bugs blanketed them, making the men themselves invisible aside from the silhouettes of their writhing figures.

  The others stood awestruck. Anaxi didn’t. She lay flat on the ground and began piling the detritus atop her body, burying herself in the foul, rotting leaves and deflated fruits.

  She closed her eyes beneath the mound covering her body and listened to the screams. They registered above the droning buzz of the insects, like the refrain of a song sung around the fire of her home village. It repeated itself again and again. The buzz. The panic. The screams. The pleas. The moans. The silence.

  She thought about the fire at home. The soft glow of the warm light on the faces of the people she knew and loved. She’d see none of them again. Even if she survived this, her gut told her that her home was someplace she’d never feel welcome again.

  The fire.

  Fire!

  Anaxi brushed the gritty decay from her face and called out, “Fire! Fire will stop them. Light the torch. Light it!”

  From behind her, she heard the scratchy drag of a match and the sizzle of a torch lighting.

  Le Grand’s heavy steps bounded past her into the clearing. He roared as he charged, a man using every bit of will to force himself into battle.

  Anaxi sat up, scooting back farther from the clearing. She brushed the debris from her face and focused on the chaos in front of her.

  She couldn’t differentiate between the smoke and the swarm. They blended, shades of gray and black. But the smoke drifted without purpose, billowing outward and then up. The swarm slithered and writhed with aim. It probed at the smoke, testing its defenses.

  Two other crew men found broad fronds and Le Grand lit them. The three of them formed a circle, back to back to back.

  They jabbed at the swarm. It retreated. Regrouped. Tried again.

  In wide, exhaustive sweeps, as if painting the air around him in broad strokes, Le Grand cut through the middle of the swarm. The two others swiped at the air.

  It worked. Much of the swarm dropped from the sky, falling from formation. They dusted the ground at the trio’s feet. The rest of the insects regrouped in the air above and then disappeared into the canopy.

  Le Grand cursed, shouting after the retreating army. He shook the torch at them, holding it in one hand above his head. The smoke swam back and forth in the dim light. The others, their chests heaving from exhaustion and leaking adrenaline, dropped their smoldering fronds and staggered toward the injured.

  Anaxi searched the canopy for a second swarm. Nothing came. The buzzing was gone. Left behind were the groans of survivors and the returning chirps of nonthreatening wildlife.

  Content she was safe, she stood and moved to the clearing. Nearest her was a dead man. Though if she didn’t know he was a man, she wouldn’t have been able to tell. His face was swollen and red. His fixed eyes were slits. His cheeks puffed as if filled with more moldy bread. His nostrils were shut, the anaphylactic reaction to the bugs closing off the airways.

  Welts covered his exposed skin. Countless red lesions gave his arms, neck, and face the appearance of a reptile. His pursed lips were purple and looked more like leeches than lips.

  She found four others who appeared almost identical. That made five dead.

  All t
he survivors nursed varying degrees of wounds. Anaxi was the only one unscathed. Even Le Grand’s hands were dotted with bites and stings.

  At the far edge of the clearing, his back leaning against a thin trunk, Desmond Branch sat in obvious pain. There were several wounds to his face and neck. One eye was swollen shut.

  Anaxi crouched at the center of the clearing, where Le Grand and the frond-wielding firefighters had made their stand. On the ground were thousands of dead insects. She recognized them now, motionless and individual. They were mosquitoes. She’d seen the bloodsuckers before. They came with the rainy season in her home village. Puddles of water bred them, and they would create havoc at dusk.

  But never had they swarmed like this. Never had she seen them seem to have a collective mind. This was otherworldly.

  She tore a palm blade from one of the burned fronds and picked at the bugs on the ground. They looked ordinary, like the mosquitoes from her village. She spent minutes looking them over and studying their large bent legs, their wings. So small and so deadly.

  “You saved us again,” Le Grand said. He hovered over her, the torch in his hand like a club.

  Anaxi glanced up at him, squinting to focus on his face, which was shaded by a shaft of light leaking through a hole in the canopy above him.

  “You did the work,” she said.

  He offered his free hand to pull her to her feet. She took it.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said.

  Anaxi wiped her hands together, freeing the dirt. “Nobody has. I don’t think.”

  Le Grand glanced over his shoulder at Branch, then motioned at him with a jerk of his head. “Was it part of his quest?”

  “The mosquitoes?” Anaxi asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Was that swarm somehow related to the legend?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  His eyebrows squeezed together. “You knew it was coming?”

  Anaxi shook her head and frowned. What could she say? She cleared her throat.

  “I didn’t know there would be a giant swarm of supersmart flying parasites,” she said. “I thought there might be something. In the jungle.”